Actually I wrote the third chapter ages ago... But then I forgot to post it, sorry >.<

They sat in a room. It wasn’t one of those the military used for criminals. Those were either plain questioning rooms or a room stuffed to the brim with all kinds of horrid torturing devices.  This one however was quite different. Actually it looked like a boring meeting room.

The group with the addition of Heechul sat there in silence and didn’t look at each other. Everyone was contemplating their situation on their own. They have been brought to the room by security and been left there as the tech department went to file a complaint. They even left Junhong who was currently the only one moving around and playing with the hem of Yongguk’s shirt.

Daehyun was the first to break the silence.

“Is it smart for them to put us all together in the same room? Do they want us to talk through our alibi?” He asked confused.

Youngjae snorted. “They caught us on the scene. Why should they believe our alibi?”

“Why are we here then? Are they going to put us in jail? Or are we getting lined up before the firing squad?” His face fell when nobody answered the questions.

“We’re so done for!”

“Oh, yes. You’re so dead”, a seething Himchan growled as he stepped into the room, closely followed by Jongup.

“I go all the way to Central HQ and in the middle of getting a meeting, I get the message that you all have been arrested! What the hell were you thinking? Just because I managed to get you out of trouble the last time doesn’t mean that I can do it again!”

Himchan didn’t even glance at Daehyun and Youngjae all his attention now concentrated on the leader.

“What happened? I know that you’re a good person. I know that everything you do is for the best of us. Why did you do this? You just jeopardised our whole existence here. I don’t understand.”

Scared because of the shouting Junhong whined.

“Eomma.”

The robot looked at the Commander with watery eyes. Immediately Himchan shut his mouth. His facial expression relaxed and he managed a tired smile as he ruffled the android’s hair.

“Sorry, Junnie. I’m not angry at Yongguk. I was just stressed because I really don’t have a clue how to get you all out of this mess. I won’t shout again, okay?” and as an afterthought he added: “And sweetie? Don’t call me Eomma. Hyung’ll do just fine.”

That had the others cracking into a soft smile while Junhong nodded along as if he had understood everything. Yongguk tightened his grip around Junhong and whispered softly to him.

“I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you all. You’re my family. I’ll see to it that you all will get out of this mess unharmed.”

Yongguk looked at every group member one by one, making the promise to each and every one of them. That was when the group understood. They understood why their leader did such a headless thing to save a family-less, small android. It had been years ago when Yongguk couldn’t protect his own family. He had to survive the revolution in the recent history of Mato Planet all on his own. Now he found a new family and gave a new family to the lonely robot. He cared for them and looked after them, hoping for them not to be alone like he had been.

Himchan sighed and let himself fall into a chair beside his leader. Frustrated he combed his fingers through his hair.

“What a mess! And only because we wanted to do something good.”

“Something good?” Professor Lee scoffed as he stepped into the room with an assistant on his heels.

“He’s a robot, a defect one at that. And you just think it’s a brilliant idea to steal it from our department? That idea is miserable. Pure stupidity, I say, but what could you expect differently from this group.”

Yongguk’s chair fell backward with a loud thud as he stood up glaring at the Professor.

“Professor Lee.” A stranger stepped through the door and threw a warning glance at the said male. “Please refrain from any insults.”

He turned toward the rest of the group and bowed slightly.

“My name is Park Jungsu. I’ll be the mediator for your case.” He announced.

“For what do we need a mediator? It’s clear that they did wrong.” The Professor waved for his assistant to get him water while he continued glaring at the assembled.

“It is clear that there are some hostilities between you mostly caused by the taking of a robot as I’ve heard. My task is to help resolve this problem without blowing this up to horrendous proportions. We’re hoping to clear this quietly. So may I ask you to sit down?” The last part of his speech was directed at Yongguk as he was still standing while scrutinising the stranger a baby robot in his arms. The leader glowered but sat down on the turned-up chair when his Commander put his hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly. The mediator sighed and sat down as well.

“Good. Now let’s start. Professor Lee was so kind to tell me his opinion concerning this matter.”

Youngjae scoffed which earned him a warning by Park Jungsu.

“Mr. Yoo, since you’re so keen on telling your side of the story would you be so kind to enlighten us?”

The scientist didn’t need to be told twice and started to rant immediately. “This is clearly not our fault. The tech department itself was stupid enough to make an android with implanted memories for a family. If they didn’t mess up, Junhong wouldn’t even have come to us. He searched for a family and we gave him one. They programmed him so he could start thinking on his own and that’s what he did. They achieved what they wanted and now they want us to give him back. Well, no! Junnie is our brother now. You should have thought about that before programming.”

“And so you decided to steal him?”

“Not stealing, he’s not an object. We just wanted to take him home.”

“Home? What home?”

As usual Junhong chose the worst possible moment to get Yongguk’s attention and all the others by default as well by squeaking: “Appa.”

As if on cue a stranger stepped through the door and stopped at the shout.

“Well, well, you have a kid? Is it hers?”

Hearing the newcomer Yongguk froze. A dark look crossed his features.

“Military Leader”, Yongguk greeted frostily.

The other’s reactions was almost comical. Professor Lee, his assistant, Heechul and Park Jungsu - all scrambled to their feet in a panic. The group under Leader Bang were frozen in the middle of standing up, not sure if they should get up to greet the highest ranking man or if they should follow Yongguk’s lead. The Military Leader stepped further into the room signing for the others to sit down. Smiling gently he glided into the seat right across from Bang Yongguk.

“It has been a long time, Bang. It’s good to see you.”

Yongguk grunted.

“You should have stayed away. “

Youngjae snickered but hid it immediately after the shocked and angry reactions of the Professor and the Mediator.

“You hurt my feelings. I thought we were friends. I rushed here immediately after I heard you were in trouble. And you didn’t even tell me that you had a kid. I must say discovering secrets about you is disturbing. What else do you hide from me?”

With the last question the room temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. Only the group having known their leader for a long time saw the irritation flash across his otherwise expressionless face. Like cornered animals ready to jump and run they sat closer to the edge of the seat, the Commander laying his hand on the arm rest so he could reach to his best friend faster if necessary.

“The kid is not mine and definitely not hers and you know it. It’s not even possible.”

“Yeah, I know. But the only way to get a reaction out of you is to talk about her, no?” Meanwhile all the attendees from another department leaned forward, hoping to be privy to the secrets about Bang Leader that everybody seemed to know about. Seeing the hungry looks on their faces the Military Leader smirked softly. A determined look appeared on Daehyun’s face as he had enough of all the provocative talk.

“How dare y-“. Before he could even finish his sentence Himchan had already thrown him a warning glare and if this wasn’t enough Youngjae had also stomped on his best friend’s foot, knowing that this big mouth didn’t have any filter at all.

The Military Leader sighed again and leaned back. “I apologised a thousand times already and got you out of trouble every time you had problems. I tried to help. Why can’t you forgive me?”

Yongguk scoffed. “You did nothing that would make me forgive you. The only one who helped me is Himchan and my group.”

The Military Leader face relaxed into a calm expression.

“Ah, Commander Kim, I see.”

He threw a glance at the Commander as if only noticing him now. Himchan forced himself not to shudder under the inquiring gaze and looked back calmly. The Military Leader sighed theatrically as if he had thought of something really sad. “Well, he can’t help you now, can he?” The silence was answer enough so he continued.

“I have a proposition for you. If you accept I promise everything will be resolved quietly and quickly, plus you’ll get your robot.”

Enraged Yongguk stood up. Luckily Junhong had already crawled over to Himchan’s lap otherwise he would have fallen off.

“You promise? Your promises are worth nothing.”

Shocked at Yongguk’s rude tone several gasps were heard but the Military Leader waved his hand dismissively as the mediator stood up to argue.

“You are aware that you have no other option than the one I’m offering? If you don’t accept there’s a rather high chance that you’ll be shipped back to prison.”

Daehyun’s face fell at that and he glanced over to his bosses in panic. But they betrayed nothing. Professor Lee was grinning openly at the idea of them going to jail.

Yongguk was determined not to accept the offer. They would get the short end of the straw if they did. He knew it. He experienced it. But then he risked a short glance at the group. They were mostly expressionless except for Daehyun who wore his feelings on his sleeves. But he saw their panic, saw their fear for he learnt to read them. He knew them and he knew their hardships. He was their leader. He was responsible for them. Insecurity flickered across his features. He couldn’t let them live through hell by going to jail. They didn’t deserve it.

His hesitating didn’t go unnoticed by the adversaries. The Military Leader’s smile grew wider as he saw that he achieved what he wished for. He knew Yongguk. He knew that he would accept, not for himself but for his family.

It was like air being left out of a balloon. The whole group seemed to deflate in hopelessness as they saw the lost look on their leader’s face. Their leader would accept the offer. Just one didn’t lose his determined look. Just as Yongguk wanted to accept Youngjae jumped up. Everyone turned their head to stare at him in surprise. Before they even got a chance to ask what was the matter the scientist declared: “I wanted to keep this up my sleeve for a little longer, but oh well… Junnie, Code Black.”

He focused his concentration on the small robot passing on his message hoping that the latter would understand. The android stopped playing with the hem of Himchan’s shirt as he heard his name and stared wide eyed at the shouting hyung.

And then all the lights went out.

Heechul let out an unmanly scream.

…

It only took a few seconds for the emergency generators to spring to life and the lights flickered back on. Everyone was still in the room.

Professor Lee snorted. “If that was supposed to be some diversion for you to disappear then I must say it did not work at all.” He snickered and added: “That’s why the good technicians work for us.”

Youngjae grimaced.

“That was an unplanned side effect. But it’s to be expected since I just had limited time to work with.” He sat back down again while all the other tried to comprehend the situation. Deciding that it was better to get one thing done first than wasting too much time on something that just had no sense, the Military Leader turned back to Yongguk to ask for his decision. However before he could open his mouth a shrill sound destroyed the silence. Apologising profusely the Professor’s assistant scrambled to get his phone out and ran from the room to accept the call. It only took a few moments for the assistant to burst back into the room.

“The security is down. All digital data has been deleted.” Disbelieve made them register the words with a delay.

“Oops.” Youngjae commented while he inspected his nails. Realisation hit the assistant.

“You shut down the security. You did something in the engineering lab while we were talking with your Boss and your friend.” He pointed accusingly at the scientist. Yongguk growled. Immediately as if burned the assistant cradled his hand to his chest and peeked at the angry leader cautiously.

The scientist raised his eyebrows.

“In your opinion I shut down the security which was perfected over years by your beloved tech department. Additionally I let all the data disappear as well and the backup doesn’t work, does it? You give me too much credit. I thought all the brilliant minds are in your department.”

The Military Leader held up his hand ready to stop the flow of words threatening to spill out of the Professor’s mouth. His gentle, relaxed features had frozen to a cold stare, not betraying any feelings.

“Can the data be restored?”

“No, the culprit deleted years of military work and wiped the backup clean as well”, the assistant admitted bitterly.

“Can the data be restored?”

“Sir, I -“

“Can the data be restored?”

The Military Leader threw a pointed glare at Youngjae who looked back innocently.

“I don’t know.”

The ones knowing the Military Leader would have certainly noticed that he was seething by now. He knew what the scientist was playing at. The smaller male openly gave instructions for deleting the data and he didn’t even blackmail them by saying he will delete the data. The scientist knew that the others wouldn’t be able to restore the hard work. He knew that he was the only one able to get the data back. But there was no chance that the scientist knew how to get the data back from the clean system when the whole tech department didn’t. So he had to have a backup somewhere else.

“Get the robot and check him for the data.”

Obeying the orders the assistant came around the table. Automatically Himchan tightened the grip around the toddler and turned away but was stopped by Youngjae.

“Let them check.”

Now everyone was staring at Youngjae searching for a sign that his confidence was just a bluff. With shaky hands the assistant plugged in one of his programming devices at the back of Zelo’s neck. Sitting at the edge of their seats, everyone nervously awaited the results. There was only silence broken by soft tapping sounds and shrill beeps. Youngjae observed the assistant and the small trickle of sweat running down his neck. It was as if the whole room was holding their breath, one half hoping for a positive and the other half for a negative result. After some final beeps the assistant unplugged the device.

“Nothing, sir.”

The Military Leader willed himself to calm down. Years of his own hard work had brought the military where it stood now, everything gone in a blink of an eye. With furrowed brows he scrutinised the scientist.

“I’ll overlook this situation. It’s as if nothing ever happened today.”

Youngjae blinked.

“You get your robot as long as you relinquish your complete hold on the data.”

Youngjae made a thoughtful expression. “I think there is a way to restore the data. But I want the whole agreement on paper first.”

…

“Where did you hide the data, Jae? They said that everthing was deleted completely. And not even midget had a trace of data on him.”

“They’re just stupid. Junhong has two memory storages. The artificial one and the one he creates himself through experience and memory. They don’t even know what they’ve created.”

…

Later that day, after they had returned home and made themselves comfortable Youngjae took his leader to the side.

“Hyung, we’re a team. You don’t have to save us all on your own, you know that right?”

Yongguk’s features softened into a smile at the caring words of his team member. But before he could answer Junhong came toddling into the room followed by Himchan. The android had new clothes on and a baby-blue scarf bound around his neck. As soon as he saw the oldest of the group he changed directions and half ran half crawled to his favourite person, slinging his arms around Yongguk’s legs, squeaking happily: “Hyung.”

Daehyun stuck his head through the door.

“Aaaw, can’t you continue to call him Appa? That was cuter.”

So I went mysterious on you all and started to write about a past that only I know about and went and marked this story as complete. Actually there is a reason I left you hanging.

I found that the background story would have gone beyond the scope of this story. It has nothing to do with the story of Junhong finding his family. So I decided to write a stand alone ff for Bang Leader's background. If you'd like to read it, hop over ;)