House Of Cards || NCT Mafia

Chapter thirteen : To kill two birds with one stone

"You did what?"

Iseul's mom sighed. Her husband had been asking the same question for the past five minutes and she was getting tired of repeating herself.

"For the last time, I replaced it. You're welcome."

Kang Kyung-Ho took a seat at the table, finally starting to understand. His wife had literally saved their business. Even better, she had found a way to take advantage of it to steal everything from one of their biggest rivals.

"How did you do it?"

"I knew keeping that USB key was more than risky, and when I told you about it, you obviously didn't listen. So I took matters in my own hands and replaced the one you were foolishly keeping in your office by the one I asked one of our hackers to make. It contained false information, and most importantly, a virus that could leak all of NCT's data directly to our system." 

"That was... a genius idea," her husband hardly admitted.

Iseul's mother simply rolled her eyes.

"I know. Next time,you'll listen to me before doing something that could destroy us all."

And with that, she left. Kyung-Ho, still astonished by his wife's master stroke, had only one wish at the moment. To see NCT's leader's face when he'd realize what had just happened.

Back at Iseul's college, the students were still in their different activities. Jeno was still keeping an eye on the girl, analyzing her every move, which she didn't even notice.

Soon enough, it was time for everyone to go take a shower and change, signaling the end of the day. Jeno, however, stayed behind to clean the room and put the material back to its place.

Perks of being in charge.

"Do you need any help...?" a quiet voice asked behind him.

He turned around to face the kind soul offering their help. It was Iseul. Her hair was still wet from the shower, falling down her back and she was carrying her sports bag on her right shoulder.

"Jeno...?"

The boy blinked a couple times.

"Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks. You can put these back in that locker, if you want," he said, pointing to the several pairs of boxing gloves laying on the ground.

Iseul did as she was told while Jeno swept the floor. When the large room was finally clean, he looked at the girl.

"Could you check if everyone's gone while I finish here?"

She nodded before heading towards the changing rooms. After checking the girls' side, then the boys' one, she walked back through the hallway that lead to the boxing room, when her body crashed into somebody else's.

She fell back, hitting her arm where her skin was already starting to bruise from the fall earlier in the day.

"Oh, sorry!" said a male's voice.

Iseul was rubbing her arm when a hand came into her vision. She raised her head, only to realize who the person was.

"You again," she glared at the boy.

Haechan frowned, confused.

"Um, I'm sorry, have we met before?"

Understanding the girl wouldn't accept his hand to get back on her feet, he retracted it, putting it on the strap of his backpack.

"Yeah, you already pushed me this morning and didn't event stop to apologize. I hope pushing me out of your way isn't going to become a habit. I don't really want to see my body covered in bruises because of you."

He scratched the top of his hair, trying to remember.

"Oh, right! Sorry, I was really late, and my mind was somewhere else!"

The two were too busy with their conversation, and didn't hear the sound of hurried footsteps behind them.

"Iseul? Is everyone gone? I actually need to leave right n-..."

Jeno's voice faded when he noticed Haechan's presence, who widened his eyes at the mention of the girl's name.

"Iseul?" he asked, realizing who she was.

"Haechan?" Jeno asked at the same time.

The girl just looked back and forth between the two, confused. Jeno quickly spoke up, quite shaken.

"Um, Iseul, thanks a lot for your help, here's your bag, you can go, I'll close everything," he hurriedly helped her out, not letting her open her mouth to say goodbye.

After he closed the door behind her, he turned back to face his brother.

"Dude, we have to go. Like right now."

"Hold up," Haechan said, "that girl. That was Kang Iseul?"

Jeno just nodded, and grabbed his arm to drag him out of the building.

"Yuta-hyung is already waiting for us at the parking lot. Hurry!"

"You're not gonna tell me what's going on?"

"Kang's company screwed us over," Jeno felt the blood in his veins pulse as the anger in his tone grew. "They hacked our entire system."

"They what?!" Haechan yelled. "I knew something was wrong, but no one listened to me..." he mumbled when they reached Yuta's car.

The oldest didn't give them more details when they hoped in, and hurriedly drove back to the base, where things were starting to get heated.