“Please, I just need a little more time.” Luhan kneaded at his forehead, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Suho Industries moved the meeting with the Minister back. You have to understand that this delay -”

“I don’t have to understand anything, Mr. Lu.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded faintly amused, its North Korean accent slick and syrupy. “It’s you that have to do the understanding. I need this information by the end of the month; I've got a shipment of military-grade weapons coming in through the DMZ to North Korea, and my men can’t exactly transport those weapons undetected without knowing what Fifth Tunnel surveillance will look like, can I?”

“Yes, I understand that sir, but -”

“I wasn’t done,” the voice cut in. “Do also understand I have your friend in custody, and he cannot wait any longer than I can. In fact, I'm sure you're aware you have some competition in the form of Jade Dragon."

Jade Dragon. Luhan's fists clenched. A shadowy organization that rose to prominence in the underground just five months ago, Jade Dragon was the talk of the town within intelligence networks, both legitimate and illicit. No one knew who was involved, how large the operation was, or what its ultimate goals were, but Jade Dragon had already established itself as a force to be reckoned with, transporting millions of dollars worth of illegal weapons without detection through some of the most perilous territories in the world. Unfortunately for both Luhan and Senrima, the North Korean cartel that had captured Xiumin, Jade Dragon worked exclusively for Magnolia, Senrima’s rival gang. The recent discovery of the Fifth Tunnel leading directly from South Korean to North Korean territory and the relatively low security levels in that area had evidently attracted the attention of Magnolia as well. And if Luhan had learned anything from working in intelligence all his life, it was that two different groups could not occupy the same niche for long before blood was shed.

"As motivation for you to work a little faster," the voice continued, "I can assure you Xiumin will have a bit of a nasty little accident if Jade Dragon happens to get the intelligence I need before you do. Senrima is the most powerful arms cartel in the North, and I intend to keep it that way; I will not tolerate Magnolia gaining a monopoly over Fifth Tunnel access. Either you get me that information by the end of the month, or your friend’s dead.”

At this, all semblances of cool, detached professionalism shattered, and Luhan gripped the phone so tightly he feared he would leave a dent in it. “Sir, please, just let me talk to him for a moment. I need to know he’s alright!”

“Such doubt in me.” The voice sighed. “Fine.”

Luhan waited, barely breathing for fear he would miss the sound of his best friend’s voice.

“Lu? Lu, is that you?”

Luhan choked, covering his mouth. “Xiumin,” he said, fighting to keep his voice from breaking. “Xiumin, are you alright? Are you hurt? Are they feeding -”

“I miss you, Lu,” Xiumin sobbed. “I miss you and the boys, and I just - I just want to come home.”

Pain twisted around Luhan’s ribs, crushing his bones and throbbing white-hot with each breath he took. The call quality was poor and punctuated by high-pitched background noise, but the agony in Xiumin's voice was undeniable. “Hold on for me, Xiu,” he begged. “Just a little longer, and then you can come home. I promise.”

“Now I do hope that wasn’t an empty promise, Mr. Lu.” The voice returned. “Was it?”

Luhan took a moment to gather himself again, forcing down the tremble in his voice. “No, sir. We’ll get the information before Jade Dragon does. By the end of the month at latest.”

“Wonderful. I’m sure Xiumin will be very glad to hear that, too.”

---

Yoojung burped, patting droplets of crimson ramyun soup from the edges of her lips. He might have been a creepy stalker, but at least he knew my favorite brand of ramyun, she thought. With the sudden abundance of ramyun in the house, she had streamed her daily mukbang broadcast at lunchtime instead of dinnertime, unable to muster the willpower to resist the ramyun much longer. Wiping off her fingers, she ended the livestream and set her most recent broadcast to loop continuously for any fans who had missed her last mukbang.

“Welcome back to BJ NyamNyam’s daily mukbang!” She watched her own beaming face talk on the screen. “How are you doing, everyone? Are you sending in questions for me to answer as I eat? Oh, welcome, User #214. Let me read your question:

‘NyamNyam-nim, how did you choose your BJ name?’

“Ah… that’s a secret for me to know and you all to find out, everyone!”

Yoojung’s lips twitched. She had never told anyone the secret of her nickname “NyamNyam,” but she was surprised no one had uncovered it yet; many of her fans had sharp ears. In fact, if she strained her ears a little bit now, she could hear it as well; every five seconds, a high-pitched voice saying, “nyam, nyam” could be heard in the background of her broadcast. The free program she used to continuously loop her broadcasts for fans who’d missed her daily broadcast imposed an audio watermark on all her videos that she, no matter how hard she tried, could not remove. By adopting the name “NyamNyam” as her own, she could pretend to herself that the audio watermark was a stamp of her ownership rather than someone else’s. Of course, she could just pay an extra fee to remove the watermark, but that idea had never appealed to her.

“I don’t want to pay 6000 won a month just to loop some videos without an audio watermark,” she reasoned with herself. “That’s not being cheap, right? No, no, that’s not. Money is better spent on other things. Better things. Like food! Right, Baekbaek?” She turned to the fluffball.

Baekbaek ignored her, trotting over to his food bowl instead.

“I’m going to take that as agreement.”

---

Halfway across the city, wearing his headphones, Yixing disagreed.

“That's just being cheap,” he muttered, knowing Yoojung couldn't hear him. “Honestly, 6000 won a month is barely anything.”

The bug inside the trash bag of ramyun packe