Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

As violently and fast as Jungkook had been spit into military training for mandatory wartime conscription, he was spit right back out. Forced to be ready for service after six grueling, long months of hardening at the hands of government-sponsored discipline and pain.

The country was at war, was the reason. Somehow, it never seemed to not be.

Realistically, it was more like the entire world was at war. They were reminded of this every failed push-up, every weak pull-up, every time they lagged behind while running, and every time they fucked up a weapon reload. Jungkook had both brain and muscle memorized to violent killing motions, constantly tasting hunger and blood in his mouth as he went through the days waiting to be released from being a punching bag in training to being a punching bag who got to fight a mighty, glorious war.

And finally, with military units nearing depletion from utter slaughter and in need of immediate numbers, Jungkook was released to the world a new man. A man wielding a 9mm government-approved semiautomatic and metal plates with his name and birth on them to ready him for immediate death. A few of the guys he’d trained with were assigned to the same unit and battalion as him, which was comforting. Not that he even knew their names or anything else about them, as they’d spent most of their training sleeping in bunkers to avoid night-bombings. But there was comfort in vaguely familiar faces, as well as in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be the only newbie forced prematurely into the barracks. He wasn’t sure he could handle six more months of being the bottom of the pecking order.

All he’d been told was that they were being stationed South East, far out in the middle of nowhere, where it was hot and dry and they seemed to be the furthest away from the war epicenter as possible.

“Jungkook, Jeon,” a deep voice said, and he looked up from his feet, shuffling a little at the foot of his bed. A buzzed man with a square jaw in a black tee was reading from a list, looking like he had something foul-smelling permanently stuck under his upper lip.

“Here, Sir,” he said swiftly, holding the man’s gaze and trying his best to look interested.

“That’s ‘Present, Sir,’ soldier,” the man spat, making a few of the guys around him snicker. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

A power-hungry fuck with an inferiority complex. Great.

He rolled his eyes, careful to do it out of sight, and observed everyone around them as further names were called. It was like living in a can of sardines. All the names blended together, and he felt like he’d had his name called five times already in the past hour, each time herded somewhere different, until finally he’d ended up near what he hoped was his final destination. They were by beds, at least. This had to be where he was stationed. Jungkook would give just about anything for this day to be over already, and he knew it had barely started. His eyes and legs were equally heavy, his stomach growling for food he knew he wouldn’t get. They’d been travelling all day. He couldn’t exactly protect “country and people” while having the reaction time of a sleep-deprived drunkard.

Suddenly the deep voice scruffing through names was gone, and he welcomed the newfound silence, inhaling the stench of sweat from the beds and bodies surrounding him. They were planted on sandy flooring, moist air settling in every fabric stitch. The army really wasn’t for the weak. He had a hard time visualizing girls finding men in uniform hot ever again after living and breathing with a bunch of them for way too long, gagging at the mere memory of the stinky, exhausted bodies he had to share a space with daily. If he ever made it home, he made a mental note to throw out his uniform to skirt any questions future female dates might have about his time in the army. The reality wasn’t so pretty.

But that was, of course, if he ever went home.

“Good evening, everyone.”

Jungkook looked up at the change in voice. A rather pretty man in a formal, fitted, black uniform that looked different to theirs walked up towards them, and suddenly, every man was standing up straight, hands by their sides. Jungkook straightened up, too, trying his best not to admire how someone deployed all the way out here had milky, plump skin and rosy pink lips. Curious. He’d clearly gone delusional already. Was this his head playing a trick on him? Was he still stuck in his wet dream from last night?

“If you’re new here today, my name is Park Jimin. I’m the commanding officer of your battalion, and the person you report to directly while deployed,” the Commander said, sleek long-ish blonde hair tucked behind one ear as he held onto a clipboard full of notes. Perhaps full of the names taken by the previous superior. The Commander stopped in front of a shorter soldier, observing him. “I’m here to support you, but I’m not your mom,” he turned to another soldier, taller than him this time. The Commander, it seemed, still commanded order and respect, nobody moving so much as an inch the entire time he talked. “I expect lights out every night at nineteen hundred hours. Wake up call and showers at O six hundred. If you want me to repeat this information because you don’t know military time yet and you don’t have any friends here to ask, you can feel free to peel our breakfast potatoes for the morning and I’ll tell you over a warm cup of hibiscus tea.” Several people snickered, Jungkook included. Jimin walked like he owned the place, which he probably did. Curious. “Dismissed,” he ended off with, glancing around all of them once more. His voice was oddly soft yet also stern, a most absurd mix. Jungkook felt like he could listen to him talk for hours.

However, as soon as he’d come, he was gone, leaving Jungkook feeling more alone than ever. A voice to his right told him to try his final chance at making friends for the night, his feet shuffling to face his bed where two other guys stood near it. He was attempting to process the billion faces and items he’d had to try and memorize today alone. Luckily, he swore he remembered the two guys next to him weren’t at his training camp. They were familiar with this place, and looked a smidge older.

“Is he always that uptight?” Jungkook asked, nodding toward the door he assumed the Commander had come from. A rather tall boy who he remembered being called Jaehyun from roll call laughed, planting an arm over Jungkook’s shoulder. He was definitely not new.

“Sure, he might look tough now...” the boy snickered, voice lowering a little as he leaned in closer to Jungkook’s ear. “But let’s just say I’ve seen another side of him.”

Jungkook raised an eyebrow, not sure what to make of that. Jaehyun and the other guy just laughed between themselves, before they walked off to god knows where. Jungkook knew it was bedtime without knowing military time, as every man in the room was stripping and hopping under their thin sheets like someone had just rung a bell. So where the two guys were headed, he felt like was out of bounds. Just a guess. Or maybe they were allowed toilet breaks at their own leisure. He certainly wasn’t used to not being in training yet and acclimatizing back into the real world.

But he was a real soldier now. The stench of sweat and somehow piss mixed with live gunpowder was proof enough of that.

They were in the trenches of war.

*

Breakfast wasn’t slop in a bowl, like he’d expected it to be. Whatever prison TV shows had brainwashed him, the food wasn’t half bad, and was actually, genuinely a mix of spring potatoes and spam. He was pretty sure they didn’t have a cook, so whoever made it was either one of them or a superior. His money was on a First Class Private.

The tables were long and lined parallel down the room, with the higher ranks seated towards the front. He spotted Commander Park at the only table of horizontal placement, eating his food next to what appeared to be another Commanding Officer, perhaps of the southern barracks, two Sergeants and...the General?

Jungkook squinted. The man in the middle had broad shoulders, lots of unruly black hair, and a chest decorated with pins and medallions. He looked quite young to be holding so many accolades. About as young as Commander Park, in fact. Jungkook felt his jaw hang open. This guy must have killed a whole lot of people to be pistoned into that position. Not to mention, he had a horribly large scar running across the bridge of his nose. They weren’t a military primarily armed with swords or knives, so that had to have come from close combat.

Commander Park leaned up to the General and whispered something to him with a hand covering his mouth. The General laughed, and Jungkook wasn’t sure why he felt that to be so weird. Seeing the General laugh. In all honesty, he hadn’t expected the General to eat amongst them at all. The way everyone spoke about him, and for all his greatness, he seemed more like a god amongst men, an ephemeral being that existed mostly as a symbol of pride, never to see mortal eyes.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed the General had another shorter, newer scar dragged up over his bottom lip from his chin. He wondered what kind of battles he must have seen to get all of those. Unfortunately for Jungkook, the General chose that exact moment to look up, locking eyes with him unwaveringly for the briefest moment, until Jungkook panicked and looked away. His arms clenched in alarm, his fear of authority having been beaten into him from his very first day of training.

God, he had to train himself not to stare like some wild dog. He felt like it would land him in trouble one day. And it was only his second day there.

*

As it turned out, that was the only time he would see the General for weeks. Hoseok, a First Class Private who he’d gotten to know better over that time, explained to him how the General was never around for long, as he had business on the front lines and reporting back to Head Base. And when the General was gone, Commander Park acted in his place, despite their battalion having two higher ranking Sergeants.

Jungkook whacked his sheets, trying to get the smell and sand out of them before he folded them up for the day, coughing at the dust he was whipping up around him. Somehow, barracks were dirtier than he’d imagined them. It didn’t help that their ‘showers’ were just the Sergeants spraying them with violent streams of cold water from a pump, leaving dirt and smells to fester. And considering the soldiers, when desperate enough, jacked off into their blankets at night, there was something to be said for sleeping in contained quarters without a laundry machine.

He groaned, wiping his nose as if that would help shield him from the smells. Men really were the fucking worst. He felt like the cleanest person he’d seen there was Commander Park, who always looked freshly showered. A proper shower, not the ice-water cannon. With actual soap. At least, he was the only one who never stank when he walked past him. Jungkook wondered if the higher ranks had special privileges in the hygiene department.

He jerked back to attention as Jaehyun came up behind him and slapped him on the back. Apparently, that was a classic Jaehyun move, and he had to get used to it.

“Don’t choke to death before you see battle,” Jaehyun joked, reaching for his own sheets in the bunk above his. Jungkook looked at them. Jaehyun’s sheets weren’t feces brown, like everyone else’s. They were a dark brown, almost black, and looked...thicker. Maybe even made of actual wool. They didn’t cough up a dust cloud when Jaehyun opened them, either.

“Where did you get those?” He asked, confused. Jaehyun smiled and winked at him, smoothing the material against his right cheek.

“From the Commander. I just asked him really nicely,” Jaehyun insisted with a nonchalant shrug. He folded his blanket up, not even needing to beat the dust mites out.

“Oh?” Jungkook tried, finding that a little hard to believe. He could see Jaehyun’s shit eating grin fighting to stay at bay. He grimaced. Maybe he didn’t want to know, after all.

“He likes it when you’re polite and show kindness,” Jaehyun insisted, now busy flipping his lighter around in the air. It was an old, metal one. “Or maybe he just has a soft spot for me,” he suggested, but left that comment hanging as soon as he’d uttered it, Jungkook feeling more questions rise in his head. “You got any smokes, by the way?”

Jungkook dropped his blanket on his bed, thinking of the only contraband he’d brought with him from home: A pack of Lucky Strikes that his Dad used to smoke, shoved into several layers of plastic cling wrap and squeezed in between his mattress and the springs of his bed frame.

Jaehyun was looking at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised as he seemed to observe the cogs in Jungkook’s head turn. Jungkook sighed, feeling like striking up a good favour with someone as lucky as Jaehyun might come in handy.

“I do, actually,” he said finally, reaching under his bed. Spotting the marking on Jaehyun’s lighter, he added, “Do you like Marlboro Lights?”

Jaehyun beamed down at him, slapping a hand on his back and sitting down beside him on Jungkook’s newly made sheets. Fucker.

“Good man. Boy, do I.”

*

“When you’ve dug your part of the hole, dig another. If I catch you standing there with nothing to do, you’re not going to be standing for much longer.”

Commander Park had them out at the crack of dawn, every man shoveling out there groaning from the lack of breakfast. Jungkook shoved his shovel into the crusty ground, breaking the top layer with his foot as it rammed down. They were digging trenches. Hard soil. Somehow managing to have layers of mud and dry dirt at the same time. It was like digging a fucking jawbreaker, each layer more unexpected than the next.

“Half a kilometer,” Commander Park continued, walking behind Jungkook. His voice didn’t sound so sweet anymore. Not when Jungkook’s muscles were screaming at him only two holes deep. “The entire perimeter of the barracks.” The Commander walked further away, observing them all with his hands together behind his back, head held high. “Then lunch, if you’re lucky.”

Jaehyun grunted next to him, his shovel on the heavy side as they’d drawn straws on who got which one. Jungkook had gotten lucky, this time. Narrowly escaping the iron shovel for the easier-to-maneuver magnesium alloy.

“Evil cunt,” Jaehyun mumbled under his breath, eyes fixated in the dirt as he tried and failed to pierce through bedrock. He was leveraging his weight all wrong, not even using his body and foot to stomp pressure onto the surface. “Someone ought to knock him down a peg.”

“He’s not worse than Lieutenant Action Man though, is he?” Jungkook insisted, snorting. The buzz-cut dude with the thick neck; he was the one Jungkook felt like he had to watch out for. He made it seem like a fly settling on his arm would make him go ballistic. “I feel like compared to the others—”

“Well Park is our Commanding Officer, isn’t he? The others don’t give us orders,” Jaehyun shot back, observably irked by his lack of progress with digging. Jungkook wondered if he would just get pissed off if he offered to help. He seemed like the kind of guy who would take it as a personal slight.

He shrugged to himself, wondering if Jaehyun was just mad because he clearly hadn’t had to do a dig-out before. Jungkook wondered where Jaehyun and some of the others had trained. Maybe Jungkook’s training had just been extra reminiscent of hell, and it was actually not normal to be doing extensive physical labour before being fed. But, what did he know? He’d had hair ripped out of his skull whenever he set up a machine-gun wrong. He was pretty sure nothing could phase him after that point.

“Ninety-degree angle,” he offered Jaehyun calmly, slowing his own digging. “Break it with your foot.”

Jaehyun ignored him, using brute upper body strength each time he hacked his shovel down. Jungkook sighed, yanking his shirt off to get rid of the sticky, clinging fabric. It was scorching already, his long hair wetting up as sweat funneled down his forehead.

Looking back at their Commander in full formal gear, Jungkook wondered how he managed. The Commander, roaming their piles, caught his gaze.

“This is a military exercise, not a modeling opportunity,” Commander Park commented, loud enough for most of them to hear. There was no humour in his voice, but no malice either. Jungkook flushed as everyone around him laughed, grabbing his now dirt-caked shirt and pulling it back on, reluctantly. He was already bathing in dirt, so why not enjoy the wetness of his own filth, too.

Luckily for him, he finished his half kilometer first out of their entire squad. And despite his initial sly comment, Commander Park looked quite impressed.

*

“So...who you got waiting for you back home?” Jaehyun asked, the two of them and two of Jaehyun’s other friends having snuck off back into their dugouts for a smoke after dinner that day. It was probably the most frequently asked question he’d ever experienced, but it was a move of solidarity and comraderie nonetheless, so Jungkook welcomed it. The sky was getting dark, but he could still see their faces, shiny from the day’s activities.

“Nobody, really,” he answered, taking a deep drag. He could see the palpable disappointment in their faces, and wanted to laugh.

“There’s always somebody,” someone—Cho, maybe—laughed. The look on their faces was almost ravenous. Jungkook could sympathize. They’d been out there longer than he had. Longer without stories, without families, and without girls. He wondered if it was because he pitied them that he entertained it. Or because he was two minutes away from being barraged by the stories of their girls back in their hometowns.

“Well, there is one girl,” Jungkook started, not really sure where he was going. He thought back to the girl who always winked at him when he went to buy rice and told him everything about her dad’s role in the army. He could barely remember her name, despite speaking with her every day for over a year since the war had started. He was so young and naïve back then. It had felt like a simpler time. Nothing but the smell of salt and sea spray joining the drying kelp at the docks. “She’s got long, straight hair. Bright smile. Better looking than you guys—no offense.”

“Wehey!” The boys exclaimed excitedly, raising their fists in the air. They’d hit jackpot.

“Did she say she’d wait for ya?” Cho asked through an exhale, stomping out the last bit of his cigarette in the mud. Jungkook spent a split second thinking about how funny it would be if their entire barracks blew up because the grass caught fire from one of their stupid cigarette butts. He considered pulling one out from the stash he always kept in his pocket because he found that so funny, but held back.

“Not exactly,” he said honestly, reminiscing back to the last time he saw her. They were sweaty; breathing heavy. Naked, desperate. He was being drafted the next day. She’d felt like the best gift he’d gotten the entire twenty years of his life.

“Shame,” Jaehyun said, not sounding particularly sorry for him. He ran a hand through his hair, putting his knee up on the mud wall by their waists. “My girl said she would,” he exclaimed proudly. And somehow the thought of Jaehyun having a steady girlfriend seemed absurd. “But honestly, I don’t know if I will.”

“What?” Private Evans asked, “You crazy? You don’t want to come home to that explosive victory lap?” He said incredulously, motioning the delicious reapings with his hips and hands. The other two giggled like schoolboys.

“That’s exactly why,” Jaehyun said firmly, leaning closer to Evans’ face with serious eyes. “When we go home, we’ll be heroes. You ever thought of that?” He cocked an eyebrow. “If I can have my pick of the fucking litter, why would I settle for someone I’ve already had?”

A low whistle.

“That’s cold, Kim,” Private Cho commented, but he was chuckling despite himself. Jungkook wondered how they even thought about going home when it was clear their front lines were being pushed back further every day. Jungkook was just waiting for spitfire.

A sudden crunch in the air caused all of them to freeze, ducking down in the trench. They scrambled, putting out their cigarettes and plastering themselves against the mud wall, praying nobody would smell the smoke. Two figures could be seen walking roughly in their direction, one speeding ahead of the other.

“Jimin,” came a low, hushed voice from the person trudging after the first. Jungkook craned his neck to check his uniform. Some Lieutenant. “Park!”

Their Commander stopped in his hasty tracks and finally turned, facing the Lieutenant head-on. He had gear strapped on him, his hat in place and gloves drawn over his uniform. Heavy-duty boots.

“Unit 10 is down Commanders on the front line,” Commander Park said quickly, eyes unwavering as he observed the angered Lieutenant behind him. “My unit can stay here under Commander Lee’s supervision while I go to help.”

“You’re not going,” the Lieutenant barked, hair falling into his face from what had been the fast pace of their walk. He challenged Commander Park with his eyes, hard and unwavering where he stood. But nothing seemed to stop the Commander in his tracks more than the next few words. “General’s orders.”

Jimin—Commander Park—huffed a short, bitter laugh, biting his lip. The Lieutenant seemed to know what that meant, because he didn’t tell him off for scoffing in his presence. Jaehyun and the others looked at each other knowingly, Jungkook stuck between observing how they were reacting to it and the commotion above. He felt like he was missing something. A crucial part of whatever sordid puzzle was playing out.

“Of course,” Commander Park muttered, staring dejectedly down at his boots after licking the inside of his cheek, “Treating me like a fucking child even though he isn’t even here—”

“Kid, it’s my head on the line if I let you out of camp,” the Lieutenant hissed. He reached forward and yanked the flask sack out of Commander Park’s utility belt, then leaned in closer to him. “So I don’t give a shit why these are the General’s orders, but they are. I don’t ask questions. Which means you take these orders and you follow commands. And you march your pretty ass right back inside.”

Face almost red with shame, even visible in the dark, Commander Park bit down whatever protests he still had in him. He was breathing hard, obviously aggravated, seeming to be thinking a mile a minute.

“Yes, Sir,” he affirmed, gritted through his teeth. Jungkook watched him reluctantly turn back towards their sleeping quarters, quick on his step. Always in such a hurry to go anywhere.

The Lieutenant stood there for a while, before he took a swig out of the confiscated drinking flask. Jungkook and company panicked when his eyes grazed the grounds, shrinking themselves smaller and impossibly flatter against the dirt wall. Their breaths were all laboured. He could only hope not laboured enough to catch the Lieutenant's attention. He tried not to think about how everyone’s breath stank of tobacco and their latest meal’s trout as they squished together in the dirt.

One last final swig. Then a spit. Footsteps stumped back towards the barracks, until they sounded further and further away.

He was yanked up by Jaehyun, who laughed as they all emerged from the dirt hideout.

“Fucking hell. Could feel my neck on the line for a minute there.” They crawled out of the dug-out, shuffling their way to the back of the barracks to sneak in the rear door.

“Park’s not serving front line,” Evans commented as they rounded the far corner, saying what they’d all been thinking, “Dunno why he thought he’d be a big help either way. The General clearly also has eyes.”

Jungkook wasn’t entirely sure why he was feeling more and more uncomfortable talking about their Commander, but it might have something to do with the tone everyone was using.

“Nah, General’s not keeping him here because he’d be a nuisance,” Jaehyun snorted, looking so sure of himself that Jungkook had to restrain himself from prying further. “Park has medals, after all.”

*

Jungkook had thought dishwashing duty had begun and ended at training camp, but whatever stroke made him think that had also made him forget that the barracks had hundreds of men and not a single hired dishwasher to clean their mess up. At the very least people didn’t leave leftovers anymore, unlike in training, where the inedible carb blocks they were given to go with their slop was never easy to force down.

Jungkook supposed that at least he was out of sight, sneaking a pinched off cigarette into his mouth as he washed, which he quickly lit with Jaehyun’s lighter. They’d grown close over the last couple weeks. Suppose that would happen to anyone you suffered, shat, and stood naked next to twenty-four seven.

Faint explosions could be heard in the distance. He took a long inhale, willing the anxiety in his chest to drown in smoke. He wasn’t stupid; he knew they weren’t there for fun. He’d heard of night raids before—of barracks being stripped and snuffed out at night by the enemy, or bombed and obliterated before anyone could ever reach the sirens. Joining the army meant he had somehow made peace with the thought of dying at any time. He chewed on and tasted that unnerving idea for a while, knowing he had yet to even touch the front lines.

Pathetic.

A high sound amidst his slipping around in the dish soap and water made him stop, raising his head up. He looked around the room, at the dark, wooden walls and concrete floor, wondering if he’d imagined it. The only source of light was the burning end of his cigarette, and he watched the embers and ash crumble into the dishwashing basin. He’d never claimed to be a good dishwasher.

The sound hit his ears again, a little louder this time. He dropped the plate he’d been holding, spilling a good amount of water out of the basin. Fuck. Oh well. He strained his ears, getting up to locate the sound.

The further he walked out of the scullery, the more clear the noise became. It was staccato at times, sounding whiny and hitched.

Sobs?

He shuffled down the hall, wiping his wet hands on his pants. rounding a corner, he pressed an ear against the wall of an unknown room, the sound heightening. Crying. Muffled, suppressed. Shameful crying? But the voice was high, and he couldn’t imagine it belonging to any of the nicotine addicted numbskulls he had to bunk with.

He nudged at the door that seemed to lead into the room, left ajar. He had no idea what was motorizing him to move, having abandoned his post and sticking his nose into something that was obviously meant to be private. Somehow, he didn’t stop, his critical thinking skills gone out the door as soon as he went in, shoving it so that it sprang open, his feet shuffling into the dim room. It was like he was compelled forward with a need to nurture. The image of his pale-faced sister flashed in front of his mind as he stepped in, heart hammering in his chest.

His eyes fell down to the floor, where he saw a familiar figure kneeling, face in his hands until he looked up to check the commotion behind him. Commander Park’s face was wet with tears, nose and cheeks a damning pink. Still, his uniform was on perfectly, prim and proper. Hair barely out of place. Though Jungkook noticed his peaked hat abandoned on the floor in front of him. But even that seemed purposeful.

“P-Private,” Commander Park stammered, quickly wiping his face and glaring up at Jungkook with so much anger he almost felt his mouth fall open and regretted ever leaving the scullery. The Commander was usually so put together, calm and collected. Seeing him frazzled was like catching a dentist eat a big helping of someone’s wedding cake. “You’re out of bounds.”

“Sorry,” was all Jungkook’s short-circuiting brain could think to reply as he stared blatantly down at his superior. He realized now that his sleeves were still rolled up and his jacket was unbuttoned, shirt untucked in an effort to feel comfortable while doing the dirty work. He was probably breaking a hundred clothing etiquette rules in one, singular, jaw-dropping stance.

“Sorry?” Jimin asked, baffled. He got up from the floor, somehow gracefully, to his full height—which was still about a head shorter than Jungkook. The Commander looked like he almost regretted standing up now. He sniffled one last time, Jungkook seeing how red his eyes were rimmed up close now that he was standing. For someone who was always so sure of himself, Commander Park seemed suddenly more lost than he’d been when he was on the floor. “Why are you here, Private?”

“I heard...” he paused, wondering what would be less embarrassing for his Commander. The truth, or him clumsily trying to make up an excuse. He settled for the truth, knowing he was a shit liar. “Crying.”

The Commander lent him a hard stare, then reached down to straighten out his uniform, and up to tuck a smidge of flyaway hairs behind his ears. He took a deep breath, grabbing his hat from the floor. Jungkook faintly wondered if this was what Jaehyun had seen when he’d insisted the Commander wasn’t so tough.

“You’re out. Of. Bounds,” Commander Park emphasized, walking closer to him with hard eyes. He stopped short of walking right into Jungkook’s larger body, staring up at him. Jungkook felt the tiniest, smallest thrill that he was taller than his own Commander. It made him a lot less intimidating. Not that he’d been particularly intimidating before with his soft blonde hair and cat-like eyes. But Jungkook knew the power Commander Park held. “And you better tell me that stench isn’t cigarettes.”

He swallowed, not having a good enough excuse made up to give him. He’d literally been washing dishes in a shoe box; there was no reason for him to stink of smoke. He waited for the Commander to dish out punishment, but it never came. There was silence for a few seconds, wherein Jungkook just trained his eyes to the floor. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the Commander quickly pull his peaked cap over his head, his gold, embroidered rank flashing in Jungkook’s face, then yanking it down as low as he could. Jungkook supposed the Commander had more pressing issues to deal with. Like trying to believably make it look like he hadn’t been crying in camp.

“Dismissed.”

The Commander shoved past Jungkook and out of the room, leaving him with more questions than he’d had before walking in. But most pertained to why he hadn’t just been skinned within an inch of his life.

*

Jungkook watched Commander Park tend to his regular activities like nothing had happened just hours before, face back to being composed and eyes back to looking apathetic or at least mildly bored through their daily activities. Though now, seemingly actively avoiding Jungkook’s eyes. But he could also be making that up—he doubted he was important enough to be remembered out of hundreds of men, let alone for a superior to make a distinct effort to act differently around him.

“Kim, Byung-hun,” the Commander’s voice rang into the quiet room, everyone tired of standing upright and attentive on their tired feet for the fifteenth minute.

“Why is he checking us twice?” Jungkook grumbled to nobody in particular under his breath, itching his left leg as inconspicuously as possible. Jaehyun seemed to hear him, turning slightly and grinning.

“General Kim’s gone,” Jaehyun sighed, sticking his hands into his pockets, despite Commander Park being close to calling his name and checking his form. Jungkook never ceased to be surprised by how far Jaehyun was willing to push authority. Or maybe he only ever pushed Commander Park. Somehow, he came out unscathed. Every single time. “That’s just what he does when General Kim leaves. Like he gets extra neurotic that camp will fall apart.”

The last part was whispered, but suddenly Commander Park was right next to them, looking Jaehyun over. Jungkook straightened up, preparing to hear an earful.

“Kim, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun smiled down at him, also taller than their Commander, and seemed to be what looked like one fuckboy centimeter away from winking.

“All yours, Sir.”

Jungkook watched as Commander Park ignored both Jaehyun’s poor stance and the playful address, glaring up at him, before ticking his name off and walking away to continue down the paper full of people.

“Kim, Junghwan.”

Jungkook turned and stared at Jaehyun with wide eyes, silently begging the ‘what the fuck’ explanation. Nobody around them reacted like him, meaning it wasn’t considered as weird to everyone else as it was to him. Was he missing something? He felt stupid, though he knew he had scored higher than most who were designated army conscription rather than intelligence service in his national exam.

Jaehyun seemed to notice his overt confusion, and leaned over to him.

“Ever noticed how I look a little bit like General Kim?” Jaehyun whispered close to his ear, ending his comment off with a snicker and a raised brow. Jungkook knotted his brows in confusion.

Surely, not enough. And surely there were dozens of people with the surname ‘Kim’ in their barracks. And what did that even matter? Was Commander Park just less inclined to chastise someone who looked like a superior?

Jungkook went to sleep that night chewing on those questions while staring up at Jaehyun’s bunk, watching his curly, black hair fall over the skin of his tan face as he rested over the edge. His strong nose didn’t move while he breathed. Asleep and peaceful, he looked almost like he hadn’t broken four attitude protocols in one single session, coming out of it clean.

Jungkook huffed out a laugh to himself. Work smarter, not harder, indeed.

*

It wasn’t like he’d lost track of how many weeks it had been since he’d arrived, but the days were starting to blend together. Some days he didn’t even go outside or see sunlight, cooped up polishing artillery or tightening bolts in their machinery. Some days he wandered aimlessly, hearing waves of hushed news about their standing in the war and the movement of their enemies, including predictions about when they’d see the front lines or when their camp would be raided. When it was quiet in the barracks and nobody was telling him what to do, he knew they’d been bested. Whichever front they had fought that day hadn’t gone right, and all the superiors shuffled around in hushed tones, meeting every fifteen minutes to rearrange battle strategy and continue the ill-fated game of institutional telephone.

One such day, he spotted Commander Park sitting outside, breathing hard as he leaned against the back wall of their barrack building. His face was pale, sweat trickling down it sickly. Commander Park, usually so meticulous about his clothing, seemed uncaring now where he sat straight on the ground, dirt mucking up the black wool of his uniform.

It was cold out, the sun having set just moments prior. Jungkook had been hoping to take a leak away from the toilets that had been accumulating shit for the past week and not cleaned out, having ducked out the back for quick relief.

He furrowed his eyebrows, already knowing he was too obviously out there to retreat back in as if he didn’t see him, but worried about being chastised yet again.

“Sir?” He asked instinctually, once again feeling like a creepy voyeur, but compelled to talk to him nonetheless. He didn’t look good. As in, he looked sick. Commander Park didn’t budge, seeming unusually focused on breathing. “Sir, are you okay?”

No response. For someone hardened by war and ranking so highly, he sure seemed overwhelmed a lot. Whether it was crying or just appearing out of it, Jungkook felt bad for him. Perhaps there was something he didn’t know about behind the scenes. Actually, there were definitely things he didn’t know about. He wasn’t stupid enough to think his superiors told them everything they had to do—to witness. When the superiors had to leave camp and go to the front lines or back to home base. There was a reason why his battalion hadn’t been called out to the front lines yet. He just didn’t know it.

“Commander?” He tried, kneeling down beside him. He briefly considered stroking some of his sweaty hair back, but that felt way out of line. Too intimate. Despite his shell-shocked appearance. “Jimin?”

“I led them to their death,” Commander Park mumbled, sounding distant and barely intelligible as he gazed straight ahead at nothing in particular. Jungkook looked ahead with him, like that would help him understand what he was talking about. He wasn’t sure the Commander even registered him being there. “I let them die because I was selfish.”

“Should I call someone?” Jungkook offered, growing more and more concerned. Had he not known drugs and stimulants were in scarce supply, he would have assumed the Commander had taken something, his blown pupils swimming quietly in the depths of his eyes. He racked his brain for what to say to remedy the situation, watching the Commander’s lips tinge blue from the cold air outside. He tried a last resort. “Should I call for General Kim?”

Then, Commander Park’s eyes snapped up, wide and afraid. Jungkook almost regretted speaking, not sure what caused that level of anxiety. He could hear a lieutenant barking orders inside somewhere, and knew he should be in line to wash up as they spoke. Somehow, he felt it more pressing for him to stand there with a near delirious superior, ignoring every inch of his common sense telling him to get his ass back inside. Was this shell shock? It wasn’t like he’d ever seen it before. Should he actually be calling for someone to help?

“Don’t tell him,” Commander Park almost pleaded, reaching up a hand for him. Jungkook took it awkwardly. He was sweating.

“Let’s get you inside,” he said hesitantly, pulling the Commander up by his arm. Commander Park let him, willingly. He was barely able to stand on shaky legs, and so Jungkook made the executive decision to use his hard-earned brawn to carry him, scooping the slim male into his arms and heading for the door back in. It was only in his arms like that that Jungkook felt just how small he was. He weighed nothing close to what everyone had weighed that he’d been forced to train leg amputation-aide with, putting up no fuss as he walked him in.

Panicking suddenly, he hoped to god nobody would see them like this. For his Commander’s sake, but also his own. It wasn’t like it wasn’t debasing for him to be bridal-carrying his Commander through the barracks. He cursed himself for not thinking this through. He had to pass the scullery and lieutenant quarters to get to the other half of the offices, not even sure which one belonged to Jimin. Was it the room he’d seen him cry in? Where had that even been? Everything looked so different from when he’d emerged from the scullery. Jungkook just kept walking, adjusting the Commander in his arms ever so slightly every so often.

As he walked down a west wing corridor, he spotted General Kim’s room, hesitating near it.

Don’t tell him, rang clearly through his ears. Problem was, General Kim was the only other superior that Jungkook knew the Commander was on good terms—or at least, speaking terms—with. Though bothering their top-ranked military leader with something like this did seem absurd. It wasn’t very often that the General was in camp, either.

Grumbling, he barreled past it, ducking out of the way of a pair of steps he heard in the distance. Fuck it, he was risking it all, now. What if it looked like he’d been the one to send his own Commander into this state? If he valued his military career, he would drop him now like a hot potato before anyone saw.

But he just couldn’t. Not when he felt so small and helpless in his arms.

Just when his body started screaming under the strain, he finally saw the metal plate that alerted him to reaching the Commander’s room. He shoved inside with his shoulders, making for the bed at the side of the desk, where he lowered Jimin down.

“You’re okay now,” he told him, making sure his head wasn’t placed at an angle on the mattress. He stroked a hand over the Commander’s forehead, feeling for a fever. He was burning up. “Just stay here for a bit and rest,” he instructed, unbuttoning the man’s constricting uniform jacket to make sure he didn’t choke on himself while lying there. When opening the jacket, he spotted red markings up his neck, disappearing into his shirt. He decided not to investigate further, already way overstepping bounds as it was. Perhaps a thought process for another time. “Do you need anything?”

Commander Park gazed up at him quizzically, eyes shining bright even in the dark room. He blinked a few times and opened his mouth like a goldfish, before closing his eyes, seeming to give in to a latent exhaustion. Jungkook sat there and stared at him for a few minutes, making sure he was completely out, before he got up from the creaking bed, retreated out of the room, and practically sprinted back to his own sleeping quarters.

If someone else had taken roll call while he was gone, he was fucked.

*

That next morning hit him like a sack of bricks. Lacking a watch, he was unsure when he’d fallen asleep after yesterday’s incident, but he woke up to a raging headache and shivers. He could feel his sluggishness as he pulled on and tried to do up his leather boots, one of the last men to leave their sleeping quarters that morning.

He tried not to think about last night, but somehow his brain kept flashing him images of Commander Park, sweaty and absent, looking to him for help. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to go to the dining hall that morning to look for him there. Maybe he should have stood down and left it alone. Someone would have found him eventually. What if Commander Park realized that he’d been inside his quarters, carried him, and seen him at his most vulnerable—then decided to dismiss him from service? It wasn’t like he loved fighting, but it beat starving in his tiny village.

He groaned, running a hand through his hair. Still, he wouldn’t have done anything differently. He remembered how scared Commander Park had looked, how alone. Nobody deserved to be alone when they could die any day.

“Private Jeon,” Commander Park’s familiar voice rang into the room, and he turned to face the sound, lifting his head up attentively. Jimin was dressed in his usual black uniform, skin rosy and healthy again, his hair styled neatly. He looked better. More with it. The couple of other boys in their sleeping quarters looked between the two of them quizzically, but Jungkook didn’t care. Commander Park, however, looked rather embarrassed. He spoke quietly and curtly. “Can I see you in my office, please?”

Jungkook didn’t bother nodding or uttering a verbal ‘yes’, just springing up to walk after him, wondering if this was the moment he would get dismissed. He walked behind Commander Park obediently, following him back down corridors that were now rather familiar to him. Commander Park didn’t speak a word until they got to his office. He walked Jungkook in, moving to take a seat at his, rather empty, desk. Jungkook could see him struggling with something. With what exactly, he wasn’t so sure.

He ushered for Jungkook to sit in the chair in front of him. Jungkook did, keeping his composure as best as he could. The room was cold, a breeze flowing in from somewhere.

“I must apologize for my state the other day,” Commander Park said, hesitating with every word he spoke and seeming uncertain of each syllable. Like each letter was a struggle to form in his mouth. “I was unwell.”

“I understand,” Jungkook said quickly, trying his best to look into Commander Park’s eyes sincerely. The Commander seemed intent on avoiding eye contact, the bridge of his nose dusted with a heated, pink colour.

“I shouldn’t have let you see me in that condition,” Commander Park continued on, biting his lip, as if holding something back. Jungkook wished he could just relax. Why was he so strained around this? Sure, it might have been embarrassing for him, but it was hardly the end of the world for his Commander to have taken something hard when they were stuck in a never-ending war.

“I’m glad I saw you in that condition,” Jungkook said, before he realized how weird that sounded, and backpedalled. Jimin finally looked him in the eye, blush still stuck in his cheeks. “I mean—I’m glad I found you. That I could take care of you. You looked really upset, and...and I’m glad you feel better.”

“It’s not your job to take care of your superiors, Jungkook,” Commander Park said, careworn. Jungkook felt just the tiniest sliver of pride in that the Commander knew his name. He figured reading names off a list for weeks on end would get him to remember names easily, but still. It sounded good coming out of his mouth, in his light voice. Spoken with a slightly different tone than for bedtime roll-call. “I had a moment of weakness, and I’m sorry you had to be the one to see it.”

“Everyone needs help sometimes,” Jungkook insisted, trying to urge Commander Park to look at him directly again while he spoke. No such luck. “I’ll be there for you if you need it.”

There it was. An almost smile from Commander Park, the tiniest of pulls at his upper lip. Fleeting, only for him to see for a split second, before it was gone, pushed down. Still looking at his desk, or vaguely off the corner of it, Commander Park pressed his hands together.

“You’re sweet, Private Jeon. But don’t make it a habit. Nobody’s here to play friends.” It was weird, having Commander Park speak to him, but his eyes directed nowhere near his. He just gazed off into the distance, slightly to his left. “If I’m weak enough to lose it this early, I don’t deserve to be here.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Jungkook commented, afraid he’d crossed a line when Jimin finally looked at him again. His eyes were swimming with some unknown emotion. “I mean, God knows what you’ve had to see so far...”

“It’s the truth,” the Commander insisted. Jungkook hated how he just liked the way Jimin’s soft voice sounded speaking to him. It was the softest thing out there in their dirty hellscape. Even saying such things, it sounded comforting. “Next time, alert a superior so they can discharge me. The country needs vigilant leadership in these trying times.”

“Can’t exactly promise you I’d do that,” Jungkook said, honestly. Because that was what it was. Honest. Commander Park met his eyes again, looking like he was debating himself on whether or not to speak. Jungkook held his ground. Jimin sighed. His voice got softer.

“Dismissed.”

*

He wondered if it was delusion that he kept feeling Commander Park look at him from time to time while they trained and prepped. He supposed if he had to have anyone’s attention in camp, he was happy it was him. It meant Jungkook could flex a little harder, pull a little longer, and run a little faster to show off. To show the Commander that he’d graduated training top of his class. To give him something to look at and admire while the General was gone. The strongest weren’t all necessarily at the front lines. Some of them had to hold the base.

In the middle of target practice, Jungkook definitely caught him staring. To be fair, Jungkook could best anyone with a rifle. Feeding the sliding bolt eagerly with every shot and smelling the burn of the firing chamber, he hit his target dead center. Every time.

Standing, kneeling, and prone position. He could feel Jaehyun glance at him too, eventually. He blew through three targets before anyone else got to shoot, only letting up when he’d run out of ammunition. Most of the other soldiers didn’t care. It was hot, hazy, and food had been rationed by half.

“Feels like I’m fuckin’ back at bootcamp,” a soldier two beats away from Jungkook huffed, seemingly under his breath. It was clear, however, that Jimin heard him. Jimin walked over from his position, head held high.

“We haven’t been called to the front lines yet, so we’re training,” Commander Park reiterated. “The best we can do right now is hold our posts steady and wait for orders of strategic action.” He squinted at the soldier, walking even closer to him. Despite his small stature, it was clear he commanded respect. “If you don’t like that, you’re free to return home and spend the rest of the war with the children.” The soldier remained quiet in Jimin’s direct gaze, rifle clutched to his chest. Jimin stared at him for a few more moments, calm and collected. “That’s what I thought.”

Commander Park retreated, seemingly to return to his post where he oversaw their training. Jungkook glanced at the soldier, who he was pretty sure was named Choi, who looked red with embarrassment.

When the soldier assumed Jimin was just still in earshot, but far enough away to not take action, he muttered to himself, loudly.

“We can’t all suck the General’s cock to get cushy treatment.”

Jungkook registered Commander Park stopping for a split of a second, left leg halting ever so slightly, before he seemed to decide it wasn’t worth it. If he took the bait, it would seem like an admission of guilt. But taking it, he let his respect be tarnished. Jungkook could feel his frustration. And he knew from the other day—the General denying Commander Park front line service—that Commander Park rarely got what he wanted. He didn’t have it easier, or get his share of glory. The Commander and the General couldn’t have that great of a relationship if they were constantly at odds.

Commander Park walked further away, Jungkook left to glare at Private Choi, who looked pleased with himself. Choi reloaded his rifle, snickering as he glanced Jimin’s way, then over to the soldiers on Jungkook’s side of the shooting range.

Jungkook, not quite sure what exactly possessed him, turned his body slightly left, examining the target in the next track over, right behind the soldier—Choi’s—head. That seemed like a good target to try for. Not too far. Not too close. Just right.

He loaded his rifle, raising his elbows up and positioning his chin while setting comfortably into his steady position. Aim. Stock balanced. Safety off.

A loud bang erupted, his shot just barely grazing past Choi’s ear, hitting the target yards away dead-center. Choi screamed, clutching his ear and probably hearing loud ringing sounds as he registered his broken eardrum. Jungkook lowered the gun, disappointed to feel that he wasn’t remorseful, but rather felt relieved. He knew Jaehyun and the others had stopped and were staring at him like he’d killed someone. He clearly hadn’t.

More whimpers, quite exaggeratingly so. The air really smelled like lead.

“Jeon!” Came the unmistakable sound of Commander Park’s call. He looked up, spotting a frantic Jimin rushing towards him, eyes hard. “My office,” he barked. “Now.”

Commander Park didn’t even look back to check that he was following him as he stormed into the barrack halls. Jungkook kept pace, knowing the way almost by heart now. Two strides left, one right. Past the scullery. Past the General’s quarters. It was quiet there, most of the soldiers outside, keeping their fingers warm and their triggers happy. He wondered who would watch them with Jimin gone. A whole squad unsupervised after someone had almost had their ear shot off. Must be a spectacle. He was almost sad he wasn’t there to witness it.

When they were finally inside, Jimin only barely had time to shut the door, not even bothering to sit down before he let him have it.

“Private Jeon,” he exhaled, seeming out of breath. He appeared to have a hard time looking Jungkook in the eyes again. Sweat was gathering on his upper lip. Jungkook had the strangest, most unfitting urge to lick it off. Touch his flush cheeks. “That sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable. Are you unhinged?” he yelled, staring up at Jungkook, finally. Jungkook didn’t respond. He let Jimin fire at him, the man almost tearing his hair out as he ran a hand through it when Jungkook didn’t answer him. “This isn’t training,” Commander Park continued. “This is war.” He looked up into his eyes directly, squinting angrily. His voice was almost shaking. “If you had put my soldier out of commission, when every head we can get counts...our people’s ruin would be on your hands.”

Jungkook inhaled a deep breath. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that. It wasn’t like he was stupid, or that he thought what he’d done was a good idea. Truth was, he wasn’t sure what made him do it. But it had come so easily to him. Something he felt so compelled to do it was like an itch he couldn’t not scratch.

“My hand slipped,” he said after a moment of silence between them. Jimin looked into his eyes, unable to speak. Jimin must be able to read him. Surely. His hand definitely hadn’t slipped. He wouldn’t have grieved if he’d hit Choi straight in the head, if he was completely honest, and he was almost sure Commander Park could tell.

“Never again,” Jimin just settled for saying, voice markedly more quiet than it had been previously. “You’re not seeing a gun again. Not until you’re storming front lines, one inch from death.”

Jungkook took a deep breath, liking the feeling of Commander Park’s puffs hitting his chin ever so softly from the inches between them. He held his gaze, nodding slowly.

“Yes, Sir.”

*

Breakfast got less appetizing as the days went by, Jungkook’s tongue less impressed by potatoes and sausages the twentieth time he had them that week. But the other soldiers were in a good mood, playing the knife game with their blunt butter knives and being rowdier than usual.

The General was back, so spirits were up. Jungkook felt like right now was a shit time for him to get another headache, but it still crept up on him, leaving his temples throbbing. The loud clanging of metal plates and cups on wooden tables didn’t help alleviate it much, either. God, he hated the mess hall. Not to mention, Choi and a few others weren’t speaking to him after the incident.

“How’d they let someone so tiny in, anyways?”

Jungkook tuned back into their conversation, seeing that the majority of soldiers at his end of the table had turned their attention to the front. Jungkook could only assume they were talking about Commander Park, who had his back facing them as he spoke to the General and one of the North Battalion Sergeants. It wasn’t like he hadn’t wondered the same thing himself. The Commander was small—or at least smaller than most of the men there—and he was also in a position of power. He must have really impressed his superiors with at least something to be given a rank. Maybe it was battle tactics. It wasn’t like it was unheard of for people to be there for their brains.

“He barely reaches any of the Sergeants to chest level. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

A few short, stifled laughs ensued. A couple of pairs of cutlery banged down on plates. Jungkook felt oddly irked by his comment, biting back his tongue from saying something. At least he didn’t have a gun to fire when he became ‘unhinged’.

“Sungwoon!” Another soldier—Jungkook hadn’t bothered to learn his name—whacked the guy on the shoulder.

“Watch him hear you from across the fucking room,” another one of them hissed, punching Sungwoon once more for good measure. Jungkook was in his camp—he had no desire to be written up for being rowdy and loud. He’d been written up for less before. He glanced nervously up at the front table, their superiors luckily still absorbed in conversation. Jimin looked happy and healthy, going about business as normal. Even hints of a smile, as he spoke to his peers. Spoke to the General.

“Let him; I don’t care,” the soldier named Sungwoon said, getting cocky. “What I really wish is for him to hear how desperately I jerk off to him every night,” the others laughed at that, some nodding their heads in fervent agreement and some shaking them in disapproval vigorously, all of them getting riled up. “I’m telling you,” Sungwoon continued, confident still. His voice kept getting louder. Sungwoon turned back towards the front and made a little circle with his fingers, peering through it, directly at the Commander. His face pulled a mockingly dreamy expression. “See—if you’re desperate enough and you squint, he can pass as that one ex girlfriend you have that you wish you could fuck just one last time before you die.”

The table erupted into roaring laughter, and Jungkook saw his life flash before his eyes as it caught the attention of most of their superiors. He jolted forward and covered Jaehyun’s loud laughter with his hand, pressing it over his mouth. The others clued in right after, but it was too late.

What none of them had expected was for the General himself to get up. The entire room full of hundreds of soldiers fell silent, watching with every step as General Kim made his way forward into the room.

His boots sounded loud and heavy against the hollow floor. Nobody had ever looked at him up close. He was broad, aura demanding. His eyes were uncaring but piercing, jet black hair framing his face. He stopped right in front of their table, lips in a thin line. Jungkook felt almost sick with fear, something he hadn’t felt since his newest day as a green hand in training with a sergeant yelling into his ear loud enough to deafen him. Never had he thought he’d be face-to-face with the General of the fucking army.

“Commander Park,” the General instructed, not facing Jimin as he spoke. His hard eyes rested on Sungwoon, the guy looking like he might just piss himself or pass out, or both. Hell, Jungkook was ready to. They were all holding their breath, hanging on every syllable the General let out of his mouth. “Take these boys to the back room to get a second helping. They look hungry.”

Commander Park was behind the General instantly, looking on with a neutral expression, ready to follow orders. Jungkook tried to catch his eye, but failed. Commander Park was busy training his gaze to the back of the General’s neck. He looked half uncertain, half resigned. When Commander Park finally looked down at his crew of soldiers, he pointed a single, firm hand towards the door. They didn’t need to be told twice.

Scrambling over each other, they pulled away from the table, following where Commander Park had pointed before the General moved again. Finally out of sight, with Commander Park at their heels, they dared to look at each other.

“Keep walking,” Commander Park said, seeming to push the slowest man forward, the guy right behind Jungkook.

“C-Commander—” Sungwoon started, instantly cut off by a fierce voice.

“It’s ‘Sir’ to you,” Jimin corrected. Jungkook could feel his stare at the back of their necks. “And I didn’t say you could speak.”

And so they kept walking, in silence. Somehow the halls had never smelled this bad, or been this dark. Jungkook picked up on the dirt lining the floor and walls, along with the creeping shadows from the doors. A vague hue of green tinted all the old wood that had been used to build every inch of that place.

“Second door to the left,” Commander Park instructed.

They ducked in the door, coming face to face with an unassuming room. There were shelves of supplies and food lining the perimeters of it. Cans of beans, spam, and peas, as well as sacks of rice and flour. A faint stench of meat that had gone off. Like some sick joke, Jungkook wondered if this really was the back room where they would get more food. But the thought didn’t last long.

“Commander?” Someone asked—Jungkook couldn’t be bothered to register who when half of everyone he even vaguely knew was in there—when the Commander moved to one of the shelves and picked out a bag of salt. He didn’t say anything before he returned, opening the bag and kicking it towards them.

“Grab a handful of salt each, please,” he instructed. They chanced a quick glance at each other, before looking back at him. The unease was palpable in the air. ‘Getting seconds’, my ass, Jungkook thought. In what realm would that be what they were in for? “We don’t have all day.”

Jungkook led the group, walking up and sticking his hand in the bag unceremoniously, before pulling out a good helping of it. Everyone else followed suit, until all of them had a spilling fistful of salt held out in front of them. Jimin, patiently, went to put the bag away. When he came back, he looked as indifferent as usual.

“Get in a line.”

They did, struggling to hold onto the salt without it slipping between the cracks of their fingers. Luckily, the next thing Commander Park said was—

“Drop the salt. Roll your pants up.”

It felt like some strange, sacrificial ritual. Yet, every action they took felt more pointless than the last. Jungkook rolled up his combat fatigue pants, feeling it clump thickly around his sturdy thighs.

“Kneel on it.”

They looked at each other confusedly again, then back to their Commander. The Commander didn’t seem to think there was much to misunderstand.

“Kneel on—”

“Yes,” Jimin cut Sungwoon off with, standing oddly still. Jungkook shivered, never having felt much fear due to the Commander, until just then. “On the salt.”

They did as they were told, hesitantly strewing the granules on the floor while Jimin watched. Jungkook was confused as to how this was punishment. With the absolute death glare and gravelly tone the General had given them, he had expected Jimin to take them into the back room and shoot them each in the head one by one. Though he supposed that would unnecessarily deplete their numbers for front-line war.

He started understanding quite quickly, however, when his knees were planted in the salt. It was a slow burn, quite literally. What he thought should feel like dust under his skin instead felt like a million shards of glass, scraping into his flesh and making it sting. His weight on it made his head sing in pain, every muscle in his body tensing up. He swore he could taste blood in his mouth.

The others must be feeling it too, since very soon every man was leaning their ass down on their calves, groaning.

“Up. No sitting,” Jimin bit out coldly.

They got back up. Jaehyun was cursing under his breath, and he could see Sungwoon sweating through his hair. It started smelling like saliva and sweaty bodies in there real quickly after that.

Just when Jungkook was thinking the Commander might let up on them as his knees were starting to have mercy on him by going numb, he watched the Commander walk over to the other side of the room and pull out another bag. Inside it, he grabbed at something that made a clinking sound. His hands emerged full of stones.

“Arms out. Palms up,” Jimin said then, continuing his process.

Sungwoon’s eyes widened in horror, clearly already distraught from his knees being fucked up. Jungkook barely had time to consider his knees before he felt two cold stones being dropped into his hands, one in each palm. Curiously, when he looked over at Sungwoon, he seemed to have gotten the most, trying to balance out eight or so. Jaehyun looked to have about five. He quickly closed his fists to hide his lesser amount, focusing on straining his shoulders to keep his arms up, assuming that was the brunt of the punishment.

“Keep them out,” Jimin confirmed. “Lower them past horizontal and your knees won’t be hurting anymore, because I’ll have blown the caps off with my gun.”

A few of them looked at each other deliriously. Sungwoon was sending Jimin a pained death glare from where he was kneeled, clearly angry. Jaehyun was biting his bottom lip so hard it bled, grumbling low curse words and threats to himself that only Jungkook could hear, because he was kneeled right next to him.

“This is the lightest punishment I could have given you that would still be deemed acceptable by the General,” Jimin continued, carefully putting the bag of stones back where he found it. His gentle way of handling the stones was so at odds with his cold, threatening nature while punishing them. “I suggest you make an effort not to annoy him in the future, if you want to keep your tongues. He’s not a forgiving man.”

While his arms and knees were burning, his head shrouded in pain and agony, Jungkook made a mental note to never cross the General again. Not that he had any reason to ever do it. Hell, he didn’t even deserve this punishment, as he’d only happened to be sitting next to knucklehead one and two as they’d gone about getting offensive and obscene out in the open. Maybe he’d work on trying to avoid eye contact with the General, too. Not even breathe near him. Just in case.

Sungwoon was the one to fail first, whining in pain as one of his arms lowered. Jimin responded swiftly. He pulled his gun out of its holster like it was the easiest thing he’d ever done. Though Jungkook knew they wouldn’t get shot due to it being counterproductive for the war, he didn’t expect Jimin to hit Sungwoon upside the head with the gun, either. Sungwoon yelled, dropping the stones and clutching his face in agony. Jaehyun, who looked like he had been about to pass out, quickly straightened his arms out again.

Choi, who he couldn’t remember the first name of, sadly, did pass out. His rocks flew everywhere after what Jungkook could only guess was twenty or so minutes of them being forced to kneel in the salt with their arms out. Jimin was next to him faster than he expected, pulling Choi’s head up by his hair, only to realize he was still out cold.

Jungkook swallowed hard. Luckily for him, and hopefully unbeknownst to all of his comrades there, his weight load wasn’t too heavy. Not that that made holding his arms out much easier, but he wasn’t on the brink of losing consciousness. When Jimin passed by him, he didn’t pay him much mind. Jungkook supposed he should be grateful.

After the longest five more minutes of his life, Jimin finally put his gun back in its holster. Jungkook blinked rapidly, relief coursing through his body. He was sweating all over, and he felt like he was about to shit himself. His spine hurt. His knees burned. His arms barely felt like arms.

“Alright, at ease. Head back to your beds quickly so you don’t miss roll call.”

It was easier said than done. Jungkook’s arms were too stiff to move. Jaehyun looked quite out of it, and Sungwoon had a blooming bruise on the side of his cheek, along with a small cut. Choi, pitifully, had tears leaking down his face after being shaken back to consciousness and forced to sit upright again. Their rocks all fell pathetically to the floor, and it must have been a hilarious scene watching them attempt to stand up on their legs again.

Jimin was gone from the room before any of them had the chance to fully recover.

*

Unwilling to stay in there and listen to everyone complain and let out their frustration, but also unwilling to show up for roll call, Jungkook just rushed out of the room, his feet taking him in a familiar direction down the corridors.

Maybe he was out of his mind. Actually, he probably was. But somehow, he wanted to know how Jimin was feeling. And somehow, the ache in his arms and knees didn’t bother him as much as they should.

He rounded the corner and spotted the Commander’s quarters, knocking on the door without much of a second thought. It was quiet, and the Commander seemed to be alone.

“Come in,” said the Commander’s familiar voice.

Jungkook pushed the door open. Commander Park was leaning hunched over his desk, looking tired. He’d taken his uniform jacket off to reveal a sheer, black undershirt, his hair hanging in quite loose strands out of his usual bun. Jungkook had never seen him like this before. The Commander straightened up instantly when he spotted that it was Jungkook at the door. Perhaps he’d been expecting someone else.

“Private Jeon,” Jimin acknowledged wearily, sitting back in his chair. Jungkook wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he swore he saw an apologetic smile curl at Jimin’s lips.

“Commander,” Jungkook answered back, closing the door behind himself. Though he wasn’t about to do anything weird, it didn’t feel right to let anyone else see or hear his conversations with Jimin. They felt strangely intimate. Personal.

“Why haven’t you gone for roll call?” Jimin asked, but it was futile. Jungkook just walked closer to him, until he was standing tall and hovering over him in front of his desk.

“Why did you only give me two rocks?” Jungkook inquired. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to not answer a question from his Commander and then proceed with his own, but something in his gut told him it was okay.

He expected some pushback, but instead, Jimin’s eyes turned soft. He looked down at his hands, stretching them against the surface of the desk. If Jungkook wasn’t wildly reading into things, it almost felt like he was getting shy. Or ashamed?

“I know you weren’t a part of the...rowdiness,” Jimin explained. He was still busying himself with his fingers, his eyes cast low as he spoke, suddenly worlds away from how direct and confident he’d been in the room with Jungkook and all of his ‘friends’. “When I glanced at you earlier, you were eating quietly, minding your own business. And I wanted to...” he paused, seeming to try and find the right choice of words. “Thank you for the other day.”

Whether Jimin meant the shooting or the comforting, he was unsure. He supposed it didn’t matter. He had helped Jimin in more ways than one, tactless though as his methods had been.

“Did you...” hear them? he wanted to ask, but it died in his throat. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know whether the Commander had heard those crude comments or not. Somehow, he didn’t want him to be aware of what the other soldiers thought of him. Because Jungkook didn’t think of him like that. Jimin was strong. And calm. And tactful. He was beautiful, trying his best, and seemed to have the composure of the most resilient man when left alone with their battalion. Jungkook almost wanted to spite the General for ever leaving Jimin alone.

The Commander looked up at him, then looked away. He reached down and then passed Jungkook a wet cloth from a bucket at his feet, placing it into Jungkook’s hands carefully.

“For your knees,” he said. The faint light from his desk lamp reflected in his pretty eyes, also illuminating the soft pink in his cheeks. He had the faintest hint of a friendly smile on his lips.

Jungkook took the cloth. He swore he wasn’t getting infatuated. He just had the most pressing urge and intrusive daydream of Jimin wiping the scrapes on his knees with his soft touch. Like a mother, soothing a child, treating him with care. He wanted his cake and to eat it too.

He accepted that he had most definitely lost his mind when he blurted out, “Can you help me?” while holding the dripping cloth over Jimin’s desk, looking at him with persistent eyes.

“Help you?” Jimin asked, sounding confused, like he’d never been asked anything in his life.

Jungkook gulped, swallowing hard. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Jimin had shown him enough leniency and softness the past few months to at the very least let him believe himself to not be a lunatic in this instance.

“Clean the wounds,” Jungkook clarified.

Jimin peered down at his knees. Instead of giving him an earful about how he wasn’t his mother or feeling insulted by the request, Commander Park surprised him when he took the cloth back from his hand gently, moving around the desk to stand next to him. It felt almost like a fever dream when the Commander sank down on his knees in front of Jungkook, reaching out to carefully lift his pant leg.

Jungkook was breathing heavily, whether from the gentle touch of Jimin’s fingers on his skin or the excruciating pain, he wasn’t too sure. He clenched his eyes shut, and let out a groan. Maybe he shouldn’t look down at the Commander on his knees for him. It felt like sacrilege. Maybe he’d bitten off more than he should ever attempt to chew.

“Does it hurt?” Came Jimin’s soft voice. Jungkook still had his eyes closed, focusing on the feeling of Jimin’s warm fingers resting at the back of his knee. He knotted his brows and grimaced.

“Real bad.”

“Sorry,” he heard Jimin say. Then, he felt the wet cloth dab gently at his skin.

Jungkook hissed, feeling Jimin hesitate. It was a special kind of euphoria, feeling the most delicate, wonderful touch on him at a moment of his most blinding, horrendous pain.

His hand reached down naturally to ghost over Jimin’s head of hair, encouraging him to keep going despite his pained grunting. God, he was vaguely touching the Commander’s hair. Even without his eyes open that felt sinful, absolutely something that should warrant his death. But Jimin kept going, wiping at his achy knees with continued effort. His hand clenched at tiny strands of Jimin’s hair from time to time when it got really painful, but somehow, the Commander didn’t tell him off.

He felt like he was floating. Jimin’s hair was soft and warm. Jimin’s fingers were soft and warm. The cloth was wet and dripping, water running down his legs as Jimin worked. It was the closest he’d come to having sex for a year, never mind any shred of intimacy. He bit his tongue to prevent himself from getting hard, and opened his eyes to stare up at the ceiling and the nasty cobwebs in one of the corners with spiders in it. He felt completely lost, time and space swirling around him. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after this.

“Soldier,” he heard, low and gruff into the room, the voice most certainly not belonging to Jimin as it carried a sense of rumbling menace.

Jungkook whirled around in panic, only to be met with the sight of the General in the opening of Jimin’s door, looking unamused as he observed them, his full uniform still on despite it being evening and roll call being over. Jungkook hadn’t heard him come in.

He almost fell backwards, letting go of the Commander’s hair and instantly putting space between them.

“G-General Kim,” Commander Park stuttered, flustered as well and seeming to flush as he got up from the floor, dropping the wet rag unceremoniously to his feet.

General Kim glanced down at the rag, then over at Commander Park, before he settled a piercing, hard gaze on Jungkook. Jungkook felt himself pale under his eyes, body frozen. What was the General doing in Jimin’s room anyhow? And this late?

“Perhaps too optimistic of me to believe you’d be able to tell when you’re being dismissed?” The General crowed mockingly, spurring Jungkook’s brain back into function.

He shuffled backwards, eyes wide in fear as he practically ran out of the room with his tail between in legs, his rolled up pant legs forgotten and the stinging wet feeling of his knees, along with the ghost of the warm touch on his calves, pushed to the side in favour of him getting out of the line of sight of the General like his life depended on it.

*

Jungkook went through drills quite miserably the next day, and mostly not because of his sore knees.

Jimin was nowhere to be found the next few weeks, having been replaced with Lieutenant Jung until further notice. He only returned to conduct drills when General Kim went off to the front lines again, seeming a little out of sorts. Jungkook was aware that General Kim being gone was usually a difficult time for Jimin for whatever reason, but it was at the point now where Jimin barely looked at him, or anyone else for that matter, and his usual charm and peppy humour was missing from his commands.

Jungkook tried to catch Commander Park’s attention a few times in passing, if only to apologize for the awkward situation he’d put him in when he was last with him, but Commander Park seemed determined to act like he wasn’t there.

Eventually, the longest time without General Kim being in camp so far fell upon them. Jungkook somehow wondered if he dreaded being called to fight on the front lines more or dreaded General Kim not coming back, if only to have Jimin return to his normal self.

*

It was the middle of the night, or so Jungkook assumed, when he felt a slap on the chest and a hushed voice telling him to get up. He blinked blearily into the dark room, a figure standing above him.

“Jaehyun...? Are you fucking crazy?” He whispered loudly, hoping to god his voice didn’t carry. They were the only ones moving in the dead silence of the room, Jaehyun practically yanking his sheets off of him.

“Calm down,” Jaehyun almost laughed. “Nobody’s here to write us up,” he insisted, though he was still whispering, too. “Come on, man, get up. Clock’s ticking.”

Jungkook, against his better judgement, did get up, letting his exhausted feet carry him out towards the end of the room. After days of monotony, he hated to admit it, but whatever this was was the most exciting thing that had happened to him since…since....

“What are we—”

“Ssh!” Jaehyun hissed at him, seemingly in good spirits, before dragging him out the door of the sleeping quarters and down closer to the offices.

The floors were nicer on this side of the barracks—almost hardwood. Which he was already aware of. He tried to walk in a way that wouldn’t have it creak under him, but Jaehyun was impatient, propelling them forward.

“Slow down!” He hissed. Sure, he’d see what the fuck Jaehyun wanted, but he was not about to be kicked out of the military for sneaking around late at night again. Not after all his hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. Not with all the sleepless nights and skinned knees.

They didn’t stop before they were posted up outside a big, wooden door, the words ‘General’s Quarters’ printed on a metal plate across it. Jungkook stared at Jaehyun at a loss, feeling his heart start palpitating in his chest. Jaehyun just wiggled his eyebrows.

“He came back tonight,” Jaehyun just whispered, slapping Jungkook’s shoulder as quietly as he could. He had a really bad habit of doing that. “Trust me, you don’t wanna miss this. Consider it my gift to you for the smokes on your first day. And feeling bad for you being dragged into the punishment with us.”

No idea what the guy was on about, Jungkook just nodded, standing there like fucking shrubbery. He wasn’t sure what General Kim had to do with anything. He knew General Kim was the highest authority, but had barely gotten to interact with him, and he had fuck all to do with Jungkook’s day-to-day, really, aside from his two bad run-ins.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Jaehyun just said, sending him a parting, shit-eating grin, as if he’d just done Jungkook the favour of a lifetime. “Have a looksie.”

Then he was gone, soft steps disappearing back down the corridor they’d come from.

Fuck. Jungkook was so fucked. He swallowed, having half a mind to walk back. He groaned to himself, now realizing he might not be able to find his way back to his sleeping quarters in the complete darkness. And here he’d been ready for a grand discovery. Still confused regarding what great ‘gift’ Jaehyun had bestowed upon him, he peered near the door, tryingo make sense of his ‘gift’. He could see dim light coming from under the door, seeming to come from some sort of live source of light, like candles. The General must still be awake. He leaned his head closer, slowing his breathing to be more observant and quiet.

Were those voices? Suddenly, Jungkook was alert, reaching his hands out to feel for the door handle, careful not to push it. His heart thumped wildly in his chest, the illegality of whatever it was he was doing making his knees weak without even the threat of being caught.

He bent his strained knees down to the keyhole, which was missing a key to block his view. He blinked, focusing his eyes to the dim light, illuminated by a single gas lamp.

It was hard to see anything at first, his eye peering around the walls and furniture, until they landed on something moving. He saw two figures inside, one bigger and one smaller. One—the General, broad as ever and fully clothed in his intimidating blue uniform. The second—

“Come on, pretty baby doll. I can’t hear you.”

Jungkook almost stopped breathing when he recognized the second person in the room, having to blink his eyes hard and pinch his thigh to make sure he hadn’t caught the army crazies. Sitting on General Kim’s lap, wearing absolutely nothing and with his hair tied back in a tiny bun, skin of his back and ass red with hand prints, was Commander Park, a far cry from how Jungkook was used to seeing him every day. Aside from the one time he’d caught him crying. And that other time—

“S-Stop—I can’t—”

“Come here, angel.”

It was hard to see exactly what was going on through the tiny hole into the dim room, but Jungkook could make out the General’s hand squeezing the Commander’s jaw and pulling him down for a filthy kiss, other hand busy kneading at his shapely ass. Jungkook realized he hadn’t known Commander Park had been hiding a body like that under his ghastly uniform get-up. Milky skin for days and lithe muscles, all leading up to the tuft of pretty hair.

“Taehyung—”

The General’s name, Jungkook registered. God, the Commander sounded wrecked. It felt so weird to have someone say the General’s name so casually. Jungkook was certain that outside of that room—outside of that door—the Commander wouldn’t dream of doing so. But it seemed like with just the two of them, that was the accepted norm.

“Look at you, taking my cock so good,” General Kim said. It wasn’t until then that Jungkook realized he was watching the General fuck his Commander, hips gyrating up in his chair as he murmured filthy things to him in liteny. “So good for me. My pretty baby.”

The Commander was pliable, like a doll, letting himself be bounced and thrust into as he just stifled moan after moan into his own hand, plastered against the strong body of his General, his entire expanse of skin sheened with sweat. Jungkook could feel himself growing hard. Granted, they were very deprived in there, but watching Commander Park get bounced like that while his ass jiggled, demeanor so different from how he was in public as the General cooed him into submission, he had never felt so weak.

“Ah-a-ah, God—” another whine, the Commander’s face looking slicked with either tears, sweat, or spit—or all of the above. He sounded desperate, teetering on the edge, breath whispy and staccato.

“You wanna come, baby doll?” The General’s deeper voice said next to his ear, almost so low Jungkook couldn’t hear it. He realized now that the General was holding a grip around the base of the Commander’s cock, a tight ring with his middle finger and thumb. Jungkook almost passed out when he saw how small the Commander was, the General barely having to try to encircle the entire circumference of his length with two fingers.

“Please, Sir, please,” Jimin breathed, hips stuttering and limbs shaking as he tried to move himself. The General laughed at his attempts, having stilled his thrusting a little while ago.

“Be patient. Hey,” he grabbed the Commander’s chin again, forcing him to look at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The next thing he knew, the General used one hand to lock both of the Commander’s arms behind his back, effectively immobilizing him. His other hand raised up to the Commander’s mouth, thumb pressing against his plump lips.

“Suck on this while you come, baby doll. You’re too loud.” The General commanded. With that voice, it was no surprise that the Commander obeyed instantly, opening his lips and taking the General’s thumb all the way in. The Commander seemed to move his hips again, frustrated at the lack of mobility he now had with his loss of arms and mouth, and body tired and fucked out. The General noticed, chuckling to himself with what looked like a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Don’t worry, sweet. I’ll make you come. Just be good for me.”

“‘m always good for you,” the Commander gurgled desperately around his thumb, eyes looking blown and face wrecked. So many strands of blonde hair had fallen out of his little ponytail, rendering it almost useless. The General smiled up at him fondly, eyes almost disappearing with endearment.

“I know.”

Then, the General went to work, setting a fatal pace with his hips. The Commander yelped, muffled by the finger in his mouth. Raw sounds of skin slapping skin filled the room, and almost the hallway, Jungkook feeling himself get closer to the edge just from watching. It was clear that even the General, at this point, was coming close to his limit. Jungkook couldn’t even imagine the ecstasy he must be feeling, balls deep inside the Commander’s shapely, slick ass.

It dawned on him, at that point, that he was being violently intrusive by watching, not to mention breaking half a dozen rules and just being all around morally reprehensible. But he was frozen stuck, unable to move. Infatuation with Commander Park or not.

“You’re so cute when you walk around telling everyone what to do,” the General murmured playfully, still pistoning into the Commander at an unforgiving pace. He leaned so close into the Commander’s ear that Jungkook had to strain his ears to hear him. “Wish your boys knew that the only reason you’re here is because you’re so good at warming my cock.”

This seemed to make Commander Park more alert, his eyes widening. The General seemed uncaring, proceeding to thrust into Jimin within an inch of his life.

It didn’t take long for Jimin to come undone, whining against the thumb in his mouth and sagging forwards. Jimin’s body now limp, the General looked down at him fondly, letting him rest against him in the swivel chair.

“Jiminnie,” he said gently into the silence, stroking his back. A small call of attention. Not an urgent request. He massaged the Commander’s limbs, as if trying to bring the blood circulation back. Jungkook tried to take a step back to take his leave, but the floorboard creaked. He panicked, lifting his leg back and clasping a hand over his mouth. He saw the General’s head lift up to glance at the door.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You undermined my post,” Jungkook heard the Commander croak then, voice fucked from strain. He held his breath and bit his lip in relief. The Commander sounded petulant, a little whiny, and he could almost hear the pout that accompanied his words. “I worked hard to get here, you know.”

The General stared at the door for one more drawn out second, then moved his attention back to the sweaty lump in his arms.

“I know,” the General laughed, smiling down at the Commander. He stroked his hair back. Jungkook finally released his breath, relieved and saved by his own Commander. “I’m sorry.”

This time, Jungkook didn’t hesitate. He tore his eyes away, finally, and stepped back as fast as his bare feet would allow him, muscles propelling him down the hall as light as he could carry himself.

He could hear Jaehyun laugh quietly when Jungkook sprinted back into the sleeping quarters and hurried under his covers like there was a boogeyman after him.

“Good, huh?” Jaehyun whispered down at him from above him on the bunk bed. “Worth about a thousand spots in the spank bank, that.”

Jungkook ignored him, breathing hard into his pillow to calm himself down. He wasn’t exactly sure why he felt so shell-shocked but turned on at the same time. The image of Jimin taking the General’s cock had shocked him, then hurt him, then forced him to roll his head back with his eyes as his brain registered the sight with his growing erection.

He reached a hand down into his pants to squeeze his hard cock, vivid images of Jimin begging, panting, crying, and being thrust into plastering all over the inside of his closed eyes. As if that superseded the twinge of pain and disappointment in his heart at the General bedding him, he found himself tugging on his cock like a madman, squeezing his eyes shut and letting himself go feral in his bed.

Maybe Jaehyun wasn’t asleep yet. Maybe Jungkook didn’t give a shit.

He squeezed and rutted harder, imagining himself in the General’s place, thrusting up into Jimin’s tight heat with abandon. Maybe it was a wonder that he hadn’t jerked off to him before, instead relying on fading images of ‘his girl’ from back home, a pathetic excuse of an image to jack off to. Maybe Jimin’s hot touch on his leg had gone to his brain and it was wild that it hadn’t spurred him to do this sooner.

Jungkook grunted, biting his lip and pulling himself to a wet, soppy finish while imagining himself yanking on the Commander’s little ponytail. Something was both insidious and pathetic about the twinge of pain and betrayal he felt that still allowed him to ejaculate into his sheets.

If this wasn’t rock bottom, he wasn’t sure how much lower he could sink from there.