Chapter Seven;

August 18
Seoul, South Korea 

We had some downtime before we were able to move on with the rest of the plan. Sehun needed a few days to test the duplicate we had made to see if it recorded the way he hoped for it to. After that, he would get the code every Sunday, and then it was up to him and Jongin to crack and get the password as soon as possible. We only had seven days before it reset, after all. 

Yixing had worked himself up in a state. Apparently, in order to recreate a Berendzen, he had to become Berendzen. Cass Roan Berendzen had mild schizophrenia and had been undergoing treatment for his hallucinations since his late 20s. Yixing’s counter for that had been to get a little high before he painted. He had locked himself in a room with Lu Han as his assistant because according to him, everyone else was ‘pissing him off.’

“It’s been like this ever since you guys left,” Jongin explained. “Yixing comes out of the room only to eat and shower. He even sleeps in there.”

“On the floor, because apparently Berendzen like to sleep on hard surfaces,” Baekhyun finished. 

“He’s a nut job,” Kyungsoo muttered under his breath.

I couldn’t help but agree at this point. Yixing’s ways were a little…eccentric. 

“Poor Lu Han,” Tao sighed, flipping absentmindedly through the TV channels. “Look, he’s missing a ManU game. It’s his favorite team but Yixing wont let him out of the room.”

“Chelsea is going to win anyway. It’s probably a good thing that Lu Han isn’t here to witness it. He might cry.” Jongin snatched the remote from Tao and flipped it back to the soccer game. He leaned back in his seat on the couch and let out a content smile. 

“Minseok used to like Messi a lot. He had this poster in him up in his dorm room back in college that…” I trailed off, noticing how quiet the room had suddenly gotten. I looked up only to see that everyone was staring at me. And then I realize what I had said. “…that…that his Real Madrid fan roommate hated,” I finished lamely.   

There was silence, interrupted only by a whistle from the game on the television. A Chelsea player was getting shown the yellow card, but even Jongin was not paying attention anymore. 

“Barcelona is my favorite team,” Minseok chimed in weakly. He let out an chuckle, as if not sure what to say to cover up for my mistake. 

“Um, are we all just going to pretend like Mina didn’t just admit something important?” Jongin asked, giving Baekhyun the side eye.

“No way,” Baekhyun immediately replied, a glint in his eyes upon smelling fresh gossip. 

“Mina and I were classmates at Yonsei,” Minseok said finally. “We had a few classes together freshman year.”

“How does she know what your room looked like?” Baekhyun countered.

“I don’t remember,” Minseok lied, clenching is teeth and glaring at Baekhyun. “I think we were there to work on a project together or something. Yeah, that must have been it.”

Baekhyun glared right back. “Secrets are bad for team building,” he whined. 

At that point, I didn’t see the point in hiding it anymore. I was moving on and forgiving, right? I was letting the bitterness go to embrace the happy memories. 

“We worked on a presentation for an intro business class freshman year,” I said, telling the truth. That was how Minseok and I had met, after all. “And um, we also dated for a bit in college.”

“You what?” Chanyeol yelped. 

“Back in college?” Tao added.

“How long is a bit?” Jongdae asked. 

Kyungsoo didn’t say anything, but just continued to stare at me with big, round eyes. 

“What was Mina like in college?” Joonmyun asked. 

Minseok smirked a little, giving me a teasing wink. “Straight A, model student. The last person to turn into a law breaking deviant.”

Baekhyun’s eyes suddenly lit up again. “Wait, so then is the Barcelona rumor a lie then?”

“Byun, don’t push your lu