Hearts Awakened, Live Alive

Yeosang: At What Costs?

Yeosang took a deep breath, steadying his hands against the desk he was seated at. His eyes flitted across every screen he had at his disposal.

He had spent the last day and a half hacking into the mansion's security system for their final mission against Agony. He had every single angle pulled up in front of him from a hundred different cameras; it was a good thing Agony's control room had a lot more available monitors than he did back at ATEEZ's headquarters.

He wasn't going to be out in the field this time—much to his relief—due to the amount of law enforcement that was also going to be on the scene with the remaining members, but he still couldn't help how anxious he felt. This was their final push... Everything they had always wanted was now within their grasp. They outnumbered Agony; they had them cornered with very few ways out. Statistically, Yeosang knew it was highly likely that they would come out of this successful... He just couldn't shake the bad feeling that had settled in the pit of his stomach. He hoped it was just his nerves.

They had spent the last few days planning this final infiltration and coordinating with the officers the police department had been willing to lend them. Yeosang had a small taskforce helping him managed the cameras, all of them completely focused on the screens just as Yeosang was. They probably had a vested interest in the success of this mission, too. Yeosang wasn't sure how aware the public was with current movements, but he could only imagine there were thousands of people who were waiting to see Agony finally fall.

The other team, consisting of the rest of ATEEZ that were available, and at least twenty detectives, would be on the scene at the mansion. Hongjoong and Seonghwa had regrouped with them a few days ago after giving Hongjoong a day to rest after waking up. Yeosang could tell Seonghwa had wanted Hongjoong to take it easy longer but Hongjoong clearly hadn't listened.

Yeosang knew all too well the man had horrible habits, often even worse than Yeosang's own, and it would take physical restriction to get the man to listen to anyone when he had his mindset on something. Seonghwa still kept the man on a short leash, though, once the pair of them returned. Anytime it became clear Hongjoong was straining himself, Seonghwa would drag him away to relax—one time even resorting to picking the man up, kicking and yelling the whole way, and depositing him in a bed. Yeosang was glad there was someone on the team now who could reign in Hongjoong's tendency to overwork himself.

They had all tried at one point in time but Hongjoong would always pull the leadership card on them, so most had given up even trying. Yeosang had seen Hongjoong try to fight back against Seonghwa but never once had he pulled the "I'm your leader, leave me alone" gimmick surprisingly enough. He really admired Seonghwa's persistence, that much Yeosang could admit. Hongjoong made a quick recovery thanks to Seonghwa's efforts; though, it was entirely possible the man was just hiding how impaired he actually was from them all, including Seonghwa. And despite how they all stated they would rather Hongjoong stay behind to recover, to the surprise of literally no one, he vehemently disagreed.

"There's no way I'm sitting back and watching you all risk your lives," he had argued. "I'm the one who pushed for us to do this in the beginning and if one of you got hurt or died while I wasn't even there with you... I couldn't live with myself."

No one argued with him and not just because they knew there was no changing his mind either. They understood his reasoning and if he was sure he was okay to fight one last time, who were they to stop him?

Getting the floor plans to the manor had been easy enough, hacking into the manor's security system had been notable harder but nothing Yeosang couldn't handle Jongho's support and a team of professional technicians at his disposal.

Once both of those tasks had been accomplished, formulating their plan had been easy. There would be no fancy gimmicks or clever tricks this time around. This was the first time ATEEZ had so many resources at their disposal thanks to Seonghwa's ties to law enforcement. ATEEZ was still technically an illegal organization in and of itself, but corruption was so inherently ingrained into current society that anyone who even remotely tried to help clean up the streets, the police were willing to look the other way for. And ATEEZ had built a relatively benevolent reputation throughout the years despite the less than legal ways they went about their business. Yeosang wondered if they would continue this partnership into the future... maybe in more covert, less obvious ways anyway. Jongho had been right all the way back at the start of this: it had been a really good way to make an actual name for themselves.