OUT THE AIRLOCK | VKOOK/SOPE ✓

OUT THE AIRLOCK

Lights were out again. Great.

It was completely dark. Pitch black. Even in the velvet gloom, only the dim glimmers of various faulty battery-powered buttons and screens illuminated the cold space around him. Blinded by the darkness, it was almost impossible to complete any set of tasks.

Red, blue...yellow, pink.

Jeongguk heaved out a disheartened sigh and nudged the wall of his cheek with his tongue. He could not rewire these daft multi-coloured wires. His hands were far too jittery, just like his fluttering heart.

Discouraged, he let them fall limp out the socket in the wall. The lights needed to be fixed before he could continue reconnecting the wires, which was already quite suspect by the way he left them undone.

Heart heavy in his chest, he felt along the steel wall. He strained his eyes peering into the gloom, staggering down the hallway until he arrived at Electrical. Last time, he looked ahead when headed towards Reactor, but this time he opted to look downcast, because he had previously stumbled over someone's dead body. How clumsy of him?

And as if that had not been traumatic enough, the rest of his fellow Crewmates had already jumped on the wagon of 'send Jeongguk out of the airlock!', because he had somehow missed the body, despite being right above it.

He was a lone wolf, one could say. And always strayed off alone to speed-run his tasks, which was not the greatest idea exactly. Preferably, he should have grouped with someone else since it was quite dangerous to wander solo on this ship, The Skeld, especially after the last body had been reported—and everyone was quite wary of him, too. Well, everyone except his fellow green Crewmate.

"There you are! I thought I'd lost my purple little buddy." A deep and sonorous voice suddenly echoed behind him. Jeongguk shrieked with sheer fright and bumped into the solid wall beside him.

"F—G-Gosh! Taehyung, y-you startled me," Jeongguk, the purple Crewmate, hiccupped, and tittered after he regulated his heart and breathing pattern, nervously.

"Ah, sorry. I worried the worst happened to you when I couldn't find you in Admin, where I'd left you. Glad to see you're still okay." There was a guttural chuckle as Taehyung emerged from the shadows and placed a heavy hand on Jeongguk's shoulder.

"Y-Yeah. I forgot I even had a task in Storage," Jeongguk let a short-lived giggle escape his mouth, but it was caught in his throat after he realized just how suspicious he sounded. "I-I swear! I'm just bad at remembering where all my tasks are."

"I know, I know. I didn't think you were lying," Taehyung reassured good-naturedly, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze as he glanced down the dark and eerie hallway. "Let's check out Electrical together. Someone should've turned the lights on by now, I think something must've happened."

"That sounds good!" Jeongguk piped, "I was just about to check it out myself—"

"Don't." Taehyung gnashed out through his teeth, a growl rumbling in the hollow of his throat. His voice was as serious as the Grim Reaper's voice, dark and stern.

"I—what?" Jeongguk spluttered as a plethora of chills ran down his spine.

Taehyung shook his head and pulled Jeongguk towards him by his narrow wrist. "Don't ever venture off on you own," he affirmed. "Especially not to Electrical. Stick with me and stay where I put you when I do tasks in other rooms, okay?"

Jeongguk grinned lopsidedly at his tone, he sounded like an owner who just disciplined their untrained dog. How ironic? Regardless, he followed after his friend in the darkness, one short step away.