Chapter Text
Taehyung wondered how it was possible for the world to be so damn unfair.
As he stood in full uniform after nearly eight months of wearing black hoodies and ripped jeans, Taehyung really thought he would be able to wear it longer. He had spent years in school and then years in the police academy with nothing but the thought of wearing this sweet ass uniform spurring him on. And just like he had predicted, he looked positively sinful in it. It was 5025, but the detective uniform at the NYPD looked like a relic from the past with its crisp royal blue hues and gold buttons and tacky badges. The design dated back to the early 2000s, and the city claimed they had kept the ancient design to convey the timelessness of the police. Taehyung didn’t believe that shit for a minute; no doubt the police department just didn’t want to pay a designer to make a new model. Creating outfits for people to copy was an expensive trade after all. Fabrics were hard to get and barely anyone on this planet knew how to sew anymore. His parents and friends had hated it the minute he had added the uniform to his skin collection in his spec and turned it on to show it off, but that hadn’t deterred Taehyung in the slightest. For whatever reason, he genuinely liked the design.
Smoothing down a non-existent wrinkle on his jacket, Taehyung tried to put on his friendliest smile. Jimin and Jungkook stood next to him frozen. They knew better than to talk at this moment. Taehyung was the one who did all the talking when their asshole superiors were involved.
“Sir,” he began, keeping his tone light and airy. He would have even commanded his spec to turn his eyes innocent if it didn’t seem so overboard. So instead he opted to scratch the back of his light brown bob in good-natured confusion before continuing. “We just got back after finishing all the paperwork for the Rodriguez bust-”
Hands slammed on the desk, and Taehyung snapped his mouth shut with an inward curse. He had definitely used the wrong tactic there. “We also haven’t had a chance to contact our families…” Taehyung said lowly but was met with silence.
Jungkook was looking sideways at Taehyung and the brunette ignored the gaze as he focused on the chief. There had to be a way to save them from this, something he could say in their defense, and damn it, Jungkook, stop fucking staring so much, Taehyung knew he had messed up royally and he didn’t need more pressure than he already felt-
“Tae, when I give orders to my personnel in my department, do they sound like suggestions?” the chief asked sweetly, calling Taehyung by the nickname he was all too familiar with. When he had first joined the NYPD, he had been the only Asian there and no one could pronounce his name correctly, so they all called him “Tae” instead. It was an endearing name, but Taehyung wasn’t so sure that was his colleagues’ intentions when they called him that name as they shoved him hard into filing cabinets while passing by in the hallway.
“No, sir,” Taehyung replied immediately. He suppressed the sigh threatening to escape his lips. Looks like he was going to end up deleting his precious uniform from his spec. Again.
“Alright then,” the chief said with a satisfied smile, eying all three of the detectives with something akin to disgust before standing up from his chair. “You three will be going after that heist group that’s been stirring up trouble lately. After how quickly you took down the Diablo gang who have been terrorizing central New York for so many years that even my best detectives died trying to infiltrate, this should be a piece of cake for you three, right?”
Taehyung wanted to groan. “We will do our best, sir.”
“Good. Now get the hell out of my office.”
“You know, I’m starting to think that we shouldn’t have done our jobs,” Jungkook piped up next to Taehyung once the door was shut. Jimin nodded on his other side.
“Yeah, seriously, it feels like we’re being punished,” he whined, pouting his perfectly plump lips. Even though Taehyung knew it was true, he still couldn’t believe that Jimin’s face naturally looked like that. Besides the light blonde hue of hair on top of his head that Taehyung knew was just the refracting tool on his spec, Jimin’s face was completely untampered with. Taehyung wondered for the millionth time what his parents could possibly look like for him to look this pretty. He reminded himself to invite himself over to Jimin’s house in Manhattan so he could see for himself. Well, if they ever got any time off to go back home, that is. Taehyung hadn’t seen his younger siblings or parents in almost a year now. He couldn’t even keep his spec on him while he was working undercover, so he had had almost no contact with his family for months. He would have to call them as soon as this assignment was over, the chief’s orders be damned.
“Sorry, guys, I fucked up.” Taehyung said. “Maybe if Kookie could stop staring holes into my face, then I could concentrate better next time, yeah?”
Jungkook shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe next time you could avoid antagonizing our boss with the one piece of information that pisses him off the most, yeah? You know how he feels about our ‘accomplishments’.”
Taehyung shot him a glare that Jungkook returned by sticking his tongue out. It wasn’t until Jimin dissolved into a fit of giggles that their poker faces broke and all three of them laughed.
They were in the lobby of the police department, waiting on someone from intel to call them so they could get their new specs. That was the Intelligence Division’s specialty mostly, dealing with the specs. From issuing out new ones that contained a completely different identity down including an artificial barcode to tracking the barcodes of criminal specs being used to do something illegal. Taehyung didn’t pay much attention to all of the technical aspects, but Jimin and Jungkook were both part of the Intelligence Division originally so they often started complicated conversations that made Taehyung feel left out. He would never admit that when they had first met two years ago, he had uploaded the spec manual to his spec to secretly skim over so he could sound smart on their bar hang out nights.
All three of their specs pinged at the same time, signaling that their specs were ready. The men stood up from their chairs and took the elevator to the basement, where the Intelligence Division was located. The entire floor was covered in gadgets and glowing screens as people whizzed past them on hoverboards and several different machines noisily zoomed by, sputtering stale air from their thrumming engines as they traveled to whichever desk needed a spare part or an upgrade or just an espresso. Whenever Taehyung was surrounded by this much machinery, he always felt quietly relieved that he had been placed in the Infiltration Division. He knew that it was the division no one wanted to be placed in and the chief had put him there to make him suffer in the first place, but Taehyung secretly liked being undercover. The underground of the world lived in a very old-fashioned way in order to stay off the police radar. While he had been with the Rodriguez family as a member of their drug ring, he had carried out most of his transactions using actual paper money, something he had never even seen before. Taehyung had been so scared he would actually be found out because he couldn’t properly count the bills, but surprisingly he found himself developing a knack for it pretty quickly. Same story with driving the boss to and from their different hideouts. Hovers were too easy to track, so gangs opted for the actual ground transportation of the past. Taehyung had never steered anything in his life, but he was able to maneuver the ancient vehicle quite easily.
“Hey guys, over here, hurry it up,” a familiar voice called them over from the office door in the corner. Jimin and Jungkook hurried over with Taehyung trailing behind them.
The head of the Intelligence Division was a short and chubby guy with a loveable face and an even more lovable personality. Being the only other Asian in the whole department, the three young detectives felt a strange kinship to him. The man in question, Si Hyuk Bang, adjusted his glasses as he looked them all over. He was standing beside his desk with a blue screen hovered over his wrist spec, no doubt reading over their new identities given by their specs.
“Didn’t I just give you guys specs?” he joked. “Why are you back here?”
“Trust me, we didn’t want to be back so soon, either,” Jungkook muttered, huffing in frustration.
Bang sighed. “I really don’t approve of the chief’s decision this time,” he voiced, sounding annoyed. “Especially for you Taehyung. You just left one identity behind and I’m sure you made quite a stir in the underworld.”
Taehyung put his hands up in surrender. He wouldn’t say he made “quite” a stir, but he had risen to the general position in one of New York City’s most prominent drug rings in less than seven months. Maybe a few people would remember his name and face. “Orders are orders,” he replied with an easy smile. “But I was thinking we could just use my last identity to my advantage, maybe keep it the same and I say I ran away before the heat came knocking on my ring’s door?”
Bang nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s what I ordered the team taking care of your spec to do anyway,” he said.
Taehyung grinned and winked at him. “Great minds think alike!”
Bang grimaced, not responding. He turned to address Jimin and Jungkook instead. “As for you two, we didn’t get too creative with your specs since you aren’t actually supposed to be making contact with BTS. Your names are the same and I emptied out your specs of everything except a high school level education and a few arrests each. Just bad enough that being Taehyung’s roommate isn’t too suspicious, but not so bad that anyone will think twice about you two.”
Jimin and Jungkook nodded, apprehension setting on their faces. Besides running surveillance for Taehyung when he went undercover and occasionally staging a discreet meet up with him to exchange information, neither intelligence officer had any experience being undercover in any capacity so this new assignment intimidated them a bit. Bang could sense their reservations about the job, so he patted them both on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, you’ll both be fine,” he reassured his subordinates. “I actually think you three make a good team.”
Taehyung nodded enthusiastically. “I thought so too! We got this, no sweat!”
Everyone groaned at Taehyung’s use of such an outdated term. Taehyung just shrugged; he liked the street slang he had picked up undercover.
“Anyway,” Bang said, clearing his throat. “Here are your new specs. I tried my best to pick pretty edgy designs so you guys could fit in.”
Most employees of the government wore the standard wrist spec design, but a spec could take any shape. As long as it touched some part of a person’s skin, the connection was active. Taehyung didn’t mind his wrist spec, mostly because he was super forgetful and feared that if his spec was a bag or a hat or something like that he would end up leaving it somewhere and losing it. Specs weren’t exactly cheap. He couldn’t afford to keep replacing them.
“Jungkook, yours is a chain,” Bang said, handing Jungkook his new spec. The dark-haired boy eyed the necklace for a minute before putting it around his neck. “If you want to add something to it, go ahead.”
“I’m fine,” Jungkook responded. Taehyung silently agreed. He felt like the younger man made simple things look really attractive. Jungkook was a naturally good-looking guy as well, not as pretty as Jimin, but still very nice to look at.
“Jimin, I made yours into that new design young people like nowadays because I know you like multiple screens.” Bang handed Jimin a matching set of three rings. He easily slipped two on one hand and one on the other as if he was familiar with the spec type.
“My younger brother has these. We went and bought them for his birthday last year,” Jimin explained with a shrug. No one said anything, but they were all thinking the same thing: there’s no way Jimin’s brother’s spec looked as good on him as it looked on Jimin.
“I’m glad... you’re familiar with them,” Bang said with an embarrassed cough. “And Taehyung, I don’t want you to lose yours, so it’s an earring. Just don’t even take it off.”
Bang handed Taehyung a single earring instead of two. Taehyung wasn’t even sure if he would call this long delicate chain an earring per say. He stuck it on his left ear and it immediately swayed as he moved, lightly smacking him on his neck. That was going to take some getting used to. But strangely, he liked the accessory more than he thought he would. It almost felt familiar to him…
Jungkook let out an audible gasp next to him, breaking Taehyung’s train of thought. He was staring at the earring spec with a mixture of horror and something else in his eyes. Taehyung scoffed.
“It doesn’t look that bad,” he whined. “We can’t all be you and have badass chains, Kookie!”
“I-I didn’t say anything,” Jungkook said quickly, blushing. “And don’t call me that!”
“I think it looks nice,” Jimin offered.
“Thank you, Jimin! See, that’s how you do it, Kookie.”
“I didn’t say anything! Also stop calling me that!”
“Guys,” Bang said, his voice lowering dangerously. The bickering men stopped immediately. “Get out.”
The three detectives wasted no time in saluting and scurrying out of Bang’s office. Their chief could be pretty intimidating when he tried, but something about the head of the Intelligence Division was just on another level of scary.
Taehyung sighed and stared up at the white ceiling that he would be looking at for God knows how long this time. He had just finished unpacking, and by ‘unpacking’ he meant pulling his wallet out of his pocket and putting it on the nightstand next to the bed. Being undercover, it’s not like Taehyung could bring anything from his parents’ house, so he had brought the bare essentials: himself.
The room in the apartment that he now lived in with Jimin and Jungkook was very small, consisting only of the a single twin bed with white sheets and comforter and a single nightstand that had a standard control panel for controlling the temperature, humidity, lights, and so on. Taehyung smirked; so he wasn’t going to be living like a total barbarian after all if this room had a home system installed. Making a mental note to connect his new earring spec to the system later, Taehyung got off his bed and wandered into the living room. The other two must have still been in their rooms because it was empty. Taehyung glanced at Jungkook’s door that was closest to his; Jimin’s room was on the other side of the apartment. Taehyung collapsed on the sofa dramatically and made a swiping motion in the direction of the wall. The TV screen blinked on, filling the entire wall. Taehyung let out a lazy whistle.
Jungkook opened his room door and trudged out to join Taehyung, his skin changed to a simple white t-shirt and sweatpants. Taehyung let his gaze rack over Jungkook, appreciating this new side of Jungkook he had never seen before.
“It’s stay-at-home Kookie,” Taehyung murmured with a teasing smile. Jungkook’s face didn’t change as he sat on the sofa with Taehyung.
“Shut up,” he murmured. “What are we watching?”
“I don’t know,” Taehyung said, mindlessly flipping through the channels with a flick of his finger. “How about this? A documentary on the establishment of the first major colony living on the moon and their eventual demise?”
“Who even watches documentaries anymore?” Jungkook questioned.
Taehyung shrugged. “Hospital patients who don’t have the strength to lift their fingers anymore? Me?”
“Do you seriously?”
“I don’t need to defend my tastes to you.”
Jimin came out of his room at that moment, similarly dressed in skin of relaxation clothes. He made a beeline for the kitchen and after checking the cabinets, immediately groaned loudly.
“Guys, there’s no food,” he whined, coming out of the kitchen and approaching the two couch potatoes.
“Then go buy some,” Taehyung said, eyes not leaving the screen. They had left the documentary on and it was actually super interesting. Even Jungkook was getting into it.
“Can someone come with me?” Jimin asked, the whine becoming a permanent part of his voice.
“Jimin, you graduated with honors from the police academy,” Jungkook pointed out. “And you were the youngest officer in your graduating class.”
“I would have been the youngest ever if you hadn’t come along,” Jimin mumbled.
“So I think you can handle a grocery store run,” Jungkook continued as if Jimin hadn’t interrupted him.
“Fine,” Jimin huffed.
“Take some money with you!” Taehyung called out. “The midnight stores in this area don’t take spec!”
Jimin blinked at the brunette in confusion; was it even possible in this day and age to survive on physical currency?
Taehyung felt a pang of worry in his gut as he recalled that neither of his friends really had any experience in these rougher parts of town.
“Maybe I should go with you, after all…” he said as he attempted to get off the sofa.
A hand reached out to tug him back. Jungkook looked at Taehyung with a desperate look that Taehyung had never seen before. The intensity behind Jungkook’s gaze made him squirm as he dimly realized that this sofa was much smaller than he had originally thought. Jungkook’s thigh was less than an inch from his and suddenly Taehyung felt a little hot.
“N-no, it’s fine, I’ll manage!” Jimin cut in quickly, grabbing some money from the counter that had been prepared for them and quickly switching skins to something more appropriate for outside. “I’m just going to the store right down the street, and I’ll be quick. You guys just watch your show.”
“Right…” Taehyung settled back against the sofa and Jungkook quickly let his hand go, turning his attention to the illuminated wall.
Jimin ducked out of the apartment, leaving the two to sit in what could only be described as uncomfortable silence.