Claw's Bridge(Discontinued)

33. Shoot

(Warning: guns and shooting.)

"How do you know how to use firearms?" Hoseok asked as we sauntered down the aisles of the weaponry room. The weaponry was more of a vault than a room, with a vault door as the entrance and cameras placed every two feet on the walls. I could hear the sensors under the floor clicking upon every step. All weapons were locked and arranged in cages, each cage with a fingerprint scanner.

My best guess was that the scanner had recognition for the fingerprints of all royals and a few guards for a situation where the royals were absent, and weaponry was needed.

"My father was the Knight. He taught me a few things," I lied. "Sometimes we would go hunting, so that was my practice."

"Choose what you find familiar," Jimin said. I walked straight to the 308 sniper rifle, my best play. "A sniper?"

I realized my mistake when Jimin questioned me. A sniper was only used for long-distance kills, or in other words, an assassination. Royal guards, by logic, would never be taught how to assassinate, so they would never be trained to use snipers.

"Oh? It looks a lot like an automatic rifle from my country," I quickly covered my tracks. "Do you have a semi-automatic gun?"

Jimin nodded and went to another cage in another aisle. He returned with a Brugger and Thomet MP9. "This is one of our machine pistols: 900 rounds per minute, short recoil. I don't give these types of guns to non-royals or those who I'm not aware of if they'd be able to handle them," he said. "Are you sure you want this?"

"Yes. Don't worry, I won't unleash all the bullets," I said, taking the light, compact, and beautiful death machine from him. I looked over at the model they had. There were quite a few differences in the structure, I could tell their model was much better than the model in Jupiter. "So where do I shoot?"

-

I took a deep breath, running my hands over the intricate features of the gun. I missed the feeling of a gun, it made me feel at home. Don't get me wrong, killing was not something I condoned, nor did I condone using a gun or even owning one. I loved the feeling, I loved the mechanics of a gun, so intricate. That's all it was, a curiosity of the mechanics.

'Treat the gun with respect, and the result will be well-rewarded.' That was what I told myself whenever I had to aim. I took good care of my guns, and not once had I missed a shot.

I was in the shooting area, a human-shaped poster target in front of me, and sound-blocking headsets and safety glasses on. While Jimin and I were in the shooting range, the others were observing the scene from an enclosed bulletproof room.

I had to keep in mind that I told them I was 'very good' with a gun, which, in shooting terms, meant that I wasn't entirely accurate. So I had to aim a little far off from the red dot they told me to shoot. I bent my arm a little, risking the damage that the recoil would cause, and I loosened my posture as I aimed.

I shot once, making sure to lift my finger from the trigger immediately. It was an automatic rifle, which meant that the shots would be fired one after the other. The recoil was short, as Jimin said. I lowered the gun a little, making sure to aim it away from Jimin and me. I hit exactly where I aimed, just an inch from the red dot. I placed one side of the headset behind my ear as Jimin opened his mouth to speak.

"You did better than I thought you would do," he commented. "You just need to aim a little higher, your posture was a bit off, and your arm was bent. You have to keep it straight, but not too stiff because the recoil can cause a jerk. Also, don't worry about the automatic shooting, I loaded only a few bullets."

I feigned a confused expression. "What?" I asked, slightly tilting my head.

"Here, I'll help," he said. He walked over to me and raised his hands as if reaching for me. "May I?"

I pursed my lips and nodded. My body tensed up when I felt him stand very close to me. He supported my elbow and angled my aim correctly, leaning in to see the target through my perspective. I felt his chin graze my sleeve as he brought his face closer to mine to help me aim.

My sensitive hearing picked on his heartbeat that was increasing its pace. Through my observations, I knew for a fact that the were-dragons lacked sensitive hearing.

"I can hear your heartbeat," I whispered over to Jimin as he was stepping away to let me shoot.

His cheeks flushed pink as he responded, "shoot." He put my headset back in place for me and did the same with his. I shot once more, hitting the target. I looked at Jimin, who was smiling brightly at the bullet hole in the target. We pulled our headsets off.

"Thank you," I said, a small smile tugging at my lips when I saw his cute smile.