June 13, 20xx, 14:07


"No seriously, hyung. You can't keep running away from this."

Minho stared at him, a reproachful look in his eyes. Jinki flinched away, remembering the last time he'd seen the other man's face. "Yeah, um, I know," he said shakily, lying through his teeth.

Something seemed to click in Minho's eyes, as he leaned forward. Expectantly, Jinki realised. "I..." he began slowly. Mostly because he still didn't know what he was running away from. But maybe because he wasn't used to being looked like that. That being. Well. Jinki leaned back in his chair, tongue flicking out to moisten his lips, gone suddenly dry. That being—he was endlessly glad when Minho's phone rang, and Minho turned away with what seemed to Jinki like a flicker of disappointment.

"Sorry," he mouthed, fishing out his phone.

Jinki nodded, not feeling like Minho needed to apologise in the slightest. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a phone that wasn't his—but he didn't expect it to be his. For a moment, the weight in his hand felt familiar, and an unfamiliar number flashed ghostly on the screen across time, before Jinki blinked it out of insistence, reading the time instead. Eight minutes, Taemin had said. 2:07, said the phone, before the seven slipped into an eight.

He was pretty calm. Was it okay to be this calm? It probably didn't hurt.

As if on clockwork, Minho stood, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand. "Sorry hyung, I have to go. It's work."

"I'll come with you," Jinki said.

"No, you can't," Minho said, his expression suddenly closing. "It's dangerous hyung, you know that."

Jinki smiled, shaking away the sense of dÈj‡ vu that was probably actual dÈj‡ vu. "I know. That's all the more reason, right, Minho?"

"No, it's not. You'd... You'd just get in the way. Look, I'll call you when I'm free, okay?"

"I'm coming with you," Jinki said firmly with a smile. Very firmly. "Just let me. As, um, a hyung."

Minho turned away, lips pressed into a thin line. He said nothing, and Jinki wondered if he'd made a mistake. Not that, he realised, he knew what sort of mistake he could've made. When Minho suddenly started walking, Jinki had to jog slightly to catch up on the first few steps.

"Hey, uh, Minho," Jinki ventured. Minho turned to look at him, although he didn't slow. "I know work is urgent, but I just, uh, have a gut feeling about this."

"About what?" Minho asked.

Jinki swallowed. "Could we stay here for a moment?" He had an idea. "I have an idea."

"About what?" He was getting impatient. Work, Jinki knew. Minho seemed like the type who cared deeply about work.

"About work. Um, your work. Or—" This could either work, or horribly backfire, Jinki thought, coming to a standstill. "If I told you I know what's going to happen, would you believe me?"

Minho stared at him flatly—no, not flatly. A myriad of expressions before he seemed to settle on staring at Jinki flatly. "No," he said. "Probably not."

"Wait!" Jinki reached out and caught at Minho's wrist—the other man jerked his arm away as burned, whirling around so fast that Jinki didn't have time to process he was looking at Minho's face again, and not the back of his head. "This is going to sound really weird, but you're going to look for a man in a green shirt, right?"

This caught Minho's attention. "How did you know?"

Jinki shook his head. "It's, um, not important. So will you believe me a little?"

"That depends."

"On?" Jinki prompted.

"On how you know. Hyung, you're not supposed to—"

"That part isn't important!" Now he sounded hysterical. That wouldn't work. "There's going to be a car. It's this blue-black colour. And it's going to have the person you're looking for in it, I think, or maybe it won't, but either way it's related to it all."

Minho looked like he was torn between believing him and calling him out on his bull (maybe). Jinki didn't really know him enough to be sure.

"Jonghyun. They're going to kidnap a man called Jonghyun. Do you know anything about him?" Now he didsound hysterical.

Minho looked at him strangely, a frown tucked onto his face where it didn't belong, corners of his lips drawn back severely. "Why do you know all this?" he asked—at the same moment they saw the car round the corner. Jinki pointed with a quiet yell, drawing Minho's attention to the vehicle which swerved, and suddenly there were two. Or, that was what it looked like, before one of them pulled away. The one they wanted, Jinki was sure.

"This way," Jinki said, grabbing one of the younger man's wrists without a second thought, pulling him down the street to where the bakery was. He hesitated at the alley, remembering what had happened last time, and the time before that too. But—that was the past. That didn't mean it had to happen again. Definitely. He chanced a glance backwards at Minho, and saw his expression change.

"You know this place," he said.

"Sort of," Jinki answered, dodging the question. Minho was walking beside him now, and Jinki released his grip.

"If I tell you to stay here, would you?" Minho asked.

"Not really," Jinki acquiesced with a chuckle that seemed strangely out of place, bubbling up from somewhere he couldn't quite identify. Probably somewhere like 'oh god please let this go well this time,' but Jinki wasn't exactly being discerning at the moment.

Minho shrugged. "Fair enough," he said. He walked to the door that Jinki had missed the first time, his hand on the doorknob.

"Maybe—" Jinki began, pausing when Minho turned to look at him, all questions. "Maybe you shouldn't," he said.

"Why not?"

"It's dangerous. Just. Trust me on this one."

"My job is dangerous, hyung," Minho pointed out, and pushed open the door. He frowned. "That's strange."

"The door should be locked?" Jinki ventured.

Minho didn't say anything, just glanced at him over his shoulder, before he walked in. Jinki peeked at his phone—or rather, the phone in his pocket that belonged to someone he didn't know. 2:11, it read. Jinki gulped. He didn't really want to die again. Even if it couldn't be helped. More than that, he didn't want to see Minho die again. He followed Minho in, cautiously. Their footsteps sounded loud in the empty room. He didn't know what they were going to accomplish like this.

So, when the lights flickered on and Jinki did his best to not look at the crumpled sort-of-human shape on the floor, he spoke up. "What are you going to do with him?" he asked.

The woman (same woman, Jinki noticed) looked at him in surprise. Minho's eyes opened wider than they already were. "Hyung," he said, voice low and urgent.

"Him," Jinki repeated. His voice wavered a little. He had to fix that. "Where are you going to take him?"

The woman laughed this time. "You don't need to know," she said. "Cops?"

"No," Jinki answered quickly, before Minho could get a word in.

Minho got a word in anyway, smoothly following up against Jinki's words. "What you're doing," he said calmly to the woman. "It won't work."

Jinki gaped at him. "What are they doing?"

"What do you know," the woman scoffed. Her hand reached under her jacket, and Jinki blanched.

"Um—!" he tried to interrupt.

"More than you think," Minho interrupted. A smirk was settled onto his face, although his eyes were hard. "And I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Oh really?" the woman asked, and in the next moment, there was a sound Jinki had gotten to know far too well, as Minho shoved him to the ground.

"No," Minho grunted, and Jinki caught sight of him pulling out his own gun—had he always had that?—and taking careful aim. There was a muffled yelp, and the woman dropped to one knee, hands pressed against her thigh. Suddenly, there were more people than there had been a moment ago. There was the man in the green shirt, Jinki recognised him. But that was around it.

On the floor, Jonghyun groaned, stirring. His eyes blinked open briefly, and Jinki could see the panic in them. Not good, he thought. Find him, and Jinki had him, right here. But that wasn't how source code worked, was it? No, he was sure it wasn't. "Hi," he said nervously, as he got to his feet again. "Maybe one of you could tell me what you're doing with him?"

"Hyung, shut up," Minho hissed, pushing Jinki back down.

The man in the green shirt laughed. "That's none of your business. Particularly if you're both dead."

"No, wait." One of the other men placed a restraining hand on his arm. "The tall one. Recognise him?"

Beside him, he felt Minho stiffen, the grip on his own gun tightening. "Wouldn't be surprised if you did," he said. There was an edge to his voice now, tingeing the underlying calmness with swirling colour.

Jinki gaped at him. Wait what, he wanted to say.

"You're that brat," green-shirt said suddenly. A smile broke out across his face, and it wasn't pleasant. "Having second thoughts leaving us?"

"Nope." Minho's tone was almost breezy, strange and out of place for the few minutes Jinki had known the other man. He grinned, too obviously forced. The hand that was still on Jinki's shoulder tightened. "I'd never regret it."

The man smirked, eyes leering at Jinki, a chill running inexplicably down his spine. He shuddered. "I see," he said slowly, and brought up his gun. "You were good as far as brats went, too bad you got, ah, distracted. And now it looks like you're getting in the way, hm."

Jinki watched eyes wide as grips shifted around guns—he'd never seen a gun before in his life, and now he'd seen too many, not that he'd ever wanted to see one in the first place—and realised with a sinking stomach that he was a liability here. It was with a sinking stomach when he realised that the gun wasn't pointed at the younger man, but at him.

A flash, a sound he was getting to know all too well, a sudden force to his side, and then Minho staggered, his weight collapsing against Jinki even as he struggled to stay upright. "Minho," Jinki breathed. 2:14, he saw off Minho's watch. A muted horror stemmed from the growing warmth damp against his own chest, his eyes cringing shut. Can't be helped, he reminded himself. Second law of thermodynamics, he thought.

"Hyung I—I," Minho's breaths were laboured, interspersed with breathless coughs. Jinki forced his eyes open to observe, his gaze meeting Jonghyun's for a brief second, before the other looked away.

"I know," he said. Minho's lips twitched into a smile, and then Jinki supposed that the eight minutes were up.


-


like pricks of flame were stabbing at his lungs.

His eyes were squeezed shut - that much he was aware of - as he couldn't hold back the coughs, only jarring the pain worse. Hang in there he thought he heard

a hand on his wrist, a face blurring in and out of view, the taste of water on his lips

"Water doesn't have a taste." He didn't sound particularly impressed by his protests.

"This water does," he whined. "I don't like it." Or, that's what he tried to say, before a solid push sent him tumbling back into the lake, dry change of clothes and all. He came up spluttering, blinking droplets out of his eyes

"Ten. They want to meet at ten."

"You're going?" It's resigned by now. He tries to smile - it comes out as a grimace instead. "Let me come with you."

"No offence Taemin, but I don't think you'd be much help. With luck, they just want to discuss it reasonably."

"That's unlikely, and you know it, hyung. Just... call us if something happens, okay?"

He laughs, bites back the thought that if something happened he'd never get the chance to call. "Tell Kibum I'll see him tomorrow morning, since it seems like he's sulking. There's still a lot of work—"

"It can wait."

-

June 13, 20xx, 19:54

The room is still dark.

"Did you find him?" Taemin asks eagerly. "Do you know where he is?"

Jinki groans, sitting up. "No," he says, slowly getting his bearings. "But he was right there."

"Focus, hyung. We don't have much time left if we..."

"I know. But this isn't working, Taemin-ah." He runs a hand through his hair tiredly, glancing up at the screen. Or where the screen should've been. It's blank, missing, as if it had never been there in the first place. "Taemin-ah?" he asks to the emptiness.

"I'm here." The sound of Taemin's voice is just as strong as it was before.

"Did someone move things around while I was in the source code?" Jinki asks. "In the room, I mean."

"The room?" Taemin's voice sounds too puzzled to make sense. About the room? "No, I mean—no, I don't think so. Why?"

Jinki shakes his head. "No, never mind. It's... It's nothing. Did you find the motorcycle?"

A brief silence where Jinki guesses that Taemin must have shaken his head or something. "Sort of. We traced the serial number, and it turns out it was stolen three weeks ago, but we haven't found it yet. Hyung's...working on it. Do you have any idea where they were going?"

Jinki shakes his head again, and wonders if Taemin could see. "There's four of them. A woman, the man in the green shirt, and then two others. Um, I think the police know who the man in the green shirt is because he's the one who Minho was looking for." And Minho seemed to know them. He's not sure why, but he feels safer leaving that part out.

"Right. I've also dug up some information on Choi Minho. He's 21, graduated top of the class, and is apparently with the NPA, but there's no further information there. Which is strange." Taemin sounds like he's frowning. "Anyway, the police wouldn't tell us when we asked, which is kind of suspicious, but maybe they just don't know. Which is even more suspicious. Do you think he knows anything?"

"I—I don't know," Jinki says. Except he probably does. It seems like he does. Jinki groans, head dropping into his hands. All of this, everything, it was too confusing. None of it makes sense. Nothing did. The more he pieced it together, the more it fell apart. Too many questions. Not enough ways to get answers. "Minho," he says suddenly. "What happened to him? After, or um, now, I guess."

"No idea," Taemin says softly. "They think he might've, uh, been caught up in the explosion at the bakery, but they haven't found any bodies that would match his profile, so he could just be missing in action."

"I see." Jinki leanes back, his head hitting the wall with a quiet thunk. "Bodies—the bakery?"

"Yeah." Taemin's voice is hushed. There's a pause, a moment of mutual hesitation where Jinki wonders if he can ask another question and get any answers, where Taemin wonders if this was going to succeed. "Find him, hyung. Please."

"I want to save him too," Jinki says quietly. "I don't know why, but I do."

"It's this Jonghyun we have to find," Taemin reminds him, before plunging him back into the source code without another word.

Jinki doesn't quite get the chance to say 'I know', but he says it anyway.

-

"What the , are you serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be? We can't just give up here, can we?"

"No one said anything about giving up—"

—a strong grip curled around his wrist, pulling him upwards, downwards? he couldn't tell—

"—can't ignore it either."

"I can't ing believe this. This is the stupidest thing you've ever done, and possibly ever will do, and that's saying a lot because you're like the epitome of doing stupid things."

He sighed. "Kibum, we don't have a choice. I can't just let it fall apart after everything."

"But there's always a choice, hyung, and um, I agree with Kibum hyung this time."

"I'm going, and that's final."