Dead Man Walking (TaeKook / VKook FF)

Chapter 12: Home

Jungkook woke up as he heared low mumbling. He blinked a few times and quickly had to remind himself that he was with Taehyung and that man from the day before in a shakedown.
He slowly tried to get up, but felt stiffness running through his muscles.
He groaned and heard someone hurry over to him.
"Jungkook are you alright?"
It was the man's voice.
"I'm alright, Sir" he said and laid back down. "Just feeling a little uptight"
He heard a chuckle. "Call me Seokjin. We're in the same boat"
Jungkook opened his eyes again and saw Taehyung. He was sitting on his bed and was eating, bandages around his upper arm and his shoulder and blade bone. A few plasters were here and there and his lip was bruised, just like his right temple.
The brunette smiled at him and caught his friend's gaze. Taehyung smiled back and tried to get up, still held a bowl, with seemingly rice inside, in his hands.
"Hey" he limped a little and Jungkook sighed heavily.
"How are you?" the blonde asked.
"I'm good, but how are you?" Jungkook chuckled and earned a zealous laughter.
"Well, I guess I look like shit. I fell very similar to my outer experience but since I'm still very human, I'd say I feel good – under the circumstances"
Jungkook just smiled and Taehyung offered him the still warm rice.
He shook his head.
"Oh yes, you will eat" they heard Seokjin's voice from the entrance of the tent. He held a tray in his hands, with two bowls and a mug onto it.
"We prepared something for you and just for you" Seokjin announced and hand the tray over to the brunette.
"Eat it all up, will you?" he smiled and Jungkook thanked him.
"It's so nice from you to take us in here. You don't even know us"
"I can't let two boys stand alone between hordes of those creatures. That's inhuman. And I am not like that. I once promised a good friend to save every life I possibly can. So it was kind of my duty to take you here. And also ... in times like those egoistical behaviour might be your own doom"
Seokjin mumbled the last sentence and sat onto a chair next to Jungkook's bed.
The boy nipped at the mug – it was warm green tea.
"Can we maybe help you?" he offered.
Taehyung nodded in agreement. "Yeah. We have a little bit of food to offer and maybe we can help with caring for the other people or come with you the next to you drive outside"
"Oh no" Seokjin laughed. "Not in your conditions. Boys, you said yourselves you look like shit and in such a body situation I'd not suggest you to make any kind of acrobatic helping moves. Not like that. What you two need is sleep. Very much sleep and medical supplies. And warm food. I hope ... I hope the generator will make it. Since two days the electricity supply went down and our emergency power aggregate started to work"
Jungkook and Taehyung looked at each other.
"We can't stay here too long" Jungkook mouther and Taehyung sighed out.
"I know"
They looked at Seokjin.
"We ... we really appreciate your gesture, but if our health is stable again and we can walk properly we have to go on. We try to reach the borders" Jungkook explained to the man.
Seokjin nodded.
"Yeah ... where are you boys from?"
"We both are from Seoul, but a week ago we travelled to Yangsan to visit my uncle, Taehyung just came with me. It was in the night when the earthquake happened when everything went down. It was our first night here"
"Yangsan" Seokjin said impressed.
"That's quite a way for two boys without a car"
"It is" Jungkook breathed out and caught Taehyung's gaze.
"Thank you" the blonde whispered.
"Thank you for not letting me go"

Images of when he let Taehyung next to the car flashed next to him.
How that creature of a woman just shuffled past him flashed through Jungkook's mind.

He swallowed it.

"I'd never let you go, Tae" Jungkook said and they looked into each other's eyes.
Taehyung nodded.
"Me too. I told you, I'd give my life for you"
Jungkook grumbled and ate a little bit of his rice.
"Don't say such nonsense. We go through everything together and we will reach the end together. There will be nothing such giving life for each other. We are partners in crime, did you forget? We are inseparable"
Taehyung smiled and squeezed his friend's shoulder. "Yeah, guess you're right"
They heard Seokjin chuckled and looked at him.
"Well" he began to speak.
"I do know someone who could help us in such a situation. Who could organize everything and who would find a solution for this whole being"
Jungkook took a sip from his tea. "Who?"
Seokjin smiled down.
"You don't know him, I guess. And I am sure I don't know him anymore too. We separated ten years ago after high school. I was twenty and he was nineteen when he moved away to study science. We had been ... some kind of friends. Let's just say we were close, more or less. And he was just, I mean, he was a genius. Well, I'm sure he still is a genius. And he had known a solution for everything. I don't even know any other person who was able to think in so many wired rational ways than him. That was incredible. I don't even know why he did not go to an elite school back then. He must have been underwhelmed"
Seokjin crossed his arms and smiled, looked out of the tent.
"What an incredible man. I'd like to meet him again. I am sure he made it onto a higher level than me. Look at me, I was a firefighter, not even a good one, and now I try to help a few people who will, I bet, go crazy any minute"
"But that's incredible too, Seokjin" Jungkook said.
"You had saved us and care for the other people, that's such a huge task and you are doing it well"
Seokjin smiled. "Thank you. But I still don't know how long I can hold this up. It's difficult, you know"
"I can imagine" Taehyung muttered.
"Anyway" Seokjin went on.
"I'd like to meet him again in such a situation. I'd like to hear his advices and his words because I know I could trust them and they would calm me. Just to know his opinion would make me feel good. Safer, you know? Like his words were some kind life belt I could hold on to"
"A lifebelt can't safe you if you are in the middle of the ocean" Taehyung muttered but Seokjin looked at his feet.
"But it will give you your last minutes to think about anything you want"
It was silent between them, Jungkook finished his meal and his tea, Taehhyung finished his rice and they handed Seokjin the bowls back.
"If you ... want to move on" he said and looked at the two boys.
"You will need food and something you can defend yourselves with"
He hurried over to a closet and opened it. They saw toasts in clear film, onigiris with meat and vegetables and little tin bento boxes.
"This is fresh food, a few men and me prepare them every morning for the ones who will drove out for the day and since just one person will drive today you can take some with you. But eat it quickly or it will run spoiled. Here is some durable food, like cereal snacks and dried fish and so on. Take some. Please take what you need but don't forget we have quite a few people here who are hungry too"
"We don't need the durable food" Jungkook hurried to say. "And we don't want to take food away. We have our own. It's not that much but I hope it will be enough for the rest of our way"
Seokjin shook his head and took some onigiris with vegetables out of the closet, together with a poorly made sandwiches and a bento box.
"Look here. Two for you and two for you" he shoved two onigiris and two sandwiches over to Taehyung, and two more of both to Jungkook.
"And in this bento box is some reddish kimchi. Please feel free to take them with you. Maybe you should go tomorrow, I guess you will be better than. And I hope it won't get worse"
They nodded.
"I can brew you some tea as well" Seokjin mumbled. "You can get a tin can for your way with hot tea so you-"
"It's alright. Water is enough" Taehyung smiled and Seokjin chuckled lowly.
"You know ... I'd like to go to the next border too. But I can't leave those people behind. I can't just leave them behind to just save myself"
"But" Jungkook wanted to begin but through the tent entrance came a young woman with a baby on her arm.
"Mr. Kim Seokjin? Do you still have some baby food left? Or at least something similar?"
Seokjin looked at her and nodded.
"Yes, of course. Do you want it warmed or like that?"
"It's fine like that, don't waste to much power from the generator" she smiled and followed Seokjin to another closet.
It contained anything for children and medicine and so he took out a little glass of a vegetable fruit mix.
"This one?"
"It's perfect" she smiled and he handed him a spoon and the little glass.
She walked out, bowed and thanked Seokjin again.
Jungkook looked after her.
She was caressing her baby affectionately, opened the glass and sat outside onto a chair to feed her little child.
The boy felt like he slowly became sad about the thought that this child would grow up in something like this. If this mother will not escape to the next border this child will be doomed and he almost sob.
"What's the matter?" Taehyung asked and sat down onto the bed next to his friend.
"I just ... got reminded at my own mother ... I hope she is fine"
The boy sniffled his nose and Taehyung wrapped his arms around him. "I am sure he is fine. And your dad will be too. I am sure they are safe"
"What is if they-"
"Shhh" Taehyung made and just held him. Seokjin eyed the scene in front of him silently.
"I can imagine how you feel about your mother" he spoke up finally and caught the brunette's attention.
"I feel so about my parents and my little sister too. She is only eighteen, such a young girl. How old are you?"
"I am eighteen" Jungkook breathed out lowly and Taehyung sighed. "I'm nineteen"
Seokjin nodded.
"But ... imagine they are safe. Imagine they made it to the next border and they are already waiting somewhere else and hope to see you"
"There is no guarantee for it" Jungkook muffled a sob in Taehyung's neck. The blonde stroke his hair.
"There is never a guarantee for anything" Seokjin said. "But there is always a hope to make it so far. And if you give up and stop try to reach the border you will never know. Giving up means letting go. And letting go is what makes us alone"
Seokjin's voice was hoarse and he stood up.
"That's why the most of us here are alone. We gave up. We are not like you two who went from Yangsan to reach the Busan harbour. We are alone, Jungkook. But you aren't. You have you two. Keep this up, it might be your only reason not to let go too soon"
Seokjin breathed out and unlocked a drawer inside the food closet.
He took out something and went over to the two of them.
"Here"
Jungkook stared at the object in his hands.
"No" he just said and looked into Seokjin's eyes.
"Yes. Take it"
"I never even held a gun in my hands before. We can't take it"
Seokjin just laid it into Jungkook's hands. "Take it. Just do it. I am sure it will be necessary"
Out of his pocket he pulled a little box. "That's the ammo for it"
"Why do you give this to us?" Taehyung asked in disbelief.
Seokjin looked at them. "Because you will need it more than I will. You have the age of my sister. You remind me of her and you two still have hope. I can't let it inside my closet forever. Not without praying I would given it to you so you two can reach your aim. I ... kind of owe you this"
"Owe? You owe us nothing, we should owe you the world" Jungkook still protested but Seokjin smiled at them.
"I may have brought you here, but you gave me one of the most precious things I've been looking for since my friend's death ... you ... you gave me hope"
Jungkook looked at the gun and took his backpack from the ground. Taehyung handed him the ammo and so they put it into Jungkook's backpack.
"I don't feel good about this" Taehyung whispered. "I don't want to use this"
"Me neither"