Hello, lovelies!

How is it going in quarantine?

AKD

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A few more days went by with the client and Jeno saw some more books piling up in Jaemin's room. There were a total of about ten books now and Jeno began wondering how the boy planned on hiding them from the rest of the gang members who were sure to get suspicious.

Then he remembered no one really visited Jaemin's room because everyone was afraid of Jeno. Jeno had made it explicitly clear that Jaemin was under his custody alone.

On the last day of serving that particular client, however, Jaemin came back with something other than books.

"So.....books finally weren't enough for you and you ended up stealing a laptop instead?" Jeno's voice was equal parts incredulous and judgmental as he stared at the sleek mini machine lying on Jaemin's bed.

Jaemin flinched a little and then hung his head guiltily. "It was just lying there, charger and all and I couldn't help it."

Jeno shook his head. "How did you manage to even hide it on coming back?"

"Well....honestly I-I don't know," Jaemin stuttered and stared at his toes. "I'm sorry."

Jeno sighed. For a reason, he had difficulty understanding why he didn't have the heart to tell off the man.

Stealing was probably the most innocent crime Jaemin could commit and one missing laptop wouldn't make a hint of a difference to the multi-millionaires that were their clients anyway.

"What are you going to do with it?"

Jaemin's head immediately perked up.

"Watch anime. I heard new episodes of Naruto have been released and I really wanna watch," he sounded the most excited Jeno had ever heard. "If I manage to get hold of some CDs then I could probably be able to install games too. I haven't played in a long time."

Jeno, if possible, was even more confused than he had been with books. He honestly kept no touch with other trivial things that went on in the world outside the gang and he had no idea what other boys his age usually did for entertainment. "What is....Naruto?"

Jaemin's smile immediately dropped. "You....you don't know Naruto?"

"I don't concern myself with trivial stuff that isn't going to help me in life," Jeno spoke in his usual flat voice. "Whatever you do, make sure that laptop isn't actually traceable or anything and that it's safe and won't put the gang in danger in any way."

"Okay," Jaemin's voice was soft and the noticeable disappointment in it made Jeno's chest twist in a way that was beginning to get annoyingly familiar to him. "I was planning to do that without you telling me."

Jeno wanted to ask how he planned on doing that and make the device untraceable but Jaemin turning his back on him told him that the conversation was done for the day.

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For the next few days, Jaemin spent most of his free time tinkering with the machine, typing and retyping stuff endlessly every day, making small frustrated sounds when something didn't go the way he wanted and grinning from ear to ear when something did go right.

And for the next few days, Jeno spent those hours in intense curiosity about what exactly Jaemin was doing but not finding out because his ego prevented him from doing it.

But one day, Jaemin himself pulled Jeno along to his room and stated blabbering excitedly about how he had finally managed to delete all of the previous owner's data and completely replace it with new information.

He showed Jeno the laptop screen and went on about something coding and programming related stuff that put up some sort of firewall that prevented tracing, which Jeno understood jack-crap of.

And Jeno wasn't listening to a word anyway. He was only paying attention to how excited and almost happy Jaemin seemed and that this was the first time he was seeing the boy like this.

"So..." Jeno began nonchalantly. "You got hold of the Naruto thing then?"

"Not yet," Jaemin answered. "But I will. It's not hard to find anime episodes online."

And Jeno had just nodded and then walked out of the room, stating he had no time for all of these "silly techy stuff".

In reality, he still kept thinking about how Jaemin had actually managed to do all the programming and wondered if the boy was a computer genius.

Their gang needed more hackers even though they already had one. Well, either way, Jaemin's newly discovered skills would be a huge asset to the gang.

But even then, Jeno found himself keeping it a secret from his father.

Not Edited

Monday, April 6, 2020

Song Recommendation:

"Moral of the Story" by Ashe