"The spreading rumors talk to you
If you believe me, you need to mute
I dare you to spread fake news
Turn that shh down for quiet new dawn"
-Quiet Down by Nct Dream
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Winwin's bitter stare bore holes into the hands that were wrinkling his shirt.
"And what exactly is it I should be admitting?" he challenged, making no effort to remove himself from his boss' grip.
"Don't fuck with me, Winwin. Or should I say Sicheng?" Jaehyun spat.
Winwin's irritation turned into genuine confusion once the name had reached his ears.
After a short pause, Winwin's eyes widened in realization only for them to tightly squeeze shut.
"What did Kun do?"
An oppressive force filled the room and the now somber atmosphere resembled that of a funeral rather than an interrogation.
Jaehyun removed his hands from Winwin but his unmoving figure informed his curly haired underling that he wasn't finished with him yet.
"Wayv knows." Jaehyun carefully analyzed Winwin's reactions as he disclosed this new information.
Winwin looked past his boss' shoulders at the other four men standing in the room with them. Doyoung stared back at him while Johnny and Mark did their best to avoid meeting his gaze. Taeyong simply shook his head at what was happening in front of him.
"About what? The girl?" he finally responded.
When Jaehyun gave no hint of confirming nor denying his presumption, he continued to press on.
"And what? You think I'm the one who told them? What evidence do you have of that? None, right?" Winwin scoffed.
"Well who else would it be?"
"Winwin is innocent!"
Everyone's eyes shot towards the two men who had abruptly entered the bedroom.
"What do you mean?" Jaehyun asked.
"The message from Wayv. It wasn't traceable." Yuta explained.
"So? It isn't uncommon for an enemy message to be untraceable. It'd be sloppy of them if it was."
"Yes, but this time it's different," Taeil began.
"Normally with messages like these, we can at least trace them back to an IP address even though they're almost always dead ends, but when I traced the origins of this message,"
"Get to the point, Taeil," Jaehyun ordered.
"Yes, sir. When I searched for the message's origin, the IP address the message was sent from matched the IP address of the computer that received it."
"In other words, it was sent from Taeil's laptop," Yuta translated.
"Wait, what does that mean? So, someone had access to Taeil's computer?" Taeyong asked.
"Well kind of. As you all know, I've been the only one who's had any direct physical contact with my laptop over the last few days," Taeil explained.
"So, what are you saying?" Jaehyun huffed.
"Someone hacked my laptop without me knowing. I gotta give it to them, I had no idea and right now I don't have any idea how long they've had access or how much control they had, but at this point, it's highly probable that they've accessed control of everything my laptop has control of including any systems we've implemented not to mention it's microphone and camera."
"So, they can hear everything Taeil's laptop could hear," Yuta summarized.
Jaehyun turned back to Winwin.
"Don't think this means we're done here," He growled.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Winwin smirked at his boss.
"Taeil? Where's your laptop right now?" Jaehyun asked the brown-haired man.
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"So, how are you?" Mark asked as we walked down the winding hallways.
I stopped and looked at him, the irritation in my face somehow went over his head.
"So, is that like a not good?"
"Oh no, I'm great. I might have two black eyes but at least I don't have three," I spat out before resuming my pace.
Mark sighed.
"Where are we even going?" I asked, still peeved.
"You know what, I don't actually know. Taeyong didn't give me any orders beyond telling me to get you out of there."
"How did I get myself into this mess?" I muttered under my breath.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
Mark looked around as we continued down the hall. I could tell there was something on his mind, but I couldn't bring myself to care what it was.
"Hey," He loudly called out even though I was walking right next to him.
I gave him a quick glance before returning my gaze forward.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you hungry?"
Before I could even think of an answer, my stomach thought of one for me.
Mark's laughter added to my annoyance, but I chose to stay silent.
"I know where we should go."