Code: 04

Location: Opera House

Time: N/A

Gold-fringed velvet curtains brushed against the balcony floor on which Chanyeol found himself standing. In front of him, only an arm's width away, waist-high railings separated the man from the wide stage and the stalls arranged before it.

The dim yellow of the stage lights illuminated the otherwise dark venue, and from the orchestra pit, a sombre melody played. Despite the sound of a violin, there were none in sight.

For that matter, there was no one else present, not even a single usher to keep Chanyeol company.

"Kyungsoo, have you been keeping something from me?" Chanyeol whispered, feeling as if he had to lower his voice to match the atmosphere.

From the wings emerged a single, solitary male ballet dancer. As he approached the centre of the stage, Chanyeol noticed the silver embellishments on his black jacket glinting in the mellow light with every movement he made.

"What do you mean? I've told you everything you needed to know." Kyungsoo answered in a more guarded tone than usual.

Rising slowly from the pit, the sound of string instruments filled the air, replacing the lone violin with a heavy, reverberating tune. The ballet dancer lifted his head, causing the light to fall on his face and sharpen his features.

As the volume of the music grew louder, he began to dance.

"It's Adagio in G minor, right?" Chanyeol asked. Engrossed by the sequence that unfurled before him, he leant over the railings and watched the dancer's movements in awe. Telling Kyungsoo about his memory would have to wait until later.

"I'm amazed that you remember something like that." Kyungsoo remarked, though Chanyeol couldn't tell whether his surprise was genuine. "You told me back at the factory that classical music wasn't your thing."

"It isn't, but this piece just seems to have stuck with me." Chanyeol chuckled, fingers curling over the crevices of his elbow as he rested his forearms on the railings. The positioning was quite awkward, considering his height, but Chanyeol didn't mind. "Bit depressing, isn't it?"

"You're right. When I think of ballet, I don't really think of…this." Kyungsoo said. The dancer glided across the stage, the melody carrying him through the steps with grace. Though Chanyeol didn't know any better, it seemed as if the music was controlling him; he thought that maybe if he squinted, he would be able to see puppet strings connecting the dancer to an invisible puppeteer. Having taken into account his previous experiences in the simulation, the idea wasn't exactly impossible.

"Hmm…he's a good dancer." Chanyeol mumbled, gaze transfixed on the man. "Please don't tell me that he's actually a lizard-human hybrid or some elaborate illusion."

"No promises there." Kyungsoo laughed. Chanyeol smiled at the sound of it, finding joy in its melody more so than the solemn symphony playing below him.

For the next few minutes, Chanyeol watched the dancer without another word, listening to Kyungsoo's commentary on the arrangement and story of the piece. As it turned out, the guide was knowledgeable not only in matters concerning technology, but also music.

Chanyeol remembered Kyungsoo mentioning something about wanting to become a singer, or even a composer, yet he hadn't given a reason for his drastic change in career choice. 

"Don't be weirded out, but your voice is kinda - how do I put this without sounding like a creep? - soothing. Yeah, it's soothing." Chanyeol confessed, standing up to stretch his aching back. Bending over the railings wasn't exactly the most comfortable of positions to watch a ballet performance. "Like, you could do a dramatic reading of a Dr. Seuss book and I wouldn't mind."

"I have my thesis nearby, want me to read it to you?" Kyungsoo joked, but Chanyeol was already prepared to take him up on the offer. In the background, the harmony of strings reached the of the piece, drowning out Kyungsoo's words in a dramatic burst of sound.

As the finale drew closer, Chanyeol picked up a single rose from a vase on a nearby table. When the music died down and the dancer held his finishing pose, Chanyeol threw the rose at his feet, clapping and whooping, much to the surprise of the performer.

The dancer looked up at his one-man audience, an expression of pure disbelief on his face.

"Were you watching me?" He called out, before bending down to pick up the rose.

"What else would I be doing?" Chanyeol answered with a grin. "What's your name?"

"Jongin! What's yours?" The dancer said with an equally pleased smile, twirling the stem of the flower between his fingers.

"I'm Chanyeol! I'll come down, hold on a sec."

Stepping away from the railing, Chanyeol strode out of the doorway and into the empty hall. On the walls, Degas' paintings of ballerinas were hung with light fixtures above them, shedding a warm glow on the canvas.  Having no time to admire the works, Chanyeol turned left and soon found himself at the top of a stairwell.

He quickly descended the stairs, which led to the floor just below the stage. To his surprise, Jongin was no longer on the spot that Chanyeol expected him to wait, but instead, the single red rose lay crumpled under the beam of the spotlight.

After climbing on to the stage, Chanyeol picked up the trampled flower and inspected its petals. They were dark, withered.

"Maybe he didn't like it…" Chanyeol muttered in thought, rather offended.

Before he could take a closer look, the rose disintegrated into a cloud of dust, slipping through Chanyeol's fingers and on to the floor. Taken aback, he yelped and quickly wiped the particulates from his hands.

From the orchestra pit, a new piece started to play. It was Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The sound of whirring resounded from above him and, for a second, Chanyeol thought Sehun and his bionic arm had returned to attack him. He was, once again, very much wrong.

Descending from the ceiling,  ball-jointed porcelain ballerinas attached to translucent wires circled Chanyeol. Each wore a black ensemble, similar in style to Jongin's jacket; their tutus were smooth in texture and unnaturally dark, a contrast to their pale skin.

As the music continued to play, they danced disjointedly around Chanyeol, blank-faced and exceptionally creepy. With each movement, Chanyeol could here the scraping of their joints and the clicking of their ceramic feet on the stage floor.

In unison, the ballerinas performed a pirouette, which only served to tangle the wires connected to them. Before any of the dancers could complete a third full rotation, the tension in the intertwined wires halted their movements, causing them to abruptly become suspended in the air.

Chanyeol stayed deathly still, afraid of moving a muscle. He strained to breath as the panic rose in his chest, "Kyungsoo…they're not going to attack me right?"

"No, there's no reason to be afraid." Kyungsoo reassured him, and with that, Chanyeol let out a heavy sigh. "Get away from there if you can't handle it."

"What do you mean 'if I can't handle it'?" Chanyeol huffed, cautiously skirting around the frozen body of a ballerina. "I'm 'handling' it just fine, thank you very much. Dolls don't scare me."

"Maybe so, but ballerinas seem to." Kyungsoo stated, only half-teasing him. There was a certain seriousness to his tone that Chanyeol couldn't quite comprehend.

"They're super fragile. Who wouldn't be scare of someone who can break so easily?"  Chanyeol said in retort, climbing off the stage and into the orchestra pit.

"Ballerinas don't break like dolls, Chanyeol. They're humans too, y'know." Kyungsoo responded as Chanyeol made his way to the stall without incident.

From behind him, Adagio in G minor began to play again. It was sudden, leading Chanyeol to quickly swerve around to face the stage.

The whirring sound overwhelmed the string instruments as the porcelain ballerinas ascended to the ceiling, their stiff bodies ghostly pale even in the warm yellow light.

Emerging once again from the wings, Jongin stepped in to the centre of the stage.

As he positioned himself for another performance, the familiar sound of static erupted in Chanyeol's ear. In blocks across his visions, black and white pixels replaced the regal surroundings, eventually consuming everything.

The inevitable darkness followed, and Chanyeol prepared himself for what was to come.

Filename: Sehun_#7743_20271205

Tag: [Sehun][Chanyeol][Memory]

With Sehun's status as the son of an incredibly talented engineer and influential businessman, it was almost natural for him to have a circle of friends with a similar position in society as him. One of those friends happened to be Jongin, the son of two world-renowned ballet dancers.

Before Sehun's legs could succumb to the disease that affected his right arm, he had taken an interest in dance as a result of Jongin's influence. Chanyeol often made comments about how unfortunate his hobby was, considering that Sehun would inevitably have to stop one day.

Nonetheless, it didn't stop him from enjoying the art.

Several months after Sehun's twentieth birthday, Jongin invited him and Chanyeol to see his ballet company perform the Nutcracker at the Seoul Arts Centre. Naturally, the two accepted.

As they stood outside the venue, shivering in the cold, Jongin momentarily left to buy some hot drinks for the three of them.

Sehun, whose nose had turned a bright red, nuzzled his face into his scarf and hunched his shoulders, attempting to keep as much heat in his coat as possible. Noticing this, Chanyeol slung an arm around his shoulders and closed the space between them, something he always did during the winter months when Sehun couldn't be bothered to dress appropriately for the weather.

"You know, I think I've gotten taller." Chanyeol said, patting Sehun's head. The latter glared, tilting his head away as he grabbed on to Chanyeol's wrist and pushed the arm backwards.

"Oh good for you." Sehun sneered through chattering teeth, though it was difficult to stay mad when all he could see was Chanyeol's face contorting into a hilarious expression as he laughed. "How was your visit to Changsha? You flew here straight from China, you must be tired."

"Eh, the usual. Yixing's still making those killer dumplings, I can't really complain." Chanyeol responded with a shrug after settling down, having become used to his constant travelling between China and Korea over the past four years. "Your dad said that I've only got one more visit to go and then that's it, you'll get to spend more quality time with me."

"I'm looking forward to that." Sehun deadpanned, crossing his arms tighter as he shivered vigorously. Despite having tech implants, the cold was still a pain in the . "Do you know what they'll be doing to you on your last visit?"

"Yeah, they're go-"

Before he could finish, Jongin appeared with two cups of tea and a cup of coffee. Holding one to his lips, he grimaced and immediately pulled it away, gagging in disgust, "Gross, that one was coffee." Jongin spluttered, then proceeded to hand the cup to Chanyeol. "Here. For you."

With pursed lips, Chanyeol grabbed the cup, "Thanks."

"No problem." Jongin answered, genuinely oblivious to the sarcasm. After passing the tea to Sehun, the trio went inside and chatted about Jongin's role as the Cavalier. Eventually, the dancer had to depart, leaving the other two to make their way to their balcony box seats.

After fifteen minutes of waiting patiently for the performance to begin, the curtains of the stage parted, revealing the opening scene with its snow-dusted houses and formally dressed actors.

Throughout the performance, Sehun remained unperturbed, giving the bare minimum of applause, while beside him, Chanyeol was always on the verge of whooping and cheering. His outbursts were only stopped by well-timed kicks to the ankle, courtesy of Sehun.

As the pas de deux began and Jongin entered with his partner, Soojung, Chanyeol could no longer contain himself and clapped as loud as he possibly could, much to the chagrin of Sehun, even though he himself had broken into a wide grin.

The pair danced seamlessly, their bodies moving to the solemn melody. With every crescendo, the audience applauded as the two dancers performed sharp, thoroughly practiced manoeuvres.

Sehun shifted closer to Chanyeol, whispering in his ear, "Jongin was really nervous about this. It's his first time as the Cavalier."

"He doesn't look nervous at all." Chanyeol said, mildly impressed at how calm Jongin was. "Then again, he is dancing with Soojung."

The pair exchanged knowing looks, snickering amongst themselves as their friend continued to dance with ease. As the tempo of the piece increased once more, Sehun and Chanyeol turned their attention back to the stage, enthralled by the dynamics of the two dancers.

Upon Jongin's second lift of Soojung, there was a sense of unease in the man's movements. It had only been a slight shake of his arm, but Chanyeol knew Jongin to be a perfectionist and could instantly tell that the dancer was already beating himself up over it.

With bated breath, the pair watched the execution of the third lift.

This time, it was more than an unstable arm.

As Soojung dived from her higher position, with the intent of being caught by Jongin, her body slipped through her partner's grip, having been momentarily out of time with each other.

When she fell to the floor, it was more than a bruise on her side.

Soojung had landed on her hip, the force fracturing her femur, as the medics who attended the fallen ballerina later announced.

Filename: Sehun_#7744_20271205

Tag: [Sehun][Chanyeol][Memory]

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Jongin buried his face in his hands, a sheen of tears forming on the palms. Beside him, Sehun sat in silence, fiddling with the loose threads of his sweater sleeve; he was out of his depth in such situations and so was Chanyeol, who tried to console Jongin by distracting him with mindless chatter. It wasn't working and all three of them could tell.

Shaking, Jongin sniffed and looked up to address his two friends, "Thanks for the concern, but I just want to be alone right now."

Sehun and Chanyeol glanced at each other, exchanging an unspoken agreement, before rising from their seats, "We'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?" Sehun said, placing a stiff hand on Jongin's shoulder. He was always used to being comforted, to the point that comforting others was practically an alien concept to him.

"Yeah, play some Adagio in G minor to wash those worries away!" Chanyeol chimed in, trying to lighten the mood.

Scrunching his nose, Sehun gave him a disapproving look, "That's probably the worst piece of music you can play at times like these. Do you want Jongin to stay depressed?"

"Oh…I just saw it on the shelf. Thought I might show off my knowledge of classical music." Chanyeol admitted sheepishly, "Oops?"

With that, Jongin burst into laughter, his blood-shot eyes pushed into crescents as a wide smile appeared on his lips, "No, I do actually like that one." He said, standing up to grab the album from the shelf. "Why don't you listen to it? The format's a bit old, but you'll probably have a player lying around somewhere."

Taking the album, Chanyeol noticed Jongin's tear-streaked cheeks no longer accompanied his crestfallen expression, instead, they framed the man's sad smile, telling of his waning sorrow. "Thanks, I've always wanted to listen to-" He quickly eyed the composer's name, "-Al…binoni."

"Don't lie to yourself Chanyeol, you thought that Mozart and Beethoven were the same person." Sehun snorted, prying the album from Chanyeol's fingers and handing it back to Jongin, "I've still got the copy you gave me at home, so you keep it."

"I didn't give you the copy, I let you borrow it. You kept it for so long that I thought you lost it, that's why a bought a new one!" Jongin huffed, wiping his damp cheeks.

"…Oops?" Sehun said, smiling meekly.

As Jongin began hitting him for making him worry about potentially losing a limited edition album - complete with all iterations of the piece by famous orchestras and composers - the scene froze.

!UNKNOWN has been granted access

!Internal Storage unlocked

Filename: Demo

Owner: Do_HoJun

Play?

No     >Yes

Plain white walls. A plain white room. A man in plain white clothes.

Three constants that greeted Chanyeol, all of which seemed to ring with familiarity, as if he had found himself in a place he always belonged. Or once belonged.

With an expressionless countenance, the man spoke to him, or rather, at him. "Initiate recording."

No words would come out of Chanyeol's mouth, but there was no reason to. For a moment, Chanyeol contemplated whether it was a memory or another part of the simulation. Perhaps it was neither.

"Let this be my mark on you." The man muttered, his tone seeming to harbour no malicious intent. He looked directly at Chanyeol with a piercing gaze and straightened his posture, as if he was addressing an audience.

In a clear voice, he introduced himself, "I am Do Hojun, founder of Haneul Technologies. After years of being funded by GN Group, I proudly present-"

The audio abruptly cut off.

The white turned to black.

Code: 04

Location: Opera House

Time: N/A

Finding himself back at the opera house, Chanyeol's mind was in a disarray, unsure of what to think. In front of him, the stage was empty: no spotlight, no ballerinas, no orchestra music originating as if from nowhere.

On the barrier separating the orchestra pit from the stalls, a gnome perched with its innocently wide smile and festive outfit.

Chanyeol knew, by that point, the procedure should've been almost like a reflex to him. There was no reason to hesitate, Kyungsoo only wanted to save him.

Kyungsoo wouldn't lie to him, he had already rescued him from Sehun several times.

Why would he lie?

Those memories couldn't certainly be real, Sehun had to be the enemy.

Why would he lie?

"How long are you going to stand there?" Kyungsoo's voice bore through the silence. Despite Chanyeol's lack of initiative in taking the gnome, he remained patient. "Just take it and you'll be free."

Doing as he was told, Chanyeol stepped closer to the figurine and reached out to grab it, the cold terracotta brushing against his finger tips. Before he could hold it, a message appeared central to his vision. In bold white letters against a pixelated red background, it read "ERROR".

Surprised, Chanyeol lurched backwards. Around him, multiple "ERROR" messages dotted around his vision, following him wherever he turned, as if they were plastered directly on his eyes.

"Chanyeol we don't have time, hurry." An uncharacteristic panic laced Kyungsoo's voice. "Seriously, what are you waiting for? Hurry up!"

After eventually clutching the ornament in his grip, Chanyeol turned the body upside down and prepared to slide his hand in, even though all he could see was a red and white blur of pop-ups.

He hesitated, a burning question suddenly waiting to be asked, "Is Do Hojun your father?"

"No, I don't know who that is." Kyungsoo denied, the aggravation painfully clear in his voice.

"You work at OM Enterprises, don't you?" Chanyeol pressed on, unshaken by his guide's hostile response.

Sighing, Kyungsoo replied in an increasingly irritated tone. "For God's sake Chanyeol, I thought we've established this already. Don't believe what you've been shown."

"I don't. And I don't believe you either." Chanyeol said through gritted teeth, letting the gnome fall from his hands and on to the floor. As it rolled over the red carpet, the number of pop-ups multiplied rapidly, forming one massive pixelated entity.

In a matter of seconds, there was nothing but a mask of red. On it, a new message emerged.

!Virus detected

Process [GN.OME] quarantined

System rebooting…

…

…

Initiating [CY.0.0.9]

System Check: No Issues Found

[Senses] loaded

[Framework_Control] loaded

[Database_Control] loaded

Status:

>[ON]    [OFF]    [STANDBY]

…

…

Recording in Progress

When Chanyeol regained consciousness, a metallic taste lingered on his tongue. Shifting his gaze to his surroundings, he was met with the sight of steel boxes and glaring screens riddled with indecipherable statistics. From a reservoir on the floor, which was filled with a thick red substance, tubes emerged and s across the elevated platform on which Chanyeol lay, connecting with his body.

Beside him, Sehun sat in a wicker chair, a blanket carefully draped over his slumbering body. Fear bubbled in Chanyeol's chest at the sight of the man, a conditioned reflex after being hunted down and supposedly manipulated in his simulation.

Chanyeol quickly sat up, noticing a tug on his body as he did. Having fully come to his senses, he looked down at his arms and legs, staring in disbelief as he noticed the unknown substance being pumped into his body. In a state of panic, Chanyeol pulled out the tubes, the liquid spattering on his face before they fell to the floor beneath the platform.

The commotion woke Sehun up, who began rubbing the sleep from his eyes. As his vision cleared, his mouth fell open upon seeing Chanyeol.

"You're awake…" Sehun said with a relieved smile, quickly rising from his seat to approach Chanyeol. With only a metre between them, Chanyeol grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him up on to the platform, finding a strength he never knew he had.

Sehun winced in pain as his head slammed against the cold metal, the force of Chanyeol's hand on his throat. "Wh..a..." He struggled to speak, clawing at the skin on Chanyeol's arm.

"You need to stop ing with me." Chanyeol snarled, pressing down harder. "I've had enough of all this bull. All these 'memories'. Who do you think you are?"

He was shouting, confusion and anger all stirring inside him, turning his mind askew. With his right arm, Sehun pushed against Chanyeol's chest, hurtling him backwards.

As he gasped for air, Sehun bit back, "What the hell are you talking about?!"

Chanyeol fell to the floor, his body making an usually loud clatter as it came into contact with the granite tiles. Rolling to his side, he glared up at Sehun, "Don't play innocent, you trapped me in a simulation for God's sake! You tried to kill me."

"You've completely lost me, Chanyeol." Sehun said, bewildered. "I know next to nothing about coding, let alone simulations or whatever it is you just said. I think you might be hallucinating."

Still unconvinced, Chanyeol continued to answer back with hostility, "But my father-"

"What the? Seriously, what's gotten into you?" Sehun snorted, brows knitted in mild worry. "You don't have a father. You've never had one. Ever."

Sitting up in a cross-legged position, Chanyeol looked at him in shock, as if his world had just come crashing down. He paused, narrowing his eyes as he suddenly remembered what Kyungsoo told him. "…You're lying, aren't you?" Chanyeol muttered, voice low and simmering with a growing fury.

Throwing his hands up in resignation, Sehun climbed off the platform and walked over to the door, "I can't reason with you, I'm getting Yixing because you need sorting out." He said, leaving the room and Chanyeol behind him.

For a few minutes, Chanyeol sat on the floor, lost in thought and searching for memories that didn't seem to come to him. Even the events in the so-called simulation were a blur; he could vaguely recall the sound of Kyungsoo's voice and the snippets of his and Sehun's life that may or may not have been altered. In his mind, only little bits of who he was prior to the simulation existed. No sudden recollections, no life-changing events. Everything Chanyeol knew himself to be remained as inessential facts that he had somehow managed to discuss with Kyungsoo.

In addition, Sehun didn't seem hell-bent on killing him, and if he was telling the truth about Chanyeol's father, then Kyungsoo would've been the one lying. The question was: why would he lie?

As Chanyeol tried to make sense of the jigsaw puzzle of random information, the door behind him creaked open.

Expecting Sehun, he swerved around to give him a piece of his mind, only to stop when he realised that an unfamiliar man was standing in the doorway. From observations alone, he was young, and much shorter than either Chanyeol or Sehun.

"Who are you?" Chanyeol asked the stranger, who was wearing a white polo shirt and a lanyard with words "OM Enterprises" stitched on to it.

"Have you forgotten already? I'm Kyungsoo." He answered, a wry smile on his lips.