Jungkook clasped the cylindrical vial with the two heads of the metal tongs, rotating the white cap. Once opened, he set the cap on a tray and observed the thread-thin bevel of the syringe needle penetrating through a second layer of covering across the vial's brim. He then tore open the secondary covering and eyed the hypodermic needle attached to the bottom of the vial. Form across the plethora of lab equipment separating the two, he locked eyes with Petra.
"So this is how they inject it in."
Jungkook carefully poured the neon green contents of the vial into a distillation flask connected to a cable that displayed the liquid's information on the monitor.
Petra clicked a spot on the touchscreen monitor. "0.5 milliliters of unadulterated Aenigmium. Density 1.24 grams per centimeters cube." She looked up from the screen. "Corresponds to the levels found in Im Changhoon's body."
Jungkook nodded grimly, eyes hovering above the now empty vial. He picked up the white cap between two gloved fingers and rotated it while holding it to the light. Just when he was about to dismissively put it back down on the tray, he noticed a ripple in the green liquid stuck to the underside of the cap. Holding it in his left hand and prodding the cap with a pair of tongs, he successfully removed the square piece of paper stuck to the underside.
"Hey," he said, holding the paper towards Petra. "Look at this. Was stuck in the cap."
The girl squinted her eyes at it before placing the paper on the tray, dabbing it with a sterilized ball of cotton and unfolding it with gentle fingers. Under the bright white lights of the laboratory, the handwriting seemed awfully familiar.
Namjoon, who had been sitting so quietly on a chair a few feet away from them that Jungkook forgot he was even there, walked up to the counter next to him. Together, they silently read the words:
I am closer than you think.
The same rushed handwriting. The same kanji symbol for power imprinted in black ink at the corner of the page.
Namjoon exhaled sharply. "We know one thing for sure now." The other two looked at him. "We were definitely not overthinking it the last time. This goes deeper than we understand."
"Where's Mr. President now?" Jungkook asked, anger bubbling in the pit of his stomach. "He ordered us to keep it confidential. Look at how many people we lost."
"Where is he, really?" Petra said. "It's been a whole of two days since the attack and he hasn't even addressed the country yet."
"President Kim is sick," Namjoon said, eyeing the note. When the two scientists looked at him with their eyebrows raised in incredulity, Namjoon sighed. "Well, that's what the media says and the public know. Truth is, he's hiding."
"What?" exclaimed Petra, narrowing her eyes. "Hiding? When his country needs him the most?"
"Precisely. He doesn't want to address the crowd."
"But why?"
Joon braced his palms against the experiment counter, intensely eyeing the smooth white surface. Jungkook didn't even attempt to read his expression; his hyung was anything but an open book.
When he finally looked up, there was uncertainty glimmering in his eyes. "I have to tell you something."
☯
The eight of them sat quietly at the dining table of Jungkook's shared apartment. The journey from the university to his home had been terrifying in every sense of the word. Jungkook kept his eyes clenched shut throughout the ride in the car, refusing to look through the window and glimpse at the catastrophe that had marred his city. But he knew, even as the car bumped over the dilapidated roads and continuously crashed into rubble, that no matter how hard he tried to blur the image of that day from his mind, it would always be there, a constant reminder of the purgatory this once paradise had become.
Hoseok, when he entered the apartment still wearing his white coat over dark green scrubs, smiled weakly at the trio. Operating injured patients and running forensic tests had deprived him of sleep for the past forty-eight hours, and it showed.
Then came Taehyung with his arm around Jimin's shoulder, looking at all of them with a pointed look in his eyes that warned them to wait on their questions. Jimin appeared strangely quiet, his eyes downcast the entire time and chapped lips pressed into a thin line. He did not have to speak for Jungkook to understand his guilt.
Seokjin arrived next, grease patches and sweat covering his face and hands from all the hours he and his team had spent extinguishing countless fires around the town. For once, he did not complain about the trashed shoe rack and took it upon himself to prepare coffee for them all.
Yoongi was the last to arrive, his styled hair, black suit and the subtle make-up on his face evidence enough that he'd just finished delivering his latest broadcast show.
They all sat silently for a few minutes, the gravity of the situation weighing their shoulders down into a slump, with the only sound being Jungkook clinking his fingers against his coffee mug in the tune of an unknown song. When Jin shot a withering glare in his direction, he scowled and stilled in his actions.
Suddenly, Namjoon sat up in his seat and leaned to the side to remove something from his back pocket. It was a slightly crumpled, folded square of paper. "Look at his picture," he said.
When the picture reached Jungkook, Petra and Hoseok leaned from either side of him to have a look. The photo was of three men, perhaps in their early thirties, smiling gleefully at the camera. Albeit a bit fuzzy, something about the way the men in the photo had their arms slung around each others' shoulders gave Jungkook the idea that they were intimate. One of them he recognized after a few moments of observation: a young Kim Hwanwook with healthy black hair and animated eyes behind round wire-rimmed spectacles, unaware that in a few decades he would rule this country. The man to his right looked older and unfamiliar; the one to his left the appeared youngest of the three.
But what was most intriguing about the antique photograph was the jagged edges on one side of the paper, as if somebody had torn a part of the picture away from its entirety.
"I don't think you've called us here to show us a picture of the males of your family," Yoongi said, sitting slouched in his chair, the first few buttons of his dress shirt open.
Namjoon looked at Yoongi and shook his head. "You're right, I haven't. The three men in the photo are members of my family - the one in the middle our very own President Kim Hwanwook, the one to his left my father, Kim Hwanjong, and the one to the right the eldest of the three brothers."
"I didn't know you had another uncle," said Seokjin, looking up from the photo, his finger pointed to the oldest of the three brothers.
Petra nodded in agreement. "I never saw him back in Incheon, Joon, not even on News Year's. Did he live with you?"
"No," Namjoon responded. "He liked to stay away from the family's social gatherings, for his own reasons. Didn't socialize more than necessary. Stayed inside most of the time."
"You didn't tell us his name," Hoseok observed.
Namjoon ran a tongue over his lips. "Gwonhan," he said. "His name is Kim Gwonhan."
Jungkook could not comprehend the look that clouded his eyes, then. It was an expression bordering a sort of unexplained eagerness at the revelation of something so seemingly ordinary, and fine-drawn fear at having disclosed information so vital that it had the power to change the course of history.
"Why are you looking at us like that?" Taehyung asked, tilting his head.
Namjoon's gaze fell on the youngest boy. "Jungkook, what's the meaning of Gwonhan in English?"
Said boy did not have to contemplate for more than a second. He parted his lips to answer, only to stop when a nauseating chill crept up his spine. He looked disbelievingly at Namjoon, goosebumps dotting the skin of his arms at the knowing look in the latter's eyes.
"Power," Jungkook said, unblinking. "Gwonhan means power."
Petra gasped from beside him.
"Hey, hey, hey - time-out," Yoongi perked up in seat, narrowing his eyes at Namjoon. "What the hell is going on?"
"I respect your job, Yoongi," Namjoon said. "But promise me that you won't reveal to the news center whatever I'm going to tell you now."
"Yeah, yeah," Yoongi said dismissively. "No need to be so formal about it. You have my word, always."
Namjoon smiled gratefully before his expression turned grim. "I've thought a lot about it and this is what I've come to. The last I saw of uncle Gwonhan was when I was graduating high school, over ten years ago. The connection between his name and the recurring kanji symbol for power strongly makes me think that he is the one behind the Aenigmi."
"How are you so sure that it's him?" said Hoseok, quirking an eyebrow. "For all we know, it could be anyone who's particularly obsessed with kanji symbols."
"Whoever this person is," said Petra, "they sure know Seoul's layout pretty well, seeing how cleverly they kidnap people from the streets and how they strategically planned their attack on the public square."
"That's right," said Namjoon. "Gwonhan left for Seoul right after completing his education and joined politics the same time Hwanwook did. He rarely ever paid visits. What's interesting is that the last time I saw him was before the 2009 elections. When Hwanwook was elected South Korea's President."
"So what you're trying to get at," said Taehyung, "is that whatever Gwonhan intends to do with the Aenigmi - assuming that the one responsible is Gwonhan - is related to the 2009 election results?"
Namjoon sighed, pursing his lips.
"Did they have any grudges between each other?" Jungkook asked. "Hwanwook and Gwonhan?"
"I'm afraid i don't know my uncles well enough to answer that," said Namjoon, appearing a little lost for the first time since the start of the conversation. "But what I do believe, however, is that the person behind all of this is Kim Gwonhan. I just do."
Silence settled on the gathering for a moment, all eight of them attempting to process the onslaught of new information. Namjoon was quick to shatter it.
"There's another thing I don't understand. My uncle isn't a scientist. Then how did he even create Aenigmium?"
Nobody seemed to have an answer to that.
Jungkook saw Jimin pry his eyes away from the table and turn to look at Namjoon, his expression vacant. That was the first sentence Jungkook had heard him speak in two days.
"Why don't you ask the President himself, then?"
☯
Namjoon stepped into the President's private chambers and looked around.
The grandeur of the place never quite managed to impress him. Whenever he paid a visit, he often found himself contemplating what modifications he would've made to the room had it been his own office. The floor to ceiling glass windows were a little too gargantuan for his liking, overlooking the Seoul skyline whose beauty was half obscured by the looming skyscrapers. He despised the wall-to-wall shelves of trophies and certificates that hyperbolized the President and his cabinet's achievements, and the extravagant gold chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room that threatened to fall on him whenever he passed under it. The blood red colour of curtains, the plush velvet covers of the king-sized bed and the stark white walls reminded him of a room a vampire would customize for himself.
Had it been his room, he would have compacted the wide expanse of space with countless shelves of the books he loved, and wooden and clay figurines from his favourite marionette store; he would have had the walls painted in shades of beige and amethyst, decorated with abstract paintings and a poster of a particular indie band he liked. Soul music would play from his Bluetooth speakers and nourish the air, unlike the sullen silence that now thickly coated the atmosphere.
Hwanwook, dressed in an azure blue dress shirt and black trousers, stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, eyeing the scenery outside. Namjoon wondered what he found so interesting about an unending range of mundanely similar, posh-looking skyscrapers that did nothing but hide the ramshackle slums littered behind.
"President Kim," he greeted.
"Ah, Namjoon." Hwanwook slowly turned around to face his nephew, a taciturn smile on his lips. "How many times have I told you not to call me that?"
"I'm sorry, Uncle Kim," Namjoon said with a hint of a smile.
The older man nodded good-naturedly, his eyes crinkling. He looked tired.
"Do you have something to say, Namjoon?"
"I believe you are aware of what state the country is in."
Hwanwook strolled to his study table and scrutinized the pointed tip of a fountain pen. His indifference was infuriating. "Brief me on it, will you?"
Namjoon endeavoured to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "Over three thousand civilians have been kidnapped from the streets of Seoul, adding to another eight thousand kidnappings reported from other cities of the country. This isn't even the accurate data, merely a rough estimation. Seven days ago Seoul was attacked by a group of thirty-six Aenigmi that resulted in the deaths of eight hundred forty-four people including civilians and police officers. Destruction to property is immeasurable. People have been rendered jobless and homeless.
"In nutshell," he concluded, and if this was a cartoon show there would be smoke rushing out of his ears, "the country is on the brink of chaos and the President has still not left his room to address the public."
Namjoon did not fear voicing the truth. He had learned it from one of his dear housemates who possessed the confounding ability to always be brutally honest, whether it be his intern students or the President of the country himself. But he expected Hwanwook to march towards him and slap him across the face. Who in his right mind would have the audacity to disrespect the country's highest authority? He expected the President to even strip him of his job as the secretary for good measure.
But instead, Hwanwook gently placed the fountain pen back on the table and buried his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. When he exhaled a heavy sigh, he seemed decades older than he truly was.
"I will not deny a single statement of yours, Namjoon," he said, voice even.
"Then why?" asked Namjoon, taking a step closer. "Why aren't you doing anything, Uncle Kim? Do your countrymen's deaths not faze you in the least?"
"I am distressed," he said, walking to his king-sized bed and sitting down. "I am distressed far more than anyone else. I simply know not what to do."
"You don't know what to do?" Namjoon asked incredulously. "With all due respect, Mr. President, it's your job to know what to do and when to do it."
When Hwanwook looked up at him, something in his steely grey eyes shimmered. "You are my wisest and most trusted adviser, Kim Namjoon. There is something you need to know."
Namjoon didn't pretend being surprised. "It's Uncle Gwonhan, isn't it?"
Hwanwook's eyes shot to his, uninhibited shock and disbelief reflecting from them. His skin paled. "H-how do you know?"
"I figured it out from the kanji symbol printed on both the notes we found."
Hwanwook smiled weakly. "Always the smartest..."
Namjoon did not let himself be affected by the compliment. "Why is he doing it?"
Hwanwook averted his gaze, examining the shadow of his shoes on the ground before sighing with resignation. He stood from his spot on the bed and walked to a door at his right that was covered by a curtain. When he reached out a hand to withdraw the curtain, Namjoon expected to see the door leading to another room. But what he saw instead was a string of barbed wire extending from one hinge of the door to another, the two mysterious notes hanging from the wire.
I will return to take back what's mine.
I am closer than you think.
"While you were on your own trying to figure out the notes," said Hwanwook, "I was here doing the same. I thought a lot about it, spent days and nights wondering why in the world my brother would send forces to destroy his own country. I realized it just yesterday, while looking at a photo of the two of us and your father."
Namjoon recognised the photo the president was talking about as the one he had shown Petra and his housemates earlier that day. "What did you find out?"
Hwanwook countered his question with another. "Do you remember all the parties campaigning for the 2009 elections ten years ago?"
Namjoon nodded. "Democratic Party of Korea and two other minority parties. It was apparent we would win. What was uncertain was who among you and Uncle Gwonhan would be nominated by the cabinet ministers as the President. Although he was the leader of the party, you were both equally loved by the public."
"Very well," said Hwanwook. "And when did Gwonhan leave Seoul without informing anybody where he was going?"
Namjoon felt like a kid being quizzed by his parent. "A day after the election results were announced, ten years ago. Why had he left, though?"
The President nodded to himself, mumbling something under his breath that Namjoon failed to make out. When he finally looked back at him, he seemed to have given up even before the start of the war.
"He's starting a rebellion."
"Against whom?"
"Me."
Namjoon narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Hwanwook walked back to his table and fumbled with the drawers, his hands strangely shaking. Rummaging through piles of paper and stationary items, he retrieved a folded page the size of both of Namjoon's hands combined. Its yellowish, papyrus-like hue resembled that of the notes hanging by the door.
"Read this," he thrust the paper in Namjoons hand, his eyes gleaming with a fearful look in them.
Namjoon looked at the paper quizzically. "Where did you find it?"
"It was couriered to me this morning," he said.
Taking a deep breath, Namjoon unfolded the paper and began to read.
Dear Brother,
☯
[A/N] Gentle reader,
Who promises regular updates with her whole chest and then shamelessly disappears for almost a week?
Me. That bitch is me.
To compensate for my unintended disappearance, this one's a long chapter featuring our very own genius baby koala bear Joon, a.k.a the king of my heart. I even originally wanted so bad to make him the president in this story (#NamkandaForever) but I had to force myself not to, lmao.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! More Petra-JK interactions coming up next, huehuehue ;)
Love, love, love,
Arya