You sat quietly on the countertop, feet dangling over the edge. Soft whirring noises followed by the occasional squeak could be heard whenever you moved your head to follow the blond haired man’s figure from the cabinet on the opposite side of the room, back to your body.
“Ah,” he starts, the sound distant to your sensors, “maybe I should oil the gears in your neck.”
“My hearing sensors are also malfunctioning. Perhaps those need to be reevaluated as well.” You suggest. The muffled sound wasn’t annoying, but then again you really didn’t know what something being “annoying” felt like. You just based the word off the descriptors you picked up from Wooyoung and his speech patterns.
“Noted,” the blonde man says, “if it’s anything that I can’t do I’ll call in Yunho or San. Maybe even Jongho...one of them should be able to fix it,” he finished, making his way once again to the cabinet to retrieve the oil that’d be used on your neck.
“My calculations predict that you would be the most reasonable option for fixing my sensors, Seonghwa.” You start, numbers flashing before your eyes in a monotone green, “Statistically speaking, you’ve failed to adequately complete a repair 14.2 percent of the time, compared to Yunho’s 29.5 percent and San’s 15.6 percent.”
“Well, what about Jongho?” He asks, his tone laced with mirth.
“Jongho has failed to adequately complete a repair 32.6 percent of the time,” you begin, combing through data report after data report, “with his primary reason being that he was unaware of the wire placement in my model.”
Seonghwa openly chuckled at that, using a gentle hand to tilt your head to the left. Pushing back the rubber skin covering to reveal metallic gray panels, he unscrewed two of them to expose the gears and wires in your neck. Gingerly dropping around five or six drops of oil, he screws the panels back and places the skin cover back over them before repeating the process on the other side.
You sat motionless as he worked, eyes trained ahead on the cabinet. The front panel was glass, so you could clearly see your reflection in it.
Your skin covering was ripped in some places, exposing either paneling or wire. Parts of your hair were gone, exposing the lighter undertone of what would have been your scalp, and while you couldn’t necessarily feel boredom, you found yourself growing bored with the repetitiveness of your appearance. You’re always around changing scenery, changing clothing styles and hairstyles. Yet you’ve kept the same appearance since you were booted up nine months ago.
Maybe it was time for a change.
“Okay,” Seonghwa starts, readjusting some of the skin coverings on your neck and shoulders, “I’m all done.”
“Thank you.” You reply calmly, pushing yourself off the countertop and onto the floor. The wooden floorboards creaked under your weight, but you paid it no mind as you silently walked out of the room.
Stepping out into the hallway, you scanned the house for Jongho’s heat signature. The boy was always warm, it rose concern until Seonghwa notified you that he’s just...like that.
After a bit of scanning, you find his form curled up in what was most likely a chair. Hues of reds and oranges muddled into the shape of a human. A small whir of excitement sends a wave of electricity through your systems, temporarily causing your vision to glitch. You were definitely mentioning that the Excitement program San created for you was malfunctioning.
Making your way downstairs and into the kitchen, you follow the path until you reach Jongho’s body, contorted into what should be an uncomfortable position, reading a book on botany and medicinal plants. You stand motionless for a while, before opening your mouth to speak.
“Jongho,” you begin, noticing as his eyes leave the book that they were previously focused on to stare at you, “I would like a new physical appearance.”
“Is there anything specific that you want?” His voice was soft, you noted that he was in that position since yesterday, reading book after book of different medicinal plants and their properties. He most likely hadn’t spoken since the previous day, seeing as nobody really bothers him once he gets into one of his reading moods.
“No,” you start, “I give you full control of the design,” you say.
“Okay, I’ll get one started and give it to Hongjoong for him to create it.” He nods, turning his head back to his book.
“Jongho,” you say, gaining his attention one more time, “what is ‘empathy’?” You ask, eyes flashing blue to signal your recorder starting to capture the response.
“Ah...” he starts, setting his book down and repositioning himself so that he’s seated facing you, “empathy is, in a nutshell, being able to understand what another person is dealing with emotionally,” he says as he moves his arm to stretch the muscles in it.
“Why are you asking?”
You think back to the day before when you were accused of being an emotionless pile of junk, and then being told that some people just don’t understand the concept of empathy and that nothing was wrong with you for not understanding it.
“I would like to have the ‘empathy’ program,” you start, “in order to avoid possible future conflicts over my lack of understanding complex human emotions.”
“I’ll talk to San about it.”
“Thank you,” and with that, you exit the kitchen. Claiming a seat on the living room couch and training your eyes on the TV in front of you.
“Another riot has broken out in Nuseoul’s Capital Sector over the leaking of private footage of IDAT’s task force mistreating the cyborg activist Duri Cho,” the anchor starts. One by one the boys come into the room upon hearing the news, “IDAT’s task force is accused of falsely arresting as well as physically and mentally abusing Ms. Cho while she was in Capital custody, resulting in her death,” an angry curse can be heard from behind you.
“Much of the outrage started only after the anonymous, self-proclaimed vigilante group ATZ released a video statement detailing this information, as well as showing clips from what appeared to be security cameras from inside the Capital,” another anchor starts, “the group ATZ have been found to blame for much of the disarray in Nuseoul in the past five years, and with no leads to the identity of those in the group, authorities can do nothing but hope that people realize many of their accusations are false and ignore them.”
An angry scoff comes from behind you, “False? If it weren’t for us Haneul’s family wouldn’t have been able to bury their child,” the voice said, turning to face the source you see Hongjoong glaring at the TV screen. His hands were balled into fists at his sides.
Training your eyes back to the TV, you realize that the screen went from the news anchors to IDAT’s President, Moon Hyeonjeong, standing at a podium to deliver a speech. Upon the sight of him, your vision glitches once.
“My dear citizens,” he starts, your vision glitches again. Error messages begin to appear as your systems slow down to accommodate the spam of ERROR and URGENT CARE NEEDED messages.
“I come to you to say that we will defeat the evil of this so-called vigilante group,” he says the word vigilante with such venom that you swear if you had emotions you would wince, “and restore peace to our beautiful state.” he drawls.
Another scoff can be heard, from someone different this time, followed by angry footsteps and a door slamming in the distance, footsteps disperse, and another weight sinks in on the couch next to you.
“Calixte,” the voice starts, your sensors unable to determine who it is due to the random malfunction, “how do you feel?”
“I feel as if,” you start, “as if, if I were able to experience human emotions, upon seeing Moon Hyeonjeong and hearing his speech, I would experience hatred.”
~~~~~~
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS DRONED ON FOR SO LONG IM SO BAD WITH INTRODUCTION CHAPTERS IM SO SORRY!!!! I promise it’ll pick up and start to make more sense in the following chapters ; ; I have this whole thing planned out and like I know vaguely where I want it to go it’s just finding the English to take it there ; ;
I don’t really have an update schedule but !!! I’ll try and update pretty regularly :D
Following the events that transpired a few months ago, San and Yunho took it upon themselves to do system checks on you more frequently after you had to be shut down. ‘Precautions,’ they’d always say. You had no choice but to sit quietly as they ran test after test on your systems. Often calling in Jongho to research a specific component they may have found or called in Hongjoong and Seonghwa to discuss their findings. A myriad of new information was revealed through the constant testing, a few of the things being that you were of a rare line of android that was discontinued after the burning down of Sector 00913, your program had a hidden component that not even San could get through, and your line of android was more susceptible to being installed certain programs that most current android couldn’t get.
Nothing mentioned a strange code that was broadcasted during a forced shutdown.
You were once again in San, and now Yunho’s, office, sitting on the table hooked up to a compu-pod as they ran more tests. Mingi was the guest of the evening since everyone else had gone to the Outlands to buy food. He sat quietly in the back corner of the room, watching San and Yunho work with a blank look on his face.
“Mingi,” Yunho starts, eyes still focused on the screen in front of him, “what’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re barely leaving your room,” San starts, you take note that his primary emotion is Concern, and you’re Curious as to why but since talking would require the use of a program that’s being modified you can’t, “again.”
“Haven’t been sleeping well,” Mingi responds, closing his eyes leaning his head back on the wall behind him. You glance over at him and realize that he’s right. On average, he’d only been sleeping two and a half hours each night, for the past week and a half. You sent a message to San detailing this, earning a sigh from him in response.
“What did the robot say?” Mingi asked, opening one eye to stare at San.
“Calixte is an android,” San started, “and they said you’re only getting around two hours of sleep a night. Are the nightmares really that bad?”
“Seonghwa could mix up a drink for you that’ll keep you asleep.”
“No.”
Silence. Nobody really spoke after that. Yunho and San exchanged concerned glances with each other before continuing to try and get into a highly encrypted section of your programming. They’d been trying for days, especially since Jongho mentioned that it was something unique to your line of android. A line that had been discontinued for malfunctions similar to the one you’d been experiencing just months earlier.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to get into this program.” Yunho sighed, rubbing his eyes and leaning away from the screen of his compu-pod. You silently agreed, they hadn’t made any progress since they started working on getting into the program, not even with San’s unlimited knowledge on hacking could they get past the first layer of encryptions.
“What’s so important about the program anyway?” Mingi asked, standing up from the chair he was sitting in to look over Yunho’s shoulder.
“Well,” San starts, “it’s unique to Calixte’s line of android, and we think that this program could explain why they were glitching and malfunctioning so bad when we had to shut them down.” he finished, shutting down his hacking software and unhooking the various wires connected to you.
“Not only that, but we have to use Calixte since their line of android was discontinued the same year the fires happened,” Yunho said, rubbing the back of his neck.
The room fell silent again, it wasn’t until San sighed and asked if you all wanted to get out of the house that the mood picked back up. It would be an adventure, he said. You all just couldn't get caught; Hongjoong would riot if he knew you all snuck out, regardless of whether the public knew your identities or not. Sneaking out was a bad idea with a discontinued android. It’d raise suspicions.
Which is where your new appearance came in; Hongjoong finished designing it but never got the chance to put it on you due to the Great Malfunction, as Wooyoung dubbed it. San said that it was cute, and everyone else agreed. The skin looked almost like porcelain, smooth to the touch and you could even see pores if you looked close enough. The hair looked soft and voluminous, and Seonghwa only snickered when everyone kept asking Hongjoong where he found it. Everything looked realistic, from the hair to the eyebrows to the eyelashes to the folds of how normal skin would work on the ankles and feet.
San motioned everyone to get out of the room as he prepped the skin layer to put on you. You had honestly looked as if you just came out of the box for the past few months. A metal layer of silver over red, blue, green and yellow wires. Eyes round and scarily big due to the lack of actual “flesh” over them. You had gotten so used to seeing yourself in your natural form that you almost felt uncomfortable feeling San put on the skin layer.
He fit the face on first, using a thin spatula-like object to flatten things out and push other things where they needed to go. He then moved on to the arms, then torso, then legs and feet. He took his time to make sure everything was in place and you just stared, his motions were so quick but soft at the same time that before you could process it he was already grabbing the next piece and placing it on you.
“All done! You look...really cute. Almost date-able.” He said, a satisfied smile gracing his boyish features.
“I do not understand.”
“It’s...nothing.” He sighed, motioning for you to put on the clothes that had been laid out on the table prior to him putting on the skin layer. He exited the room shortly after and you got dressed, the outfit was simple. A black shirt with blue detailing, it stopped right above your navel, paired with black pants and boots. A normal outfit for the District you all were going to, so it didn’t phase you too much.
Exiting the room, you noticed San, Yunho, and Mingi all standing by the door. Mingi with a blank look on his face, more distant than anything. Yunho and San didn’t pay much attention to it.
“So, we’re only going to the Red District to see if anyone has info on Calixte’s make and model. We don’t use Calixte to get the information, we just ask. If they request anything we decline and leave,” San started, listing rule after rule, “we get back before midnight since that’s when everyone else gets back, and most importantly we don’t leave the pair we end up getting placed in. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, we can work out pairs when we get to the Red,” Yunho said, opening the door and motioning for everyone to exit, “for now let’s just focus on getting there.”
You were the last to leave the house, besides Yunho. He closed the door behind you and double checked to make sure it was off. The four of you made your way north to the Red District in silence.
Jongho said that it would be the most likely place to get answers since it’s full of people who had...questionable...ways of getting answers. It was almost scary how unyielding San and Yunho were to get answers, but if this could help on their mission to hack the program in your systems then they’d do it.
Those two stop at nothing to get what they want.
~~~~~
This chapter, as well as the next one, are more filler than actual plot since I’m reworking certain details in the story outline! I just wanna make sure everything is coherent and makes sense when I actually get to the more important chapters so I hope you guys don’t mind a bit of filler until then :)
Also! The next chapter will be focused on Calixte and the ATEEZ boy of your choice :D this time it’s out of Mingi, San, and Yunho. There will be multiple points throughout the story where I base the following chapter or the following two chapters off a member that you guys choose so if there’s anyone you want to know more about, this is your chance to request them :D
“So, how’re the pairs working?” San asked once everyone was out of the house and the door was locked. You were Curious too; getting paired with Mingi was a recipe for disaster, and even though you spent a decent amount of time with Yunho, things would still be slightly awkward, but San can be extremely Hyper and you don’t know if you were ready to handle that just yet.
“Well,” Yunho starts, a look of contemplation washing over his face, “San, you and Calixte work best with each other. I work best with Mingi. We should just go based on that.”
The group fell silent, your eyes glowed a yellowish-green in confirmation. One thing you weren’t expecting was the slight change in your color coding, but Hongjoong said the color was nice and contrasted well with your current skin covering, whatever that means…
“Okay,” Mingi said, adjusting his shirt to cover the gun tucked in his waistband, “let’s go then. The faster we go the faster we can come back.”
And with that, the four of you were off.
The walk to the Red was silent, Yunho led the way, trying to make small talk with Mingi but failing miserably. The taller boy was completely silent as he had his eyes trained ahead. San walked at a leisure pace next to you, and there wasn’t much talking if any at all.
Upon arrival, you were Dumbfounded. Everything in the Red was so...bright? Vivid? For the first time since you were booted up, you couldn’t find the words to describe the sights you saw before you. People of all denominations bustled about, women, cyborgs, even androids that you registered as Discontinued bustled about behind their human caretakers. Contrary to the name, nothing was really Red. You followed slowly behind the boys, taking in all the sights. The people, the buildings, the signs were written in languages your translators could barely keep up with. You recognized some of the Old Languages, but couldn’t translate them due to a lack of information about them. Arabic, French, Chinese, but also a strange combination of Faric, Telunese, and Swanlic languages were present. The combinations were baffling, some signs having a mix of both Old and New languages, your processors were whirring trying their best to keep up with everything but there was just so much going on it was nearly impossible to do so.
“Oh no,” San started, rushing back to you and moving back the skin covering on the back of your neck, “let me fix this so things aren’t as overwhelming for you Cal.”
He flipped three switches, and all of a sudden things were calm. Sounds weren’t loud and blasting, lights weren’t bright and glaring, and signs were all in Kojan, the Primary language. Internally, things calmed down, which was good, it was what you wanted.
You soon broke off from the main group with San, going north while Yunho and Mingi went west. San rattled off rules for you to follow, your eyes glowing a bluish-gray in understanding. You followed closely behind him, per his instructions, and remained silent, also per his instructions.
The two of you walked until a dimmed down neon sign appeared, from what you could gather, it was a bar. Cupid’s Nest. The name made no sense, Cupid’s are mythological beings from Greek mythology, they don’t have nests according to what your archives said.
“Hey,” San started, faltering a bit in his steps, “maybe we can find answers here?”
“Perhaps.”
“Let’s go then.”
As San walked to the entrance, you slowly followed behind. Even though San altered your sensors, things were still so...new...so different, you couldn’t help but lag behind to try and see everything.
You noticed a narrow alleyway, one between the Cupid’s Nest, and the diner next to it. Something about it was captivating, almost entrancing. You couldn’t take your focus away from it even though you were standing close enough to the bar that you could smell the booze and cheap perfume that seemed to have embedded itself into the walls.
Your body moved without you controlling it; you abandoned San without saying a word, following the green numbers that flashed across your vision along with coordinates. Your hearing processors had stalled completely, the world was silent. People bustling around without sound, clinking drinks and dancing to music that had no words, no bass, no anything.
The only senses you still had was touch, sight, smell, and taste. Your hearing was gone, but you could smell the smoke in the air, the oil from a black market mechanics shop, the street food lining the alleyway. You could taste the alcohol in the air, thick and heavy and, if you were human, it would most likely be strong enough to burn your throat.
Wooyoung did say that booze always had a little kick to it.
You made it to the end of the alleyway, looking around wordlessly, your eyes were Frantic, flashing from blue to yellow to green all at once before cycling back to their neutral color.
Another set of coordinates popped up on your radar, slightly south of where you were currently. You followed it down to the number of steps, not wanting to mess anything up, but at the same time not having control of your actions.
Messages are coming in but you can’t decipher them, something’s off about them. There’s noise in the messages, you have an inkling that it’s San, but there’s no way to be sure.
You keep walking, following the coordinates until you reach a small mechanics shop. Spare android parts hang from the entrance; arms and legs, sometimes whole mechanized heads hang on hooks and strings in front of you.
Your body moves before you can understand what’s happening; one minute you were standing as the world regained it’s sound, the next you were strapped to a chair with wires being shoved in the ports at the nape of your neck.
The man presses buttons, frantically, almost as if he knows he won’t have time to complete everything, and then the world goes black.
Black.
Blue.
Green.
White.
The world rushes back to you as you feel the cords ripped from your neck, a stinging sensation left in their wake. Your eyes are trying to adjust, barely making out the figure that’s dragging you out the store, body barely registering that it’s moving again. Your legs fumble over themselves like a newborn baby deer and your systems battle to try and catch up to everything going on.
You only register a tight pain in your arm, the feeling was foreign. Almost as if that man had cut you open, like a fish, and inserted nerves into you. This was a feeling foreign to your touch receptors and you didn’t understand it. It hurt, it stung, and you didn’t like it.
You nearly felt scared, until you crashed into the body in front of you.
Mingi. He had gotten you out of that mechanic’s shop. He had dragged you along random sidewalks, for around fifteen minutes without saying anything, until he noticed the building to his right.
A simple black brick building, with neon purple and blue lights cemented to the side. You couldn’t process the name, but you took note of Mingi’s expression.
His eyes were vacant as if his soul had left his body. His normally sharp and hyper-aware demeanor dropped for one that was empty. He was just a shell of his former self and you were worried; the change was sudden. One minute he was fuming, dragging you along so quickly that your legs couldn’t keep up, and the next he was as still as a statue.
“Sorry mister,” comes from your left as a child bumps into Mingi, not really paying attention to where he was going. You thought it was cute, but concerning; why would a child, barely older than 10, be in the Red? It was dangerous here, you knew that, and you barely knew anything outside of what was programmed into you.
It was only after the child left that Mingi let go of your arm, bringing his hand down to your wrist instead. He said nothing and kept walking, at a slower pace than before, until the two of you reached the same forest that the four of you had entered from.
“Mingi!”
“Cal!”
“What the fuck happened,” San starts, nearly fuming, “Calixte where did you go?!”
“I…” your words get caught, you genuinely didn’t know how to respond; you had never seen San this angry, red and black hair covering his eyes, voice hushed but rough, “I’m sorry.”
“Why are Cal’s eyes glowing purple,” Yunho started, “Mingi where did you find them?”
You turned to look up at Mingi, his expression still as glassy as what it was earlier, he didn’t respond. He just stared blankly ahead, which only served to agitate San even more.
You gave a small squeak of surprise and backed up when San stormed up to grab Mingi by the collar of his shirt, “What happened to Calixte?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
Yunho had to step between the two to calm things down, you were trembling, circuits stressed from so many new experiences and things happening all at once. It was overwhelming, everything was so overwhelming. It was too much and everything was getting hot and you couldn’t focus and you didn’t know what to do.
Too much, it was all just too much and you didn’t like it and you just wanted it all to stop but it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t stop and you didn’t know what that old man did but whatever it was caused...this.
You were panicking, you didn’t even know that you could panic; your circuits were hot and your systems were trying to keep up with everything, it wasn’t fun. Your sight kept glitching, big, glaring ERROR and RECALIBRATING notices popped up. Your hearing went from silent to overstimulated to completely mute within the span of seconds. At some points, you could feel every dust particle as it passed over your skin covering, other times you felt nothing.
You felt like you were dying, and you didn’t even know what death felt like.
“The building,” Mingi starts, voice hoarse, San and Yunho look to each other then back at him, all unaware of the complete system meltdown you’re having a mere two feet away, “it was too similar.”
Nobody says anything as Mingi stalks off, back to the house. San and Yunho turn around to look at you; San still looks mad, but he seemed to have softened after seeing the state Mingi was in. He walks ahead, Yunho grabs your hand and begins walking behind the two of them.
Everything was still on overdrive, but Yunho’s hand was a comforting weight in yours. It was warm and much bigger than your hand. You didn’t realize it, but you had begun to inch closer to Yunho’s side. Almost as if he would protect you from the very happenings of the world.
He thought it was strange, that an android was taking solace in his presence, but he removed his hand from yours and wrapped it around your shoulders instead, bringing you even closer to him. You didn’t mind; the contact was nice, wanted even. All of this was foreign to you and there weren’t words to describe the emotions, so it was nice to have Yunho as a sort of grounding force.
The walk back to the house was silent, your systems whirred loudly as they tried to process everything that you were feeling. Yunho noticed, you know he did, but he didn’t say anything. He just held you to his side and kept walking.
The two of you were the last to make it back, and from a distance, you could hear Mingi, San, and Hongjoong screaming at each other. The words were fuzzy, you could just identify their voices.
“What the hell were you thinking? You can’t just bring Calixte into the Red!”
“It was the only way we’d get answers for whatever the fuck is going on! What else were we supposed to do?”
“Maybe sit and wait until I give instructions? I’m the leader, it’s my job to make sure none of you get hurt or worse!”
“Yeah well, you sure as hell did a good job with that the last mission we had.”
“Mingi, shut up.”
“I’m just saying,” Mingi started, voice booming. Even outside you could feel the frustration seeping from his words, each one cutting a hole deeper into you, “if you took your job seriously then we’d be able to bring Jongho on missions with us. If you actually gave a damn then maybe we’d be able to use him on the field instead of having to rely on him from base!”
“Mingi…” San was trying to stop him now, you and Yunho stood at the open doorway, watching everything unfold. Yunho held you behind him, but you still peeked over his shoulder to see what was going on.
Hongjoong and Mingi were chest to chest at this point, Hongjoong’s face was blank, void of all emotion, but if you looked at his eyes you would see nothing but pure, white-hot anger. Mingi was the same, but his emotions were shown in his posture: back straight, fists clenched so hard his knuckles were white, everything about him screamed danger, but Hongjoong didn’t back away.
“Mingi,” Hongjoong’s words were quiet, but sharp, “if you know what’s good for you, I’d shut up.”
“If you knew anything about being a leader then all of us wouldn’t have had to go through hell for your plan,” Every word Mingi said was laced with such venom, nobody in the room dared to interrupt him, “Jongho wouldn’t have to deal with partial paralysis, Yeosang would have a hundred percent of his hearing, Wooyoung wouldn’t have his scars,” his words got harsher as he continued speaking, hands trembling, “if you knew a goddamn thing about being a leader then we’d have actually made some fucking progress in this stupid scheme of yours and-”
His words were cut off with a swift hit to the jaw. Hongjoong brought his hand back, releasing the fist he had balled up and with trembling shoulders, looked up at the taller boy.
His gaze was deadly, and you found yourself clinging to Yunho’s shirt to be away from it even though it wasn’t even directed at you.
“If you feel so strongly about me, and my method of running things,” Hongjoong started, his voice strained, “then leave.”
Mingi stood motionless, his lower lip swollen from the new split in it, holding his jaw that was sure to bruise from the force of the impact. He lowered his hand to his side, standing still aside from the heaving of his chest.
“Fine. I will.”
And with that, he stormed past you and Yunho, anger rolling off of him in waves. He walked away from the house and didn’t look back, not even when Wooyoung or Seonghwa called after him, or when Jongho screamed at Hongjoong about why he couldn’t have just let the argument go. He didn’t look back when San and Shiber took off after him.
He just left. And this time nobody was sure if he was planning on coming back or not.
You buried your head into Yunho’s back, between his shoulder blades, systems overworking themselves again to process everything. You felt him turn around and pull you close, into a hug, as Wooyoung called it. You trembled, and he held you. He held you close as more binary code popped in your vision, blurring everything, canceling sound, muting touch, and once again you couldn't decipher the message.
Regardless of what the message meant this time, you knew it wasn’t anything good. And that thought terrified you, it terrified you to your very core.
And you were scared of that.
~~~~~~~~
lots of you wanted yunho...so you got yunho :D from here on things will pick up! sorry it took so long getting this chapter out, school is a pain :’) and so is life in general :’’)
i’m going to spend a lot of time (like,,,a LOT,,,of time) planning out the next few chapters, but due to school and other external circumstances i’m not really sure when i’ll have the next few chapters out? it hopefully wont be as long as it took this one to come out, i feel really bad not providing the chapters as often as i prodive drabbles or imagines or things like that ; ; i promise i’ll get better with it
anyways, tell me what you guys thought of this chapter, or if you have any theories bc i tried to make some things very clear compared to previous chapters, and i wanna see if y’all caught it or not ;)
“We can scout,” Wooyoung starts, using a scarred hand to push silver hair out of his face, “the normal team can go out and look for a new place to live. We need to go hunting anyways so we can kill two birds with one stone.” He finishes, leaning forward and resting his hands on Hongjoong’s desk.
Confusion sets in; why would Wooyoung want to throw stones at birds? Now isn’t the time for that.
“Wooyoung,” you start, turning to face him, “what is the purpose of killing birds with stones? There are more pressing matters at hand,” you say.
“Well, y’see Calixte-”
“As well as now not being an appropriate time,” you cut in, green numbers and charts flashing in front of your vision, “it is statistically impossible for anyone outside of Mingi to hit a bird with a bullet, let alone a stone. Attempting to kill birds with stones at this point in time would result in an approximate four hours and thirty-seven minutes wasted by you, and an approximate two hours and twenty-three minutes wasted by Mingi.” you conclude, the green haze leaving your eyes as you focused once again on Wooyoung’s features.
Taking a seat on the couch and awaiting the TV to cut on, more error messages popping up as the TV automatically shifted to the news network.
“More riots break out in the Nuseoul Capital Sector as IDAT robots malfunction and attack citizens for no apparent reason,” the anchor starts, playing footage that was taken by civilians of the android police force brutally attacking random people, “there is no information released as of now that could possibly explain why the robots suddenly malfunctioned, but programmers at IDAT’s Facility of Home Security say that it is just an error in the code and that they are trying to solve the issue as fast as they can.”
~~~~
AND WE’RE BACK! i feel like it took way too long to plan this chapter out but !!! you guys are in for a :))) treat :))))))) starting today the story picks up speed!
currently planning chapter 5 for dysnomia! think of this chapter as a type of Bandersnatch thing, who you choose will directly influence the outcome of the story. as it currently stands, votes for who Calixte goes with into the Red District are 2:2:1, and those that are currently able to be voted for are mingi, yunho, and san. if you have any ideas then feel free to shoot them my way! just choose wisely, one choice is the best and one choice only gets the crew so far :)
plus with all choices, there’s the option of failure depending on the answer to this question (that currently has no context whatsoever): green, or yellow?
“So, we’re only going to the Red District to see if anyone has info on Calixte’s make and model. We don’t use Calixte to get the information, we just ask. If they request anything we decline and leave,” San started, listing rule after rule, “we get back before midnight since that’s when everyone else gets back, and most importantly we don’t leave the pair we end up getting placed in. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, we can work out pairs when we get to the Red,” Yunho said, opening the door and motioning for everyone to exit, “for now let’s just focus on getting there.”
