Chapter Text
In the short span of time it took to run from the bathroom to the living room, Saeyoung had surmised three possible scenarios to explain Vanderwood’s frantic yelling.
The first and best scenario—he had indeed encountered the red-head’s bug-ridden robots and was now strangling their wires in his bare hands or nursing a second degree burn from the faulty fire-throwing robo-dog.
A worse, more realistic scenario, the ex-agent might have found another damning piece of information that further dragged the twins into the mire of their already complicated situation. The last—and worst—scenario was that his father had already traced them and had the bunker surrounded or infiltrated.
The latter was unlikely, but after the events of the past twenty four hours, Saeyoung couldn’t rule out any possibilities.
When he finally stumbled into the dimly lit room, he found none of the scenarios to be true. But, the relief that flooded his body was short lived, rapidly replaced by dread at the scene unraveling before him.
Vanderwood was indeed clutching at something. But, instead of the metal Saeyoung had imagined, Saeran’s shirt collar was tangled in his trembling fists.
“I said,” the man seethed with a small shake to the white-haired twin. His shouts had dwindled to a dangerously low growl as he bent closer to Saeran. “What the hell did you do?”
The younger man groaned in irritation, grappling against Vanderwood’s relentless grip. “Let me go,” he returned, surprisingly calm for the situation.
Saeyoung, on the other hand, had forgotten the meaning of the word.
Perhaps the sight triggered bad memories from their childhood, reminiscent of the countless times he’d witnessed his brother tossed against a wall while he was forced to stand aside. Or maybe his brain was just too short-circuited to process the circumstances.
Whichever the case, a visceral anger tore through his tense muscles.
To his credit, he restrained his balled fist at his side despite the intense desire to collide it with Vanderwood’s jaw. However, he did seize the man’s ear and pull. Hard.
A shrill yelp flew from the ex-agent’s mouth as he buckled sideways. The act of violence was futile, however, with his one hand still holding fast to Saeran’s shirt while the other clumsily swatted at Saeyoung.
“What’s going on here?” the redhead demanded, gaze flitting between his ex-supervisor and his twin. The latter refused to meet his eyes, his expression just as clouded and inscrutable as when Saeyoung had last spoken with him.
Vanderwood cast him a sharp glare, but instead of annoyance, something grim perched on his furious scowl.
“What’s going on?” he fumed, his head tilting to relieve pressure on his captured ear. A sarcastic laugh wisped past his lips. “This kid may have ruined our last chance—that’s what’s going on.”
Saeyoung didn’t understand, but the deep frown marring his brother’s face didn’t bode well. “Chance at what?”
His question was answered, however, when a glint of a screen caught the edge of his vision. Apprehension seeped into his limbs, causing his hand to fall away from Vanderwood as he stumbled closer.
A single laptop lay on the floor, poorly concealed behind a tower of cushions and blankets. The display was dimmed, but even in the faint light, Saeyoung could recognize the screen full of code.
Stupid, stupid code.
In stunned silence, he lifted his head to Vanderwood as if pleading for some other explanation than the one his brain was telling him to be true.
Maybe he had innocently pulled it from the basement where it was supposed to be stashed away along with his gaming computers. Maybe it was his hacking attempts to get them out of this mess…
However, he was met by that same disgruntled glower—albeit there was a strain of sympathy underneath now.
A cold unease trickled into his chest.
Reluctantly, he shifted the silent inquiry to Saeran, his fears confirmed by the hardened glare plastered across his features.
“What did you do?” Saeyoung said, unable to keep the exhaustion from dripping off his words.
“What I wanted,” Saeran returned with a cool indifference. His mouth twisted into a borderline cruel smile. “Isn’t that what you told me I should do?”
Saeyoung’s fingers tightened around the hem of his shirt as he attempted to gather the meager hope he had left in his battered spirit. But his head was beginning to throb again, blocking any means of rationalization.
His brother still hated him... His brother was still intent on getting him killed.
The thoughts spun through his mind with every beat of pain.
“What the hell are you doing leaving laptops around the house?” Vanderwood scolded, yanking him from his growing despondency. “I heard some footsteps earlier, so I went downstairs to check your computers and found one missing.”
Disbelief rooted Saeyoung in place, his delayed sense conflagrating his conscience in the face of his brother’s obvious disdain. “It was a gaming computer,” he tried to reason, mostly to himself. “I blocked the ability to do anything else, so I thought—“
“This kid brought down an Agency with a phone,” Vanderwood bit out, giving Saeran another jolt. “And you thought leaving any type of computer around was fine? That he would suddenly forget his skills?”
He was right. Saeyoung was naïve to let his guard down. Lately, his brain was scattered in so many different directions that the smaller things were slipping through the cracks of his sensibility. He kept making reckless mistakes.
Mistakes they couldn’t afford.
One false move…one little slip-up and their father would catch that final trace, and then…
His insides clenched at the thought.
“Vanderwood, let him go,” he sighed, resignation filling the emptiness clawing at his chest.
“But—“
“It’s fine,” he emphasized, though his own conviction faltered at the triumphant gleam in his twin’s eyes.
Warily, Vanderwood obeyed. Saeran staggered backwards, using the momentum to scramble behind the couch and away from the two men. Judging by the tension in his thin frame, he had no intent on staying there.
Saeyoung preemptively caught the edge of his sleeve before the boy could make an escape to another part of the house.
“Saeran,” he said the name more as a plea. “What did you do?”
For a moment, those green eyes met his and a flicker of hurt and accusation flashed across his countenance. However, it was quickly superseded by that usual revulsion.
“You know code,” he bit back, untangling himself from Saeyoung with a shove. “Just look.”
Chasing away his growing frustration, Saeyoung inhaled a tremulous breath before reaching to the floor and lifting the device onto the table. Fingers trembling still, he tilted the screen upwards to better view the damage. His eyes barely scanned the first line of numbers when the familiarity slammed into him.
“I couldn’t decipher anything,” Vanderwood interjected. “It looks like jibberish to me. What computer language even is that?”
“Mine,” Saeyoung returned, his voice catching. These formulas were burned into his memory. Every one of his personal programs was written using this code to ensure no one tampered with it. “This is my tracking program. You hacked into my tracking program.”
The word “hacked” tasted sour on his tongue. It was a sudden reminder that this wasn’t the first time his programs had been infiltrated by the younger twin.
His security system at Rika’s apartment…the messenger…All of it in the same code. Of course he was familiar with it.
“It was too slow, wasn’t it?” Saeran countered. He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes darting down to the floor with a casual mien unbefitting of the major feat he’d just accomplished. “Your codes were always too complicated.”
“What’s he talking about?” Vanderwood said, gaze dragging from the younger twin to Saeyoung.
The latter buried his face into his open palms, his glasses raking against his forehead before getting lost in his hopelessly matted hair.
Good—it prevented him from seeing the screen clearly, lessening the guilt ravaging his chest. He should’ve never mentioned the gaming computers. He just had to let his desperation to relate to his brother cloud his better judgment.
Stupid. Stupid…
“The one I’m using to trace the call,” Saeyoung replied finally. “It just finished. I thought it was a miracle.”
Incredulity lighted Saeran’s face before dissolving into a haughty simper.
“So, it did work,” he snorted, a loftiness tainting his words. “I told you I wasn’t the useless one.”
Saeyoung gritted his teeth against the comment’s sting. Since Saeran had been rescued from Mint Eye, he had made a personal vow to be patient—to forbear his twin’s outbursts and hatred until he could give him the best life possible. However, Saeran’s vindictive petulance tested that fortitude.
“You shouldn’t have hacked,” he said quietly, not trusting his own voice not to quiver.
Saeran scoffed, the muscles in his jaw clenching as that familiar fury simmered under the surface of his composure. “Shouldn’t?”
“This isn’t some kind game,” Vanderwood added, taking another step towards the man. Instinctively, Saeyoung moved in between them. “Do you understand the situation?”
“I’ve always known the situation,” Saeran spat, his annoyance briefly redirected to the older man before returning to Saeyoung. An acrid hostility contorted his lips into a sneer. “But since I’m apparently not good enough to be updated, why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Saeran, it’s not like when we were kids,” Saeyoung snapped, frustration spewing from his mouth faster than he could calm himself. The situation…the stakes…this was so much higher than anything they’d faced so far, and the stress of it was finally breaking him. “I can’t just run home and hide with you in our room with Mom’s right to hush money keeping him at bay—I don’t have the agency—There’s nothing to hide behind anymore!”
Saeran recoiled at the redhead’s sharp tone, and Saeyoung bit down on his own tongue as penance. He untangled his glasses from his curls, unsure whether to apologize or allow his misplaced temper to relay the severity of the situation—a situation Saeran shouldn’t have been involved with in the first place.
Guilt and anger at himself burned through any annoyance the hacker harbored. He should’ve done a better job in hiding all this…Saeran had enough to weather without their parents’ sins coming back to haunt them.
Vanderwood shifted on his feet, no doubt uncomfortable with the unveiled trauma that was their life.
Saeyoung was too tired to feel embarrassed.
“What did you find from the tracking?” the older man finally ventured into the tense silence that fell between the twins.
“There is no middleman,” he replied. “The call…it came straight from the Prime Minister’s office. How many people do you think have access to that place?”
Vanderwood’s usually cool mien faltered as he flopped back onto the couch, a swear flying from his lips. Even Saeran’s ill-temper vanished, and for a brief moment, a fear actually appropriate to the situation glossed over his face.
However, it was soon replaced by a hardened resolve foreign in the twin so intent on leaving this life just the day before. “All the better.”
Both Saeyoung and Vanderwood whirled towards the boy’s casualness. Unfazed, he met their gaping with an indifferent stare. “We have a direct line to him now, am I wrong?”
Saeyoung inhaled deeply, welcoming the burning in his lungs. The pain collected the meager pieces of his sanity his brother seemed intent on shattering today.
“No, Saeran, he has a direct line to us,” he said. “That means—“
“That means we’re on equal ground for once,” Saeran interrupted.
The steadiness in his brother’s voice was reeling.
In the past few weeks, he’d witnessed many of the younger twin’s fluctuating moods. Sadness, regret, even timidity from time to time, were regular inhabitants. Anger had always been the most prominent, but Saeyoung was accustomed to that being directed towards him. But now…he could see it at work in a different way.
Instead of the usual strident frenzy, a quiescent rage simmered under the surface of his twin. It seemed to overtake him slowly, bleeding into his posture and countenance as if invigorating him. For the first time, Saeyoung saw a completely new Saeran. A strong Saeran.
The redhead was reminded of how little he knew the boy standing in front of him.
“He’s right, you know.”
MC’s voice drifted into the room from behind them, and Saeyoung’s last sliver of patience fled from his body.
Letting himself tumble backwards onto the half-cushioned couch, he buried his face into his sleeves again and bit back a scream.
What was happening right now?
Mercifully, MC’s hand rested on his shoulder as if to lend him her strength before she spoke again. “If it is your father who called you—or even someone in his close circle—they made themselves vulnerable to you. There has to be a reason for that.”
Admittedly, Saeyoung had thought about that. It was the one question burning in the back of his mind amidst this storm of misfortune. Why would the man who was concerned about his image highly enough to kidnap children suddenly be so reckless?
“It doesn’t matter the reason,” Saeran said. Slowly, Saeyoung lifted his head, surprised to find his twin looking directly at him—for once. “We have an open door, so we should take it. Ruin him before he can ruin us.”
Vanderwood let out a mirthless laugh. “We? Why does it sound like you already have a plan?”
Even with his blurred vision, Saeyoung could sense the uneasiness radiating from his ex-supervisor. The feeling was mutual.
He was accustomed to vitriol behind Saeran’s words—it had become a constant presence in their conversations. But the acidity behind his brother’s statement was laced with something akin to fierce determination. And it terrified him.
“Because I do.”
Saeyoung had been through a lot that day. “A lot” being an understatement. However, despite Murphy’s law proving itself true throughout the redhead’s entire morning, it was those three words that nearly sent Saeyoung off the deep end.
“Excuse me?” he said, an incredulous chuckle erupting from his lips before he could stop it. His brother’s expression remained unwavering. “No, Saeran. You can’t get anywhere near this. I told you I’ll handle this. I’m trying to—“
“Protect me?” Saeran drawled, his nonchalance faltering on the edge of his frustration. “And how is that working so far?”
Saeyoung’s cheeks burned, half in embarrassment and half in vexation towards himself. Saeran was right. Despite his best efforts, their situation just seemed to get worse.
“It’s too dangerous, Saeran,” he emphasized. Again, he was met with that dismissive gaze. It was worse than talking to a wall—and Saeyoung had done that before. At least a wall listened.
Drawing a quivering breath, the redhead made one last attempt to muster his fortitude from somewhere deep within himself lest he blow up like an overheated machine.
He hated this feeling. He hated that his brain was overwrought with too many complicated emotions.
Saeyoung would be lying if he said he trusted his brother. Saeran was family. But the cruelness of life had made him either self-preserving or self-harming, all dependent on some volatile whim teetering between revenge and destruction.
Besides, their relationship was still on the mend, and if the argument that morning was any indicator of their bond…Saeyoung had a long way to go before he knew his brother again.
He turned to Vanderwood, hoping to find some backing. However, he found no camaraderie in his ex-supervisor. Treacherously, the previously logical man narrowed his eyes toward the younger twin, a small glimmer of curiosity lighting his face.
“I want to hear what he has to say.”
Saeyoung couldn’t believe it…
Dumbfounded and desperate, he turned his taciturn pleading towards his most loyal supporter. But MC was equally unsympathetic to his cause, though at least she sheepishly ducked her head in apology.
“It can’t hurt to listen,” she said quietly, her hand resting on his knee.
Saeyoung was seriously questioning his sanity now. Hadn’t Vanderwood nearly throttled his brother for tampering with a computer moments ago? Had MC not encouraged him to try to save himself moments ago?
Resigned, he slunk back into his seat, waving an exasperated hand in the air.
Saeran took it as an admission to continue. He cleared his throat, a sudden bashfulness creeping into his previous confidence as their attention shifted to him.
Saeyoung tensed as he pulled the computer into his lap, tapping at the keys with a deftness he should’ve never possessed.
“As I was saying,” Saeran went on. “This is a chance to ruin our father before he can touch us.”
When he finally flipped the screen towards them, a different system replaced the prior code on the display. Saeyoung skimmed across the various links, but exhaustion and his insistent protest against his brother’s involvement prevented him from comprehending its significance.
“Is this a newspaper database?” MC said when no one spoke.
Saeran nodded, his eyes briefly darting to Saeyoung. Had the latter not known the bitterness ingrained into the younger twin, he might’ve mistaken the fleeting glance as a search for approval.
He continued to press his lips shut, unwilling to reveal any sentiments towards the plan. Still, his mind involuntarily connected Saeran’s thought process.
A newspaper database was riddled with unpublished articles—stories buried or secrecy bought by unscrupulous figures wanting to remain in the public’s good graces. Threats were always more powerful than a one-time deal…which meant nothing was truly gone.
Just one of those stories could do the Prime Minister so much damage.
But…
“Blackmail,” Vanderwood scoffed, mercifully saving him from criticizing his own brother. “That’s all you got? Listen, kid, I’m pretty sure these politicians have their fingers all over the media. Even a loose end may not be enough.”
“This isn’t just any database,” Saeran returned, looking affronted at Vanderwood’s doubt. “It’s an encrypted archive.”
“I still don’t get it.”
MC turned to Saeyoung, equally confused, and the redhead tensed as the realization came to him.
This plan… he had thought of it once before in his life, when the weight of university and being an ocean away from his brother was beginning to take toll. But V had convinced him against it because of its riskiness.
Saeyoung wondered where he would be if he hadn’t listened…
Still, he couldn’t let Saeran know it was a good plan. A great plan.
“An archive that shouldn’t exist at all,” Saeyoung answered under MC and Vanderwood’s persistent gaze. “The Prime Minister took great care—and money—in ensuring his record remained spotless. But there are always journalists who get too nosy and some of them bond together to create encrypted archives like these. In our agency…we destroyed evidence like this, but…they re-appear every few years.”
“He thought he was safe all this time,” Saeran said, his face contorting into a scowl as he continued to scroll through the extensive list of records. “Even though this database still exists, most of the journalists who had access to it are either corrupt, killed or ‘killed themselves.’ So it’s just been buried for years. But it was easy enough to decrypt.”
“Oh,” MC said hollowly.
“How did you even find this?” Vanderwood asked, skepticism etched between his furrowed brows.
The younger twins’ movements came to a halt, and for a moment, a stifling quiet filled the room. Like before, his gaze lifted to Saeyoung’s, an unreadable expression haunting his face. “When your Agency files got released…and then our father…well, I just had a thought. That was all.”
The realization struck Saeyoung, his chest seizing as the final piece clicked into place. This wasn’t the first time Saeran had accessed the archive or the first time he’d snuck a computer. When he approached him that morning about helping, he must’ve been plotting this all along— since he found out about their father tracking them.
“Why hasn’t anyone tried this before?” MC said, speaking the question no one else dared ask.
“Because it’s dangerous,” Saeyoung asserted with a pointed look at the younger twin. “Having powerful politicians on your bad side isn’t what anyone wants. Most journalists turn a blind eye to them or end up…disappearing.”
Saeran rolled his eyes with a huff. “And what do you suggest? Never leaving this bunker?”
Saeyoung retreated back into the couch, seething underneath his calm exterior. “The risks far outweigh the chance we succeed.”
“And if we don’t try, we’ll be no better than Mom.”
A heavy silence fell onto the group.
Saeyoung barely registered MC’s soft gasp or Vanderwood’s uncomfortable shifting.
With all the nightmares and flashbacks his twin had in the past weeks, he always refrained from uttering that familiar term for the woman who didn’t deserve the title.
Saeran seemed appalled himself. He brought his shaky fingers to his lips, as if bewildered by his own outburst. Still, that new doggedness present in the man all day flared behind those mint eyes.
“Her life was dictated by that man,” he went on, his tremulous voice the first sign of any emotion besides anger so far. “Fear made her hide us. Fear made her use us. She looked to him for money, safety, and—who knows what else at our expense.”
“Saeran…” Saeyoung began.
The younger man shook his head with vehemence. “No, I’m sick of being stuck in the result of everyone else’s stupid mistakes. Aren’t you?”
His brother’s words settled in the air, falling on Saeyoung with a weight that refused to be ignored.
Like a hard drive, his mind conjured the memories of the last 10 years…of being stuck in his mother’s abusive hold…of being stuck in an agency that squelched his spirit…of V and Rika’s poor choices that resulted in two broken twins.
Apprehension clawed at his chest with the thought of such a combative approach. It was risky, maybe even impossible…but the alternative suddenly seemed so much worse.
What life could he have by constantly moving or constantly looking over his shoulder if he stayed? Was that the life he wanted for MC? Saeran? Himself?
Since birth, their very existence was a peril.
And he was sick of it.
Just like that, the faint tendrils of hope he’d thought he’d lost in the misery of the day were beginning to strengthen again.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze. His eyes locked with his brother, and for the first time since their reunion, the invisible string that had been severed over years of misunderstanding was beginning to mend.
“Okay,” he breathed after a long moment. Though his voice felt unsteady from his throat, his brother’s contagious resolve wound its way around his battered confidence, bolstered as Saeran’s eyes actually brightened. “Okay…Let’s do this.”