Blood Ink ✔️

33: Rub-A-Dub-Dub

"What in the ever loving heck are you doing?!"

The shower head is one of those fancy ones that has a removable head, the ones that change pressure settings and flow. The smooth plastic of the handle is a little slippery in your hands.

You're holding it in front of you, the setting changed to that single stream of compacted, pressurized water meant to massage sore muscles.

"I'm about to shower those guys in the face," you tell the bewildered tattoo artist, who's more focused on your makeshift weapon than the fact that people have now begun to slam into the bathroom door. "It's natural for a human to close their eyes against a spray of water. I'll spray them in the face, and then you'll have an easy shot."

Taehyung grins at that, also acting strangely at ease amongst the sound of the door getting beaten into a pulp as guns fired on the other side. "Oh, good idea!"

He grabs a bottle of shampoo from the shower and gets beside you, the two of you avenging bathroom warriors defending your territory.

"We're going to die in here," sighs Jungkook.

"Well, yeah, with that attitude we will." Popping open the cap of his shampoo, Taehyung takes a single sniff of the coconut and vanilla scented mixture of intended pain. He spreads his stance wide, bending his knees slightly, and holds the bottle out in front of him like a gun.

"Okay, Y/N," the silver-haired man says. "You go in first. If I hit them first and then you spray them, you'll just wash the shampoo out of their eyes."

"Roger that," you chirp.

The door pounds inwards, just on the verge of buckling into smithereens of wood and allowing the men outside to enter. Although your body strains to flinch back from the threatening echoes, you force yourself to stay still as a statue as you wait.

Just when you think the door is ready to burst, you feel a hand clasp the crest of your shoulder, heavy and expecting.

Jungkook steps up behind you, abandoning his post at the counter. To your utter shock, his chin drips down onto your shoulder. He doesn't leave any space between the two of you, leaning his front fully against your back and letting you take some of his weight.

"Help me stand," he murmurs to you. "I can't do it alone."

There's a soft flush on his face as he says the words, his jaw clinched as though he can't bear to think that he's admitting the degree of his body's weakness to you.

Crap.

It's cute.

"Taehyung's right there," you mumble in a deceptively casual voice. Really, you're screaming inside, hollering in disbelief and a weird type of exhilaration.

"He's too tall. You're the perfect size for a crutch."

Offended.

"Fine," you huff, clearing your throat and keeping your gaze straight ahead. This is fine. He just needs someone to lean on for a little while.

You're not flustered at all.

A loud crack sounds from the door, and the piece of wood shudders under the force of whoever is on the other side. Then, like it's in slow motion, the door buckles and falls forward, smashing flat to the ground in a poof of dust.

There in the doorway stands a group of five men, peering over each other's shoulders as they look in through the dust. It's like an old western showdown, the way that you're sizing up the men in the doorway. Their eyes are hard and determined.