"How'd you get the writer to agree to meeting us?" Kai asked suspiciously. "If the dude writes conspiracy theory magazines, I'm pretty sure he'd be hella skeptical about meeting us."

The group was sitting in a meeting room outside the Blue Room, a place that reminded Lucas of an airport's waiting room. The benches, which had previously been sitting in straight rows, had been pushed together to form a rough circle around a single table. It reminded him of the break room from Nova Tower, and was surprised by the comfort familiarity offered.

Taeyong reclined on a leather-backed chair which clearly had not been made for reclining, but no one pointed it out to him. "Well? He makes a surprisingly valid point."

Kai's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, 'surprisingly'?"

"I texted the number on the back of the magazine," Lucas answered. "The person texted back an inconspicuous rendezvous point in a 24/7 diner on the other side of town. Said I could only bring three people."

"That's it?" Ten asked. "That's all it took to convince them to meet up with a complete stranger? A text? I thought a nerd would be cleverer."

"Don't nerd-shame," Mark said with a pout.

"No, I told him I had read every single one of the magazine's issues," Lucas said. "A few questions helped persuade them."

Ten raised an eyebrow. "You pretended to know all of that stuff and got away with it?"

"Oh, I don't think he needed to pretend," Kai muttered.

Lucas glared at him shortly before turning to the rest of the assembly with a cough to attract their wandering attention. Baekhyun was solving a crossword with Shao's unhelpful help, and Taemin seemed engrossed in a phone call at one corner of the room. I guess he doesn't need to hear anyway, Lucas thought.

"I need two other people to come with me to the diner," he said, tucking a pen behind his ear. "Who's volunteering? No, Kai, you can't come."

"Oh, come on," Kai whined, lowering his half-raised hand. "I'll bring some much-needed cool to your troop."

"No."

"Fine. Don't come whining back to me when you regret it."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lucas said with amusement painted over his usually hard features. "I guess Taeyong needs some recovery time, so I can count him out too."

"You read my recently-revived mind," Taeyong said, pointing at him.

"Baekhyun?" Lucas called the older man's attention, trying not to look at Shao, who had swapped her ugly yellow t-shirt for an ill-fitting loose gray sweatshirt which looked disturbingly like his own. He had no idea where she had gotten it, and though he wasn't too pleased, he didn't want to call her out on it, knowing the kind of snarky backlash he would have to deal with. "You want to come?"

"Sure." The orange-haired man smiled brightly despite the injuries he had suffered after summoning the lightning bolt. Baekhyun was one of the few people in the team that Lucas truly respected. He never seemed to run out of team leader fuel. "Who else do you want to take?"

"Well—" Lucas started, glancing around the room uncomfortably. He could take Shao—he had good reason to trust her now, after her unexpected bravery at the bar—but he doubted that he could handle her unapologetic aversion to authority. Taemin seemed busy, and though Lucas liked Mark, the kid could get sidetracked easily.

He was in charge of an operation after a long time of following orders, and he didn't want to mess it up. What Lucas needed was a quick mission without any kind of distractions or mess-ups, which meant the people he took with him had to be focused and interpretative. Interrogation wasn't an easy job, especially when dealing with a civilian. Taemin was the ideal man for the job, but he could intimidate a normal person into silence, which Lucas couldn't risk.

"I could go," Ten spoke up, cutting him out of his reverie.

"Oh, yeah," Baekhyun said, nodding, though his eyes were trained on the crossword puzzle. "You could. Lucas?"

Lucas bit his lip. He had been counting on Ten not to volunteer, simply because of the horrible experience he had had while he was paired up with the artist for the first week. They were too different to work together in harmony, and would have messed up quite a few important missions had it not been for the special help.

Ten was watching him carefully. Lucas wasn't looking straight at him, but he could feel the man's gaze on him like a weight.

On the other hand, Baekhyun could help them work together by acting as the middle man. He was good at that kind of thing. And then, Ten was the ideal choice for this kind of work, calm and sharp-eyed. He would see the expression details Lucas might miss.

It's settled, then, he thought defeatedly. "All right," Lucas said, closing the file shut with a snap. "We leave at dusk."

|

"Isn't it dusk already?" Shao asked, the blindfold chafing against the skin of her temples. "I won't see a thing, I swear."

"You can't just say things like that and expect me to listen to you," Taeyong said, pressing his foot against the accelerator as the traffic light turned green. "You can't see the way to my house and that's final."

"Isn't the blindfold a bit much, though?" Mark asked, head peeking out from behind his seat. "I mean, like, no pressure or anything. I'm not on her team or anything, I just thought that, like—"

"Thank you for the input, Mark," Taeyong said testily, "but I think I'll leave her this way."

"You're a sadist," Shao said. "I bet you have cute little dogs locked up in your basement, like that casino had Supers."

Taeyong rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. The fact that she hadn't taken off the blindfold despite her hands being free said something. He felt proud, in a very, very, tiny way, and a bit more thankful.

And very guilty.

He had been nothing but mean to her in the past few days, and yet she had tried to save his life. Risked her own to do it, too. Taeyong knew that it wasn't completely his fault that he had behaved the way he did, but the thought gnawed at his mind at every turn it got. Their usual arguing was the only thing that kept him from feeling awkward. He wanted to apologize, to thank her in some way, but he couldn't think of any way he could do that.

Except maybe letting her know him a little more. Which was why he was taking her to his house.

With special precautions, of course.

"We're here, so you can take the blindfold off," he announced at the car slid into its parking spot, and stepped out. Shao's hands reached for the cloth eagerly. "On second thought, don't. Take it off when we're inside."

The house was a squat building squashed between two others that looked exactly like it. The area Taeyong lived in was somewhere between downtown and the outskirts, the place where the transition happened from the outcasts to the well-off. It was one of the reasons he hated bringing people over. He knew he couldn't afford a better place for himself and his brother, and though he knew it wasn't all his fault, he couldn't help feeling ashamed.

Mark guided Shao into the house awkwardly, hand cupping her elbow without actually touching it. Taeyong rang the bell and hooked his thumbs into his pockets, waiting.

A moment later, he heard thuds against the wooden floor of the interior, and the old door swung open with a creek, revealing a tall boy with a head of cotton-candy hair. Taeyong couldn't help the smile that took over his features as he entered the house, mussing up Jaemin's hair as he did. "Jaem, we have guests, so be nice."

Jaemin scowled at him, fixing his hair before he turned to Mark. "Guests?" he echoed, eyebrows rising into his hairline as he spotted Shao step into the house after him. "I'd ask you if that was his girlfriend, but Taeyong-hyung doesn't even have friends, much less a girlfriend."

This time, it was Taeyong's turn to scowl. Jaemin laughed in wicked delight, jumping out of reach as the man reached out to smack him. "Jaemin!"

"Woah." Shao had taken off the blindfold at long last, and was looking around the house with awe. "This is your own place? You're lucky—I had to rough it out with three others in one tiny apartment."

"Handling Jaemin is like living with two people at once," Taeyong said, flopping down on the couch. "And now, thanks to you, I have Mark, so that's three in total."

Shao sat down on the couch beside him, and Mark followed Jaemin into the kitchen with the loyal affection of a puppy. "This is still bigger than a tiny apartment," she said. "Don't you try to one-up me."

Taeyong didn't smile. His thoughts were still bouncing around in his head, as if his brain was nothing but a big trampoline. "I told you about my powers."

She blinked in surprise. "So?"

"I get to know something about you in exchange," he said. Internally, he was beating himself up, screaming about how stupid and middle-school he sounded. Hell, even Jaemin could do better than him at making conversation.

Shao grinned. "Okay. Ten questions each," she said, slipping off her shoes and pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged on the sofa. "Shoot."

Taeyong stared at an old stain on the table. He had no idea why he had said what he did; he didn't even know what he wanted to ask her. "Okay," he said slowly. "Uh—"

She raised an eyebrow, and Taeyong looked back up at her, lips pressed together. The lights were off, but the glow from the kitchen bathed her face in an orange glow. Her dark hair was braided down her back in an annoyingly messy manner, and the gray sweatshirt she had grabbed from heaven-knows-where swallowed up her lithe body. Her eyebrow was still arched—she hadn't gotten them done, so she almost had a unibrow—and the scar that from under her eye to her jaw almost looked like a teardrop had traveled her cheek.

She looked...warm.

"Where did you get that scar?"

||

we in for a ride folks

i love writing taeyong-jaemin interactions but sadly they aren't very important to the plot until later :( until then, have these tiny tidbits of brotherly affection bc taeyong does care about some people.

ALSO GOOD NEWS AGAIN !! since i'll be at home indefinitely, i'll try to update super thrice a week instead :) it should be easy because i love writing this book, and there's like twenty or so chapters left, so the book should be over by may. 

also we're so close to 50k !! (never thought i'd be so excited about that again lmao)

love, 
Manx.