It was a frustratingly slow day at the police station.  They had to deal with several drunk-and-disorderly cases (which Yixing said ought never to exist before midday, or even before mid-afternoon, because anybody who got drunk in the morning had something wrong with them), and Sungjong was busy with whatever he deemed most important to be getting on with, accompanied by numerous yawns.  It wasn’t until about an hour before the main office was due to pack up for the day that Yixing locked the door and sat down on Jongdae’s desk, rubbing a tired hand through his hair.

“Not going well,” Sungjong reported without glancing up from his computers and before Yixing could speak.  “Really, not going at all well.”

Yixing grimaced.  Minseok’s desk was situated in such a way that he could already see both Yixing and Sungjong from where he was dividing papers into whether they needed to be filed, scanned or shredded.  but Jongdae came scooting over from where he’d been wrestling with the photographic printer.

“Can you give us an update?” Jongdae asked, also scrubbing a hand through his hair.  Splodges of cyan and magenta ink smeared across his forehead and, presumably, up onto his scalp.  From the way he grimaced, though, he clearly realised what he’d just done.

“Well…”  Sungjong sighed and then finally decided it might be a good idea to devote his attention to one thing at a time and turned around, kicking his shoes off so that he could put his feet up onto his chair to sit cross-legged.  He fiddled with his toes, almost as if he had withdrawal from typing away at his keyboard, and let out an enormous yawn.  “First problem: Seoul Police have finally realised that they need better cyber security, though I suspect for the wrong reasons – probably because they want to keep me out rather than because they’ve spotted internal problems – so now I have to do a five-minute hack-job every time I want to get onto their servers, which is a ing nuisance—”

Yixing raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed that Sungjong was able to get in in such a short space of time regardless.

“Second problem is that SPD is currently issuing a warrant for Oh Sehun on grounds of witness statements that he’s aiding and abetting a criminal.”  Sungjong counted them off on his toes.  “Third is that the surveillance they’ve got over on Jeju is no joke.  I don’t know who Mighty Mouth’s brought in on this one, but cracking the cyber security to get into some of the networks I need access to on Jeju was actually harder than getting into the National Intelligence servers.  Fourth is that SPD have forwarded their warrant requests for Oh Sehun, Luhan and Weiyi to the NIS on the basis that they think it’s a matter for national security they’re not going to be able to handle themselves, given all three of them are apparently now terrorists aiming to assassinate the president.  Fifth is that I’ve lost contact with Kyungsoo and Jongin, though I think that’s just because they’re moving around.  Sixth is— wait, I’m out of toes.”  He shifted to cross his legs the other way.  “Yeah, sixth is that getting Weiyi and Sehun off that island is going to be like trying to squeeze twenty Big Macs into a toddler.  Doable in your wildest dreams.  They’ll get caught if they go via the airport and trying to get them on one of the ferries would be difficult.  Swimming would be feasible if they were olympic standard or something, but that’s it.”

He plucked at a seventh toe, frowning as he tried to remember what other problems they had.  “Oh yeah.  Seventh: there’s only one of me, and I can’t handle all this at once.  It’s too much.”  He glanced up, biting his lips and with his eyes beginning to water.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jongdae said at once.  “This case is turning out so much bigger than we’d imagined.”

“But it’s the first job I haven’t been able to do.”  Sungjong seemed to crumple in on himself, suddenly looking very young.  “My brain is melting.  I don’t want to fail.”  He jabbed a thumb back at his computers.  “Hyung’s sister’s life is on the line.”  He gulped in air and pointed at Minseok, then to Yixing.  “Hyung’s brother-in-law’s life is on the line.  Your friend’s life is on the line—”

“Sungjong,” Yixing interrupted before the young hacker could descend into hysterics.  “How old are you?”

Sungjong stopped, blinking rapidly, as though he’d run into a brick wall.  “Twenty-two.  Why?”

“Jongdae’s going to take you home.  You’re going to turn off all your computers, get an early night, and then tomorrow Jongdae’s taking you out to the cinema or something.  Otherwise you’re going to have a nervous breakdown and then you won’t be of any use to anybody.”

“But—”

“I’d much rather you were calm and capable of working,” Yixing told him firmly.  “You’ve been doing it round the clock, much longer hours than the rest of us, and if you’re tired and stressed, you’ll make mistakes.”

“But—” Sungjong tried again.

“Seriously,” said Jongdae.  “Sungjong, if you ever want an insight into why Yixing’s such a successful police chief, it’s because he understands psychology.  The way we catch out the most intelligent criminals we chase is through mind games, and the number one way to do that is to wear them out through tiredness and stress so they make mistakes.  Don’t let the other side do it to you.  They’ve probably figured how small a team we are, and this is exactly what they want.  Trust the safeguards you’ve put up and relax.”

Defeated, Sungjong slumped back in his chair with a nod.  His eyelids drooped shut, dislodging a couple of tears of exhaustion, and Yixing went over to shut down all the computers for him.  Sungjong protested feebly, but it appeared the acknowledgement that he really, really needed a rest had knocked all the adrenaline out of his system, and just a few seconds later, he’d full on curled up in a foetal position, one arm dangling over the edge of his seat.

“I keep forgetting he’s not a robot,” Yixing muttered.  “How many nights did you say he’s gone without sleep, Jongdae?”

“Well, last night was the third in a row.  I just couldn’t convince him to go to bed.  I actually brought tranquilisers today ready to inject if he tried refusing too vehemently.”

“Hard worker,” Yixing mused.

“Heart of gold,” Minseok added.  “You planning to do anything about his criminal record?”

“He has no convictions,” Yixing said slowly, “and technically we don’t really have any proof that he’s a criminal either.  Might send him to study in the States or something to give him a proper start in life.  He’s clearly very gifted, even though he’s missed out on a lot of formal education.  That or he’d probably do very well in intelligence over here, but vetting his background would be a bit… complicated, to say the least.”

“Yeah, you might want to watch that.”  Jongdae looked up from trying to ink off his hand.  “People are really going to wonder and start investigating him if he turns out to be another one of your protégés.  The MOD was not impressed by this recruit.”  He waved a hand at Minseok.  “You’ll lose your badge if you try it with another criminal.  The Minister for Defence was very clear about that.”

Yixing grimaced.  “I’d lose my badge and get imprisoned if they found out what I was doing at the moment.”  Letting out a sigh, he turned his back on the computers.  “I think we want to see if we can get Weiyi and Sehun onto a ferry somehow.  We can work out logistics tomorrow and then Sungjong can work on it when he’s refreshed.  It’s not like we’re slowing the timeline down in any case, because something like that will need a lot of planning if we’re going to pull it off.”

“We’d do well to have a decoy if they’re hauling in the NIS on their side,” Minseok pointed out.

“True.  But more important than that, we need to know what we’re going to do about trying to catch Sangchu before Weiyi and Sehun get here, because we’re going to have to move quickly on that if we really want to catch Mighty Mouth out.  Not just that, but if Jong