Stigma Love's Algorithm [ A BTS x Reader Poly ]

Chapter 127: Uninvited and Unwelcome

But this? This is the moment the knot tightens.

This wasn't a probe. It wasn't some opportunistic glitch hunter or a wannabe anarchist coder looking to make a statement.

This...
This was a move.
Calculated. Timed. Clean.

Whoever did this wasn't just getting in.
They were leaving bait.
And that scares the shit out of me.

I close the terminal window with a muted click.

Si Woo turns his head toward me like I just slammed a door.

"You're done?"

"No," I say quietly. "I'm thinking."

He nods, like he gets it. Which he does. We speak the same language. Not always in full sentences.

I swivel my chair slightly, eyes drifting up toward the ceiling.

We've reinforced everything since the breach. We've sealed off subnetworks, put mirrors on shadows, locked backups in air-gapped servers only two people can access.

But this? This wasn't about access.
This was about response.

They weren't testing the code.
They were testing us.

Si Woo shifts behind me, cracking his knuckles.

"Should we call Dara in?"

I shake my head once.

"She's got a full schedule with press and that event keynote next week. And she's already paranoid."

I glance over at him, and this time I let the weight of my gaze land.

"We don't tell her unless we find something we can actually act on. Otherwise we'll just blow up the anxiety without a target."

He looks like he wants to argue-but he doesn't. He just nods again.

Smart.

We're in that strange space between discovery and disaster.

Where everything feels important but nothing is solid enough to hold yet.

It's the worst place to be.

I pull the logs back up-this time from a different angle.

I don't look at the code.
I look at the timing.

Micro-pings.
Time-stamped sync delays.
Packet echo anomalies.

Millisecond-level shifts that shouldn't be happening across mirrored servers.

But they are.

It's like someone triggered a series of false reflections-designed to disappear unless you were watching both mirrors at the same time.

Clever.
Too clever.

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Y/N's POV

The car ride home is quiet.
Not peaceful quiet.

The kind that hums with too many unsaid things.

I sit in the backseat, thigh pressed lightly against Yoongi's. He hasn't said a word since oppa called to pick us up with Joon at EchoTech.