“Him again.” Amber muttered when she saw the 8-bit dragon swimming across her screen, twirling, making faces every 10 seconds, and Amber knew this dragon wouldn’t stop bugging her screen unless she responded to the real dragon out there.

Amber slammed her laptop, quickly taking it away from the meeting lounge, leaving both Suzy and IU without further explanations. IU turned to Suzy, throwing her a ‘do-you-know-what’s-going-on’ look, while still panting after running through corridors and went all the way up here from the lowest floor. Recognizing the dragon icon, Suzy immediately called for the IT technicians, “We have a yellow code here, strengthen our firewalls! Raven’s system was broken by the Yellow Dragon a few moments ago. Warn every units!” she said, before making her way to the floating lifts, where Amber headed earlier.

Meanwhile, the tomboy had finally arrived at the third level of the facility, as she rushed into the second storey and all the way to her room, locking the door behind her.

She took a deep breath while flipping the monitor of her laptop back; the yellow dragon was still twirling around foolishly on her screen. Her fingers touched the keys hesitantly, and it took her a while until she finally performed the usual unlocking prochedure, the one that could stop the dragon from mocking her with its funny faces.

The animated dragon finally stopped, and grinned at her before dissolving into pixels, finally letting her to see her desktop again. But Amber knew he was still there, waiting for her to find him. Within her folders, or inside the card games, anywhere inside her system; playing around as usual.

Amber opened her tracking program she created years ago, and quickly sent what she called ‘white cells’ throughout her files, datas, and even to her core system, giving them orders to hunt down the Yellow Dragon. In less than 2 minutes, the white cells came back with a result, bringing the original bug to the front of her screen. It was too easy, Amber thought.

“AYO RAVEN!”

“What- -“ Amber nearly fell off her chair when a guy covering her whole screen with his face. That smug, playful look of him that she had only seen twice all her life. His blonde-braided hair, that long tail of dragon inked around his neck, pretty much like how he looked a few years back -when he first launched his friendly attack to her system- only back then, his hair was jet black and he looked slightly younger.

“Hey, what kind of respond is that?” he smirked, comfortably placing his chin on top of his hand, staring at her from his own screen.

“Dude, your timing is bad. I have no time to joke around, okay?” she said, while typing a code to eliminate this unofficial chat. But this guy immediately peeked down when he heard the typing sound, as if he could spot her hands on the keyboard. He scoffed, “You know that you can’t stop me right?”

“I’ve learnt my mistakes,“ she smiled back to him, almost challenging, “..brace yourself for Raven 2.0 !” she said, as she typed a few more codes and with a single click on the enter button, the chat video vanished from her screen, along with every last bit of his traces. Clicking her fingers, she was pretty proud of herself.

“Uh.”

Amber’s eyes widened when she heard his voice again.

“Little Raven, you still have so much to learn.”

“No way.. by now your access must have been denied! How did you- -“

“Let’s get this over with, okay? Seriously, you are the worst hacker I’ve ever met in my life. Maybe I should give you a lecture sometimes.” his face popped back to the screen, with that same cocky expression.

Amber gave up. She knew once G-Dragon infiltrated her system, the guy wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. He was an underground cracker, and messing around in the cyber world has been his life. She once tried to reveal his true identity, but he covered it neatly, better than what she did to protect her true identity. In fact, GD was the only person who knew her real identity, back in her active days as Raven. Somewhat pissed of being beaten by him again, she replied coldly, “Alright, make it quick. What do you want ?”

“Neh.. You haven’t been active for the last few weeks, and I know something’s up. I’ve always set my eyes on you.” he leaned closer to the screen, throwing out his bad boy charm to her, which didn’t work at all as she kept on going with a poker face.

Amber was quite surprised, and afraid at the same time. Does he know about all the things happening?

“I see you’ve been looking for the Rising Gods of The East, am I right?”

“Stalker..” Amber sighed, before adding, “But yeah. Whatever that really is. What do you know about it?”

The dragon smirked, “The question is, do YOU wanna know about it?”

Amber sighed, “Yeah. Spill it..”

The guy couldn’t contain his excitement as he grinned, “Sure, but can we please play first? I’m bored.”

***

­“Try again.”

“Hmm.. how about ‘Bling’?”

“Nah. Something.. something that shows who Kim Kibum is!”

IU pouted as she gave another stare at him, this time, eyeing him from head to toe. “You’re fashionable, that’s for sure. Hmm.. Glamorous K?”

“Aiiish.. what kind of codename is that!” Key sighed.

IU let out a chuckle, throwing herself to the mountains of pillows behind them. They had spent sometime inside her gadget lab, and it was actually Suzy’s order for her to stay with Key in the meantime. For the past 30 minutes, Key had been asking her so many questions about the facility and Miss A, but in the end the little girl managed to steer the conversation into this little game of finding a nickname for him before he dig any deeper.

“If I were a secret agent, I would like people to know me by my awesome codename. Like, 007, you know?” he said, still wondering.

This time she only smiled. Living with some real life espionage experts showed nothing but danger in every seconds and restless days through the years. Just like this moment, she thought. The ‘Dragon’ hasn’t launched any attack to the facility yet, means Amber was still keeping him busy. As far as she knew, that hacker, or cracker to be exact, has access to Amber’s system since her early days as Raven.

The sound of the door sliding up managed to slap her back into reality, when Key also got up to see who just barged in.

“Hi, I’m here to take- -” a guy in a black hoodie and jeans paused when he saw Key staring sharp at him, before continuing with a smile and turned to IU, “- -hmm, is my ukulele ready?”

“Ah Gikwang oppa! Yes, I just finished it this afternoon!” she said as she jumped away from her pillows and quickly ran to search the messy table circling the wall. Gadgets and some other whatnots were overlaying to one another, but her eyes soon spotted the sky blue-colored ukulele next to a broken detonator.

“Here, “ she handed it to him, “Strum carefully, you don’t wanna deafen your target.”

The guy let out a soft laughter, “Ahahah.. we’ll see about that.” as he the line of the ukelele carefully, admiring IU’s work. “Can it go further than 300 meters?”

IU shook her head, “310, that’s the best I can get you. Oh, and the reaction will last for about 5 minutes, you should thank me for that~”

“I thought you make gadgets here, so what’s up with that ukulele..?” Key asked, silently wondering if this good looking guy called Gikwang was an agent as well.

“That ukulele is a gadget, Key. It sends a high frequency resonance, more than enough to distract a group of humongous guards.” IU quickly explained, a little excited when it came to her creations.

Gikwang nodded to her explanation, “Ah can’t wait to try this baby in action. My flight is less than 3 hours!”

IU laughed, “Well good luck oppa, and have fun!” as she watched Gikwang turned his back to exit her cozy laboratory. But then the guy froze by the frame of the door, “Hmm by the way, when you meet Amber Liu, say my goodbye. Wish her good luck!”

“Neh! I’ll tell her!” IU waved at him as he disappeared behind the closing door.

A scoff was heard from behind, and when IU turned around she found Key, looking pissed. “What?” she asked.

“Who is he?” he shot a pierceing glare at IU, who seemed to be rather puzzled.

“He’s a level 1 agent. Why..?”

Key rolled his eyes, “I mean, what’s up with that- -“wish her good luck” thing he said to Amber? Do they know each other? I don’t even know HIM.”

“Hmm.. could it be.. are you jealous?” IU let out her playful smile when she threw herself back to the pillows, poking Key in the ribs like a child.

Key scoffed again, “Yah. It’s not like that. But, it’s just weird that- -“ he paused, struck by a truth as he continued, “- -that I don’t even know who she’s hanging out with anymore. This double life she’s been living in, and- -“ this time he stopped for real, being lost at words.

IU a glance at him, trying to read what’s written underneath his mixed expression. Wondering, what it’s like to walk in his shoes right now. She patted him in the back, “Don’t worry, Amber is in good hands. I can say that, everyone here is professional.”

Key only nodded, suddenly his mood for conversation was gone.

***

“Eonnie! Amber eonnie, open the door!”

Amber stiffened when she heard Suzy knocking on her door.

“Who’s that?” asked GD from the screen.

“One of JYP’s agents.” Amber answered fast, without stopping her fingers on trying to crack the code he gave him a few moments ago.

GD pouted, giving her a somewhat pitying look, “Your life’s no fun now, huh?”

”Ah yeah.. Kinda miss the old days.” she said, without even looking at him. Her eyes focused on the running codes at the other half of the screen. “How’s yours?”

“Meh, boring. Until I found you.”

Amber shot a glare at him, “Really? Really dude you’re hitting on me?”

The eccentric guy laughed, “Tch. You’re not even my type! I want a girl who looks like a girl.”

“Hhhh, whatever you say.” Amber was used to such comments about her appearance.

GD put on his smirk again, “But seriously, since those good guys started to scramble your life, some things are getting more interesting.”

“Geez. You’re a big time stalker!” she stopped for a while, examining his calm expression. He only smiled at her, enjoying his time torturing her with his killer codes. “It’s not a game, not even interesting from my point of view.”

“I know, but still, playing detective can be fun sometimes. That’s why I’m here to help you bro.”

“Amber, OPEN THE DOOR!”

She panicked a bit, Suzy sounded like she could blast the door open anytime now. But she was still struggling to finish the final coding. “Well, then HELP! Can’t you just tell me now? It’s not really the time to play around..”

“Come on, it’s not that hard..” he smirked, while playing with his finger skateboard on his desk, waiting.

Exactly three seconds after he said that, Amber pressed the enter button for the last time, successfully taking over her system back, but leaving the video chat alive to witness GD’s reaction of her victory for the first time. But the guy didn’t even frown, instead he laughed and clapped, somehow seemed to be satisfied.

“Good game!” he said, leaning closer to the screen, trying to whisper something to her, “Whenever you need me Raven, just give me a call.” as he winked before switching off his camera, leaving her alone with a new message popped on her scree, containing a file named ‘The Hero’.

Just like she predicted, the door was forced open by Suzy’s kick, followed by her fast footseteps toward the tomboy who immediately hid the file.

“What.. hey, where’s the dragon?” Suzy caught nothing on her laptop but a clean desktop.

“Don’t worry, I know that guy. He likes to prank me all the time, it’s cool.” Amber said, trying to calm her down. She wanted no interference from JYP about her little research on the brotherhood, especially this fierce agent next to her. If the information GD gave her would lead her to Max, then she wasn’t going to risk it by revealing any of this to Suzy.

Suzy didn’t buy her words, obviously. The locking of the door, the intensity in her voice, Suzy knew something more than just a prank must had happened. But she chose to play nice, “Okay, but the security agents are going to be watching the dragon 24/7 from now on, just so you know.” she said, still eyeing the calm screen of her laptop from the corner of her eyes, “That man has been in our wanted list, way before your hacking activity began. So I hope you know best not to put yourself in danger.”

Amber nodded, “He’s just a lonely guy. He’s not going to bring down the country or something.” she laughed at her own words. But Suzy didn’t find it funny at all, so Amber stopped herself.

“Alright. Oh and I’ll send someone to fix the door for you.” she said, before leaving the room, passing the poor broken door on the floor.

Once she made sure Suzy had gone to the lift, she quickly picked the file she hid earlier, impatiently extracting the data compiled in ‘The Hero’ file.  A list of articles, some photos, and a video were given here, and she couldn’t believe GD was able to gather all of these confidential stuffs, while she herself found nothing (compared to these) after hours and days without sleep. That guy has some skills and if only he was sane enough, he could work for the CIA, or maybe here, being an agent of JYP.

“GD, I owe you big time.” She ran through some articles journals, and found that Rising Gods of The East was more of a nickname given by people and the followers of this brotherhood. They are known for their helps to the nation throughout generations, and some of them even had important positions between the governments. Amber skipped some articles who had similar contents and stopped when she saw a familiar kid on a blurry family photo. A small version of Max, with people she didn’t know, and some other boys about his age, smiling for the camera.

One of them was Jung Yunho, and she noticed that GD has marked one of the kids with a red circle, and wrote a note on top of his head, “Here’s your Hero”

Still so puzzled by these, she opened the video, only to find all of them to be voice recordings. She thought the video must have been broken because all she saw was black, but no matter how many times she played it, there were only sounds.

“He’s gone, face it!” the first voice sounded like a teenage boy, and clearly he didn’t sounded happy.

“No.. let’s find him together hyeong.. Let’s find him..” the next one was sobbing, but Amber could hear every word clearly. Because it was Shen’s voice. Max’s.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” Amber winced when she listened to this torturing 10 seconds-length screaming. She didn’t dare imagine what happened with the man, or the boy to have screamed painfully like that.

“..you think you can replace him? Replace them? Don’t even dare t..” this one sounded more like a grown up man. The recordings were unclear around this part.

“Find it! That damn four-eyed geek is hiding it somewhere!” a different voice of a grown up man was heard this time.

With that, the recording ended and Amber was thrown back to her seat, while trying to piece some things together. Who is this ‘Hero’ guy that seemed to be missing? What’s his relation with Max and most importantly, there are things about Max’s past that Amber never knew before. She recalled the time around her junior high school years, when Max moved out from their neighborhood, without a proper goodbye, without a notice to anyone close to him, not even her dad. All her life, Amber only knew that Max, or should she say, Shen, was an orphan living next door with a foster mother. He was a scaredy kid, and never skipped a day off from school even at times when he had fever. The boy she knew was far from the wild life, so joining this kind of brotherhood was something Amber never expected.

“Why..?” she mumbled, as she replayed the recording one more time and at the end of the series of those random conversations, Amber noticed something. ‘..That damn four-eyed geek..’ this somehow brought her mind straight to her father. Could this man they were talking about was..her father?

Her mind replayed the video JYP showed her the other day, when her father did a demonstration on his invention, that Profiler software, the smart search engine that could locate any identity or a person in a click. What do they want from that prof- - her eyes fell to that photo again, the one with ‘Hero’ in it.

The missing boy.

“Of course..”

***

“Our room is on the second floor, room #16. Just call on me if you need anything, okay? I’ll be at my gadget lab.” IU smiled, seeing Key admiring his guest room.

“I wanna see Amber, where is she?” he asked right before IU close the door behind her. The girl swung the door again, popping her head into the room, “Have some rest. You’ll be sent home early in the morning.”

Key sighed, “What are you now, my manager?”

IU only waved at him,”Night, Glamourous K!”

“Don’t call me using that ridiculous name!” he yelled at her, but the girl had vanished by the closing of the door.

Obviously Key didn’t plan on staying inside the room and sleep as instructed, and sooon after IU’s gone, he stepped out of the room. “Room #16..” he mumbled, walking through corridors until he met the grand staircase leading to the second storey. The hotel-like place was so quiet, only a few people in white jacket labs passed him by on his way along the endless carpet.

He knocked the door as soon as he stopped in front of room #16, “Hey Amber, it’s me!”

Then he heard a creak and slowly, the door fell to the back, making a loud thud as it slammed the floor, revealing the bed and everything inside. Key stepped back in reflect, watching the fallen door, and back to his fist. Did I knock too hard..?

Carefully he stepped into the room, while making scenarios in his head about the door he broke just now. “Amber, your room has a bad quality lock, your door just randomly broke to the floor.” he said, while looking around to spot the tomboy, but there was no sight of her. He only spotted a familiar cardbox at the corner of the room, with her headphone and all of her precious stuffs inside.

“Amber?” he called again, but still no answer.

 A sudden tap on his shoulder almost made him jump, when he turned around and found a middle-aged man in an overall smiled at him, “Excuse me, I’m here to fix the door.”

Key blinked a few times, but nodded anyway when he saw a toolbox in his hand. “Oh yes, please!” he said, amazed by how fast the service was in this facility.

Letting the man do his job on the door, he looked around, still waiting for Amber to show up, but it looked like she wasn’t even here in the first place. He checked the number fixed at the top of the door, it was #16, he confirmed.Where is she?

***

to be continued...

Hi ALL!

Sorry it took me a while to update it, getting busy with college works and stuffs :3

And sorry because it was short, but I revealed an important key of this story in this chapter <3

Can you guess who our 'Hero' is? I mean, the name itself is pretty obvious~~~

From this point on, everything will be more complicated as more secrets will be revealed~

So if you're confused, just read the previous chapters, or if you're too lazy, just ask :D

P.S : Can I hug you all? *HUGS* I can't believe I reached 90+ subscribers on this TvT~ *cries cries cries*

Thanks for your endless love and support on this story T^T Your feedbacks mean a lot to me, kamsahamnisa~ *and sorry for my messy grammar kekeke*

Spread the keyber love~~~ <3

Have a nice day :D