Seunghyun: success

Shira doesn’t bother to try to stop the smirk that unfurls across her face with the text from Seunghyun, and she throws her phone into her bag and stashes it into a cabinet in the research lab.

She had yet to formally meet Kim Taehyung, who her lab mentor said would be her partner two days ago. Being the curious person that she was, she had searched him up and looked through all of his personal data previously, which had been helpful the night before.

But none of that data had ever said the he was a gang member. Needless to say, Shira knew that getting close to Kim Taehyung was a bad idea.

The bulky lab coat easily fits over her shirt, which was so long that it looked like a lab coat to begin with. But out of safety concerns, Shira knows that it’s better to follow lab protocol and securely fits her goggles over her eyes.

The door shuts with a slam to reveal a bent over and panting Kim Taehyung. “Sorry I’m late,” He mutters, tone cold and dispassionate.

“It’s alright. I wanted you to meet your research partner today and get a feel of your new project.” The lab mentor smiles. “The folder on the lab bench should have all the information that the leading professor wants you to know at the moment.”

“My name is Seok Sonha,” Shira smiles, keeping up her fake identity that was so carefully crafted by Bigbang. She extends a hand in greeting, “I’m a third year in chemical engineering.”

Like you, Shira wants to add, but she wasn’t supposed to know that.

“Likewise.” Taehyung mutters, eyes flashing as he ignores her handshake and instead starts scanning the information on the first page of the folder while buttoning up his lab coat.

Shira frowns slightly, hand lowering as she remembers that outside Big Bang, she is Sonha. She was ignored and unnoticed and uncared for. And even though she had seen unspeakable things due to her association with Bigbang, that didn’t stop the little pang of hurt when Kim Taehyung snubbed her.

It wouldn’t hurt with anyone else, but he led a double life too. And for some reason, she felt that would make a difference. It didn’t.

“He wants us to take over a project in nanoparticle delivery, which means that we’re going to be working with both engineering and science material,” He mutters more to himself than the two of them. “First step is to incubate the DNA we’re cutting the molecular nanobot from.”

Shira pretends to peer over his shoulder to read the information, but she’s already read the information already. It was more to hear what he was mumbling under his breath so she would be caught up.

The petri dishes had to be taken out, the bacteria had to be colonized, and the plates would sit overnight in order to harvest the bacteria later. He slides the folder away, heading towards the stock and the freezer where he could find the materials necessary and Shira furrows her eyebrows.

She didn’t really like Taehyung at the moment.

The petri dishes had the agar already poured into them, and she fetches them from the shelf of spares before he returns and barks at her, “Get the agar!”

Shira waves the spares in front of his face, “It’s already been poured, and don’t order me around.”

She grabs ten small vials of the stored sample bacteria along with a bunch of spare loops to spread the bacteria to make several plates as dictated in the folder. She slams the materials down a little more forcefully than necessary, eliciting a growl from Taehyung’s lips as he watches her with sharp eyes.

Silently, the two create the broth for the plates side-by-side, pipetting the required amount of each chemical quickly and efficiently before dropping in glass beads to spread the liquid over the surface of the agar.

Shira finishes first, using a stretchy