"How come you don't have to go to school?" Jisung complains to Donghyuck.

"Because I'm suspended." Donghyuck answers with a chuckle.

"Damn. I should've been the one to throw the first punch and get suspended."

Jieun slaps Jisung upside the head making him flinch. "Don't you dare. If you get into another fight any time soon, I'm gonna work you so hard, you'll regret ever thinking of throwing the first punch."

Jisung rubs the back of his head with a pout and walks out the door as the others follow suit.

"See you after school, Jieun noona." Dream says making their way to school.

"So...I guess I'll go to the coffee shop with you."

"Don't force yourself." Jieun says.

"I'm not. I want to go too."

"Suit yourself."

Donghyuck flashes a bright smile before he runs upstairs and returns with his back pack. "I'm ready."

The two enter the car and make their way to the coffee shop. When they arrive, Kun already opened the shop and is preparing the machines.

"Good morning, Kun. You're here early."

"I can't slack off just because we hardly have any customers."

"Right." Jieun chuckles.

Donghyuck went to sit at a corner window seat and pulls out his laptop. Once in a while he will look up from his screen and smile at Jieun, but he is mostly typing away at the laptop in a fast pace.

"Quick, I'm choking! I need mouth to mouth!" Lucas shouts as he bursts through the doors.

"If you were really choking, I doubt you'd be able to speak." Jieun replies.

Lucas smiles. "If I had to choose between breathing or loving you, I'd choose to say "I love you" with my last breath."

"You've said it, now die."

"Brr. How cold. I love it."

Jieun shakes her head and roll her eyes. Suddenly her phone rings. She looks at the caller and sigh.

"Hello?" She answers walking away from the men. After she is done with the call, she returns to the counter. "Um, Kun, I leave the shop in your hands. Have a great day."

"Wait, where are you going?" Lucas asks grabbing a hold of Jieun's wrist.

Jieun pulls alway from him. "Somewhere you're not needed. Hyuck-ah, I'm busy at the moment. You can get home on your own, right?" Donghyuck does not answer and only nods in response. "Good." She turns to Lucas again. "Don't follow me."

Despite what Jieun said, Lucas follows her anyways. Lucas is following behind her, but Jieun was skipping lanes too frequently and at a fast pace, making Lucas lose track of her. He returns to NCT's hideout in defeat.

"What's wrong?" Ten asks.

"I went to visit Jieun today. She got a call and left. I followed her, but then I suddenly lost track of her due to the traffic."

"If you have nothing else to do, go talk to Taeyong and Johnny about future plans of negotiation." Taeil suggests.

"What about you?" Lucas asks.

"That's not my job. My job is to make bombs, ok?" Taeil retorts. "Your job is making big decisions with Taeyong and Johnny."

Lucas groans. "I don't want to. Curse my father for giving me this job."

Despite all his complaining, Lucas goes up to Taeyong's room.

"How are you, man?" Lucas asks upon entering.

"Not bad, I guess." Taeyong answers as WinWin hands him a pain pill and a cup of water.

"Where's Johnny?"

"With Mark or something? Not too sure myself. He hasn't drop by yet today. Did you need something from me?"

"Just wondering what we should do now? With you in this condition, the others are on edge, and everything is pretty much on halt."

"You guys shouldn't stop operations just because I'm injured."

"We know that, but you're the leader. It's just weird without you there making decisions."

"That's why there's you and Johnny."

"Bold of you to assume I make good decisions."

There was a light knock on the door before Johnny steps in. "Sup."

"Hey." They both greeted Johnny.

"I'll just get to the chase. Word got out. The cops came to question me about the incident with the club. I handed them the tape and they reported back to me just recently. Fortunately, the missing data was done by an outside source, so we are not in complete trouble. Unfortunately, no one knows who the hacker is."

"What about...the guy?" Lucas asks.

"Which guy?"

"The guy that died at the park fountain. The one that escaped. Have they found the killer yet?"

"There are currently no clues to the killer. Unfortunately, we have to close our club for the time being."

"What?!" Taeyong shouts and jerks his body on instinct which makes him wince in pain.

"There is no killer found, but the dude have friends that is claiming he came to our club that night. We're under suspicion. But I wouldn't worry. If I'm correct, that case will go cold soon, and they will close it. We'll be able to open our club again soon."

"According to the law, the officials can not do that to us. How much profit we lose during the time our club is closed, and how much the government would have to pay us for our loss of reputation and their obstruction of our business. The loss will be too big the government will not be able to compensate us. There is no way we can close the club for too long." Jaehyun says catching the three elder's attention. "My apologies, I did not mean to eavesdrop. But since we did not kill the man, we can offer our full cooperation. The club shall still be open, and authorities can snoop around the place all they want. They're not gonna find any evidence anyways, and the case will go cold and be dropped."

"You're right." Johnny agrees. "I should have consulted with you, since you're the lawyer here. My apologies."

Jaehyun chuckles. "No need to apologize. NCT is usually the ones attacking, not the ones being attacked. Everyone is on edge, especially with King back in the picture. Everyone in the underground is on high alert due to Song Hyunshik's death; they think King is behind it."

"If King is really behind it, the authorities won't ever be able to catch them." Yuta states as he enters the room. "King is just that talented. They have the whole underground shaking in fear. "

"Why are you here?" Lucas asks.

"Another dead."

"What?" The others chorus in confusion.

Yuta shows the others the news article on his phone. 'Kim JaeYoung assassinated', the article reads.

"Kim JaeYoung is a big wig in the underground for illegal weapon transactions." Yuta explains.

"And we should care because?" Lucas asks confused. "We don't even buy our weapons from this guy."

"I called Kun to see if Areum came in to work. She never showed. Kun also told me that Jieun left early this morning. Kim JaeYoung was murdered 1 hour after Jieun left the coffee shop. A coincidence? I think not."

"That doesn't prove anything." Lucas says.

"I'm just giving you the facts."

"Lucas is right. That doesn't prove anything. We need solid facts." Taeyong states. "Anything else other than your assumptions?"

"No." Yuta looks down in defeat. "I'll get back to work now."

"Yuta." Taeyong calls out to the man, making him stop in his tracks, and turning back to Taeyong. "Thank you for your continuous hard work."

Yuta breaks into a smile. "Anything for NCT."

**********

When Donghyuck finally takes a break from staring at his laptop, he stretches everything out from his neck, to his back, arms and legs. As he is stretching, he looks around and realizes that Jieun is gone.

"Kun ge, where is Jieun noona?"

"She talked to you before she left?"

"Huh?" Donghyuck answers confused. "What did she say? I didn't hear her."

"She has something to do. You have to go home on your own."

"Ah," Donghyuck nods before packing his stuff. "I'll be visiting Yuta hyung then. See you."

Donghyuck bursts into Yuta's room as if he owns the place. "Yuta hyung. Can we continue our lesson?"

"Did you already master the other lesson? Wait, not master. I don't expect much from you. Are you at least decent on the other lesson?"

"Don't make me fight you." Donghyuck says.

"Fine. Let's see what you got. Show me."

"Not bad." Yuta compliments Donghyuck after he tried to hack into NCT's base. "But you're still not good enough. I was still able to detect your IP address and location. You need to work more on that. Your decoding skills are good, but you need to be able to type faster. The faster you're able to type, the faster you will be able to decode. I think you're doing great in progress."

"Thanks, hyung." Donghyuck says before leaving Yuta's room.

"Donghyuck, if you keep this up, you'll be a great help for NCT in the future."

Donghyuck gives Yuta an OK and walks off

"Donghyuck is making great progress." Yuta syas into a walkie talkie. "Still no signs of betrayal."

**********

This is not any better than the previous chapter. 
I'm sorry~ 🥺
Thank you for reading, fellow wackies.