Nicole let go of him and suddenly smiled quirkily, “Let’s just go eat sushi, do you want sushi?”

Key was stunned, he could only open his mouth and said, “Wha- -?”

Nicole skipped into the living room and quickly sat on the carpet, facing a whole bunch of sushi set on top of the coffee table. There’re salmon roe there, eel, tuna, everything he could possibly order in a sushi restaurant. Key stared at her in amazement, it’s like she knew something bad happened yet she didn’t want to bother him…

“I just bought them all from a nearby restaurant when Jonghyun told me you’re coming home, so… yeah. These are only all I got…”

“But…this is a BLAST! Gomawo!” Key couldn’t hide his excitement as he made his way to join her on the coffee table.

Jonghyun cleared his throat, “Ehm, ok, have fun guys… I’ll tell everyone so we can gather here tonight, how’s that sound?”

Key was about to reply when Jonghyun suddenly continued his own sentence, “Wait, but Amber? Where is she now?”

Nicole turned around with her mouthful, “Ah geurae... haven’t seen her..mmph.. in a while!”

Jonghyun were trying hard to give signs to Key, “WHERE IS SHE?!!”

Key nodded fast and replied him with signs, “I know where she is.. I’ll explain later!” before taking his chopstick and joined Nicole with her sushi.

Jonghyun could only sighed when he walked out of the clubhouse.

“Lovebirds.”

***

Although they’re having a fine dining, Amber wasn’t feeling fine at all. She’s sitting between Suzy and Jia, and across them are the rest of the gang, Fei, Min, and Heechul. What really added the pressure was this holographic man sitting at the end of the table. He’s wearing a red velvet suit, complete with a black bowtie on his neat collar, quite festive but formal. This man’s smiling while trying to cut his fish steak, a REAL fish steak served on his table, and though he couldn’t even cut through the meat with his knife (which also a holographic one), he’s pretending to be really enjoying his dish.

The same goes with the girls and Heechul. They’re chatting to each other, and of course, with that ‘man’ too. Amber couldn’t concentrate on eating whenever the girls are pulling jokes one another with the man, or when Heechul took a family portrait with his polaroid, as if that man is…really here.

“Amber! How do you like your dinner?”

“Eh..? Sorry?” Amber wasn’t really paying attention and caught off-guard when that hologram-man startled her. Then she quickly added when everyone started looking at her, “Oh, joahaeyo… ” and with that, she made Fei chuckled. She is the chef of tonight’s dinner and Amber bet Fei just caught her nervousness just now.

The holographic guy laughed, “Ahahahah forgive me for not making a proper introduction. I’m JYP, you know, from JYP Operation…” he stared at her with such a cheesy glance, it almost like he was joking the whole time. But Amber knew he’s not joking.

“Ah…actually I..” Amber stopped.

I know who you are, but your holographic presence really creeps me out…

But instead she tried to be polite in the end, “…eh…yeah, nice to meet you, sir.”

The dinner ended sooner and after they’ve done with the dirty dishes, they turned the table into a clean and neat meeting table. Well, actually it’s still just a plain dining table, but with the whole atmosphere changing all of a sudden, Amber really thought that the table somehow changed.

And so did miss A and Heechul… they’re slowly becoming more formal and all the happy scenes happened at the dinner just now felt like a flashy sweet dream only.

Suzy started as soon as JYP sat in his chair. “In less than 24 hours, Amber’s apartment will be released. Jia eonnie had planned several security alarms to be installed there as soon as we gain access.”

Amber was truthfully surprised to hear such a plan made without her knowing it, but she couldn’t jump in because the rest has just taken over the conversation rapidly.

“We haven’t decided who’s going to shadow her, but we’re thinking of 2 shadows.” Fei added.

“We’re thinking to add some security cameras too, just in case.” said Min while calculating in her mind.

JYP didn’t look amazed or anything. He turned to Amber instead, “Miss Liu, what do you think?”

Amber was speechless, “Ah…actually I don’t really know…”

“THAT’S THE PROBLEM!” said JYP, almost yelled when he pointed at her sharply. The tomboy couldn’t be more confused than she is now. Or shocked, to be exact.

He clapped his hands onto the table, “Hey agents, THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM.”

Everyone on the table turned quiet, except for Heechul, that guy remained calm and actually, even trying to hold back his laughter.  JYP’s mad face always makes him laugh, but he held it in because he knew this isn’t the right time to joke with him.

“Miss Amber Liu here, is our asset. You shed your blood rescuing her all the way to France, you kidnapped a citizen just to save her, you give her full protection in this pretty mansion. But she knows absolutely NOTHING why you do that, why WE decided to do all that for her! And you call yourselves the professionals in this espionage business…?” his hologram figure turned shaky, like a TV screen in the middle of a stormy rain.

Fei immediately stood up and bowed to her, “Jeosunghamnida…”

The others followed her action right away, “Jeosunghamnida…!!”

Amber, left alone to be the only one sitting, decided to stand up too. “Hey, I was about to ask anyway… it’s okay. I know there must be reasons… ah really, stop bowing…”

Trying to fix these sudden awkwardness, Amber pulled out a question, “Okay, it had really bugged me these days...so, what’s with the ‘protection’ and all…?”

JYP hinted the girls and Heechul to get back on their seats, while he himself stood up, waving, asking for something and Jia immediately ran to the living room and grabbed a remote.

CLICK!

Another LED screen appear behind JYP and the lights went off in a blink.

The screen flickered and a blank white screen popped, followed by a photo which successfully dropped Amber’s jaw.

“Hey, how did you take that?!” she screamed, seeing herself in that photo, sitting behind her laptop in her apartment. By the view of that photo, she could tell that the photo was taken from the small ventilation window at the corner top of her room. It was dark, so this photo was taken at night, obviously.

JYP started, “First of all, I need you to know that you, Amber Liu, has a natural potential with codes. And THAT what makes you special.”

Just like a slide show, many other photos popped in turn, and each one grew a horror little by little inside Amber. There’s a photo when she met client #97, and when she was on the back of client #35’s office, there’s even a photo when she fought with some bouncers at a night club, and she also remembered that the event took when she was about to give a document for client #12.

She gulped hard, “So…you guys have been following me the whole time…? Like, a really, really long time??”

JYP only grinnedhappily, “Ahyeah, sorry about that. But that’s what we do, you have to get used to it.”

“EH?? So I have to get used to being followed…??” Amber clearly showed her shock.

“What I mean is, you need to get used to this kind of thing. It’s only a part of our surveillance job.” suddenly JYP turned to a more ‘normal’ mode.

He was a bit clumsy a few seconds ago, but now he’s normal again... Omo, creepy.

Then the screen showed another photo, but this time, it’s not a photo of her. It’s a scanned photo of a middle-aged man, taken from an old newspaper headline. The headline itself sounded, 'Prof. Lee Mun Hee to be the Representative of South Korea for This Years’s Asia Science Congress'

“I’ve never read this news before…” Amber stared at the photo of his dad with some other scientists, looked very formal but she could see a glimpse of happiness on his face.

“That’s- - -zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz- - -“

Lights off. JYP’s hologram just vanished and the whole mansion blackened out. Amber couldn’t  ’ see anything at all when everything turned pitch black all of a sudden. But it seemed that the girls and Heechul have left, cause it got really quiet around her.

“Jiaeonni!” Min yelled but Amber couldn’t  see her anywhere in the dark.

The next 20 seconds, all the lights are back on and Amber’s eyes were trying to adapt with the sudden dark-light play. She found that the ‘presentation’ screen wasn’t on anymore, and all she could hear were the voices of the girls upstairs and outside the mansion.

“Is everything ok…?” she asked, but no one seems to care to answer her right now.

“Hey,there’s nothing wrong with our power generator!” Amber could hear Jia reporting from upstairs.

From the back door, Suzy rushed in and screamed, “CODE YELLOW!”  

Min came sliding downstairs and surprised Amber when she approached her and ducked her under the dining table, “Hurry!”

Minstepped on one of the tiles near the table feet, and the whole floor under the table slowly moved down, with Amber on top of it. Amber was speechless and she couldn’t do anything when she went deeper under the ground, feeling the trembling floor beneath her. In music concerts, Amber often see this type of hydraulic stage where the stars rise from under the stage, but this is the opposite, the floor kept dragging her down and down until it finally stopped where Amber couldn’t see the light from the mansion anymore.

“Hey guys? GUYS?! WHAT’S GOING ON?!!” she tried to reach them with her voice, but it’s plain useless. Either they couldn’t hear her, or theywere just too busy doing their stuff.

She looked around and was stunned by her surroundings. She thought she would be dragged into a sewer or a dark empty room or something, but the place where she landed on just now, was actually something more like a basement. It’s certainly colder down there, but it doesn’t smell like a pack of rats, instead she could smell a scent of some kind of gasoline here. And at the end of the dark tunnel, Amber could see another room, and it’s definitely brighter than where she’s standing now. She ran into the room and was welcomed by a helicopter, and at the corner of the room she spotted two identical exquisite motorcycles.

Wooogh…they have something like this under the house…? Daebak…

Carefully she walked toward the helicopter, and even though it’s kinda stupid, she was checking if this vehicle is real or not, when suddenly she heard a thud on the ceiling. Amber stepped back instinctively, and was waiting for another thud. But after a while, there’s no other thud, or even any other sound from upstairs.

It was silent until…

“Amber…!”

***

“Our system…” Jia mumbled to herself, staring limply at the screen in front of her.

Fei is standing by her side in Jia’s room, guarding while she’s doing her job with the mansion’s security system.

“Jinjjayo…! I’m not joking! Our firewalls were easily breached! And I can’t turn our system back online!” she said, still trying to prevent any further destruction.

It took a while for Jia, struggling with this annoying hacker, until Fei finally mentioned, “Do you think we should try and see what she can do? We have no other choice…”

Jia turned to her with the ‘unbelievable’ look, “But Amber couldn’t even break into our system before, are you kidding me?!”

“Then what are we suppose to do?! Maybe she was just feeling unlucky before, I don’t know. Jia, just do something!”

Jia was still unsure but Fei already pushed her out of the room.

“Min told me she’s in the basement. Just give it a shot and be careful !”  

***

“Amber…!”

“Jia!” Amber somehow glad when she saw her coming. But it seems like Jia’s feeling the other way around. She looked pale and the first thing she did when she approached her was handing her a laptop.

“What’s this?” Amber received the laptop anyway.

Jia awkwardly pulled her to the ground and told her to sit. She opened the laptop for her while quickly explaining everything, “Someone broke into our system and trying to absorb our data, but they haven’t tho, don’t worry. BUT still, this guy over here is messing with me! I don’t know why I can’t block his access, I need your help!”

“Aaeeehhh???” Amber was speechless.

But now that she understood the situation, she jammed her fingers on the keyboard, facing a bug dancing within these codes. She quickly performed the basic standard to block and protect the system, but it was simply useless.

“See? I stuck there too!” Jia squealed, watching right next to her.

It’s been a while for Amber to even touch a laptop, so to handle this huge mess, she thought she need a large portion of luck. She knows Jia is a sophisticated hacker too, but even someone has just beaten herthis easily.

Amber stopped typing. “Wait a minute, why are you asking for my help? I’m not even good enough to block your attack in my laptop before...”

Jia sighed, “Oh! That’s what I said to Fei eonnie! But she said I should give you a try, so...come on, do your thing!”

***

Krystal couldn’t stop looking mad, while the rest of the gang was goofing around like crazy. Key were said to be picking up Amber, but it’s been a while and Krystal couldn’t shrug every negative thoughts of her mind.

“Hey…” Minho sat next to her on the couch and handed her a boxof milk.

Krystal took the milk coldly, “Where is he? It’s been an hour.”

“Maybe Amber is somewhere safe, far from here.You know it’s been hard on her, right? And Key knows best, so let’s just wait for them. They’ll be fine.” he patted her head lovely before leaving her in the couch alone with her milk.

She sighed, watching all the snacks and drinks they’ve bought for the welcoming party tonight. Even Victoria is cooking something special in their kitchen right now.

“Aaaiissshhh, Amber you’re an idiot.”

***

As soon as Key parked Jonghyun’s car outside the mansion, he noticed something odd right away. The lights were off in this late hour, while the lights in the rest of the neighborhoods he just passed, were all on. Is it a partial electricity cut?

The gate is locked with a voice scanner, and even if he could ring the bell, it wasn’t even switched on.

“Ah, perfect. What kind of elite agents are they, huh? Paying electricity bill is a responsibility!” he grumbeled on his own.

As he glanced over the modern mansion, he was startled by the sudden flicker all over the house. The lights are back on already.

‘Hmm so it’s just a little black out huh?’he thought as he quickly pressed the bell by the gate. Some men came out of no where on the mansion yard and Key couldn’t be happier when one of them walked toward the gate to let him in.

“Nuguya?” asked the man fast. He looked so rigid, with a strong jaw and black suits from head to toe.

Key scoffed, “It’s me, okay. Tell the girls I’m here to pick Amber.”

“No strangers are allowed to enter the mansion.” he punished and in less than 5 seconds, he’s already gone.

“Mwoya...? I’m not a stranger! It’s me Key! Kim Kibum imnidaaaa!!” Key decided to introduced himself to all the guards.

While trying hard to yell and convince those men, Key saw Suzy ran out from the house.

“SUZY! Tell them to let me in!!” he screamed, and Suzy turned over to search his voice, and she looked pretty shocked when she saw him.

But he was wrong, because it turns out that he wasn’t the reason for Suzy’s shock. She was just startled by some men heading her way, landing a group attack at the same time at her...

Wait, what’s that...?

Those men in black he saw earlier, are now attacking her, and she’s struggling to keep them away from the house, as she’s now dashing to the back of the mansion, tailed by not less than 10 men.

Key was confused for a second there, but learning from his recent wild experiences, he knew this is not right. And just like a freezing bucket of ice water poured over his face, his eyes popped, realizing the crucial point of this situation.

“DARN!!!!! AMBER!!!”

***

“Omo... Suji-ah... gwaenchana?” Fei was quite panicked when she saw a drip of blood running down from Suzy’s nose.

Suzy nodded, and quickly getting up when she spotted a brat behind Fei, “Eonni!”

But Fei just kicked him to the back effortlessly. “Where are they coming from?!”

“Meolla... Uh, by the way, Key’s outside our gate! Pali, get Amber to him, ask him to take her away from here!” Suzy said while landing a kick one of these endless enemies.

“Key’s here? Ah, arasseo...” Fei said, as she pinched down a guy before talking to Jia on her communicator, “Jia- - -Jia can you hear me?”

“I’m on it! Just cover me!” Jia replied faster than expected.

Fei twisted the guy’s neck and with that, she nodded to Suzy, “Jia’s already on it.”

***

“Where are they coming from?!” Jia heard Fei talking to Suzy.

“Meolla... Uh, by the way, Key’s outside our gate! Pali, get Amber to him, ask him to take her away from here!”  

Jia gasped. She didn’t expect that the situation would be this complex, with Key in front of their mansion too.

“Um, Amber, I think you should do the hacking later, coz we need to RUN like, NOW.” she took her hand immediately, and Amber couldn’t be more pissed than she is already now.

“You told me to block some hacker earlier, and now you’re telling me to run?! HEY, what’s goin on??” Amber tried to keep up with her pace, she didn’t even have a chance to bring the laptop with her.

But Jia ignored her and talked through the communicator, “I’m on it! Just cover me!”

Amber could only let herself being dragged by this fast running girl through another dark tunnel while wondering what danger is exactly happening in this mansion. She was about to throw her another question when Jia suddenly said, “Key’s waiting for you outside!”

“KEY WHAT- -“ Amber wanted to protest but Jia already led her to another tunnel ahead.

- - -

Amber POV

I really hate moments like this, moments when I don’t know the whole situation, when I’m really out of the wave, and especially when someone pulled me all the way a dark and weird-smelled tunnel...that led me to the poolside in the backyard.

And the next few seconds were probably the most nostalgic moments in my life.

I’ve met this kind of situation before.

The kind which you’re being outnumbered, but managed to survive until the end.

But only this time, it wasn’t me. It was Suzy and Fei, with many guys surrounding them like a fighting machine.

And I didn’t know how Jia managed to pass them all easily (well, some men were awesomely knocked out by her along the way), but all I know is when we reached the gate, he was there, shouting at me.

“AMBER!! GWAENCHANA??”

“Sssshhhhh!!!” Jia hissed. “Talk no more and get your out of here! Amber’s staying at your place until unknown time, I’ll be catching up with you guys as soon as these stupid dogs here are taken care of. Race your car, don’t stop at red lights, arasseo?”

Key tried to absorb the whole story and nodded right away.

Jia opened the gate and pushed me outside, “Be careful okay, and here, take it. Just in case.” she handed me a small stunt gun before closing the gate.

“Come on princess, you heard her. Let’s not get killed here...” Key pushed me into the car in a rush. I turned to Jia to thank her but she’s already back inside, drown in the sea of henchmen.

Key kicked off the gas and without knowing, we’re already meters away from the mansion.

***

When Jia told him to cross all the red lights, Key really did it and Amber was amazed when she peeked over the speedometer and it reached 120 km/h. And most importantly, this is Jonghyun’s baby ride, so Amber laughed to herself thinking what reaction would Jonghyun pull when he see all his worn out tires.

She thought Key would nag her all the way to the clubhouse, but he didn’t. And not a single word actually, since he’s paying full attention on the road.

“I’m glad you can stay here now.” said Key finally as he kicked the brake, perfectly at the garage of the clubhouse.

“Huh?” Amber wasn’t paying attention.

“I said, I’M GLAD YOU’RE FINALLY HOME. Gosh, do you know how stressing it is to have you around those strangers with all of their action dramas?!”

Amber sighed and smiled a little, “I guess it is.. “ she stretched lazily and get herself off the car.

Key stared at her for a few moments and suddenly pointed at her.

“What?” Amber scoffed.

“Hide that! Everyone’s inside and you don’t wanna freak them out.”

Amber turned to her new stunt gun, “Oh yeah, you’re right...”

Key was right, just when they were about to enter the living room, screamings were heard and Amber quickly braced herself when Krystal’s running toward her.

“YAH AMBER!” she hugged her to the state where she almost fell to the ground.

A wave of warmness swept her away and Amber almost get herself a bit teary when she saw everyone there. Vic omma (with a wooden spoon?!) Sulli, Luna, and the boys, all 4 of them. Minho smiled at her, but obviously looking worried, Onew and Taemin which is now dancing to celebrate, and Jjong, who’s giving her a stiff, but welcoming look.

“Guys, guys, hey...listen.” Key tried to calm the crowd. And everyone stopped their chants in a flash.

He continued, “From now on (until unknown time)... Amber...is going to stay HERE!”

And the crowd goes wild as a massive group hug happened. Amber was stucked in the middle and couldn’t even move her hand. But she gave herself a break at the end, thinking that this might be a rare family moment considering her very uncertain future.

Future...

Right, I have no future...

***

Awesome...I managed to finish this chapter before going to today's class!

Hehehehehe... hmm and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well^^

Sorry if it's a bit too long~

And guys, please tell me what you think and leave a comment, coz it really, really help me to make some improvements. Whether it's about the story, or maybe my writing, anything helps!

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Love you guys XDDD