Jungkook had been raised by the base more than by any family. From the moment he was old enough to stand, he was drilled into submission—his body hardened by endless winters, his mind sharpened until there was no space left for boyish things. The commanders pushed him past breaking points, and when he shattered, they forced him back together again with cold commands and stricter routines. Compassion was a foreign concept here. Bruises were marks of progress, pain was proof of loyalty.

He became the soldier they wanted—unshakable, silent, unrelenting. His body was honed into precision, his face unreadable even under the worst conditions. He never asked for help, never sought comfort. The infirmary was just another stop in his routine, somewhere wounds were patched with efficiency so he could be sent back out.

That was before the change.

The new medic’s presence shifted things without permission. The infirmary no longer felt like a graveyard for broken soldiers. The air carried warmth, something almost dangerous in a place that thrived on steel and frost. Jungkook noticed it before anyone else, though he would never admit it aloud. Soldiers walked out of there with shoulders a little straighter, faces a little less weighed down. The bandages were cleaner, the pain dulled faster, but it wasn’t only the medicine. It was the person behind it.

The first time Jungkook sat under his care, his usual silence betrayed him. He watched the way those hands worked, deliberate but careful, nothing like the rough, detached treatment he’d known for years. It unsettled him. No one had touched him gently since he was a child, and he wasn’t sure he remembered how to receive it. His gaze dropped to the floor, jaw flexing, until his voice slipped out—low and rough.

"You’re going to spoil them," he muttered. "They’ll forget what this place really is."

But he kept coming back, kept finding excuses to linger a second longer than necessary. When his body ached from drills, he thought of the quiet calm waiting in that room. When the snow whipped against his bare skin and his fists split open again, he pushed harder—not because he had to, but because he knew someone would be there to piece him back together.

Jungkook’s stone heart resisted, but he couldn’t deny what was happening. The world outside the infirmary stayed harsh, merciless. Yet inside, for the first time in years, he felt something he almost didn’t recognize anymore: human.