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Chapter Text

S.Coups was barely out of bed when he got his first dose of adrenaline for the day as the door got kicked open. Boss waltzed in and pointed at the drowsy boy with one finger.

“Soup!”

“It’s pronounced S.Coups, sir,” said not-Soup for the millionth time. He quickly emptied a bottle of lukewarm cola to get the sugar-caffeine surge he would definitely need.

“Whatever. You left practice two minutes early yesterday. Did you think I wouldn’t watch the camera footage for once, huh?”

“Dino hurt his hand, I had to bring him to-“

“His hand, yes.” Bits of foam formed at Boss’s mouth. “His feet worked just fine. No reason for you to leave.”

“But-“

Boss glared as if his eyes were about to fire laser beams. “Do you remember After School? No, of course not, because no one does. That’s what’ll happen to you and the rest of nineteen if you fall behind.”

“Sevente-“

“Hey!” Boss whipped around and pointed out the door – at the small boy who had been doing his best to sneak by soundlessly. “Cashcow! What are you doing outside the studio?”

Woozi seemed to shrink into his sweater. His face was mostly under-eye-bags at this point.

“I was up all night and-“

“And what? Is the song done? Do you really want to be After Schooled that bad?”

“I had to pee,” whispered the small boy.

Boss snatched the empty cola bottle from S.Coups’ hands and threw it at Woozi who caught it clumsily. “Now you can stay inside. Get back to your room. Shoo!”

Looking at S.Coups again, Boss raised his hand as if about to slap the air in front of him. “And I’ll be keeping an eye on you as well. Those two minutes… I expect you to make up for them.”

The hip hopper sighed. “Yes, sir.”

Boss turned to leave. “Why are you still standing there, Cashcow? Compose me a song, pronto!”

Once alone, S.Coups allowed himself a minute to slow his breathing, then he set out to wake up the others. Perhaps if he was quick he could spare them today’s encounter with Boss. There was enough stress this early in the day.

~~~

In the adjacent room Seungkwan was already up and loosening his vocal cords. “Do re mi fa sol-“ His practice ended in a shrill screech as he saw the dorm’s guest.

As always when Boss entered, the singer had to fight the reflex of slipping under his covers or into any other hiding place.

“M-morning, Boss.”

“Who gave you permission to stop? Keep singing. Get those high notes higher.”

The man looked for the American hyung and pointed an accusing finger. “Drake!”

“I’m Josh.”

“Whatever. Hip hop unit needs some more English lines in their rap. Go do something.”

Joshua scrunched his face. “What about Vernon. He…” the boy carefully measured his words. “He speaks English, too. And he’s in their unit. And he’s a member of Seventeen.”

There was a chance Boss had forgotten some, or all, of that but apparently that wasn’t it.

“Vernon left five minutes early yesterday.” Boss’s mouth was foaming worse than usual. “Five. Minutes. Early. He spent the night scrubbing the floors till his fingers bled. I made sure of that.”

The CEO turned in a circle to shout at the other’s present for good measure. “You! Why isn’t your hair longer yet?”

Um…” Jeonghan took a step back. “Sorry, I’ll try harder?”

“And you…” The man waved his hand at Dokyeum. “Dingus… Dongle…um.” Boss pulled up his sleeve and squinted at one of the thirteen smudged lines. “Dorky! Not sure what you’re supposed to be doing but stop grinning and get to work. I can After School you kids faster than you can say ‘Who’s After School?’ so get a move on.”

Angrily clapping, Pledis’ owner walked backwards out into the corridor.

Four boys exhaled deeply when Boss had left, not daring to say anything since the shouty man had neglected to close the door upon departure. There was a thick tension between them, they could all feel it unspoken. For a while now they had been tethering along the edge. Of what, they didn’t know.

~~~

Hoshi knew what was up when Jun got a piece of toast stuck in his throat and coughed with wide eyes fixated to the door frame behind Hoshi’s back. Slowly turning in his breakfast chair, the choreographer looked behind him to see Boss arrive. Jun got his toast lose by the time the man had poured himself a coffee.

To Hoshi’s terror, Boss came to stand right behind him. “Performance unit!”

“Yes?” said four boys in perfect sync.

“Do any of you happen to know the time?”

Hoshi didn’t know what the right answer was – if there was one. To spare his boys the rage he decide to focus the man on himself by saying what seemed safest. “Well, it’s early in the morning, so-“

“Then! Why! Are! You! Not! Dancing!”

Boss slammed the cup onto the table repeatedly like a gavel, crumbling the plastic in the process. Steaming hot liquid sprayed everywhere but the man seemed completely unaffected by the boiling substance dripping down his arm.

Four boys leapt from their chairs fast enough to send them flying and rushed to the practice room, toast slices hanging from their mouths, reminiscent of anime characters late for school.

~~~

On his way to breakfast, JR had the unprecedented luck of crashing into Boss and recoiled in horror as he realized. The look on Pledis’ owner’s face was one of pure puzzlement.

“Who the f*** are you?”

“I… I’m JR.”

“Okay, Chair. Whatever you say.”

“No it’s JR… it’s an abriv-“ The boy stopped talking as the look on the CEO’s face grew more confused.

After a second of silence, JR tried again. “I’m the leader of your first boy group?”

“Right, Old West!”

“Nu’est, Sir.”

“Didn’t I send you kids back into exile?”

“You mean Japan?”

“Sure. Look, Chair, is there any reason you’re bothering me.”

Ninety percent of the shy boy wanted to use the opportunity to bail but the other ten felt a responsibility to his members. “Are we… Is there any chance we’ll get a comeback again, like, ever?”

“Were you making bank last time we tried that?”

JR wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical or the man really didn’t remember. In either case it was probably wise to ship carefully around the subject. He wasn’t going to get his members After Schooled by accident if at all avoidable.

“You… uh,” he tried instead, “you told us we had a lot of potential and you trusted us fully… and stuff. Back when we started out.”

Boss waved as if trying to get rid of a mosquito. “Of course, of course. I care about all of you.” He looked off to the side, an expression of utmost concentration on his face. “Erin, Backhoe, Dan… and… the long one.”

With a look of honest curiosity Boss turned his head back to JR. “There’s five of you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Ha! See, I care about you guys, Chair. Maybe the Japanese’ll take you back a couple more years.”

The man hovered his hand in front of JR’s face, visibly unsure if he should pet the head or the shoulders. He ended up picking the middle and squeezed JR’s throat. The boy wheezed something he hoped sounded vaguely like an assurance of gratitude.

~~~

S.Coups walked in on his unit mates just to find himself looking at Boss’s backside. Vernon was curled up in a corner, rocking back and forth and staring at his bandaged hand.

Mingyu and Wonwoo were sitting on a bed and stared at their shoes.

“Sales are down,” Boss yelled, “we haven’t been trending on twitter in ages, public interest is dwindling and we haven’t had any shows asking to have you over all week. Something’s got to get interest back up.”

Wonwoo dared to meet the man’s eyes. “We have a fansign coming up.”

“Exactly! And you two are going to make out.”

“W H A T?” both boy screamed, wide eyes dashing back and forth between Boss and each other.

The man had a surprisingly gentle expression on his face, like he often had when talking about money. “You’re everybody’s favorite couple. If you were to kiss… We’ll make the dumb girls scream their lungs out till blood vessels rupture. Just imagine the popularity boost.”

Mingyu stared into the void, blankly. Wonwoo had a look of mild terror in his expression and appeared to have ceased breathing.

Boss clapped his hands. “Fantastic. Better start practicing. I haven’t decided on the optimal balance of innocent and sensual yet. I’ll get back to you with some examples once I’ve googled them.”

The man walked out the door without acknowledging S.Coups’ existence. In the corner Vernon whispered about the walls closing in again.

The lead rapper was sure, something had to happen. Something he couldn’t do on his own.

~~~

Organizing a secret meeting was harder than he had expected. For one thing, where didn’t Boss have surveillance cameras?

Chapter Text

Thirteen plus five boys were squeezed into Woozi’s studio – the only place where no noise would reach the outside. They were super densely packed and the air was getting stale quickly but it would suffice.  Any conspiracy formulated in these four walls would stay hidden. Now if only he could get everybody’s attention.

S.Coups stepped onto the table, kicking a few anime figurines to the ground halfheartedly. He set one foot onto the keyboard and the room was filled with the dissonant sound of the shoe-on-piano symphony. Finally, the present boys calmed down.

“I asked you to come here this late at night to make sure Boss is already sound asleep on his money bag pile. You may have noticed that things got a lot worse lately.”

“An understatement,” Joshua scoffed in typical savage manner.

“And this is why we need to do something.”

“But what?” Jun asked. “Not even my charms work on that tyrant.”

S.Coups sighed. “To be honest, I have given up hope when it comes to him. We may be facing a life of slaving away under the cruel dictatorship Boss subjects us to. We have to save ourselves before it’s too late. We need to gain back our freedom.”

“What are you saying?” Jeonghan asked. “That we escape this place? We’re under contract. We wouldn’t be gaining freedom, we’d become criminals.”

JR raised his fists in the air. “Whatever you lose, you’ll find it again. But what you throw away you’ll never get back.”

There was an appropriately pious silence.

S.Coups glared at the other group leader. “That’s a quote from an anime, isn’t it?”

JR looked like he wanted to protest but then simply hung his head in shame.

“What’s the plan exactly?” Woozi asked. Or at least his voice did. The boy was somewhere in the crowd, invisible between the other boys who might as well have been tall as trees.

“I don’t really have one yet. That’s why we’re here. Any ideas?”

“Well,” Wonwoo said. “We can’t just walk out the front door. Remember when Mingyu wanted to get snacks and tried to sneak out at midnight. As soon as he tripped the laser barrier… I didn’t even know Pledis had blood hounds. We’re luck he’s good with dogs.”

Mingyu shivered at the memory. “I’m a cat person now.”

“I’m more concerned with the afterward,” Jeonghan interjected. “What do we do once we’re outside? Jun and The8 have a different county to flee to. Joshua, also, and maybe Vernon. But what about the rest of us?”

JR stuck a pose. “All we can do is live until the day we die. Control what we can… and fly free!”

S.Coups groaned. “Please stop quoting anime. That one didn’t even make sense.”

“Whatever we do,” Wonwoo said, “It must happen before the fansign. Boss said if the kiss is successful in raising public interest, Mingyu and I…” He took a deep breath. “We have to film a sex tape he can leak.”

A hand rose from the crowd. The rest of the body wasn’t visible so it could only belong to one boy.

“Yes, Woozi?” said the leader still standing on the table.

“How about we get rid of the contracts? I feel like we all were pretty quick to accept the idea of running away. Why not take it one step further and burn the place down.”

“That seems a bit drastic,” said Ren. “And can we cut this meeting short, my hair isn’t taking the accumulating moisture in here too well.”

“Okay, new plan,” S.Coups said. “We break into Boss’ office, get rid of the contracts, steal the money, get the hell out of here and then split up. Off to freedom.”

“To freedom,” whispered a bunch of the boys.

Aron grumbled. “We still don’t have a plan for the escape part, guys.”

JR tried to raise his fists again and was held back by the boys closest to him. “Freedom is something you need to actively acquire. It isn’t-“

S.Coups stomped on the piano with every word. “No. More. Anime. Quotes.”

The leader of Nu’est whispered the rest of the memorized monologue to himself.

Ren volunteered an idea. “If the front door is no option, how about the back door? It’s on the other side of the building and we’re not allowed near it to begin with, so conceivably it’s not as heavily guarded.”

“In movies,” said Jun, “escapes are usually done via the roof. I should know. I stared in multiple motion pictures. Did I ever mention that?”

“You hadn’t yet today,” said S.Coups with an eye roll. “And don’t movie heroes normally use the air vents?”

“No, you’re thinking if break ins.”

“They do that in American movies, too,” Joshua contributed.

Dino straightened his back as he got an inspiration. “The conference room. The windows there aren’t on the alarm system because some of the employees go there to smoke so the windows have to open. It’s not as high up as the roof so it should be easier.”

The leader rubbed his chin. “These options… I’m not sure I like any of them. This isn’t going to be simple and painless.”

“A lesson without pain is meaningless,” JR began. “For you cannot gain something-“

Baekho pressed his hand onto the face of the delicately built JR, shutting him up and probably also suffocating him a bit. Nobody complained.

“Then we have a plan,” S.Coups said. “Sort of. Multiple plans. One of those has to work. I propose each unit works on one of the plans. I’ll try to figure out how to break into Boss’ vault. Tomorrow, same time, same place. We’ll discuss preliminary results. If every unit does their part, we’ll be out in no time.”

“Hey,” JR said from behind Baekho’s massive biceps. “Nu’est isn’t a Seventeen sub-unit.”

“Fine, each team works on a plan. Better?”

JR raised one fist and whispered ominously. “The day when you’ll finally understand me… will never come.”

“One more anime quote and we’re leaving you behind to deal with Boss on your own.” Having made his threat, S.Coups couldn’t help but grin uncontrollably at the thought of impending freedom. “Now, let’s split up gang.”

“Oh, so you’re allowed to quote cartoons. I see how it is, Mister Hypocrite.”

Chapter Text

There was even less room in the mini-studio on the second evening, since there were now eighteen backpacks full of more or less necessary stuff to go with the eighteen escapees in the making.

“Uhum!” S.Coups tried to get everybody’s attention, again standing on the now empty desk. The figurines were gone, safely stowed away in Woozi’s rucksack.

The leader of the numerically superior group waved, in hopes of getting the others to shut up. “I’d like to go over our individual plans for tonight again – I’d really like to, but we have about ten minutes left before we need to pretend to be asleep. Because some people were stubbornly hard to talk out of bringing entire suitcases.”

He would have glared at the offenders but there were simply too many boys that needed to be glared at.

“Sub-unit leaders, show of hands.”

Woozi’s arm rose from between the heads while Soonyoung waved enthusiastically. JR had his hand raised as well, but in a more threatening gesture. “Nu’est is not your sub unit.”

“Oh, drop it.” S.Coups took one last headcount – with the amount of boys involved it was always possible for someone or other to slip through the cracks. “Since we were unable to figure out which plan is the most promising we’ll go with plan Bee. And also plan A. And Cee and Dee. What I’m saying is we’ll try all of them. If any of us fail and get captured, the ones who made it outside have to create a distraction that facilitates the captured unit’s escape.”

Even though it would make it more difficult to coordinate, he had to add one detail. “Leave your phones behind. And I don’t mean turn them to silent. I mean drop them. Right now. I’m pretty sure there are tracking sensors in them. And anyway, if we get caught because somebody’s pocket starts singing Mansae I’ll hold you personally responsible.”

The leader took one look at the time on his phone before he demonstratively dropped it and spoke a little faster. “I will lead hip hop unit. We’ll see if we can find a way to grab Boss’ money since the vault is on the way to the roof where we’re going. Vocal unit will go through the vents leading past the office. So it’s your responsibility to see to the contracts’ destruction.”

He could only hope Woozi could hear him down there. With a thousand more thing to say on his mind, he dismissed the group.

“Alright, boys. Next time we see each other it’ll be outside this little corner of hell. Now slip into bed and snore convincingly. Twenty minutes after lights out we all start our individual plans. Good luck.”

“Hey,” JR said, “I had a whole speech prepared as well. You’re not the only group leader here. My monologue is sure to inspire bravery and valor in the hearts of my brothers and your kids.”

S.Coups grumbled. “Is it from an anime?”

“No!”

“JR?”

“…Maybe. Partially.”

“Meeting dismissed. To bed, everyone.”

~~~

He laid down with the cover up to his nose and tried to keep his eyes closed in the semi darkness. It was utterly nerve-wracking.

Somehow S.Coups was convinced the staff would figure out their poorly conceived scheme. Maybe Boss could secretly read minds. Would it be that surprising? What if one of the boys messed up? What if the staff found the backpacks?

Or worse, what if any of the boys simply alarmed the staff? What if one of them was a double agent?

In retrospect, he regretted including Nu’est. The power struggle was bound to get ugly at an inconvenient time. He could easily imagine these rats selling out Seventeen just to stay a little longer in their meager limelight.

Although… Now that he thought about it, Mingyu had always seemed suspicious. How could someone who graduated on top of his class be so incredibly dumb? A genius one moment, a big puppy the next? No, something was off.

S.Coups began to sweat. It all became clear now. But wait! Woozi was holed up in the studio day in and day out. Of course the composer acted like he was afraid of Boss when they met in front of him, but S.Coups knew there was more than enough opportunity for the small boy to serve as a spy. He sure would fit into inhumanly tight hiding places with ease.

But what about China-line? They were always blabbering in their own language. What were they really saying? Who were they talking to on the phone? They claimed it was their parents. Ha, how convenient. It would be child’s play to report to the authorities right in front of his face when S.Coups couldn’t understand their cypher. Chinese? Yeah right. More likely secret code.

The door creaked open. This was the moment of truth. The staff member making sure they were all nicely tucked in was either going to leave, or blow their cover.

The door shut.

The light turned off.

S.Coups breathed again.

20 more minutes, then freedom.

~~~

The floorboard creaked. It had never done that before. A drop of cold sweat was running down S.Coups’ back. He froze as if he had stepped on a landmine and any movement was going to see him torn to hip hopping bits.

Behind him, his unit members stood perfectly still. Mingyu made a sound. The boy was about to sneeze. A signal to the enemy? Was the double agent alerting the cavalry?

Wonwoo pressed his fingers on the tall boy’s nasal wings and whisper shouted “Keep your germs to yourself for one damn night.”

Redistributing his weight, S.Coups let the floorboard creak its goodbyes and directed the other three around it. They were out of the dorm area and were seemingly the last ones to bail. Vocal unit was already on their way and Dino’s behind was the last they had seen from performance unit. The latter were headed up, just like hip hop unit themselves.

Vernon had packed the lightest, since he intended to flee to America and traveling light was going to get him through airport security quicker. So it fell to him to carry their bed sheets. The pile of cloth was going to serve as their rope off the roof.

As long as they moved quietly they should be safe. There weren’t exactly guards going around the building. Motion sensors on the other hand were quite common. Officially here to keep thieves out, they were oddly grouped around the dorm area. S.Coups wanted to believe he and the boys were simply considered Pledis’ most prized possessions but he knew better. Fortunately he knew the sensors’ locations by heart.

The four boys – and one pile of laundry – made it to the stairs without triggering any alarms, and it seemed the other units hadn’t fared any worse. So far so good. Though S.Coups really wished he could check up on them.

Then the sound of something metal hitting the ground echoed through the corridor.

He didn’t know who had messed up, but he wasn’t going to let it all fall apart now.

“Run,” he whispered. Only two levels between them and the roof. S.Coups rushed up the stairs, Mingyu and Wonwoo in pursuit. Vernon took a brave step, dropped a sheet, got entangled and fell backwards. With a muffled scream the unit maknae tumbled down the stairs, turning into a mummy in the process.

The Vernon/sheet pile vanished out of sight as he/it rolled around the staircase corner toward the basement.

Chapter Text

Woozi couldn’t wait. It had only been ten minutes and they were supposed to stay put for ten more, but he simply couldn’t take it any longer.

The boy pushed the cover off him, snapped the headlamp onto his forehead and turned it on.

“Is it time?” Joshua said.

Woozi only grunted in response and collected his backpack from under the bed. He turned to see if the rest of the bunch was ready. Jeonghan pinched Dokyeom’s cheeks to wake him up. How could the boy have fallen asleep on a night like this? Woozi rolled his eyes and helped Seungkwan fit the other headlamp over the lead singer’s hair.

“Don’t mess it up,” Seungkwan said. “I styled it for an hour.”

“It’s dark. No one will see you.” Woozi fought a losing battle against his eyes which desperately wanted to keep rolling and rolling. He was truly the only sane person left in this rat hole.

“I don’t care who sees it. I’ll know.”

“Just light the way, or I’m giving the lamp to somebody else.”

By then Dokyeom was properly awake and the five member unit was ready to leave.

Woozi opened the door. The corridor was empty. Now or never. He handed his luggage to Seungkwan and pulled a screwdriver from one of the side pockets.

“Josh, Jeong, help me up.”

The two boys grabbed one of the leader’s legs each and raised him onto their shoulders. He was high enough to reach the ceiling. Right there was the entrance to their designated escape route. A metal grate held by four screws. All that stood between them and the ticket to freedom.

One screw, two screws, three screws. The grate was hanging dangerously uneven. He wasn’t sure if he could hold it in place once it came loose.

“Dokyeom, take those screws off me. Good, now prepare to catch the plate. If it hits the ground we’ll cause enough of a ruckus to wake up half of Seoul.”

The singer took his position, smiling brightly despite the danger they faced. Not for the first time Woozi wondered how Dokyeom could be smiling so much. Didn’t his cheeks hurt? Maybe he wasn’t even smiling – maybe that was his resting face.

In the light of two headlamps, Woozi turned the last screw out of its socket. The grate slipped and fell – right into Dokyeom’s open arms.

“Gottcha!”

“Shh!” Woozi wobbled on his double-shoulder ride, wishing he could go back down to scold the boy properly. Unlike most people he felt more intimidating glaring from below rather than above. He had never head-butted anyone in the stomach but it seemed to him as though most people were instinctively aware of his potential in that area.

However, he had to stay up. The boys carrying him lifted him higher – into the vent. He poked his head in. It wasn’t exactly the most spacious of tunnels but as long as he didn’t have to turn around, it wasn’t necessarily claustrophobic.

His fingers found some dust but not enough to become a problem. He might have to keep himself from sneezing but it wouldn’t obscure his vision.

“Alright, I’ll go in. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck!” Dokyeom said.

“Shh!”

Woozi pulled his weight into the tight space. Yeah, turning around might be an issue.

“Hand me the bags,” he whispered down, “I’ll try to shove them ahead of me. Once you’re all up we crawl over them and everybody picks his own again.”

It took a while. He had to reach between his legs to grab the straps. But eventually all luggage was safely inside the vent. Then Jeonghan followed. Dokyeom became the center of their train. Joshua jumped and pulled himself up without help. Seungkwan was a bit problematic.

The final team member hung on a rucksack strap Joshua held in place. With a lot of barely muffled moaning they somehow managed to get their taillight into the vent as well.

Once the huffing at the back calmed a little, Woozi whispered “These vents have massive echo. Only talk when absolutely necessary. Now let’s go.”

He had familiarized himself with the layout yesterday, so he was confident he could lead his members to the office where a few pieces of paper condemned them to eternal slavery. But not much longer!

~~~

The vents were about as boring as expected and since vocal unit only dared to move at a snail’s pace it didn’t get any more exciting. Woozi counted the grates they passed to figure out when they would arrive above the office.

He was reasonably sure they were there.

“Alright, this is- Ah!”

Jeonghan had pushed his head against Woozi’s butt. “Sorry, leader,” the long haired boy said, “I didn’t know you’d stop so- Ah! Dokyeom, no pushing.”

“Sorry Jeonghan, I didn’t think you’d stop or- Ah! Josh, why’d you ram my butt?”

“Sorry, I-“

Woozi groaned a bit too loud. “Will you all shut up!”

His anger echoed from the metal walls. Far behind him was the sound of Seungkwan slamming into Joshua. These kids were going to be the death of him. But he had a different problem to solve.

“Um, the screws are on the outside,” Woozi said, “I’m not sure how to get this thing open from in here.”

He knelt on the grate and tried to find the screw’s positions, hoping to get them lose from the inside somehow anyway. What other tools did he have in his bag?

“Let me see,” Jeonghan said and pushed into Woozi to join him on the grate.

“Me, too.” Dokyeom tried to add himself to the pile and pushed the others aside.

The sound of immensely stressed metal grew from faint to loud within a second. Woozi had time for half a sigh before he dropped. The grate snapped under him and fell. He knew it would make a sound when it hit linoleum but was too busy screaming to register it.

His fingers got a hold of the vent’s rim and he broke his fall. Jeonghan fell past him, pulling Dokyeom with him out of the vent.

Miraculously, Dokyeom managed to grab the rim as well – the same one Woozi was holding. They slammed together and came to a halt face on face, breathing into each other’s necks. Since Jeonghan’s body hadn’t hit the floor yet, Woozi tried to look past Dokyeom to see where the long haired member had gone.

Jeonghan had gotten a hold of Dokyeom’s belt and pulled the boy’s pants down, dangling from them.

With Dokyeom’s underpants exposed Woozi felt in the perfect position to knee the klutz in the crotch. Not doing so cost him almost as much strength as holding onto the vent.

In the distance Vernon screamed. The shout grew quieter as if behind an increasing amount of fabric. Woozi really didn’t have the presence of mind to figure that one out.

“Jeonghan?” Joshua looked down from the air tunnel. “You’re almost touching the ground.”

“Oh,” Jeonghan simply said and dropped the remaining hand width onto the wooden floor. Dokyeom let go and landed less quietly. The two on the ground worked together to get the rest of them down, except Seungkwan who stayed up with their luggage, shining light across the whole room from above.

“Halfway done with the mission,” Woozi said, “Now how do we find the blasted things?”

Dokyeom tripped over a potted plant and took it down with him. He struggled back up. “They’re not under the pot.”

“You did that on purpose?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

Woozi sighed – a full sigh this time, not cut short by anything. “Maybe you should just stand over there and not touch anything.”

“By the shelves?” Dokyeom asked and tripped over a chair.

Chapter Text

Jun and Hoshi struggled to be at the front as the four dancers rushed up the stairs. With elegant flips they leapt through the darkness – over laser barriers and trip wires. It would have sufficed to take some high steps, but the moment The8 unpacked the break dance moves, their competitiveness burst through.

Miraculously they made it to the conference room without waking up anybody.

Hoshi tried the door handle and found it unlocked. He opened as widely as necessary and slipped inside. Seeing an empty room, he wave the others in and shut the door with great care. The noise level stayed at absolute minimum.

A huge table, a lifetime supply of chairs, a few cupboards and the projector screen. Otherwise the room was sparsely furnished. Windows made up the length of one side.

Dino tried a handle. “It’s locked.”

“Let’s see the others,” Hoshi said.

One by one they rattled the windows, finding all of them thoroughly sealed off. Perhaps the smoking employees hadn’t been here today. This was troubling.

“Anything we can use?” Jun asked as he looked into a cupboard. Despite the only light coming from the night sky outside, the emptiness was plain to see.

Hoshi huffed. “Either the shelves are just decoration or they don’t trust people not to steal office supplies.”

“Well,” Dino said, “when was the last time anybody had a conference in here? We sure don’t need one and few people are allowed to enter the building, the same way we can’t leave.”

“Guys,” The8 interrupted. “Focus on the task. How do we get the windows open?”

“We can always turn around,” Jun said. “Join one of the other teams, maybe. All that counts is that we get out.”

“No!” Hoshi said, a bit too loud. “We’ll stay together and win.”

“It’s not a competition,” Dino reminded.

“We’re the perf-unit,” Hoshi kept talking. “Do you know what the stand for?”

“Performance?” Dino half asked.

“Perfection! We’re the perfect unit.”

“Are you sure?” Dino asked – with a properly questioning tone this time. “That’s not what it said on our photo cards.”

Meanwhile The8 mouthed the spelling of ‘perfection’, counting letters with his fingers.

“There is no better unit than us,” the leader said. “We are the epitome of team spirit. We’re everybody’s squad goals. We stick together until the bitter end. We are more brotherly than any siblings. We have a bond that goes beyond any-“

Lights turned on in the corridor and steps echoed closer quickly.

Hoshi shoved Dino aside and jumped into the locker Jun still held open. “It’s every man for himself, suckers. See you in hell.”

As the cupboard closed, the other three boys panicked in their unique ways. The8 slipped behind the projector screen and stood still. His lower half was plainly visible but the pants bended in with the wall color at least. Dino crawled under the table where the many chair legs obscured him like pencils obscure a T-Rex.

No one was left to see it, but Jun simply took to the air and hid in plain view on the ceiling, pressed against the light fixtures. He knew he couldn’t hold this position forever, but he hoped his athleticism could make up for his lack of ideas.

A woman entered without turning on the lights inside the room. Illuminated from the corridor, she used her keys on a window and leaned out into the night for a cigarette.

Jun was hanging right above her, his arms beginning to tremble.

~~~

Five boys were pressed together in the damp darkness of a broom closet. Unlike the other teams, they didn’t have a multi-step plan or major detours along the path to their designated exit.

All members of Nu’est held their breath as the slow footsteps of an unknown insomniac moved past the closet door. It was only due to Ren’s keen ear and quick reflexes they had avoided running into the person. Stepping on each other’s feet for another minute, they waited until no further sounds could be heard outside.

Leader JR opened up, letting his members slip back into the corridor.

“From now on,” he said, “we move like ninjas. That’s an order. Follow me.”

The boy assumed the Naruto-running-position, leaning forward and stretching his arms back. The others didn’t even bother to roll their eyes as he made quiet babysteps in front of them and struggled to see where he was going with his face pointing down.

They advanced along the corridor, Ren grabbing JR’s collar and leading him like a dog on a leash.

“Hey, the kitchen.”

Everybody turned to Baekho, who had fallen behind and pointed at a familiar door. “Come on, just a snack.”

“We really don’t have time,” Ren said, being the likeliest candidate to get Baekho to do anything.

The muscular boy pouted. “Come ooooon.”

“You just had dinner,” Aron said. “My dinner to be exact. I was saving those buns. Do you know how hard it is to get a good burger around here?”

“I’ll just grab something for the journey.”

“What journey?” Minhyun asked. “We’ll be out the backdoor in five minutes and you can get all the street food you want.”

“In five minutes I will have died of starvation. Do you want that, Minhyun? Do you want me to die? Do you hate me that much?”

“I do,” Aron hissed, “coz you robbed me of my hard earned buns.”

JR groaned. He was supposed to be the mediator since he was technically responsible for the group, but food was always an unresolvable issue. “Fine, let’s be quick.”

Ren pressed his ear to the door. “Clear. Nobody inside.”

They slipped in and rattled the cupboards.

“I don’t get why they have to lock everything.” Baekho tried some of the drawers which didn’t open either. "It’s not like somebody is going to break in and steal stuff.”

“Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing?” Minhyun asked.

“It’s not stealing as long as we’re still part of the company,” Aron reminded. “But there’s nothing here unless you want one of the nineteen sacks of flour. Oh… Hey, I found a bag of crackers.”

“Dips.” Baekho snatched the plastic bag out of Aron’s hand.

“I was literally holding it,” the American said. “It was definitely mine. There’s no ‘dips’ you can call.”

Aron jumped, as Baekho held the bag out of reach.

“Shh!” Ren slapped the backs of both boys’ heads. “You’ll alert someone.”

“Hey, the fridge isn’t locked.” JR pulled the refrigerator door open and harsh light fell upon the scene. “Hm, looks like it was going to be pancake day tomorrow.”

Unholy amounts of eggs, milk and butter took up all the space inside the machine. A lone egg dropped from its unstable position and splattered on the ground between JR’s shoes.

Aron bent down. “I think there’s some leftover bacon at the back. No wait, that’s pig skin. No one calls dips on that, you hear me? I saw it, I get it.”

In a provocative mood, Baekho rattled his crackers in their bag. The American entered the machine, shoving several liters of milk aside.

“This fridge is so deep,” Aron said, slipping farther in, “can someone give me a hand.” Only his feet were still visible, the rest had vanished inside the milk-egg-butter walls.

Someone entered the kitchen. The light turned on.

No one registered the sound of a refrigerator door falling shut as four boys and a man stared at each other in surprise.

“Chair?” Boss said.

Chapter Text

Untangling Vernon was mostly a matter of pulling on the sheets until they gave him free. The hip hoppers leaned against the basement door, their breaths heavy. S.Coups collected the fabric while his heartbeat was still going strong.

“Are… you… okay… Vernon?”

“Mostly,” the unit maknae answered. “Don’t make me carry the pile again, though, please.”

“Fine, new plan. Everybody takes their own bed sheets. Now back on your feet. Wonwoo, stop feeding Mingyu gum drops. We have a heist to pull off.”

This time they ascended the staircase with greater caution. The upper most floor was permeated by an invisible laser barrier, but S.Coups had known that and came prepared.

“We can’t make smoke without setting off the fire alarm. So I grabbed this from the kitchen.” He pulled a huge bag of flour from his luggage. “They’ll miss this one tomorrow at pancake day. Well, I guess they’ll miss us more, once they realize we’ve escaped.”

By now he had torn the bag open and pulled out a handful of white powder. He held it in front of his face and blew hard.

Red lines flickered in the air, cutting through the corridor in wild patterns.

“We can go under,” S.Coups said, gesturing at the ground. As crazy as the lasers were arranged, they all ran from wall to wall with none hitting the linoleum.

“The floor is not conductive to slipping,” Mingyu said, looking thoughtful. “Our skin will stick to it and make noise. Did you perhaps grab some butter, too? We could get naked and rub each other with it to get slick.”

“No,” S.Coups said with a raised brow. “And I’m quite frankly worried to hear you come up with such things. That sounds like a scenario right out of terrible fanfiction.”

“Well,” Mingyu said coyly, “If Boss really wanted a meanie-couple sex tape I wanted to come up with alternative fan service proposals – a compromise of sorts. Oil massage was number twelve on my list.”

“There are eleven more items?” Wonwoo said and took a step back into the staircase.

The tallest rapper put a finger on his chin and squinted off to the side, reciting from memory. “My first idea was feeding each other. Well mostly you feeding me. Basically me eating with you being there, too. The second idea was a bathing trunks photo shoot. For the third idea we would have needed two ducks, a dishwasher, access to an outdoor cinema and a lot of glue. That reminds me – how well can you whistle?”

Wonwoo looked to S.Coups for help. “I think I’ll turn back and join vocal unit in the vents where it’s dark and quiet and I can bang my head against the metal walls until the pictures go away.”

“Our flour supply is limited,” S.Coups simply said. “Get crawling, all of you. Vernon, keep your head down. This isn’t the Mama special stage, got it?”

“Stop acting like I tripped you on purpose.”

“Mingyu,” the leader continued, “keep your massive butt down low.”

“Look who’s speaking,” Mingyu said.

“My butt is proportional to my thighs!”

Wonwoo snatched the flour bag and blew some more into the darkness, red lines flickering into ephemeral existence again. He slammed the bag into Mingyu’s chest, who got a cloud of powder shooting up in his face as he caught the container.

The low tone rapper’s next move was to unfold one of the sheets he carried and use it as a way to slide along the linoleum without touching the ground with his skin.

~~~

One by one they made it across the upper most floor until they reached a thick metal gate.

“And now?” Vernon said from behind, playing taillight for this part of the plan.

“Now you watch and be amazed,” S.Coups said and blew some more flour towards the gate. “The lock is a pin code. The powder will reveal which buttons have been pressed by greasy fingers. We still need to guess the right order, though. The finger prints are on… seriously? How lazy can you be?”

The rapper pressed four times zero and a lock clicked open.

“Factory setting,” he said and pushed.

~~~

“Huh,” Vernon huffed.

He hadn’t exactly expected emptiness, but the ceiling high stacks of gold bars threw him off a little. As did the display cabinets with collections of ancient artefacts.

“Nice lighting in here,” Mingyu said. “Really puts a focus on the china vases and marble statues and… is that a geode? That’s thing is huge.”

“Nobody touch anything,” S.Coups said, “before we know if there are more lasers in here.”

He proceeded to bath the room in flour until his bag was empty. Most of the displays had additional security, but that wasn’t what they were here for anyway.

“Next step, everybody grab them sweet bills,” S.Coups said as he pulled bushels of money from drawers and stuffed his pockets. “We only take as much as we can reasonably carry without slowing down. Then it’s imperative we get out of here. I don’t want to know how many silent alarms we have triggered by now.”

The sound of dogs barking came from a lower floor.

“Someone messed up,” Wonwoo said, money falling out of his shirt as he moved, “Let’s bail.”

Chapter Text

“How can there be nothing in here?” Woozi looked up from the last drawer in the desk. It had been empty like all the others. “Not just the contracts are missing. Where’s everything?”

“I think you’ve looked everywhere,” Seungkwan said from above.

“We should run,” Joshua said from in between stacks of hardcover folders. He had looked at every page. It was all blank paper. “This is a mock office. The real stuff could be anywhere.”

Jeonghan spun in the Boss’ chair. “I can’t believe they would go to such lengths to deceive us. It’s sad but we can’t stick around here forever. All the hard work and nothing to show.”

“Hard work?” Woozi asked. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I brushed my hair.”

“How does that help us find the contracts?”

Jeonghan let out an exaggerated sigh. “You wouldn’t understand. You don’t carry the burden of being supernaturally beautiful.”

“Guys,” Seungkwan said. “Get back up here, I’m getting claustrophobic. I think there are spiders living in here. Or maybe rats. Or rat-sized spiders.”

“Would those be scarier than spider-sized rats?” Joshua asked.

Seungkwan hummed. “Depends on how many there are, I guess.”

“Fine,” Woozi said. “Back into the vent. We can always set fire to the whole place from the outside.”

“Can I take a book?” Dokyeom asked from his designated spot by the shelf.

“No, get here and help me up,” Woozi said.

“But I’ve read everything in the series except this one.”

Dokyeom pulled the cover and found it stuck. “Weird. Do you think they glue the books to the shelf to keep them from getting stolen?”

He pulled harder. It moved, but only the upper half – almost like a lever. Something huge clicked behind the wall.

“What did you break now?” Woozi asked.

“We’ll see,” Dokyeom said, enthusiasm unhampered. He moved the shelf to the side, which swung open as if it mistook itself for a door.

“There they are,” Joshua said. He was pointing at one particular bundle of papers in the chaos of folders in the secret nook. “Our contracts. Unless there are other things also written in blood.”

“Always thought that was a little weird, actually,” Jeonghan said, not moving from his swirly chair.

“Me, too,” Joshua added, “but I assumed this was one of those bizarre Korean things I didn’t get. You guy do everything differently.”

“Never mind,” Woozi said as he pulled a lighter from his pocket. “This’ll be the last time we see them.”

He grabbed the bundle and counted. “All here. Say goodbye to the chains that shackle us.”

In the shine of two headlamps, the fire was casting spooky shadows. Then more little, red lights flashed around the room.

“Heat sensors,” Woozi groaned as he dropped the flaming papers.

A wall opened up behind another bookcase.

“Oh come on,” Dokyeom said. “We have two blood hound cages?”

A horde of growling, muscular canines emerged from the darkness. They began to spread out, encircling the boys.

“Nope,” Woozi said, “no time for this nonsense.”

The composer stepped forwards, facing the biggest dog – the beast’s eyes not much lower than his. Woozi growled back.

After two seconds of this, the alpha dog’s tail moved between its legs and the animal whined as if wounded. The first one to retreat, the alpha left a bunch of startled dogs behind, who followed back into the cage one by one.

The short boy turned to his unit members and growled at them, too, before snapping out of it. “Ahem, sorry. I meant to say, get back into the vent.”

Chapter Text

The moment the smoker closed the door behind her, Jun dropped. His arms were gummy noodles. One second longer and he would have plummeted down and hit the ground right behind the woman. He sighed with great relieve.

Dino came forth from between the chairs. “Are you alright?”

“I think so,” Jun said, raising an arm. “I can’t use my fingers for a while. That must have been some kind of record. When she lit a second cigarette, I thought I had to drop down and push her out the window myself.”

“Guys?” The8 was at the window and looked outside wistfully. “She locked it again.”

“Damn.” Jun looked around for something that could smash the glass. If they were fast I wouldn’t matter how much noise they made. “Okay, we wait until we can see the others down there in front of the building, then we use the chairs to break out. How about that Hoshi? …Hoshi?”

The three boys turned to the locker. There was no sound coming from it.

Seeking each other’s gaze, they ventured closer to the cupboard. The moment Jun was about to put his fingers on the handle, the locker opened, making the trio jump.

“Look what I found,” Hoshi said. He pointed over his shoulder into darkness. The back of the locker was missing, allowing access to a secret tunnel inside the walls. “Crawlspace.”

The8 looked back and forth between his friends. “I suppose you want us to join you in there?”

“Why not? Worst case we find a dead end and have to come back here. I heard you say the window is locked again, so it’s not like we have to hurry.”

Hoshi vanished in the hole, only his waving hand still visible. Jun took a deep breath and followed. The8 was next. Dino didn’t feel too great about wandering off into the space inside a wall but he didn’t want to be left behind.

“Can we hold onto each other?” the maknae asked as the last light vanished behind them. There was no way to get lost on the narrow, linear path but he wanted to know how far the others were in front of him.

“Take my hand,” The8 said to him. “Now give me yours, Jun.”

“Heck no, Wen Junhui is too cool for this.”

“Give him your hand, Jun,” Hoshi demanded.

“Ugh, fine. But this has no bearing on my street cred, just to be clear.”

For a while they moved in silence, Hoshi using his free hand – the other one holding Jun’s – to find obstacles and corners.

“I think here’s something coming up,” the unit leader said. “The floor is different. We might be getting close to an- Ahhhh!”

Hoshi screamed as he fell, Jun screamed as he was pulled along by Hoshi, The8 screamed as he got pulled by Jun and Dino realized what was happening, so he didn’t scream when he was inevitably pulled into the hole.

The four boys tangled and dropped onto a ramp as one big pile, sliding farther in pitch black darkness. After a bit of slithering along, they landed soft – on each other and a huge pile of cardboard.

“Is everyone alive?” Hoshi asked.

“More or less,” Jun said.

The other two only grunted, still untangling themselves from each other.

“Ouch,” The8 shouted as he finally stood up. “I bumped into something dangling from the ceiling. Hey, there are buttons on this thing. Maybe it’s a light switch.”

One click later, a single red light turned on, casting dim light onto metal walls.

“We’re trapped,” Dino said. “What is this?”

Then a motor activated and the walls came closer. Hoshi was the first to panic. “It’s a trash compactor.”

“A what?”

“Turn it off! T U R N   I T   O F F!”

The8 let go of the button. The motor shut down and so did the light.

~~~

The silence throughout the kitchen seemed to last forever, until plastic rustled. Everybody’s eyes wandered to Baekho who was pulling open the cracker bag, apparently convinced if only he did it slowly enough no one would notice. Under the puzzled eyes of Boss and the increasingly alarmed gaze of his members he began to eat with loud crunches.

“You’re… not supposed to be here,” Boss said. “Chair, care to explain?”

“Well, you see, we… because… it’s a…”

“And what about her?” Boss pointed at Ren. “You know fair well, you’re not allowed to bring girlfriends into the building. I get it, she’s really hot, but rules are rules.”

At this point Boss appeared more confused than angry which was the best turn of events they could have hoped for.

“No, it’s Ren,” JR said. “He’s just a very pretty bo-“

Minhyun slapped the leader’s back. “Shut up, Chair.” He turned to Boss, badly faking a smile. “Yep, you caught us smuggling in a girl. Guess we have no other choice but to bring this dame back outside. Which means we’ll all be outside. For just a moment. And then totally come back in.”

“Oh,” JR said way too obvious. “Right, we’ll be on our way.”

Boss looked highly suspicious but they might have gotten away with it. But then-

“Are those my crackers?” Boss asked incredulously.

“No, they’re mine,” Baekho said, spewing crumbs everywhere. “I called Dips.”

“This is it!” the man yelled. “You’ve broken more rules at once than I can count. You’ve broken rules I haven’t even made up yet. You’ve broken rules I didn’t even know I’d have to make up. Those where my crackers.”

“Yeah, you tell him,” came a muffled voice from the fridge that went completely ignored.

Boss blew a whistle and within seconds a battery of blood hounds burst through the entrance, taking position around the man. His eyes never left the boys as he unlocked a drawer and retrieved the biggest knife in the kitchen. It was basically an axe. “Forward. All of you. And don’t even think about running.”

Chapter Text

“We should have stolen a credit card,” Wonwoo said. “In movies they always use credit cards to unlock doors.”

The low tone rapper was leaning against the wall in the narrow staircase. Only one door separated the boys from the roof. S.Coups was on the ground, jamming the needle of a pin into the lock. The pin said ‘I was a trainee for half my life and all I got was this pin’, but the writing wasn’t visible in the dark.

S.Coups had no idea what he was doing and he knew it.

“I have a clear idea of what I’m doing, I just know it,” he said for the millionth time. Maybe the million and first time would be when they finally believed him.

Aside from the sound of metal scratching metal, there was the rhythmic tearing of fabric. Vernon had begun making thin strips out of their bed sheets.

“How many do you think we need?” the unit maknae said to no one in particular. “If I make them too thin, one might rip and we’ll fall to our deaths. But I want to make as many as possible. Otherwise I can already see us dangling halfway down the wall with y’all shouting at me for not making enough strips to reach all the way down and then you’ll force me to drop down first so I break my neck.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” S.Coups said, “Nobody here is trying to sabotage the mission.” He glanced backward with his breath held to spot any changes in expression that might give a traitor away. He hadn’t full excluded the possibility. It didn’t cost extra to stay vigilant.

“How do we tie them together?” Vernon said as no one else broke the silence. “Just knot them?”

“I brought a sewing kit,” S.Coups said absentmindedly as he pulled out the needle he had somehow bend 180 degrees while poking the lock’s insides.

Vernon counted the strips he had made so far. “We have no sewing experience, though.”

“But we have a Mingyu,” S.Coups responded.

“Hey, I’m not a robot… or a hausfrau… or a sewing machine.”

“Oh please,” S.Coups said, “You’re hyper-competent at everything. One minute with the sewing kit and you’ll be stitching embroidery like a granny. Unless you’re trying to deliberately slow us down… Ahem. Anyway, can somebody hand me the kit, I’ll have to use one of the needles.”

“Just admit it,” Wonwoo said. “You have no idea what you’re doing. They’ll find our skeletons up here.”

“Your lack of trust betrays your loyalty,” S.Coups said with an outstretched hand. Nobody bothered to get the kit for him.

“My what now?”

“It’s awfully suspicious,” S.Coups said and began to get up, “how you seem to try and demotivate our effort-“ He held onto the door handle for support and fell backwards as the door opened.

“Oh look,” Mingyu said, “it wasn’t locked.”

“Thanks,” Wonwoo said, “I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“You’re welcome. You should try to be more observant, like me.”

“Yeah, I can only hope my mind will be as sharp as yours one day. Hey, what’s this behind you?”

Mingyu whipped around and caught a slap on the back of his head.

“Ouch, what was that for.”

S.Coups cleared his throat. “I hope I’m not interrupting the prelude to this sex tape you have planned, but if you would kindly grab the strips, the roof is calling our names.”

Vernon shoved the fabric pieces into the two remaining rappers’ arms and walked outside. The night air cleared his head. The lights of Seoul were all around. Faint street noises made their way up onto the building’s top.

“Alright, Mingyu.” S.Coups extended the kit towards the boy who made no move to take it.

“I’ll start making knots then,” Wonwoo said. “Y’all are welcome to join if you don’t feel like camping out on the roof all night.”

~~~

Four boys sat in a circle and tied the pieces of their bed sheets together.

“This could take a while,” S.Coups said. “If anybody has something with which to address the group, now is the time. I’d like to clear any long standing resentments. Confessions, anyone?”

It was quiet again for a moment. Then Wonwoo hummed. “Say, Mingyu, I get the ducks, the glue and the cinema. But what was the dishwasher for?”

The tallest rapper took a deep breath. “Once we would both have been naked, we’d-“

“New plan!” S.Coups shouted, as the wind picked up to underline his statement. “We sit here in completely silence and never mention any of this ever again. Leader’s order.”

Vernon’s sigh of relief was the last sound the group produced for a long while.

Chapter Text

The vents were as gross as they had been ten minutes ago. By now Woozi’s hands were black with the sticky dust from the metal ground and he could probably write off his pants entirely. Why had he gone first? He should have let one of the others collect filth.

Somebody was humming again. Woozi would have loved to facepalm but for one thing he needed to keep crawling and secondly he’d have smeared greasy dust all over his face. It was a difficult urge to resist.

Of course the humming turned into more. “Hello ladiiiiiieeees!” Seungkwan’s voice echoed through the tube, vibrating trough the otherwise perfect quiet.

“F***ing vocal unit,” Woozi whispered, “Why can I be leader of quiet & obedient unit?”

He lightly kicked Jeonghan behind him. “Pass it on, Han.”

He heard the longhaired boy kick Dokyeom one position further back. “Pass it on, dork.”

A crunching sound of shoe on face. “Pass it on, Shua.”

No further kicking took place. “Um, Kwannie?”

“Yes, Joshie?”

“Could you wait till we’re outside? The sound travels into every room on this floor.”

Woozi made a mental note to properly kick Seungkwan once the adventure was over. Not for the first time he wondered if it would really be impossible to unpack his guitar inside the vents, just to smack the kids about a little.

Let’s see, by now he owed Dokyeom four kicks, Seungkwan two and Joshua one for joining in with Dokyeom for that ‘Ohh Ahh’ cover. Would it kill them to not sing for five minutes?

On the other hand, performance unit was pretty much the same – always on the move, always twitching when they had to sit down for a second. Why did hip hop unit not have this problem? Was it S.Coups skilled leadership? Yeah, right. Woozi chuckled at the thought.

Now that he pondered it, the rappers usually spoke with rhythm – especially Vernon. They were just always rapping and no one realized. If he told his own boys to speak singingly at all times, perhaps they’d run out of steam and have an easier time to shut up every once in a while.

On the other hand that sounded like it could backfire spectacularly. What if they forgot his to say words normally? Or if-

A shimmer of light distracted Woozi, as it hit his eyes from below. He had reached another grate. It was the kitchen he was looking at. Somebody had just left the very second, but the lights were still on. The fridge below him rattled. Was that fridge shouting muffled curses in English?

Whatever the case, he couldn’t afford to stop and think. The entire gang behind him crashed into each other with Jeonghan’s head bumping into his butt.

“Shh!” Woozi made. “We’ve gone too far. We need to turn back. This isn’t the way out.”

Jeonghan huffed. “There’s no way we can turn. My shoulders are scraping the walls as it is.”

“Fine,” Woozi whispered as loudly as he dared. “Crawl backwards the way we came. Seungkwan, you have to make sure we take the right paths. I’ll tell you when to turn if you tell me when there’s a crossing coming up.”

Seungkwan whispered something.

“What?” Woozi asked. “Didn’t catch that.”

The boy whispered again.

“Seriously, the one time I don’t want you to be quiet and you become inaudible.”

Dokyeom spoke up. “I think he said ‘Where’s the soup at’.”

“No, no,” Jeonghan said. “It sounded more like ‘Haven’t I shoehorned yet’.”

“F***s sake,” Seungkwan whisper shouted. “I said ‘How am I supposed to do that?’.”

“You have a lamp,” Woozi said. “Light back between your legs.”

“You are underestimating the magnificence of my thighs.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way. Now crawl or I’m passing on more kicks.”

~~~

“Alright, stop,” Woozi said, “We’re back where we were.”

They had made it back to the cross section where he had taken the wrong turn, lost in thoughts. Left had led them to above the kitchen, straight ahead was a different part of the building where he didn’t know the vent layout.

“We’re going right. But speed it up a little. If they haven’t heard us so far, I doubt we’ll be discovered if we pick up the pace. Better to be out sooner, or somebody might realize we’re missing. And I don’t know which one of you is humming again, but stop it.”

He crawled ahead as fast as his knees and hands allowed. The shine of his headlamp revealed a gently curved tunnel, he knew to be leading above his very own studio. He mentally said good bye to his piano a last time. Then the shine of his lamp illuminated something else.

“Rats.”

He stopped and waited for the inevitable train of boys bumping into each other.

“Why’d we stop?” Dokyeom asked. “And why’d you swear?”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan said, “usually you use much worse words than… oh, those are actual rats.”

Joshua chuckled. “Are they spider sized? Ouch! Hey, did you just kick forward?”

“Yes,” Seungkwan said. “I didn’t know I could but when somebody insults my honor, I develop unknown powers.”

“Would you shut it?” Woozi said. “Just crawl back again. We’ll take the long way round. I’m not plowing through a rat’s nest.”

They reversed again.

“Um, Kwannie?” Joshua said. “What did I just step into?”

The singer at the back – or temporary front – of the line sighed. “I think I dropped some of the toothpaste tubes when I kicked you. They were pretty loose, since I didn’t have much space in my bag after fitting all the hairspray.”

“Seriously,” Jeonghan said, “you all have a toothpaste trauma since pre-debut. Eww, I just touched it. It’s everywhere. How much toothpaste is this?”

Woozi grunted as he reached the slippery part. It felt gross to scoot over the stuff. At least the minty smell was pleasant in the stuffy space. For a moment he wondered if the odor would give them away if anyone outside noticed the smell coming from the vents.

Then they were back at the crossing. “We have to go farther back,” Woozi said. “Just keep crawling, I’ll tell you when we’re there.”

“This is hard,” Seungkwan complained, but did as ordered. “My neck hurts. And my knees, too. This was a bad plan. We should have picked something easier. I bet we’re the last unit to make it out. I bet they’re all waiting for us. No, I bet they’re not even waiting, they just bailed once they- What’s this?”

Woozi was smart enough to stop when he heard the sound of crawling cease, so he didn’t bump his butt into Jeonghan’s head.

“What’s happening back there?” he asked.

“Something’s dropping on me,” Seungkwan said. “Maybe a leaky pipe? I think it’s soot. It’s tickling me. Wait, I’ll bend over to see…”

“So? What is it?”

The vent echoed with a deafening scream.

“S P I D E R S!”

He didn’t get to ask if they were rat sized. The pressure of four panicked boys pushed him forward. Woozi didn’t even move, he just slid along on the toothpaste with somebody’s head shoving him down the path. It sounded like Jeonghan and Dokyeom were trying to occupy the same space and if it wasn’t for the slippery ground, they would have jammed the tunnel.

They screamed the whole time while traversing the vents, and Woozi joined in as they entered the path straight ahead that lead to who knows where.

Then his lamp showed him what was ahead – a grate, blocking the way. He screamed louder now, just not enough to out-shout the four.

“Stop! Stop, you snotfaces. You utter spoons! You’ll break my neck you complete and total noodles! Stop! S T O P   I T!”

The force pushed him straight through the rusty metal, all four screws popping off in sync.

Woozi managed to hold onto the rim, just like last time. Jeonghan flew past him, overhead, into the deep dark. Then Dokyeom fell next and held onto Woozi’s pants. The composer didn’t have time to regret the lack of belt on his outfit, because the pants didn’t have enough time to drop. Hands, slippery with toothpaste, lost their grip on the metal and the Woozi/Dokyeom duo fell the moment Joshua flew out the hole.

To Woozi’s great relieve he landed on a bed of cardboard. Hearing Seungkwan from above, he rolled aside to avoid getting a face full of Diva Boo.

~~~

There was a lot of moaning but nobody’s voice was missing – so they were all still alive – and none of them were screaming in great pain. Woozi counted that as a success. Now where was he? His headlamp had moved to shine up and he pushed it back into position.

Hoshi’s smile shone brightly in the dark.

“Hello friends,” the choreographer said, “Welcome to trash compactor city. Sit down. Have some cardboard. Don’t let the walls crush you.”

Chapter Text

Boss led them in front of a door they had never entered and unlocked it.

“Go,” he waved the knife. His hounds blocked the corridor on either side. The four Nu’est members walked through the door.

“Let’s just do what he says,” Ren whispered. “There’s no opening. We have to stall if we want to escape.”

“You know,” Minhyun whispered to Baekho, “maybe if you gave his crackers back we wouldn’t-“

Baekho made an angry sound with his mouth half open, spewing crumbs into Minhyun’s face, and shoved his hand back into the crackling plastic bag.

The end of the little corridor led into a room they had never seen before and would have never imagined.

“We had an indoor pool all this time? “ Ren asked, half turning to Boss. It was dark in the sizeable chamber but there was clearly a huge pool filled with liquid. In lack of any strange smells, it was presumably water. “Why did we always have to go to Busan for beach days? We could have gone swimming here.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Boss said. “You will soon enough.”

For some reason the blood hounds refused to enter and stayed in the corridor, with their tails between their legs. That was worrisome. Boss closed the door, apparently feeling he didn’t need the dogs’ protection. He waved his knife as if he hoped to cut an annoying mosquito right out of the air.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” Boss said with a grin. “When I ran into you I remembered that, I just kept forgetting it the moment you were out of sight, Chair.”

Minhyun bent down to whisper. “Let’s keep him talking.”

“Shut it, Mignon! …Minion…Onion?” Boss’s grin dimmed only for a moment. His knife movements forced the boys to take a small step back, towards the edge of the pool.

“Now that I have you all here,” Boss said and closed some distance, “I can solve one of my problems. Then I can fully focus on Nineteen. I will milk every last Won these boys make the fangirls spit out. And you will no longer- For f***s sake, Banjo, I’m threatening your life.”

Baekho emptied the remains of crumbs and cracker bits right into his mouth, shaking the bag above it. “Mhhmhmh,” he mumbled.

Boss sighed and jumped to the side. He slammed his hand against a switch on the wall and hopped right back, even closer to Nu’est than before. The quartet retreated a little as the knife came closer. There wasn’t much space left between the boys and the edge.

The switch was for activating flickering neon tubes. One by one the lights illuminated the pool.

Ren turned around and gasped. “We have a shark tank?”

Two gray beasts were swimming lazy circles in the water, only their fins occasionally breaching the surface. When the light came on, they began to circle faster, as if anticipating something.

“So cool,” JR whispered to himself.

“Now’s the time,” Boss said, stepping so close he could have pushed them in. “Do me a favor and hop, so I don’t have to do this the messy way. Who wants to go first? Banjo? Chair? Your girlfriend perhaps? Shame about wasting such a pretty face. Wrong time, wrong place.”

With a sudden burst, the door sprung open and Boss turned around, the knife still aimed at JR’s face. The man’s eyes narrowed at the intruder. “Who are you?”

~~~

“There might be enough of us now,” Hoshi pondered aloud.

Woozi and Seungkwan shone their lamps at the ceiling where the compactor’s edge was just a bit lower than room height. They could fit – if they made it up there.

“We might not even need the cardboard,” Hoshi added.

“Aww,” The8 made and kicked the card(board)house he had carefully arranged.

“Let’s stack it anyway,” Woozi said and began collecting the backpacks. The only way to decide who went first was rock-paper-scissors. It ended up being Dino.

From the tower of paper upward the boys arranged into a human pyramid/ladder hybrid. Dino got Seungkwan’s headlamp and ascended the boy-tower.

The maknae slipped into the crack between compactor wall and ceiling. “I’m up. Hand me the bags.”

“No,” said Jun from the bottom of the human construction work. “Get somebody else up there first, you can work faster that way.”

“No,” Woozi said, from somewhere in the middle. “We should get some of us out first to see if there’s a way to open this thing.”

“No,” came Jeonghan’s voice from the side, “Let’s just throw our stuff up to Dino and then worry about the rest.”

“Hey I found a penny,” Dokyeom said. “Wait, that’s just a tiny, brown paper ball.”

The boy-tower collapsed. Dino sighed. “With hyungs like these, who needs enemies?”

This could evidently take a while.

Chapter Text

“Anybody know any jokes?” Wonwoo said as he undid Mingyu’s knot and re-did it properly as he had done with all the others before.

“Your face,” S.Coups said.

 “Your mum,” Mingyu said.

 “My life,” Vernon said.

Wonwoo didn’t look up. “F*** you, Soup. F*** you, Bimbo. Sorry to hear that, Vernie. I feel you.”

“Aww,” Vernon made and poked Wonwoo’s ribs gently. “I feel you, too.”

“I should hope not,” S.Coups said. “You’re is still underage, maknae. The only thing you should feel is Joshua’s influence.”

“Romance under starlight,” Mingyu said.

Wonwoo poked Mingyu in the ribs hard enough to make the tall boy cough. The low tone rapper let the strip of mattress flick between his hands like cracking a whip. “Always wondered how much strength it takes to choke a man. …Anyway, hand me the next bunch of strips. I’m all out.”

“Uh,” Vernon looked around. “I think we did all of them.”

The four hip hoppers looked up from their work and tried to spot any loose ends.

“They’re all connected,” S.Coups remarked. “But why do we have five end pieces?”

Standing up from the concrete, the boys stretched their work across the roof. Somehow they had tied multiple strips together and created something akin to a star drawn by a blind toddler on his fifth cup of espresso. It took some untangling, interrupted only by mutual blame distribution.

Miraculously they untangled the shape into a continuous line in a matter of minutes.

“Get ready,” S.Coups ordered. “Make sure you have your bags, because we’re not coming back. Vernon goes first because he’s lightest. Mingyu goes last because… well.”

The tall rapper put his hands on his hips. “Are we talking about my butt again? Because I remember a certain somebody here – not naming any names, S.Coups – who insisted on having the biggest thighs.”

“Fine, I’ll go last,” the leader said with an eye roll. “It doesn’t matter. We did the knots well, so the rope won’t tear.”

They stepped closer to the edge while S.Coups fixed a spare shoe from his bag to the rope as weight, so it wouldn’t sway wildly before they climbed down.

“Actually,” Wonwoo said, “Isn’t the one going first in the most danger? If it’s going to tear, it’ll be as soon as it’s used, no?”

“Not going first,” Vernon said.

The leader grunted. “Ugh, fine we’ll do rock-paper-scissor. I only want to get us all down there you dumb, nagging children. Now… Here goes nothing.”

He threw the shoe over the edge and watched the rope fly after it. More and more followed. Soon it would reach the bottom and-

S.Coups realized his mistake when the other end sailed past him and dropped over the edge. He hadn’t tied it to anything. There went their rope. And with it their chance for escape.

“Ah, I realize your mistake,” Mingyu said. “You didn’t tie it to anything.”

“I know.”

“There went our rope.”

“I know, Mingyu.”

“And with it our chance for e-“

“I know! I literally just had an internal monologue about this.”

“Guys?” Vernon pointed to the side of the building. The rope had been blow away by the stiff night breeze and gotten caught in the fire escape ladder spiraling down the side of the building.

A fire escape ladder. Leading down. They could’ve just used it. How had they not seen that one?

“It’s a fire escape ladder,” Vernon said. “It’s leading down.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” S.Coups waved at the boy dismissively.

“We could’ve just used it. How did we not see-“

“Can y’all stop repeating my internal monologues? Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“Who are you?” Boss spoke to the intruder, his knife slicing the air in front of JR’s neck.

“I’m Aron,” Aron said.

“Who’s Erin?” Boss whispered to himself, eyes narrowing further as he wracked his brain. “How many member did Fresh South have?”

Behind Aron, a pile of dogs was busy fighting over a sizeable plate of pig skin. The American rapper carried multiple cardboard boxes in his arms. He opened one.

“I’m Aron, the aegyo-king!”

Boss stepped closer to the boy, away from the other members. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Aron threw a hard, brown object. It smacked dead center into Boss’s face and exploded into ovum-y white and yolky yellow goo.

“I have the most egg, yo!”

A barrage of eggs came down on Boss who stumbled backwards to the edge of the pool. As the bombardment continued, he slipped in the growing slime puddle and fell hard on his back, blinded by the egg on his face. He knife dropped into the water.

“Run!” Minhyun shouted.

All of them bailed except for JR who took position in front of Boss, legs wide apart, arms extended. “For Love and Justice, the pretty sailor suited soldier Junior Royal! In the name of the moon I will punish you!”

Ren rushed back, grabbed JR’s collar and ignored the desperate chocking noises while he dragged the leader along.

~~~

Jun leapt with grace from the metal wall and joined the other boys in relative freedom. “Everyone is out. I’m the taillight.”

“Headcount,” Woozi shouted over the celebratory cheers. “Hold still.”

He shone across the present boys. Performance unit – check. Vocal unit – check.

The composer clapped his greasy, blackened hands. “Let’s go. See if we can find a way out of this dusty basement. Don’t make too much noise, we’re not out yet.”

“Should we split up,” Hoshi said “We can cover more ground and we’ll probably be less noisy.”

“Guys?” Dino said as he pointed his light cone to a wall. “This sign says exit.”

Joshua shed a tear, glistening in reflected light. “I would like to quote a US president on the meaning of freedom.”

“Do it,” Woozi said. “We’re all ears.”

“I…don’t know any quotes.”

“How anticlimactic,” Jeonghan said with a sigh. He walked up to the door next to the exit label and tried to open it. “Locked. Somebody needs to ram it open. Who has broad shoulders?”

Hoshi grumbled. “We don’t have a Mingyu with us.”

“Fine,” Woozi said, “Let’s split up and find a ways to get this open. Performance unit, west. Vocal unit, east. Hoshi and I, south. Dokyeom, don’t trip over stuff. Joshua, see if you can remember a couple quotes. Go!”

_____________________________

Hey, author here. I have a confession. This whole story exists only so I could make you read that one egg pun. I’m so sorry. (You better appreciate it.) Thrilling conclusion to follow.

Chapter Text

Clack clack clack.

Four boys’ shoes echoed through the night as they descended the fire escape. Below them, the nightly lights of Seoul glistered, enticing them to hurry up and put some distance between themselves and Pledis headquarters.

“Wait,” S.Coups said and stopped dead in his tracks. The others behind him crashed into each other as they tried to avoid crashing into him.

His shoe was dangling right next to him, the rope slung loosely around the spiral staircase. “Let me just grab that. Great. Now I only… dang… why did I make this knot too tight. Those are my only good shoes. Can somebody help me with-“

A gust of wind blew the rope off the stairs and S.Coups dropped his shoe. Reaching after it made him slip over the low fence.

S.Coups fell. For a second he regretted about ten million life decisions – only a fraction of them were responsible for him ending up in his current situation.

Then he managed to grab onto the equally free falling rope. His weight pulled the sheets taut and somehow a knot got stuck in the stairs above. The boy held on for dear life and smacked into the window on the first floor. He got a glimpse of Boss – soaked, covered in remnants of slime and wielding a comically massive knife. The man was completely wet, apparently just out of the indoor pool. Pledis had an indoor pool? Where those sharks?

The rope tore and S.Coups dropped into a decorative hedge. Some money from under his shirt fluttered away into the night.

~~~

“Three, two, one!”

Performance unit rushed at the door, their battering ram firmly in their hands. Presumably the speaker wasn’t conceived for such purposes but it was hardly a concern if the electronic audio box made it out alive.

The door cracked open on first try and all four performers were flung out into the night. Jun caught himself while the rest ended up more or less sprawling on the concrete in the side alley.

“We made it,” Woozi said as he hurried through the door. “We really made it. We’re free.”

The boys breathed in the chilly night air and then assumed a neat row with Woozi at the front followed by Hoshi. Together they marched out of the alley, to the front of the building.

As they passed the corner, there was a scream above their heads. Then something smacked against glass. Just as they found the source of the noise above them, something dropped into the bushes.

S.Coups groaned.

“Where’s the rest?” Dino wondered.

Three rappers jumped off the fire ladder and joined the boys on the ground. After a moment of hugs and congratulations, they resumed their neat row, this time with S.Coups at the front, who complained about his spine.

“Bus fare’s on me, kids,” he said eventually. As he pulled a bundle of Won from his pants he looked back a last time. Pledis stood grimly against the night sky. Then they rounded a corner and it was out of sight for good.

Not long after, the group of thirteen boys reached the terminal. It was time for plans.

“Alright then,” he said with a heavy heart. “Who needs to go to the airport, and who needs to go to the train station? We’ll distribute the money according to need. I’m not sure what to do with the gold bars, though.”

Seungkwan gasped. “You found gold bars? Pledis had those?”

“Ha,” S.Coups said. “That’s nothing. You should have seen the indoor pool.”

Woozi only listened with half an ear. He felt like they were forgetting something. Nah, he was probably just missing his piano already.

~~~

“I don’t think they’re coming out,” Ren said. “I’m not sure they’re even still in there. If so, they probably got caught by now.”

The sun rose over Seoul. Nu’est was standing around at a distance from the Pledis building that allowed them to see if anyone left. So far there was no sign of the other music group.

Minhyun hummed. “Wasn’t it part of the plan that we create a distraction if another team doesn’t make it out?”

“Let’s just leave,” Baekho said. “I need breakfast. When are we getting breakfast? You know where they have great breakfast? Jeju. I’m from Jeju, did I mention that?”

“You hadn’t yet, today,” JR said. “Anyway, we have to create a distraction. It’s our duty to our friends. They wouldn’t abandon us in our position so we can’t abandon them.”

Minhyun rubbed his chin. “What do you propose, leader?”

“I shall cast whirl winds forth from my palms. Swoosh. Shwoooosh.” JR waved his hands in intricate patterns. “Shwoooosh.”

“Alright,” Ren said. “Let’s make this planning session quick. Shut up, Chair. I want breakfast, too. And for the record, they make the best breakfast in Busan.”

“Do not,” Baekho said.

“Do, too,” Ren said.

“Swoooooosh,” JR made.

Aron and Minhyun exchanged glances.

“We’re free,” Aron mumbled, “but at what cost? Now, about that distraction… the hedges are rather dry this time of year, don’t you think?”

~~~

Vernon and Joshua had gotten seats next to each other. It was more practical to fly to Los Angeles first and have Vernon stay there a while until he found an apartment in New York.

The plane had just taken off and the sprawling city below them glistened in the morning dew as it awoke for a new day. Vernon had a window seat.

“Seoul’s pretty from above,” he said, mostly to himself.

But Joshua heard him anyway. “Yeah. So… When are you telling your parents?”

“Soon as we land.”

“Do you think they’ll move back to the US?”

“I dunno. I’m not sure I want them to. I’ll have a solo carrier soon.”

It was silent for a while, only the chatter of other business class passengers around them.

“Hey,” Vernon said eventually, “where’s Pledis?”

Joshua leaned past him to look out the window. “I think, over there, right under that…really low hanging cloud.”

“Looks like smoke.”

The older boy grumbled. “Guess they burned the place down for the insurance money once they realized we’re gone. It’s not like any of us were still there to do that. Although, wait a second, I feel like I forgot something …Oh look, free peanuts! Are you gonna eat your pack or can I have it?”

~~~

“So what now?” Mingyu said.

“What do you mean?” Wonwoo asked with a brow raised. “Now we stay under the radar until this mess has blown over. Help me with the chairs.”

The two young men moved the cheap furniture into the shabby apartment. There was only a minimum of stuff, but there also was only a minimum of space. The chairs would barely fit without blocking the fridge door.

Mingyu carried four chairs at once. That was all the ones they had bought. “Yeah, but then what? We gave most of the money to the others.”

Wonwoo sighed. “I guess. It’ll run out someday soon. But we’re used to working hard. We can get jobs.”

“Actually, I was thinking of an easier source of revenue?”

“Like what?”

The taller one looked at his roommate with bedroom eyes. “We’d only need a camera.”

“No! Mingyu, just no.”

“Aww,” he said with a pout. “I already ordered the dishwasher and five liters of glue.”

Wonwoo sighed. “Let’s start small. What was number twelve again? An oil massage doesn’t sound so bad. Now help me with the table. These Ikea instructions never make sense. And stop grinning, you weirdo.”

T H E     E N D

______________________________________

Maybe I should mention that I don’t hate Pledis. This was just for fun.

Thanks for reading and remember to tell me what you liked or didn’t like in the comments^^