Scope of Life || Yeonbin

chapter 23: fight for your right

Soobin's POV:

I was walking past our small workout room, wiping the black smudge off my hands. I had just finished cleaning up my rifle, heading over to have lunch with everyone when I paused. I saw Taehyun in the workout room through the small window, by himself. He was still working out, his earbuds in with his tee shirt covered in sweat. I'm not sure how long he's been in there, but he's clearly lost track of time since he wasn't at lunch right now. He didn't notice me, and I sighed to myself before I walked over to the door.

I slowly turned the doorknob, taking another deep breath before I stepped inside. He still didn't notice me because he was too focused on doing bicep curls. I gently closed the door behind me, raising my voice so he could hear me through his headphones, "Hey, Tae."

He flinched and turned to me, placing the weights down on the floor and bringing a hand up to take out one of his earbuds. He gave me a little smile, "Hey, what's up?"

"You know it's lunch time?" I asked, still wiping the gunk off my fingers.

He chuckled a little, "Yeah, I'm just finishing up."

He went to put his earbud back in, so I quickly said, "Wait—..." He paused his movements, and I took another step closer to him. I glanced over my shoulder out of paranoia, and got to the point, "I know that you know Jun and I are dating. He told me about what happened."

He was surprised for a moment and then laughed lightly as he reached his hand up to take out his other earbud. He placed them down on the bench behind him as he said, "You guys have nicknames now too?"

I sighed, and he looked at me with all the confidence he could muster up. He crossed his arms over his chest, and I shook my head, "Why're you being mean to him?..." I asked, and that sly smile on his face started to fall, "Like seriously, what's your deal?"

"My deal? Soobin, come on..." He retorted, "Do you understand how dangerous it is to date your teammates? What happens when one of you is in serious danger and does something drastic to put everyone else at risk?"

"Oh, so you're saying that just because you're not dating your teammate it doesn't mean you care about them?..." I quickly said back, "It's already happened. Or did you forget already that Yeonjun got a concussion, and I was able to apprehend the subject first and wait for you all to get there?"

He scrunched his eyebrows, "You've been together since that long ago?"

I was quiet for a moment, and then quietly said, "No, it was after that..." He rolled his eyes and laughed, and I was getting annoyed, "You get what I mean, Tae."

"You very clearly don't get it..." He threw his hands up in defeat, "I'm not just talking about one of you getting moderately injured. I'm talking about what will happen if one of you is held at gunpoint and taken hostage? Or what if one of you gets shot and is bleeding out?"

My heart skipped a beat for a second, "That's never happened—"

"Just because it's never happened to us, doesn't mean it's not possible. It's happened to other teams before, Soobin..." He took a step closer to me, "Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't do anything drastic to try and save him."

I hesitated for a moment, the heat rising to my chest. He noticed that my breathing skipped a little, "We promised each other that we'd follow protocol."

He scoffed and nodded his head, "Great non-answer..." He turned around, picking his headphones up from the bench, "Go have lunch with your boyfriend."

He was about to put his earbuds back in, but the annoyance and emotion was bubbling over, "If Yeonjun was in a hostage situation, I would follow protocol and let Chan negotiate. If he was shot, we would have to get all the civilians out first unless it was a fatal wound, but you can still give first aid if it's safe to do so..." I said, and it made him pause his movements. He looked over his shoulder at me, seeming a bit surprised, "I don't know why you're being such a fucking jerk about all this..." He slowly turned around to face me, feeling my eyes watering over in the process. He was stoic, but still quiet as I snapped, "You know I consider you one of my best friends, right? I always felt like I could tell you anything, but I think you're smart enough to figure out why we've been keeping this a secret. So, I'm sorry I didn't tell you – But he makes me really, really happy. He's the first person in a really long time that I've loved and it's worth going through all this shit on a daily basis."