Joon hurried through a maze of corridors with vaulted white ceilings and lush indigo carpets, yet he knew exactly where he was going. All the while he carried his unconscious new guest, Shae, effortlessly in his arms.
As soon as any subordinates saw Kim Namjoon round the corner and head in their direction, they would scatter wordlessly out of his path. His all-black ensemble, concentrated gaze, and general intensity discouraged anyone from wanting to get in his way.
On he went, until Joon what he was looking for: the medical bay.
He carried Shae into a brightly lit room that smelled of disinfectant and latex. It was decorated with a range of herbs, flowers, vials and mosses across an landscape of wooden lab cabinets and metallic countertops.
Joon lay Shae down on top of a metallic lab table, shoving specimens carelessly out of the way that clattered onto the floor. He then grasped a towel from a nearby countertop, rolled it up and placed it with far more care under her head of short blonde hair.
His focused eyes scanned the room for the doctor in residence.
In a far corner of the otherwise-empty medical bay, there was a man with a smooth, handsome face and plump lips who was lazing across a soft pink velvet couch. His feet were propped up on one of the curled couch arms, and a puffy cat-shaped pillow rested under his head. He had a magazine in his hands that he held up in the air above his head, though the surface of it kept shifting and changing every few minutes like a chameleon.
This was Kim Seokjin, the chief medical officer.
He adjusted the pages to see a centerfold of a dessert buffet more clearly, one tongue poking out the side of his mouth—when suddenly his magazine was snatched from his grasp. Instead of delicious food, all he could see was Kim Namjoon's threatening glare.
"Oh look, it's my favorite person," the man's voice dripped with sarcasm. He registered the urgency in Joon's eyes and sighed. "I was just about to take my lunch break. Don't make me lose my appetite."
"I don't have time for your sass right now, there's a--"
"I don't suppose that if I say please, then whatever it is you'll make just... go away?"
"It's urgent, Jin." Joon's concerned, tanned face turned back toward Shae.
Kim Seokjin went from defiant to focused in seconds. He jumped up from the pink couch and rushed over to the examination table, proceeding to check a range of familiar and unfamiliar vital signs of Shae's unconscious form.
"What happened?" he asked.
"She fainted on the platform."
"She was fine before that?"
"From what I could tell—but look at her, she's turning."
Jin could see it, too. Her skin color wasn't right. It was like it was slowly draining of all color, turning a subtle grey. Like a corpse.
"This isn't just from fainting," Jin clarified.
"Do something before it gets worse!"
"Shut up, Joon, I'm working." Jin shouledered his way past Joon to grab an instrument on the countertop reminiscent of a stethoscope.
Joon's narrow eyes were daggers at Jin, but he stepped back from the examination table and let his chief medical officer get to work without interruption. Joon's arms were crossed over his chest. Though a bit anxious, he refused to leave the room or look away while Jin worked and Shae's life force continued its rapid fade.
Until—
"Ah, this is the problem."
Joon took an eager step forward, though not too close to be in Jin's way. The doctor swept his glistening black hair out of his face, gave a self-satisfied smile of his perfectly round lips, then waved a slender disk that made an electric humming noise along the inside of Shae's forearm. Like a chemical reaction to the device's proximity, there appeared a faint white light on her forearm in the shape of four small circles in an interconnected pattern: a magic rune.
"How's that possible?" Joon wondered aloud, while Jin pulled out a device that was a combination of a tattoo artist's needle and a wireless device pencil. It was a friendly shade of pink.
He brought the pen's tip up to Shae's forearm, near the glowing rune that was already marking her skin, and went to work in altering its shape. White magical light poured from the tip of his pink pen and into her skin as he worked.
"I can't erase it for some reason. But I can try to change it."
"Really? ...Fine, that's fine, just do it," Joon answered in haste.
"The symbol of the Departed," Jin muttered, "is not one I've seen since my medical training days, and that was just in a simulation."
"So, a few months ago?" Joon joked. Jin sent him a glare beneath his sheath of black hair, and then went back to marking his magic-tattoo pen along Shae's arm. The glowing light of it seeped dramatically into her skin in thick lines.
Jin's circular instrument had made that area of skin react and reveal her rune, but Joon knew the light of those four circles in her arm would soon disappear again. Jin had to work quickly over the exposed area.
"I'm surprised you didn't find the mark yourself, oh fearless leader. You must be losing your touch."
"You know, Jin. It's moments like this that make me question how you ever made it through to be the chief medical officer."
"Like you could even function without me," Jin scoffed.
Then Jin pulled back from the unconscious girl, a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he wiped his brow dramatically. "All done. She should wake soon. Now, can I get back to my lunch break?"
"Yes, Senior Jin," Joon said with a joking half-bow.
Jin threw a dirty blue towel from the nearby countertop at Joon's face and it draped over the leader's white side swept hair.
Joon frowned, unamused.
Jin sassed back at him, "Don't make me transplant a rune on you while you're asleep that makes your hair turn a permanent shade of hideous tomato red—that you can never change or cut off!" Jin cackled. "I know just the one."
"There is no rune for that," Joon mumbled. He wasn't 100% convinced that there was no rune for that.
Jin smirked threateningly. "So you think." Then he fell back into his pink couch and plucked up his magazine, returning to his self-absorbed and completely contented state of being.
Meanwhile, Joon fixed his gaze on Shae. He carefully brushed her short blonde hair from her pale face, resting the back of his hand against her forehead. She felt normal enough in temperature.
"The symbol of the Departed," he muttered. "How did I miss that? ...And how does she even have a mark like this?" Joon sighed. "This wasn't part of the plan."
His hand spread down to her forearm, and he examined her skin where the magical light rune was quickly fading away from vision, disappearing into her.
"Jin, what symbol is this you've changed it to? I don't recognize it."
Jin's pleased, narrowed eyes peered over the top of the pink couch at Joon. "It's nice to know something that you don't for a change. What is this intoxicating feeling? Oh, it's superiority." He let out a ridiculous laugh.
Joon rolled his eyes dramatically. "I'm being serious."
"Yeah, yeah. It's called a Wonderwall. It's a defense rune, though it's definitely not trendy anymore. It protects the wearer from magical attacks."
"Useful," Joon noted.
"The Departed rune used to be a staple on all combat clones, back when they were still a thing. Which might be why she fainted on the platform. You know, because the last Great War sucked so much and people wanted to at least protect their home bases well. So most landing platforms have ridiculous coding written into them that triggers a comatose state in people who have more dangerous combat runes, like the symbol of the Departed. Yoongi pulled out all the stops in our defense system upgrades, too. But since the Departed rune was banned from public use after...."
"Yeah, yeah, I know all about when it was banned, I don't need a history lesson. I just didn't know what it looked like."
"I'm just here to keep you humble," Jin mused. "Oh, here we go! Seafood delight. My specialty."
Jin scrambled from the room without a care, his chameleon magazine under one arm, leaving Joon and his newfound pet alone in the bright, sterile medical office.
"Why aren't you awake yet?" Joon asked softly, pointing his finger and slowly, softly poking Shae in the side of her face. Her cheek was flushing with pigment. He poked her again, saying in a small boyish voice, "Wake up sleepy head." More pigment flooded Shae's cheek. This was rosy pigment.
Joon realized that Shae's blue eyes were open now. They were open and she was staring up at him with a look of confused suspicion. Joon also realized that he was still poking her cheek. He quickly withdrew his hand and cleared his throat.
"Sorry. I was just...I mean.... I'm glad you're feeling better now."
Shae decided to pretend the strange moment hadn't happened. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, looked at Joon sleepily and yawned, "Either you tell me what's going on and where I am right now or things turn south verrrry quickly for you, sir. Penguins, deep plunge, bodies on ice kind of south. You hear me?"
Shae felt tough with her words, but she sounded sleepy and slightly delusional to Joon—and kind of adorable, too.
"Ah, melodrama.... You have it." Joon chuckled kindly.
Maybe the disinfectant smell is getting to this guy, Shae thought. Flashbacks flickered angrily through her mind of his darkened features and too-strong arms wrapped around her from behind, uninvited.
Joon cleared his throat and his more professional tone returned: "Perhaps we should reunite you with your friend."
Meanwhile Tae and Ava....