19 — YOU HOLD ME NOW

it's better to suck it up and just let go.

—

"want some chewing gum?"

jaemin offers to the two people of whom he now calls his 'waiting buddies'. eunhee nods as she grabs one pack, whereas daniel politely declines. "i don't like sweets, sorry."

"you don't?" jaemin purses his lips, disappointed. "awe. that means you don't like me."

eunhee turns to him with signs of internally judging him. "did you just admitted that you refer yourself as sweet?"

"what did i admit?"

"you're sweet."

"awe, thank you eunhee. i know i am." he grins in delight.

"na jaemin! i didn't mean it like that—" eunhee was ready to pick up a fight, but she decided to let it slip away instead. she frowns. "why are you here anyway?"

"honestly, i have no idea." jaemin heaves a sigh. "guanlin, who turns out to be dongpyo, who turns out to be guanlin's friend with anger issues, dragged me out once we felt the earthquake. though i have a feeling that it has to have something to do with that lady doctor with her weird bangs and the fact that i have 2 y chromosomes."

"you're an x1, too?!" eunhee gapes.

"you met my sister?!" daniel yells out a whole different thing.

"yes? and.. yes." jaemin slowly answers. "honestly.. no. i don't know what's an x1 and i don't know your sister. sorry, i'm just generally really bad at true or false questions."

eunhee looks up at daniel. "so does that mean he has powers, too? he also has the chromosomes like the other boys."

daniel shrugs. "i'm not the one who's able to answer that. it's seungyoun."

meanwhile, at the terrace in front of seungyoun's spacious mansion..

seungwoo flinches, notices the presence of a figure who has come to 'calm' him once again. he sighs. "what are you doing here, hangyul-ah?"

"i'm making sure you don't burn anything." he says coolly, heading towards the older boy without feeling any threatened by his fire fists. "i know seungyoun hyung is like, yoon seri rich, but he won't be happy to see his front lawn turn into ashes, don't you think?"

seungwoo simpers. "what if i burn the school instead?"

hangyul raises both of his hands. "hey, i won't stop you. i'd call it a mutualistic symbiosis." he puts his hands on the railing, copying the same position of the older brother, glancing to the sky. "you were quite shaken up back there. are you okay?"

"sorry. anything about imnet always triggers bad memories. i tend to avoid it." seungwoo takes a deep breath. "yohan might have the luxury to forget his experience, but i don't. i get to remember what happened in that hellhole, every single thing that they did to me. and it was horrible, and i couldn't bare to think about it for just a second."

hangyul nods. he knew that seungwoo was once captured by imnet before, but he never brought up the topic because he thought it was too sensitive. "what happened back then? how were you captured?"

he shrugs. "honestly, i forgot how i got captured. i wasn't being careful, and to some extent my immaturity brought me into the mess. i found myself naked and chained to the bed inside small room with bunch of masked people in lab coats, testing out every single thing in my body. i lost a lot of blood, i sweated buckets, i was drenched in my own urine. i was only thirteen back then."

hangyul gulps. "any idea of what they were searching for?"

"i think they wanted my enhanced dna for something urgent. they needed a cure. and they thought they could get it from me." he shakes his head. "if they were searching for a cure, then that means they were searching for seungyoun, the one who has the ability to heal. i didn't know him then, so i didn't know such person exist."

hangyul nods. "it must've been very scary for you."

"yeah, so the thought of having five of those kids planning on voluntarily going into that fucking hellhole as if it's just an ordinary school trip—" he winces, "and yohan was apart of it! kim yohan, the only boy who's gone through the same thing! who knows how ruthless those people are, i thought he was quite a logical one himself!"

"kim yohan is either a spontaneous genius or a impulsive idiot. there is no in between." hangyul points out. "with dohyon and yohan collaborating though, they must've planned it thoroughly. those two are the most intelligent people i know. unfortunately their plan did not work."

"did you know about it? why didn't you come along with them?"

"originally i wasn't informed, because they knew i wasn't gonna approve of it," hangyul explains. "which i did, by the way, because i somehow caught them discussing about it. i knew about their plan... but i had no thoughts of telling you guys."

"because they threatened you for doing so?"

"no, because deep inside i believed that it could work." he raises his head in assurance. "i had faith in them."

"you eventually became the one who saved them." seungwoo pats the latter's back. "i would've scolded you there, but you did it for a great cause. you did well."

hangyul cracks a smile. "yah, don't touch me. your hands are still flaming hot."

"sorry," seungwoo laughs. he shifts into deep thoughts again. "i feel like they've turned into a bunch of eunsangs after the boy went missing. how crazy is that? i thought taking care of the redhead was hard. now they all seem to take over the same curious and reckless personality of his. it's getting out of hand."

"well, think of it this way." hangyul leans over the railing. "they all went off after eunsang's disappearance. why? because they truly care for them, just like how eunsang took care of junho. yes, they're all reckless fucks, but don't you think they're doing this.. out of love? out of their needs to look after one another?" he smiles. "we are a family now, hyung. you, wooseok-hyung, and seungyoun-hyung brought us together, and if one of us goes down, we get back up together. at least, that's what i read from the situation."

seungwoo pauses for a moment, and then nods. "yeah. i suppose so."

"now come here," hangyul opens his arms wide. "give me a hug."

"you said i was too hot."

"yeah? but we're fire and earth!"

"... and?"

"we both hot as fuck!"

seungwoo pulls over the younger boy, wrapping his arms around him. "language."

"no, that doesn't work. you swore enough to last a year in just a single day, so don't come around scolding me about my language, mister."

—

"dohyon, call seungwoo-hyung and hangyul in. hyeongjun, call the others on the second floor. i think yohan had brought us a major clue."

wooseok stands closer to seungyoun, raising an eyebrow. "you're telling me.. eunsang's inside that thing?"

seungyoun looks around frantically. "yes, practically, uh, sort of."

"seungyoun-ah, that's a snake."

"i could see that, wooseok-ie, i'm not deaf— i mean blind." he raises his hand. "minhee-yah! fetch me my laptop, will ya?!"

"aye captain!" minhee scurries his way to seungyoun's room.

seungwoo barges into the house once he receives the news. "tell me what's going on."

"basically seungyoun thinks eunsang is in that usb." wooseok gives him a short recap, filling him in. "and now, we're gonna find that out."

seungwoo glances at seungyoun, though still quite awkwardly after the unwanted tension. "you sure about this?"

seungyoun shrugs. "it doesn't hurt to try."

"i got the content from kang seulgi's laptop," yohan says, giving them some context. "i went in there because of the lights, flickering in morse code. it has requested me to 'come'."

"if it's from kang seulgi's laptop, it means that it most likely to be something really important." daniel slips into the conversation as he went down the stairs with jaemin and eunhee. "she only keeps the important stuff in there, ones with no backups. she thinks backups are too risky for her own good."

"but you're not sure who sent you the code?" wooseok purses his lips. "that could be a trap."

"the lights flickered in my place, too!" hyeongjun adds some likely evidence. "i thought it wasn't anything important because i don't understand morse code."

"though it seems questionable, i think it is worth the risk." seungyoun glances at seungwoo. "what do you think?"

seungwoo pauses. "you've gone through all those trouble for this. i won't let it come to waste."

"one laptop coming right up!" minhee puts the laptop in front of the hyungs like a waiter passing on their orders. "enjoy~"

seungwoo turns to yohan. "yohan-ah, put it in."

yohan nods, carefully connecting the flashdisk into the portal. "done."

jaemin makes his way to hangyul. "yah, what's going on?"

hangyul shrugs. "i have no idea."

"honestly, i've never seen yohan looking this serious—"

"ssssh!!" eunhee stands at the other side of hangyul, shutting them up. "be quiet, i wanna watch him in peace."

"who?" jaemin and hangyul ask in unison.

"kim yohan! who else~"

"wah, this girl really.." jaemin shakes his head in disbelief. "she has the guts to have a crush on that questionable alien, kim yohan—"

"look at him from this angle, don't you think he looks gorgeous?" eunhee swoons, being absolutely lovestruck.

jaemin scrunches his face. "ew-"

"guys, please for the love of god, shut up." hangyul says, parting the two who are his age. "i'm trying to listen here."

"so what exactly it's supposed to do now..?" wooseok mumbles, staring at the empty desktop page.

after a few seconds of connecting, the screen suddenly flickers, performing sudden changes of brightness. it ends after a several round, as the 'terminal page' suddenly pops out.

"um..."

"eunsang?" seungyoun raises his voice uncertain. "are you there?"

right on the terminal tab, suddenly a quite sensational text message appears.

_EUNSANG.XMK: seungyoun hyung??

—

baby eunsanggggg huhuhu(。•́︿•̀。) i havent written about him for ages

i hope y'all like the senior year students dynamic (yohan, hangyul, eunhee, & jaemin) i think they'll be another group filled with bickers other than the one in eunsang's class (which consists of eunsang, junho, dongpyo, yujin, and guanlin) ·ᴗ·

how's your quarantine? how's your country's government handling it? my country's government has been exceptionally slow (we only increase by 300 cases every day tho it's obvious that's it's more than that because of my country's huge population) but at least we'll be doing a semi-lockdown here in the capital city (which is also where i live) so i hope it's an effective method!

140 votes for next chap ok~

- yuehwa