“, not good.”

A gasping male stood hidden behind a large tree, his hand placed on top of his stomach. Tilting his head backwards to find himself hitting his head against the hard wooden surface instead, he let out a pained groan. Not only was his stomach bleeding, an area of his head was now swelling.

He clutched onto his red stained shirt, asking himself why the hell had he chose to wear his favourite white dress shirt. Pouting at the thought of having to go through the arduous process of washing and bleaching it, he heaved out a sigh before his ears picked up the noises made nearby him.

The male tried to unscramble his thoughts, alternative escape routes popping into his head. He would have usually opted for shuttering – a technique in where he would teleport in a constructed route, appearing at each point for less than fifteen seconds in order to confuse his enemies. His old team members had found it annoying when he shuttered about, as it was hard to pinpoint his next destination. It was his favourite teleportation trick but considering the amount of pain he was in, and the amount of energy the trick required, he decided that it was better to improvise by using whatever weapons that he could steal from the enemy instead while focusing on accumulating energy to teleport back to the checkpoint, which was located quite far away.

The crunching of dead leaves was heard; the only other accompanying sound would be the heavy breathing of the enemies. Jongin had long learned how to keep his breathing low and quiet, his panting having given him away numerous times when he first started teleporting.

“Sir, found him!” A soldier yelled out, causing Jongin to momentarily freeze. The male then sighed again before letting a smirk slip onto his face as he turned around to greet the group of soldiers. “Here goes nothing.”

He raised his clean left hand, waving at the green cladded men before reaching out for the nearest soldier, grabbing him by the neck and snapped it. Ducking low as he avoided a punch, the dead man still in his arms – Jongin mentally facepalmed at how backwards the soldiers were, they had guns but used brute force instead of bullets – he then snatched the smoke grenade dangling from the dead soldier’s belt and pulled the pin.

“Sorry mate, but imma have to borrow your smoke grenade,” he patted the limp soldier’s shoulder with his other free hand. He swiftly threw the canister onto the ground, dropping the dead body in his arms onto the ground before taking a deep breath. The male covered his nose as he ran away from the scene, trying to find a remote place where he could concentrate on teleporting to the checkpoint.

The smoke clouded his vision, his eyes blinking away the tears. He could hear the soldiers coughing. As he continued on running, he made a mental note to himself to buy, or better yet, steal a gas mask for future measures. Just in case a similar situation popped up in the future, at least he would be prepared by then.

Coughing his way through the forest, he decided to teleport to a treetop so that the chances of him being attacked on ground would lessen. After ten minutes of consecutive running and shuttering, he halted to a stop to take his breath. His eyes scanned the area, looking for possible hideouts in where he could perhaps take a nap or at least get some well-deserved rest. He spotted a tree, which he could conclude after fully looking around, was the tallest tree in the area.

He teleported to one of the branches, barely steadying himself as he landed harshly on a branch. A frown was etched on his face as he mumbled to himself, “Knew I should have practiced my landings more.”

Jongin settled himself onto the strong wood, and while doing so, his eyes widened as his brain registered how far up he was on the tree. “Holy ,” he swore, gulping as he stared at the far away ground.

If there was one thing Jongin was bad with, it was heights. He clutched onto the trunk, his other hand hovering over his stomach which he had ohsoconveniently forgotten about while running away from the soldiers.

“Fantastic, I’m hundreds feet above the ground and I have a bleeding stomach. Simply fantastic,” he breathed out, closing his eyes as he shifted in his seat.

It took him an hour to calm down as he pushed away his fear of height into the deepest crevices of his mind. For the next couple of hours, he just sat there, waiting patiently for his muscles to regenerate. He ignored the pain in the stomach he felt whenever he tried to adjust his sitting position; he was planning on visiting the nearest health centre once he reached the checkpoint anyway.

Jongin admired the breath-taking scenery while he waited, realising that the place was actually beautiful – he didn’t really noticed before as he had been running about the forest. It was getting dark; the sun was setting, making the male question himself how much time had passed since he had last teleported from the checkpoint to where he was now.

“Better get going before ahjusshi goes bat insane on me,” He chuckled wearily, picturing the hours of lecture he was going to receive once he arrived at the checkpoint.

 

-

“I told you to quietly retrieve a damn microchip from the enemy’s headquarters, not to ing fight with them! What part of ‘quiet’ do you not understand?!” the elder male ranted angrily, pacing about the office.

Jongin merely sat on his chair, staring at his boss. He was too tired to even retort back in a snarky manner, which was unlike him as he was Kim Jongin, the renowned pissing-off-people extraordinaire.

After having cumulated enough energy to teleport long distance, he braced himself as he set his mind on the destination. Teleporting at night was the worst thing he could ever do, for there were high chances of him clashing into fellow teleporters who were probably drunk-teleporting, especially since it was midnight. He couldn’t really blame them, he himself had teleported from club to club drunk out of his mind but he knew that he had never puked on any teleporter he encountered in his journey.

Jongin wondered why the hell did they – the other teleporters – even bothered to teleporting their drunk asses when they felt like puking, the last thing a drunk person needed was excessive movement.

The male had dragged his tired self to the health centre to receive treatment. The healers bandaged him up, assuring him that the injury wasn’t fatal but they scolded him for not having gone to them earlier. Then Jongin explained the reason why he didn’t rush over to the health centre, a few pained expressions here and there, and the healers were all over him. Though Dr. Min Sunye ended up smacking him continuously for taking his body for granted since it was the thirteenth time that month in which his stomach was injured.

 

“Not my fault that I have good genes,” Jongin smirked back. However that smirk was wiped off his face when the healer smacked his stomach harshly. “Noona! What was that for?!” the male whined in pain, his hand rubbing onto his half bandaged stomach.

The female healer shook her head in amusement, resuming to heal the now red stomach. As she hovered her hands above Jongin’s stomach she continued her motherly lecture. “For being a conceited jackass. One day you will die. It’s a miracle you and your brother are still alive,” she rolled her eyes, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

“You know me, I’m Mr. Kim Jackass Jongin,” the younger male joked, grinning. “I won’t die. Not now. I still have a promise to fulfil.”

“Well, aren’t you blunt,” Dr. Sunye smiled back, before her face turned serious. “How’s it going? Any new findings?”

“Uh, ahjusshi told me that the mission I just did will help me with it. But we’re not certain yet,” he shrugged, watching the stab wound slowly close. “I will never get over how cool yet creepy this whole healing works,” Jongin murmured, his eyes still directed towards his stomach.

The healer was quiet throughout the rest of the healing session.

 

“At least he came back with the information needed. Unlike last time,” someone pointed out, causing Jongin to heave out a sigh of relief. The teleporter sent a grateful look to his companion before glaring at the shorter male for adding a snide comment about one of his screwed up missions.

“Aren’t you a lovely brother,” Jongin muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes. The two brothers watched their boss continue walking around the room before the elder man went back to his grand chair and sat down.

“I suppose Jongdae-” the man began.

“Chen, sir,” the said male interrupted, preferring his code name rather than his real name.

“Well then, I suppose Chen is correct in a way. Therefore you are excused from this room as you have fulfilled the mission. You may pick up the reward at the bank later on,” their boss grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Ne, Jihoon-ahjusshi.” The two boys chorused together before darting out of their seats so that they could avoid their boss’s wrath for having called the elder male an ahjusshi.

“You two little brats-!” Jihoon roared as he conjured water using his palm. He then aimed for the Jong brothers, Jongin managing to teleport himself out of the room just in time while Jongdae was left fully soaked.

“Sometimes I hate him for having the power to teleport,” Jongdae mumbled, pissed about his wet clothes.

“Scram you punk!” the elder male shooed poor Jongdae out of the room using a blast of water.