Interwoven ✔️

59~ Three Pound Sausage

"Hey look. It's me!"

I didn't even spare a glance up. "Put down the banana, Jimin."

"It's not a banana."

I exhaled and looked up from where I'd been picking out oranges.

"You're kidding me right?"

Jimin grinned innocently from where he held a three pound large sausage in his hands. "Wanna find out?"

"Stop wiggling your eyebrows."

"No matter how hard the wind blows, the mountains never bow. Thus, no matter what you say, my eyebrows will continue a-wiggling."

A tiny smile pricked at my mouth.

It was difficult for me to smile like I used to now a days. But moments like these, when Jimin put in every effort to bring the sultry jokes back, almost always managed to prick a little grin from me.

It had been a little under a month since the attack at the base. Through much interrogating with the captured Reformists, it was uncovered where the home base of the Purists was. After that, a large troop had been sent down there to attack and contain.

Jimin had been one of the soldiers sent down to accomplish the mission, but the trainees, like myself, were once again held off. This time because we were declared 'heroes' for managing to take back the base against all odds and did not needed to fight anymore unless an emergency. I called bullshit, but at the same time I knew I wasn't ready to be thrown in a large scale fray again; not now, not without potentially losing my mind.

The battle had been swift and ended almost as soon as it began, though. The Reformists were easily outnumbered and were forced to surrender.

The official signing of the surrender was to be televised in four days at the base of the former Infinity Council headquarters. Everyone from the Capitol Base was attending, including myself and Jimin. After the signing of the surrender, a vigil was to take place in the evening to remember every life that had been lost. Including the lives of the Reformists.

I didn't want to go. I didn't want to see the names.

Yoongi. Yuta. Irene. Wonwoo. Countless other names to the growing list of those who had not made it out alive. Countless other names on the growing list of what this violence and bloodshed had taken away.

So many. So young.

The gruesome battle haunted me, both in the waking world and in my sleep. Images branded in my mind— red stained uniforms, lifeless eyes, a blood stained shoe.... 

I often woke up in the middle of the nights, barely making it to the toilet before  throwing up. Panic attacked me like a thousand needles at every sudden loud noise I heard on the street. And I knew I wasn't the only one who was suffering.

Krystal, Tzuyu, and I all stayed in close contact with each other and confessed the anxiety attacks, the flashbacks, everything. Most of the other trainees were like that. Haunted looks in all our eyes, nervous glances over the shoulder, tense muscles, bracing for a sudden attack.

Nobody could really blame us trainees either. Our first time fighting in action had been devastating. Two days of utter horror. I was lucky; I'd managed to survive all of it with just several cracked ribs, a concussion, and of course countless bruises and cuts. But other trainees had practically bled out to the brink of death when we were locked up.

And the Outworlders. Tzuyu herself still couldn't even speak of what had happened to the Outworlders when they'd been locked up without having a mental meltdown. So many Outworlders now had scars that ran across their skin from where the Moonsbane had deteriorated their skin. Some Outworlders had it so bad that their very Marks no longer glowed in certain places.