“If you get placed in a division, you’re going to be the main one in charge of espionage and sharp-shooting, so we need to get your stats up to 100%.”

He burrowed his face into the pillow and groaned.

“That’s the fifth time this morning,” Jackson called from the bunk above him.

“Has it?” he mumbled, still face-down in bed.

“Probably… I only started counting when I woke up a few minutes ago.”

“It’s been at least five,” Jaebum’s voice came from across the room.

He could hear Jackson turning over, “You got five? How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough to hear you do that five times.”

Youngjae lifted his head and sighed, “Glad to be a source of amusement.”

“And that’s the tenth time you’ve sighed.”

He lifted a leg to kick at the bottom of the bed on top of him but decided against it. Having Jackson tell the whole world that ‘Youngjae kicked me this morning for no reason,’ was the last thing he wanted to happen. As if he didn’t have enough attention on him already from the higher-ups.

“I expect to see improvement.”

The entirety of his conversation with the drill sergeant from the night before whirled around in his mind, some letters going faster or slower than others, spinning until his brain was nothing but an unintelligible, jumbled mess. Youngjae stumbled a little and almost took a nosedive when he felt a strong grip at his elbow hauling him back up.

Jaebum nodded at him wordlessly and continued on his way, taking up the faster pace he had been running at.

He offered the other boy a brief smile in thanks before he too resumed his original speed. Youngjae watched as Jaebum slowly shrank in the distance until he was nothing but a puff of dirt moving further and further away on the long trail. Soon, Mark passed by him from behind as well.

Maybe it was the dust kicked up by the two in front of him, maybe it was something else that caught in his chest and made his breaths come in hoarse, dry gasps so that by the time he finished, Youngjae was convinced that his throat had turned into a dried, painful, splintery length of bamboo.

“You have to make sure you hit the target dead on every time.”

The bullet passed through the target board slightly off aim. He bit his lip and wiped his palms off on his pants. Youngjae lifted the firearm again and sighted down the barrel. Relax. Cup the left hand under the right for support. He pulled the trigger.

A hole appeared next to the first.

Deep breath. Don’t straighten the elbow.

This time it went through even further away.

Is that a smudge? Wipe off the safety goggles. There, that’s better.

Another hole appeared closer to the intended mark than the others had been but still not on the point.

Don’t breathe when pulling the trigger. Keep steady.

Overcompensated. Too far in the other direction this time.

Again.

The kick traveled up his arm and made the bullet stray too far upwards.

Again.

He missed.

Again.

Closer.

Again.

Relax.

AGAIN.

“Yo, Youngjae. You alright today?” Jackson asked in the changing rooms.

Youngjae did his best to ignore the question, pretend he hadn’t heard it in the process of making as much noise as he possibly could while taking off all the heavy equipment and padding.

Jackson was rewarded with a towel to the face from Jaebum, “Gross! Jae!” he yelped, pulling the cloth off his head, “Did you use this already?”

“No.”

“Do they even clean these?” Jackson held it away from him like it was contaminated, “It smells awful though. Are you sure you didn’t use this?”

“I didn’t use it,” Jaebum answered calmly, “It came from the dirty pile.”

At this, Jackson threw it back at Jaebum as hard as he could, “What was that for then? I was just asking Youngjae because he usually has the best percentages out of all of us on the shooting range.”

Jaebum caught it easily and shrugged before turning to Youngjae, who had since finished putting up his things, “Did something happen?”

Youngjae opened his mouth to respond, shut it and shook his head.

“You sure?”

He forced a smile, “I’m fine. Just thinking about stuff, that’s all.”

“If it’s got anything to do with what the drill sergeant said yesterday,” Mark spoke up from his seat on a bench, “don’t think about it too much.”

Jackson slammed his locker shut with a bang, “Damn right,” he came over and threw an arm around Youngjae’s shoulders, “Relax, you got this. It’ll be alright.”

“Yeah…” Youngjae nodded blankly, “Yeah, alright.”

They looked at him skeptically, unconvinced.

“Alright,” he said firmly, “Okay.”

“When we put you out there. Everyone’s going to be counting on you.”

Why was it him? Wasn’t Mark the oldest? Why couldn’t they count on Mark? Maybe even train Jaebum more on marksmanship rather than hand-to-hand.

Was that a blue one? He clicked his tongue in frustration.

Only the red ones. Remember, only hit the red ones.

Youngjae’s eyes darted from one opening in the wall in front of him to another.

There. Was that one?

His arm snapped up and he pulled the trigger.

Did I get it?

He squinted at it.

Bull’s eye… well that makes the first one so far…

Youngjae pulled up his final training report of the day on the screen and printed it out.

He stared at it in silence, wishing he could crumple it up, rip it into tiny pieces and toss them up in the air. Maybe stuff it into all the electronic equipment, jam it, overheat it, short-circuit, possibly start a fire; all of which would have been perfectly okay with him. He handed the paper to the training instructor, hurriedly saluted and walked away before he could see the man’s expectant face fall into disappointment.

He wanted to go stand on a balcony somewhere or run until he left civilization far behind and scream and scream and scream.

“These stats need to improve. They’ve dropped since the beginning of the week. Is there anything wrong?”

Stop telling me about my stats, he wanted to shout. But he didn’t. Because any question asked by an official from across a table, hands folded, leaning forward with feigned concern… any question like that was meant to be answered with a “No sir, there’s nothing wrong,” and a smile.