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[ This app is trash. ]
Seunghoon typed into his phone as he made his way through the huge campus grounds, on his way to the building of his first class. With flocks of students left and right, the boy amusedly made a mental guessing game whether a person was a freshman or not. Observing the range of nerves of each passing person from the scale of antsy to practically-dragging-my-feet-to-be-here was the criteria. He doesn’t need to guess though; if he wanted to, he’d know if they were anyway. But guessing is still fun.
Seunghoon paused from his game and took a moment to giddily breathe in the new environment. “Ahh. The smell of youth.”
His phone dinged, someone replying to his earlier message. A sender labeled with a series of numbers. ‘Student ID number,’ he thought, mulling over if he should re-label his friend’s identifier. He’s getting attached to calling him “101541246”.
101541246: [ Careful. U never know if someone’s screening these things. #srysly ]
Seunghoon huffed, not fazed by the warning, knowing the sender meant it as a joke; another message came through as he continued on his way.
101541246: [ Took u long enough to find me tho ;) u settled in good? ]
The corner of his lips turned up, tapping away his reply as cold air welcomed him from the entrance of a building.
[ yeah, no thanks to you. I had to look you up in the servers to find you in this stupid school app. You weren’t replying anywhere else]
He selected an angry graphic icon to send, placing his phone away for a bit, and looked for the right room to go to. “H10”, he read on the door and checked back to a paper of his schedule from his bag, then went in.
A quick sweep of the entire room and Seunghoon automatically steers away from the direction of a group of loud fellow freshmen at the back rows. His ears picking up words and phrases like “Ugh, parents”, “Drinks”, “Introduction mixer” makes him take out his phone to avoid any acknowledging or encouraging eye contact with anyone.
He makes a beeline for the front rows, staring at his phone displaying a new message from 101541246, offering a grand (not really) tour of the school from a dashing senior (his friend) as a way of an apology.
But the sudden smell of coffee and the most grieffilled groan Seunghoon has ever heard makes him stop.
Looking to his side, he spots probably the most disheveled person in the entire room, hands down. Bed head, red eyes, slumped back. This student has him curious. First day of the new semester and this dude is practically dead already.
The boy he is observing takes out an energy drink, snaps off the cap and dumps the entire thing in his cup of coffee. With the flattest tone imaginable, Seunghoon hears him declare. “I am going to die” and proceeds to down half the cup like a shot.
It’s practically comical and weird at the same time. If he was curious before, now he’s intrigued. Seunghoon lets out a low whistle in astonishment, “Looks like we got danger over here.”
‘Danger’ lethargically faces him, blinks several times and shakes his head vigorously off stupor, “Sorry?”
Seunghoon offers him a lopsided grin, “This seat taken?” nodding to the seat next to the mysterious half-dead boy.
He receives a surprisingly warm smile and a shake of the head, “Go ahead.”
“…Though, I wouldn’t sit there if I were you.”
Seunghoon’s face contorted into an unspoken demand to ask the reason for this strange person’s ominous advice.
The other boy points towards two air conditioners above, directly blowing cold wind at the first three seats near where he was sitting. “Those are killer by the time we reach half the period, you’d be in a frost-induced sleep each class.”
Still standing, Seunghoon grins in thanks and amusement, “How about here, then?” -he motions to the seat on the other side of the boy, near the windows.
“Good lighting and vitamin D Seems good.” His classmate says in a sagely manner, humoring him further.
Seunghoon sets his things down and notes from the side of his eye that Danger does not have much books in his practically limp sling bag like the rest of the class. He inwardly debates and imagines the possibilities about his new seatmate’s identity, when he is offered by said seatmate his Cup of Danger. Nope.
“No thank you,” processes out of Seunghoon’s mouth, to which his seatmate shrugs to then takes another gulp.
“Pardon my face, it looks much better, usually…?” He says behind his coffee, his eyes gaining more alertness and focus, “I’m Jinwoo by the way.”
Seunghoon isn‘t sure if it’s the way Jinwoo said it, in a confused combination of confidence and last minute uncertainty, but it makes him laugh. “Don’t worry about it. ‘Name’s Seunghoon.”
Danger now has a name, and it is Jinwoo. Seunghoon decides in that moment, he has taken a liking to Jinwoo. And naturally, he wants to know more about the things he likes.
“So, how’d you know your way around dangerous classroom terrain?” He asks his newfound friend.
“Ah, actually I’m retaking this class,” Jinwoo replied. A little too fast, in Seunghoon’s opinion but placing it on the effects of his beverage kicking in. Dude was practically jittery by now.
And with that, the professor walks in and other students fill other seats. In between dull moments of the lecture, they drop bits of small talk and comments between them:
“You’re right, it’s freezing in here.”
“Damn, that coffee was too strong.”
“Did he just say the final project is seventy percent of our grade?”
Seunghoon now also knows Jinwoo is a film major, and in his senior year; went to leave his minor classes for the remainder of his undergrad stay, finishing his major classes first. And that he has two pet cats.
Pretty soon, the class is over, they’re dismissed and those occupying the seats Jinwoo mentioned earlier had accidentally dozed off.
“I gotta go. See you around, Seunghoon,” Jinwoo hurriedly says, which makes him notice the boy’s hands shaking as he gathers his things.
“Yeah, see yah, Danger. And cut back the caffeine boosts, dude!” He calls out to the rushing senior’s back.
Taking out his phone, Seunghoon checks his schedule for free time till his next class and replies back to the last message he got.
[ Sorry, was in class. You free for lunch? ]
101541246: [ figured. nah, can’t today. how’s tomorrow? ]
[ Sure, but you’re treating me. Senior ]
101541246: [ yeah yeah. you leech. ]
101541246: [ and seunghoon? ]
101541246: [ I’m glad you’re here. but don’t do anything stupid. ]
Seunghoon stares at the last message meaningfully, but does not reply. He exits the classroom when he surprisingly finds Jinwoo still in the hallway. Happily, he makes his way to him, ready to ask if his new friend is up to eating lunch together.
That was until he saw Jinwoo’s body drop to the floor, convulsing.
A couple of freshmen screaming in surprise snapped him out of his shock. Seunghoon rushed immediately at Jinwoo’s side, turning him over. He was relieved to see he was still conscious, but his face was pale and veins were popping up his skin by the neck and temples. He saw the older boy’s eyes were wide yet unfocused.
Jinwoo’s mouth was gaping as he choked out, “C…ng…ngant….brithe.”
“H-HELP!” He looked around frantically, more freshmen students gathering yet not wanting to get involved, scurrying away as soon as they saw what was going on.
“SOMEONE HELP US!” He brought Jinwoo’s arm over his shoulder and hoisted him up, and dialed for an ambulance on his phone with his free hand as he kept swearing.
“AT LEAST CALL FOR AN AMBULANCE, YOU IDIOTS!” He barked at bystanders. Enraged at the lack of help, he rammed through the forming crowd to get outside as he supported a gasping Jinwoo.
“Jinwoo. Keep breathing. Stay with me.”
“Fuck.” Seunghoon breathed, not really able to process what just happened in the last few hours. He noisily plopped down on one of the seats in the emergency room’s waiting area. Running a hand down his face, he willed his body to finally calm down.
After being rushed to the hospital, they hooked up all sorts of things to Jinwoo. Seunghoon was informed they also injected Jinwoo with certain sedatives to calm his insane heartbeat, which almost would’ve stopped if they had not arrived in time. Caffeine Overdose.
He was stable by now and was resting in a ward.
Seunghoon checked the time on his phone, and sure enough, he knows he missed three classes on his first day. But he doesn’t regret it one bit if it meant a friend not going over the mortality fence on his watch. He placed his phone away tiredly, and stared at the hospital admission form for Jinwoo. All was filled out was his first name and Seunghoon’s name as his temporary guardian.
Considering the current situation, he mulls on going through Jinwoo’s bag to find and fill more info when a nurse emerges from the doors, calling him,“He’s awake.”
The tall boy is on full attention once more, and he is led to a curtained ward. The nurse stops then pulls back a curtain and ushers him in. He is greeted with a bleary Jinwoo connected to an oxygen tank, cardiac monitors, and an IV drip.
It all feels surreal, like a dream.
“Hey, Danger.” Seunghoon greets softly, trying to buffer the seriousness of the situation they were in; the morning class feeling like eons ago.
Jinwoo offers a weak smile. “Pardon…my face,” he starts, taking pauses for breaths, “it looks much…better…usually.” His voice cracks at the end and his eyes are suddenly lined with tears, the shock playing with his thoughts. He does not want to dwell on how close he got to dying today, but the reality of being in a hospital bed is particularly hard to ignore.
A lump forms in Seunghoon’s throat at hearing Jinwoo’s tone, but he still manages to joke- “Yeah, you look like shit.”
Jinwoo appreciates it and silently laughs. The stare he gives Seunghoon is particularly overwhelming, for all the things he feels but can’t say at the moment, but the taller boy receives his feelings with a sincere smile.
Suddenly a ruckus can be heard outside of their cubicle, with a couple of voices shouting. Well, it IS an emergency room, Seunghoon dismisses, that is until their curtain is pulled back and two guys in suits barged in, looking manic.
“JINWOO!” One of them with particularly prominent lips shouts, but stops short when he sees the patient on the bed.
The other, with droopy eyebrows, had fury in his eyes but didn’t look at Jinwoo when he seethed, “What were you up to?!”
The boy in question was shakily gripping the sheets above his lap. Lines of distress featured on his forehead and under his wide eyes, and renewed tears flowed steadily down his face as he whispered “I’m sorry I couldn’t help better.”
Seunghoon lit up in rage at the exchange and blocked the two, shielding from them his obviously distressed friend, “Just who the fuck are you, assholes?”
The one with the droopy eyebrows turned his sharp stare at him, as if noticing his presence for the first time, ready to direct whatever anger he has at him till Seunghoon cut him off, “Can’t you fuckers see he’s bedridden?! He almost fucking died and you’re shouting at him!”
This seemed to get through the jerk with the weird eyebrows, with him looking at his side, noticing security ready to escort them out at any minute. But his eyes land on the form in Seunghoon’s hand instead, roughly snatches it and walks away.
“Taehyun!” The other suited guy calls back in frustration. The one with the big lips sighs deeply, before facing Seunghoon who still refuses to budge from where he is standing between him and Jinwoo.
“I’m sorry.” He directly looks at Seunghoon, “For both my friend and I. But may I please talk to Jinwoo?” he sincerely pleads- but it’s not till he says, “He’s my friend too” that Seunghoon looks back at Jinwoo in the eye for any objections, steps aside and walks back to the benches.
Ten minutes pass with Seunghoon sitting down when he spots “Taehyun” walking towards his direction. He doesn’t know what to expect when the suited guy stops in front of him, but it’s most certainly not the papers Mr. Droopy Eyebrows hands him, with a more composed expression.
“I’ve talked to the doctor. They’re still keeping Jinwoo overnight for observation, but he can be released tomorrow.” He goes and places a paper bag on the vacant seat near Seunghoon.
“I can’t stay. But Seungyoon can manage.” He shuffles his feet, so Seunghoon waits for him to say more, but he looks as if he decided against what he was contemplating to say. He combs his hair back and inaudibly mutters “Help yourself” instead, nodding towards the paper bag, before walking away for the second time.
Curious, Seunghoon looks inside the bag to find one smaller paper bag with medicine he presumes are for Jinwoo, and three bottles of water and some snacks.
Remembering the papers he was given, he looks at several paid hospital billings under the name of one Nam Taehyun.
He knows an unsaid apology and thanks of a proud asshole when he sees it.
“Hey.” A voice calmly addresses him, stopping his thoughts as to who exactly are the people he’s just met. He looks up to who he presumes is “Seungyoon”.
“Your friend gave this,” he hands the papers to him and points to the paper bag, “and that.”
The other guy in a suit scans the papers and peeks through the bag “He left, didn’t he.” Stoic when he stated, rather than asked.
He takes out a bottle and a handful of snacks from the bag to hand to Seunghoon and takes a seat beside him. “Excuse my friend. I’m sincerely sorry, it’s been a long day for him too.”
Seunghoon wants to retort if ‘a long day’ is as bad as overdosing to near death, but he wills himself to not push it, and just accepts the things he’s offered.
“I’m Kang Seungyoon.” He offers Seunghoon a hand to shake, “Second year, Accounting.” He brings up the papers and finishes with “And you’ve already met Taehyun.” Seunghoon makes a face at the mention of the other guy he just “met”, to which Seungyoon smirks as if used to it.
“Yeah, he was a pleasure to meet. Lee Seunghoon. First year, Computer Science.” Seunghoon exchanges.
Seungyoon lights up in surprise, “Wait, first year? Sorry, you seemed older.”
“I am,” Seunghoon says point blank and smiles, hoping Seungyoon gets that he doesn’t wish to elaborate. The other boy does, silently gauging just how much small talk he can converse with the tall freshman.
“How did you find us, by the way?”, Seunghoon asks.
He sees Seungyoon’s eyes look up in remembrance, “I was actually on the phone with Jinwoo when I heard him collapse.”
Seunghoon looks at him in surprise, not remembering if he picked up a phone when he carried Jinwoo out. “Shit, I don’t think I saw a phone.”
“Oh don’t worry,” Seungyoon takes out a phone “I called back again, and some students picked it up. We came as soon as we can, and searched at the nearest hospitals.” It was now Seungyoon’s turn to smile in hopes of Seunghoon to not ask further.
“I can’t thank you enough.” The boy in suit drops his smile, and Seunghoon imagines the horrors of hearing your friend collapse over the phone with people screaming in the background, “Thank you for saving Jinwoo.”
Seunghoon does not know the right thing to respond to that, so he takes a packet of biscuits and opens it, offering it to Seungyoon.
They share the pack in silence. When they finish it, Seungyoon takes the wrapper and throws it in a trashcan, “You should go. It’s getting late.”
He must’ve read the objection in Seunghoon’s face and offers him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere. Tell you what,” he takes out a different phone from his jacket and hands it to Seunghoon, “I’ll contact you before he gets discharged tomorrow, you can come back by then.”
“I’m not the one who needs to go home and change clothes.” Seunghoon comments, but takes the phone to input his number anyway. Seungyoon gives him an amused smile.
The next morning, Seunghoon waits at the reception the next morning with a bag of extra clothes he thinks could fit Seungyoon and Jinwoo, but is surprised to find them in new clothing.
“Eyyyy! Danger, looking good already. Why the wheels though?” He greets Jinwoo with a grin, who is being wheeled out in a wheelchair by Seungyoon.
“Hospital protocol,” Seungyoon informs him as he stops pushing to let Jinwoo stand.
“’Sup dude!”Jinwoo grins back as Seunghoon pulls him up and into a half hug, clapping him at the back, in a typical bro-fashion.
Seunghoon nods at Seungyoon, bringing up his extra bag, “’Brought you guys something to change in, but looks like you don’t need them.”
Seungyoon looks pleasantly appreciative at the thought, “Oh hey, thanks. Taehyun came by earlier to drop some.” He surrenders the wheelchair to personnel.
Huh. Isn’t he full of surprises, Seunghoon thinks when Jinwoo turns to him and says “Wanna get some breakfast? Hospital food isn’t rich in happy fibers.”
“You got better notes?” Seunghoon calls from Jinwoo’s fridge (well, his dorm’s fridge, but the entire topmost rack is his), scouring for anything other than water or soju to drink. With midterms around the corner, they’ve taken to binge-reviewing (written exam) and brainstorming (project proposal) for their Psych class.
Jinwoo’s dorm is basically an apartment with three rooms inside (with either bunk beds or separate single beds) and an obnoxious lively yellow-walled living room at the center. Jinwoo’s dorm mates are mostly ideal weirdos who have classes at night and are knocked out solid the entire daytime. The only cardinal rules are to not touch anyone else’s food and not make noise above the sounds of an underground rave.
“Trash this virus in my laptop, and I’ll trade notes,” Jinwoo calls back, slumped on his couch, impatiently clicking his laptop’s trackpad, making the machine’s loading worse. It’s been the third time this half semester that his laptop has contracted a virus. Seunghoon keeps teasing the older student of an alleged porn addiction each time it happens.
Seunghoon finds a bottle of yogurt at the back of the fridge when he hears his classmate holler, “Sorry dude, my yogurt stash is for Seungyoon only.” And sure enough, there really is Seungyoon’s name written with marker at the neck of the bottle.
“Look, it’s Seungyoon’s yogurt plus your notes or that virus is taking an extended residency on your laptop,” he bargains to a glaring Jinwoo, who he knows would give in anyway.
Jinwoo hisses at him before he takes the spot on the couch and before handing his laptop.
“Seriously, what do you even do to get viruses like these?” The taller of the two comments while the smaller shrugs. Seunghoon types away as Jinwoo stares in awe as always.
“So for the project proposal, I was thinking maybe I could go for classical conditioning,” Jinwoo says, opening up his notes “Y’know. Do a video on progression. Can I get you as the test subject? Maybe tickle you every time a sound effect plays or something.”
“Huh. Funny, I was wondering if I could get you as a test subject too.” Seunghoon glances at him from the corner of his eyes for a second.
“What’s the subject?” Jinwoo asks as he highlights something in his textbook.
“Traumas.”
There’s a pause in the air with only the sound of keyboard typing in the background and Seunghoon knows it’s Jinwoo waiting for him to elaborate so he drops it.
“I want to know if we can get you to drink coffee normally again.”
Seunghoon waits and hopes it doesn’t come off as a crass experiment, with his goal of helping his friend more of a priority than getting a good grade. But two birds with one stone, as they say.
He braces for whatever reaction, but Jinwoo just goes, “Whoa, nice. Sounds cool.” And Seunghoon thinks his friend is exactly what he had just replied.
Seunghoon releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and passes the laptop back to a grinning Jinwoo, “Thanks tech geek, how’d you learn this by the way? Do they already teach you this in your minor classes?”
“Nope, I learned this before I entered. A couple of friends and I loved messing around with codes.” Seunghoon reaches for Jinwoo’s notes, feeling a bit off that Jinwoo’s curious stare feels a bit different than the usual.
His phone suddenly rings and Seunghoon excuses himself when he sees who the caller is and goes out the room.
The hallway of Jinwoo’s dorm at night is cold with a few cracked tiles every few steps, the faint smells and sounds from other apartments provide a community-like feel that Seunghoon wouldn’t want for the setting of his university residency himself, despite Jinwoo’s dorm mates’ usual lack of appearances. They’re technically still there, in a weird lived-in kind of presence. But he supposes it fits Jinwoo’s preferences: Cozy.
His phone echoes a few more rings through the hall as he swipes the screen and answers a caller labeled “SHT”. He doesn’t waste time with formalities. “It’s about time you called. I’ve been trying to get through you guys for months. Don’t force me into something drastic.”
He gets out of the way of two people rushing down the hallway and a familiar voice of a woman answers him back from the phone. “It’s out of my hands. You went and pissed off the wrong people. It’s a formal degree or you aren’t back in.”
“Fuck degrees.” Seunghoon flexes his jaw in annoyance, “M.O.L.A. team ain’t shit. We upstaged them, and we both know I got cut off. I have four years till a diploma. But where’s my cut in the last commission?” He knows he shouldn’t be mad at the only person who’s willing to communicate with him from his old job, but him getting severed without his due pay boils his nerves.
“Jeonsa says it’s frozen till then.” He can hear the sympathy in her voice, “But you’ll be given support periodically. Consider it like an allowance till then.”
Seunghoon focuses his stare at the peeling wallpaper adjacent to him. He’d say thank you but he couldn’t trust his mouth not to go off in anger about the whole situation. So he stays silent.
“I’ll send one tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything, Lion.” And with that, the line goes dead.
He runs a hand over his face to compose himself first before heading back inside, gripping his phone a little tighter than necessary.
He finds Jinwoo steadily staring into his own phone before turning to his guest in acknowledgement, and goes to retrieve his textbook to continue reviewing. Seunghoon still hasn’t shaken off his bad mood, but is sure to cover it with a less bothered face, not wanting to bother for a lie to tell his friend. But he literally feels his classmate steal glances at him from time to time, and if that’s not a telltale sign of Jinwoo wanting to confront him about something, he doesn’t know what is.
“What,” he mildly snaps.
He sees Jinwoo look at him startled, as if he thinks Seunghoon can read his mind for noticing his behavior. Seunghoon already feels sorry for the face he sees and prepares a half-assed excuse about his rent being overdue again (which it is, anyway). But with the way his friend is staring at him, it makes him rethink what the smaller of the two wants to talk about.
His friend sighs before taking his phone out. “Remember when some students made up that rumor I overdosed on drugs when I collapsed that day?”
Seunghoon does remember, quite clearly. It was a long day for him. Assholes.
“Well, those that posted in the school app had their accounts down and deactivated for some reason…” Jinwoo palms his phone distractedly as if not sure how to go about what to say, “Which I didn’t even know was possible since it’s our student accounts.”
Seunghoon forgets his anger and feels a swirl in the pit of his stomach for the things his friend is bringing up.
“And those that shared the rumors had their posts deleted, without them doing it.” Jinwoo continues. “I heard last class one of them had a friend in Comsci check it out for them.”
He sees Jinwoo eye the laptop he just fixed earlier. “They said they were hacked.”
Seunghoon knows what he is being pinned on, and Jinwoo finishes, “And they traced the hacker in Australia. Sydooney.”
What. “What.” Seunghoon squints his eyes involuntarily at what he just heard.
Jinwoo blinks and repeats, “They traced it to Australia, Sydooney?”
Seunghoon loses it, and bursts in laughter.
“What the fuck is a Sy-doo-ney?” Seunghoon laughs harder when Jinwoo searches on his phone what Australia’s capital city is.
“Dick,” Jinwoo also laughs as he punches a still laughing Seunghoon on the arm. With the latter clutching his sides on the other side of the couch, trying to catch a breath.
“Still, it was you wasn’t it?” Jinwoo looks at him in wonder as if he’s some hero, and Seunghoon feels his chest swell. He buries this feeling with the last breath of his laughs as an excuse for his face heating up.
It’s not the reaction Seunghoon is expecting Jinwoo to give him when he found out that he’s a hacker, but he should’ve known better to brace for the unexpected when it comes to this guy.
He grins at expecting Jinwoo and shifted to swipe his entire left hand on his friend’s face, from the forehead to the chin. Like he was trying to remove the stupid stare from Jinwoo’s face. For his sake.
He might’ve regretted it a bit however, his palm feeling the contours of Jinwoo’s face for a second. Him now being aware of the smooth slope of his nose, the lump of his cheeks, and the softness of his lips. Jinwoo swats his hand away playfully, but the feeling still lingers a moment at Seunghoon’s skin. Weird. He shakes off the sudden instinct to do it again. Slower.
“That asshole who spread the rumor cheated off me in two of our tests.” He tried to pass off the sudden instinct, in mock annoyance to Jinwoo’s still grinning face, “Stop being so ego-centric, I did it so you could owe me more favors.”
And they both recalled Seunghoon “pestering” Jinwoo to tour him around the campus, after he recovered. Jinwoo didn’t mind touring Seunghoon, if only he asked directly instead of the hints that kept going over his head, also add the fact that Jinwoo gets lost himself inside the campus, which makes him a shitty guide. But it was a fun day, anyway.
Jinwoo rolls his eyes, but still looked happy. His friend only takes certain compliments that don’t perpetuate that he’s a nice guy, even if it is evident that he is.
A knock on the door interrupts, and Jinwoo opens the door to reveal a troubled-looking Seungyoon. A meaningful glance and muffled phrases between him and Jinwoo passed, and soon enough, Jinwoo apologizes to Seunghoon, needing to cut their study session short.
Collecting his things into his green backpack, Seunghoon makes his way to wait by the door with Seungyoon to put on his shoes as the dorm resident goes to close the windows by his bedside.
Seunghoon greets Seungyoon as Jinwoo is locking up the door to his shared room, both of them standing in the faded creamcolored hallway, “You okay, man?” He hasn’t seen Seungyoon in a few weeks. Seungyoon is ever polite and gives a weak smile but it does not reach his eyes, “Been better.”
“Anything I can help with?” Seunghoon offers, not wanting to pry in others’ issues, but offering just the same if they are willing to ask.
Jinwoo stops by the open door, tugging his usual Converse shoes on from where they were neatly set aside by the entrance. Seunghoon isn’t sure if Seungyoon has heard him, as the boy seems to be staring intently at the same peeling wallpaper that looks like a lightning bolt Seunghoon was boring holes into half an hour ago.
Jinwoo’s indoor room keys jingle and he finally closes his front door for the automatic security pad to beep, the sounds bringing Seungyoon out of his daze. Seunghoon does not repeat his question in the possibility that Seungyoon does not want to address his offer, whatever his reason.
They go down the flight of stairs and out the building, to the sidewalk of what students call “Dorm Street”, for the obvious reason that the area was littered by dorm buildings. It’s past seven p.m., and most students are out to look for places to eat, making the sidewalk a bit crowded.
“Sorry, man. Dinner’s on me next time.” Jinwoo gives a look of apology and Seungyoon brings his hand up in goodbye, looking apologetic as well for intruding out of nowhere, but not quite sorry enough to say it. Seunghoon doesn’t mind, he has secrets of his own, and as courteous as Seungyoon is, it must be something he must really need Jinwoo so suddenly for. He claps Seungyoon by the shoulder in an unsaid support and nods to Jinwoo in farewell, and they all disappear in the flowing crowds of passersby into the night.
Seunghoon follows the streetlights leading to his apartment a few blocks away from Dorm Street. It’s less student populated, with more angry middle-aged residents ready to be on call for complaints if you make the slightest noise. The surroundings are cleaner with practically no graffiti on walls and less random litter being kicked about.
It’s Seunghoon’s preference for a peace of mind. He enters the fourth grey building to his right then takes the stairs to the second floor, and goes to the eighth room down the hall.
Turns out, a piece of paper can very well disturb that peace of mind, Seunghoon thinks, as he stares at the eviction notice he picked up from the floor on his doormat. The landlord must’ve slipped it past under his door the moment he went out.
He half-groans, half-sighs when he turns on the lights to his apartment, his eyes pondering over the loss of it all.
He likes this place, the modest space of a living room with minimalist furniture, connected to the open mini kitchen (which he actually uses when he has spare time), and a separate room for his bedroom. He particularly loves how each part of his apartment is sized. Not too cramped, not too wastefully spacious. Though such preferences do not come cheap, that and the location of his place is very much coveted by faculty and university employees.
He doesn’t particularly feel that bad toward his landlord, he’d be annoyed too if a tenant kept missing rent dues, but it still sucks. He moves to his navy blue bedroom to flop down, spread-eagled on his springy bed, reading the paper again, against the light from the fluorescent bulb on the ceiling. It says has a leeway till next week to move out, and with that, he crushes the offending white paper to his face.
The “allowance” he’ll be getting tomorrow will be too late, he laments. He blows away the paper resting on his face, its flight landing on the side of his head. The young hacker supposes moving out won’t be too much of a hassle and turns his face to the side, to the direction of his room’s closet and desk.
All his prized possessions –being his laptop, some hard drives and a batch of USBs and CDs are in their respective containers. The rest of the random disassembled electronics arranged on his desk, things he uses for improvised replacements, he can do away with if he wanted to. And his wardrobe is always immaculately organized, so packing those isn’t much of an issue.
He sends a text to Jinwoo about his current situation, asking for suggestions, if he knew of any available places. He’s closing a few applications down when he comes across the school app. 101541246 hasn’t been much responsive since his first day of classes, with the occasional apologies of being busy with senior thesis. He tries again and types.
[Let’s eat lunch when you’re not busy. I haven’t seen you once since I got here ); ]
With that, Seunghoon drops the phone on his white bed sheets to get up and make dinner in his small kitchen.
Time strikes at eleven forty six with him on his living room floor, dressed down to loose shorts and a shirt two sizes bigger. Notes and books were strewn on the short table and an emptied brass noodle pot set aside when someone knocks on his door and rings the doorbell.
Walking barefoot and opening his front door to a Jinwoo with a box of chicken wings and drinks is the most welcoming sight.
“Kim Jinwoo comes through.” The senior greets with smugness and pride for taking actions to his previous promise about dinner hours earlier.
“In less than twenty four hours! A record.” Seunghoon happily takes the box from him and clears his short table for the food while Jinwoo leaves his shoes by the doorway.
“Can’t you just kick out your roommate, so I can move in?” Seunghoon jokes suggestively and picks up his brass pot to put away, knowing fully well Jinwoo wouldn’t, so he gets a chuckle for a response instead.
“’You brought your psych stuff?” The tall freshman asks as he opens the fried chicken container, the smell wafting out deliciously in his apartment, making his mouth water.
“Nah, but I did drop by the dorm posting board.” Jinwoo takes a few crumpled flyers from his shoulder bag and hands it over to Seunghoon, who went to the kitchen to wash his hands and sanitize an extra touch with rubbing alcohol by the counter, before he eats any chicken.
“Seunghoon.”
Seunghoon, normally not fazed by his senior’s habit to be genuinely kind and generous, turns to look and finds a controlled expression on Jinwoo’s face. “…I didn’t come here for the psych reviews.”
Seunghoon observes the guilt exuding from Jinwoo’s posture. His eyes not meeting him directly, and his frame small and curved. “I’m sorry. I need your help.” He finally brings his chin up to directly look at Seunghoon, his doe eyes pleading, almost desperate.
He feels a chill immediately petrify his body. He’s seen that kind of desperation before. On a different face, and a different time.
“So how does this work again?” Seunghoon says as he’s back at Jinwoo’s dorm the next morning, casually draped on the brown couch, the yellow walls practically blinding him with the way they bounce sunlight inside the entire living room from the glass sliding window.
“I can’t exactly divulge what my friend needs help for, without saying how you can help him with his problem.” Jinwoo tries to explain with a knot between his eyebrows. To which Seunghoon decodes: “How you can help him with”, meaning Jinwoo hasn’t told this friend of his that Seunghoon is capable of hacking things.
“So basically your friend needs me to hack something for him?” Seunghoon bluntly says.
Jinwoo squints in thought, “It’s a little bit more complicated than that–”
The doorbell sounds off and Jinwoo opens the door to two very familiar faces.
“Seunghoon?” Seungyoon asks, as he looks between him and back at Jinwoo.
“He’s where you went to last night?” Taehyun asks Jinwoo in almost an accusatory tone in his voice when he steps out behind Seungyoon. It seem so odd for Seunghoon to finally see him not in formal wear since that day in the emergency room. A casual band shirt and black jeans, however, does not do much to dress down the haughty attitude he seems to have.
Seunghoon straightens his sitting posture, interest and curiosity tingling his spine. He meets Taehyun’s sharp untrusting gaze head on with a taunting spark in his eyes and a curve of his lip for good measure. He can already feel a habit of getting a rise from this guy forming.
“Sorry,” Seungyoon interjects when he pulls a chair from the dining table to the short living room table, in front of Seunghoon and the couch. “Taehyun doesn’t like sharing friends.”
Taehyun glares at Seungyoon as he pulls himself a chair and sets it next to him, but does not object to the statement.
“Play nice Taehyun,” Jinwoo playfully says when he sits next to Seunghoon, but everyone catches the warning laced in the smile he gives.
“Right,” Taehyun says, getting down to business, “Jinwoo says you can help us. Exactly how can you?”
“Depends on what help you’re asking for,” Seunghoon replies, also dancing around specifics.
“Jinwoo says you are in need of financial aid, yes?” Seungyoon tries this time, diplomacy and formality in full force as he leans forward to continue, very different from the laid back Seungyoon that Seunghoon has come to know. “What we’re in need calls for serious discretion. And from what Jinwoo has told us, or rather, has not, your line of “help” also requires confidentiality.”
Seungyoon makes sure to stare directly at Seunghoon, with the latter mirroring his seriousness. “Whether we find our interests aligning or not, both sides are expected to never disclose the nature of the things we will talk about.”
“Breach of this trust will have consequences, I am sure, on both sides. But I have faith in Jinwoo’s judgement of character.” Seungyoon flicks his eyes to the eldest in the room for a moment. And Seunghoon is surprised that he mutually shares the sentiment of Seungyoon’s last sentence, not expecting himself to realize having that level of trust with his friend. The reason he was even considered being in this meeting.
“You would not be expected to answer certain details you wouldn’t like to share, and so would we,” Taehyun finally speaks. “We get our help, and you get your money.”
“With that being said,” Taehyun says, bringing his hands together and clasping them.
“We need your help to ruin a man.”
The air stills with Taehyun’s declaration. The tension in the room seems to suffocate in bated breath until Seunghoon smirks at the request.
“And who is this man?” Seunghoon asks, finding even more interest in the talk.
“A monster from the university board of directors.” There is a gritting bite in Taehyun’s voice, “Corrupt. Vile. Despicable–”
At the mention of “board of directors”, Seunghoon’s heart speeds up, No way.
“–Director Yang Hyun Suk.” Taehyun practically spits the name.
The name brings a feeling of ice cold water washing over Seunghoon’s chest and he wants to maniacally laugh at the aligning opportunities.
He redirects his stare to Seungyoon with a renewed sensation coursing through him, a feeling of mixed determination and malice, “Seems like we do find our interests aligning.”
He offers an anger-dazed Taehyun a hand to shake and a wicked smile.
“You have yourselves a hacker.”
Seunghoon is sitting in a bustling diner, just coming out of his morning class. He checks his green backpack for the coffee-flavored chocolate he and Jinwoo would test out for his class experiment. So far, Jinwoo still can’t stand the smell of coffee, having headaches and nausea when he catches a whiff of the stuff, but has taken small steps and is able to eat faintly coffee-flavored muffins.
Jinwoo, however, has taken to video recording his progression of flicking Seunghoon’s forehead (semi-painfully) at the signal of a buzzer, in a very classical conditioning fashion.
He’s about to message Jinwoo where he is when the seat adjacent to him is suddenly occupied. It’s not who he is expecting though, he thinks, looking at Nam Taehyun.
“Jinwoo can’t make it.” The young man with the middle-parted hair supplies at Seunghoon’s questioning stare.
Seunghoon half thinks of leaving when Taehyun flags down a waitress to their table.
“He owes you lunch doesn’t he? Well, he sent me.” The younger sophomore challenges, reading Seunghoon’s body language, “Stay. You’re here for the food, right?”
“No, I’m here for Jinwoo,” Seunghoon corrects, but decides to tease the younger man in front of him and cocks his eyebrow “You don’t make a lot of friends, do you?”
“I have enough,” Taehyun nonchalantly replies and breezes through the menu they were handed by the waitress.
Seunghoon spots a couple of guys a few tables awaymake their way to their table, eyes on Taehyun the entire time. They stop at their table to stare down his companion.
“You have friends?” A guy with a particularly large nose says to Taehyun, as if finding the notion of his own question funny.
“And I see you do too. Weirdly enough,” Taehyun supplies back cooly to the rude stranger, but his indifference is betrayed by the way Seunghoon sees his balled up fist, clenching into pale white.
Seunghoon recognizes Jinwoo’s short roommate beside the guy with the big nose. He’s not that particularly fond of Taehyun, but he knows he’s actually a nice guy to his friends, so Seunghoon decides to intervene.
“Nose–I mean, nice to meet you,” Seunghoon pretends to slip up, eyes trained on the guy’s prominent feature. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but you seem like you go here a lot,” Seunghoon brings up the plastic menu, “Do you knows anything good in the menu?”
Catching up on the jabs, the guy narrows his eyes at him and scoffs at Taehyun, “Trash people right up your standards, as expected” and walks away with his companion.
“What’s that guy’s deal?” Seunghoon asks.
After a beat, Taehyun smirks, “I don’t knows.”
As they wait for their order, Taehyun discusses with Seunghoon a possible lead.
Noise. Sweat. Liquor. The main essence of what makes a twenty-first century afterhours recreational gathering. They are also the exact combinations that Seunghoon is not particularly fond of.
Vibrations from the club subwoofers and speakers practically rattle his brain in his skull annoyingly. Plus the fact that it does not bode well with the combo of seizure-inducing lights and lasers blinding his sight, makes for a very grouchy Seunghoon.
He wades his way through the underground party, hoping the others would find who they’re impossibly looking for. ‘The architecture major.’
He does not appreciate the concept of exchanging sweat with the nearest stranger. But he can’t exactly escape it with everyone shoulder to shoulder, either jumping or grinding around to pulse-dictating beats.
He spots grumpy-droopy-brows chatting up the DJ by the booth. Seungyoon still seems to be by the bar, casually getting small talk going with one of the bartenders, where he left him. He himself has already walked away from the bouncer he talked to as well, who had no idea who Seunghoon was looking for. He doesn’t even know where Jinwoo is.
His eyes wander until he sees a small circle forming in the crowd by the side…with Jinwoo and another guy smack in the middle.
Shit. This can’t be good.
Seunghoon pushes and squeezes through the throngs of people into the fringes of the circles surrounding the two. He looks at a very pissed off muscled guy with thick eyebrows and an empty plastic cup between them on the floor. The other guy is flicking off liquids dripping from his arms and Seunghoon puts two and two together.
He can inaudibly hear Jinwoo trying to apologize over the blaring music and the MC talking in full blast. Seunghoon prepares himself to intervene if the guy does more than the glower he’s pinning down on Jinwoo. At the background, he sees both Seungyoon and Taehyun emerge from the crowd, in right timing.
“–VERSUS HUUUGEBOY MINO!!!” The MC announces overhead, and five heads simultaneously turn to the direction of the stage, the name pulling their attention.
“Shit” the angry tough guy swears, as if he can’t believe his luck. He gives a disgruntled groan at the state of his drenched front before walking away and onto the stage, much to the shock of Jinwoo, Seunghoon, Seungyoon and Taehyun.
The small circle disperses and Seunghoon approaches and claps a frozen Jinwoo on the back, “Well how about that, Danger. You found the architecture major.” He smiled as if he wasn’t about to dive into a brawl depending on how things progressed.
Jinwoo still looks mortified as a freestyle rap battle ensues at the stage. Seunghoon doesn’t blame him, the glare from the literal huge boy was intimidating as hell.
The four of them, now together, watched in awe.
Huge Boy Mino lyrically destroys his opponent who rapped about Mino literally wetting his pants before battling. Mino delivers some line about if he pissed on himself, it would be because of how a complete laughable joke his competition is, mistaking his opponent for a ‘graffiti wall filled with a pre-teen’s pathetic bitchin’ he wants to piss on.’
The entire place goes wild at the rebuttal, and the other guy chokes on his thirty second counter-verse time limit. Mino wins.
Mino is being embraced in congratulations by the people down the stage when Taehyun about-faced, “Let’s go.”
They’re all waiting by the couches at the second floor’s secluded section overlooking the rest of the venue. Above the lights, smoke, and people in general admission, the exclusive floor gives a dream-like omnipresent view below. And beneath them, they follow Mino’s movements. Being approached by a venue staff, probably informing him for a request of his presence, and his face turns upwards to the direction of the second floor.
Seunghoon takes his elbows off the railings he was leaning on to casually sit on the armrest next to Taehyun on one of the leather couches, Seungyoon on the other side, leaning on the wall. Jinwoohowever, still waits by the railings, never relaxing his posture until he sees Mino disappear to the staircase, and lets go of the metal he’s been anxiously gripping.
Mino emerges into the section and is hollered at by other seemingly regular occupants of the floor. He makes way to their area and his face displays surprised recognition when he sees Jinwoo.
A welcoming grin and a hand up is the least the four of them expected when he comes face to face with a nervous Jinwoo. “Hey, man. Sorry about earlier, you caught me in a bad mood,” he says to the blinking film student, “I should’ve held my drink better. But it worked out, right? You kinda helped me school that cocky newcomer.”
Jinwoo gives unsure nods to the surprisingly friendly rapper, a completely 180 from the petrifying thug who outwardly looked like he was about to punch him to next Tuesday.
“’You new here?” Bright eyed and starting up a conversation, Mino definitely isn’t who they were expecting.
Seunghoon ignores the annoyance he feels brewing at the back of his head. An intimidating stranger, he is familiar with, this surprisingly approachable giant…not so much. He suddenly hears Seungyoon’s voice in his thoughts echoing in remembrance for some reason. Something he said about Taehyun– doesn’t like sharing friends.
“Song Minho.” Seunghoon coolly calls the attention of the guy next to Jinwoo from his place next to Taehyun, cutting their small talk right in the bud.
Minho turns quickly at the sound of his real name being called, face suddenly guarded.
“Song Minho.” Taehyun repeats after Seunghoon, directing Minho’s attention to him. “Nam Taehyun,” he introduces briefly.
“Third year in Architecture, right?” Taehyun starts.
“Formerly. Transferred to Fine Arts,” Minho replies, suspicion in his voice, eyeing all four of them in caution.
Nothing new that Seunghoon doesn’t know from his findings. He’s not sure why Taehyun keeps insisting this guy as someone in that course.
“Your thesis,” Taehyun says, and Minho’s face immediately goes dark at the mention, “Structuring Horizons. Can we discuss–”
“No.” Minho turns on his heels to walk.
“How much money do you want to talk about it?” Taehyun calls in a last-ditch attempt, making Minho stop in his tracks.
He turns back to them, with a look much more intense than when Jinwoo knocked over his drink that evening.
“Keep your filthy money.”
Seunghoon places his chin on a knuckled fist. “That went swell,” he stated turning to Taehyun, then at Seungyoon, “I don’t even know why you let him handle negotiations.”
To which Seungyoon shrugs, “He’s the business student.”
Taehyun gets up and pocketed his hands, “He’ll come around eventually. We’ll try again soon. I’m leaving.” And with that, he did.
Seungyoon stares after the retreating Taehyun. “He’s usually much better than this. It’s getting to him.”
“What exactly?” Seunghoon teases, trying to get something off Seungyoon. “I get that he has some sort of vendetta against the director, but you don’t seem to. What’s your angle, Kang Seungyoon?”
“Doing it for a friend. You?” Seungyoon teases right back.
“Same.” Seunghoon reflects the playful poker face he’s been given.
“Are you guys flirting or something?” Jinwoo voices, his face in a half wince.
Seunghoon feels a bit giddy. “Jealous?” He directs at Jinwoo who just rolls his eyes, and Seungyoon pushes himself off the wall to stand at Jinwoo’s side.
“Well,” Seungyoon says, “As much as I’d like to stay here, I have a paper due tomorrow waiting for me back home.” He jabs a thumb at the general direction of the exit.
“Ah. Me too,” Seunghoon says as an afterthought, but thinks he’ll just finish it up by tomorrow.
“You’re not coming?” Jinwoo asks, who also looks like he isn’t heading home just yet.
Seunghoon decides, “Nah, I think I’ll stay...” reading his friend who he has come to know as someone who has a penchant for not quitting.
After Seungyoon left, Seunghoon and Jinwoo perch back to the railings, scanning the floor below. It doesn’t take long for Jinwoo to point out Minho. Jinwoo’s not one to wait on too long for right timings to opportunities and Seunghoon wants more info on Minho that a computer screen can’t tell him.
Their eyes trail to Minho down by the DJ booth, and observed him for an hour and a half, going around the place. Curiously, someone else catches Seunghoon’s attention. He sees someone in a black hoodie seemingly following Minho from area to area, occasionally “shaking hands” with several people coming his way. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the hooded guy was a drug runner. But why exactly was this guy following the rapper around?
From what data he’s collected, Minho has a clear record, from drugrelated things to minor academic offenses. He shares his thoughts with his partner in crime, who thinks maybe Minho’s too good to get caught.
It occurs to Seunghoon that Minho finally notices the person tailing him, judging from the way he keeps glancing to his sides and makes way for the backdoor exit. Seunghoon takes that as a cue to follow them, tapping Jinwoo with the back of his hand, who takes his phone out.
They exit from the back of the venue to an alley with a few people scattered around, and overhears Minho and the guy in a black hoodie.
“–I don’t know where he is okay?” Mino has a hand out, gesturing expressively with it, “Just because we were roommates doesn’t mean I do the shit he does.”
Seunghoon notices Jinwoo video recording the scene on his phone discreetly, hoping for something to happen. Maybe a fist fight.
But the guy wearing the hoodie takes Minho’s hand and shoves what looks like a sachet of white powder into Minho’s hand. “Not too late to start, right? First one’s on the house,” the other guy says, but Mino shoves him off, the packet falling to the ground and the guy’s hood coming off.
Seunghoon gives off a low whistle, startling both parties, and they are now suddenly aware that a phone is pointed at them by another guy.
“You’ve got a killer side profile, man,” Seunghoon says in a chipper tone to the guy floundering to get his hood back up.
“Ahh…damn, do you think The Oscars could give me an award for this short film? You delivered that line so good,” Jinwoo, ever the film geek, also exclaims excitedly by Seunghoon’s side.
“But I bet I wouldn’t need an award for the police to think this is good material.” Jinwoo finishes with a smile matching his friend’s, making them look like an eerie duo.
Seunghoon takes the phone from Jinwoo’s hands to tinker with it. “Now how about you–” he points at the drug runner by the phone in both his hands, “–leave our friend over here…“ he points to Minho “–alone, and we never see your face again?”
The guy in the black hoodie scowls at all three of them, but picks up the discarded packet on the ground and scampers away.
Minho faces the two, looking at them in a new light. “Thanks for that.”
Jinwoo looks hopeful but before he can start asking about “Structuring Horizons”, Minho is quick to reject it, “–But I’m sorry. I still can’t talk about my thesis.”
Seunghoon sighs deeply. “I hate to do this dude. It’s nothing personal.” He brings up Jinwoo’s phone in arm’s length, screen facing Minho; the preview of the clip being displayed: Minho in full view, being given a small suspicious ziplock in his hand.
The video frame does not display the fact that it was forcefully given, however, and that’s all it takes.
“You’re blackmailing me,” Minho says in a blurred combination of statement and question.
Behind his outstretched hand, Seunghoon feigned a look of innocence. “Oh, I’m not blackmailing you,” he stated, double tapping the screen with his thumb and prompting the delete command, causing the other boy’s prominent brows to raise in surprise when the footage was deleted in front of his own eyes.
Minho had barely even sagged his taunt shoulders in relief when Seunghoon, with eyes too bright dancing in excitement and a slight upturned corner of his mouth, continued.
Bringing the phone back to himself and tapping twice, Seunghoon then presented a new screen. An inbox on display, with a video being sent to a certain someone minutes before being deleted, made Minho pale.
“I’m not blackmailing you, Nam Taehyun is.”
The timely blackmail of Song Minho secures them a meeting with the guy. And they all find out that Minho’s thesis group accidentally found incriminating data on several of Yang Hyun Suk’s building development projects in research. Embezzlement, fraud, bankruptcy –you name it.
He also tells them all four members of the thesis group were threatened to transfer courses to keep them completely mum or face consequences. The consequence so felt by two of the people in their group, Yua and Jisu. Both were approached separately by a snooping reporter and a detective. Yua was given forged incident reports for cheating in exams and several false misdemeanor cases prompting his expulsion. Jisu just disappeared.
Minho and Sechang decided to take the course transfers, granting them “scholarships” in the course they chose. Minho (besides the years gone investing his undergrad years in architecture) says he doesn’t mind, Fine Arts is his true calling. And after explaining the situation to his parents, who he can’t lie to, he was technically free of the course he didn’t particularly have a heart for. It kinda worked out.
Until this happened.
Now, Minho’s screwed over either way, but at least at Nam Taehyun’s side, he can have a little bit of revenge for his thesis groupmates.
In turn, they brief Mino of several details. The group used to have another hacker before Seunghoon. Someone who contacted Taehyun, anonymously, providing them all the cold, solid evidences on the director. Nasty details about corruption, investment scams, fraud companies and the like. That is, before taking them back at the last moment, leaving them with zero proof, except for the lead that was “Structuring Horizons.”
Which brings them to the area of Samgeori Brothers Corporation, a construction firm out one of many from Director Yang's conglomerates.
Minho jogs by in a light blue tracksuit and a pink cap, stopping in front of the building, conveniently tying his running shoes as he casually looks from the facade of the glass-walled front of the building.
Jinwoo, wearing a medical mask, is at the back alleys of the building under the guise of a guy who needs to desperately take a piss by the dumpsters.
Seungyoon and Taehyun in sunglasses are with a rented car, parked a few distance from the firm. They're "waiting" for a tow truck to get their car with a flat tire.
Seunghoon is at the cafe directly across the company, eating a muffin.
He sees a short girl with brown curly pigtails enter, and he pops the last piece of the pastry into his mouth, before he calls her over.
"So how was it?" Seunghoon smiles at his freshman classmate from Calculus.
"It was okay. The guy at the desk did let me use the bathroom, but it was hard to take pics at the lobby. So I tried to fake selfies instead. I'll send them to you in a bit." She smiled sweetly.
"Awesome. Thanks Hayi," Seunghoon grins back.
"No problem, thanks for retrieving my files from my hard drive last week!" With the favor returned, she hops down from her seat and waves goodbye, "Good luck with the social experiment, Seunghoon!"
He waves and bites back a smile at the mention of the "social experiment" cover story he came up with for the favor. He takes out his phone and sends four messages for the team to regroup tonight.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" A very unamused Minho says at the door.
Seunghoon feels the same sentiment, but the box of books he's carrying is getting too heavy. So he kicks the base of the door that Minho is contemplating to close.
"What's up, roomie!" Seunghoon says in a singsong voice as he barges in, setting his box on an empty wooden bed frame that's now his.
"Seriously, did you fuckin' use your evil matrix powers to find where I live? ‘Cause I'm already helping you assholes willingly...sorta," Minho complains in his oversized Eminem shirt and ducky-print boxers.
"First of all, I don't need my 'evil matrix powers' to find you, I could just follow you home this morning– but I didn't!" Seunghoon defends when Minho squints at him accusingly. "And second, those are cool shorts, man."
Jinwoo comes through the door with a box of electronics and notices the other person in the room, "Oh, hey Minho!"
He sets the boxes down on the floor, big-eyed and curious. "Do you live around here too?"
"Yeah. This is my room," the rapper stated the obvious to the shorter of the two, who seems to have asked him the question without thought, much too distracted by the numerous art posted at Minho's side of the room.
When he finally looks at Minho, he comments, "Cool shorts, dude."
Minho narrows his eyes at the seemingly harmless pair who pretty much blackmailed him into this huge mess a little less than a week ago.
"Wanna eat chicken with us after we move the stuff in?" Jinwoo offers offhandedly.
"Sure!" Minho finds himself automatically answering at the mention of food.
And that's when he decides Jinwoo is more of the evil mastermind between the two. Considering the things he's witnessed them do, he still can't find it in him to hate the sneaky senior for some reason.
They (Jinwoo) decide to bring food to Taehyun and Seungyoon's dorm room as well for the regroup that night.
The sophomores’ dorm is more spacious than Minho and Seunghoon’s room, with two separate rooms for each of them, a small kitchen, a shared bathroom, and a living room in neutral tones filled with what seems like DIY hipster furniture.
If they weren't just a bunch of guys brought together for being mutually victimized by an evil university director, and planning to hack into a company the next day, they'd actually look like a group of friends hanging out.
But they are, too, so Seungyoon still needs to make sure Seunghoon does not go over Taehyun's patience to avoid a murder, reassure Jinwoo that Minho isn't really out to get him still for the spilt drink when they met, and refrain from kicking everyone out the room.
After everyone's fed and mellow, they get down to business.
Seunghoon shows them the pictures Hayi took earlier, everyone agreeing for once: how cute of a covert spy she makes. They take into account the number of CCTVs and security locks they encountered, including those in the pictures.
Seungyoon and Taehyun comment how the guard out front shift every hour to do rounds. And also taken into account, the other additional CCTV on the vicinity.
Minho explains he's seen a few younger people waiting at a lobby, and deduces that they're probably interns or applicants; it would be good for one of them to pretend to be one.
But it's Jinwoo who suggests they could pretend to come from a digital security company to actually access the good parts of the company.
"And exactly how do we do that?" Seungyoon asks.
Jinwoo smiles (and Minho gets shivers from seeing it, the gesture usually preceding something diabolical Evil mastermind!) and dumps crumpled papers plus a few weird weirdly-splattered colored calling cards from a ziplock.
Taehyun picks one up and examines it: "Cyber Wall Digital Security: I.T. Service Company".
The excitement in Jinwoo is infectious and he picks up the few papers, "It gets better, they're SBC's actual hired digital security." He spreads out the papers to reveal them as faxed notices for a system upgrade.
"Who the hell still uses faxes?" Minho comments from the side.
"How'd you get this?" Taehyun asks the eldest in total awe.
To which Jinwoo excitedly reveals: "Company dumpster!"
Taehyun flicks the calling card away at lightning speed, the definition of appalled found exactly on his face. Seunghoon practically busts his sides from laughing at Taehyun, and so does Minho, but the bristling youngest wipes his fingers on Huge Boy's sleeves, which results to him getting tackled into a chokehold.
Taehyun spits out, "You're dead, Song!! I'm uploading twenty copies of your drug vid on Youtube!"
At the side, Seunghoon cheers both of them on while Seungyoon compliments on Jinwoo's ingenuity and initiative of going above and beyond the call of duty via dumpster diving. Jinwoo proudly remarks it’s an inspiration from a scene in a short film he wrote and directed for a class two semesters ago.
"Seunghoon." Seungyoon gets the attention of the cheering hacker, "I might have a plan."
And from the confident way his eyes seemed, Seunghoon feels it's probably a good one too.
Seungyoon has planned of combining all of their contributions. Someone disguised as an intern would infect all the computers they could so that someone else gets a solid pass as someone from Cyber Wall Company.
They're all gathered behind Seunghoon, who's typing away and dissecting the university app's private messaging feature yet again, as suggested by Taehyun.
Seunghoon runs a character recognition search for the words "Samgeori Brothers Corporation", "Sam Bro", "SBC", and "Internship".
Sure enough, some people do come up in the search. In right timing too. Except...
"OMG girl, I got an internship at Sam Bro in a few days!!! #blessed" Minho reads out loud, the chat message sounding so odd being said with his deep voice.
“Woo Rachel.” Seunghoon retrieves the student’s real name from her student number.
"Well..." Seungyoon starts leaning away, "Taehyun and I can't physically be seen anywhere near the company anyway."
A valid reasoning too, as both of them are actually personally acquainted with the director (in what manner, they never elaborated) and shouldn't be on sight too near the "scene of the crime".
"I can jog past the company, that's the only thing within suspicious activity I can do," Minho says, also backing away.
Now ruled out, the three stare between the two eldest of the group.
"I'm obviously playing the part of the employee from Cyber Wall," Seunghoon comments the obvious.
And they all awkwardly avoid each other's gaze, knowing who's left.
"Whatever, I bet I look great in a skirt anyway."
He actually does.
All five of them, including Jinwoo, are speechless at the sight of him.
Jinwoo continues to inspect himself on a window reflection. With the props he borrowed from someone he knew in the theatre department, he really doesn’t seem to look half bad, he looks great, actually.
The plan’s all set. They’ve made a fake call to inform the real Woo Rachel that the start of her internship was moved to five more days, as well as a fake appointment set for a system update on main servers being sent “from” Cyber Wall.
By now, everyone’s convinced Minho would have a flourishing career in voice acting. Added to the fact that he adlibs so well, he even pretended asking for more specific landmarks, as if he hasn’t been at the company before (much to the amazement of Jinwoo, who secretly notes to book him for any films he’d shoot in the future).
The plan surprisingly goes off without a hitch, with Jinwoo/Rachel effectively infecting a total of fifteen computers with the USB virus he was carrying.
Seunghoon breezes in and out of their server room, successfully tapping in their secure network and adding an access point that would allow him to get into the system remotely. He also “fixes” the viruses Jinwoo had wreak havoc among the computers affected.
And as a final touch, corruption of the CCTV footage files of several specific cameras with random dates from present day to a month before, to simulate a glitch and completely remove the evidence that fake intern Woo Rachel and fake tech guy Seri Aru ever entered the building.
They rendezvoused back at HQ, a.k.a. Seungyoon and Taehyun’s shared dorm, and Seunghoon unloads data into Taehyun’s laptop via access point. He leaves the information sifting to the professionals: the business and accounting majors’ power tag-team.
And soon enough, both Taehyun and Seungyoon are engrossed in their work, bent over laptops and printing papers of importance, marking certain figures and comparing analytics. From time to time, they ask Mino about industrial jargons and systematics.
It really is a sight to see their efficient and smooth dynamic, to which Jinwoo informs Minho and Seunghoon, that the both of them are actually childhood friends, which would explain how they seem to just know something about the other, in a way people with those bonds can.
After a few hours, the other three went back to their own dorms.
“Well, today was intense.” Minho says from his side of their room, lying on his bed, staring in a slight daze on his ceiling taped with black paper, calligraphy letters of what Seunghoon thinks are gospel verses.
“Yeah,” Seunghoon replies, thinking he might ask about Minho’s artworks later, his side of the room looking comically minimalist in comparison.
“Say,” Minho speaks up just as Seunghoon is about to fall into a nap, “What are you in this for?” And just like that, Seunghoon is wide awake.
He considers telling the half-truth that Taehyun is just paying him for his hacking, but decides otherwise at the last moment, thinking of how unfair it is for Minho to have all his cards on the table but is left out in the dark by everyone else.
“I…” Seunghoon tries to find how to say everything, “I’m doing it for friend…Someone I knew since I was a kid.”
He hears Minho shifting in his sheets, probably to face his direction.
“My family got into a really bad situation and was really dependent on my friend’s family for a while.” Seunghoon’s eyes go upward in remembrance, a surge of nostalgia overcoming him. Memories of his family just scraping by everyday; him as a child being immature and not understanding his family’s sudden fall.
“When my family got back up, my parents paid back what we owed and moved to a new start,” Seunghoon continued.
“My friend’s family was quite fortunate, but they made a very bad investment. Scammed and drained to debts. We only found out when it was too late, the fall was too much for my friend’s dad.” He recounts the reunion with his best friend not being the way he expected it to be.
“Shit.” Minho comments solemnly.
“The man responsible for it came to the funeral.” Seunghoon felt his own voice turning gritty at the bitter memory, he got up to sit at the edge of his bed, sharing a knowing look with Minho, obvious on who he meant.
“Turns out, it was the same guy responsible for my family’s rut too. It took other relatives and neighbors to restrain my parents and my friend’s family to not kill him on sight.”
Seunghoon huffed a mirthless laugh, “Dick even left two checks. One for my family, the other, to my friend’s family.”
“I’d never seen people get such satisfaction and grief in destroying a piece of paper,” he said to the horrified Minho, now also sitting on his bed.
“Our families were joined for some years till my dad got a job overseas. They branched out after that.” Seunghoon’s tone changed to lighter, explaining the aftermath.
“But for my family, having two older sisters in college doesn’t come cheap, still. So after I graduated high school, I worked for my own tuition till I got into a Tiger Team.”
“A what?” Minho asks, confused where the hell tigers came into the picture.
“A term for hackers who are paid to hack into systems to find vulnerabilities,” Seunghoon explained.
“After some years that I made some money, I didn’t see the point much in college. That was until shit happened and I got kicked out of the team.”
“But as luck would have it, I got in contact with my friend…I found out he went to this specific university. I wondered if he had a motive in going here all this time; I wanted to help him.” Seunghoon fiddled with his phone absentmindedly.
“Did he have a motive?” Minho inquires, very engrossed at the entire thing.
“I don’t know, it feels like he’s avoiding me, I didn’t want to push it.” Seunghoon stared at his phone’s screen, his last message to 101541246, still not replied to.
“I didn’t have a solid plan till I met Jinwoo, and the whole thing fell into place like the stars were aligning and shit.” He marveled at the sudden realization how important a part his new friend had played so crucially in the immediate time that he met him.
“Tell me about it.” Minho parallel from him agrees curiously, being in a similar situation involved with the senior.
“But it’s strange,” Seunghoon says in deep thought, “It kinda feels like I’m not doing it for my friend anymore.” Jinwoo’s face that night looking so desperate for his help came into mind.
“When Jinwoo came that night he asked me to help him, he had this look…like how my friend looked at me at his dad’s funeral.” Fine hairs on Seunghoon’s arms stood up in the haunting memory.
“Back then, I couldn’t do anything, what’s different now is, I can. I’m not sure if this is some kind of weird chance at redemption."
“Like if you help Jinwoo, then maybe it makes up for not being able to help your friend?” Minho asks to understand better.
“Maybe,” Seunghoon replies.
Minho smiles faintly, piecing everything together, “So was that before or after you realized?”
“Realized what?” Seunghoon asked, not getting the way Minho’s smile grew wider.
“That you fell for him.” Minho grinned, wiggling his thick eyebrows.
Seunghoon happily throws a pillow straight at Minho’s shiteating grin, but says nothing.
He’s about to throw in a second pillow for good measure when a knock comes from their door.
Minho opens the door, and Seunghoon is surprised to see the guys he saw at the diner. Minho is then heading out with them when the guy with the big nose spots Seunghoon before the door closes, and glares. The hacker hears a muffled “You better not be hanging out with that tall weirdo, Hugeboy” and Seunghoon laughs.
The day after, Seunghoon drops by the Kang-Nam District (what Minho has taken to referring the posh-looking dorm the sophomores have) after his classes to disable the access point from Taehyun’s laptop before the actual Cyber Wall company finds it if they drop at SBC for a legit visit, sure by now the two students have extracted the info they needed.
He opens the unlocked door, to find the living room a little less pristine than it usually was. Stacked papers of homework, reviewers, projects, and director-incriminating evidences were here and there.
He finds a curled up Seungyoon on the couch here and a Taehyun smoking in the terrace there.
He walks out of the ajar glass sliding door to stand next to the pensive-looking Taehyun, stoic as usual. Taehyun is blowing smoke well into the cold night, the small light above them chiseling solid shadows into his features, making him seem older.
The smoke from the younger man’s cigarette is dancing in a mesmerizing ascent when Seunghoon decides to break the silence.
“You guys found anything good?” Looking over at the dusk and night-light illuminated Dorm District a few blocks away, Seunghoon finds the roof of his old apartment before it’s completely swallowed by darkness.
“Not all of it, but maybe it’s enough to set off a chain reaction.” Taehyun drags a breath from his stick and exhales smoke laced with his nerves.
They stay in mutual silence, both understanding the gravity of their actions from here on out. They’ve harvested the power, now how do they use it is the question. The sound of little embers flickering into ashes from Taehyun’s cigarette, when he takes another drag, fills the silence a moment later.
“I’m not one to comment much on other people’s affairs, but maybe you should find an alternative for that.” And by that, of course Seunghoon means the smoking.
Taehyun surprisingly seemed to not reject the idea completely, “And what could that be?” he flicks his eyes sideways to Seunghoon briefly.
“We’ll find something.” Seunghoon replies in his succinct way, usually only reserved to tick off Taehyun.
Taehyun snorted at the vague response. “Bitch, please.”
Seunghoon smiles, making sure his eyes felt as if they were practically half crescent to get into the younger man’s nerves a touch extra. “Well, since you said please.”
Against expectations, Seunghoon sees the corners of Taehyun’s lips curve ever so slightly.
The specific muscle movement makes him stop and look at Taehyun in what seemed like genuine awe, “Whoa, holy shit. Do that again.”
Taehyun’s whole face morphed into confusion. “Do what?”
“When you did this–” Seunghoon gestures his hands around his own face while his mouth widely displayed his teeth in a very exaggerated resemblance of a smile “–and you looked like you weren’t planning someone’s murder.”
Taehyun rolled his eyes, not taking the bait and knowing the other boy was trying to get a rise out of him.
He walked back into the apartment crumpling his face in a halfheartedly annoyed expression; if only to control his façade, not to betray the rapid speed of his heartbeat at his sudden understanding:
Seunghoon, in his own fashion and veiled wording that he reserves mostly for Taehyun, had complimented his smile.
Back inside, Seunghoon finalized some commands on Taehyun’s laptop (and also changed his bizarre Jean Basquiat wallpaper into a picture from his phone that Jinwoo sent. All four of them making faces, surrounding a cross-dressing Jinwoo after their trip to SBC).
Taehyun sat down when Seunghoon left the computer chair and groaned when he saw the screen, “Why the fuck? So juvenile,” but didn’t change it anyway.
Teasing Taehyun is by far one of Seunghoon’s favorite hobbies these days, so he ups the ante and swivels the computer chair with the younger boy still sitting in it.
Seunghoon braced his hands on the arms of the chair, encasing Taehyun. Bringing his face down on eye level and talking in a hushed pulse-quickening voice he said, “Who knows? Maybe I have a silly little crush on you.”
Taehyun sneered, but not after Seunghoon noticed him pause for a moment, scrutinizing his stare for any hint of sincerity.
Taehyun brought his chin up, stubborn as ever. With lazy, leveled lids he bit back, “Lee. I’m egotistical. Not delusional.”
A groan on the couch separates them and a groggy Seungyoon with bed head pops up.
“Ahhh, Seungyoonieee!” Seunghoon cooed then climbed the back of the couch like an idiot and landed on the sleepy Seungyoon that turned into a weird horizontal hug.
Taehyun’s phone vibrates and he gets a message from Jinwoo asking if Seunghoon was at the “HQ” already, the hacker wanting to come when Jinwoo said he was dropping by, and so had invited Minho as well.
The gears of Taehyun’s mind spun as he tried something. “Jinwoo says he can’t make it.”
Like a switch, Seunghoon instantaneously sprung up, facing Taehyun’s direction. “What. Why?” His voice grossly dripping with worry.
And an actual switch, the doorbell, rang right in time.
Taehyun calmly strode to the door, dropping his phone in Seunghoon’s hands, Jinwoo’s message on show for him to read.
Seunghoon got played.
“We brought food!” a voice obviously Jinwoo’s called out from the front door, followed by Minho’s “Aye, ‘sup.”
Seunghoon felt someone come up behind him whispering in his ear smugly, as the phone in his hand was taken back. “Silly little crush, indeed.”
The next day, Seunghoon drops by again and leaves a bottle of blowing bubbles on the terrace for Taehyun to find, with a written note “Found Something ;)” under it.
Taehyun forgoes his usual packet of cigarettes and blows half the bottle into the dusk sky, orange-violet orbs floating along Dorm District, a smile adorning his face.
Minho and Seunghoon are crashing in the living room of Jinwoo's dorm, through with their classes for the day. They've taken to hanging out lately, Minho having most of his friends graduated last term and only sees them on weekends while Seunghoon isn't really interested in most of his same year yet younger friends' interests.
So here they are, Minho on the table, filling up a sketchbook of five hundred gestural drawings for an elective he has. Jinwoo has a coffee-caramel flavored hard candy in his mouth (something he's been gradually consuming the past few days) while he's wiping his camera lens set with a cleaning cloth. Seunghoon is at it on Jinwoo's laptop again, trying to find a bug that he says has been deleting some files.
"What exactly are the files that's missing? I don't see anything wrong," he pipes up, scanning the device.
"These," Jinwoo retrieves a cd from his room and inserts it to his laptop, "whenever I copy these files into my desktop, they always get deleted after a day or something."
Seunghoon opens the cd's contents and is surprised to see raw footages of about four gigabytes worth of CCTV recordings.
"What are these for?" Seunghoon asks, a bit concerned why Jinwoo had such files.
He played one video in fast forward, it was a view at an angle outside an office, the director coming out of the doors.
"Remember that hacker we had before you? He sent us this cd for me to go through and edit. It had footages of him meeting contractors and dealers," Jinwoo explained as Seunghoon played another clip.
"When he hacked into our laptops, he took everything away, this cd was the only thing we had left." Jinwoo continued, and Minho had come over to watch as well.
"The clips were kinda useless without the backing proof he took since it merely showed the people involved just meeting, but I still tried piecing them back together again so Seungyoon and Taehyun could have evidence to show I rushed an all-nighter, but I was too late."
A memory goes by Seunghoon's head.
Jinwoo had mentioned being too preoccupied last semester was the reason why he repeated some subjects he had. He couldn't be too sure, but his gut had suspected heavily. Taehyun had mentioned the hacker coming in contact with them just last semester also.
"Was this what you were doing the day I met you?" Seunghoon stilled in controlled fury, holding back the feeling till he confirmed everything.
Jinwoo stared confused and worried at the sudden change in Seunghoon’s demeanor, but Minho stood by the side in understanding. The eldest seemed to be oblivious by just how much their hacker friend has come to care for him.
Jinwoo looked at Seunghoon’s eyes for an explanation when he uttered an unsure “Yes”.
But Seunghoon was instantly out of the door in a rage.
“Seunghoon!” Minho and Jinwoo called after him, but to no avail, as he heads to Taehyun and Seungyoon’s dorm. All of them knowing well that the two would be coming home from a class by this time.
“NAM!” Seunghoon barks in wrath as Taehyun and Seungyoon come into view at their building’s corridor, only a few doors away to their room.
The duo stops and is shocked into a stupor as Seunghoon lunges to push the youngest of their group backwards. Taehyun gets the wind knocked out of him with no time to react, but Seungyoon is quick to come between the two, instinctively shielding Taehyun from Seunghoon.
“SEUNGHOON, WHAT THE HELL?” Seungyoon is more shocked than angry at the moment for the sudden assault.
Minho and Jinwoo finally catch up, and are quick to restrain Seunghoon on either side of his arms. Now being restrained, Seunghoon tries to free himself by repeatedly lunging forward to the direction of Seungyoon, who’s still blocking him from Taehyun.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE TO YOU?” Seunghoon shouts over Seungyoon, and continues just to hiss, “Just how dispensable are we to you?!”
Taehyun barely has recovered to reply when a sudden crash automatically gravitates all their attention at once.
Another ruckus and everyone zeroes in to the source. A door few rooms away from them is ajar. Seungyoon and Taehyun’s door.
A chilling feeling washes over to both the owners of the dorm and they immediately dash inside, leaving the other three to follow behind.
What greets them is seven guys destroying the entire dorm room. Papers are torn everywhere, drawers out and emptied, and books strewn and damaged. But the intruders seemed to be more specifically focused on destroying two laptops. Seunghoon recognizes three of them. But it’s Minho who is most surprised that yells.
“HANBIN, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, MAN?!”
Seunghoon finally knows the name of the guy with the large nose he’s been bumping into. The guy turns to Minho’s direction, as if he isn’t currently destroying the other broken half of Taehyun’s laptop into two more pieces.
“Oh, hey Hugeboy,” the boy greets, and flicks his eyes to a quiet Taehyun, as if he’s just noticed his presence. “Ahh. Nammie, how are you?” There is a maniacal mix of amusement and anger mixed in his stare.
“Sorry I haven’t been in contact lately. New semester and all that.” Hanbin goes and finally halves the laptop part he has by driving it through his knee, “No worries though, Jinhwan here caught wind of your activities lately and told me.” He drapes his shoulder on Jinwoo’s roommate who refuses to look up and meet them in the eyes.
“But tell me, Nammie, why would you do this to dad?” Hanbin sneers as he throws the metal and plastic pieces in hand away and picks up papers to rip. “I can call him our dad right? Since my mom is marrying him soon enough.” A slow sick sound of research and evidence papers being ripped apart fills the entire room.
Hanbin notices Minho and Seunghoon’s shocked faces at the background and laughs mid-rip “Oh wait, you guys didn’t know? That’s hilarious. Nammie is Yang’s stepson. And my future stepbrother too.” He grimaces at the notion of the last information.
“…It’s a secret though, so shhh!” He rips the set of papers in his hands twice-fold for good measure. “You got another thing coming if you think I’m going to let you ruin my family’s chance for a better life.” The amusement is gone, and an animalistic flare is all that’s left in his stare.
“Get out.” Taehyun darkly commands while he stands stock-still.
Hanbin trudges through the devastation he and his friends made, paper and broken items crunching under his shoes, to face Taehyun directly to declare– “You’re not the only one trying to survive.”
And just like that, the seven guys leave.
The sun is setting, and it lights up the entire dorm into a morbid orange, making the place look like an actual crime scene even more.
“So this is what you’ve been using us for?” Seunghoon breaks the quiet that settled.
Minho, who would have held back the hacker under normal circumstance, is now unsure of what to make of everything, and so doesn’t make any moves. He feels as if Taehyun has become a whole other person, with parts of his identity revealed.
“You have fucking daddy issues. Is that what you’re doing this for?” Seunghoon’s temper gaining speed once more.
Taehyun is still as a statue amidst the wreckage, but Seungyoon shifts to stand between the two of them once more, taking the brunt of Seunghoon’s tirade.
“Seunghoon!” Seungyoon shouts in warning, the most they’ve ever seen the accounting student close to anger.
“NO, fuck you too, Seungyoon. You’ve been helping this asshole all this time.” Seunghoon practically spats out to Taehyun’s childhood friend.
“Did you fuckers know how close Jinwoo came to dying–” he shouted at Seungyoon’s face, “Fucking. Dying. That day he was trying to help you assholes?!"
“Seunghoon.” Jinwoo whispered harshly, “Stop it,” pushing him back off Seungyoon, whose face painted guilt and horror at the remembrance of what happened to the eldest in the group.
“Did you know about this?” he mirrors the harsh quality of voice that Jinwoo gave him as he staggers from the force of the push.
Seunghoon stares heavily and Jinwoo looks away from the intensity, his eyes watery at the sudden animosity from the person he least expected it from.
“Is this a game to you?” Seunghoon goes back to shouting over Taehyun, his voice going over the silent Jinwoo and Seungyoon.
“You know what’s at stake for us. What the hell are you playing at? Playing daddy’s little rebel?!” Veins rise up on Seunghoon’s skin by his neck. His voice is going hoarse from the shouting, but he doesn’t care.
“What were you going to pay us with? Daddy’s filthy money?” Seunghoon chortles humorlessly and it bounces around the walls as the sun finally sets, everyone swallowed by darkness.
Minho finally speaks up, “Let’s just go, Seunghoon.”
When it’s just the three of them left, Seungyoon turns on the lights and they quietly start cleaning up the mess. All of the evidence and research are destroyed; laptops beyond repair and some documents were soaked through on purpose, bleeding ink across the papers.
But it’s when Taehyun finds the spilt-over container of blowing bubbles at the terrace does the last of his strength crumble.
His silence finally breaks and releases with a heart-wrenching sob that starts and doesn’t stop till the break of light the next day.
Minho and Seunghoon went home that night feeling hollow for various reasons, and waking up the next morning did nothing to change it. That was, until Seunghoon received a message.
101541246: [Let’s meet.]
And that’s how Seunghoon ended up with a small bouquet, wearing his best semi-formal wear to a columbarium, a train ride away from university.
He passed the many rows and columns of compartments, both occupied and vacant. More of the occupied ones donned small hooks of flowers and gift key chains. Seunghoon stopped near the specific compartment he was looking for, finding his childhood friend in crisp formal wear, stood facing the compartment, the outline of his back very familiar.
Seunghoon cleared his throat. “Jae.”
Thanks for coming to dad’s anniversary. Mom came yesterday,” his childhood friend chimed from beside him.
They’re sitting on the stone steps of the ground’s open chapel, picking out random weeds sprouting off the concrete when they were in reach.
Seunghoon squints against the afternoon sun, cicadas in the nearby field singing continuous choruses. “Are you kidding me? Your old man was my second dad. And so was my dad to you.”
“I guess so,” Jae laughs lightly and throws torn up grass blades over Seunghoon’s head, much to the other boy’s annoyance, who tried to brush all of it off.
“But I didn’t really ask you to come here to reminisce.” Jae also squints into the view of various niches aligned in the distance, spotting two dragonflies dancing together through the un-kept and sunbaked weeds.
Seunghoon turns his head, and allows his eyes to readjust from the harsh sunlight to look at his friend. “Then what.”
“I told you not to do anything stupid. Why did you get involved with that Nam kid?”
Seunghoon freezes at the mention of the name. “How did y–…You’re their first hacker?” he accuses, piecing his childhood friend into the equation.
Jae nods, his normal quirky demeanor practically absent today. “When I came to the university, I did my research. Dug around places I shouldn’t. Along the way, I found Nam Taehyun in the tangles. His mom was a CEO, married that bastard, but he hid the fact that she had any kids. She died a few years ago.”
Seunghoon stays silent, not sure what to make of what he’s learning about Taehyun at the moment.
Jae continues, “Anybody with a brain could probably guess that monster would not take well with surrogate parenting. So I tried my luck, maybe this guy hates this asshole’s guts more than I do. Turns out I was right. I had the dirt, Nam Taehyun had the resources.”
Seunghoon sees everything so far, but something still doesn’t make sense, “But why did you pull back?”
“Casualties.” Jae looks back to the direction of where his father’s urn compartment was.
“I wasn’t sure what I was doing it for anymore. We’ve all carried on with life, Dad’s gone, but your dad went through the same thing…yet he’s still here.”
Jae opened his handful of clumped up pile of weeds for the wind to blow, “So I took back everything I let Taehyun see, but left him some leads if he wanted to keep going. I saw their film student friend still trying though. I hack into his laptop every time when he tries to use the footage I gave. It’s not much evidence, but they can get in trouble if someone finds out they have it.”
“That was you?” Seunghoon asks half amused, half annoyed.
Jae smirked at the reaction, “The cd was encrypted with a root administration tool. Sometimes I monitor their laptops, and that’s where I found out you’ve been helping them. I couldn’t exactly delete the data you guys harvested. It was fair game. But I knew something wrong happened when two of the laptops went missing.”
Seunghoon snorted. “Yeah, someone named Hanbin and his friends destroyed the laptops and the data. Jinwoo’s roommate probably heard us that day we all met.”
“Hanbin? You mean Nam’s future stepsibling?” Jae blinked at Seunghoon, “That one’s a handful too. His dad went to jail, and his mom plans to remarry to that scumbag. Makes you think doesn’t it? How bad can your ex-husband be that you’d rather get married to that one for protection.”
“You’re not the only one trying to survive.” Hanbin’s words ring in Seunghoon’s head, leaving him to really wonder if the other boy had someone, that he’d even resort to destroying things, just to protect.
Seunghoon unknowingly spots the two dragonflies Jae had been watching minutes ago. The two insects fly past and danced another loop, then in a blink, they separate ways, flying in other directions, through the heat wave of the afternoon sun, never to be seen again.
Seunghoon comes back to an empty dorm, with Minho out with his older friends, since it was a weekend. The peace is short-lived however when a doorbell and a few knocks later, he opens a door to Seungyoon.
“Let’s go for a walk. I’ll explain everything,” Seungyoon says calmly, clutching a white envelope in one hand.
And that’s how they ended up walking along Dorm District, going by the casual flow of strangers on the sidewalks, most of the student population opting for busier districts to hang out for the weekend.
“That day when we met at the hospital,” Seungyoon starts as they pass by a small bookstore, opening memories they’d rather not recall for obvious reasons, “Taehyun and I came from a trial.”
Seunghoon remembers the formal suits they wore, which now makes sense.
“It’s a big reason why Jinwoo was pushing himself so much that day. We needed the evidence.” Seungyoon looks up at power lines, remembering.
“For what?” Seunghoon finally asks, walking alongside Seungyoon.
“Taehyun’s mother died a few years ago, she married the director but left Taehyun her share of her old company in his name.” Seungyoon kicked a stray pebble in his way. “He wasn’t ready to claim it yet at the time. But it’s not why we were at court that day.”
Seungyoon glanced at Seunghoon and stated seriously, “Taehyun has a younger brother.”
“He’s a minor, so his legal guardian by default is Yang. We’ve been trying to transfer rights and guardianship to Taehyun, for reasons I can’t say.”
Seunghoon tucks his hands into his blue jacket, patiently waiting for Seungyoon to continue.
“Truth be told, Taehyun had lived with my family when the director cut him off for having a claim to his mom’s business. My family’s been friends with the Nams for years. It’s only right we took him in when he needed it.”
They’ve passed by several cafes by now, wind blowing against them, as they trudged on forward.
“When the hacker contacted Taehyun, it was a good way for us to back up our claim of his brother not being in good hands. But we were going to execute it in a way that wouldn’t need us to be directly linked. Like anonymously dropping off mass evidences to investigators, and the like.”
“You couldn’t have Yang coming for the Nams after.” Seunghoon guessed, to which Seungyoon nodded to.
“But our hacker took everything aw–” Seungyoon’s phone rang loudly, cutting him off.
He took a look at the screen, and hurriedly answered, very worried, “Donghyun? Why are you calling? What happened…Dorm key? Where are you right now?”
But the call must have been dropped, as Seungyoon suddenly held his phone down. Immediately after, it buzzes and he receives a text from Taehyun which he read out loud for Seunghoon.
“Going out. Donghyun’s in my room. Keep an eye on him. Please.”
He tries calling the number, but it wouldn’t go through.
Seungyoon throws a look to Seunghoon for him to convey that this seems like a very unusual thing for Taehyun to say. With that, they both rush to Seungyoon’s dorm.
Seungyoon practically rams the door to Taehyun’s room only to find Donghyun in front of Taehyun’s full body mirror, hastily bringing his shirt down. However, it’s not fast enough for Seunghoon not to spot multiple purple-green bruises, and he finally understands just how desperate Taehyun is willing to take back his younger brother.
“Donghyun. Where did Taehyun go?” Seungyoon asks, dread in his throat, his gut sinking low.
The boy shakes his head, confused. “I don’t know…he went to your room then headed out.”
Seungyoon dashes to his room and comes out quickly to explain to Seunghoon, “He took my USB. It had a few data from the hack stored in it, I told him this morning.”
“Where is he going with it?” Seunghoon asks, growing worried as well.
“I have a hunch. But we gotta go if he’s gonna do something stupid,” Seungyoon says, taking his phone out and dialing.
They head out and wait outside at the main road till a cab pulls over, with Jinwoo inside, motioning for them to get in, being the person Seungyoon contacted. Seungyoon dictates an address to the driver, telling him to get there as fast as he can drive.
“He might be going to the judge to show the evidence,” Seungyoon rationalizes, dragging a hand over his face, placing the white envelope that he hasn’t let go the entire time on his lap.
Seunghoon’s phone buzzes, and he gets a message from Minho saying he was suddenly approached by Taehyun and was asked (sorta blackmailed again) for him to come with and drive him somewhere; Minho asking help since it’s definitely not his car but his friend’s.
Seunghoon reads the message twice over before telling the others, “Taehyun took Minho with him. They’re by the highway exit at a gas station.”
“Tell Minho to stall again so we can catch up.” Seungyoon instructs, opening a map app in his phone.
A few minutes later, they spot a black car at the side of the highway with Minho and Taehyun outside. They stop the cab and pay the fare, in a rush to get to the two.
Taehyun immediately spots them coming and turns to Minho, feeling betrayed, for probably notifying the others of their whereabouts. He tries to get back in the car, only for Minho to snatch back the car keys from his hands and press the lock on the alarm.
“YAH!” Outraged, Taehyun impulsively draws a hand back towards Minho who flinches in reflex.
“Taehyun!” Jinwoo and Seunghoon, equally alarmed, call the youngest’s name out in unison.
But it’s Seungyoon who makes it between Taehyun and Minho in time. He is shielding Minho, his face in rage, almost mirroring his best friend’s when he roars.
“WHO ARE YOU RIGHT NOW?” Seungyoon’s eyes are looking wildly at the raised hand that’s poised to strike but then searched Taehyun’s eyes, appalled by what he almost witnessed his childhood friend do.
Seunghoon, who now comprehends the entire situation, decodes the words as: ‘Are you your stepdad’s son?’ going unsaid between the two.
They all watch as color drains from Taehyun’s face in realization. His hand goes limp at his side, anger forgotten, replaced with horror. He walks to the side of the road, looking dazed. And the tension from everyone seems to deflate all at once.
“Taehyun. Listen to me.” Seungyoon starts again, gesturing to the hand that has been holding the now somewhat creased white envelope the entire time, “No matter what the court rules over the custody, we’re not going to stop fighting to get Donghyun.”
Taehyun finally turns back to Seungyoon, and with eyes that appear very drained, looks at the rest of the group.
Seunghoon eventually finds his voice to say, “We’re not going anywhere, Taehyun.”
Minho, who has been apologized and explained to about the entire ordeal personally by Taehyun himself while driding on the way, nods in agreement with Seunghoon. Already forgiving the youngest’s slip of anger earlier.
Jinwoo smiles in encouragement by Seunghoon’s side.
Overcome with emotion and support, Taehyun draws a shaky breath, finally takes the letter from Seungyoon and opens it.
His eyes scan the letter and his eyes automatically line with tears, while his whole body heaves on a sob as he braces his hands on Seungyoon’s arms when his knees gave out.
Minho, Jinwoo, and Seunghoon hurry to the pair, worried out of their mind, but Taehyun nods his head vigorously, giving a watery smile before he pulls Seungyoon into an embrace to wail his heart out in relief.
The paper in his hand had ruled in giving him official custody over his brother.
But Taehyun also realized he gained four more that day, in the form of the people he can truly say were his friends.
They all watched him as he threw the USB into the field beside the highway, all of them letting the metaphorical weight of that small device go.
The next day, Seunghoon finds himself back to room H10, coming into his psych class. Sitting down on his chair, his usual seatmate not occupying the desk next to him. But the sudden smell of coffee and the most grief-filled groan Seunghoon has ever heard steals his attention.
“The taste still sucks for me, but at least I don’t gag anymore.” Jinwoo takes his seat as Seunghoon stares, not sure how to apologize to him since they last actually talked alone.
Still, there’s nothing but brightness and a silent forgiveness in Jinwoo’s eyes, that he almost loses control to kiss him right then and there.
Jinwoo deserves better, however, and Seunghoon supposes that’ll just need to happen at the right moment at a planned time, so he settles for a low whistle instead, “Looks like we got Danger over here.”
The two smiled at each other, the moment when they first met feeling as if it was both a lifetime ago, though, seemed like yesterday as well.
But something else happens at that moment. Suddenly everyone’s phone in the classroom seemed to ring and vibrate all at once. Everyone received a notification of file transfers from the school app. Photos, videos, and files. All seemed to be about Director Yang Hyun Suk.
Seunghoon receives two other messages right after.
101541246: [ For Donghyun. ]
101541246: [ You’re right. This app is trash. ]
-end-