Jongin couldn’t believe that they’d succeeded. They had actually succeeded. Sure, they still had a long way to go but at least they’d managed to get inside the building. It had taken a long time and they weren’t exactly where they wanted but at least they were inside and Chanyeol was whole and alive beside him and that was almost more than Jongin had hoped for.

The two weeks that had gone by since they’d found Lay had felt excruciatingly long but at the same time Jongin knew that they were lucky that they hadn’t needed longer time to prepare for their rescue mission. Now that they knew the location and the blueprint of the building where Kyungsoo was being held they only needed a plan and to be well prepared. The plan hadn’t been hard to figure out; Jongin teleports himself and Chanyeol into the building, as close as possible to the suspicious corridor if they couldn’t get there at the first try, while Lay and Luhan waits outside in the getaway car. They then search for the place where Kyungsoo is, get him and themselves to a place where Jongin can teleport them outside to the car, get in the car and drive fast and far away. All this while looking as inconspicuous as possible.

The part that had taken time was the preparation. They all needed to be prepared to use their powers if needed with Jongin obviously having to be extremely sure in his abilities as he would have to be able to teleport quite some distance with two people in tow. However, that wasn’t the problem. Both Jongin and Chanyeol was already quite familiar with their powers and therefor they didn’t need much time to get to the minimum level of control that Luhan had set up for them. The problem was that although Lay remembered more about his past life than Chanyeol and Jongin combined, he’d never tried to heal anything before. Luhan tried to coach him as well as he could but it was harder than he thought considering that Lay’s powers didn’t only have to do with himself but also with the being he was trying to heal.

After two weeks of non-stop training (Jongin didn’t think that he’d seen either Luhan or Lay of them sleep during that whole time, they were awake when he went to bed and they were awake when he woke up) Lay had taught himself to be able to feel other’s injuries and he could also heal light blemishes. Luhan had been unsure whether that was enough for Kyungsoo’s condition or not, seeing as they didn’t know how hurt he was, but Lay assured him by telling them that he’d actually studied medicine before deciding to become a teacher, so he could help either way. He also argued by saying that the longer they waited to get Kyungsoo out of there the higher the risk that he would be too hurt for Lay to heal.

And that’s the reason for Jongin and Chanyeol now standing in front of the door leading down to the suspicious corridor trying to blend in with the bustling workers running through and around the room. Chanyeol casually leaned against the wall while Jongin discreetly looked over the locked door realizing that they needed a card key to get through it.

Luhan had guessed that they wouldn’t be able to teleport directly into the corridor in case it actually was the place where B.A.P. kept their “guests”. He’d been right as that whole floor was teleportation proofed and they were actually lucky that they could get inside the building and this close to the basement at all. However, this lock proved to be a problem. If it had been any other kind of lock Jongin could’ve easily picked it (how to do it without being noticed would’ve been the real struggle there) but he did not know how to get past this.

“Easy. Just go ask that information clerk for her key.” Chanyeol answered Jongin when he delivered this fact and pointed towards a young woman looking extremely done with life. When Jongin only looked like a human question mark at that statement Chanyeol continued.

“I actually wanted to send you to a receptionist as they usually have the keys for everything but since I can’t see anyone we have to settle for an informer. But their keys should have all-access too right?” Chanyeol explained. “And anyway, you’re in luck. She’s young and you’re hot so just flirt with her a little and she’ll loan you her key.”

“I seriously doubt it’s that easy for anyone.” Jongin grumbled. “And I don’t think she’s going to give me her card, I haven’t tried chatting someone up for ages and even before I got into a relationship I was terrible at flirting! Why do I have to do it?”

“Because you’re better looking than me.”

“What if I say that I don’t agree?”

“Then I’ll just tell you that you’re probably right but I’m older than you so you should just do what I say.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” It seriously didn’t make any sense to Jongin why he was the one that had to flirt with someone, he was the one in a relationship for God’s sake, but he realized that no matter what he said Chanyeol wouldn’t budge so he might as well do the deed sooner rather than later. “Okay, fine I’ll do it.” He gave in as Chanyeol silently did a small celebration dance beside him.

Slowly he shuffled towards the desk and the woman behind it all while continuously looking back at Chanyeol, hoping that he would change his mind and call him back. That didn’t happen. So after about half a minute Jongin stood before the information clerk (named Zhou Baozhai according to her name tag) trying and failing to get her attention by just standing there silently.

After shifting his weight from side to side a couple of times with her still not looking up from her phone he cleared his throat, a tiny nervous sound coming out, and that finally made her look up at him.

“Hi…” He said with a voice that could barely be heard but apparently she both heard and understood him. Not that ‘hi’ is an exceptionally well thought out and hard phrase to understand but Jongin still took it as a small victory.

“Hello, what can I help you with?” She answered and put down her phone to give Jongin her full attention.

“If you were a fruit, you’d be a fineapple?” It came out more like a question than anything else and Jongin could practically hear Chanyeol’s facepalm from behind the plant where he was hiding. The cheesy pickup line had clearly not worked as Baozhai looked highly offended. However before she could answer him (or slap him) Chanyeol appeared beside Jongin, ready to save the day.

“I’m so so so sorry for my friend’s rude behaviour.” He said with a smile as he put an arm around Jongin’s shoulders. “It’s just that he lost a bet against his boyfriend and unfortunately you became the victim of his terrible pick-up lines.”

Baozhai visibly softened at Chanyeol’s words and Jongin wondered if this perhaps had been the other’s plan all along. Get Jongin to embarrass himself and then get there and be all suave and embarrass Jongin even further.

“No no, it’s fine. He was almost kind of sweet actually.” She said with a smile to Chanyeol, though Jongin didn’t miss the small glare towards him.

“No. It’s not fine! We shall repay you for the offense he’s given you by any means possible.” Chanyeol declared and the woman practically melted at that, clearly liking Chanyeol’s looks if nothing else because Jongin didn’t think he had that great a way with words. Then again Jongin was currently quite grumpy at Chanyeol so he might be wrong. “How about dinner tonight?” Chanyeol smoothly continued while leaning against the desk towards her, smirk in place.

“That sounds amazing.” She answered with a huge smile as she scribbled down what must’ve been her phone number on a piece of paper and gave to Chanyeol. “Text me the details and I’ll be there.”

“Great!” Chanyeol said and then his face suddenly turned serious. “However…” He started and Baozhai froze in her seat clearly dreading the next words as Jongin inwardly sighed because finally Chanyeol seemed to remember that they were on a mission after all.

“You know how I said that we were supposed to repay you? I promise we will do just that but I have a favour to ask of you first. It seems like both me and my friend have misplaced our key cards and we have to get through that door.” Chanyeol pointed at the door and Jongin nodded beside him trying to look innocent. “And we were wondering if you wouldn’t be ever so kind to loan us your card just for the day? It’s just that we don’t want to be late for the important meeting and we swear that we’ll give it back to you this afternoon.”

She’d been listening intently on Chanyeol’s story and was now looking unsurely at the door. Maybe it was just wishful thinking but Jongin almost thought that he could see some fleeting looks of compassion from her.

“Well…” She began and Jongin silently prayed that everything would work because they were on a tight schedule after all and really didn’t have any time for any more delays. If she didn’t agree he’d just have to steal it from her but that might bring them more problems than solve any. “I guess it’d be okay.” She continued and Jongin almost started dancing there and then from happiness.

“Thank you so much!” Chanyeol said as he bent forward to grab the card Baozhai tentatively held out for him. “We’ll be sure to give it back to you today. And otherwise I’ll give it to you this evening.” He continued with a wink as the two of them walked off towards the door leading down to the suspicious corridor.

“You do know that you won’t be able to make it to your ‘date’, right?” Jongin whispered as Chanyeol fiddled with unlocking the door.

“Yes, but she doesn’t have to know that.” He answered as the door was unlocked and the two of them stepped inside.

~ * ~

They couldn’t see much in front of them as what lay behind the door was just a simple staircase surrounded by plain cement walls and ceiling. The door slid shut behind them as they started walking down the stairs. There were no lights in the staircase and when they entered the corridor it was dimly lit as well, only three light bulbs there to brighten up the room. They stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking down the corridor for any movement, ready to run back up the stairs again if needed. Thankfully nothing was neither moving nor making a sound and since they couldn’t make out any kind of security cameras or guards they deemed it safe to continue on forwards. They’d only made it to the first door when suddenly Chanyeol held Jongin back from walking any further.

“Wait. I recognize those symbols.” He said and pointed to the closest door. Every door had in the middle of it a metal sign with a symbol. The one Chanyeol was pointing at looked almost like a flower and the door next to it had a sign with a snowflake on it. “They were in that weird book I got from the antique shop.”

“And I hope that you’re going to continue with saying that you asked Luhan about it and he explained everything to you.”

“He only said that the symbols match with us. That we all have one that is our own. He said that he would explain everything in more detail later.”

“Then how the hell does he expect us to find Kyungsoo? We don’t know his symbol and we don’t have the time to try every other door because even if the security’s that terrible that they don’t even have cameras there’s bound to be someone going down here once in a while.”

“Try texting Luhan.” Chanyeol said, completely agreeing with Jongin but also trying to find a solution.

“What?”

“Try texting Luhan. As you said they don’t have any cameras here and if we’re lucky it’s possible to reach him via text.”

“I seriously doubt it.” Jongin grumbled as he quickly sent away a message of ‘we need soo’s symbol’ to Luhan. Only a couple of seconds later he got an answer and he could only look incredulously at Chanyeol as the security seriously couldn’t be any worse. Not that he wasn’t thankful about it.

Luhan had sent them a photo of a badly drawn picture of what looked like a cow with fangs. They immediately went down the corridor looking for a door with something that looked anything like the picture they’d gotten. About four doors down from where they started the two of them stopped. On their right hand side there was a sign with a symbol that could only be the one that Luhan had tried to draw. This door was locked just the same as the one before and they could only hope that the card Chanyeol had borrowed would work once again.

They were lucky. With a click the door was unlocked and Jongin pushed it opened. And then he didn’t know if this was reality anymore.

AN:

(I've just realized that pretty much all my ANs are all the same so maybe I should just stop giving excuses and start editing this story instead so that I don't have to apologise for my ty updates...)

Anyyyyyyways~  I'm back!! (one eternity later...) With another reeeeeally short chapter where basically nothing happens yaaaay aren't you happy?? I'm sorry for taking so damn long to finish writing these... I should stop procrastination and do stuff instead... Although I almost have an excuse this time as I've entered a kaisoo ficfest so I have to focus on that right now, kind of, since the first deadline is this month :3 then again, truth be told I've been procrastinaing there too... I'm just lazy okay!!

On another note, another really meaningless thing to say, I've started drawing again after taking a pause basically since Lay's birthday :O why did I ever stop?? It's so calming~ (even when it's with crayons that I've never tried drawing with before... crayons are difficult I tell you!!)

But Happy New Year!!! (I'm not late shhhhh)