“And, we’re good to go!” Jongdae stretched his arms out behind his back, letting his bag fall against the wooden floor. No actually, someone against the wooden floor.

“Keep your stuffs to yourself please,” Jongin’s voice muffled due to the bag on his face, Jongdae immediately picking his bag up.

 “Sorry,” he peaced out and strutted over to Minseok, who, like the others except for Jongin and Sehun, were packing up their bags to head back to their dorms.

Baekhyun ceased his packing activities, a crease formed on his forehead. Chanyeol, who was right next to him, noticed his hands that were stuffed inside his bag. He looked over to the formers face, tilting his head as he did so, “Are you okay?”

He snapped out of his thoughts, turned his head to meet Chanyeols worried one, “Yeah, I’m okay,” he smiled tiredly, “Just a little bit short of breath.”

The latter soften his facial expression and zipped up his bag, “Well, you’ll get used to it, don’t worry.”

Baekhyun smiled at his response, looking over to his younger brother being pestered by the youngest of their group.

“Hey,” the younger prodded Tao’s arms as he packed his bag placed on the table, “Hey. Hey. Hey.”

Tao looked at the younger with his peripheral vision, huffing a sigh of patience away, “What is it, Sehun?”

 “You have bags under your eyes,” Sehun eyed Tao intently, “Are you sick or are you just a druggie?”

 The latter rolled his eyes to the youngers suspicion, “No, I am not sick neither am I a druggie. I was born with it,” going with the lie his brother told him.

“Well, we better get going,” Joonmyeon looked at his phone, “It’s already past 10.” Upon hearing this, the rest of the group packed up faster, leaving the practice room and into the SM Building hallway.

Joonmyeon walked out first, pairing with Yifan, while Yixing followed suit with Luhan, and the rest following the group, leaving the siblings last. As Baekhyun locked the door, Tao eyed the hallway, recognizing the rooms and locations of everything, just in case of emergency. “Hyung,” he whispered softly, earning a hum in response, “What does this mean?”

The elder finished locking up and faced his brother eye to eye, keeping his tone hushed, “These kinds of things happen a lot, bogus ID’s, bogus addresses, probably the bank itself doesn’t exist. But, we were never one to ask questions anyways.”

“Then why would they ask us to research on this number?” Tao mouthed, noticing a surveillance camera just above their heads, “And continue to lock the door.”

Baekhyun did as he was told, to not arise suspicion at the one watching the camera. “How do you lock this thing?” his voice purposely loud and clear, and then backed to his hushed one, “We’re better off not asking questions, Tao.”

The younger was about to response until someone else did, “Hey guys.”

Both of them turned their heads to meet Yifan and Chanyeol standing at the end of the hallway, right before a corner, “What’s taking so long?” the latter asked both of them.

Baekhyun unlocked the locked door, and kept turning the key roughly, “I don’t know how you lock this door.”

Chanyeol emitted a deep laugh before going over to the struggling one, helping him, “You turn this clockwise,” and a clicking sound came out from the door, “and the door locks itself.”

Baekhyun nodded as if he understood what he had knew how to do, “Aahh, all the locks back in my hometown were counter-clockwise.”

“You are one weird kid,” the taller commented as he shoved Baekhyun forward, urging him to move.

~~~

The aroma in the kitchen must have triggered a growl coming from Tao's stomach, earning a giggle from his brother and Minseok.

"Are you really that hungry?" Yifan asked him as he placed the plates on the table neatly. Tao faced Yifan and nodded.

"Quite comfy there, are you?" Joonmyeon commented, looking over to the members on one of the couch. Tao, slouching on it, head leaned against Baekhyun's shoulder and legs tangled with Minseok's.

"There are other spaces too though," Yixing shifted in his spacy position on the other couch for three, facing the three people crowded on the couch for two people.

"Nah," Minseok smiled, "I like being tangled with people."

The others chuckled, while they all slowly took their seats on the dining table for twelve. Baekhun seated himself across from Tao, although he wanted to be next to him, Sehun and Jongin took his place beforehand. They all started to dig in the food cooked by Kyungsoo and Yifan.

"So, let's know more about our new trainees!" Joonmyeon, sitting at the end of the rectangular table, suggested. "Tao! Why did you wanted to become an idol?"

He cleared his throat, catching the attention of the 11 eaters, including his brother. "Well, at first I was intrigued to become a stunt double. However, I saw a poster up in China and thought it was interesting. So, here I am," he lied with a fake smile plastered on his face, although the only one who knew the truth was Baekhyun.

"So, it's just... an interest thing? See where the path leads you and all?" Jongin tilted his head to look at him, which he got a nod from.

"What about you, baek?" Chanyeol, who was seated next to the said person, asked.

"It's been my dream since childhood," More like fate, call it destiny even.

"So, are you happy? To be finally reaching out to your dreams?" Yixing smiled, relating well to him.

"Yeah," not really.

Just like that, their dinner bonding time ended, and each member went back to their shared rooms, inviting night into their long day.

~~~

The sound of fingers tapping against a phone screen and the sound of digital letters clicking went on incessantly. Baekhyun knitted his eyebrows together, typing and deleting in his bed.

"Well, this isn't as hard as we thought it would be," he commented, pressing the SEND button to the number his sister gave him. Tao just kept searching on Jung Man Se in vain on his Mac, until he finally let out a grunt, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just that,” he hesitated, eyes scanning the profile again, “this doesn’t make sense.” His brother gave him a knowing look, “Tao.”

“But,” he kept on protesting, “Why did they want us to search on this bank number, when it doesn’t even exist?” His brother let out a sigh, putting his phone down and looking at the younger.

“Tao, we are better off not asking questions. We mean nothing to them, and we are already in their debt, since... since back then,” he pressed his face down on his mattress, one hand over the edge. “The point is, they’re not the ones who need us. We need them.”

“Who needs who?” a sudden voice interrupted their conversation with the sound of their door opening. Baekhyun hid his phone underneath his pillow, and Tao slammed his Mac screen down, covering it under the blanket.

“Uhhm... What?” Baekhyun giggled, earning a weird look from the person at the door.

“I just heard your conversation,” Yifan opened the door wider to let Chanyeol in the sibling’s room, without their consent. “And btw, why did you close your Mac like that, it’s precious dude.”

Tao felt his bed dip as Yifan sat down, and Chanyeol on his brother’s, “No, I was uh...you know...” he stuttered looking to his brother for help. Baekhyun raised his eyebrow, before leaning on his pillows, “He was watching.”

“Watching what?” Chanyeol asked at the relaxed one, who wiggled his eyebrow as a response.

“You know,” Baekhyun slyly answered, “the usual boy needs.”

The three pair of eyes in that room widened, Tao’s eyes being the widest of all. Yifan and Chanyeol erupted in laughter, as Tao sent glare at his brother, “No, I wasn’t!”

Yifan laughed more at the younger’s denial, “Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone. We understand.”

The younger frowned more, defending himself, “I never watched those... those indecent stuff!”

Baekhyun joined in the laughter just to , although he knew what his brother was saying was the truth, “Don’t lie to us, Tao~”

“I am not lying! I swore on my life that I have never watch those!” he glared at his brother, who apparently was finding this amusing.

“You can say it, you know,” Chanyeol wiped a tear off his eyes, chuckling, “The ‘p’ word.”

Tao raised one of his eyebrows, “Which ‘p’ word?” Yifan looked over at him and started chuckling again, pushing the former’s shoulder playfully, “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

Tao pushed his shoulder back, huffing a sigh of annoyance, “Can we stop talking about it? Please.”

His brother and the two intruders nodded, dropping the topic as said to. Chanyeol and Yifan got up and went back to their shared room after bidding their goodnights. The two siblings turned off the lights and snuggled in their own beds, to look like they were sleeping from outside the room. Tao took out his Mac and continued searching, while Baekhyun took his phone under his pillow, playing with it.

The elder’s eyes widened as he got a message from the number his sister gave him:

‘Search again. The person may not exist, but the bank number does. Relate it with SM.’

Baekhyun handed the phone to Tao, and immediately going to his desk, turning his Mac on. The latter wasted no time and searched for the number again.

"I'm going to hack in SM's system financials, you go search who the hell this identity thief is," Baekhyun ordered, his brother doing what he was told to.

The two worked in silence, so the other trainees would assume they were sleeping. One whole hour has passed, filled with silence and hands typing into their Mac.

"It's no use," the elder let out a frustrated sigh, leaning back into his chair, "Even if I can hack into their financial system, I can't get the information of the owner."

"It's no good here either. I can't find who the identity thief is with just the stolen identity. It's like picking one person out of the whole world's population," Tao messed his hair with his hand, giving up on the search.

Baekhyun gestured for Tao to come over to the former. The latter supports his weight by putting one hand on Baekhyun's chair and the other on the table, leaning towards him. "This is the financials of SM this month," the former explained, opening a tab, "And, it seems normal to anyone that sees it, but," he higlighted one payment for the repair of a broken CPU, "this payment doesn't make sense, because it said that it was paid by check. However, looking at all these other payments, each and every one of them are paid by credit."

Baekhyun opened the payment and scrolled down to the bottom, where a scan of a check was placed. Tao squinted at the screen, and looked to Baekhyun who smugly smiled at him, "Wait... the check seems... odd?"

The elder nodded, satisfied with his brother's suspicion, "i'm glad you noticed, cause that's a fake. There are some habits of a person if they're writing with their hand all their life. And if you look closely," he pointed to the two signatures from the receiver and the giver, "these two are written from the same hand, by the way its tail go into a coil at the end."

"So, there was no payment at all?" Tao headed to his bed, flopping dowb on it, "If that's the case, then why register it at the financials?"

Baekhyun twirled in his swivel work chair, head leaned back, "No, there was a payment since all financials are automatically recorded. You can't delete it, but you can change it."

"Is that even possible?"

"Yeah, it is." Baekhyun scooted over to his table once more, "Trust me, 13 years of studying Technology and Computer Engineering wasn't just for a title."

Tao grabbed his laptop, begining to research for the writer of the check.

 "It's no use," Baekhyun reasoned, glancing to Tao. "I've checked the identity and it doesn't exist either."

The younger frown as he put his Mac down on the floor, and hugged a pillow, "Then how are we supposed to track him or her down?"

Baekhyun looked over at the clock hanging on the wall, "Well, we can actually retrieve the original record. But...”

“But?”

Baekhyun reached his hand out and typed a set of codes, “It’s protected. I can hack it, but with the equipment we have on us right now, isn’t enough.”

The younger frowned, throwing his pillow towards the ceiling, “So, what are we gonna do now? Give up?” Baekhyun caught the pillow before it landed on the formers face, and threw it against his face.

Tao got up from his bed, and pulled on a black hoodies from his suitcase, since they haven’t had any time to unpack. Baekhyun crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow, “Where are you going?”

The younger grabbed a spare hoodies and threw it to Baekhyun, “To the SM building.”

“Don’t tell me...”

“If you can’t hack into the system, why not we access it from the system itself?” he grabbed his backpack loaded with gadgets and placed it on Baekhyun’s bed.

Baekhyun looked at the clock, “But, it’s already past midnight.”

“Are you coming or not?” he asked again, opening the door quietly, before going out leaving the elder alone. Baekhyun grunted but took the backpack anyways, and slung it on his shoulders.

“I’m coming.” 

OKAY. It's updated~ although it's not much, but... bear with me.. please.

One more thing, before i end this update, i need to ask you guys a question. So, i think i update quite fast..ish... i don't know, probably, but that's because the chapters are premade since months ago, but the i only premade the prologue until this chapter. Thus, now i have to write again. AND, since i am writing, the updates are going to take longer.

HERE's the question, how long will the span of updates be? Once in a week, Twice in a week, or immediately after i finish the chapter (basically no schedule, so sometimes it will take a long time to update, other times it will take a short time).

Please comment~