After Saturday’s events, we decide that we should never go in person to research about Yohan- especially me. It was a risky, stupid idea that was a complete failure. Why am I so stupid? I should’ve never been anywhere near Annabelle and them- what if they find out that I’m working at Yohan, too? I’d be exposed in an instant.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The 5 of us were waiting in fear the entire weekend, wondering if the 4 Flames had discovered who we were.

I’m staying home today, Preet texts the group Monday morning. I’m scared that they’ll come get us.

What if they break into your house?????, Lina responds. Don’t worry. If they found out our identities, they would’ve gotten us by now.

I’m scared, Annabelle writes.

We all are.

Jungkook is practically jumping with joy today. I eye him apprehensively.

    “What are you so happy about?” I ask, praying to God that he doesn’t say anything about Saturday-

    “Training starts this afternoon,” he hums happily.

I roll my eyes. Seriously? I am about to burst into a long tirade of complaints, but then catch myself at the last moment. Physical training and defense might come in handy if I’m faced with situations like Saturday’s in the future.

Hm. Maybe this will actually be useful.

    Jungkook yawns, stretching his arms over his head. “I love watching you suffer.”

    “Sadist.”

    He smirks, and I can’t resist adding, “That’s what Emma loves the most about you.”

    Jungkook’s face turns cherry red. “Dammit, Ami, how many times do I have to tell you-,”

    “Then shut up about Training!”

I show up to HQ the next day in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt- what I think are good clothes to work out in. Honestly, I wouldn’t know; the only physical exercise I’ve done in the past 4 years is Physical Education, which I skipped half the time.

“Uh, I’m here for training,” I tell the receptionist. I don’t miss the sympathetic look she gives me as she says, “Sublevel B3. And here.” She hands me a black tank top, a pair of shorts, and a plastic bag. “This is your training uniform. Change before you enter the training area.”

I eye the uniform with distaste. What is this skimpy outfit? My sweatpants would have sufficed. Stupid training. After changing into the uniform and balling my clothes up in the bag, I step into the elevator and press “B3”.

Instead of going up, the elevator travels down. Wow, I didn’t know there were underground levels here. Creepy.

The door slides open, and I am faced with an enormous, shiny white room. Exercise equipment of all types resides here; several sets of dumbbells in one corner, treadmills and stairclimbers in another, long blue mats in the middle. The faint scent of chlorine hangs in the air- is there a swimming pool somewhere around here? Several other individuals are milling around, looking as lost as I feel.

I furrow my eyebrows. What are we supposed to do now?

As if in response to my question, a tall, extremely buff man, with a heavy-set, gruff face and a buzz cut, marches up to the center of the room. The most striking aspect of his physical demeanor, however, is the white scars all over his body. There is no doubt that this man has lived through fights, seen things that would have driven the average person insane.

“Attention!” he barks. Everyone freezes.

“I am Harris. I will be your training director for as long as you are here.” He eyes us distastefully. “Those of you in this division of training are in the technology and manufacturing departments. You’ll only be required to stay here for 2 weeks. Now, I’ll introduce my fellow instructors.”

5 people march out from a side door: two extremely hardened looking women, two more guys... and Jungkook, clad in a tight black muscle shirt and Under Armour workout shorts. My lip curls in disdain. Why is he so fit? It’s not fair. I hate him.

    The other 4 trainers take turns introducing themselves. Then, Jungkook steps forward, his expression hostile.

    “I’m Jungkook,” he says coldly. Immediately, whispers fill the room.

    “Is that Jungkook Jeon? The Jungkook Jeon?” someone murmurs.

    “He looks even scarier in real life,” someone else utters fearfully.

My eyebrows quirk up in surprise. I bet that every one of these instructors- especially Harris- has murdered someone. But I don’t see anyone freaking out over them like they are over Jungkook.

    The guy next to me exhales slowly. “He’s terrible,” he says, a little too loudly. I glare at him.

    “Keep your voice down,” I mutter.

    His eyes widen in shock. “Oh, sorry,” he whispers. “I have a problem with being too loud.”

    No kidding. I cross my arms and stare straight ahead, but this guy keeps blabbering to me.

    “Everyone always complains that I talk too much, too. But I just have a lot to say! Anyway, my name’s Chanyeol. Chanyeol Park. Nice to meet you-,”

    “Shhh!” I hiss.

    “Is there a problem?” Harris bellows. Chanyeol and I look up in shock. He is furiously glaring at us. “Step forward, you two!”

    I throw Chanyeol a look of resentment as we step to the front of the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jungkook snickering at me, all traces of his aloof expression gone. I clench my fists. God, I want to punch him.

    “What are your names?” Harris growls.

    “Ch-Chanyeol Park,” Chanyeol stutters, his voice cracking on his last name. He looks like he’s about to piss his pants.

    “And you?”

    “Ami Hwang,” I say in the calmest voice that I can muster.

    “You two get to run 5 more laps around the track durng warm-up,” Harris says. “I’m letting you off easy today. If you talk while I’m talking again, there will be a higher price to pay.”

    “Yes, sir,” I utter monotonously. Chanyeol can only manage a frantic nod.

    Harris claps his hands. “We’re going to start off by running 10 laps around the track. Follow me.” He leads us through a door, and takes us to an sprawling green field, around which is a ellipse-shaped track. My eyes widen with alarm. This track has a diameter twice the size of the track at Brookhaven High- and I can barely get halfway around that track. A large, bulky woman, who must be in her 40s, turns to Harris in dismay.

    “You can’t expect me to run 10 laps around that,” she says.

    Harris narrows his eyes. “Now I expect you to run 15. Never question my instructions.” He ignores her sputters of outrage, and commands, “Start now!”

    Literally 2 minutes after I start running, I feel like collapsing and dying. My entire body is shaking with the strain of running for so long. It’s like all the oxygen has been out of my body; I can’t function.

    I’ll just walk for a little bit, catch my breath.

    Right as I think that, I hear Harris shout, “You!”

    Everyone turns around. Harris is pointing at a middle-aged man, who has stopped by the side of the track to take a quick breather. He stares up at Harris fearfully as the intimidating man marches up to him, fury in his eyes.

    “Did you just stop running?” he hollers.

    “Y-Yes. I just needed to catch my breath-,” the man squeaks, but Harris shakes his head.

    “You cannot do that. 5 more laps for you!”

    I gulp. Looks like I’ll have to keep running.

    Harris proceeds to berate people for being too slow, for having the wrong posture while running. Chanyeol gets 2 more laps added onto his sentence for lagging behind everyone else. You’d think with those long legs, he’d be first. Ultimately, Harris ends up tacking more and more laps onto everyone’s required amount of running. I wish I was a piece of driftwood. Then I wouldn’t have to do this! My legs feel like they’re about to give out. My stomach is cramping. This is insane. I can’t go anymore- I have to stop. I slow down, preparing to halt on the side of the track-

    Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jungkook smirking at me. There is a satisfied expression on his face.

    That , I think irately. Anger rises up in my chest. Hell no. He is not getting the satisfaction of seeing me collapse to the ground and give up. A new determination fills my insides, and I force myself to push on, to keep running without stopping.

Strangely, this running exercise has taken my mind off the stress I’ve felt in the past couple of days. All thoughts of being discovered as a double agent by Yohan and being painfully tortured are replaced with exercise-induced agony. Not the best change, but a welcomed one.

    I finish an hour later- not first, but certainly not last. Somehow, Chanyeol has managed to increase his speed and catch up from the back of the group. He ends 15 minutes after I do.

    “Good job,” he says, sticking out his hand. I reluctantly give him a high-five. “And hey, I’m sorry for getting you in trouble for talking when you weren’t even talking. You’re Ami, right? Hi, Ami! Nice to meet you!”

    “Nice to meet you too, Chanyeol.”

    “Whoa! You know my name?”

    “You said it at the beginning of Training.”

    “Oh yeah! Great memory!”

    “How do you have so much energy to talk after running?” I ask exasperatedly. “I feel like dying. And to top it all off, Jungkook’s watching me suffer!”

    “Jungkook Jeon is the most terrifying human being in the world,” Chanyeol utters, peering behind his shoulder at Jungkook.

    I turn around. Jungkook is eyeing the track with a bored look on his face. His eyes momentarily dart to mine, and his lips curve up in a smug smile.

    “That er,” I growl, and flick him off. Chanyeol gasps, and within moments he has pounced on me, batting my hand away.

    “What’s wrong with you?” he cries. “Did you just-,”

    “What? He’s an imbecile,” I say nonchalantly.

    “But that’s Jungkook Jeon-,”

    “Okay, what’s the big deal?” I ask, crossing my arms. “Everyone’s saying his name like it’s some kind of curse. And what’s up with always using his full name? Why is that a thing?”

    Chanyeol takes a long look at me. “You don’t know?”

    “Know what?”

    “Who he is.”

“Obviously I know who he is-,”

The shrill screech of a whistle pierces the air. Harris is standing by the track, glaring out at all of us.

“Pathetic,” he says in a biting voice. “It’s been 2 hours since you all started. You should be able to run those laps in less than an hour. Now, I’m going to split you all up into groups. Group 1 will go to strength training, Group 2 goes to agility training, and Group 3 goes to cardio.”

Chanyeol and I get placed in Group 1. Dread fills my body when I realize that Jungkook is our training instructor. Oh, great. Just my luck.

“We’re going to start by learning how to punch.” Jungkook announces. “Get in groups. One person punches, while the other person blocks. Although some of you arms resembling spaghetti noodles, you’ll have to know how to throw a good punch.” He throws me a challenging smirk, and I clench my fists. God, how I’d love to punch him.

    Chanyeol and I turn towards each other and halfheartedly begin throwing punches. He will not shut his mouth.

“So I get to my job on the first day, and my supervisor tells me that I have an office. An actual office! I almost started crying! I’ve never had my own office- it’s always been cubicles or desks or a particularly lumpy beanbag, but that was only one time. Anyway, I’m just an intern, so I didn’t-,”

“Wait.” I pause. “You’re an intern? Where?”

“The tech department! Didn’t I mention that already?”

My jaw drops. This is perfect. If I could get Chanyeol to tell me some of the stuff that he’s working on, then I might have a clearer idea of what Kyle Johnson, Jaemi Kim, and Camille Rosenquist were doing!

“So, uh, have you started on any projects?” I question.

“Yeah!” Chanyeol exclaims. “I get to file all of Yohan’s old lab reports on our online database! It’s so fun! I just click and drag, and click and drag, and click and drag!”

I roll my eyes. Just my luck. An intern comes my way, and he’s absolutely useless.

Suddenly, someone claps his hands behind me. “Less talking, more punching. What are you two doing?”

I whirl around. Jungkook is standing behind me, a superior grin on his face.

“I- I’m so sorry, M-Master Jeon!” Chanyeol squeaks, rapidly bowing down. “I’ll never talk again! Please! We were punching each other! I promise! I swear!”

Jungkook looks down at Chanyeol, his lip curled in disdain. “Who is this guy?”

“Someone who’s far nicer than you are,” I retort. “Go away. We’re trying to practice.”

“You can’t talk to your teacher with that kind of attitude,” he smirks.

“You’re not my teacher.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jungkook crosses his arms. “Why don’t you try punching me?”

I smile widely. “I’ve been dying to do this for ages.” I swing my fist back, imagining all the times he’s worn that smug, -eating grin, and punch Jungkook in the face.

Or at least I try to. He effortlessly leans out of the way.

“You have to be faster than that,” he teases.

I charge at him again, swinging my fists as hard as I can. I even add in a few kicks for good measure. Unfortunately he dodges every single one of my blows with ease.

“Oh, these 2 weeks are going to be so fun,” he cackles.

“You are the absolute worst!” I huff, attempting to attack him again. This time, though, Jungkook yanks my wrist towards him and hooks his leg behind my ankle, sending me toppling to the floor. I hiss in pain.

“What the hell?” I protest. “We’re supposed to be punching, not practicing jiujitsu!”

“Let this be a lesson,” he says.

“What’s the lesson?!”

Jungkook leans over me, a smile on his lips. “You .”

“Dammit, Jungkook!” I screech so loudly that the entire room goes silent. My face reddens in embarrassment.

“I said... dammit, dumb book,” I tell everyone awkwardly. “I hate reading.”

It’s my first day and I’ve already made an utter fool of myself.

Awesome.