five minutes to save the world

wc: 1162

 

 

00:05:00 

 

Jongin has always known that it would one day come to this: there are five minutes left on the timer, and his life is slowly ticking away.

 

He is not sure what made him choose his career path, but Jongin has never regretted it. He is the best of the best, a bomb specialist on Seoul Metropolitan Police Department’s bomb squad. He had been at the job for years, had defused tens of bombs of all types and makes, but this one – this one is different.  

 

“This must be a prototype,” he hears his partner Oh Sehun mutter behind him. “This blueprint isn’t even exactly what we see there – the bomber must have made adjustments while making it. This is going to throw everything off.”

 

Jongin is silent, carefully moving colored wires aside, assessing the circuit. He has a pencil in the other hand, and noodles notes onto the blueprint they had discovered in the bomber’s office.

 

Tick. Tock. 

 

00:04:35

 

Tension sets over the room. 

 

The detectives are on walkie talkies, conversing with the officers on the street who are evacuating a five block radius from the location of the bomb. Their faces are grim, because there are just too many civilians, and not enough time. It is a lazy Sunday morning, and half of the residents are still asleep.  

 

00:04:21

 

Jongin works well under pressure. While others lose their minds and break down, Jongin only zeroes in even more. He closes his eyes and traces the blue wire in his mind. Does that lead to the hidden switchboard? Or is that one merely a trap, one that will cost innocent lives?

 

00:04:07

 

“Kim? Kim Jongin.”

 

Jongin looks up, and the lead detective on the bomber case is looking down, face grim and eyes sad.

 

“Sir?”

 

“We’re doing our best to evacuate the surrounding area but there’s just -” He cuts off, but Jongin understands. There’s just not enough time. “We’re going to start clearing the police personnel as well,” he adds. “Please do your best.”

 

Jongin nods before turning wordlessly back to the contraption in front of him. He knows that ultimately, the choice is left to him. When there is less than 2 minutes left on the timer, he can choose to evacuate himself, but he knows that he won’t;  he refuses to let it beat him.

 

00:04:00

 

“You should go,” Jongin says tonelessly, fingers never straying from the device in front of him. “I’m running out of time.”

 

Yellow wire. Where does the yellow wire go?

 

“Are you coming with me?” Sehun asks, sharply.

 

Jongin shakes his head, no.

 

“I’m not going anywhere, then,” Sehun replies. “We’re partners, aren’t we?”

 

Finally, Jongin turns and offers Sehun a rueful smile. “There’s no need for both of us to die.”

 

Sehun pales, and scrunches his already emotionless face. “Don’t say that,” he mutters, sullenly. “No one is going to die. You’re not going to lose to that scrap of metal.”

 

00:03:46

 

Defusing a bomb, to Jongin, is a lot like solving a puzzle. One must use deductive, bottom-up reasoning to piece together the function of each wire before the solution can present itself.

 

“The green wire is the trigger,” Jongin mutters, mostly to himself. “But there has to be something else…something I’m not seeing…”

 

Sehun is silent next to him.

 

00:03:12

 

“Do you realize that we will have been partners for six years next week?” Sehun asks, suddenly. “That’s counting time in the police academy, that is.”

 

Jongin nods, and cleanly snips a harmless white wire to move aside. “We always did work well together.”

 

00:02:50

 

There is a certain point, of course, when panic settles in. Jongin’s eyes are wild, and his hands shake just a little.

 

“If you leave now, you can probably still make it,” he mutters under his breath.

 

Sehun scoffs nervously, but shakes his head. “We’re in this together, man.”

 

00:01:58

 

“,” Jongin finally screams in frustration, banging a hand on the wooden floor. Pain shoots up his arm, but he does not feel any better. “I can’t do this; I’m in way over my head and this bomb, this thing is a monster.”

 

“You can do it,” Sehun interrupts, firmly. “Kim Jongin, there are lives depending on you right now. Try again.”

 

00:00:51

 

“I can only narrow it down to two possibilities,” Jongin says, breathing through his mouth. “The black wire and the red wire. One is going to defuse the bomb, and the other…the other is going to blow us sky high.”

 

Sehun squeezes his shoulder comfortingly.

 

“I think I know which is which, but I don’t know for sure. I can’t be certain - ” Jongin’s voice catches in his throat, and finally, he feels fear.

 

00:00:39

 

“Go with your gut instinct,” Sehun replies. “I believe in you, Jongin-ah.”

 

Jongin reaches a hand out to cut one of the wires, but pauses, turning to his partner and best friend. “I think I love you,” he says bluntly. “Since there’s a pretty good chance we’re both going to be dead in less than a minute, I thought you should know.”

 

Sehun’s mouth drops open and he gapes as Jongin reaches down, and carefully cuts the black wire, 3 inches from the sensory switch board, just like he was taught. 

 

The timer stops at 00:09 before blinking out completely. For a long minute, they hold their breaths. 

 

00:00:00

 

“Oh Sehun? Kim Jongin? Are you there, Kim? Over.” The static voice from a spare walkie talkie cuts through the silence. It is the the detective in charge, checking on them. “We are currently 73 seconds past detonation. Please report on current progress. Over.”

 

“We’re alive,” Jongin whispers, mostly to himself. He finds that he is breathless and simply exhausted, mentally and emotionally. 

 

“Yah, Kim Jongin, did you say that you loved me?” Sehun asks, voice breaking into Jongin’s solitary thoughts.

 

Jongin blushes and gets to his feet, stretching out his long legs carefully. “No,” he replies sourly. “I only love you when I think I’m going to die. That was just my sympathetic nervous system acting up.”

 

“Fine,” Sehun replies haughtily. “I guess then I won’t be needing to ask you on a date next week since you’re not into me unless we’re a minute away from being turning into human debris.” He turns on his heels and flounces to the walkie talkie, picking it up to converse with the detectives. 

 

“Wait.” Jongin blinks, then reaches after Sehun. “Wait, did you say a date?”

 

---

 

 

A/N: I watched the latest episode of Castle (the one where Beckett steps on a bomb), and then this story happened. Whoops.