When Minhyun wake up the following morning, the other three were asleep. It would have been four had Baekho not been such a lovesick idiot. Minhyun rolled his eyes. Baekho may have hindered their plans a little bit, but it didn’t matter. They had more tricks up their sleeves.

They four of them collectively decided to leave Woozi alone from then on because of Baekho. Sure, they were angry with their band member for leaving them, revealing their old hideout, and then making them seem like liars by publically saying that there was no traitor. However, they still cared about Baekho and respected his wishes to avoid compromising Woozi.

Baekho was still on their side after all.

Minhyun opened up his laptop, ready to see the reactions to what he posted last night. Before connecting to the Internet, he made sure to turn on the proxy software so that tracking them was impossible.

It became a routine now. Minhyun and s were used to being in hiding. They were used to using this anonymity software on the Internet, used to staying indoors, used to closing the windows, and used to breaking away from the rest of the world.

They stayed in the apartment of one of their staff members in Japan. Being close to them, she supported their plans 100%, and so she helped them move around and helped them hide and switch locations when they knew Baekho would turn himself in. They were thankful for her. Without her, none of this would have been possible.

As the anonymity software was starting up, Minhyun went to wake up the rest of s. They had this routine where all of them would look through the comments together. Somehow, it was so much easier to deal with hate comments if they were together.

They were now known worldwide as the ultimate super-villains of the Internet, but in reality they were not as hard-hearted as many people seem to think they were. Comments still hurt them. Their future prospects hurt them. It was hard maintaining themselves and carrying out their plan to destroy Seventeen because it was leading to so much hate.

JR was especially sensitive. If this whole scandal affected anyone most, it affected JR. It hurt him to see NU’EST’s name dragged in the mud. It hurt him to know that after all of this, NU’EST would be over. There was an arrest warrant hanging over their heads now, and they would probably not be able to escape it like Baekho did.

“Wake up,” Minhyun called out to them, entering the windowless little room they were sleeping in.

Ren had already been up, putting on some facial cream or something. Minhyun rolled his eyes. After everything that had taken place, Ren still had to put on his facial cream every single day.

“Facial cream won’t help you in jail,” Minhyun told the maknae.

“Might as well enjoy liberty while I can then,” Ren responded as he massaged his cheek with what must have been the third cream that morning.

When all of them were up, the anonymity software had finished working its magic. Minhyun opened Pann, absolutely certain that their post would be the number one story on it. It always had been before…

But this time, it wasn’t.

Minhyun’s heart stopped beating for a moment as he read the headline of the number one story: Pledis building burned down. NU’EST’s Baekho and four staff members pass away in the fire.

“Minhyun, what’s wrong?” JR asked when he saw that Minhyun froze in his spot. JR glanced at Minhyun’s screen and his hand flew over his mouth in shock.

“What is it?” Ren grabbed the laptop and read it aloud, quivering when he read that Baekho had passed away in the fire.

‘Passed away.’ He was dead. Gone forever.

“No. No, it can’t be,” Ren said, quickly opening the article to read what it said. He read it aloud in frenzy, his voice cracking sometimes and his body starting to quake uncontrollably. He then came across a photo of Baekho’s burned, black, dead body.

Ren reacted in denial, insisting that this is some sick trick. JR reacted by holding his head and uttering “what have we done” over and over and over again. Aron reacted by crying, his hand over his mouth as he processed that one of their members was actually dead. Minhyun could not react. His body remained static, frozen, shocked.

Ren’s denial eventually wore off, and what replaced it was aggression. He threw the laptop across the room, “what the !” he yelled. His teeth were gritted, his fist were clenched, and his whole body was raging. “They ing killed him.”

“What have we done?” JR said again, looking to all of s with wide eyes, traumatized.

“It’s not us, JR,” Ren replied, “It’s them. Seventeen killed him. Who else could it be? You saw the way they looked at him in that video. They wanted to kill him, and they succee...” a wave of tears cut Ren off before her could finish his rant. The initial wrath subsided and was replaced with absolute despair. Ren’s best friend, the brightest, happiest, most approachable member of NU’EST, was gone.

They all took a moment to cry, to reflect, to think, to remember Baekho and to process that he was out of their lives forever now.

When Minhyun was finally able to overcome the shock and move his stricken body, he turned and saw all three of his remaining members cry (and in Ren’s case, sob).

“Let’s kill them,” Minhyun finally said. He recieved absolutely no protest from any of s.

A/N: just to give you a visual representation of Ren rn :(

This story is coming to a close btw. Five-ish more chapters left? My deadline is January 5 so one chapter a day and it will be done yay...

Thanks to all those who posted their theories yesterday! :D