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It was just a regular day for SEVENTEEN. Everyone had a free day with no schedules at all. Except Joshua, who had to go to the company to complete his solo schedules. In the morning, despite Joshua’s protests about the rest going out without him, they decided to go to the park that was not so far away from their dorm. The park was mostly empty except for the few times they came across a small group of people who looked like they were probably older than Seungcheol. They had come across them a lot more than usual these couple of days but they had quickly emptied the park when they saw them heading to the park so they couldn’t talk to them.
“I wish Joshua hyung was here too, why does he have to go to his schedules when we all have a day off? Isn’t it a bit weird? It feels like it was planned.” Seokmin said as he was lost in his thoughts, gathering other’s attention to him. “When I asked him if he was free a few days ago, he told me he was completely free today and asked me if I wanted to go get ice cream with him since I also had the day off. That was why I looked upset when he told us he had an event scheduled for today while we were planning on what to do last night.” Seokmin quietly explained under the pressure of the other members eyes, he had been quiet ever since they had arrived at the park while the others just casually talked so he felt the need to explain himself when Jeonghan asked him “Seokmin, what happened? You seem upset.”
“I’m sure he’s okay, Seokminie. He has been working really hard for the past few days so it’s probably a solo schedule he wanted to attend.” Soonyoung reassured him and patted his shoulder while talking. Seokmin gave him and the others a smile but before he could say anything, he felt someone hold his head in place and forcibly put a surprisingly pleasant, sweet smelling white piece of fabric over his mouth and nose. He tried to get out of the man's grip but he was much stronger than him and his attempts just caused him to be held in place even more. He tried to scream and turn his head to the side but nothing worked. He felt tears forming in his eyes as some minutes went by.
His body slowly relaxed and his attempts to get out of the man’s grip stopped as his vision got dark and his head fell to the side. The man on top of him grinned and removed the piece of white fabric from his face as the other people who were also holding a fabric on the rest of the member’s face took a glance at him and then copied his actions. He was not aware of this during that time but the other members were also getting drugged too, basically. “Put these to the car and we will head to the warehouse, make sure no one else gets involved in this.” The man said before dragging Seokmin’s body to the car.
The others again, repeated his actions and after putting everyone in the car and making sure none of the members were awake, they started to drive to the warehouse without checking if anyone saw what was happening, making their biggest mistake since two men were just behind the gate of the park, watching everything that was happening. “Hyun, call Joshua.” The man with dark hair quietly said to the other man next to him. “Sure but let’s get in the car first. He is probably in the company.” answered the man with longer hair, called Hyun. “Hey Josh?” Hyun called out as he and the other man, called Minhyuk, were walking in the direction of their car.
“Hyun? I’m on a schedule right now, I do not have time for any kind of meeting or mission today.” Joshua whispered the last few words to not let anyone hear anything. “Joshua, things are going to get really messy if we do not stop them this time. I will send you a location, I don’t care what you end up doing to make it here as early as possible but you need to come here in less than twenty minutes.” Minhyuk hissed, at the other end of the line, Joshua sighed and lowered his hand that was holding the phone.
He hated this. The truth is, even though he was seen as an innocent, soft person who can not do anything bad in other people’s eyes, he was a part of a mafia group full of people who dedicated their lives to protecting innocent people from getting hurt by the dangerous names from the mafia enemies. He had been in this mafia group ever since his parents were tragically beaten to death by those people for no apparent reason. He hated that they needed to help people. Not that he hated helping, he hated the people who made them need help from others just to get out of a situation.
When he first joined this mafia group, it was still very small. He was also scared since a member of this mafia was the one who took him in when he finally passed out from exhaustion after running away. On his first day there, he was curled up into a small ball at the very corner of the room that was given to him. When two small children entered the room, he was very frightened but soon learned their names were Minhyuk and Hyun and the fact that he had to share a room with them. Soon, they became inseparable and the two were still his best friends and the members he was the closest to in the mafia.
Joshua raised the phone back to his ear when the memories of how his parents’ screams filled their house and the people who were beating his parents as they stole a few things from their house. Joshua still remembered the expression that was on his father’s face when he saw his mom get shot by one of those men and screaming at him to go and save his life. He remembered running for his life as a woman was running after him with a gun pointed in his direction along with an inhuman expression. That day, he ran for his life while still in his pajamas in the middle of the night with no access to warmth and safety despite being just 7 years old and having no shoes on his feet.
“Josh? Joshua? Are you still there? We need you here right now. Joshua!” He snapped back to reality when he heard the mixed voice of Hyun and Minhyuk on the other end of the line. He took a deep breath before answering. “I’m coming. Send me the location. Who is in trouble?” He asked quickly as he gathered his stuff in his bag and grabbed his car keys from the table. He didn’t even look back at his manager who was shouting at him for leaving and asking where he was going. “Your members, Hong Joshua. The members of SEVENTEEN are kidnapped by the group that was targeting them for weeks and that group is the one we were trying to catch for months. So, hurry up and drive to this stupid warehouse!”
Hyun screamed at the phone and Minhyuk calmly and firmly said the last sentence. But it did not matter since Joshua couldn’t process what he was saying after hearing that his members were kidnapped. “Joshua please just move, okay?! We need you here, grab your gun too!” Hyun screamed again. Joshua quickly got out of the photo shoot set and ran to his car. He started driving to the location that Minhyuk had sent him along with a. text that said “The only warehouse that is in the direction they are going is this one. We will see if they are there once we get there, be quick.” So of course Joshua drove there as fast as he could while ignoring the beeping sound that was telling him to wear his seatbelt and getting more annoying every second.
As he was driving there, he thought about all the possible ways the members could get hurt, he knew he was messing with his own mindset this way but he felt like he needed to think something to not go insane and thinking those kinds of things were better than nothing. He drove until he could see a big but old and rusty warehouse. He drove behind it and parked his car at a safe distance from the warehouse to avoid any kind of attention the car might get. He quickly opened his truck and was going to grab his mask and jacket when he felt someone grab his arm. He quickly pulled his gun out and pointed it to the person who was right behind him.
“Josh, it’s me Minhyuk. Can you drop your gun? You scared me for a second.” Minhyuk complained as Joshua exhaled in relief and Hyun silently giggled. “Do you know where they are?” Joshua asked while he put on his jacket along with his mask and to complete his all black outfit and make sure he was unrecognizable from anyone. “There aren't any rooms in the warehouse so they probably gathered all of them in the middle of the room.” Hyun answered. “I see a window at the corner, we can sneak in from there.” said Minhyuk while pointing at a small window that looked like it could barely fit a person inside.
“So, they’ll probably see us when we enter, right?” Joshua asked and the other two nodded and started walking towards the warehouse when Joshua finally finished loading his gun. Joshua slowly and carefully followed them to the window. Minhyuk was the first person to sneak into the warehouse. Hyun quietly followed his steps. Luckily, Minhyuk had not got caught but when Hyun also got in from the window, he accidentally knocked over a small box. They both stayed still but no noise came. Joshua peaked inside and frowned when he didn’t see any of his members, he quickly got into the warehouse through the window without letting the thoughts of his members getting hurt cloud his brain.
“Where are they?” Joshua asked confusedly with a tint of worry in his voice. Minhyuk, being the one who is responsible for searching places like warehouses and hideouts, looked around the warehouse with a frown on his face. Hyun also looked puzzled until he spotted a door hidden behind some old boxes. “Minhyuk, Josh, is that a door or I’m just not seeing right?” Joshua and Minhyuk quickly looked at the direction Hyun was pointing at. “It is a door, it looks like they hid it so we couldn’t find it.” Joshua mumbled under his breath while carefully walking towards the door with his gun in his hand.
“No shit, Sherlock.” Hyun mumbled to at least ease Joshua’s worries a bit and caused the other two men to roll their eyes but giggle silently. “We shouldn’t play around, Hyun.” Minhyuk said seriously. “Okay, okay.” Hyun was the one to roll his eyes now. They all slowly walked to the door and Hyun, being the one on the front, quickly opened the door and pointed his gun inside. At that moment chaos erupted. Hyun screamed at the people in the room to drop their weapons and the people looked like they really did not expect anything like this. Minhyuk and Joshua slowly entered the room too, with their guns pointed at the other people.
Joshua felt like his heart was getting pulled out of his chest when the man in front of the members grabbed Jihoon because he was the easiest to hold since he was short. “Do not come close and drop your guns.” The man hissed, but Joshua could see the tint of fear in his eyes and he knew the other two also noticed it. The members whose hands and feet were tied up with a piece of rope watched this happen with horror in their eyes. Joshua could swear that he saw Seungkwan shed a tear but stood strong so the people couldn’t see him weak. The other man who was standing next to the person who was holding Jihoon and pointed his gun at Jihoon.
But before he could get any words out of his mouth, Joshua ran to the man that was holding Jihoon and pulled the short man towards himself while pushing the other man into the ground. When Joshua ran to Jihoon, Hyun quickly tackled the man that was holding the gun to not let the two get shot while Minhyuk quickly cut the ropes off of the members and told them to get out through the front door and run to the back of the warehouse. Minhyuk led the members to the back of the warehouse and pulled all of them to the side to count them. Joshua and Hyun followed them from behind and they gathered all the members at the window that they used to get inside.
Joshua quickly counted them and put his hands on his knees and lowered his head as he exhaled in relief and Hyun put his hand on his back to reassure him. “You did a good job.” Minhyuk quietly said to Joshua. Joshua stood up and recounted the members just to make sure they were all here. Just as he was counting, Seungcheol, being the protective leader he is, asked “Who are you?” in a serious tone. Instead of answering, Joshua decided to take off his mask. Just as he was about to take it off, he saw the rest of the mafia enemies' team running away. He quickly let go of his mask, fired his gun and shot them from far away, causing the members to jump in their places to the sound of the gun. Except Jihoon.
He kept staring at Joshua with a strange look. He felt like he knew that person. His movements, reflexes reminded him of someone. When he walked up to Joshua, other members tried to call out to him but he just silenced them with his hand. He got closer and closer to Joshua until he was standing right in front of him, looking up at his face. Jihoon just stared at Joshua’s eyes, he felt a warm feeling in his heart, this person’s eyes were familiar. Very familiar. Now with nothing that can stop him from revealing himself to the members, Joshua took a deep breath and grabbed his mask. He quickly took it off, releasing who he was all this time.
Everyone was quiet and no one moved for a moment. Joshua looked at the members' shocked faces, no one dared to say anything. Just as when the other members behind him started asking questions about the whole situation, their voices sounded upset and almost angry, Jihoon stayed silent. He slowly raised his hands and cupped Joshua’s cheeks, his shock was obvious in his eyes. “Shua hyung?” Jihoon called out in shock, his voice shaking and barely over a whisper. Joshua closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down. Of course he was going to tell the members about this sooner or later but he didn’t want to reveal it just like this.
Seeing the way Joshua was struggling to speak, Hyun walked up to the members and bowed as Jihoon let go of Joshua’s cheeks and stepped back, his shock still written on his face. “Uh, hello. I’m Hyun. So, uh nice to meet you? I’m Joshua’s friend.” Hyun stumbled over his words but managed to get something out of his mouth. “You’re confusing them even more.” Minhyuk said under his breath and shook his head left and right in fake disappointment. “I’m trying to help, okay?!” Hyun yelled out. Joshua just silenced both of them with his hand and sighed before starting to talk. “This is Hyun as you learned just now,” He calmly said while pointing at Hyun.
“And this is Minhyuk.” He continued while pointing at Minhyuk. “They are one of my closest friends and also my teammates.” He explained as the members seemed even more confused now. For a minute, he stared at the members' confused faces and then just pointed at the direction of his and Minhyuk’s car. “Let’s continue this conversation when we reach the dorm, okay?” He said while he signaled them to follow him. Luckily, everyone could fit in the two cars since Minhyuk thought of bringing a pretty big car when they went to spy on their mafia enemy because he did it know if they could catch them and if they would need a big car for the mission.
So with everyone having a place to sit, they headed to the dorms. The car ride was quiet, very unlikely to happen since Joshua didn’t remember a single time a car ride with his members was so quiet, and it felt awkward. When they finally arrived, everyone was relieved. They all headed to the living room, excluding Minhyuk and Hyun since they had to go back to the mafia to let the team know what was going on. “Hyung, here. Just calm down a bit, okay?” Vernon talked in English with the hopes of bringing a bit of comfort to his hyung to at least calm him down a bit. Joshua gave him a small, forced smile and took a big gulp of the glass of water.
The members were sitting on the floor, surrounding him while he sat on the couch. Seungkwan whispered “It’s okay, hyung.” and gave him a reassuring smile, even though there was still some confusion in his eyes. Joshua smiled back at him and tried to gather the courage to speak. Just as Jun and Minghao were going to step in to ask him about some things, he started explaining who they were, what he meant by “teammates” and what he was doing in the middle of this. He calmly and clearly explained how the mafia worked, how he was found by them in such a fragile stage and why he joined them. When the topic came to his parents, he couldn’t help but tear up slightly.
Since Jihoon was sitting right in front of him, he grabbed Joshua’s hand and caressed his hand slowly, hoping to give him the comfort he needed when he was at the worst state of his life. Even though he was on the verge of tears, he held back and only stopped when he felt pairs of arms around him. With the sudden comfort, he let out a loud sob and let his tears fall. “It will be okay, hyung.” Mingyu quietly said and Wonwoo said “You have us now.” and wiped away Joshua’s tears. Even though he was crying, he giggled when he saw Chan smirking in the attempts of cheering him up. “You were so cool, hyung.” Chan said while still having that smirk. Joshua felt warm, at that moment. He felt like he found the home he was searching for, for years now. He smiled, he finally understood that “home” didn’t need to be a place, it could be people too.