so bad : stayc

[42] solo mission

edited:

Yeeun, who sat in Keita's Rolls Royce Cullinan, remained silent as he drove her towards Stray Kids' headquarters.

"Nice nails," Keita remarked. Yeeun rolled her eyes. "It looked shitty last time, back in Japan."

After that snide remark, Yeeun wanted to throw hands at him but decided not.

"Why thank you," she says, voice dripping in sarcasm. "I did it myself. So far, this nail was the best."

She proceeds to flip him off.

"Your style has gotten worse compared to last year. I nearly didn't recognise you because you looked like you were 30 years old in a midlife crisis," Yeeun added, smug. 

Keita widened his eyes at that comment.

"The fuck? Well then, tell me who the hell wears oversized tees with biker shorts other than you?"

"YOU wore an ugly green top paired with purple shorts before, yet you dare to say that? You looked like the Walmart version of Barney." Keita widened his eyes again and attempted to retaliate until he nearly crashed into another car. He did a sharp swerve, sending Yeeun to the side.

"DRIVE PROPERLY, BITCH!"

They continued to sit in awkward silence until he reached the headquarters, parking at the building beside the building. Yeeun messed up her hair, and the cuts on her arms and knees from jumping off the truck were prominent before getting off the car.

"Don't die!" Keita exclaimed at her before driving off.

Yeeun enters and immediately collapses onto the floor, causing Jeongin, who was at the reception, to rush to her. She slowly staggers, pulling out the disk and keys. Jeongin's eyes darted to the items before pulling out his walkie-talkie to call his members. The other seven show up, but Chan walks to the front.

"Minho, run a test on the disk and keys." A purple-haired guy takes the disk and keys from the girl and plugs them into the laptop he carried. After a few minutes, the guy turns to face his members."

"The keys are authentic, but the disk isn't."

"What's going on?" Chan questions Yeeun, his expression poker.

"It's the disk I surrendered to Dami and Dino. They were the ones who checked if it was authentic."

Chan recalls the text sent from Dami and Dino saying that the disk was authentic. 

"They're dead, by the way."

"Take her up for further interrogation later on."

The last thing Yeeun feels is a black cloth bag covering her head.

"Yeeun! Are you dead? OI, YEEUN, WAKE UP!"

Yeeun's eyes open instantly after hearing Keita's words, but her head remains down— she doesn't look up. The earpiece, disguised to look broken, was still in her ear. 

"Can you register the surroundings?"

Yeeun recalls the map STAYC looked over before they broke into the headquarters. She looks at the chain she was strapped onto and glances at the floor—motion-detecting floors with alarms.

It was the same room the Mavericks were incarcerated in. She tried to remember Cheng Xiao's description of the room. 

"Four CCTVs on the four corners of the room-"

This confirmed that if she were to look up, she'd be doomed."

"Twenty-third level. Room Seven."

"Got it." Typing sounds were heard as Yeeun continued to pretend to be unconscious. 

"Nope, I can't disconnect the CCTVs in there."

"Try intercepting with another footage."

More typing noises were heard.

"Did it. I looped footage. Go now. They went out again; only Felix is on patrol."

Yeeun spits out a lock picker she hid under her tongue and bites on the handle. She leans forward towards the cuffs and unlocks them swiftly. She proceeds to pick on the other three locks. She frees herself but doesn't stand on the floor. She pulls out another handy tool of hers— a window breaker. She stands on the chair, lowers herself into a squatting position, and aims at the window. In one swift motion, the window breaks. 

"I took the guards down already."

She takes a deep breath and pulls out her grappling hook, steadying herself on the chair, ready to jump.

Three, two, one.

Yeeun launches herself out of the building. As she descends in the air, she shoots the grappling hook onto the edge of the twenty-third floor. The hook catches onto the edge, and she clicks the gun again to abseil herself to the first floor. Yeeun retracts it and makes a run to the staircases outside the building, climbing down to the first basement level. She opens a metal door, revealing a hallway with one singular door at the end. There weren't any CCTVs. She took a decoder from her pocket to connect it to the door lock and waited.

The lock clicked and flashed green, and Yeeun opened the door.

Hyunjun was on the floor, unconscious, blindfolded and cuffed.

He didn't look like he was breathing.

hi it's been 2 years since i started with the book. can you tell at which point did the direction of the plot become clearer? cause looking at it it's pretty obvious and i wanna cringe so damn badly