Yixing was panic the first time he heard that Jisoo was in the hospital when he phoned her. It was almost midnight here, he just got home from the late office meeting, he was tired and drowsy, and he thought she was the one who got admitted. The misunderstanding went out about the whole five minutes because it was a bit chaos there, and he heard Jisoo was talking⁠—well, half yelled to be precise⁠—to someone or some people, while replying to him, it was quite difficult to catch what was happening exactly.

"No, Yixing, it's not me⁠—Sehun, please, just let him do the job for God's sake, he's the doctor, not you. Ugh, I need to get out from here. Wait, let me find some quiet place. It's too chaotic in here." 

And Yixing waited. He still couldn't see the real deal, even actually he was asking why Jisoo was wandering to find somewhere quiet when she was admitted? Or it wasn't her? Then who? And what happened with Sehun? all the questions just cramped up in his head. It was about a minute later that everything went into silence, and Jisoo sighed loudly.

"So, what happened? Who got hurt?" Yixing asked exactly five seconds later, he rubbed his forehead and seated himself on his hotel room's couch. He reached the remote on the coffee table and the TV, looking for something to watch.

"It's Sehun and Chanyeol." he heard him say.

Yixing just frowned, did they get involved in an accident? "What's going on?" 

"Well," Jisoo sighed again, "Minseok beat them up, and they're kind of, injured in some places—" Yixing was back into dumfounded mode. Did he hear it right?

Who did what?

"And grandpa refused to call a doctor to treat them at home, telling them just to go to the ER because he thought it would teach them some lessons. So, here I am, babysitting these immature giant babies, who are bickering with the doctors about the treatment right now." she scowled. "Ugh, my head ached, it felt like it's going to blow up any second."

"I don't understand," Yixing said again, even after the explanation, he still failed to comprehend the problem. He missed one detail, and he asked for it. "Why did Minseok beat them?"

"He found out! Minseok meant the question as a joke, but Chanyeol didn't get it, and he just told him the truth. And Minseok roughed them up, and, and Sehun tried to break them, and in the process, Minseok found out that Sehun knew about us too so he got beaten up too in the end. Minseok was, furious, Yixing. I've never seen him like this. He just, exploded like a bomb." she blabbered distressedly.

"Okay, calm down. Is Minseok okay now?"

"They said he got fractures in some of his knuckles, so they took him for an X-ray now."

It was silence for a few moments later. He's trying to process Jisoo's words because what he heard was a bit unrealistic. Minseok was the most collected and calmest person he'd ever seen alive, so it's really hard to believe even someone like him could be violent when he's enraged. He recalled how they talked about this the previous day. When Minseok said he had this conversation about taking care of his sister with Chanyeol, Yixing thought that he was okay with their activities. He thought that Minseok knew, but he decided to just let it go for some reason, and honestly, he was disappointed by how he handled this. Especially after all the speech about being responsible and 'better kiss but no ' he gave him.

But now that Minseok apparently just lost it, it seemed like he thought it wrong then. They lied to him.

Minseok's wrath was justified.

"Send me a picture,"

And when Jisoo sent him a picture of her posing with her peace fingers, with her three boys as the background (Sehun and Chanyeol sat respectively on their own gurney next to each other with some cuts and bruised on their face, while Minseok sat by the tip of Sehun's bed with a cast on his right hand) Yixing had no idea of how to react.

It was about three seconds later that he finally laughed. He felt a bit guilty, it wasn't something to laugh but he just couldn't help it. It's hard to believe that Minseok could flip out, but seeing how it served Sehun and Chanyeol, the part where Minseok actually manhandled them himself was the best revelation.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Yixing only found out today that ROFL emoji was actually real.

At least he could hold the urge to laugh and maintain his poker face when Chanyeol came to visit after he's home, even if he burst into tears and laughter when he left. It'd been mainly good news Chanyeol brought with the prosecution development. In two days, his tracker managed to find the first uploader and brought him to the Seoul metro police station once they got him. And as they'd expected, the guy (who was an infamous underground hacker and had stumbled over similar criminal cases before) said that someone had paid him to do the dirty job. The police tracked his bank account to find that he had received funds through a wire transfer from a woman, who apparently, after a further investigation, was found to be Byun Baekhyun's relative.

Yixing was informed that Baekhyun went to the police station today with the chaos that Jisoo's office had made along with the requested apology letter. It irked him how the faculty seemed to have no intention to really apologize to what they had done to Jisoo by saying that 'the reason for terminating the employment contract was because Professor Kim had violated the code of ethics of the teaching staff by establishing a relationship with a student which was deemed inappropriate by the applicable academical norm'.

There was no discussion, not even one sentence, that mentioned that they had victimized her and treated her unfairly in handling her situation with the secret camera case. They didn't even apologize for that, and this made Yixing think that they'd be done for. He called his father to tell him a decision, then he called his company's lawyer to take care of the cancellation of the Zhang Dong Petrochemical Company MOU with the university. He wanted to stop all of its collaborative activities with the university and withdrew all the students they supported to transfer to Yonsei or SNU starting from this semester.

Minseok called him an hour after the apology letter was published on their faculty site and some online news media, with the same aggravation, told Yixing to do the things properly.

"Just sue them, Christ's sake. Post the summons today, get the dean and the university chancellor as the main defendant, and do a thorough investigation on the campus. Ask the police to interrogate the students and all staff, you need to find Baekhyun's fault no matter what. SBS will start to cover the news tonight, get Chanyeol to work with them, and just tell Jisoo to hand them the resignation letter. I want those people to pay for this, Yixing. You make sure yourself that they will pay for this." he said fumingly.

"I know, Minseok, I know." he sighed. Minseok seemed to be a bit out of it lately, after the incident with Chanyeol and Sehun. He didn't want to be offended, but it started to get tiring to hear his rant when all the things he did were trying to get things properly done. Yixing was trying to understand his point of view, he could understand that Minseok was more than willing to do anything to be here and support his sister and that his intention was limited by their distance. He wanted to appreciate his concern over the matter, but Minseok was making it very hard for him to be cool, especially when all his effort was still not up to his standard. And the worst thing about this was, he couldn't complain. Minseok was not his subordinate, he's not someone who he could raise his voice to whenever he felt exasperated with their incompetence, and it's really tiring.

"I'm doing all I can to fix this. My people are on the go all night to make sure we could get something out from this . Jisoo also said that there were also some student witnesses, so the police are in the university now to find these kids. I can't promise you about the resignation letter, Jisoo is the one who makes the decision. But I promise you I'll talk to her about it." 

Yixing decided to have another gym session today to blow off some steam. He felt a relapse of his back injury these days that it had been more or less a distraction to his focus to things. He was upset because of this. Since the doctor said that his injury could recur at any time, especially when he had too many activities, Yixing had reduced his schedule for the past few months. But he had to admit that he wasn't as fit as before, the older he got, the quicker he got to feel tired. It didn't help that Baekhyun's case had wasted almost all of his energy that he felt of out-breath sometimes.

He's getting sick of people telling him this and that for being supportive at his own fiancée. They're laughing at his effort to clear her names and saying that it's not his job to sweep her dirt, or that he's actually just wasting his time playing God with the justice and all. He was fully aware that this was the very time where he should cover his ears tight to what people said about him and his relationship. It wasn't the first time that people's words sounded like a sharp dagger pierced to his chest, and it wasn't the first time either that he's being wronged for the things he did.

Yixing was totally aware of his responsibility. He had so much in his hands, but he never took any of them as a burden he had to bear on his shoulders. Jisoo wasn't some kind of a charity case that he put his bet of winning on, she's worth much more than that for him. She's worth everything for him, and he wanted the best for her. But there were times, if he could be honest, that this case had put him into some unbearable uncomfortableness. Heck, Yixing felt uncomfortable with many things these days. Especially when it came to Byun Baekhyun and Park Chanyeol.

He had nothing against Chanyeol, but he couldn't help to feel antsy when the guy was around. Even though it was long gone and happened years ago, he couldn't stop seeing him as someone who had slept with his fiancée, and seriously, it wasn't an easy job to let go. Sometimes he thought that he was a walking ticking bomb, he wasn't good at expressing his anger and distress into words and tended to keep it inside and just let it dissipate with the passing time. But these days, with all the things that came into his senses, everything started to get a toll on him. And Chanyeol's persistent in provoking him was nothing help at all.

"He's really shameless, that ." Chanyeol cursed.

Yixing sat on his working table in his home office. He rested his elbow of the armchair and propped his temple on his clenching hand, boringly listened to the taller man reporting today's hearing with Byun Baekhyun. He had been waiting the whole day, and he asked him to go straight to his apartment once the hearing was over, and here Chanyeol was with all his founding and suggestions.

"He's wasting the whole day making excuses, he refused to be blamed and said that all this is a baseless accusation. It's almost impossible to get something out of him, Yixing, he only wanted to cooperate if we let him see her."

Yixing's brow furrowed in an instant, "Hell, no." he immediately responded, "There's a zero percent I'll let him see her. I can't believe that you actually think this is a good idea, to begin with. You're her lawyer, this is supposed to be a non-negotiable precondition, or whatever." 

He was agitated. What was this guy thinking? Didn't he learn to be strict with a defendant at school?

"Yixing, you know that it's probably our only way to get the truth out of him, right? He's giving us nothing today."

"Or not. He's a liar, Chanyeol. You said it yourself. What makes you think that he will tell us the truth after he met her? And what makes you think that he won't say anything that would probably hurt her more when he met her? I'm not letting him see her, you hear me? If he doesn't want to cooperate, then fine. We can always have the other way. Even if we have to search the universe to find his phone and it takes forever to do that, I'll take the challenge. But you go and tell him that we're not negotiating with him, and the only time he will see her is when Jisoo gives her testimony in the court and that will be the time when he hears about the end of his life." he said sternly. He didn't feel like listening anymore knowing that this argument would probably lead to nowhere. He knew how persistent Chanyeol could be, but he didn't expect that he would be this determined to confront him.

"You know you can't do that, don't you? Jisoo is an adult, and legally speaking, she has the right to speak for herself, and she will be the one who's going to decide about this."

"To decide about what?" 

Both of them darted their eyes to the new presence in the room. Jisoo stood by the doorway in her bathrobe, hair still wet after the evening shower and confused look seeing the tension which was built with the argument. Damn, Jisoo. Sometimes her innocence to people's inner feelings frustrated him. Wasn't she aware of how alluring she looked right now? She always thought of the best in people, thinking all men were like his mighty brother, but she had no idea what was on their mind. And seriously, Yixing detested the way Chanyeol looked at her right now. The guy had something that he's not supposed to have there in his ing head, and it's inappropriate.

"We're having the hearing with Baekhyun today. And he's not cooperating unless we let him see and talk to you." Chanyeol informed her after a flash silence. Yixing tilted his head, he didn't want to be here right now. "And Yixing said he won't let you see him. But hey, you're the one who has the voice here. If you see him, he promised that he's willing to give us anything we want. It's going to make everything easier, Jees. You decide."

No one spoke. Jisoo raised her brow but saying no words, and up to this point, Yixing couldn't care less anymore. If Jisoo decided to give that a chance to see her, so he couldn't say anything. Chanyeol was right though, he had no right to forbid her to see anyone.

Five seconds, he counted, then Jisoo turned her glance at him. They looked at each other for another three seconds, and then she smiled back to Chanyeol.

"I'll do what Yixing said. If he said I can't see Baekhyun so I won't see him. I don't think I want to either, after all."

Chanyeol turned to see him, and Yixing raised his brow. "You heard the girl," he smirked deliberately, just to show the smug on his face. The guy needed to see that he was the one who's in charge here, not him.

And Chanyeol threw his hands in the air, giving up. "Fine. Whatever. It may take weeks to find that goddamn phone, remind you. Good luck bearing with me until then." 

Yixing knew Chanyeol meant his last sentence to him before he sauntered to leave the room, but he just brushed it off. He felt so relieved now seeing how Jisoo stood by him despite the advantage that Chanyeol had offered her. She could follow his suggestion and got Baekhyun the easy way just like they wanted but chose to save his pride instead. And even though she didn't show any discomposure on him (but thanked him instead) he felt a bit guilty.

He wanted to be understanding, really. He's normally a rational person, he always put his logic over his emotion and it'd never been a problem before. But beyond all that, he's just a human. When the first time he asked Sehun to get Park Chanyeol to work on this case, this was for Jisoo entirely. He thought that she would be happy to work with someone she knew well, that she would be more open giving testimony to someone she's comfortable with (because knowing her character, he just knew that she wouldn't be willing to share so many details if it's not with him). And he was right about it. Yixing was aware that Jisoo was more comfortable in sharing her secrets openly to Chanyeol than to him himself, and he couldn't help to feel slightly jealous about this.

It was just the same feeling when Jisoo came home one night with her new red hair after a day of new hearing sessions at the police station. She was really different, apart from her new look. And Yixing was dazed.

"Chanyeol said a new look would good to boost some confidence, so I dyed my hair red. Do you like it? Does it suit me?"

He blinked. He liked it, of course. Jisoo could even be bald and he would still like it. But the fact that Chanyeol was the one who proposed the suggestion was making him uneasy. Because