Chapter Text
How did Seven learn how to do this so fast? And so young?
You tapped your finger against the laptop’s keyboard, before groaning. This… was frustrating. But you weren’t going to give up. You needed to learn how to do this… If not for yourself, then for Yoosung.
‘I know very well that you are in danger. I want to be your strength. So… Be… my pre-girlfriend! So that nothing like this happens to you again… I want to give you my whole heart.’
You had a screenshot of those messages, and of your acceptance not long after. Yoosung was so happy… You were in danger, and he was trying to reassure the two of you… It had only taken a single week for the two of you to fall in love, and you had no regrets about that… There was no doubt that Yoosung had none either. Your only regret was allowing your anxiety to get the best of you.
Making Yoosung promise he would do anything to protect you…
It took a good few moments of looking at that screenshot before you turned back to the computer with a renewed eagerness. This time, Yoosung was the one in danger. You wanted to be his strength. First things first though… You needed to get this little task done.
Seven was completely unaware of what you were up to in the room of his house that you had been allowed to stay in since the party, and you were honestly quite glad of that. He always frowned upon people trying to follow his footsteps, and always did his best to get people to stop. ‘Hacking is a dirty career,’ he would always say. You were willing to throw yourself head-first into the dirt.
You had started out quite simply, with basic code-breaking. After a while, you attempted to break codes with bigger complexities, and now, in the space of three months, you had begun to break through simple security on devices. Earlier that day, you had gone out and bought a cheap phone with the money you had saved up since the start of the whole ‘getting pulled into RFA by a hacker’ situation. You had gone and set up a simple firewall to break through, and had just recently finished getting access to the phone.
Now though… Just to see what you could potentially be up against… You had tried to hack into your actual phone, and were looking at the algorithms which Seven had set up to protect you from the hacker who was holding Yoosung hostage. You just didn’t know that Seven had been alerted to that.
After a few minutes, he appeared in the doorway, dark bags under his eyes as he glanced at you. “Are you okay?” He flinched when you suddenly slammed the laptop shut, before you quickly nodded. “I… Right then…” He then paused, before taking a small step towards you. “Just… give me a call if anything happens or if anything is bothering you… I promised- I promised Yoosung that I’d take care of you, after all.” There was evident hurt in Seven’s voice as he spoke about Yoosung.
“Yeah, I know…”
“Please… I’ll do anything…”
“Anything?”
“Y- Yes, anything!”
“Hmm… No.”
“Y- You-! I- I just want to see him…”
“Say goodbye to your ‘precious’ Yoosung.”
You woke up shaking as you remembered the one time where you had actually been able to get through to the hacker and beg for the chance to see Yoosung. It hurt remembering the laughter which echoed down your phone when your pleas were outright rejected.
According to your phone, it was just gone midnight. Optimal time for Yoosung to have started to play on LOLOL… You hadn’t even met him in person, but all around you, you could see little quirks which you had picked up about him in the messenger. For example – there were the packets of Honey Buddha chips scattered around every room in this house. Yoosung loved them, and because of their rarity, he had made a single packet last for weeks. He would have loved being able to eat them as and when he wanted… It hurt when you went into another packet to eat, seeming as Seven had given you a large box full of them, knowing that Yoosung wasn’t able to eat them with you.
Slowly, you got out of bed before dragging your feet as you made your way to the neglected kitchen. It had been used more since you moved in here, but… It still went about with a layer of dust. The only thing besides sorting out take-out food which you did in there was make coffee… Yoosung had joined a barista club a few days before he had been taken.
It was hard to hold back tears as you made your way past Seven’s computers as you made a beeline towards the kitchen, but then you froze. Seven wasn’t there. Seven was not at his computers. Barely a moment had passed by the time that you had made up your mind to instead grab a bottle of water from the fridge before rushing back over to the computers.
A note had been taped to one of the monitors, and it had your name scribbled at the top of it.
‘Got a sudden call from Vanderwood saying that my boss needs me to do something important. May be gone for a few days. Use my computers if you want, just as long as you don’t touch the zipped or confidential files, yeah? Especially the RFA ones. I can trust you to not touch them. Oh, and I’ve made sure that I’ve set my door security to recognise your face and voice, so if you need to go out, you can come back in again. See you.’
You sat down in the particularly comfortable chair (no wonder Seven hardly left it unless necessary) at the desk, before reaching to press the power button. For some reason, your heart was racing, despite the fact that you had full consent to using it. Maybe it’s just the thrill of being able to use a computer other than your laptop, or maybe it’s just the excitement which you have developed over the past three months as you tried to learn how to hack in secret when it comes to accessing somebody else’s computers.
Of course his backgrounds were of Longcat.
Before you could do anything though, messenger notifications began to go off on your phone, so you picked it up and sighed as you logged in. It was likely to be Zen who is online at this time, so you prepared yourself to ask him how rehearsals had gone that day. It was practically instinctual to load up the messenger without checking who was online though, so you didn’t bother checking.
Jumin Han: … Where is 707 when I need him?
Jaehee Kang: Mr Han, did you get one too?...
ZEN: woah woah woah. Did you two get the creepy emails too?
You: What’s going on?
It was unexpected for almost everyone to be online at once. Since Yoosung was taken by the hacker, the chatroom began to become somewhat isolated. Sure, there was quite a few chatrooms opened on it a day, but not as many as when you had first joined the RFA.
Jumin Han: I received a suspicious email at the office before. It possessed a strange logo, and underneath…
Jaehee Kang: There was an image of Yoosung.
You: !!!
ZEN: He looked so pale and thinner than normal… I honestly felt sick at the sight of it.
Jaehee Kang: Did you not get an email like this?
You: Give me a second…
A horrible lump formed in your throat as you clicked on the internet on Seven’s computer, before you went and logged into your email account. It was just as sparse as it normally was… No suspicious email or anything.
You: No…
Jumin Han: I still want to know where 707 is so that he can help us track where these emails came from.
You: Seven isn’t here at the moment… Apparently his boss has sent him out somewhere.
ZEN: What?;;
Jaehee Kang: That isn’t good…
You: Let me try!
Jumin Han: Hmm?
ZEN: You… want to try and track where the emails are coming from? But… you’re not a tech genius like Seven, you said that yourself at the party…
You: Please… Don’t let Seven know, he’ll get really angry with me if he finds out…
You: I’ve been teaching myself how to hack.
You: To save Yoosung.
You: It’s killing me not being able to talk to him… I got so attached to him in the ten days which we were able to talk to one another…
Jaehee Kang: Well, Luciel will see if he logs into the messenger… But okay. I’ll forward the email to you.
You: Thank you, Jaehee…
Jumin Han: I’ll be amazed if you manage to locate Yoosung without the help of Seven. I wish you luck.
ZEN: Yeah! Good luck… Anything to rescue your prince!
You were practically shaking as the email notification popped up on the computer, before you opened it up. A shiver went down your spine as it began to load, and you had to quickly cover your mouth when the image which the others had spoken of had finally appeared. Tears welled up in your eyes when you noticed a horribly pale Yoosung propped up against a stone wall, his natural brown hair starting to break through his messy hair. He seemed to be chained up whilst wearing a tattered black suit too. But what really got to you was the state of his left eye. The typically calming violet colour which his other eye held was close to non-existent, it was bloodshot, and on top of that, it was half-lidded. Had he been injured?
It took a lot not to call one of the others so that you could have somebody to sob to, but instead, you ended up opening the gallery feature of the messenger just to look at the image which Yoosung had sent to you just after you had said that you would be his girlfriend. He was smiling, and held a bouquet of roses in his hand… For all that you knew, those roses may still be at his apartment, likely wilted…
But something felt odd about the photo on the email though, so you went and saved it onto Seven’s computer quickly. You could delete it before he got back, after all. After that, you looked at the information held about the photo Yoosung had taken on his phone, and did the same with the horrible photo.
The same resolution.
The same dimensions.
The same camera.
Both photos had been taken from Yoosung’s phone.
Now, you may not have been a technical genius like Seven, but it was easy enough to come to that conclusion. Once more, your heart was pounding as you scrolled down about the information from the sickening photo, and it ended up skipping a beat when you noticed that there were location coordinates for the photo.
The hacker hadn’t concealed the coordinates where the image had been taken.
118.382643, 72.575154.
You had a lead straight to Yoosung.
To say that your hand was shaking as you input those coordinates on your phone’s map program was an understatement, but when the map finally loaded, joyful tears began to pour down your face when you noticed a building in the middle of nowhere on it.
He was right there…
Now you were shaking even more as you opened up the messenger, to see that the same three were still online.
Jumin Han: Are you okay?
You: Mhmm…
Jaehee Kang: The image… it’s horrible, isn’t it?
You: Yeah…
ZEN: You want any of us to come see you? Or want to come to one of us?
You: No… There’s no need.
You: I… I believe that I may have found Yoosung.