Notorious ⊷ Haechan

39 ⊷ Disappointment

The first thing that came to her mind after getting a call from Haechan was that he was in trouble. That he needed her for something. He couldn't blame her for thinking like that. 

He couldn't, because somehow she was right - he needed to hear her voice. 

He hummed. "I am fine," he assured her. "I was just starting to get worried. Why aren't you back yet?" 

"Oh my- did you just say you are worried about me?" Ji-yoon asked, fully ready to brag about this. "How do you even- wait, are you still at my place?" 

"Mhm."

"Oh, sorry. Wait, I need to-" she said, not finishing her sentence as she put her hand in front of the phone's speaker before briefly talking to someone. Haechan heard muffled, incoherent words for a few seconds before she focused back on him. "You should head home, it will take a while."

"What's going on?"

Ji-yoon didn't answer right away. And while, at first, he thought that that might have been because this was some type of sensitive information, it turned out that it was just because she wasn't certain herself. 

"I am not sure. Someone attacked our servers." She sighed. "Probably JYP, so we are making sure all the systems are intact but I am not sure how long that is going to take and PR is worried about the repercussions, so we are working on a way to properly address this. But we need to figure out what happened first."

"I see," Haechan replied a little clumsily, unsure what else to say. He wasn't very familiar with her work or her role in the company, so he felt a little useless. "Sounds rough." 

She hummed in agreement. "Did Jeno and Taro go to bed?" Ji-yoon asked, changing the topic to something hopefully more delightful. 

"They just went to their rooms," Haechan said. "Jaemin's checking on them right now."

"Did Wooyoung stop by?"

"Yeah. He said everything is okay." And since they were on the topic, he decided to mention, "Your friend, Kai, came too." 

"Ah, right. Sorry for not telling you in advance." There were noises in the background. She seemed to have been switching rooms. "Don't take this as me not believing you can protect the two - I know you can. But I just wanted to make sure you can focus on having fun with everyone, you know?" 

I didn't exactly have fun, Haechan thought. Not as much as he should have had at least. But he didn't say that. He only said, 

"Thanks. That's very sweet of you." 

"Anything for you." Once again, her words were suddenly nothing more than a muffled mess of sounds as she put her hand in front of her phone's speaker. Just a second, then she turned back to Haechan. "I have to go now. Get home safely and sleep well, hm?"

Haechan smiled faintly. "Stay safe."

"I will," she reassured, then briefly regained her energetic tone just so she could speak a warm, "See you, Sunshine" through the speakers before hanging up.

Haechan put his phone down and let himself fall into the sofa's cushions behind him. His back hit the soft fabric and he tilted his head so that he was looking at the ceiling. There was nothing to see there but white paint. Still, Haechan was smiling. He couldn't help it. 

And Jaemin couldn't help pointing out that, "Someone looks suspiciously happy." The boy stood in the doorway and watched Haechan's head snap back down so he could look at Jaemin.