0206 (‘oh-TWO-oh-SIX’) is the name of their school’s robotics team, Yoongi relays to Jimin while they’re running for their lives. The team is only in their fifth year, and yet they’ve managed to bring the school a great number of awards and an even greater reputation. As a result their budget has tripled that of the drama department, much to the displeasure of thy Romeos and Dorothy’s.

                The two of them barrel into the boys’ change room, looking for places to hide before the wave of paint-spitting robots attack. “The showers!” screeches Jimin. They escape into the same stall and hope for the best.

                “Don’t move,” Yoongi mouths right before the door slams open. They can hear them—the horrifying, deadly machines of paintball war—only several feet away. They’re beeping from all corners of the room, splattering every inch of every wall with neon colors. His breathing is too loud in his own ears, so Jimin bites a lip as he braces against the cold, metal walls. He fears for his life.

                It’s almost forever until the robots make their way out, their mortifying virtual sounds growing fainter by the second. When the room reaches complete silence, Yoongi relaxes and opens their stall. “Christ, it smells like ,” he groans, covering his nose with a sleeve. There’s fresh paint everywhere, topped off with the usual ‘0206’ tag in blue. “Why the hell would 0206 take over the school?”

                Jimin shrugs while trying to rub a purple smear off his cheek. “I don’t know… but I need to find my friend. I’m kind of worried about him. He’s not himself under pressure.”

                “Oh, here—” The older student a finger and wipes the paint off. Jimin is shocked (either by the somewhat affectionate gesture or that he has someone’s spit on his face). “… Uh.” Yoongi puts his hand down and coughs. “You mean that Taehyung kid, right?”

                He looks down. “Y-Yeah.”

                Yoongi decides to look for what’s left of the Yearbook committee and bids him an awkward goodbye. Jimin heads towards the music hall, wary of any hidden robots, machines, or wall clocks that could potentially screw him over.

                The area looks completely barren. Everything is lifeless to say the least, with what evidence of a battle that’s been left behind. There are chairs thrown about, and something that looks like an explosion of paint right on the school band’s door. He goes to push it open, stepping foot into a dark room.

                The next three seconds are a blur and certainly does nothing for his weak bladder. He’s thrown and pinned onto the floor while someone holds a knife to his neck. He can’t see any perpetrators, but he does hear a low voice say “name, occupation, and department, intruder… now.”

                There’s no room to argue here. “P-Park Jimin,” he blubbers, “student, d-dance department, blood type A, October 13^th—!”

                “Wait! I know him!” The lights flicker on, and the male student who was previously manhandling him with a knife (which turns out to be a very sharp clarinet) stands to help Jimin up. One by one, all the band members climb out of their hiding spots behind sheet stands and amps. Crawling from the instruments locker is Taehyung, who immediately gives him a great bear hug.

                “PARK JIMIN!” he cries, “I THOUGHT YOU WERE A GONER!”

                He puts a foot back so Taehyung’s weight won’t topple him over. “I’m fine, man. What about you?”

                His friend lets go and frowns. “I barely made it. We were in here practicing for Friday’s show when th-they came in, shooting paint everywhere! Most of us survived, but… Henry-hyung couldn’t make it.”

                Jimin looks horrified. “Wh-What happened? D-Did he—?”

                “0206 is using semi-permanent paint,” a girl behind the drum set pipes in. “So Henry had to go home—like everyone else—to wash it off before it stains.”

                “… Oh.” He visibly relaxes. “Well, what are we going to do now? They have to be stopped…”

                Taehyung snaps his fingers. “I know! I have a plan, but we’ll need to work together, fast. Lunch is almost over and if we make it, we can get cookies before the cafeteria closes.”

                He stands in front of the white board while all the band kids and Jimin huddle into one group. Taehyung is posed like a military sergeant, a red dry-erase marker held loosely between his fingers. “It’s risky, but first… we’re going to raid the visual arts department.”

                “What?!” someone shouts. “We’ve been enemies with those hipsters for ages! They’ll never let us near them. Apparently, brass ‘destroys the general color scheme’ of their hallway.”

                “Correct,” the orange idiot replies, suddenly adopting a German accent. “They hate us music kids. That is why we are sending in the Park Jimin.”

                Jimin chokes.

                “He’s neither a music or art student, but a dance student. They’ll tolerate him.” Taehyung draws a lopsided stick figure on the board and labels it ‘JIMINNIE♥’. “If all else fails, we can go metal and drive them out of their classrooms.”

                “That’s great Tae-Tae, but why are we raiding visuals again?”

                He whirls around, the most sinister grin plastered on his face. “… 0206 is bound to run out of paint sometime. And when they do, there’s only one place they’re headed.”

--

                Inching towards the intricate door of the art room, Jimin hesitates and looks back. The band members are positioned stealthily at the end of the hall, awaiting their next move. Taehyung gives him a thumbs-up while cradling his weapon of choice: a saxophone.

                Once he finds the encouragement he needs, Jimin inhales and knocks on the door. He waits until a fellow student swings it open. This girl has an unimpressed look on her face, and squints at him before asking, “can I help you, outsider?”

                “Um…” Jimin stutters, mostly because he’s dropped his courage somewhere along the bottom of the ocean, and he can’t swim. “I-I need… to borrow p-pa—?”

                She scoffs. “How do I know you’re not a robotics spy, huh? You might as well sap everything else we have, you cyborg.”

                “N-No, I—!”

                “Sorry bro, we’re not handing anything over.”

                The door closes in his face. Jimin stares for what seems like hours. Then he in another breath, covers his ears and at the top of his lungs, shouts “PINEAPPLE!”

                Within two seconds, the band kids sprint down the hall and crash the door, blasting their instruments in every worst way possible. There’s a lot of screaming, but that gets drowned out when someone starts screeching ‘I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL,’ opera-style.

                Taehyung jogs in too, his sax shrieking like a bird on crack. He slaps Jimin across the arm. “I knew I could count on you, Park Jimin!”

                Jimin watches the scene unfold before him and vaguely wonders how he had anything to do with such destruction. All he did was mention fruit.

                Ten minutes later, he finds himself trailing behind the band as they march across the building, all while performing a much neater rendition of ‘We Will Rock You’. They head into the tech wing, where 0206 held headquarters; it’s like walking - into enemy territory.

                As expected (by Taehyung anyway), they are met with a wave of robots as soon as they round the corner. Each machine emits a light that looks as if they all have red, beady eyes. The bots move, and Taehyung takes it upon himself to push himself forward and announce, “0206! WE HAVE THE LAST OF THE PAINT IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL! SURRENDER YOUR ROBOTS, OR WE’LL USE IT ON THEM!”

                One by one, the robots power down. Out of a sudden burst of either confidence or arrogance, Taehyung then shouts, “TAKE US TO YOUR LEADER!”

                “Like that’s going to work, Taehyung…”

                A locker swings open and from its confines, tumbles out a tall figure Jimin vaguely recognizes from their gym class last year. He remembers the off-white, bleached hair from that one game of European handball that went so terribly wrong two of their classmates were hospitalized while another went and got five dogs. The name escapes him until Taehyung marches right up, fearless and with more balls he’ll ever have in his lifetime.

                “If it isn’t Kim Namjoon,” his friend grunts, tucking his saxophone under an arm. “What the hell, man! What’s the big idea?”

                “Taehyung, buddy!” The guy named Namjoon chuckles and puts both hands behind his head. “I haven’t seen you since June. Gym, right?”

                “Don’t you ‘gym’ me!”

                He backs up. “Alright, alright... the big idea is that since the old Robotics members have graduated, they left me in charge of 0206. And with this position, I plan to expand Robotics into something more than the school pet! It’s going to be something bigger, better!”

                “You mean turning the school into your personal canvas?” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I heard you got a sixty in art, man. That’s not gonna work out well for you.”

                “I’ll recruit a bunch of people,” Namjoon continues, ignoring him. “And we’ll be the greatest club! Then we’ll control the school, and I’ll finally get the t-shirts I wanted!”

                “You painted the school for ing t-shirts?!” Someone in the back shouts.

                The robotics leader laughs haughtily. “I painted the school for the revolution!” He raises his hands to reveal a hidden remote, and with a click of several buttons the robots are alive again. The proceeding minute escalates into a warzone; shots of paint whiz by and splat onto their faces, knocking most of the school band down within seconds. Jimin is hit as well, smearing orange across his shirt as he rolls onto the floor to avoid gunfire.

                From there, he looks up to see his friend still standing, even with the stain of green acrylic in his hair. Taehyung is almost godlike, the shine of his saxophone glistening under florescent lights as he raises the mouthpiece to his lips.

               He blows one long, dry note and paint shoots out of the sax in a streak, slapping blue onto Namjoon’s face. Startled, Namjoon drops the remote in his hands and lets it sink into the wonderful puddles of paint he created for himself.

                Once more do the robots shut down, no longer being controlled by the guy who stands dripping indigo from the forehead down. It’s like liberation, Jimin thinks, when the splattering stops and they’re met with silence. Taehyung is still up, lowering his weapon of choice as he wipes the green off his eyebrow.

                “Blue screen of death,” he says, and Jimin just groans because it’s a ty pun.