Young Writers Society

The lights were painfully bright when Taehyung opened his eyes. What happened? He laid there for a moment and suddenly it all came back to him. The blows to his head, Jungkook’s sneer. He shivered at the thought that this was only a warning from The Swan. He really had to watch his steps now.

“Excuse me…” he heard a quiet voice say. He slowly turned his head in the direction and squinted his eyes. When his eyes focused, he saw a beautiful young girl sitting on the chair next to his bead.

“Hi, I don’t know who you are… am I supposed to?” Taehyung asked, his voice raspy and dry.

The girl shook her head. “No, I found you after you were attacked and called an ambulance. I’m Irene,” she explained.

Taehyung smiled at Irene’s kindness. “Why are you still here? You didn’t have to come with me, I’m just some random guy you found beaten on the street,” he chuckled. He still wasn’t used to people being kind to him just for the sake of being kind. He had once thought The Swan was kind, but he was just being used now that he was in debt for The Swan’s actions.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, they couldn’t find much identification on you and I didn’t have work or anything today anyway,” she smiled. Taehyung’s heart fluttered at her smile. It was so pure and beautiful. He wished he could hug her but the thought of moving made his head pound.

“You’re so kind, Irene. Thank you so much…” he paused for a minute. He wasn’t sure of what to say before he realized he had never actually introduced himself. “I’m Taehyung by the way.”

“The name suits you. Did you know that it means ‘A unique human being’?” he asked.

Taehyung lightly shook his head. “I didn’t know that.”

“Do you know who did this to you?” she asked. Taehyung sat and thought a moment. There was no way he could tell the truth, The Swan would do more than have him beat for ratting out one of his best men.

“No, it all happened so fast, the person got me from behind,” Taehyung sighed. Irene frowned and reached for Taehyung’s hand. She slowly held it and looked up into Taehyung’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you…” she said, eyes swimming with worry. “Do you have any family or friends to call?” Taehyung shook his head.

“No, not really,” he frowned. He looked down at their hands. His heart felt warm. “I really appreciate you here with me, but you don’t have to stay…”

Irene smiled and removed her hand and reached into her purse and took out a pen and an old receipt. “Look, I’m going to leave my number here if you ever need anything, okay?”

Taehyung beamed and nodded. “Thank you so much, hopefully, I can repay your kindness soon when I’m a little less…” he trailed off, gesturing to himself in the hospital bed.

Irene laughed and lightly patted his shoulder. “I’m going to get going, take care of yourself.”

Taehyung waved with a smile as she walked out. He gazed dreamily where she sat. He had never had an opportunity to meet a girl or date with what The Swan required. He wasn’t explicitly forbidden from dating but The Swan did not want Taehyung to be known or noticed. Rather than be under a strict set of rules, Taehyung had decided to stay alone.

He stopped his thoughts in their tracks and clenched the sheets in his fists. He couldn’t let her distract him right now, he had to find out how to get out from under The Swan’s wing. He had to heal and figure out how to get The Swan’s eyes off of him.

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Yoongi sighed and pushed paperclips around his desk with the end of his pen. He was bored out of his mind. “Seokjin, why are we still on desk duty? Did we really mess up that bad?”

Seokjin was playing with the cootie catcher he had made and raised it towards Yoongi. “I don’t know, pick a color.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes and batted the thing off of Seokjin’s hands across the room. Seokjin pouted. “Hey…” Yoongi laughed.

“Don’t be annoyed at me, I think Chief is just trying to give us a break after that close call,” Seokjin reasoned as he got up to retrieve his toy. Yoongi tossed the pen on his desk and leaned back to stretch.

“I know he’s probably trying to be nice, but I’m dying of boredom here! I’m going to go to his office and talk to him,” Yoongi finally declared as he stood up. Seokjin’s eyes widened.

“Are you sure? I mean we don’t really have any power to question the Chief’s authority or-” he started but Yoongi was already knocking on the Chief’s door. He waited for a moment before the door was opened. The Chief smiled and welcomed Yoongi in. Before Yoongi went in he turned and stuck his tongue out at Seokjin.

Yoongi sat in the chair in from of the Chief and observed the neatness of his desk. The files and papers were neatly stacked to one side, pens all in the mug the team had gotten him last Christmas that said ‘World’s Best Boss’.

He looked up at the Chief and smiled. “Hello, sir, sorry to bother you.”

The Chief shook his head, “Don’t apologize, my office is here for a reason! And you can seriously stop with all the ‘sir’ and ‘chief’ formalities, we talk too much and we’re too friendly to be so stiff. Call me Namjoon.”

“Okay,” Yoongi smiled. They sat in silence for a minute. Yoongi wasn’t sure what would be worse, his boss being mean and strict or being this nice. He was so nice he started to feel bad to question his care for him and his partner.

“Namjoon, I appreciate you easing Seokjin and I back into the job since that incident, but we feel like we’re ready to get back to the real job. We’ve learned our lesson and we’ll be more careful if that’s what you’re worried about,” Yoongi finally said timidly.

Namjoon sat and thought for a moment. He looked at the stack of papers and searched for a specific folder. Finally, he found what he was looking for and handed it to Yoongi.

“Here, I can’t send you to watch Jeon Jungkook anymore for obvious reasons, but here are some other hotspots we’ve found. Patrol these areas, take notes and photos, I need to see who frequents there, what the area is like. There are some files of people who are suspected, take note if you see them especially. Do this for the next week and report to me then,” Namjoon smiled. Yoongi beamed at his boss’s kind actions.

“Thank you, sir- I mean, Namjoon! We’ll do better this time, we won’t let you down!” Yoongi said graciously, standing to leave the office to get Seokjin. Namjoon sipped his coffee and waved as Yoongi left the office.

Yoongi practically skipped back to his desk and thrust the folder into Seokjin’s arms. “See, no big deal! We’ve got patrol of this area, it seems to be a hotspot for The Swan’s cronies,” Yoongi smirked, putting on his jacket. Seokjin laughed and stood up to gather his things. They were back!