Jimin caught up with Taehyung just as the latter’s hysterical outburst was puttering out, and the other man slung an arm around Jimin as they walked down the hallway together.

“Oh well,” muttered Taehyung. “At least maybe now we’ll finally be able to get to the bottom of all this.”

“Nothing is ever quite that easy with you,” Jimin retorted as he shrugged off Taehyung’s oppressive touch.

“Hey! Why so upset, Jiminnie?” questioned the younger man as he rushed to keep pace with his irritated friend.

“I dunno; maybe because the only reason we’re in this whole mess is because of you and your stupidity!?” shot back Jimin. “I didn’t ask for any of this, you know.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it was bound to come to your attention sooner or later,” Taehyung argued. “Aren’t you curious to find out why you’re the only Ultimate Sensor who shows up in Namjoon’s computer? Or why the database has people you’ve never heard of listed as your parents?”

“Yes,” replied Jimin, “but I can’t help feeling like maybe we could’ve done all that without kidnapping two of my friends. Not to mention dragging me more than halfway across the damn country while you were at it.”

Taehyung’s face sank as he realized just how much blame Jimin placed on him for their current, admittedly regrettable situation, but the older man didn’t care that he’d hurt the other’s feelings. Jimin thought Taehyung deserved to be faced with the unsavory outcomes of his actions for once, and he was truly upset that the latter hadn’t at least consulted him before dragging two people who had no reason to be here into his family matters.

“I’m sorry you’re angry, Jimin,” pacified Jungkook as he scurried behind the two older men. “I only helped Taehyung kidnap Yoongi and Jin ’cause I thought it’d be helpful. We wanted to figure out what kind of cryptid Jin is, and Tae said it would be good to bring them both here so that-”

“So he could lock them in a room and interrogate them against their will,” finished Jimin with a scowl. “Gee; thanks for the help, Kookie.”

That was another thing: Jungkook was obviously better suited to be partners with Taehyung than Jimin was. Ever since the youngest man had come into the picture and started training seriously with them, Jimin had felt like he was suddenly put permanently on the backburner while Taehyung praised Jungkook for every small achievement related to the latter’s Sensor-related skills. And the truth of it was that they weren’t just meager achievements; Jungkook was better than Jimin in virtually every skillset except being a consistent, major disappointment. Jimin quickened his pace as he led the way despite having no idea where they were going.

✧✧✧

“We’re here,” announced Namjoon as the group came to a tall, imposing door.

This one was similar to the entrance of Namjoon’s above-ground apartment, though the handle was replaced by a circular turning mechanism that was much like one Jimin imagined would be found on a vault in a bank. To the young man’s surprise, there was no keypad needed to get into this room, and Namjoon stepped ahead to easily and smoothly turn the wheel and let them inside.

“The cabinets in the Vault are all locked,” explained the oldest man. “So Dad’s not so strict about keeping the place super secure.”

He went over to one of the high, padlocked cabinets, and the chains on the outside of the box.

“Who he lets have a key to any of this stuff, though…” Namjoon paused as he pulled out the ringed collection of clinking metal pieces. “That is where he’s a bit more selective.”

The lavender-haired man shoved a key into the lock, and with an anticlimactic click, the clamp fell away and the drawer rolled open. It was bursting with papers; some yellowed and frayed, and others a brighter, crisper white. Namjoon sorted through the seemingly endless bundles until he came to a folder that he pulled out and blew the dust off of, the asphyxiating specks clogging Jimin’s lungs as he coughed and wheezed.

“There you go,” declared Namjoon proudly. “The Park Family record. This thing stretches back generations.”

The book itself certainly looked to be that old, as the thick leather casing it had started to tear and rot - although most of the papers inside were in decent condition. Namjoon flipped to the very last page of the stack, passing over the more visibly aged documents about relatives Jimin had never heard of, some of their birthdates stretching back into history’s forgotten eras. The final entry looked like a print-out of the profile they had viewed on Namjoon’s computer upstairs, and Jimin quickly read over all of the information on the solitary page, checking its accuracy against the digital copy from memory.

✧✧✧

“Let’s see if we can’t shed some light on this little mystery of ours,” suggested Namjoon as he flipped back a page, turning to where the entry on Jimin’s supposed father should have been.

The page in front of him had the same name printed on top of it as had been on Jimin’s own profile, under the section labeled “Immediate Family.” As for the picture of the incorrectly labeled man, however… Jimin found that he didn’t recognize the face in the black and white photo at all - though he had to admit that he and the other man shared several similar physical characteristics. Jimin traced over the soft, rounded cheeks of the unfamiliar man as he scanned the latter’s profile, drinking in the strange slurry of confusing and disconcerting personal information.

“‘Immediate Family. Children: Park Jimin,’” read Taehyung aloud, and the rest of the office was silent.

There was no mention of Jimin’s younger brother; nor was there any hint as to where the man’s mysterious father was located. Under “Home Address,” something had been thoroughly crossed out in pen before “Missing, 95/11/08” had been scribbled beneath it in messy handwriting. That was only a few short weeks after Jimin himself had been born, and he wondered what had happened to his parents as he clutched at the edges of the file, trying to keep his fingers from shaking as a storm of unanswerable questions swelled in his head.

“…” breathed Taehyung.

“Is there anything on my bloodline here?” wondered Jungkook, finally unable to hold back the curiosity surrounding his own curiously misplaced family tree.

“Let’s find out,” suggested Namjoon, diving back into the cabinet of folders on Ultimate Sensors.

There weren’t many files in the cramped metal drawer, but the ones that were there were packed to the brim. Namjoon pulled out one labeled “Jeon,” and Jimin could hear the breath stop in Jungkook’s chest as the younger man gasped. The file fell open to the final page, and there was an entry on Jungkook, exactly where it should be - and just as it should have been in the digital database.

“This is amazing,” Jungkook murmured, leafing through the information on him as the other three men peered over his shoulders.

The picture of Jungkook was also one that looked like it might have been pulled from a school yearbook like Jimin’s, but this one was of the boy when he was much, much younger. Still, it was undeniably Jungkook staring back at them from the typed-out page, and the boy’s name and identifying features all matched up. The young man flipped through the dusty pages, soaking in information about a family he had never known.

“I have no clue who these people are,” professed Jungkook, smiling. “But I feel close to them somehow. Like, we’re all connected through this crazy, unbelievable gift.”

✧✧✧

Jimin thought it was wonderful that the other boy had finally found some closure regarding his own often enigmatic family, but the former had certainly not known that he himself was apparently also adopted. Or orphaned, or kidnapped, or Jimin didn’t even know what.

“None of this makes sense,” whispered Jimin as he cradled his chin. “If there’s a cabinet full of Ultimate Sensor profiles down here, then why aren’t there any on the computer?”

“And why was Jimin’s the only one that came up when we searched?” added Taehyung. “This can’t all be a coincidence. The only two currently-traceable members of the most powerful bloodlines in the world both have no idea that they’re even Sensors? Where are the other family members? How could Jimin and Kookie not realize they can see and track monsters?”

“I think I know someone who may have some answers.”

The other three men turned their attention to Jungkook, who closed his family file as he pushed himself up off the floor. He brushed the dirt on his pants off before jogging down the hallway, the three older boys following closely behind.

“Remember how I said that I’d felt a tether like Jin’s before?” asked Jungkook as he ran, not out of breath in the least, at the front of the disorganized pack. “Well, I’m absolutely sure of it now. In fact… I didn’t have a name for it back when I was that young - and I don’t think I felt it as strongly as I’m able to now - but I’m pretty sure I spent the first few years of my life being followed by one of those things.”

“A Guardian?” questioned Taehyung. “Assuming that’s truly what Jin is, of course…”

Jimin was more intrigued by the fact that Jungkook had apparently always possessed some level of ability to feel the connective mental strings characteristic of being a fully-mature Sensor. Even if he hadn’t recognized exactly what they were, it was still fascinating - and somewhat infuriating to the envious Jimin - that the younger man had been in tune with his talent before he even knew what it was. Though it also made Jimin question again why he wasn’t good enough to have sensed the tethers himself before Taehyung enlightened him.

“It does seem like the Guardians and the disappearances of Ultimate Sensors are connected,” concluded Taehyung. “A conspiracy theory. I like it.”

“You would,” laughed Namjoon as they reached the locked door.

✧✧✧

“Okay. Now, guys,” started Jungkook. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side of that door…”

Namjoon stood poised with the key in his hand, ready to shove it in the tumbler and burst through the door on the younger man’s signal.

“We could be totally wrong about Jin, and he might be something completely different than what we’re expec-”

“YAH!”

A shout from behind the door made Namjoon drop the keys as he scrambled to put them in the lock. He knelt to retrieve them, fumbling as the pressure made his fingers turn to butter.

“Hurry, hurry!” Taehyung pressured. “Hobi’s in trouble!”

The door flew open to reveal Hoseok and Jin locked in a ferocious battle over the dimly-lit card table - in the form of what appeared to be a particularly intense arm wrestling contest.

“Come on; one more time!” begged Hoseok, rubbing his elbow before placing it back down on the patchily-illuminated table.

Yoongi stood in the corner of the room, watching from a distance with tightly crossed arms, the frown on his thin lips evident as he disapproved of the antics of the other two men.

“Hoseok, what the is going on here?” grunted Taehyung, folding his own arms as he stepped into the room. “I thought you were getting murdered or something! Don’t make me worry like that, you idiot.”

“I thought you’d be kind of proud of me, Taehyung,” the older man chuckled. “I was trying to get Jin to admit if he was a Guardian or not.”

“By arm wrestling him?” gaped Taehyung.

“It was the only thing I could get him to agree to,” sighed Hoseok. “I thought, ‘Hey! If Taehyung were here, what kind of semi-ridiculous, ill-conceived plan would he come up with to get Jin to talk?’ So, this happened.”

“While I’m flattered you would think of me, I can’t imagine how you got stubborn Mr. I-Won’t-Tell-You-Anything-Remotely-Interesting-Pants to arm wrestle you,” pouted Taehyung.

“Simple,” smiled Jin. “I agreed because I was certain I could beat him at it.”

“You’re pretty sneaky when you wanna be, you know,” giggled Taehyung, a smile of approval crossing his sly lips.

“If we’re done with this ridiculousness,” Yoongi piped up from his corner, “can we go now, or..?”

“I’m afraid not,” answered Namjoon as the door shut behind him, locking immediately when it slammed on its hinges. “We learned some very interesting information while we were in the Vault, and I think everyone here has a few more questions for you.”