~Y/n pov~
Hansu had grounded Taehoon so I had barely seen him recently, although I had snuck over a few times to see him.
I had heard from Hobin that Bomi had been attack and was in the hospital. He was pissed and blamed himself for it.
It seems like we are being targeted again.
Hobin holed himself up in a room while I sat on the sofa with Gaeul and Snapper.
For some reason, my phone started vibrating continuously.
I grabbed it and saw tons of notifications.
'You need to see this - link '
Did something happen?
Clicking on the link, a Newtube video started to load.
"Hello, everyone. My name is Baek Seongjun."
Holy shit.
Snapper and Gaeul whipped their heads around so fast to stare at my screen in astonishment.
"Oh my god." Snapper gasped.
We quickly made our way to the room Hobin was in.
"Hobin?" I knocked gently before opening the door to see him sat on a chair with his head down, "You need to see this."
He was surprised when we all barged in but his surprise and confusion only increased when he saw the person on the phone screen.
"I've returned." Seongjun bowed to the camera.
"It's not possible, right?" I asked Hobin, knowing he was there when Seongjun died.
"No way. He died..." Hobin furrowed his brows.
"Woah, look at how fast the comments are going." Snapper exclaimed as the comments flew up the screen so fast they couldn't be read.
"How did this happen?" Gaeul added.
Someone donated and the comment stayed on the screen for a few seconds.
[ if you're real, could you explain your funeral?]
"I expected a question like that." The imposter (sus) smirked, "I was dead then, since I had to do whatever I could to survive. The fact that I'm alive is a miracle."
I tuned out his voice, not caring what else he had to say.
"What should we do, Hobin?" Snapper asked the quiet male.
"It's too suspicious. How can you expect the viewers to believe this?" Hobin stated.
"Actually..." Gaeul trailed off as she pointed to the comments.
"I can't believe this." I added, "What now? He's clearly a fake."
"I'll have to confirm his identity with my own eyes." Hobin gave us a look of determination.
~*~
I sighed at the situation and left, ditching the meeting about Baek Seongjun before it started.
There's not much we can do unless we have proof he isn't really Seongjun.
Scaling up the building, I knocked gently on the window.
Taehoon opened the window and grabbed my hand, helping me into my room.
"You don't have to keep coming to see me." He chuckled, gently ruffling my hair.
I smiled, "Of course I will. Did you see it?"
"Baek Seongjun?" Taehoon scoffed, "What a fucking joke.."
"I can't stay for long. I have to go find someone after this." I told him, thinking of a certain someone who could help with the situation.
Taehoon smiled at me and tugged my arm, making me sit down beside him.
I leaned my head against his shoulder tiredly and closed my eyes.
Today had been a long day.
"Tired?" Taehoon asked quietly, his voice soft.
"Yeah... I hope this whole situation gets sorted out soon." I opened my eyes as our eyes met, "Although, I don't think we'll be safe until Jinho is gone."
"Yeah. I wish I wasn't stuck in this house. Promise me to stay safe?"
"Yep." I glanced outside, noticing the sun starting to set, "I'll have to go now before it gets dark."
Taehoon nodded, "By the way, my dad isn't even in so you could've used the front door to come in."
I stared blankly at him and left his room, using the door to exit instead of the window.
~*~
I hope she's in.
My feeling of nervousness faded as I knocked on the door.
A few moments passed before the door was opened the the pink haired female.
She was holding a bag of crisps, occasionally eating some, "What?"
"Hey, Gyeoul." I smiled at her, "Did you see about Baek Seongjun? Please help us."
She seemed to consider it for a moment, "Fine. But I'm only helping because you and Gaeul are involved and we're friends. I'll come to the office tomorrow."
Gyeoul hesitated and then asked if I wanted to come in as it was dark.
~*~
"This guy pretending to be Bake Seongjun is using deep fake technology." Gyeoul explained to us.
Hobin, Gaeul and Snapper stared at her blankly.
"What is that?"
"You're so annoying. I'll only explain this once." Gyeoul huffed, "It's technology made with artificial intelligence and human facial data. Because of that, it's a lot more detailed than a normal composite."
She grabbed her computer out of her bag as we gathered around the screen, watching her edit a video.
"With just a few clicks you can access this tech."
"How do you know things like that?" Snapper asked, astonished.
"Isn't it obvious?" She responded, "This is good to know about when you make a living off cancelling channels."
"Have you found any evidence we can use against them?" I asked Gyeoul.
The pink haired girl smirked at me in response, "Who do you think I am? Of course I did. There's one flaw with their videos."
"What's that?" Hobin countered.
"The retouches made on the deep fake were top tier. The average person would be totally fooled but I'm not the average person." She gloated, "There's two big faults within the video. Number one, ninety nine percent of the video films the face. No matter how good the tech, sudden harsh angle changes will decrease the quality. And number two, it was just for a moment but a different shadow was shown on the face and the lighting on the face differed which wouldn't be possible if it was the face of the real one."
"Any normal person wouldn't look into it with such detail, it's obvious why the public were fooled." Wangguk added.
Rumi hadn't turned up today in case he would be here.
It seems like they've had a fight or something.
"Just how crazy is this?! Isn't it a crime?" Gaeul yelled, angered by the manipulation of the public.
"Yeah. This is disrespecting the dead." Snapper added, displaying the same anger.
Hobin stood silently, his fists clenched as his body shook with rage.
"Let's go and cancel this bitch." Hobin stated, a dark expression on his face.
~*~
We took some time to prepare and write a script but we were ready to start the stream in no time.
Let's just hope this goes well.
"We're starting now?! Isn't it a little quick?!" Gyeoul exclaimed, looking nervous, "Whatever. Let's just start."
"Hey, guys. Time out for a second." Hobin suddenly told us as he looked at something on his phone, "It looks like we'll have to cancel the stream today."
Gyeoul got angry and started yelling at him before Hobin cut her off.
"It's not like that. Just... I'll tell you later."
His hands were trembling as he left the room.
"What happened?" I spoke softly, "He was so ready to stream this."
~*~
I was surprised when I heard that Wangguk and Taehoon had stormed off somewhere to fight someone.
Hobin refuses to tell us what happened so I'm assuming it's about us.
I sat beside Rumi with a sigh.
No one knew what was happening so we had to wait and hope everything went well.
"You know.. Wangguk is going to fight someone for you. What exactly happened?" I spoke to Rumi as Gaeul was sat on her other side, listening silently to our conversation.
"It was stupid." Rumi frowned, "You're right. We should talk about it."
"Wangguk's gone to fight someone for Rumi and Taehoon has gone too for Y/n. Why has no one gone to fight for me?" Gaeul joked.
I chuckled as she tried to lighten up the mood, "One day I'm sure it will happen."
Gaeul smiled sadly, trying not to think of her recent heartbreak.
She had told me what had happened and how she decided to keep her true feelings to herself in the end.
I felt bad for her but I knew she'd find someone some day.
"I can't believe Taehoon went out when he's grounded though. His punishment will only get worse." I added as the other chuckled.
"It just shows he'll do anything for you." Rumi smiled teasingly at me.
"So would Wangguk." I teased back.
~*~
The team who had been running that fake account had been arrested by the police, expect for a few who had managed to escape.
Of course, Jinho wasn't captured.
Although, I was told he showed up to provoke them.
A few hours later, Wangguk and Taehoon had come back to the office to see us.
Taehoon looked relived when he saw me just sat with the other girls and chatting.
He flopped down beside me and wrapped his arms around me tightly, pulling me into his arms.
The brown haired boy still seemed upset, although he refused to tell anyone why.
"I promise I'll protect you." Taehoon muttered as he held me closer, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
"Thank you." I told him, knowing he needed to hear it even though I didn't know what I was thanking him for.
And from their reactions, I had a feeling I didn't want to know.
"I'm gonna get in so much trouble." Taehoon joked as he let out a small sigh, relaxing into my embrace.
I laughed, "Don't worry. I'll come with you and explain."
We stood up, our hands locked together and left.
I turned to glance back at Rumi to see her talking to Wangguk before they hugged.
Our eyes met as I teasingly winked at her.
She smiled in response and gave me a small wave.
~*~
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1673 words
A/n finding the time to edit my multiple books that have new content to write about is chaotic 💀