Crescent // ATEEZ ✔

44 [knockout]

Everyone automatically turn quiet as they hear Madam Tang's voice clearly through Jongho's microphone. Their fight-or-flight reactions are activated, and the first thought Mingi could do is to broadcast a Code 3. Just as he's about to slam the button down to initiate a signal for Code 3, Madam Tang's voice rings through the line again before her full body comes into view from Hongjoong's camera, having been distancing herself from Jongho.

"I know who you are, Min Gunhoo. Your company isn't doing so well right now, so I don't believe that price. Where do you have the money to spare, when you're about to go broke?"

"She's testing you. She wants to see whether you're really keen on making this deal with her," Mingi warns him, followed by the mechanical sound of the furious typing of his keyboard. "I sent over some of the details to Minion on Min Gunhoo's accounts."

He projects the details onto Hongjoong's lenses, allowing the leader to scan through. As Madam Tang waits for an answer from Jongho, Hongjoong quickly scans through the details of the bank account, before understanding what Min Gunhoo was trying to do with the deal.

He was trying to find a one-hit wonder where he could get himself back to his feet, knowing this is only a do-or-die deal. If he doesn't get his hands on the substance... he is as good as dead.

Hongjoong bends his body so that he can whisper into Jongho's ear, peeking carefully at Madam Tang who looks like she's about to transform into a lion that would pounce at them any moment.

The leader whispers into the youngest's ear, "This is the last straw for Min Gunhoo; he was hoping to strike a deal with Madam Tang so that he will get his hands on the substance that is not available anywhere else on the market yet. He's planning to avoid going bankrupt by selling these drugs, but he never actually had the money to spare to buy them from Madam Tang."

"Our guess is that he was planning to bluff his way through the deal somehow, maybe by using fake money to fool her. Basically we're caught up in Min Gunhoo's own lies; he isn't being honest about this even from the start." Mingi slams on the keyboard, frustrated. "That damn rat is making this complicated when it should have been a simple exchange from the start."

"But if Madam Tang does know about Min Gunhoo's current financial standing, why did she agree to meet him anyway?" Yeosang asks, but none of them have the answer as they keep quiet.

"Well?" Madam Tang twirls her shoulder-length hair around her finger. "I'm waiting, Min Gunhoo. I need to hear your answer or-" she smiles. She doesn't elaborate but they know what she's talking about.

Clearly.

Her last words seem to be a cue for her bodyguards to block the door and only conventional exit, barricading it with their muscly bodies while the closest one to her, whom she addressed as Wong stands beside her before lifting up the suitcase.

"You... really think I'm stu...pid," she pronounces with a lilt, her body swaying, looking as if she's drunk. "That's such a shame though, I would really love to spend a night with you before I-" she drags a slender finger across her neck. "Now you're just going away without anything to remember," she chides. "It's too bad."

"Minion, if you want me to blast a Code 2, give me a signal, now," Mingi reminds him through his earpiece. The sound of a chair rolling away fills the line as Hongjoong gives a '2' signal to the camera, before doing another gesture that Mingi understands perfectly.

He punches in the code that gives rise to a mechanical voice repeating, "Code 2, Minion and Apple."

"Listen here, all of you. Toothless, Aurora and Silver stay put in the hotel room. We will make sure that the meeting with the real Min Gunhoo go on, but our problem is how we're going to get the substance that's currently held by Madam Tang's bodyguard. Minion has requested for back up from Shiber-"