ODDS OF SURVIVAL - TAEKOOK

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Hunting, trapping, and fishing were all good ideas in theory, Jungkook would admit that.

He knew figuring out how to convert live animals into food was something they'd probably have to do at some point, but he'd been in no rush to delve into it.

Firstly, he wasn't fond of killing things. He wasn't morally opposed to killing animals for food, especially in survival situations, but he'd really rather not be the one to do it.

Secondly, as long as they had food, he felt like his time and energy was better invested in things like improving the fence or scavenging tools and materials that might make their lives a little bit easier.

Lastly, he really was not looking forward to muddling his way through figuring out how to skin and gut some poor dead animal to make it suitable to be cooked and eaten.

He'd practiced drawing and sculpting animals a lot in his classes and he felt like he had a strong knowledge of the anatomy, but he was pretty sure nothing would look as clear and simple as an anatomical drawing lesson once he cut it open.

Fishing was easier. He'd been fishing several times when he was a kid, and he'd seen his dad and uncles clean fish millions of times on every weekend trip he'd ever been on with them, so he at least knew how it was done.

Even with that knowledge, he still mangled the first three fish he tried to clean to the point that they were completely wasted. He finally managed to cut one decent fillet out of the fourth one, which was lucky because four was exactly how many fish he'd had the patience to catch.

One fillet was enough to feed the cat, and that was the primary goal of this messy endeavor, so he guessed he should call it a win. At least he was more successful than Taehyung had been with his traps.

Taehyung's traps were brilliant in theory, but either the animals were too clever to spring them, or the bait wasn't enough to attract them. The one animal so far that had been unfortunate enough to wander into one of Taehyung's traps was eaten by zombies before they could come back and collect it.

It was almost worth the loss to see how incredulously angry Taehyung got when they went to check the trap and found a pair of zombies gnawing on the remains of whatever they'd caught. It would have been absolutely hilarious if the whole situation wasn't so fucking exhausting and sad.

Two whole days they'd been working on this. Two days, and all they had to show for it was one edible piece of fish and a slightly better idea of what not to do. Maybe fishing was a viable option now, but he could only stand so much of it at a time.

It was dull and quiet and left him alone with his thoughts for entirely too long. He used to listen to music during quiet activities to keep his brain from eating itself alive with negative thoughts, but even a simple distraction like that was beyond his grasp.

It might have helped if he could carry on a companionable conversation with Taehyung, but that didn't seem very likely, either.

Both he and Taehyung were beyond frustrated and they'd been taking it out on each other, their usual bickering souring to something more noxious. They'd hardly even spoken except to criticize and snarl at each other.

It had gotten so bad the previous day that they'd slept separately that night, Taehyung pointedly making up the other bed with fresh sheets and an extra blanket while Jungkook curled up in his own bed and aggressively ignored him.

That morning he'd awoken with a warm ball of fur curled up on his side, right in the dip between his hip and the bottom of his ribs.

He'd been annoyed at first, but the look of shear betrayal Taehyung cast at Coco when he got up and saw her there made the situation immediately more tolerable.