Road to Utopia - NCT

26 - Jungwoo's God-Tier Acting

Doyoung hid in the bathroom hoping he wouldn't get caught.

He was lucky that he locked the drawer or else this could look bad if he got caught. Then again, hiding in your boss's bathroom looking really guilty would also look bad.

His boss opened the door, and he could hear him confusedly asking himself whether he locked the door or not. Doyoung guessed he dismissed the thought as he heard him rummage through his not locked drawer and leave the room.

Maybe he wasn't so fucked after all.

After 1 minute of silence, he pushed the door open carefully, scanning the room for any life force. After confirming there was none, he bolted out of there, making sure to lock the doors again.

He would have to be a lot more careful and quicker next time.

~~

It wasn't fair that Yangyang didn't know about Jisung, Kun thought, but then again, he suggested it. Would his guilt swallow him whole or would he manage to work through it? He didn't know, but the nicest thing to do was tell the truth to him.

He opened his office door to try and find him, not expecting that the person he was looking for was right there, holding his fist up as if he were about to knock.

"I was actually coming to find you, come in." The leader made his way back to his desk and the two men sat down. "Firstly, what do you want?"

Yangyang held out a sheet of paper. "I wasn't sure if I should come to you or Taeyong first, but as my group's leader, I came to you."

"How thoughtful."

"Yeah, whatever. Chenle gave me a few orange pills to analyse, and I had never seen them before. It took me longer than usual and even now I'm still unsure of the results. It's similar to the really old date rape drugs, except I'm not sure what they do."

"Why would Chenle have that?"

"Apparently, it's Jisung's."

Kun sat in silence for a minute. Would this link to his kidnapping?

"Yeah, I still don't know what they do but Mark said he might know more about them." The younger added.

"Let's bring him in, and if you still have a sample, go and get it."

"Sure." He was about to leave but he turned around. "Wait, what did you want to tell me?"

"Ah," he gestured for him to sit down and waited until he was settled. "You know how we encouraged Jisung to get his therapy's drug so we could analyse it?"

"Yeah..." He said slowly.

"Well, I think our mission was compromised because they took Jisung."

Yangyang gasped. "What?"

"It's no one's fault so don't blame yourself. Mark said Jisung was still wearing his necklace and his therapist may have seen it. You can't tell anyone else or else they'll freak out so as far as you are aware he is on a mission abroad."

"So, we're trying to find out where he is, right?"

"Of course we are, but only the 127 members and leaders. And whatever you've just told me may help, so bring me a sample of the drug you've just analysed, I'll call Mark and we can try and figure this out."

~~

"Why do we need to plant so many cameras outside the building?" Jungwoo asked as he fixed an almost microscopic but HD camera on a pole outside the therapist's office. "Why can't we just hack into traffic cameras or even the office's cameras?"

"Because the traffic cameras don't point this way and the office's ones are encrypted with a code that not even Ten can decode. Now shut up and hurry up."

They quickly adjusted the angles and turned it on, connecting it to the Wi-Fi line. "As long as the Wi-Fi runs, we're good."

"Now, what do we do about the office?" Jaehyun asked.

"Maybe we can act like we need therapy or something. I can fake a good paranoia scene."

"How do you- Actually, I'm not going to ask, you've conned half the members, just go. And take your necklace off."

The younger smirked quickly and handed his necklace over before changing his facial expression to a scared one and rushed into the building. They still had earpieces on so Jaehyun could hear what he was saying.

"They're after me," he whispered shakily. "Please, help me."

The grumpy receptionist actually looked surprised and reached out to him. Before she could, an ear-splitting scream emitted from him, deafening Jaehyun and his ability to hear for a couple of minutes.

"No, no, don't touch me!" The younger backed away. "You're a part of them, aren't you? You're trying to kill me too!"

There was a muffled noise from the earpiece, but he could see more nurses ushering him into a room. Hopefully, he could also get out, but Jaehyun noticed that most, if not all, the staff members were tending to Jungwoo. This meant he had an opportunity to stick the new cameras with microphones onto the walls and quickly get out of there.

He slipped into the entrance area and placed them discreetly onto the corners. They were small and round, unrecognisable unless you peered closer, and they could rotate for a better angle. He also found some of the rooms to be empty, so he stuck some in those too.

By now, the nurses had calmed Jungwoo down so that was his cue to leave. He whispered that he will call for a 'Seojun', to which he should answer and call him 'Hyunoh'.

Raising his voice, he called for the pseudo-name and 'Seojun opened a door and called for 'Hyunoh'. The nurses also followed him but the elder gave them a charming smile and bowed.

"I'm sorry, I sometimes lose track of him. He can get a bit paranoid, so I offered to take him to the hospital for his checkup."

"We can do it if you like?" One of the staff offered. "We are trained to help in this area."

"No, no, it's OK. My friend is one of the doctors and is really good at calming Seojun down. We also offered to get him lunch since he's on his break. I'd hate to be late to that, you know how short their breaks are, right?"

"Of course, but we'd be happy to help Seojun anytime you like." The nurses smile widened. It didn't really look as sincere as her voice made it out to be.

"Thank you for everything, we'll get going now." He bowed again and grabbed Jungwoo's arm. "Come on, Junnie, say goodbye to the nice nurses and therapists."

He looked hesitantly and hid a little behind Jaehyun before shyly waving. "Bye-bye."

They left and turned the corner before any of them said anything. "Pat?"

"No, they didn't touch me, so I'm not bugged." He sighed. "Did you put any more in the offices?"

"I used all 20 cameras and they're live. Haechan and Yuta should be able to access them."

END

I'm really liking these split chapters, let me know what you think.

My title sucks because there wasn't anything funny in this chapter, I tried.