[CONTENTID1] CHAPTER THIRTY ONE - GOODBYE [/CONTENTID1] [CONTENTID2]   Happy birthday to my beautiful, lovely, amazing, 4-D Kim Taehyung!!!! SARANGHAE! He's my bias in BTS...I think. I mean, Jimin is competing with him, so is Jungkook. But so is Yoongi...but so is Hoseok...wait, but so is Namjoon....ah, . ANYWAYS! Here in Scotland, it's literally 30 minutes or so until the end of his birthday so xD Here's a chapter to celebrate!

 

  Bang.   I wake up with a jolt. I feel suffocated, I’m too hot and my thoughts are all over the place. I tear off my jacket but keep my tank on, if only for decency. I brush my hair off my face and rub the sweat from my forehead, cheeks and lip. My neck is also wet and sticky so I use my jacket to dry myself. I close my eyes, slowly breathing in and out. Was it all a bad dream?    I look around the cargo bunk, my eyes being drawn to a big lump in the corner. I gulp and get into a squat, then slowly rise until I’m standing. Everyone else is asleep. I gingerly make my way over to the corner, my heart thumping hard and fast in my chest. I look down at the lump that is covered by a large plastic-y blanket. I prod the lump with my foot, afraid to remove the blanket. Was it all a nightmare?   I take a deep breath and reach down, grabbing the corner of the material. I’m about to pull it back when a hand touches my shoulder and I whip around, staggering backwards. I punch Mino in the arm and he gasps in pain, clutching it.   “What was that for!?” he hisses, not wanting to wake the others up. “I was just checking on you and this is what I get for it?”   “You scared me,” I grumble, brushing past him and taking a seat. He sits down next to me, still massaging his own arm. “Why are you up?   “Karim snores. Even worse, he snores right in my ear,” he replies, running a hand through his hair. The sides are shaved, leaving only the middle with a wild tuft. He leans his head back and closes his eyes, letting out a breath. “Why are you up?”   I start chewing on my bottom lip and put my head back like him, staring up at the ceiling of the plane. “Nightmare.” He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep sitting up. “Hey, Mino?” He hums in response. “What’s in the corner?”   “You don’t remember?” He asks, straightening his back. I look at him and shake my head. I do remember but I’m hoping it was all just a dream. There is far too much bad in my life, too much drama, too much angst…I wonder if I’ll ever catch a break. Am I doomed to an eternity of apocalyptic hell? “Doojoon accidently killed Kyungsoo and Chanyeol killed himself.” The words rock my very core and I gulp, blinking rapidly before staring at the ceiling again.    “Oh.” I don’t know what to say. What is there to say? “I was hoping it was just a nightmare.”   “You and everyone else on this plane,” he sighs, rubbing his tired face. I turn my face towards him again and our eyes meet. “You stare a lot, you know that?” My eyes widen and I quickly look away, suddenly embarrassed. He chuckles, nudging my arm. “I don’t mind, though. I don’t think anyone would mind being stared at by a pretty girl.”    I snort. “Are all the males in your team flirty?” He shrugs.   “Chaerin is, too. She just needs to get comfortable first,” he answers, his dry lips. His eyes then flicker to mine. “You’re really weird.”   “And I thought you were actually charming.” He laughs and pouts cutely, making me roll my eyes.   “I just mean that…you have a way of making people feel comfortable. I feel like I’ve known you for years, not one day.” I purse my lips in thought then nod, agreeing with the latter part of his statement. I’ve never thought myself to be…easy to get along with? I’ve always thought myself to be the closed-off, hard- leader but I guess my façade is a weak one. Or maybe that image is only in my head but no one else’s. “Are you really okay with my team joining yours?”   “I really am,” I reply honestly. “You guys are cool. I agree with you…I feel like I’ve known you guys longer than just one day.” He nods and smiles, ruffling his hair. I look down his body and settle my eyes on his foot. “Does it hurt?”   “Huh? Oh, my foot. Eh, it’s alright,” he shrugs, wiggling it. “I’ve been through worse. This is like a mosquito bite.” I can sense the truth in his words and it’s slightly chilling. I’m reminded that he, just like the entire Alpha Team, have been through hell in that military camp. “Your friend Youngjae is really good. He might just be as good as Taeyang.”   “Taeyang?” I repeat.   “Youngbae,” he clarifies and I make an ‘o’ with my lips, nodding. “Can I ask you something?” I nod warily. “Back at the camp, you said you and Jackson were dating but…at the aerodrome…” I press a finger to his lips, silencing him. Removing my hand from his face, I start fixing my ponytail.   “Me and Jackson are complicated. Actually, I’m the complicated one. He’s pretty simple. The kiss with Henry…” I sigh, tilting my head. “It was just a goodbye sort of thing.” He frowns but nods. I don’t mention that Henry was actually gay or, at least, biual. “Me and Henry were never more than friends, close friends.”   “I see.” He bites his lip. “Does Jackson know? That you kissed, I mean.”   I shrug. “I don’t know. If he asks, I’ll tell him. If he doesn’t, I won’t.” And it’s as simple as that. Mino looks at me and, I mean, really looks at me. His eyes bore into mine. “Now who’s staring?”   He breaks into a grin and nudges me playfully. “You’re not that complicated, Choi Hyerim.”   “You just don’t know me very well, yet, Song Minho.” I hear a clicking sound and we both look in the direction of the sound. Sehun walks out of the cockpit and pulls a sniper rifle out of a large case and starts assembling it, checking every piece as he does. He senses my gaze, as he always does, and looks up. We maintain eye contact for a few seconds before he looks down again and continues working on the rifle.   “Is he always so…mysterious?” Mino asks and I remember that he’s beside me.   “Always.” It’s then that I realise that I know next to nothing about Sehun. As long as I’ve known the team, I’ve never learned anything deep about him. I know his likes; chocolate bubble tea, any kind of meat whatsoever, sushi (the kind only Daehyun can make) and music. He loves music. I know his dislikes; slow wifi, people with high-pitched voices, people who talk too much…actually, he dislikes more things than he likes. I know that he has a cute lisp that he hates which is one of the reasons he speaks so little. I know he’s highly skilled in weaponry of all sorts, I know he has some other talents that he tells no one about, like how he can hack computer systems, how he can fire melee weapons perfectly and how he can dance really well.   I know all the little things about him but nothing significant, nothing groundbreaking. I know him but not like I know the other members. Despite all this, though, I find myself feeling very close to him like I do with the other members. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know his life secrets. It’s like Kyuhyun said months ago: it’s not the details of our lives that make us friends, it’s the knowledge that we’ll be there for each other when need be.   “I gotta admit, he looks pretty badass putting that rifle together,” Mino says, breaking through my thoughts. I grin and nod, completely agreeing with him. If there’s one thing Oh Sehun has mastered, it’s the art of looking like a badass no matter what he’s doing. Mino looks around the aircraft. “Chaerin must be flying the plane now if he’s out here.”   “Must be,” I murmur, looking around with him. Although we’ve lost our main pilot, Yoongi, my team recently discovered that Chaerin is also a licensed pilot. She’s the one who previously got the Alpha Team in and out of places, whether it be in the air or on land. “Hey, is Youngmin okay?”   He nods. “Yeah, Taeyang took good care of him after Youngjae closed his wound. Let me be the first to say…thank Doojoon is dead.” I growl under my breath, the name bringing back my anger.   “He deserved worse,” I say and Mino nods in agreement.   “Hell yeah he did. But I’ll take what I can get.” I snort and stare up at the ceiling again. “You don’t like losing, do you?”   I shake my head. “Not one bit. I like justice. Even better than justice? Revenge. Bora didn’t get her revenge for everything Doojoon did to her…Karim didn’t get his revenge for everything Jonghyun did to him. I’m pissed off.” Mino laughs and shakes his head. “I’m serious.”   “I know, that’s why it’s funny. You’re cute, Choi Hyerim. You’re really cute,” he chuckles lightly, still shaking his head. “I’m sure everyone’s pissed off, too…but the important thing is that the ers are dead. It’s a shame they took down some good people with them. s.”    “Yeah,” I sigh, closing my eyes. I think of Mohamed, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. Thinking of them only forces the gruesome images back up and I’d rather forget the look on Chanyeol’s face when he pulled the trigger. I’d rather forget Kyunsoo’s blank expression as the bullet went through his brain. I’d rather forget the fear in Mohamed’s eyes right before Doojoon killed him. I’d rather forget it all, pretend it never happened. Or at least, only remember the good things about them. But then without the bad stuff, would I be able to distinguish the good? “Yeah…a real shame."   “Hyerim,” Sehun calls out. My eyes snap to him and I sit upright. He beckons me over with an inclination of his head. I pat Mino’s knee and stand up, walking over to the other male. I take a seat beside Sehun and he puts away the rifle. “There’s something I have to tell you.”   “What is it?” I ask, suddenly worried. He looks around to see if anyone’s listening. Once satisfied, he leans in and lowers his voice.   “When Yoongi and I got here to see what was wrong with the plane…” he starts and I immediately focus on him and only him. “Doojoon and that weren’t here yet. We found the error in the system and started to fix it but we didn’t get to finish before they arrived.” I gulp, my eyes boring into his.   “What are you saying?”   He bites his lip and my eyes flicker to it, then back up at his eyes. “I’m saying that right now, we’re flying with a slight chance of the plane will malfunctioning.”   “What!?” I exclaim and he throws his hand over my mouth, his body almost pressed against mine. My eyes widen and I stare at him, my heart beating fast at his sudden intrusion of my personal space. He leans in even closer, his nose brushing mine.    “Be quiet. We don