Archive of Our Own

It stopped raining, but the leftover gloom seems to magnify the whole district, neon signs and holograms cutting through the light fog like vibrant knives.

Pulling his hood back, Yoongi looks up at the marquee of the building he's heading for. HUNTER'S WOODS ARCADE in bright orange, two letters flickering just a little like everything else in the sector. The wide entrance is closed off with a faintly buzzing holo-gate, reflected in the street puddles and distorted by ripples when patrons approach.

Yoongi knows the protocol here - arcade-goers present the stamp on their wrists, activated ink that glows blue in the light from the holo when they pass through. It's a renewable, unforgeable membership card, only a few credits to get one at the stamp station beside the entrance. But Yoongi is in a bit of a hurry.

He heads over to the station, a small screen outlet built into the wall with a slot for credits and a cradle where the stamp presses down. No face-rec, Yoongi knows from experience. He tugs out the maintenance input cord where it's coiled just below the screen and taps through the options, grimacing at the slight stickiness of the clunky keyboard.

It doesn't take long to find his way to the system menu, and from there a command app - but the basic security installed in the outlet insists he enter a password to go any further. Yoongi considers breaking out the mostly-finished decryption program on his phone, but decides he's not patient enough to go the long way around. He tugs his hood off and lifts the maintenance cord to his temple, listening for the tiny metallic sound of it clicking into place on his Implant, the inch-long circuit chip embedded just beside his right eye. He blinks a couple times, waiting for initialization, then focuses back on the password error.

The program running the stamp station, and all other stamp stations, and the rest of the basic tech around the city, is at its base just a list of instructions. If A, then display B. If B, then display C. In the absence of ABC, display error code XYZ. With lines of code scrolling past his eyes and the sticky keyboard clacking, Yoongi writes a new set.

Within a minute, the stamp station no longer accepts credits and the holo-gate scanner is turned off, though the holo itself stays up, flickering only a little. Yoongi backs out of the program and goes back to the main menu, but not before changing all the system passwords - he's used a few different handles over the years; Gloss was one of the first, then Suga, which he liked for a while, but these days the one that's stuck is Red. Save password: yes, save all changes: yes.

He disconnects the cord from his Implant and coils it up again, pulls his hood back up and steps through the holo-gate into the Woods.

It's dark inside, and sprawling, a maze of flashing and bleeping arcade machines each making a different noise. There's a lot of people, too, mostly kids and teens, running from game to game or crowding around to watch their friends play. At least the owner, Hunter, doesn't seem to be around. Yoongi still doesn't know why the old man runs an arcade if he hates kids so much.

Weaving his way through, Yoongi barely glances at the games - he used to know at least the basics of most of them, but recently every time he comes through he recognizes fewer and fewer of the titles. His middle-school self would be so disappointed. He still knows where to find what he's looking for, though, and follows the loudest explosion sounds to the back of the arcade.

The largest sim games are kept on the upper floor where there's space to tumble around in VR, but the crowd favourite has stayed on the main level. Yoongi approaches the Whalien Fighter 52 cabinet and can't help smiling at the sight of Jeongguk, recognizable even with the VR headset on, reclined in the pilot sim chair and blasting his way through everything on the wrap-around screen.

Yoongi watches him play for a few moments - he really is good, but he's good at most things he tries and Yoongi wishes, not for the first time, that Jeongguk wouldn't waste all his time in the arcade.

He waits until the level is cleared, then clears his throat to signal his presence and steps closer to the machine. "I knew I'd find you here," he sighs, reaching out to push the headset visor up. He's met with Jeongguk's indignant frown. "Did you go to school today?"

"Yes," Jeongguk huffs, taking the headset off and setting it down in its cradle on the dashboard. "Ask Mingyu if you don't believe me."

"I believe you," Yoongi says, holding his hand out. "If you'd been hanging out here all day, you'd look guilty instead of pissed."

Jeongguk scowls at him, but takes the offered hand to help him down from the machine. "I've only been here an hour," he grumbles.

"That's probably enough for one day," Yoongi says with a grimace. "These things'll fry your brain."

"You're one to talk," Jeongguk says, and Yoongi watches his eyes flit over to the Implant on his temple. "I know that's worse for you than some flashing lights and explosions."

"Not in moderation," Yoongi sniffs. "Besides, you're not exactly abstaining." He pauses, looking Jeongguk up and down and getting a confused frown in return. "You still have it, right? You didn't lend it out?"

"Of course not," Jeongguk huffs, and pulls his Plug out of his pocket. It's a little bigger than an Implant, two thin cylinders connected with an earpiece to rest just above and below the user's eye. It certainly looks like the government-issue ones, but those are next to impossible to find, unlike knock-off Plugs that stay just on this side of possible - and toe pretty close to the legality line as well.

"It still works, then?" Yoongi asks. "You mentioned something about the magnets last week."

Jeongguk sighs, nodding. "Yeah, it's fine. It's just slow."

"Faster than going without," Yoongi reminds him, but he can't help smiling at Jeongguk's pout. He knows Jeongguk has gotten good enough with the knock-off that he can tinker with just about any unencrypted program he comes across, upload speed be damned. "And it's not like you're doing anything that needs a better connection anyway, because I told you not to mess around with it and you definitely always listen to me, right?"

"Yes," Jeongguk says, exasperated, then darts his eyes away suspiciously. "I only use it for important stuff."

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"Like… extending deadlines on the school site. Leaking quiz answers. And I fixed a custodial bot the other day."

"You could do all that without the Plug," Yoongi points out, and Jeongguk shrugs, trying and failing to hide a smile at the praise. "Okay, come on. Time to go."

He leads the way back through the rows of blinking and beeping arcade machines with Jeongguk following behind. The holo-gate is still flickering at the entrance ahead of them, but they both pause when someone calls out, and Yoongi glances back to see a group of excitedly chattering teens gathering around Jeongguk.

"You're heading out?" one of them asks - Mingyu, just about the only arcade-frequenter that Yoongi knows by name. "Yugyeom just beat Bulletproof II, you should've seen it!"

"He said he was going to," Jeongguk laughs, shaking his head. "He bet all his tokens on it."

"Yeah, and now Jaehyun owes him 200 credits," Mingyu cackles. "But it's weird! You heard about the last level glitch, right?"

Another boy chimes in right after him. "The last boss has infinite health, so it's impossible to win! My sister told me that game's been unbeatable since the Woods first opened."

A girl beside them nods along, looking awed. "But Yugyeom destroyed it, no problem."

Yoongi perks up at that, watching Jeongguk sneak a nervous glance at him. "Uh, yeah, that is weird," Jeongguk says, inching away from the group.

"You helped him fix it, didn't you?" the second boy pipes up. "With that headband thing you have?"

Jeongguk's grip tightens on the Plug hidden behind his back. "I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't joke around, we've all seen you with it," Mingyu laughs. "Last month when Pied Piper stopped freezing in the middle of level twelve, you said you fixed it. You must've fixed Bulletproof too, right?"

"How'd you do it?"

"Come on, show us!"

Before Jeongguk can stumble through an excuse, Yoongi decides to take pity on him. "As much as we'd love to hang around, we've really gotta get going," he says, breaking a path through the small crowd and sidling towards the entrance with Jeongguk in tow. "Our grandmother's expecting us."

"Right," Jeongguk says weakly, relief sweeping over his face. "Grandma's house. Gotta go." He manages a quick wave to his friends before letting Yoongi hurry him out of the arcade.

Yoongi slows his pace once they're clear past the holo-gate, and takes one more cautious glance down the street before raising his eyebrows at Jeongguk. "Only 'important stuff', huh?"

Jeongguk flushes as he tucks the Plug back into his pocket, but tries his best to shrug it off. "The owner knows some of the machines are bugging out, but he won't do anything about it. If the game's unbeatable and people waste tokens on them, then he doesn't have to cash them out, you know?" He glances quickly at Yoongi then back down to his feet, cowed by his unimpressed expression. "I don't have to plug in for long to fix them," he insists, although a lot quieter than his other protests.

After a moment Yoongi relents, throwing his arm around Jeongguk to ruffle his hair. "Oh, c'mere. I thought I had a couple more years before you became a vigilante."

Jeongguk tries to scowl, but it gets lost in a giddy grin. "It's your fault. You're a bad influence."

Yoongi sticks his tongue out at him. "I was reprogramming UFO machines before you knew what a circuit was. Maybe it's just fate." He lets him go with one last swipe at his hair. "Now come on, Namjoon is waiting for us."

"He's-- wait, we're really going to Grandma's?" Jeongguk asks, hurrying to catch up.

"Of course," Yoongi says easily. "She hasn't seen you in a while. Keeps bugging us to bring you around."

Jeongguk smiles at that. "Did you tell her I beat your high score on Strange City?"

"No, because you cheated," Yoongi huffs, "and I know you did because I cheated to get that score in the first place." He glances back at him in time to catch the end of his eye-roll. "You know it's not a good idea to rack up scores on every machine, right? Your friends are already asking questions. How long 'til someone tells the owner?"

"They wouldn't," Jeongguk says quickly, defensively. "And Hunter wouldn't give a shit anyway, as long as we're paying to play. Besides, the player with the highest scores is actually Eunha, she just keeps it a secret so she can trick douchebag guys into betting all their tokens."

Yoongi laughs, slinging his arm over Jeongguk's shoulders again. "Okay, okay. Watch the language around Grandma, alright?"

"Fine." Jeongguk sighs out the rest of his defiant energy as Yoongi leads him across the street. "Why are we headed to her place, anyway? Just to see Namjoon?"

"I have something to give you," Yoongi says, smirking when Jeongguk looks at him suspiciously. "No hints, you'll see when we get there."

"Can I guess?"

"No."

"Is it a--"

"Let's just go back to talking about your arcade escapades," Yoongi cuts him off, poking Jeongguk's cheek with his free hand. "Hey, you're still looking for a handle, aren't you? We could call you Woodcutter."

Jeongguk rolls his eyes, slipping out from under Yoongi's arm. "You've said that before. It's not funny."

"Have I? What about Huntsman?"

"Not funny," Jeongguk repeats, sticking his tongue out.

"Well, I'm sure you don't want to hear the one Namjoon came up with, then," Yoongi sighs, turning an abrupt corner.

Jeongguk nearly trips over himself trying to catch up. "Wait, w-what is it?" he asks, suddenly eager. Yoongi gives him a knowing look and his cheeks turn a little pink. "I just-- Namjoon's handle is so cool--"

"And mine isn't?" Yoongi turns his nose up in mock-offense, only to glance back in betrayal when Jeongguk doesn't say anything. "Okay, now I'm really not going to tell you."

"Grandma's isn't far, is it?" Jeongguk asks innocently, hurrying past him.

"You punk," Yoongi grumbles, but he can't help smiling as he lets Jeongguk take the lead.

It's not a long walk to the edge of the neon district, and from there Grandma's street is only a couple blocks over. They pause in front of a street-level bakery, Jeongguk glancing at Yoongi for approval before pulling open the door.

Yoongi nods at the girls behind the counter as he and Jeongguk head right to the back of the shop, through the curtain beside the ovens. The warm bakery colours end there, at the top of a set of concrete stairs leading down to another door. Yoongi moves in front of Jeongguk then, as the panel beside the door lights up with a scanner program. It's just simple face-rec, more to keep records than anything. The real security is at the top of the door frame, a much smaller scanner looking for police badges and government-issue stun wands.

After a green light and a beep, the lock clicks and Yoongi pushes the door open, letting Jeongguk through first.

The main room is bright and open, worktables and computers off to one side and lounge furniture on the other, with HUD screens projected on the walls running maps, code, and a police scanner. Another wide display screen takes up half of the far wall, currently asleep, with a control console in front of it stacked with computer parts. Beside that, an alcove holds shelves of tools and batteries, input cables and chargers. Closer to the door there's a holo-board for job postings and repair work, and hanging keycards for the small barracks and kitchen unit in the back. In the centre of all of it, a spherical hologram suspended from the ceiling slowly rotates, as if keeping an eye on everything.

It's really his best work. A hacker community center. Safe, secure, almost cozy, definitely illegal. Yoongi lets a bit of pride flare up as he looks around with a satisfied sigh.

"Okay, go grab a table," he tells Jeongguk, shooing him off to the lounge. "And say hello to Grandma."

"Sorry," Jeongguk says quickly, then glances meekly up at the holo-sphere. "Hi, Grandma."

"Lovely to see you, dear," it chirps back pleasantly. A second sphere flickers on beside the first and floats along the ceiling, continuing conversation with Jeongguk as it follows him over to the lounge.

Yoongi shrugs his jacket off and heads over to the worktables. It's pretty quiet today, only a few people around, plugged into the computers or wall outlets. Nowhere near how it gets at night, when most of their regulars show up with work to get done.

He spots Namjoon easily, tinkering away on something with his goggles pushed uselessly up on his forehead. He looks up with a grin when Yoongi approaches. "Hey! You found boy wonder?"

"Hanging out in the Woods, as usual," Yoongi sniffs, leaning his hip against the table. "How's Grandma?"

"Seems all good," Namjoon says, putting down the circuit board he'd been soldering. "Looks like the last update integrated properly. She's got voice-rec for every House member now."

"And she's running upkeep by herself?"

"Yeah, barely needs us anymore." Namjoon leans back in his chair with a hum. "Seems like just yesterday we were trying to rip the personality code from a service bot. Now our baby AI is all grown up and running a hacker den."

"Every parent's dream," Yoongi sighs.

"Speaking of uh, kids growing up..." Namjoon digs in the pile of scrap on the table and pulls out a small glass box, handing it to Yoongi. "Finished the casing earlier. Today's the day, huh?"

Nodding, Yoongi quickly pockets the box. "Honestly, he earned it a while ago."

"Well, you have good timing," Namjoon says, looking past him as he stands up. "Jimin got back early from tour."

"No shit?" Yoongi turns to look at Jeongguk's table across the room where two familiar faces have joined him. Smiling, he heads over with Namjoon following behind. "Neon Ballet drop you from the headlines, or what?"

Jimin looks up with a grin, reaching out to give Yoongi a one-armed hug. "You wish. That way I'd be around to bug you all the time." He pulls back to wink at him. "It was the other headliner who eloped right before the last show, unfortunately."

"Sounds nice," Taehyung says from beside him, preoccupied with ruffling Jeongguk's hair.

Jimin gives him a flat look. "If that's your way of hinting that you don't want a big wedding, you're out of luck."

Taehyung looks up with a sheepish grin, rings of his eyes whirring. The bionics shift to adjust to the light. "I'm joking. Mostly."

"How's that left one holding up?" Yoongi asks, gesturing at his own eye and watching Taehyung's track the movement.

"Great, thanks to you." Like he's showing off, the rings expand as far as they can, then contract. "All smooth since you fixed the lens."

"Just don't let Jimin get too close," Namjoon laughs, sliding into the seat across from Jeongguk. "We all remember what happened to the last guy with bionics he dated."

"I don't," Jeongguk pipes up eagerly, glancing between them.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Yoongi says, at the same time that Taehyung mumbles something about an accidental suplex.

"Enough about me," Jimin huffs, pink-faced as he shushes Taehyung and waves off Jeongguk's awed look. "Namjoon said something important was happening today, some coming of age thing? When's that?"

Yoongi makes a show of crossing his arms like he's really thinking about it, feeling Jeongguk's eyes on him the whole time. "I guess you've waited long enough," he finally sighs, and slips past the others to sit next to Jeongguk.

The other boy immediately zeroes in, looking back and forth between him and Namjoon. "Is this about my handle?" he asks, feet bouncing under the table.

"Sort of," Yoongi hums. He nods at Taehyung, who slips away to the worktables. "Randa, you wanna tell him your idea?"

"Hmm, I don't know," Namjoon says, hiding a smile at how Jeongguk pouts. "He's gotta earn it first."

Jeongguk sits up straighter, suddenly serious. "How? Whatever it is, I can do it."

Namjoon snickers, leaning back in his seat. "We'll see. Still got that Plug?"

Nodding, Jeongguk digs it out of his pocket and holds it out. Yoongi plucks it smoothly out of his hands, and before he can protest, replaces it with the glass box.

The circuit chip inside is tiny, barely an inch long. Jeongguk stares at it in awe for a few seconds before glancing up at Yoongi. "Is this--?"

Yoongi nods, barely holding back a grin. "An Implant, yeah. Happy birthday."

Jeongguk looks back at the chip, speechless for another long moment. Yoongi didn't exactly expect him to jump around with excitement, but the silence makes him a little nervous. He nudges Jeongguk's shoulder. "Surprised?"

"I-I thought you forgot," Jeongguk admits, looking sheepish as he turns the case over in his hands.

Yoongi rolls his eyes and gives him a gentle shove. "Give me some credit. I haven't built one of those in a while." He watches Jeongguk stroke his fingers over the glass for another few seconds before nudging his shoulder. "You wanna get this show on the road, or what?"

Jeongguk grins at him, wide-eyed. "Right now?"

"Sure. We're here, aren't we?" Yoongi says, tossing the old Plug on the table and beckoning Taehyung back over. "Open it up."

Taehyung deposits a handful of tools on the table and hands Yoongi a pair of thin plastic gloves, then raises an eyebrow at Jeongguk as he fumbles to unseal the case. "Need any help with installation?" he asks.

"Nah, but you can watch," Yoongi says, sliding the gloves on. "I need a connection, though. Where's that tester tablet you were updating?"

Taehyung scampers off again to find it. Namjoon leans over on his elbows, smiling at the chip cradled carefully in Jeongguk's hands. "Thought about where you're putting that yet?"

Jeongguk looks down at the Implant and back up to blink at him. "Does it matter?"

"Not really," Namjoon says with a shrug. "Yoongi won't let you put it anywhere dumb, like your forehead or something."

"And you should thank me for that," Yoongi grunts, reaching across the table to pick out a soldering pen from the pile of tools. "Anywhere shoulders-up is good. Just remember that it's permanent."

Biting his lip, Jeongguk looks warily at the Implant for another few seconds before Yoongi takes pity on him. "You've seen mine," he says, turning his head to tap the inch of metal installed on his temple. "I know a few people with theirs further back, above their ear or behind it."

"Or, if you don't want to shave the side of your head, you can do yours like mine," Namjoon says, twisting to show the back of his neck. His Implant glints near his hairline, resting at the base of his skull.

Jeongguk takes one look and nods, easing up enough to look excited again. Yoongi hides an eye roll as Jeongguk hands him the chip - he should've known he'd go for the same thing as Namjoon, what with how badly he hides his borderline hero-worship.

Taehyung chooses that moment to return with his tablet in tow, scuffed-looking with a few wires already hanging from its ports. He does his best to wipe the fingerprints off the surface before handing it over to Yoongi, who spares a longing thought for his own transparent tablet at home. "Ugh. When will you give up on this retro stuff?"

"iPads aren't that old," Taehyung huffs.

Yoongi shakes his head and puts it down on the table before turning in his seat to face Jeongguk, wriggling his hands into the gloves. "Alright, turn around, back to me. Tip your head forward."

"You're installing it right here?" Jimin asks, looking a little scandalized.

"It's pretty quick," Namjoon answers, shooting Jeongguk a reassuring smile as he follows Yoongi's directions. "Doesn't even hurt that much."

Jimin grimaces anyway. "What is it, exactly? Like a brainwave augment?"

"Not quite," Taehyung pipes up. "The Implant is a… like an add-on. For your brain. Or something."

Yoongi catches Namjoon's gaze across the table and rolls his eyes a little. Namjoon snorts and leans forward to explain. "Okay, so, any hacker can get online through their tablet, phone, watch, whatever, right? But there's only so much you can do with a program that works faster than you do, especially when you're writing your own code. This thing--" He pauses to point at the tiny chip as Yoongi holds it up. "--helps our puny human brains match pace with supercomputers."

"There's the, uh, legal version," Yoongi says, leaning over to grab a thin laser knife, "called Plugs - they're government-issue for Gridworks and bot programmers." He nods at Jeongguk's Plug resting on the table. "That's a knock-off, obviously, but it works about the same. Magnets in the sensors there, to connect with your nerves and follow them to your brain, and link it all with whatever computer you're plugged into. You ready?" he tacks on, placing his hand gently on the back of Jeongguk's neck. At his nod, Yoongi pushes up the hair on his nape and makes a small, careful cut with the laser.

"The problem is that genuine Plugs are hard to find, and knock-offs have some connection issues," Namjoon continues, voice a little quieter now that Yoongi is focusing on the installation. "So some godtier hacker cell modified the original design to make their own faster, more direct, and slightly less conspicuous version: the Implant. Instead of magnets it's got pins that go under the skin for a direct nerve connection."

Yoongi presses the Implant against the cut and, in as smooth a motion as he can manage, slides the pins on the top end under Jeongguk's skin. He tenses under Yoongi's hand but doesn't hiss or shudder, and Yoongi feels a bit of pride again. He grabs one of the tablet cables and clicks it into place against the chip, then taps the screen to start the install program.

"I'm guessing they don't come off as easily as Plugs do?" Jimin asks, sounding a bit queasy as he watches.

"No, Implants aren't really meant to come off," Namjoon laughs. "But we aren't meant to have them in the first place, so what the hell, right?”

"Spoken like a true criminal," Yoongi snorts, swapping the laser for the soldering pen. The program is up and running now, and he watches the bottom set of pins flex and attach themselves to Jeongguk's skin. "Everything's looking good," he says, pushing the tablet closer to Jeongguk. "Here, start the connection test. You can show it some common pathways to follow."

Jeongguk picks up the tablet somewhat stiffly, careful not to move his neck too much, and while he taps away at the test onscreen, Yoongi prods at the tiny circuits on the Implant's surface, making sure they're all connecting.

"Gross," Jimin says, with feeling. He turns to Taehyung with a worried expression. "You don't have one of those installed, do you?"

Taehyung shakes his head. "Even hearing about it gives me a headache. Plus my nerve stuff is already messed up because of all… this," he says, gesturing to his eyes, whirring as their rings adjust.

"If you wanted to be able to plug in, though, the prosthetic system would be a good place to start," Namjoon chimes in, sitting up a little straighter. "I'm sure I could figure out some sort of hybrid tech--"

"Done," Jeongguk interrupts, holding up the tablet. Yoongi takes it back from him to inspect the results, and can't help a triumphant laugh at the readings.

Namjoon leans eagerly across the table for a look. "That's got to be a record."

"It sure is," Yoongi says, smug. With one final check of his handiwork, he disconnects the cable and pats Jeongguk's shoulder. "You're all good. Flying colours. We'll check on it in a few days to make sure it's healing properly, but don't touch," he chides, when Jeongguk's hand immediately goes for the back of his neck. "You'll get it infected with your grimy fingers, and trust me, you do not want that."

Jeongguk drops his hands into his lap with a pout.

"I was thinking Gold," Namjoon says, getting his attention again. "For your handle. It's a little cocky, but you've got the skill to back it up." He raises an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

Yoongi snorts at the awed expression on Jeongguk's face. "I think he's going to pass out."

"Am not," Jeongguk grumbles, but it sounds a little weak.

"There's an outlet ready to go over there," Namjoon tells him, nodding at a terminal across the room. "If you wanted to take a quick test drive."

Beaming once more, Jeongguk scrambles up from the table. He gives Yoongi a questioning glance halfway out of his seat, asking permission with lethal puppy dog eyes. Yoongi waves him away with a smile.

"You get ten minutes," he calls after him, but Jeongguk is already at the terminal, unfurling the input cord from the outlet and reaching back to snap it into place on his Implant like he's been doing it for years. Jimin follows him over, looking more curious than disgusted now, to watch over his shoulder. Yoongi shakes his head fondly. "Grandma, set a timer for ten minutes."

"Yes, dear."

Taehyung gathers up Yoongi's tools from the table, hesitating for just a moment at the edge before turning back to him and Namjoon. "Hey, uh. You guys got a second?"

"That already doesn't sound good," Namjoon says with a laugh. "What's up?"

Sheepish, Taehyung puts the tools down again and picks up his tablet instead. "Well, I don't know if you guys check the forum--"

"Your hacker chatboard?" Yoongi interrupts, crossing his arms. "Not overly often, no."

Taehyung huffs at him. "It's not a-- whatever, the point is there's something going on." He heads over to the display screen projected on the wall, which flickers to life as he approaches. "Grandma, pull up the articles I saved."

Yoongi and Namjoon follow him over as the screen starts to fill with news headlines and videos, most of them recent stock dippings and corporate scandals. Yoongi recognizes a few stories from the past few months, but the majority are things he wouldn't have looked twice at. "These are all hacking cases?"

"Yeah. Someone's been busy." Taehyung points out a few specific articles on the tablet, highlighting them on the screen. "All of these ones involved massive data dumps from the companies' private servers, things that should've been behind near-impenetrable security."

"And yet here we are," Namjoon sighs, leaning closer. "I'd say it looks like an inside job, but there's too many different corporations.

Taehyung nods. "Right. Their team would have to be huge to have even one person at each of them, and too easy to trace back." He waves one corner of the screen clear and taps at his tablet again, bringing up an encrypted page that Grandma quickly unscrambles into readability. "This is a police report from a couple weeks ago. They haven't connected all of these together yet, but their working theory is a rogue hacking cell. Some kids with an anti-capitalist agenda, whatever."

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. "You don't think that's it?"

"I don't know what I think," Taehyung admits, eyes whirring when he looks up at the screen. "These guys, whoever they are, they're incredible. I got a look at the aftermath of a firewall they tore through, and it's- it's like they use these companies' own security against them. Some guys on the forum have been trying to figure out how they did it." He pulls up another police report, and a page of scrolling code over the other articles.

Namjoon gives a low whistle. "Forum's been busy, too. What is this?"

"A hypothesis, sort of. A sample of what the rogue cell might be working with." Frowning, Taehyung swipes everything else off the screen. The lines of code go by too fast for Yoongi to keep up with. "Somehow, they can get in and out of your system using your own code, and you don't notice until they've hung out all your dirty laundry on a public server."

"Just big companies and corporations?" Yoongi asks, glancing back at him.

"No, and that's why the forum is so focused on this," Taehyung says, putting his tablet down and grabbing another. "These guys doxxed a hacker, too."

Namjoon steps over to him, reading over his shoulder as he scrolls. "Recently?"

"A couple months ago. B-free, if that rings any bells. Dumped all his private servers, signatures, everything."

"I remember hearing about it," Yoongi says, tilting his head. "That was these guys? Rogue hackers?"

Taehyung gestures at the screen with one hand, the other swiping over the other tablet. "The forum thinks so. There isn't a lot of hard proof, it's more connecting the dots after the fact, but someone posted the arrest report--"

"B-free got arrested?" Namjoon cuts in, sharing a worried glance with Yoongi.

"Yeah, it was a whole thing," Taehyung says, waving him off. "He was kind of an asshole, it's fine. The point is, it was made to look like B-free had done it himself. When the cops traced it, the upload IP was his own."

Yoongi frowns at the report Taehyung pulls up on the screen. "But it wasn't him," he says, and looks back at the other two for confirmation. "Not if the IP was so easily found, that's amateur hour shit. He would've encrypted it."

"Right? And there was enough metadata to lead the cops right to his HQ." Taehyung shakes his head, tapping at his tablet again. "Even amateurs aren't dumb enough to leave the door open on their way out of a system."

Nodding along, Namjoon leans back against the table. "Either way, there was nothing left behind to suggest any other suspects. What connects this to the rogue cell?"

"Nothing," Taehyung says, glancing up again. "Except this."

The code on screen pauses and flickers, certain lines rearranging themselves into a small pixelated image and a title.

"Badwolf," Yoongi reads, frowning at the dog face drawn underneath.

"It's the only thing out of place in the last few data dumps," Taehyung sighs. "I've got some guys on the forum looking at older cases to see if it's hidden in any of those, too."

Namjoon furrows his brow at the screen. "So it's, what, a clue? A threat, or something?"

"It seems weird that they'd leave any trace of themselves after pulling off otherwise flawless jobs," Taehyung says, his eyes quietly readjusting. "I think it's a calling card."

"A handle," Yoongi hums.

"So these guys, Badwolf, they can… mimic," Namjoon says slowly. "Hacker signatures, code, whatever. And they can trick the DHCP into thinking they're somewhere - or someone - they're not." He looks around at the other two. "And no one knows who they are?"

"No idea," Taehyung huffs. "There's nothing. Even with the name, I can't find any trace of them."

The three of them each let out a long breath, quiet for a moment before Namjoon speaks up again. "So, are they anarchists, or what?"

Taehyung puts the second tablet down with a groan. "It sucks not being able to figure out who's side they're on. Or if they're even on a side. I mean, vigilante hackers are one thing when they only go after big companies or government ops, but these guys don't seem to discriminate." He gives the image on screen a dismal look. "We're still checking leads, but there's at least a few more doxxings in the past year that could've been Badwolf."

Yoongi rubs his temples. "Alright, well. Keep an eye on the forum. Grandma can help you with tracking."

"Sure, yeah," Taehyung says with a nod, already tapping away. "I'll keep you posted if more cases come up."

"And I can ask around about these guys too," Namjoon says. "Sometimes word of mouth goes further than--" He's interrupted by the low buzzing of a vibration tone, and cuts himself off to dig out his phone. He squints at the screen for a second before smiling.

"Let me guess," Yoongi says, smirking. "Seokjin?"

Namjoon ignores him. "Work's calling us in. You good to watch the House for a while?"

Taehyung nods again. "Yeah, Jimin and I will stick around."

"Make sure Jeongguk disconnects when the timer goes off," Yoongi tells him, following Namjoon when he starts towards the door. "He's gonna need aspirin for the inevitable headache. And send him home when you guys leave."

Namjoon snickers, pausing by the door for Yoongi to put his jacket on. "You're really like a mother hen with that kid."

Yoongi gives him a half-hearted glare. "And you aren't?"

"Okay, we're all soft on him," Namjoon admits with a shrug, "but with you, it's another level. He really looks up to you, you know."

"You're the one who named him just now."

"Yeah. Gold, because it matches Red."

Yoongi fumbles for a moment. He should've put that together, really, but the surprise isn't... unpleasant. He hides an unbidden smile in his collar. "We're gonna be late," he grumbles, shouldering through the doorway, but he can sense Namjoon's knowing grin all the way up the stairs.

They end up being late anyway. Seokjin is waiting in the lobby when they pass through the tall glass front doors, somehow managing to look both amiable and impatient as he waves them over. Yoongi stifles a laugh, watching Namjoon's gaze drift over his dark grey suit and abruptly back to his face as they approach.

"Hey," he greets, voice just the barest bit unsteady. "Sorry about the wait. We missed a skytrain."

"I really wish you'd just let me send a car," Seokjin sighs, straightening his cuffs. "Or, at the very least, tell me when the transit system fails you, so I don't stand around here for ten minutes trying to look like I'm not waiting."

"Good to see you, too," Yoongi says dryly. "We going upstairs, or what?"

Seokjin tuts at him, but turns with a smile to show them up the short set of frosted glass steps separating the entrance from the first floor reception. Yoongi has been in this building enough times to know his way up, but the Seokjin seems to get some enjoyment out of leading them around. He beckons them to the elevator, where the sleek white doors slide open just as they get near. Inside, the wall panels are softly backlit and a small hologram flickers to life asking for their desired floor. Seokjin dismisses it with a wave. "My office, please."

"New voice-rec?" Namjoon asks, as the elevator starts smoothly upwards.

"Just installed," Seokjin says proudly. "I took your recommendation. Ms Suran does good work."

"I'll pass along the praise," Namjoon says with a nod. "Anything else you're looking to upgrade? I know a lot of talented folks."

Seokjin gives him an amused look. "I know you do, that's the problem. They're all very good at convincing me to implement their work." He crosses his arms with a forlorn sigh. "Someone is going to talk me into digitizing the whole company one of these days, I'm sure."

Namjoon rolls his eyes. "As if anyone could ever talk you into anything."

"Aw, that's sweet," Seokjin coos, smiling at him. The elevator dings then, and he strides out as soon as the doors open, patting Namjoon's cheek as he passes. Namjoon follows the touch with his whole body before stumbling out of the elevator. Yoongi shakes his head and follows.

Seokjin's 'office' is actually a whole floor of the building. It's more of a penthouse apartment than a work space, but it does include a large personal office which Seokjin leads them into. The room is mostly empty, just one dark wood desk in the centre with a sleek desktop monitor and nothing much else, but the far wall is entirely floor to ceiling windows looking out over the city. The buildings are too crowded together to see anything familiar on the street below, but Yoongi likes the view anyway. It's definitely his favourite of all the rooms Seokjin has put them to work in.

He and Namjoon are glorified tech support, essentially, with an exclusive yet unofficial contract to Seokjin's company. They've done everything from desktop setup to mitigating DDoS crises, on nearly every floor of the skyscraper Seokjin owns. It's alright, for a part-time day job. It keeps Yoongi's rent paid, and Grandma's rent paid, and Seokjin is hardly the worst boss he's ever had - yeah, he fired the two of them when he found out about their less-than-legal backgrounds, but that was just for the official reports. If Seokjin didn't mind the risk of hiring two hackers under the table to look after his most sensitive files and records, then Yoongi certainly didn't mind getting paid for it.

Today's job, as Seokjin explains while he half-heartedly wipes down one of the windows, is encrypting the data on a few drives due to be shipped the next day. Yoongi looks at the tall stack of them and wonders if Seokjin has ever had to deal with a deadline in his life.

"There are programs that do this, you know," Namjoon says, clicking through the first drive plugged into the desktop. "In way less time. And without breaking any cyber-security laws."

"I prefer your unique touch," Seokjin sniffs, waving him off with one hand and spraying windex with the other. "A program-generated key can be program-decoded. I'd rather not have to worry." He pauses with his cloth halfway through a smudge, considering. "And what the buyers don't know won't hurt them."

Yoongi laughs, looking up from his sorted drive piles. "I swear, in another life you'd be over here with us. I can't believe you've never touched a circuit board."

"And hopefully I'll never have to," Seokjin hums. "Although I'm sure I could learn at your-- your hacking bingo centre, or whatever it is."

"We don't really offer classes," Yoongi says, starting a new pile. "Thank christ for that, honestly." Teaching Jeongguk was enough to last him a lifetime, and he was a fast learner.

Namjoon turns the desk chair around to face Seokjin, biting his lip. "If you really wanted to learn the basics," he starts, sounding generally casual, "maybe I could teach you here. A couple times a week, or something."

Yoongi coughs to hide a snicker. Seokjin doesn't notice. "You just don't want to invite me over to yours," he laughs, tossing the cloth aside. "Worried I'll turn on you and call cyber ops, is that it?"

"N-no, it's--"

"I've told you before, I don't mind your past or present illegalities," Seokjin sighs, crossing his arms. "I certainly wouldn't escort you personally to my home if I did."

"And we've told you that nosing around the lower sectors won't do you or us any good," Yoongi points out. "I don't think you want a bunch of paps asking why The Kim Seokjin is sending towncars through a hazard district."

"Ooh, I like that," Seokjin gasps in delight. "The Kim Seokjin. Maybe I'll send out a memo."

He turns back to the window and Namjoon slumps in defeat, swivelling back to the monitor. Yoongi pats his knee. Namjoon's slow-motion courtship of their boss never fails to brighten his day.

They work in silence for a few minutes, Seokjin mumbling to himself behind them, before a quiet knock makes Yoongi jump. A stranger stands in the office doorway, looking too casual to be one of the downstairs employees. Yoongi tenses up, and can tell Namjoon is feeling the same beside him - what they're doing probably doesn't look very suspicious, but the unexpected presence makes him nervous all the same. They've had run-ins with company higher-ups before, always brief but always unpleasant. Yoongi steels himself, readying his darkest glower.

Seokjin, on the other hand, crosses the room with a grin. "Finally you're awake!"

"Yeah, jetlag and I aren't on great terms," the stranger says with a sheepish look. "I just came to see if you wanted to grab dinner- or are you busy?"

"They are, I'm not," Seokjin says, waving in Yoongi and Namjoon's general direction.

The stranger peers around him with raised eyebrows, smiling when he catches Yoongi's confused gaze. "Oh, this must be your fabled tech support!" He sidesteps Seokjin to walk further into the room, grinning. "Although, I've heard there's more to it than that. Apparently you two are the only things standing between Seokjin's company and the horrors of corporate espionage."

Behind him, Seokjin rolls his eyes, but he's smiling a little too. "Boys, meet Hoseok, a dear friend. He's my guest here while he neglects his business duties elsewhere."

"My company can survive without me for a few days," Hoseok says with a sigh. He stops in front of the desk and holds out his hand to Namjoon. "Jung Hoseok. I really love your work."

Namjoon takes it somewhat warily but offers a tight smile. "Namjoon. You in the market for something like this yourself?"

Hoseok shrugs. "Nah, I don't have half as much to hide as Seokjin does."

"Hey," Seokjin whines, rushing over to cover Namjoon's ears. "Don't corrupt their image of me. I worked hard to cultivate it."

"I wouldn't worry," Yoongi says dryly, relaxing a little. It's hard to feel on edge when Namjoon's face is as red as it is.

Hoseok turns to him with an amused look and offers his hand, which Yoongi takes hesitantly. "It's good to know that Seokjin gets the respect he deserves around here," he says with a conspiratorial wink. "And you are?"

"Yoongi." He watches Hoseok's gaze drift over to his Implant and back again before he lets go. "Are you two heading out, or...?"

"I can wait," Hoseok says, eyes wandering over the drives Yoongi has scattered around. "Can I ask what you're working on? If it's not too big a secret," he adds, looking back at Seokjin, who waves him off from where he's draped over the side of Namjoon's chair.

"Just file encryption," Yoongi explains, trying and failing to make eye contact with Namjoon. His partner is apparently too busy sneaking glances at Seokjin while pretending to sort the files on the monitor. "He's writing a lockout key, I'm making sure it's unreadable in transit."

Hoseok raises an eyebrow. "Aren't there programs for that?"

"We do it better," Yoongi sniffs.

"I'm kidding. Seokjin barely talks about you guys, so you must be top notch. Most of what I've heard is business conference rumours - don't worry, they're way off," Hoseok assures him. "Most people think his tech support is one guy living in the building sub-basement."

"It's probably more luxurious down there than my actual apartment," Yoongi says wryly.

Hoseok nods in sage understanding. "Expensive, though. No rent control."

Yoongi snorts, watching him send a playful glare Seokjin's way. He definitely isn't the flat, obsequious suit he'd expected at first glance. Not that Yoongi doesn't trust Seokjin's taste in friends, but... it's nice to be proven wrong sometimes. He quickly looks away when Hoseok turns back to him.

"Well, you've definitely turned some gears," he sighs, hands in his pockets. "You think maybe I should look into a cyber security upgrade?"

"Sure," Yoongi says with a shrug. "Bots and firewalls can only get you so far. I know guys with more protection on their hard drives than some banks have on their vault."

"Yeah? I'm sure you and Namjoon have friends in... similar professions," Hoseok hums.

Yoongi hesitates before answering. The urge to brag about the House is always in the back of his mind, but he's not dumb enough to tell a stranger all about his secure location - no matter how nice his smile is. "A few, yeah," he says easily. "Maybe I could recommend someone, if you do decide to upgrade."

Hoseok grins. "That'd be great," he says, patting his pockets and suddenly frowning. "I don't have my card on me. You can probably just look me up, right? With all your, uh." He pauses, looking Yoongi up and down while he fishes for the right word. "Online prowess."

"Probably, yeah," Yoongi laughs.

Hoseok looks pleased, then bites his lip. "I don't suppose you have time to get dinner, do you?"

Yoongi blanks for a full second. "Oh, I'm-- work," he says, then winces. "I'm... working. Sorry."

"Don't be," Hoseok says quickly, shaking his head with a sheepish look. "I should've... nevermind." He glances up and smiles again, giving Yoongi another quick once over that leaves his face feeling hot. "Maybe another time?"

"Another-- uh." Yoongi is pretty sure his whole brain needs a reboot after this. "Yeah," he says without thinking, "sure, I'm--"

"Okay, I'm hungry," Seokjin announces, appearing at Hoseok's side and grabbing his arm. "Let's go eat. My presence clearly isn't needed here."

Hoseok laughs and lets himself be dragged to the door, leaving Yoongi red-faced, blinking after him. He glances down at the drives he was working with, but finds he can't remember the order he was sorting them in.

"Turn off the lights when you're done," Seokjin calls, hustling Hoseok out into the hall. "Clean up, lock the door, you know the drill. See you soon - and Namjoon," he adds, pausing to lean on the doorframe.

Namjoon looks up, startled. "Y-yes?"

"Call me later," Seokjin says, smiling at him, then disappears through the door.

Yoongi and Namjoon stare after him, silent for a long moment. They both jump when the computer beeps.

"Key's done," Namjoon says hoarsely.

"Did you just get a date?" Yoongi asks, moving closer to peer at the screen.

"No," Namjoon says. "Maybe? I'm not sure, I think I'm in shock."

"Looks like all your hard work paid off. You won't even need to do those coding lessons now." He pauses, glancing over the lockout key. "How did you even get this done? You were staring at Seokjin that whole time."

Namjoon huffs, turning a little pink. "I'm not sure how you noticed, with all the eyes you were making at Hoseok."

"Was not," Yoongi scoffs, but he keeps his gaze on the screen, willing himself not to do something dumb, like blush. He feels Namjoon's gaze boring into him for an uncomfortably silent few seconds.

"Oh my god, you were," Namjoon gasps. "I was just kidding, but you really--"

Yoongi cuts him off with a glare, but finds himself blanking on a rebuttal. Namjoon seems to be biting back a grin.

"If you laugh, I swear--"

"I'm not," Namjoon assures him, raising his hands. "I just, I can't even remember the last time you... I mean, I thought you didn't..." He makes a vague gesture. "You know."

"Yeah, well," Yoongi sniffs, looking away before Namjoon does. "Maybe I do."

"Maybe," Namjoon repeats, incredulous. "That was possibly the longest sustained eye contact I've ever seen you have with another human man. Are you actually admitting to me right now that you got flirted with? And didn't die on the spot?"

Yoongi pauses in his pretending to shuffle the drives around and shrugs, hoping it looks nonchalant. "It's not a big deal."

"You're right, it isn't," Namjoon agrees. He rolls the chair over a little closer to Yoongi and claps him gently on the shoulder. "It's just, you know. Nice. And being real, no one would believe me if I told them, anyway."

Yoongi can't help snorting at that and Namjoon grins, dropping his arm and scooting back to the desk. The next silence between them is comfortable, but quickly broken when Namjoon finds a break in his code and swears a blue streak while he and Yoongi track it down - and after that Yoongi finds things back to normal, like they were never interrupted at all.

It's late when Yoongi gets back to his apartment. He tosses his keys, phone, and still-warm takeout on the kitchen table and heads for his tablet on the counter, still tipped back against its stand where he'd left it. He taps the screen to wake it up. "Call Jeongguk."

The video calling app starts up at his command. He digs out utensils and unwraps the takeout box while the line rings, settling with his hip against the counter when it connects.

Jeongguk appears on screen, rubbing his eyes in dim lamplight. "Hey."

"Hi," Yoongi greets, stirring the box's contents around. "Did I wake you up?"

Yawning, Jeongguk shakes his head. "No, I just got into bed."

"Okay. Just checking you got home alright."

"I'm at Jimin's. He let me stay over." He tugs a pillow into the frame and props himself up on it. "How was work?"

Yoongi shrugs, setting the box down on the counter. "Same old. We met one of Seokjin's friends, though. Nice enough guy, really curious about what we were doing." He catches himself starting to smile just thinking about it, and schools his face into a neutral expression. "He was... interesting."

Jeongguk hums. "Good interesting or bad interesting?"

"Good, I guess. He was nice."

"You said that already." Jeongguk gives him a suspicious look. Yoongi quickly changes the subject.

"How's your neck feeling?"

"It hurts," Jeongguk whines, reaching for the Implant automatically, but he pauses halfway, glancing at Yoongi and jerkily forcing his hand down. "Taehyung said the pins looks fine, but it's itchy."

Yoongi grimaces in sympathy. "Give it a couple days. It'll feel better when the swelling goes down. Have you plugged into anything else?"

Jeongguk shakes his head glumly. "Not yet."

"Good," Yoongi says, crossing his arms. "If you come by Grandma's tomorrow, we can do some more calibration, and maybe another half hour at the terminal."

"That's all?" Jeongguk groans. "I could do longer."

"You probably could, but we're gonna play it safe," Yoongi insists. "You'll get plenty of use out of it later, trust me. Let's just take it one day at a time."

"Why? I'll be careful, I know it can be dangerous--"

"Do you?" Yoongi cuts him off. "Have you seen what an Implant can do if it shorts out? Or overheats?"

Jeongguk glares at him, pouting. "I won't overheat it. I'm not dumb."

"I know you're not," Yoongi sighs.

"It's just-- it's annoying to have it and feels like I'm not even allowed to use it," Jeongguk huffs.

Yoongi waits until Jeongguk looks up before he speaks again. "I need you to understand that it's not some cool party trick augment," he says, holding his gaze as well as he can through the camera. "It really is dangerous, especially with extended use. You can give yourself nerve damage, or brain damage, or both--" He cuts himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, you spent half the summer at the arcade. Doing things in moderation isn't exactly your style. But seriously, give your brain time to get used to it. It'll all be worth it in a few weeks."

Jeongguk lets out a resigned sigh. "I know."

"And remember, you don't need Implant assistance for everything just because you have one now."

"I know," Jeongguk grumbles, and Yoongi can almost hear his eye-roll. "I did everything without it before. I'm not gonna suddenly forget how to write code on my own."

"You better not," Yoongi laughs. "Anyway, you should sleep. We can talk more about this tomorrow." Jeongguk looks ready to protest that too, but Yoongi is prepared. "Hey, make sure you're keeping the incision clean, alright? Jimin should have antiseptic--"

Jeongguk yawns exaggeratedly, cutting off his nagging. "Uh-huh, okay, goodnight, see you tomorrow!" He disconnects before Yoongi can get another word in. Yoongi snickers to himself and turns around to clean up.

He takes his dinner to his bedroom where his PC is waiting, all three monitors turned to spacey screensavers. They wake up when he sits down in front of them, takeout box in his lap as he tugs his keyboard closer and looks over what he'd left open on the screens. One is a coding window, cursor still blinking where he'd left off, and next to it is the encoded police scanner he keeps running in the background. The third screen has just his normal internet browser. He gets halfway through typing Hoseok's name in the search bar before he realizes what he's doing.

Hoseok probably wasn't being serious when he told Yoongi to look him up - or was he? Doing a deep web search would be easy, he's already halfway there, but...

Yoongi stares at the blinking cursor for a few seconds, then slams the backspace key with a sigh. It feels too easy, almost invasive. Besides, everything that's online is probably stuff Hoseok could tell him himself when they see each other again.

If they see each other again, his rational brain points out, but it's too late. His stomach already feels gross and fluttery and he's pretty sure his face is getting warm again. He grimaces at himself, forcing a full-body shiver to shake the feeling off. Namjoon's talk about feelings must've gotten to him.

Pushing every mention of Hoseok out of his mind, Yoongi closes the search tab. He's definitely red-faced now, but he reaches for his headphones, ready to distract himself with work until he's too tired to think. In a couple days he probably won't even remember Hoseok's name, let alone what his smile looked like.

He catches his gaze wandering back over to the browser window three times before he gives up and turns the whole third monitor off. Whatever this is, Yoongi thinks, turning up his headphones' volume until it almost hurts, it's definitely Namjoon's fault. He shakes his head one more time and hunkers down to get to work.

He gets into Grandma's early the next day, slipping through the door before noon for once. He's surprised to see Jeongguk there already, sitting at a worktable with Jimin. Yoongi heads over, nodding at a few other familiar faces including Taehyung, who waves at him before hunching back over his tablet in the lounge.

Jimin sees him coming and waves, shifting over to make room. Yoongi smiles and ruffles Jeongguk's hair as he passes behind him. "Trying to talk Jimin into letting you plug in?" he muses, getting a halfhearted glare in return. "I thought you were hanging out with Yugyeom and them today."

"The arcade had another power surge," Jeongguk grumbles, fixing his bangs with a scowl. "All the cabinets are off until tomorrow."

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. "Again? Hunter really needs to get Gridworks to come around."

"Those surges have been happening there since we were kids," Jimin points out. "The power grid is probably older than we are."

"A shut-off every now and again is normal, but every couple weeks?" Yoongi shakes his head. "I don't know, it seems weird."

Jimin shrugs. "I guess. Hunter must not be that worried about it if he's okay with losing an entire day of business, though."

"Well he's old, too," Jeongguk huffs. "I don't think he cares."

"He usually doesn't, unless its about money," Yoongi says, considering. "Maybe I'll come by and check out the grid--"

"No," Jeongguk says quickly. Jimin and Yoongi both turn to him in surprise. "Since you picked me up the other day, the others won't stop asking me about you," he explains, exasperated. "If you come by again it'll get worse. Jackson already asked me for your number."

Jimin laughs at that. Yoongi grimaces. "Okay, maybe not. But you keep an eye on things, alright? Let me know if anything changes."

Jeongguk nods, looking relieved.

Taehyung joins them then, with Namjoon in tow. "We got some updates, if you're not busy," he says, eyes whirring as he glances around the worktable.

"Yeah, just a sec." Yoongi turns to Jimin as he stands up. "Can you get a terminal set up for plugging in?"

Jimin nods and heads off, making Jeongguk perk up excitedly. Yoongi fixes him with a serious look. "Thirty minutes."

"Forty-five?" Jeongguk tries, nothing if not consistent.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "Thirty-five. And don't try to finagle Jimin into anything."

Jeongguk accepts the small victory with a grin and leans over the table, staring down the terminal across the room as it boots up. Yoongi shakes his head fondly before turning to follow Namjoon and Taehyung as they head to the display screen. Grandma floats silently along the ceiling after them.

"So, updates," Namjoon says, stopping beside the console. "On which front?"

"More stuff from the forum," Taehyung says, glancing up as the screen flickers on. "Everyone's really getting into it. You remember how most of the cases were corporate leaks?"

Yoongi nods. "Scandals and that, data dumps, yeah."

"Okay, check this out." Taehyung taps at his tablet screen. "Grandma, pull up the report I was looking at earlier."

"Say please," she chirps.

Yoongi stops short and turns around to give the holo-sphere a weird look. Beside him, Namjoon does the same. "I didn't know you added more manners protocol," he says, glancing at Yoongi with raised eyebrows.

Yoongi shakes his head. "I didn't."

Taehyung's amused expression turns to confusion. "Then how did she--?"

"Did you or anyone else disrupt the AI update last night?" Namjoon asks over him, voice hard. "Did you change any settings?"

"What? No, I-I don't even have access," Taehyung stammers, clutching his tablet to his chest. "None of us do, only you and Yoongi."

The rest of the room has gone quiet at their raised voices, looking at them warily. Yoongi watches the holo-sphere turn slowly around and stop, like it's staring back at him. "Shut it off," he orders, looking back at Namjoon. "And scatter. Everyone out."

The whole room seems to erupt into panic and movement. Taehyung starts toward the door to show people out while Namjoon heads over to the terminals across the room, already unfurling an input cord. Yoongi gives Grandma one final look and turns away, hurrying to the console by the display screen. He pauses when Jeongguk catches his arm. "What's happening?" he asks, looking fearfully around.

"I'm not sure, maybe a breach," Yoongi quickly explains. "You need to go."

"But--"

"Now," Yoongi cuts him off, steering him towards the door where the others are being shepherded out. "Go with Taehyung, he'll take you home."

"I want to help," Jeongguk insists.

Yoongi can't help a smile at his defiant look. "Then help by getting somewhere safe," he says, squeezing his shoulder before sending him off. He watches until Jeongguk starts up the stairs, then heads back to the console.

The rest of the House clears out quickly, and Yoongi is halfway through locking down the doors when Namjoon completes the shutdown. Grandma's voice crackles as the holo-sphere flickers out, and Yoongi breathes a sigh of relief. "We're good," he calls, engaging the final lock. "You alright?"

"Kind of stressed, but yeah," Namjoon groans. Yoongi joins him at the terminal, glancing at the cord connected to his Implant, trailing down over his shoulder to an input beside the monitor. On screen, the AI program code scrolls past in waves, too fast for Yoongi to decipher without plugging in himself.

"Nothing seems out of place here," Namjoon says, hands poised over the keyboard. "I found the dialogue change, but not the new protocol that implemented it - if that's even what it was."

"What else could it be?" Yoongi asks, leaning closer.

"I don't know. I thought maybe a remote takeover, but we've had safeguards for that since her first draft," Namjoon says. "Same with DDoS, and that's even less likely."

Yoongi hums. "Could it have been manual? Someone messing with the update, like you said?"

"No, Taehyung was right. No one has access except us."

"And yet."

"And yet," Namjoon agrees, then sighs. "It's just scary, I guess. Grandma was one of the first things we coded together."

"Well, the first functional thing, anyway," Yoongi snorts.

Namjoon smiles a little. "I just never thought about having to pull the plug. And if we don't find the culprit here..." He trails off, shaking his head. "I really don't know, Yoongi. I can't see anything. Maybe it was a temporary subjugation."

Yoongi furrows his brow. "What, just in for a one-liner and out again? What's the point?"

"Intimidation, maybe? I don't know, there's no trace of--" Namjoon cuts himself off, typing something that makes the code freeze on screen. "Huh."

"What is it?" Yoongi asks, leaning in again. Namjoon highlights a section of code and frowns at it. "Is that the protocol?"

"No, it's... gibberish," Namjoon says slowly. "I'm not sure what it's doing here. It's just hanging off the end of another code phrase."

Yoongi squints at the screen. "Weird. I feel like I've seen that line somewhere before."

"I'll take it out and do a search," Namjoon says, but the code suddenly starts scrolling again, the highlighted line repeating over and over. Namjoon immediately reaches for his Implant, ready to yank the cord out, but hesitates. "Is that--?"

Yoongi watches tensely as the lines make their way down the screen, skipping over spaces to create a picture out of broken code. "It's a dog."

Underneath it, three more lines scroll out, not gibberish or code phrases. "'What big eyes you have'," Yoongi reads. "'All the better to see you with! Love, Badwolf'."

They both stare at it for a moment, then at each other. Namjoon disconnects the input cord from his Implant and looks at it again, like he's making sure it's really there. "Well, that's not good."

"A rogue hacking cell breaking into our AI and leaving a creepy hidden message?" Yoongi scoffs, crossing his arms to keep from pacing nervously. "No, not great."

"Well, it could be worse, right?" Namjoon points out. "Could be a rogue hacking cell we haven't heard of."

"Yeah, instead it's the one we've been casually investigating. Awesome."

"I still don't know what their objective was, though," Namjoon sighs, leaning back in his chair. "Other than the edited dialogue, there wasn't anything else out of place in the program. They didn't leave bugs or a virus, no doors left open, nothing." He stares back at the message, biting his lip. "It's like they just wanted our attention."

"Well, they got it," Yoongi grumbles, following his gaze. "How much of the program did their message overwrite?"

"Not much," Namjoon says. "We have backups. I might redo it, just to be safe."

Yoongi lets out a long breath, turning to look around the empty room. "How long until we can open again?"

"A couple days at least?" Namjoon guesses, already typing away again. "I want to make sure Badwolf didn't change any other dialogue presets, and check the backups to see if we can pinpoint a time frame. Maybe double-check member permissions, too."

"Alright, I'll get the word out," Yoongi says, shaking himself off as he heads for the other computers. "You call Seokjin and tell him we need the weekend off."

"And the day after, to sleep," Namjoon agrees. He digs his phone out and stands up to stretch. "The kitchen still has NOS, right?"

Yoongi glances back at him, eyebrows raised. "I should hope so, considering how much room you make for it in the budget."

"At four A.M you'll thank me for that," Namjoon calls after him, and Yoongi smiles to himself as he sits down at a monitor. Namjoon was right about one thing at least - it definitely could be worse.

Namjoon ends up kicking him out before three, in the gentle way that he does when he can tell someone needs a nap. Yoongi knows he can hold down the fort, and they got the hard stuff out of the way already anyway, so he heads home with only minimal grumbling.

He gets through cleaning up and getting ready for bed mostly on autopilot, too worn out to do much else, so it takes him a few minutes to notice anything amiss. He's about to turn out the lights and climb into bed when he catches sight of his PC in the corner of his room and pauses, staring at it. All three monitors are on, displaying his desktop instead of the screensaver that should've come on hours ago. He walks over, rubbing his eyes, but when he sits down in front of the keyboard the screens haven't changed. Closer now, Yoongi can see something blinking on the middle screen, a minimized window flashing with a notification. Too tired to think critically, he clicks on it.

The window that pops up takes over the whole screen with what looks like a retro chatroom app, something Yoongi hasn't seen or used for at least ten years. The chat doesn't have a title but it does have a 2 near the top, showing that Yoongi isn't alone. Just as dread starts to creep up on him, a message appears.

BADWOLF says
> hi :D

Yoongi blinks at it. This can't really be happening, can it? He looks down at the keyboard, running through command prompts in his head.

RED says
> cmd: taskkill

Nothing happens. The chatroom stays up, and Badwolf is typing again. Yoongi starts feeling a little panicked.

BADWOLF says
> that's rude!

RED says
> cmd: taskkill /F /IM
> cmd: taskkill /All

BADWOLF says
> aren't u going to say hi back

RED says
> cmd: taskkill /FI "MODULES eq BADWOLF*" /F

BADWOLF says
> come on :(

RED says
> cmd: shutdown -s -r -m \\BADWOLF

BADWOLF says
> cmd: reg add "HKCU\Software\RED\Tab\Current\System" /t RED_User /v DisableAll /F

Suddenly the other two monitors go dark, and when Yoongi tries to type again the keyboard is unresponsive. His mouse too, and even the monitor's off button doesn't do anything. Yoongi sits back in frustrated awe. Badwolf somehow remotely locked him out of his own system.

He'll have to shut it down somehow, all of it.

BADWOLF says
> are u paying attention now?

Yoongi pauses halfway to his feet, watching the typing bubble warily before another message appears.

> i rly thought u would prefer this over meeting in person lol
> either way i have a job for u :) lets talk abt it!
> https://@47.605069,-122.3334832,3a,75y,59.47h,104.88t/...

The cursor moves to hover over the link, and a map preview pops up. Badwolf apparently wants to meet up without screens between them. "Yeah, right," Yoongi huffs, reaching for the mouse again before remembering it's locked.

BADWOLF says
> i know u might be on the fence so
> just in case, here's something 2 think about

Before Yoongi can start to wonder if Badwolf somehow put a camera in his apartment, an image pops up in the chat, low res at first but slowly coming into focus. It's of the House, the inside, which is concerning enough, but the high angle means it was ripped from Grandma's security feeds. Yoongi's stomach drops when he recognizes Jeongguk in the image, hunched over a worktable like he was earlier in the day. It must be from right before Grandma glitched out - he can see Taehyung at the edge of the frame, and a few others beyond Jeongguk, not as focal but still recognizable.

If Badwolf has this, they must have the rest of the feed, at least 24 hours of it if not more - and if they could get that far, they probably have the rest of the files Grandma holds onto. Face and voice-rec for every House member. Enough to doxx all of them. All the better to see you with!

Cursing, Yoongi gets up and throws himself down the hall. The breaker he installed is hidden in the front closet, but enough practice resetting lets him find the master switch without looking. He yanks it down with a heavy clunk and catches his breath in the dark. The absence of humming lights and machinery makes the sudden silence seem to roar in his ears. He waits a few minutes before turning all the manual switches off one by one, then flips the master back on. He decides to give everything a bit of cool down before doing a full reset.

The hallway is pitch dark when he heads back to his room, listening to the static settling. Blackmail really wasn't on the list of things he was expecting today, but maybe after Grandma's glitch he should've seen it coming. There is one upside, he supposes, not counting the fact that Badwolf apparently hasn't gone to the police as of yet : in the chat, Badwolf used I, not we. The thought of a single hacker pulling off what Badwolf has is still ridiculous, but something makes Yoongi sure that it really is just one person alone. Besides, he doesn't think a hacker cell with an agenda would be so... cordial with their extortion.

He pauses by his bedroom door, giving a puzzled look to the dim light flooding out into the hall. Did something turn itself back on when he flipped the master switch? He peers cautiously through the doorway and squints at the glare coming from his computer - one screen is still on, displaying something on a blindingly white background. Carefully slow, he steps closer to read the words.

SEE U TOMORROW! it says, signed with a familiar pixelated dog face. Below that is the map link again. Yoongi glares at it and unplugs the monitor.

He sits down in front of the dark screens with a sigh and picks up his phone. He should probably call Namjoon. or Taehyung. or Seokjin, even - someone should know that his whole PC system was compromised, and that the local mystery hacker contacted him with a job offer.

Whenever he imagines explaining it, though, his annoyance and humiliation win out.

Scowling, he tosses his phone on the bed and faces the screens again. Tonight he'll rebuild his firewalls from scratch, and clear out any trace the hack left behind. And tomorrow, he'll meet Badwolf.

The map coordinates lead him to a street corner café, not in a great part of town but close enough to the business district that Yoongi keeps his hood up and head down. The last thing he needs is some uppity suit getting a glimpse of his Implant and calling cyber ops - although, meeting Badwolf could potentially result in the same thing.

He spares a thought for the stun baton designs Namjoon made him trash a few months ago. He can't help feeling like he should've prepared something for meeting a literal wanted criminal. Some quiet part of his brain reminds him that he, too, is technically a wanted criminal. They're on even footing, really. The thought doesn't make him feel any better.

The café looks unassuming when it comes into view, safe and pleasant in plain daylight. A glass storefront with holo-signs projecting menus and coffee slogans, plus a few tables and chairs set up outside, empty but for one person sitting alone. As Yoongi gets closer he's surprised to find that he recognizes them.

"Hoseok," he calls, before he can stop himself. He looks around for anyone who might be watching, but the corner is quiet, and he hurries over to the table.

Hoseok grins as he gets closer. "Hey, how are you?"

"What are you doing here?" Yoongi asks, resisting the urge to physically shoo him away from the café.

"Well, right now I'm waiting to see if this is the type of place that comes outside to take your order," Hoseok says, twisting in his chair to peer through the café windows. "It's not looking good."

Yoongi holds back an impatient huff. "Listen, there's, uh. There's something going down here later," he says, taking another careful glance around. "You might want to clear out."

"Really?" Hoseok turns back to face him, frowning. "I chose this place specifically because it seemed like somewhere things don't go down."

"Yeah, well--"

"You can sit, you know." He gestures to the chair across from him.

"No, thanks. I'm, uh." Yoongi pauses, furrowing his brow. "I'm... meeting someone."

Hoseok smirks up at him. "Aw, you made different plans since last night?"

Yoongi stares at him for a moment, watching the smile spread across his face like he can see the dots connecting in Yoongi's mind. "It's you."

"Not who you were expecting?" Hoseok laughs. "I thought about trying to look the part, but figured that's your schtick. Case in point: can you pull your hood down?"

Yoongi, stubbornly, does not. He sits, but at the edge of the chair, ready to bolt if needed.

Hoseok doesn't seem bothered, folding his hands in his lap. "So, you probably have some questions. First, how did I find you, right?" He looks across the table for confirmation.

Yoongi narrows his eyes, keeping his mouth shut. Hoseok nods understandingly. "Well, after we met, I was curious. I looked you up, only to find that there wasn't much to find. A little suspicious, but not out of the ordinary for hackers. Most people would stop there," he admits, rubbing his chin, "but by then I was like, really curious. Tapping some local channels got me a few mentions of this communal hideout, people just calling it 'Grandma's'. I'll be honest, at first I thought a bunch of hackers were swindling an old lady out of her family business, but a little digging found that wasn't the case. And a little more found Red." He looks at Yoongi and tilts his head, smiling like they're sharing a joke. "His coding signature's pretty similar to yours."

Yoongi thinks back to the photo that Badwolf - Hoseok - had sent him. If it took barely two days for him to find Yoongi out, then he probably knows all the others' handles, too. But why hasn't he done anything with them?

"Second question: what do I want?" Hoseok continues. "Like I said, I have a job offer. I'm sure you know how many multi-million dollar corporations have branches in this city, and how some of them, in the interest of security, store all their files and records in datavaults, which are supposed to be uncrackable." He rolls his eyes. "However, as you may have already guessed from context clues, they aren't."

"You want me to break into a corporate datavault?" Yoongi asks, too incredulous to stay quiet.

"Of course not," Hoseok scoffs, leaning across the table. "I want us to break into a corporate datavault."

Yoongi barely manages not to gape at him. "Why?"

"The pharmaceutical company that owns the vault has been knowingly overcharging customers on life-savings drugs for years," Hoseok explains, serious now. "No one's been able to prove it. We can."

"By, what, leaking their servers?" Yoongi asks, doubtful. "You have to get into them first. Security isn't exactly lax around stuff like that, it's all bot-controlled. I heard the firewall is self-repairing, too."

"Luckily for us, I recently found a loose brick," Hoseok says loftily. "But if I make too much noise around it the system will catch on, pinpoint it and fix itself. I need an extra pair of hands to speed things up." He turns to Yoongi with a smile. "That's where you come in, if you're interested."

Yoongi frowns at him for a moment. "Why me?" he asks carefully. "If you looked up the House, then you know it's not just me running it."

"Oh, question three already," Hoseok says, looking impressed. Yoongi ignores him.

"You met Namjoon the same time you met me. He and I are on the same level. There's no way you could've missed that."

"Well, skill wasn't the only thing I took into consideration," Hoseok tells him, waving a hand like it's obvious. "Yeah, you two both know your way around the web, you can both crack a program, you can both code a robot. But Namjoon is arguably closer to Seokjin."

Yoongi furrows his brow. "What's that have to do with anything?"

"It's an important connection," Hoseok explains, leaning back in his chair. "It's something he thinks about when he's making decisions. There's a line I'm sure you both have, some threshold you told yourselves you won't cross - your whole livelihood comes from breaking rules, so you have to make some new ones, right?"

Grudgingly, Yoongi nods. Hoseok smiles and goes on. "Seokjin keeps Namjoon firmly on this side of the line. But I think you're willing to step over it."

Yoongi gives him a wry look. "So you chose me because I'm, what, disorderly? Unattached?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that," Hoseok tuts, frowning. "It was that photo that got you to come out here, right? With the boy in it." He tilts his head. "What's his name?"

Yoongi bristles. "Look, he's just a kid--"

Hoseok holds up his hands, apologetic. "Ah, okay, listen, before you freak out - I wiped everything I got from your watchdog robot. All of it." Yoongi narrows his eyes, skeptical. Hoseok gives him a sheepish look. "I know I can't exactly prove it, but... I didn't come here to blackmail you, alright? I came for your help."

Gritting his teeth, Yoongi looks down at the table. Wary as he his, he can feel some part of him already agreeing with Hoseok, believing him. They're on the same side, aren't they?

"What's in it for me?" he says eventually.

Hoseok smiles, infuriatingly, like he's won. "Well, I can pay you for your services, obviously. I'll match Seokjin's rate, or whatever. Or I can help you relocate, get a new robot--"

"No," Yoongi says quickly. "She's-- we'll handle that."

Hoseok gives him a curious look, then shrugs. "Hard cash it is then. If you're in, that is."

Yoongi lets out a long breath, annoyed with himself for even sitting down in the first place - but he can already feel himself forgiving Hoseok for all of this. Something about him makes Yoongi want to push past all the warning signs without looking back. "I'm in."

"Great." Hoseok holds out his hand like he did in Seokjin's office, grinning widely. Yoongi gives his palm a long look, wondering if taking it then was what led to this. A foregone conclusion.

He shakes on it anyway.

"I'll send you the time and place," Hoseok says as he lets go. He pulls out a small card from his jacket and slides it across the table. "My number. You'll have to text me first."

Yoongi takes it, smirking - it really is just a phone number printed on cardstock, not even a QR code or business website along with it. "You're not gonna break into my phone?"

Hoseok gives him a blank look. "Do you want me to?"

He's probably joking, but Yoongi curls his hand around his phone in his pocket, just in case.

Abruptly, Hoseok stands up from the table and dusts himself off. "Alright, well, I'll see you."

"What- wait," Yoongi calls, stopping him mid-step. "Hey, before any of this, we have to actually get inside the vault. Like, physically."

"Oh," Hoseok says, after a pause. "Yeah, I've got that covered."

Yoongi gives him a skeptical look, but he doesn't elaborate. "Just trust me," he says, smiling as he starts away again. "And don't forget to text! I'll be waiting by the phone!"

Yoongi watches until he turns to head for the corner crosswalk, then stands up with a grumble. He notices with a start that there seems to suddenly be more people around, even taking up the other tables. He squints across the street for another glimpse of Hoseok, but he's disappeared into the afternoon foot traffic.

Sighing, Yoongi looks down at the card in his hands. He probably could've believed this whole meeting was a sleep-deprived hallucination, if not for it. He smooth his thumb over the numbers, just for a moment, then shoves it in his pocket and starts back the way he came.

It's not until later, after another long late-night reprogramming gauntlet at Grandma's, that Yoongi slumps onto his couch and looks at the number again. It feels weird entering it in his phone, even weirder making a new contact with Hoseok's name - he considers putting him under a codename instead, but figures that's even more suspicious.

Hey, he types out, then deletes it, then types it again and sends it before he can reconsider. He tosses his phone across the couch with a huff. This is exactly why he prefers video calls.

Hoseok apparently wasn't kidding about waiting up, because Yoongi's phone chimes only a few seconds later, and he fumbles to grab it again. The reply is short and to the point, not even bothering with a return greeting, just the location of the datavault building and their meeting time. The date Hoseok has chosen is sooner than Yoongi expected though, only two days away. Is that enough prep time? he asks - surely it takes longer than that to plan a whole vault cracking.

Hoseok's response is as quick as the first. It's all taken care of, the message assures him. All you have to do is show up.

Yoongi sighs at it. Seems like his only choice is counting on Hoseok to keep his word.

He's sort of relieved to see that Hoseok texts like a normal person, though. His messages are nothing like what he was like in the makeshift chatroom - but of course Hoseok ruins the illusion a second later, sending a sparkly IT'S A DATE! sticker that takes up Yoongi's entire screen. He closes the message and tries to talk himself out of blocking Hoseok's number.

Two days gives Yoongi time to finish getting Grandma back up and running, but not much to craft a cover story with. He texts Namjoon the morning of, claiming a headache and bowing out of their call to Seokjin's office. Namjoon sends back a soup recipe, telling him to enjoy his sleep in - Yoongi feels bad for lying, but he knows Namjoon is probably rejoicing at the chance to have some one-on-one time with Seokjin, so they're probably even.

He skytrains to the business district, blending in as much as he can with most of the other commuters wearing suits, and ends up outside the vault building with a few minutes to spare. It looks the same as all the other skyscrapers on the block, but Yoongi supposes that's the point. No one is supposed to know about datavaults except the people keeping their files inside.

Slowing his pace, Yoongi spots Hoseok through the glass of the front doors. He's talking with two men in the lobby, both wearing security badges on their lapels. They're also both smiling, but Yoongi is still wary about walking right in. Luckily, Hoseok catches his eye and hurries to meet him at the door.

"Morning," he greets, holding it open for Yoongi to enter. "Sorry about that, I just finished doing a tour. You ready to go?"

Yoongi steps inside, bewildered. "They gave you a tour?"

"Yeah! Weird what people will do for you when you're a young, successful CEO from out of town, huh?" Hoseok grins as he leads Yoongi through the lobby, waving at the security men on their way past. "I mean, paying them off probably helped, but that's beside the point."

Yoongi follows him into an elevator, shaking his head in either awe or disgust, he's not sure which. Hoseok folds his hands behind his back as they rise a few floors, humming along with the elevator music. His nice Corporate Smile reminds Yoongi of when they had met, and he glances at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to reconcile that first impression with whoever he knows Badwolf to be.

"When we met at Seokjin's office," Yoongi starts, as the elevator doors slide open, "were you really just there as a guest? Or was it some elaborate ruse to get close to his personal files?" He steps out into the hall, looking both ways down the corridor. "You said yourself that he has things to hide. Were you going to find them and leak them, like we're doing now?"

"No way," Hoseok laughs. "I'd never try to pull something like this on Seokjin, are you joking? Nah, that time I was just visiting a friend."

"And recruiting for this?" Yoongi asks, raising an eyebrow.

It earns him a playful glare. "Maybe," Hoseok says, then turns an abrupt corner and leaves Yoongi to catch up.

Down another short corridor and around another corner, Yoongi follows Hoseok through the building until they reach a room full of computer cubicles, all screens reflecting the company logo. Hoseok leads him past a few rows to the far side of the room where there's an alcove and a steel door marked DATA CENTRE, with a keypad beside the handle.

Yoongi isn't sure what he expected, but something about the identical stations and narrow spaces between cubicles makes him uneasy. Maybe it's just the breaking-and-entering getting to him.

"Do you have any sort of contingency plan here?" he asks, glancing around as Hoseok taps at the keypad on the door.

After a moment of beeping, the lock clicks and Hoseok pulls the door open, frowning at Yoongi as he holds it for him to pass through. "For what?"

"For if we get caught," Yoongi says, slipping past him and into the dark room. There are servers taking up both walls, illuminating the space with a soft blue glow. "If someone walks in while we're doing this."

"Oh. Well, my go-to is usually the good ol' 'I got lost trying to find the bathroom' routine," Hoseok explains, skimming one hand along the closest terminal and bringing its darkened screen to life. "But it's not as convincing when there's two of us, unless it's like, 'we got lost trying to find somewhere to make out'." He turns to glance at Yoongi, waggling his eyebrows. "If you're into that."

Before Yoongi can splutter out an affronted response, Hoseok hands him an input cable and moves onto the next terminal, turning on another screen and unfurling a second cord. "Go ahead and plug in," he says, serious now. "I'll give you a signal."

Yoongi does, seething just a little. He finds the terminal's pull-out keyboard while his Implant initializes, and glances at Hoseok to see if he's ready. Instead he catches him pulling the input cord up, not yet plugged in. It clicks into place just behind his ear, where Yoongi can see just the barest glint of metal.

Somehow, knowing where Hoseok's Implant is feels... intimate, like he should look away - but he shoves that thought out of his mind when Hoseok catches his gaze.

"Ready?" he asks, waiting for Yoongi's hesitant nod. "Let's go."

It ends up being unexpectedly straightforward. The small window of time they have makes things a little tricky, especially when a security bot catches on - "I've got it," Yoongi says, opening another breach in its path. He goes through the bot's program as it pauses to work, disabling every command he can find.

Hoseok whistles in appreciation. "Pretty good."

"That's nothing," Yoongi scoffs. It doesn't take much to write a new section reversing the patching directive, and when he backs out of its program the bot starts widening the breach instead. "There. Got you some help."

Beside him, Hoseok snickers, shaking his head. "I knew you'd be great at this."

Even as annoyed as Hoseok's smug tone makes him, Yoongi still feels his stomach flutter at the praise. He blames it on the stress and forces his gaze back onto his screen.

Hoseok tears through the firewall like it's easy, and from there, it's almost comically simple to find what they came for in the layers and layers of data. Yoongi parses their select few files from the server and backs out the way he came, while Hoseok covers all their tracks with the bot's signature. Yoongi is sure he leaves his dumb dog face somewhere in there too, but can't even bring himself to be annoyed, too distracted by the exhilaration of success.

He catches himself grinning when he unplugs. He tries to get it under control as he hands over the drive full of copied files, but Hoseok's matching expression tells him he didn't quite manage it. Somehow, he still doesn't mind.

They're both quiet on the way back down the elevator, but Yoongi sneaks another few glances at Hoseok, trying at first to get a glimpse of his Implant, and then catching on his soft, contented smile. Yoongi really didn't expect to call the whole experience anything close to a good time - and he still feels a little weird about the first few steps - but he hasn't felt a thrill like that in a while. Hoseok seems to know it, too. That thought starts him on the slow descent down from his exhilarated high.

Once they're outside, he half-expects Hoseok to invite him to dinner again, but instead he just claps Yoongi on the shoulder with a satisfied sigh. "Feels good, don't it?"

Yoongi shrugs him off, still trying to bring himself back down. "It'll feel better once you pay me."

"It's already in your account," Hoseok says, grinning. He moves towards the curb and a car pulls up, almost as if he beckoned it. He opens the back door and turns to raise an eyebrow at Yoongi. "So, same time next week? That's a joke," he adds, when Yoongi starts to glare at him.

"This... isn't going to turn into a regular outing," Yoongi says, half a question. "This was definitely a one-time thing."

"Sure," Hoseok says with a shrug, then smiles at him, soft and earnest. "But you had fun, right?"

He gets in the car before Yoongi can respond, leaving him red-faced on the curb outside the vault building. Yoongi fumes about it all the way back to the train station.

(He gives in to his curiosity halfway back to the neon district and checks his bank balance on his phone, and sure enough the payment is there. Yoongi wonders for a moment how Hoseok had gotten his account number, then decides he doesn't really want to know.)

It's been a long few days, but with Grandma finally back online and running smoothly again, it's almost time to reopen the House. Namjoon insists that they deserve one more night to unwind after all their hard work, and Yoongi really doesn't need much convincing.

Their usual niche, Cendrillon, is open all night. Taehyung and Jimin meet them there, with Jeongguk tagging along out of what he says is boredom but is probably just an excuse to wheedle at them for more plug-in time. Yoongi doesn't terribly mind; he's missed Jeongguk's presence the last few days, having been either too busy or too tired to call. At least there was one upside to Grandma's glitching out - it forced Jeongguk to follow Yoongi's instruction and give his Implant time to heal. It's no surprise that he's nearly jittering with eagerness to plug in again.

"A toast," Namjoon announces, depositing a round of drinks at their table and raising his own glass. "To somehow avoiding most of a crisis that could've screwed us all."

"To Grandma," Yoongi adds. "Rest in peace, version three-six."

"Long live version four," Taehyung says somberly, and downs half his drink in one sip.

Jeongguk looks thoughtful, chewing on the end of his straw - his glass is a lemonade, Namjoon made sure. "Do you think they'll do it again? Badwolf, I mean."

"They can try," Namjoon scoffs. "Grandma's security is probably tighter than mine, now."

"They've never gone for the same place twice before," Taehyung points out, then frowns. "But then again, they didn't really... do anything to us."

Jimin elbows him in the side. "That's a good thing, remember?"

"Yeah, but it's still a little weird, isn't it?"

Yoongi stares down at the table, mouth clamped shut as the photo Hoseok had sent flashes in his mind. It's all said and done now, so shouldn't he tell them the truth? He looks up at his friends, glancing around the table as he takes a deep breath - then spots someone over Jeongguk's shoulder, a familiar figure at the bar across the room--

It's Hoseok, he realizes with a scowl, because of course it is. The others are giving him strange looks now, Jimin even turning around to try and follow his gaze. Yoongi stands abruptly, nearly knocking his drink over in the process.

"Back in a second," he says, letting out his breath in a huff, and does his best not to stomp his way over to the bar.

Hoseok grins when he approaches, raising his hand to wave. "Hey, long time no see!"

"Very funny," Yoongi grumbles, grabbing his arm and forcing it down. He only just resists the urge to knock the drink out of his other hand. "What are you doing here?"

"Last time I checked, this was a hacker-frequented bar," Hoseok says innocently, glancing around. "I'm a hacker. Case closed."

"You're also-- you," Yoongi insists, gesturing at him vaguely. Hoseok looks down at himself and back up with an infuriatingly confused expression. "Aren't you some bigshot CEO? Are you sure you want Jung Hoseok to be seen around here?"

Hoseok smiles, tapping his straw against his lips. "Well, no one's going to be looking for Jung Hoseok around here, are they?"

He winks, to top it off. Yoongi fumes.

"Are those your friends?" Hoseok asks, peering around him. "Can you introduce me?"

"No," Yoongi huffs, but Hoseok is already heading over, dragging Yoongi along with him - Yoongi realizes too late that it's only because he's still holding Hoseok's arm. By the time he lets go, they're only steps away from his friends' table.

Yoongi resigns himself to the situation, taking the lead and trying not to look as annoyed as he feels. He doesn't really want to explain to the others who Hoseok is - or who he really is - but it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a cover story, maybe an alias, and get Hoseok to play along. He doesn't look much like a business mogul out of his suit, anyway.

They come to a stop in front of the table, and Yoongi does his best to look pleased. "Guys, this is--"

"Hoseok, right?" Namjoon says, snapping his fingers with a grin. Yoongi silently curses his memory for names and faces. "I didn't think you were staying in town."

"Neither did I," Hoseok admits with an easy smile, sliding on a sheepish look when Namjoon shifts over to make room. "Oh, is it alright if I join you?"

Yoongi resists the urge to roll his eyes and all but shoves him into the booth. "He's a friend," he explains to Jeongguk, who's apprehensive expression immediately lifts. "We met at work. Seokjin's seal of approval."

"So this is your local haunt?" Hoseok asks, looking around eagerly. "It's great. So cozy."

"Not according to yelp reviews," Jimin laughs.

"That's on purpose," Taehyung says, sipping his drink. "Keeps people from stumbling into hacker digs."

Namjoon furrows his brow after a moment. "How did you hear about this place?" he asks, turning to Hoseok with barely-concealed suspicion. Yoongi gives Hoseok's arm a warning squeeze.

"I told him about it," he says quickly, and flushes when the others all turn to stare at him. "I-I invited him. To meet us here. Forgot to mention, I guess."

There's a beat of silence, broken by Taehyung's eyes whirring almost accusatorily. He never did give Yoongi a straight answer about whether or not he got that lie detector add-on installed...

Holding back a sigh, Yoongi grudgingly unbends the truth a little further. "Hoseok reached out after Seokjin introduced us. We've been... chatting."

"Chatting," Namjoon repeats.

Yoongi nods, keeping the straightest face he can manage. Hoseok doesn't offer any help, but he also doesn't add on with any euphemisms about their correspondence, so Yoongi counts it as a win.

Jeongguk is the first to shrug it off, going back to his lemonade and tapping at the tablet menu mounted on the wall. Hoseok leans across the table to get a closer look. "Are you ordering anything? I could go for a shareplate."

"You can if you want," Jeongguk says, shrugging as he flicks back through the menu pages.

"You might have to do it for me," Hoseok admits with a frown. "I'm not great at tech stuff."

Yoongi very nearly chokes on his drink. Hoseok nudges his foot under the table.

Jeongguk, however, seems unfazed. "That's okay," he says, tapping the screen again. It seems to lag for a second before jittering it's way to the correct page, and Jeongguk squints at it in annoyance. "The UI is kind of a mess."

"You say that like you can't do anything about it," Jimin snickers.

Eyes lighting up, Jeongguk glances at Yoongi for permission, his fingers already poised over the tablet screen. Smiling, Yoongi nods at him, and he goes to work breaking into the menu's system. The bartenders probably won't mind - they've done worse in here, after all.

Hoseok watches intently as Jeongguk rearranges the program, making awed noises every few seconds. The others watch too, snickering more than anything, but Yoongi can see they're relaxing. Soon enough the menu is addressing them by name and conversation is flowing again, with Hoseok right in the fray.

It's actually… comfortable, Yoongi realizes with a start. Hoseok doesn't seem out of place at their table. And his smile is as genuine as Yoongi's ever seen it. The others seem to like him too, and Yoongi lets go of an anxiousness he didn't even realize he was holding onto.

Not that he was worried about Hoseok, or anything. He barely likes Hoseok. He's impulsive and annoying and confusing, even if he can win over all of Yoongi's friends in less than five minutes - but still, there's a warmth in Yoongi's chest that he's pretty sure doesn't have anything to do with alcohol.

His friends and his one-time blackmailer-slash-hacking partner are getting along, and he's happy about it. If there's a deeper meaning, he's sure he can figure it out tomorrow.

A few rounds and some hours later, Hoseok catches Yoongi's hand as they're leaving the bar, tugging him back a step while his friends go ahead. Yoongi stumbles a little, tipsier than he thought he was now that he's standing up. Hoseok holds him steady with a smile. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "If you mean inviting yourself out with us, then yeah, I guess. But next time maybe let me know before."

"Next time, huh," Hoseok says, raising his eyebrow suggestively, but he lets it go and looks down the street at the others. "They're good company. I can see why you like them."

"When I go over there, they're gonna say the same thing about you," Yoongi says, slurring just a little as he waves him off. "Namjoon already thinks you're great, and Jimin loves anyone he can get to shut up about computers for ten seconds."

Hoseok snickers, sliding his hand down to Yoongi's wrist. "I guess I will have to come around more." He pauses, stroking his thumb over Yoongi's pulse for a moment before he drops his hand. "Good to see you again."

"You saw me yesterday," Yoongi points out, rubbing his wrist absentmindedly.

"All the same," Hoseok says with a shrug. "Get home safe, okay?"

"I will," Yoongi calls, turning to follow the others down the street. He turns right back after a moment. "Don't hack into my PC again."

"No promises," Hoseok laughs, already walking the other way. "I'll see you around."

Badwolf seems to almost drop off the map after that - almost, because Yoongi still hears rumours through Taehyung and the forum about any cases he might be involved with, but they're all smaller scale, and no doxxing.

Hoseok, on the other hand, starts making regular appearances at Seokjin's building. He insists it's because of a partnership they're working on between companies, but he spends an awful lot of time spinning around in the office desk chair while Yoongi and Namjoon are working.

Namjoon doesn't seem bothered, but he's also distracted by Seokjin most of the time, so Yoongi supposes it's understandable. The two of them are dancing around each other now, always brushing hands and sitting closer than is strictly necessary - although Yoongi did catch them alone in the office once, standing together by the windows just looking at each other, so maybe it's a different kind of dance than he thought.

Either way, work is work and the House is open again and everything is back to normal, except for the added presence of Hoseok, which Yoongi still can't quite bring himself to fully dislike. It's fun to watch him try to pretend all their technobabble is going over his head, and when it's just the two of them, he sometimes offers good suggestions. Other times he tries to talk Yoongi into doing another job with him, waxing poetic about the datavault like it was an incredibly romantic date.

"Wasn't it, though?" Hoseok asks, when Yoongi points this out. "I mean, as far as first dates go, you have to admit it was good, right?"

In his mind, Yoongi does, only to outwardly scowl so hard it hurts his mouth. "Let me work in peace or I'll get Seokjin to lock you out."

"You wouldn't," Hoseok pouts.

"I definitely would. You're very clearly impeding my ability to properly secure this sensitive data on--" He pauses, scrolling up on the monitor to find the page's title. "...Whatever this is. My point is, go away."

"Fine," Hoseok sighs, flouncing over to the door. "Just you wait, I'll take you to that dinner yet."

Yoongi snorts. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks, I'll probably need it," Hoseok says with a grin before disappearing into the hall.

Yoongi catches himself smiling as he turns back to the monitor and, for once, doesn't fight it. His focus is only a little wobbly, and he finds his bookmark in the code to easily pick up where he left off. Before long he's dived back in completely, and it's only when the office door opens again that he looks up.

"Hey," Seokjin greets, crossing the room with an armful of folders. "You can head out whenever, I just sent Namjoon home."

"I'm almost done here," Yoongi says, rubbing one eye as he scrolls through his work so far. "Just gotta tidy up the--"

Seokjin cuts him off with a scandalized noise. "What is that?"

Yoongi looks up and follows his baffled gaze out the window. It's somehow gotten dark without him noticing, but that's not even the most surprising thing to be seen. The buildings across the street have gone dark like the whole block has lost power, except for a few windows lit up in each. The one directly across from them has the most, its bright panes spelling out three letters - RED - and the rest of the darkened buildings have a few windows lit seemingly sporadically, but after a few seconds Yoongi realizes that they're in the shape of hearts.

"One of your friends playing a joke?" Seokjin asks, giving him a sideways glance.

"Unfortunately," Yoongi sighs. Even without seeing the dog face lit up on the corner building, he knows Hoseok is the only person who would do something like this. Who knows how long it's been up, or how many people have seen it--

"Too bad," Seokjin hums. "I thought you might have a secret admirer. Maybe I'm just weak for grand romantic gestures."

Yoongi stares after him when he turns away, dumbfounded. He's not sure he would call any of this romantic - sure, there are hearts and stuff, and it's taking up a whole block but…

He looks back out the window with a frown. Maybe it's a little romantic. But it's a joke, right? Just like the dinner thing was a joke, and the first date thing was a joke. Unless Hoseok really is hacking into the grids for entire city blocks to flirt with him. Yoongi can't honestly put it past him.

Jeongguk calls him from Grandma's on the train home, showing him a live feed of the heart-covered buildings that's playing on the display screen. "You know about this, right?"

"It's not exactly easy to ignore," Yoongi says dryly.

"Taehyung is annoyed 'cause the whole forum is gossiping about it," Jeongguk says, swinging the camera back to his face. "The new theory is that one member of Badwolf went rogue after meeting Red. Like, they fell in love or something."

Feeling his cheeks turning pink, Yoongi huffs. "That is not what happened."

"Well, obviously," Jeongguk says, giving him a weird look. "I think if you met one of them, you'd know."

Yoongi tamps down on the sudden urge to laugh.

"Anyway," Jeongguk goes on, "if you're coming by tonight, Namjoon wants to know if--" He glances at something out of frame, someone else talking to him as he tries to hold back a grin. "Uh, if we should tell Hoseok that he has competition now?"

"Ha ha," Yoongi says flatly, giving him the most unimpressed look he can muster. "Ask Namjoon to tell you about the bruises on his neck."

Jeongguk looks back out of frame, eyes widening. "What bruise-- oh my god--"

Yoongi hangs up and leans back in his seat, eyes closed. So, it's flirting. He should probably talk to Hoseok about all this, right? It's a good idea, but he doesn't have a great track record with those - case in point, starting an accidental courtship with a wanted criminal moonlighting, or daylighting, as a clueless businessman.

Maybe next time they're alone he'll mention it, he decides, if he can psych himself up enough to do so. In the meantime, it's probably best if Hoseok doesn't get an invite to Grandma's just yet.

Namjoon insists he isn't mad, but he keeps his scarf on in the House the next day, and gives Yoongi and the others increasingly tedious tasks to complete until they're all nearly begging for something else to do. When the afternoon finally rolls around, Yoongi jumps at the chance to leave and pick Jeongguk up from school. Taehyung and Jimin demand to tag along, and the three of them scurry out the door while Namjoon sends a passive aggressive smile after them.

Jeongguk, to his credit, looks suspicious when he first sees them waiting for him outside the school, but he's understanding when they admit to him the real reason for their being there. He lends a sympathetic ear on the walk back while Taehyung and Jimin complain about all the spreadsheets Namjoon made them fill in. Yoongi leads the way, making sure to take the route that Jeongguk likes - probably just because it goes past the Woods. Granted, he's been spending most of his time after school at Grandma's instead of the arcade, which Yoongi is pleased about. It's mostly to train with his Implant, but he's been helping them out with updating computer systems too, and for Yoongi, not having to worry about where Jeongguk is hanging out is nice too.

As they pass the holo-gate someone calls Jeongguk's name, and they all turn to see another boy around his age come hurrying out of the entrance towards them. Yoongi runs through his mental list of Jeongguk's friends whose names he can actually match to faces and comes up blank. "Who's that?"

"Yugyeom," Jeongguk says, half explanation-half greeting. "Everything okay?"

"Have you played Whalien Fighter lately?" Yugyeom asks, a little out of breath.

Jeongguk shakes his head. "I haven't been around the last few days. Why, what's up?"

"It's glitching out," Yugyeom huffs. "The last level, it keeps lagging or just straight up freezing halfway through. No one can beat it."

"You guys can't beat it even when it's working fine," Jeongguk points out. Yoongi stifles a laugh.

"That's why I'm telling you," Yugyeom says, exasperated. "Even Eunha tried it! She waited it out and got through to the last boss, but its health wouldn't go down no matter how much she hit it. Everyone else gave up." He gives Jeongguk a conspiratory look. "You can fix it, right?"

Jeongguk glances at Yoongi, mouth twisting. "Oh, I… I don't know, I don't think I should--"

"That wasn't the question," Yoongi says, raising an eyebrow. "Can you fix it?"

"Whalien's never had any issues before," Jeongguk says, shaking his head. "I'm not sure if I could even find what's wrong."

"That one's your favourite, right?" Jimin asks, peeking around Yoongi. "You must know the program pretty well by now."

"And you've fixed broken games before, haven't you?" Taehyung chimes in.

Jeongguk looks torn. "Y-yeah, but not with the--" He glances at Yoongi again, his hand going to the back of his neck. "I haven't plugged in anywhere except Grandma's house."

"Well, you were going to bring it out here eventually," Yoongi sighs, digging in his pocket and bringing out an input cable. He hands it to Jeongguk, who takes it with a look of awe. "You can fix it."

"Maybe," Jeongguk says in a small voice, staring at the cord in his hands. He looks up after a moment, resolute. "I'll try."

Yoongi smiles, nudging him away. "Go on, go be the hero of your people."

Cheering, Yugyeom heads back through the holo-gate with Jeongguk following behind, grinning over his shoulder at Yoongi. As they disappear into the dark, Jimin tugs Taehyung's toward the entrance too.

"Come on," he urges, laughing, "I haven't been inside here in years. Let's go see if you still have the highscore on that rhythm game, Triptych or whatever."

Taehyung smiles and lets himself be pulled along, glancing back at Yoongi. "You coming? I'm sure you still have scores on display, too."

Yoongi's phone chimes right then, and he frowns at the alert flashing on screen. "In a second," he tells them, waving them off and moving to the side of the gate while Jimin and Taehyung pull each other through it.

The alert is a spyware warning, set off by a suspicious email in his inbox. Yoogi swipes through to investigate, wondering who would be dumb enough to send any sort of malware as an email attachment. The sender is encrypted too, along with the flagged file, so Yoongi sighs and taps on it to start decryption. Whatever it is, it can do it's worst - the safeguards he'd programmed for this exact scenario will prevent it from ever leaving his inbox.

When decryption hits a hundred percent, what pops up isn't the virus kill screen Yoongi expected, but a text file with only one line typed in it.

You must be tired, because you've been streaming through my RSS feed all day.
Love, Badwolf

Yoongi pinches the bridge of his nose. Of course it's from Hoseok. He doesn't know why he ever expected anything else.

His phone lights up in his hand, a call coming through - lo and behold, it's Hoseok, probably making sure Yoongi got his email. Yoongi has half a mind to reject it, but figures it'll be better to cringe at him in real time. He lifts it to his ear as the call connects. "Please tell me you didn't come up with that yourself."

"Of course not," Hoseok scoffs on the other end. "What's the internet for, if not to trawl for bad pickup lines? Oh, here's another one: 'If I was an operating system, your process would have top priority'."

Yoongi grimaces, but he's laughing. "Don't you have work to do? Are you at the office?"

"Yeah, but Seokjin locked me out while he takes an important call," Hoseok sighs. Yoongi can almost hear the air quotes. "It's probably just Namjoon. What are you up to?"

"Stopped by the arcade with Jeongguk so he could wow his friends for a few minutes. We're heading back to Grandma's pretty soon."

Hoseok hums. "What about later tonight?"

"For work?" Yoongi asks slowly. "Depends what Namjoon comes up with."

"No, I mean your plans," Hoseok laughs. "Got time for that dinner?"

Yoongi rolls his eyes, but bites his lip to keep from smiling. "Look, we should really talk about this whole thing before we--"

He's cut off suddenly by loud crackling static, and the deep sound of machinery powering down. Turning around, he watches the holo-gate flicker out and hears a crowd of disappointed groans coming from inside the arcade. He moves a little closer to peer into the dark, suddenly void of any flashing game cabinets. All the bleeping and tinny exploding noises have stopped, too.

"Yoongi?"

"Yeah, I'm here." People start filing out through the entrance, talking and grumbling to each other. Yoongi glances around for his friends, but they're nowhere to be seen. "I think the arcade had a power surge. Jeongguk said it's happened a few times lately."

"Huh. Something wrong with the grid?"

"I don't know, he told me-- hold on," he breaks off, finally catching sight of Jimin in the crowd.

Jimin seems to notice him at the same time and rushes over, looking frantic. "Jeongguk needs help."

Yoongi's stomach drops. "What? Why, what happened?"

"The power went out," Jimin explains shakily, leading Yoogi back into the dark of the arcade. "Most of the machines just turned off but some have backups or external power-- they shorted out, or tried to and just froze, but Jeongguk was plugged in--"

Pushing through the small crowd gathering at the back of the room, Yoongi stops in front of the Whalien Fighter cabinet, where Jeongguk is reclined in the sim chair, looking for a moment just like he did the last time Yoongi saw him here - but the illusion breaks at the flashing error message on the wrap-around screen, the way Jeongguk is tensed up, limbs jerking like he's being shocked, and the cable connecting his Implant to the machine.

Yoongi hurries to his side, where Taehyung is already carefully lifting the VR headset off. "He's having a seizure," he says, trying to keep Jeongguk steady. "It's only been a couple minutes, but--"

"Unplug him," Yoongi demands, reaching for the cable, but Jimin grabs his hand.

"It's not safe," he insists. "We need to shut the game off first."

"I tried, but he was so far into the program--" Taehyung cuts off and shakes his head. "I don't want to make it worse."

Yoongi takes one more look at Jeongguk, eyes rolling back as his body spasms, before turning away in determination. He follows the input cable to the side of the cabinet, where a part of the casing has been taken off to reveal ports and circuits underneath. There's a tablet connected too, sporting the same error message as the screen. Jeongguk must have been going through the program code from here before testing his work.

Yoongi picks it up, panic climbing even higher in his throat. If he can break through the error lockdown, just enough to restore background function and then force shutdown, or even just halt the processes-- but his hands are shaking, and he nearly drops the tablet when Hoseok speaks in his ear again.

"What's happening?" he asks, cutting through Yoongi's frantic thoughts. "Talk to me."

"It's-- Jeongguk is-- he's stuck," Yoongi says, fumbling the words out. "He's plugged into an error-locked system. I don't-- I can't get past it."

"You can," Hoseok says, calm and sure. "Let me help."

The call disconnects. Yoongi is confused for a second before his phone screen flickers and lights up with Badwolf's dog face calling card. He blinks at it for a moment, then scrambles for another input cord to connect the tablet to it.

"Okay, nice and easy," Hoseok's voice crackles out of the phone speaker. Yoongi can see lines of code start to scroll down behind the error message on the tablet.

"What are you doing?" he asks, tapping along nervously.

"The error code locked down the system and there isn't a process for undoing it, so I'm... writing one," Hoseok explains. "I don't know the program signature though, so it might be a little messy. Like fitting a square into a rhombus."

"Jeongguk knew it," Yoongi says, watching the code pause. "He was fixing a glitch earlier. Can you find whatever he added to the program?"

"Got it," Hoseok chirps. "Wow, that kid knows his stuff. It takes me ages to copy a signature like this. I just have to cut and paste, and then--"

The error disappears and Yoongi breathes a shuddery sigh or relief. He breaks into the system processes easily, managing to steady his hands long enough to halt all the active commands. He hears a triumphant cheer from their small crowd when the wrap-around screen goes dark.

After forcing a shutdown for good measure, he abandons the tablet to rush back to the sim chair. Jeongguk is limp but awake, getting gently prodded by Taehyung and wincing a little as Jimin unplugs the Implant. He looks up at Yoongi and reaches out, and Yoongi immediately wraps him in a tight hug, relief flooding through him. Jeongguk breathes out against him, weakly gripping his shirt.

"You're never playing this game ever again," Yoongi murmurs to him.

He feels Jeongguk give a stubborn huff. "But I fixed it."

Yoongi exchanges exasperated smiles with Jimin and Taehyung. "Let's just get you home, alright?"

He lets go so the other two can help him up, and heads back to pick up his phone. The screen is back to normal but it's connected to another call with Hoseok. Yoongi lifts it to his ear with a tired smile. "Still there?"

"Just waiting for you," Hoseok says. "Is he okay?"

"I think so. We're gonna take him home." Yoongi pauses, looking back over his shoulder at Jeongguk for a moment. "Thank you."

"Really, it's nothing. I'm just glad I was here," Hoseok says earnestly. "I'm actually kind of on a relief high right now. Watch this."

With another burst of static, the dim lights flicker back on and the game machines come to life, starting up their tinny music and beeping again. All at once their token trays open and dump waterfalls of game coins on the ground. Yoongi watches amusedly as the crowd disperses to collect them, in awe at the apparent karmic coincidence. "You restarted the grid?"

"Anything for the kids," Hoseok says. He pauses for a moment, then gets serious again, voice soft. "Hey, are you okay, though? That was some real mood whiplash."

"Yeah I'm-- I'm fine," Yoongi says, shrugging. "I'll deal with it. Jeongguk is the priority right now."

"Alright," Hoseok says, but Yoongi can hear his uncertainty. "Keep me on the line, okay? Just until you're home. I'll be quiet, promise."

Yoongi rolls his eyes but goes along with it. By now, Jeongguk is bundled up and leaning on Jimin, looking exhausted. Taehyung leads the way back out through the now-working holo-gate, and Yoongi is sure all four of them breath a sigh of relief as they leave the Woods behind.

Going to Grandma's probably isn't the best idea anymore, and Jeongguk's house is a long walk in the opposite direction. Jimin and Taehyung's apartment is closest, and they both agree to let Jeongguk recover there for the night. By the time they get there, Jeongguk somehow looks even more tired, and Jimin has to half-carry him through the door. Yoongi stays long enough to make sure he's comfortable and then heads out, exhaustion creeping up on him as well.

Taehyung stops him by the door. "What you did earlier, that was amazing," he says, eyes whirring with awe. "We all just froze up and you-- How'd you know what to do?"

"I'm... not sure," Yoongi says, lingering uncomfortably in the doorway. Something tells him now is probably not the best time to come clean about Badwolf. "It was... instinct, I guess."

It's not a complete lie, Yoongi supposes as Taehyung lets him go. It instinct that told him to trust Hoseok, instinct that assured him he would be able to help. It weighs on him, the thought that Jeongguk's life was in his hands for a few minutes - and he chose to trust that Hoseok would hold him up just as carefully.

He feels a headache coming on, too. He glances at his phone as he heads down the front steps and realizes Hoseok still hasn't ended the call. "Hey, uh, you can hang up," Yoongi says, rubbing his temple. "Excitement's over. I'm going home now."

There's a click as Hoseok disconnects, and for the second time Yoongi gives the screen a weird look, wondering at at the abruptness. He shrugs it off though, and turns the corner back onto the street. Then he very nearly walks right into Hoseok.

Yoongi blinks at him, wondering for a moment if he's hallucinating from stress, but the worry on Hoseok's face looks pretty real. "What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you're alright," Hoseok says, like it’s obvious. He looks Yoongi up and down like he's searching for injury.

"I'm fine," Yoongi huffs, resisting the urge to cover up - then narrows his eyes. "How did you know where I was?"

"I tracked your phone," Hoseok says, waving it off and tilting his face up towards the light.

"You tracked--" Yoongi swats his hands away and sighs. "Okay, you know what. We're putting a pin in that and coming back to it later. Right now I need a nap."

Hoseok thumbs over his shoulder. "I've got a car waiting."

Yoongi is too tired to argue. "Fine."

It's a little weird getting in the backseat with Hoseok, but Yoongi has to admit the short trip is nice. He notices halfway to his apartment that he never gave Hoseok his address, but they're headed in the right direction anyway. He adds it to his list of things to worry about when he's less exhausted.

When the car pulls up outside his building, Yoongi is surprised when Hoseok gets out first to open the door for him, and even more surprised when the car drives off and Hoseok is still standing on the curb with him. He hovers near Yoongi's elbow all the way to the front door, and looks ready to hold that open too before Yoongi shoves through himself. "I'm tired, not eighty," he huffs.

"Could've fooled me," Hoseok quips, but he still looks worried.

Yoongi resigns himself to being followed all the way up to his apartment. His limbs feel heavier and heavier the closer the gets to his door, and by the time he's stepping inside he's about ready to lie down in the front hall and sleep there. Unfortunately, when Hoseok steps in and closes the door behind him, there isn't enough room. He'll have to find a real surface to collapse on after all.

He doesn't bother turning on any lights, just heads to the living room and flops down on the couch. Hoseok follows but slower, making a fluttery lap of the room before coming to hover nearby. "Can I get you anything?" he asks, watching Yoongi carefully. "Tea? Coffee? A pillow?"

"I don't need coddling," Yoongi sighs, rubbing his temples again. "Just-- sit down, you're making me nervous."

Hoseok does, leaving a respectable amount of space between them. Yoongi looks sideways at him. "What are you even doing here?"

"I'm not sure," Hoseok admits. "I was going to look into the grid problems at the arcade, see if I could find anything suspicious on Gridworks' end."

"And why didn't you?"

Hoseok shrugs. "Finding you seemed more important."

Yoongi flushes, looking away. His eyes land on his tablet resting on the coffee table, and he leans forward to grab it. "Well, if you want to do something actually worthwhile," he says, handing it off to Hoseok, "you can start searching Gridworks records."

Hoseok takes it and props it up in his lap but raises an eyebrow at Yoongi. "Are you going to bed?"

"Not yet," Yoongi says, settling into the corner of the couch. "I want to know what you find."

"Okay, I'll be quick," Hoseok vows, and gets to work tapping out a web address.

Not exactly what Yoongi meant, but he'll take it if it keeps Hoseok from giving him that concerned look. He thinks about resting his eyes, but the more he thinks about the grid the more awake he feels. Eventually he sits up and leans over, peering down at the tablet where Hoseok is swiping through Gridworks reports faster than he can read them.

"Past inspections," Hoseok explains, noticing Yoongi's squinting. "These are from every other building on that block with an independent grid. Guess what's missing."

"Hunter's Woods."

Hoseok nods. "And it's not like the owner skipped out on a couple evaluations. I mean there is literally nothing from the past few years."

"Grid inspections are mandatory though," Yoongi says, still squinting. "Gridworks stays on top of stuff like that. How could Hunter have avoided them?"

"Well, I found this too." Hoseok brings up another report, this one filled out with the Woods' address. "This is from a separate grid inspection agency. They're affiliated with Gridworks, but just barely." He zooms in a bit, but the report doesn't get any more legible. "They look pretty, uh... let's say seedy."

Yoongi looks up at him. "You think it's forged?"

"No, it's definitely real," Hoseok sighs, crossing his arms. "There's a real filing number, and it actually is linked to Gridworks' system, just not at all in the right place. Which is, I think, how it got past the radar." He scrolls down to the end of the report, where it's stamped with several code violations. "Pretty bad when even the very-edge-of-legal inspection thinks your system's fucked."

Whistling, Yoongi looks over the numbers. "I'm guessing those aren't exactly minor?"

Hoseok gives him a wry look. "Hunter's grid was declared officially unsound more than a year ago. He doesn't go through Gridworks because he knows they'd shut it down."

"So the power surges are caused by the grid disconnecting," Yoongi says slowly, "and he just... lets it happen."

"Looks like it. Why, though?"

"Because replacing or fixing it is still more expensive than losing a day's profit every couple weeks," Yoongi huffs. "I knew Hunter was a scumbag, but this is…" He trails off, staring down at the report.

"It's something else," Hoseok agrees, scrolling back to the top of the page. "What do you want to do?"

Yoongi gives him a weird look. "What?"

"Are we turning him in, or...?"

"Or what?"

Hoseok sighs. "Right now it looks like we're the only ones who know about this. If the inspection agency hasn't done anything by now, I don't think they're going to. It's up to us."

"Then yeah, report him to Gridworks or whatever," Yoongi says, but Hoseok still looks frustrated.

"Is that all you want to do?"

Yoongi narrows his eyes. "What do you mean? Don't mess around, just tell me."

Shifting on the couch, Hoseok turns to face him. "This guy has been putting so many people, so many kids, in danger for years. Out of greed. Gridworks will just shut the arcade down, maybe give him a fine, and that's the end of it." He gives Yoongi a look that's almost pleading. "We could make him pay."

"How?" Yoongi asks, looking back at the tablet. "Blackmail? Hang this over his head until he leaves town?"

"Or we drag all this out into the open, where he can't hide from it," Hoseok says. "What happened to Jeongguk will spread--"

"No," Yoongi cuts him off. "Jeongguk isn't getting involved." He reaches out to take the tablet back from Hoseok, keeping his gaze on the grid report even while he can feel Hoseok's eyes on him.

"If you're not sure," Hoseok says slowly, quietly, "I could handle it. Lock his accounts and credits, change his passwords. Leak the code violation. Maybe plant something in his hard drive. Whatever you want."

"I don't know what I want," Yoongi sighs, closing his eyes. "It's not about me, it's about the kids. Jeongguk, his friends..."

"Humour me," Hoseok murmurs, sounding closer than before. "If it was your decision... what sentence would you give?"

Yoongi looks over at him then, but Hoseok is staring at the screen. The glow doesn't soften the dark look in his eyes. "I wouldn't," he says firmly. "It's not up to us."

Hoseok frowns. "Maybe it should be."

"Can you just let it go?" Yoongi says, annoyed now. "Flag the report for Gridworks and drop it."

"I just want Hunter to get what's coming to him," Hoseok insists. "He deserves worse than--"

"Stop," Yoongi interrupts, putting the tablet down and turning to face him. "What's going on? Why are you so hung up on this?"

"Why aren't you?" Hoseok fires back. "I want to do this for you, for justice--"

"It's not about me," Yoongi repeats. "Or about you, or about justice. You can't make up your own rules about what's right and wrong."

Hoseok scoffs. "Why not? That's what you do, isn't it?" He leans in to take Yoongi's hand. "I know there's that line you drew for yourself, holding you back. I know you want to cross it."

"I do want to," Yoongi agrees. "I'd love to make Hunter go through exactly what Jeongguk did. But I don't get to decide that." He tugs his hand back, and the slowly-forming smile on Hoseok's face drops off.

"He hurt you," he says, stressing it. "Why shouldn't you hurt him back?"

Yoongi shakes his head. "He didn't hurt me, he hurt Jeongguk, and no one else needs to get hurt." He stands up from the couch when Hoseok leans over again, prying himself out of his space. "What's your deal? Do you not care about other people?"

"I care about you," Hoseok says.

It catches Yoongi off-guard, but his anger has bubbled up too far to be pushed back. "Do you?" he demands, pressing on through the flash of hurt in Hoseok's eyes. "You broke into my computer, my phone, my workplace-- you were basically stalking me for a while, you won't tell my friends who you are--"

"You know why I can't do that."

"Yeah, because they're scared of you," Yoongi sneers. "They're afraid Badwolf is going to ruin their lives. You say you're here to fight for the people, but you turn around and dox other hackers?"

Hoseok stands up too, glaring at him. "That was necessary."

"Necessary for what?"

"For the bigger picture," Hoseok insists. "Sometimes there are casualties--"

"Right," Yoongi says with a hard laugh. "How long until it's one of my friends you decide to turn on?"

Hoseok shakes his head, stepping forward, but Yoongi moves back. "I won't. That was all before I met you."

"Don't," Yoongi growls, backing up even further. "Don't put this on me, it has nothing to do with me."

"Yoongi--"

He holds up a hand, freezing Hoseok where he's trying to reach out to him. "Just… stop. This is pointless." He's reached the hallway now, and gives Hoseok one last bitter look. "Don't act like you want my permission when we both know you're going to do whatever you want."

Turning away, Yoongi heads to his bedroom, leaving Hoseok and his reaction standing by the couch. It takes a lot of willpower not to slam the door behind himself, but he manages it, and stands there for a long minute, breathing heavily in the dark. When the adrenaline from arguing finally starts to leave him, he falls into bed, his arms and legs feeling shaky.

There's some part of him that's glad to be angry at Hoseok, delighted at the sense of control he feels returned to him. Yoongi knows he made a bad habit of letting his guard down, not listening to warning signs, and now, this. It's like the small voice in the back of his mind telling him not to get involved, the voice he had ignored, is now taking the opportunity to make very clear that it told him so.

Still, it doesn't feel triumphant. Yoongi drowns out the gloating with anger, playing Hoseok's words in his mind until pure exhaustion takes over.

Despite his best efforts, he wakes up with a start only a few hours later. It's early, according to the clock by his bed and the lack of sunlight peeking through his window. He's not sure at first why he even woke up, but when he tries to roll over he realizes he still has his jeans on. Grumbling, he gets up to take them off, moving slow to placate his full-body ache - the day's adrenaline has fully worn off. Yoongi thinks he might be more tired now than he was before he went to sleep.

He shuffles out of his room to toss his jeans in the general direction of the washing machine, then heads back through the apartment, rubbing his eyes. Halfway across the living room he notices Hoseok lying on his couch and pauses. He had thought that Hoseok would've left, but instead it looks like he had the same idea as Yoongi, to just pass out and deal with everything later.

He doesn't look restful or comfortable, curled up like he is. Some part of Yoongi tries to flare up with anger from earlier, but it fizzles out almost immediately. With a sigh, he goes over and touches Hoseok's shoulder.

Hoseok jerks awake and blinks blearily up at Yoongi. "What's-- what time is it?"

"Early," Yoongi says, helping him up. "Come on."

He leads Hoseok down the hall and into his room. Hoseok is apparently too sleepy to notice until they stop in front of Yoongi's bed. Yoongi can feel his questioning gaze but ignores it, pulling the sheets back and flopping down on the mattress. He scoots over to one side, leaving a space beside him, and waits.

It takes a moment, but Hoseok follows. Yoongi's chest feels a little tight, watching Hoseok climb into his bed. He's glad it's dark so he doesn't have to hide his face. Hoseok settles in at his side and sighs, close enough that Yoongi can feel his exhaled breath. They both lie quietly for a while, eyes open despite how tired they are. Yoongi can tell there's still something hanging over them, but he's pretty sure neither of them want to bring it up, at least not until the morning really starts.

Hoseok breaks the silence first, his whisper sounding loud against the muted hum of Yoongi's sleeping PC. "Can I ask you something?"

Yoongi shrugs as much as he can lying on his side. "Okay."

Reaching out slowly across the gap between them, Hoseok hesitates with his hand hovering by Yoongi's cheek. "Your Implant," he starts, gesturing at it with a twitch of his fingers. "What made you choose that spot? It's not exactly easy to hide."

Yoongi thinks about it for a moment. "I didn't want to hide it," he says slowly. "I don't think that's something I even considered."

"It must make things difficult, though," Hoseok says, letting his hand drop to rest on the blankets. "Whenever you have to deal with anyone who isn't…"

"Who isn't also a cyber criminal?" Yoongi smiles a little. "Yeah. But I wouldn't move it anywhere else."

Hoseok frowns. "You want people to be able to label you like that?"

Yoongi shakes his head. "I don't want to have to pretend I'm something I'm not."

Humming, Hoseok lifts his hand again, fingers trailing past Yoongi's ear to brush over the tiny chip. "You're braver than I am."

"This is what I chose," Yoongi says simply. "It's not always ideal. Making a life out of bending or breaking rules… it can be hard to set boundaries. Sometimes I feel like-- like so much of me is hidden, I have to cling to what's familiar. Like if I let anything change, I'll… I don't know. Lose myself."

"Really?" Hoseok lingers over the Implant a second longer then draws a slow path down Yoongi's arm with his palm. Yoongi tenses up, and has to force himself to relax under his touch. "You always seemed to know exactly who you are."

His fingertips trail over Yoongi's ribs, and he shivers like a burst of static. "That's what I tell myself," he says, struggling to keep his voice even and wry. "But I've been the same for so long. It's not easy to open up. Or to change."

Hoseok's hand pauses halfway back up to Yoongi's shoulder. "Do you think you're changing?"

Yoongi shrugs again, careful not to knock Hoseok's hand away. "Maybe. It's hard to see it in yourself."

"I guess," Hoseok says, quieter now. Yoongi watches his pensive expression for a few seconds before Hoseok moves again, draping his arm over Yoongi's waist.

Yoongi tenses up at first, but the weight is soft and warm, and Hoseok is smiling at him - and they're already so close together, faces only a few inches apart. He spends a few long moments making himself relax under Hoseok's arm and eventually, when he's sure the world is going to keep turning, shifts a little closer. Hoseok seems surprised but lets him come, adjusting his arm to hold him there, and under the covers he tangles their legs together so their knees don't knock.

Something in the back of Yoongi's mind tries to remind him that only a few hours ago he and Hoseok were fighting, but Yoongi ignores it and closes his eyes. He's tired, and Hoseok is warm. That's all this is.

That, and the thrill of being close to Hoseok has softened to a quiet contentment in the dark of his bedroom, and Yoongi would really like to revel in it for a bit longer. But that's all.

When the sun does start to rise, peering in through the window, Yoongi wakes with it. He lets himself take it slow, stretching out in bed and ignoring the clock entirely - until he realizes Hoseok is missing, and sits up so fast the room spins.

His half of the covers are neatly tucked in, almost like he was never there. Yoongi clambers out of bed to look down the hall too, but the entire apartment is quiet. Hoseok must've really left.

Yoongi isn't sure what he expected, but this sure wasn't it. He thought Hoseok would stick around for the morning at least, just to talk, but apparently not. It's not the first wrong assumption he's made, not by far, but he can't help feeling a little disappointed.

With a sigh, he heads down the hall to the living room. If he's not getting back to sleep, he might as well start the day. He has to call to check on Jeongguk, and then maybe he'll try texting Hoseok, just to see where they stand.

One thing at a time though. He finds his phone and starts a video call with Jeongguk, only remembering how early it is when the line is already ringing. Surprisingly, Jeongguk does pick up, but he is definitely in bed. "Hi."

"Hey, how are you doing?" Yoongi asks, frowning at how tired he looks. "Did you sleep?"

"Yeah, I passed out as soon as we got back." He rolls over and sighs, putting his phone down so the camera only catches a bit of his hair and the ceiling. "Somehow I'm still tired."

"Well, now that I know you're alive, you can go back to bed."

"No, it's okay. Namjoon called earlier, so I've been up for a bit. " After a moment, the top of Jeongguk's head comes back into the frame. "Hey, what's gonna happen to the arcade?"

"I don't know yet," Yoongi admits. "We're working on it."

"Who's we? Namjoon didn't say anything about it."

Shit. Yoongi is too tired to think fast. "Well, you know those rumours about… Red and Badwolf?"

"Yeah," Jeongguk says slowly. Yoongi can almost hear him putting it together. "Wait, is that real? Are you dating--"

"No," Yoongi cuts him off, flushing. "We're just-- working together. Or we were."

Jeongguk's messy bangs appear in the frame. "Huh?"

"We had a disagreement. I'm waiting to hear back from him."

"I'm sure he'll come around," Jeongguk says easily. "You're impossible to argue with."

Yoongi snorts. "I hope you're right."

He slows to a stop halfway past the couch, giving his tablet a curious look where it's propped up against its stand on the table. Had it been like that the night before, when he came out to wake up Hoseok? No, he always kept the stand in the kitchen, so Hoseok must have moved it there himself. But why set it up like that?

"I think Tae and Jimin are getting up," Jeongguk yawns. "You wanna talk to them?"

"No, it's fine," Yoongi says, tearing his gaze away to turn back to the camera. "Listen, I'll call you again later. Go back to sleep if you need to."

"Yeah, yeah," Jeongguk sighs, dropping his head back down. "Good luck with Badwolf."

Yoongi smiles at the tuft of hair that remains. "Thanks. Oh, and don't tell anyone what I told you about him, alright? Don't correct anyone about the rumours."

"So you want me to keep telling people that Red is dating--"

"Great, goodbye Jeongguk," Yoongi says over him, and hangs up. Where he went wrong with that kid, he'll never know.

As soon as he puts his phone down, his eyes find the tablet again. He stares at it for another long moment, then leans down to tap the screen.

It blinks to life with a webpage open - not the grid reports he and Hoseok were looking at last night, but a news site. The main article has a photo of Hunter's Woods at the top, and Yoongi's stomach drops, his mind immediately jumping to Jeongguk's error lock. It couldn't be about that, though, could it? No one at the arcade would be dumb enough to even suggest reporting it - except Hoseok, who did bring it up last night.

Yoongi shoves the thought away and scrolls through the article. At first he skims over half of it without actually reading it and has to start over. He takes a deep breath to focus on every word of the headline - and lets it out in relief. It's not about Jeongguk at all, but Hunter.

Arcade owner fined for inspection avoidance and subsequent failed inspection, child endangerment. That catches Yoongi off guard. A charge like that means forfeiture of his business license, if he even has one of those. The article doesn't have much else besides a statement from Gridworks and their report - they really are shutting the Woods down until new management gets the grid balanced - but nothing about the power surges, or Jeongguk, or any other dirt discovered on Hunter. Yoongi almost can't believe it.

He nearly drops the tablet when the door opens, and Hoseok steps through holding a bag with a bakery logo on it. He looks surprised to see Yoongi. "Oh, you're awake."

Yoongi blinks at him. "Where were you?"

"Just walking around." Hoseok gestures to the bag with a grin. "I got breakfast."

Yoongi spares a moment for the scent of warm bread wafting from it, then remembers himself and holds out the tablet. "What's this?"

Hoseok, to his credit, doesn't even try to act like he doesn't know what Yoongi means. "It's exactly what it looks like. I tipped off Gridworks, they handled it."

"And that's it?" Yoongi asks, trying not to sound skeptical.

Hoseok gives him a wry smile. "That's it," he says, and turns to head to the kitchen.

Yoongi puts the tablet down and gets up to follow him. "Can I ask what changed your mind?"

"It didn't really get changed," Hoseok says, pulling small wrapped packages out of the bag.

"Fair," Yoongi huffs, "but you also didn't paint quite as much of a target on Hunter as I know you wanted to."

"I still want him to get what he deserves, if that's what you mean," Hoseok snorts. "But last night... you got me thinking, I guess."

Yoongi leans on the counter next to him. "About?"

"About… who I am," Hoseok says slowly, "and if that's really who I want to be." He puts the bag down and turns to face Yoongi, crossing his arms. "The reason Badwolf exists is because I wanted... justice? Or something like it. I wanted to do what I thought was right and fair. Anything Badwolf did to achieve that goal, my goal, was worth it... even if people got hurt." He pauses for a moment, fumbling for words "It was for the greater good. And I never let anyone tell me I was wrong. I guess I thought I was the only person who could... see things as they really were."

"And how'd that work out for you?" Yoongi asks flatly.

"It was good," Hoseok admits. "For a long time it's all I did. It was how I dealt with every problem. And I was always alone, so..." He looks down, shaking his head. "Something about having such high standards that you only trust yourself to complete anything to your satisfaction really drives people away."

Yoongi snorts. "Amazing. I never would've guessed. Nothing about your needing to be right all the time gave me that impression."

"I'm trying to be serious," Hoseok chides, but he's smiling anyway. "Look, the point is, I never take other people into account. I just do what I've told myself is right, and keep doing it until I get what I want." He glances at Yoongi and away again. "Like pushing your boundaries."

That takes Yoongi by surprise. He opens his mouth to argue but Hoseok talks over him. "I wanted you to join me, so I made you. It didn't matter that you were reluctant, because I knew by the end of the job you'd be feeling the same thrill I did. But I should've let you say no."

"Well, I get why you didn't," Yoongi admits with a shrug. "And it was for the greater good that time."

"But was it?" Hoseok asks, meeting his eye again. "Was it worth compromising you?

Yoongi frowns. "What do you mean?"

"It's the same thing as last night," Hoseok says with a sigh. "I thought I could... tempt you into crossing the line you set for yourself, because to me, that line was unnecessary. And you let me push up to a point." He reaches out then, putting his hand over Yoongi's on the counter. "But when it got to that line, you shoved back."

"Yeah, because you were wrong," Yoongi huffs, but it comes out softer than he means it to. Hoseok's hand is warm.

"About Hunter, maybe," Hoseok admits. "But about you? I was trying to change you. To make you into someone you're not. And I don't want to be someone who makes you feel like you're not yourself."

"That's not really on you," Yoongi points out. "That's on me for not knowing how to deal with…" He trails off, waving his free hand helplessly. "Feelings."

Hoseok laughs and takes that hand too, standing up straight and holding both between them. "I'm going to do something different," he says, quiet and earnest. "I'm not sure what, yet, or even where to start, but I know now that there are things more important than being right." He pauses. "Or making sure terrible people get what's coming to them."

"Really?" Yoongi snickers, looking down at their joined hands. "Things like what?"

Hoseok hums. "Like... friends. And comfort. And…" He folds his fingers over Yoongi's. "Whatever this is."

"I'm glad we're both on the same page," Yoongi says dryly, but he keeps his head down to hide his pink face.

Hoseok notices though, and shuffles closer with a smile. "You know, this whole thing started when we met in Seokjin's office. I just really wanted to see you again. Though, admittedly, it got a little out of hand after that."

"Understatement," Yoongi snorts, but he peeks up at Hoseok after a moment. "You're serious," he says, half a question.

"Of course I am," Hoseok scoffs.

"All those times you joked about it--"

"I was never joking."

Yoongi pauses, feeling something unfurl in his chest. It rises up in his throat and he forces it out in a quiet laugh. "You couldn't just ask me out like a normal person?"

"In my defense, I did try that first," Hoseok says. "I'm willing to renew the dinner offer, if you want."

“I don't know,” Yoongi murmurs, looking down at their hands again. "I'm not sure if I want to be-- I don't do… this."

Hoseok nods. "I know. But I wanted to ask, instead of just… pushing."

"I appreciate it," Yoongi says, hating how stilted it sounds.

"At least this is the most amicable turn-down I've ever gotten," Hoseok laughs. He lets go of Yoongi's hands, but Yoongi panics and grabs his right back.

"Maybe you can push just a little," he says quickly, face heating up all over again.

Hoseok raises an eyebrow at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I, uh." Yoongi swallows hard. "I was worried at first that if I let you get close, I'd lose track of myself. But you did anyway, and I'm still... me." He almost ducks his head to hide again, but Hoseok slides their fingers together, and Yoongi feels static shoot up his arms. "It's… a lot. And it's weird. But I do feel like myself around you. I'm sure of that."

Beaming, Hoseok tugs him another step closer. "I'm glad. Where does that leave us?"

"I've never done this," Yoongi admits. "Or wanted to. I have no idea where we start."

"Well, that is the hardest part," Hoseok tells him. "The good news is, I think we're already past that."

Yoongi does feel a little relieved. "Oh. Okay, what do we… do, then?"

"Whatever you want," Hoseok says, then grins. "But I really would like to buy you dinner."

"You already bought breakfast," Yoongi says, peeking around him at the sweet-smelling packages on the counter.

Hoseok rolls his eyes, "Okay, fine, I see how it is." He slips his hands gently out of Yoongi's and grabs a wrapped bread to pass to him. "I'll get you out to fine dining someday, mark my words."

"We'll work on it," Yoongi snickers. He leans back against the counter again, diligently unwrapping his breakfast. The quiet crinkling fills the kitchen for a few moments, louder than the background hum of electricity.

Once the bread is revealed, Yoongi glances up, meaning to offer Hoseok the first bite - but Hoseok is leaning in, right into Yoongi's space with his eyes dark, and gently brushing their lips together. Yoongi's breath sticks in his throat until Hoseok pulls away.

"Sorry," he says, smiling softly, but his eyes are searching Yoongi's for a reaction. "I pushed."

Yoongi nods, then puts the bread down for fear of crushing it. "Do it again."

Hoseok laughs, all tension leaving him, and reaches for Yoongi's hands again. "I thought you wanted breakfast."

"It can wait." Yoongi leans close and Hoseok meets him halfway, pressing another soft kiss to his mouth and then leaning their foreheads together. "Hm. One more."

"Now who's pushing?" Hoseok murmurs, smiling against his cheek.

Yoongi shushes him. It's been a stressful twenty-four hours. He deserves this. They both do. "If you really wanted me to join you, you should've tried this earlier."

Hoseok hums, considering. "If I had, I think you would've decked me."

"... Fair. Probably better this way."

"Probably," Hoseok agrees, and kisses him again.

As little work as Hoseok always seemed to be putting in at Seokjin's office, the partnership project turns out to be a real thing, and does eventually go through. Hoseok decides to oversee it personally, since he's already extended his original trip pretty much indefinitely. It means a lot of signing papers and a lot of moving things around, finding a new building, hiring new employees - and filling some new positions, as they arise.

"'Head of security'?" Yoongi reads off the ID card, giving Hoseok an unimpressed look. "That's the best you could come up with?"

"I considered saying you were my partner in cyber-vigilantism," Hoseok hums, "but that seemed less believable."

"It sounds like I'm your bodyguard," Yoongi same, making a face.

"Aren't you?"

"I make sure you don't do anything dumb. It's more impulse control than bodyguarding."

"Aw, don't sell yourself short," Hoseok chides, taking his hand. "I'm sure if the situation arose, you could win in a fight."

Yoongi gives him a long look. "I'm becoming less and less sure that you know what a bodyguard is--"

"Whoa, look at that!" Hoseok cuts him off, pointing ahead. "Is that the new sign?"

They stop in front of the arcade, looking up at the bright, steady neon marquee. It's just THE WOODS now, as the sign proclaims, and Yoongi already likes it better. The holo-gate is gone too, and there are actual lights inside that make all the game cabinets visible even from the street. Jeongguk and his friends made some good decisions right off the bat. Yoongi wasn't sure when Hoseok first bestowed the property deed upon Jeongguk, calling it a get-well-soon gift, but he can't deny the teens all know their shit.

How Hoseok got the deed in the first place was a different conversation entirely. "Old habits die hard?" he had tried, giving Yoongi his most charming smile. Yoongi glared as long as he could, but he knew when he was beat.

"I think the others are inside already," Yoongi says, squinting through the maze of game cabinets. He can see Taehyung and Jimin near the back, running from one machine to the next, and closer to the front Namjoon is showing a delighted Seokjin the ropes on an ancient Bulletproof I console.

"Oh, and there's boy wonder," Hoseok gasps, waving to Jeongguk as he comes over to greet them. "Are you ready to go?"

"You guys are early," Jeongguk says with a frown.

"I said five, didnt I?" Yoongi pulls out his phone to check the time. "It's ten minutes to."

"Ten minutes is exactly how long I need to calibrate HiphopPhile," Jeongguk insists.

Yoongi doesn't even bother trying to fight him on it. "Fine, go on," he relents, waving him off. "Just remember, we're on a schedule here."

"Your grandmother is waiting," Hoseok says with an exaggerated wink. Yoongi rolls his eyes.

Jeongguk laughs as Hoseok pecks his cheek, ruining his exasperated expression. "Hey, are you going to tell Badwolf that you're, you know, unavailable?"

Yoongi exchanges a wary glance with Hoseok before giving Jeongguk a weird look. "Why would I?"

"Well…" Jeongguk looks pointedly at their joined hands. "It's kind of cruel to string the guy along, isn't it?"

Hoseok immediately perks up, frowning deeply, but Yoongi can see his eyes are full of amusement. "Hey, yeah! What's up with that?"

Yoongi wonders why he even bothers. "Ten minutes," he warns Jeongguk, who scurries off into the arcade. Hoseok drops the act to double over laughing and Yoongi turns back to him with an unimpressed look. "Not funny."

"It's a little funny," Hoseok says, wiping his eyes. "Besides, you're the one getting the best of both worlds, here."

Yoongi elbows him in the side, but their joined hands keep him from going too far.

They wait another couple minutes before Hoseok gets antsy, bouncing up onto his tiptoes to look past the entrance. "What game are you best at?"

"Of these?" Yoongi asks, following his gaze. "I don't know, I haven't played any for a long time."

"But you must have a specialty, or a favourite," Hoseok presses.

"I guess so," Yoongi hums, running through some titles in his mind. There are probably still a few classics running that he knows his way around.

"Well?" Hoseok urges, tugging on his hand and looking poised to take off through the entrance. "What do you say?"

Yoongi looks up at the marquee again, then down the street, then past Hoseok into the arcade. "One round couldn't hurt, right?"

Hoseok grins, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "I won't tell if you don't."

Yoongi smiles and twines their fingers together, taking one last glance up as they pass under the neon, then leads Hoseok into the Woods with their hands clasped tight.