He went to bed that night with the USB stick tucked into the side of his sock, and a knife under his pillow.

~

A loud knocking interrupted Woohyun’s musings. He jerked upright from Dongwoo’s shoulder. All five of them were clustered in the bathroom again, going through the final plans for the court hearing. They quickly rushed out of the bathroom and into the hallway.

Sunggyu hesitated before opening the front door.

“Hello boys,” Xioumin’s smirk had somehow became more terrifying.

Sunggyu tried to slam the door shut but Xioumin’s foot blocked the door from closing fully. He shouldered his way in, looming over Sunggyu as the leader backed away.

“What?” Xioumin thundered. “Why so upset to see your dear hyungnim, Gyu-ah?”

Woohyun rushed forward to get in between them, especially since Sunggyu had paled considerably, but Myungsoo beat him to it.

“Get out of here!” Myungsoo screamed as he shoved the older man. Xioumin stumbled backwards but easily regained his footing and backhanded Myungsoo. Sungyeol caught the younger boy just before he hit the floor.

Dongwoo and Woohyun hurried to stand in front of Xioumin, blocking the other members from his view.

“What do you want?” Dongwoo’s face terrifying in itself as he glared at Xioumin.

The officer laughed, a manic laugh that grated on Woohyun’s nerves. “I’m tired of games. Just give me the USB now, and I’ll be on my way.”

“We don’t have anything,” Woohyun said, hyperaware of the slight bulge at the side of his sock. Sweat beaded down his forehead. If Xioumin noticed that it was too hot to be wearing socks and insisted on looking... “You destroyed it, remember?”

Xioumin raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seriously expect me to belief that, do you? With a leader as smart as the one you’ve got – “ He gestured at Sunggyu who had stood himself in front of Myungsoo and Sungyeol – “you’re definitely hiding the 2^nd copy somewhere, aren’t you?”

Woohyun said nothing, choosing to let his glare speak for him. It had been a good choice to wear a sleeveless shirt. His muscles showed the threat he could pose. Xioumin was a large and muscular man, but even he wouldn’t be able to take on Woohyun, Dongwoo and Sungyeol together.

“We’ll see you in the courtroom tomorrow,” Dongwoo said, his voice as cold as ice. “If you don’t leave now, we’ll scream so loud that the whole neighbourhood comes running around. You want all this to be kept discreet, don’t you.”

Xioumin looked as though he would swear at them, but he swallowed his words and with another smug smirk, strode back outside. “You better take a good long look at your Jongie tomorrow. I’m not sure if he’ll still have his face after I’m through with him.”

Woohyun thought he’d throw up and he sank to the floor after Dongwoo slammed the door shut. A glance at the others showed their nervousness too.

Sunggyu took a deep breath, trying to mask the shakiness in his voice as he said, “All right. Let’s go through the plan again.”

Courtday

They were bustled into the courtroom by the police, Xioumin watching over them carefully. Woohyun and Dongwoo hung back as the police checked the other members thoroughly, inside their pockets, wallets, shoes, socks, mouths. Woohyun and Dongwoo simultaneously flinched and collapsed onto their knees as the policemen neared them.

“Toilets,” Woohyun wailed dramatically as he clutched his stomach. “Argh, I think I’ve got food poisoning! We need the toilets. Quickly!”

The policemen grumbled as expected, and Woohyun could have sworn that one of them said “ing brats” under his breaths, but four policemen escorted him and Dongwoo to the bathroom.

“You’re not going to come in, are you?” Woohyun said as the policemen made to follow them inside. “What are you going to do? Listen to us pee outside the cubicles?”

One of the policemen, a kind looking older man whose uniform was far too tight for him, made a calming gesture to the others. “Just let them go. We’ll wait here. They’re not criminals.”

“Be out in two minutes,” one of them snapped, shoving them in and slamming the bathroom door shut.

Woohyun and Dongwoo straightened up, checking to make sure that the cubicles were empty first before quietly going to the grate embedded in the ceiling. It was a simple one, nailed to the air vent. In  a swift move, Dongwoo got onto Woohyun’s shoulders, taking out the screwdriver from his pocket. The grate was removed in less than 30 seconds.

“Quick, quick,” Woohyun hissed, hearing the restless murmurs of the policemen outside.

Dongwoo went into the dark tunnel first before hauling Woohyun up after him. Woohyun closed the grate again and crawled after Dongwoo. The air vents were claustrophobically tiny, and at some corners Woohyun felt as though he couldn’t breathe. He wondered what it would be like to be get stuck in these small tunnels in the ceiling. To slowly rot away, unable to move.

Dongwoo had memorised the map of the air vents, so Woohyun could only hope that they were heading in the right direction to above the courtroom. 

“Are you sure you’re going in the right direction?” Woohyun whispered.

“Yeah,” Dongwoo whispered back, but his voice shook.

Woohyun grinned slightly to himself and whispered, “Did you see that?”

“What?” Dongwoo’s breathing quickened.

“Nothing...I thought I saw a pair of red eyes staring at you just there - "

Woohyun figured he probably deserved the kick Dongwoo aimed at him. They crawled for another minute or so before Dongwoo finally stopped. Woohyun managed to sidle up next to him and he peered through the grate, through which light was shining.

He looked down onto the courtroom, immediately picking out the other members sat in a row at the front.

Woohyun recognised the lawyer defending Sungjong from the picture on the business card Sunggyu carried.  She was stood up, frowning at the prosecutor, a handsome man who looked at her as though she was dirt under his shoe. She was speaking, and Woohyun was surprised to be able to hear every word clearly. Sound apparently carried well when eavesdropping from an airvent.

“These claims against Mr Lee Sungjong are completely untrue. There are too many variables here that doesn’t correlate against Mr Lee’s character and schedule – “

The prosecutor cut her off, “Mr Lee proved his character the moment he ran away. That – was our first admission of guilt. The next – “

“Objection!” she raised her voice. “Mr Lee did not set out to run away, but was pushed to do so by s. In a state of shock, Mr Lee could only follow his older brothers’ wishes. That he ran away is irrelevant.”

The prosecutor snorted, and Woohyun’s fist curled with the desire to punch the man, “And how, Miss Lawyer, are you going to prove that Mr Lee Sungjong is not responsible for the hacking? We have three primary evidence sources directly stating that the source of the hacking came from his laptop in his room while he was at home alone. You have no solid defence, unless you were going to pout your pretty lips and hope to sway the judge over?”

Woohyun saw the defending lawyer’s hands curl into fists at the ist remark. God, he could never be a lawyer. The urge to hit the opposing side would be too strong, and even now, Woohyun itched to wipe the prosecutor’s smug smirk off his face.

“Your prosecution is not solid either,” she said coldly.

“All I have said,” the prosecutor declared, “can be verified through CCTV and through looking at his laptop history, where his character can he has shown himself to be both erted and predatory, having gone through gay sites – “

“Unless you mean to accuse most of the Korean population for being erted and predatory simply by looking at , this cannot be used to determine Sungjong’s character.”

“ – a significant amount of the pictures and videos on his laptop are of s, some shirtless, indicating a complex – “

“Your Facebook cover picture is one of your and your friends shirtless at the beach. Do you perhaps have a complex?”

The prosecutor glared at the defending lawyer. “I’m not a homoual.”

Woohyun gritted his teeth and murmured to Dongwoo. “God, I really want to hit him.”

Dongwoo merely nodded before nudging at Woohyun. “Look!”

A policeman was walking at the side of the courtroom.. He reached Xioumin and whispered something to his ear. Fury and slight panic flashed across Xioumin’s face.

“I think,” Woohyun whispered, “he’s just realised that we’re gone.”

There was a laptop just before the judge, projecting the files uploaded into it, onto a large white screen at the front. If he could just drop down now and insert the USB, the video would play on the white screen and everyone would know the truth.

Woohyun was just about to comment to Dongwoo about maybe doing it now, when Hoya and Sungjong entered. Though Woohyun winced to see Sungjong roughly dragged to the podium of the accused, he couldn’t help but feel relieved to see how well the two runaways looked. He looked at the old woman who had entered with them, a rush of gratefulness towards her, sweeping through him.

Sungjong was questioned by the prosecutor, and despite the leading questions and abruptly harsh tone the prosecutor used, the maknae answered calmly and steadily with quietly defiant eyes. His gaze never wavered and there was no fear as the prosecutor listed out his possible jail sentences. Woohyun stared. When did his shrieking youngest brother become so grown up?

“I did not do the hacking,” Sungjong said firmly.

“So the only thing you will admit to is that you are a homoual?” the prosecutor barked.

Sungjong tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see how that is relevant here.”

“You hacked into governmental data to bring down the newspaper company that exposed you,” the prosecutor said.

The defending lawyer raised in her seat. “Objection your honour, this motive is clearly fabricated with no evidence – “

“Objection overruled,” the judge, an old man in a wig, said, loudly slamming his hammer.”

Woohyun felt sweat bead his forehead. This was why Sunggyu had gone to such extreme lengths to get the evidence needed for Sungjong. The judge was clearly biased. Sungjong seemed to realise it too, cause his calm mask flickered for a second as he chewed his bottom lip and glanced at his crying mother.

“Now?” Woohyun muttered to Dongwoo.

The other boy nodded, his face set seriously. Woohyun’s heart clenched. It had been too long since he’d seen Dongwoo properly laugh the sunshine beaming laugh of his.

He couldn’t wait until they could all gather together and laugh properly.

As Infinite together, once again.

He wrenched the grate off, causing a loud screeching sound that had everyone in the courtroom’s heads turning to look up. Not wasting any time, Woohyun dropped down. It wasn’t too big a drop, but it was enough to jar his knees badly as he fell just in front of the judge. Still, it was too far from the laptop and Woohyun could already see the policemen racing towards him as he fished out the USB from his sock.

Sunggyu had vaulted over the railing between the audience and lawyer’s table, coming to stand just by the laptop. Sungyeol and Myungsoo were wrestling the police away again, while Hoya tripped two up with his stretched out leg. Sunggyu held his hand up, motioning for Woohyun to throw him the USB stick. Woohyun drew his arm back, ready to lob –

A tight grip fastened around his hand, making him grunt out in pain. Xioumin squeezed tighter, forcefully prying the USB from him.

“No!” Woohyun cried out, but it was too late.

With a smug smirk, Xioumin crumpled the USB in his hand.

The broken, useless pieces fell at the same time Woohyun's knees hit the floor.

Thank you to everyone's lovely comments! I really appreciate them! Please keep commenting your thoughts! ^^

Next chapter: Dongwoo: The end.