❦ ɪɴғᴇʀɴᴏ ;; 【ᴀᴛᴇᴇᴢ】

•24•

Sophie's pov:

"Why don't you ask your precious partners about Kevin? They know it better." He continued, not giving me any space to move from the spot. I was already confused but now I was even more bewildered. "Will you just tell me what it is without dragging this further? You literally just said you hated them then why are you and your friends asking for help from ateez?" I spat, fully aware that I was being too loud. I didn't care about that though, my impression on him was the last thing that mattered to me right now.

Thankfully, he took a step back finally giving me some space to breathe. He had a defeated look on his face. "I can't tell you full details but I'll only tell you this. Kevin did not run away or just disappear on his own. It's related to Ateez and they are the ones behind his disappearance. Don't get me wrong, NCT members don't hate them, we really need your help on this mission but I just have a personal grudge because Kevin was a good friend of mine." He folded his hands waiting for me to say something. I was just standing there, mind completely blank about what I had just heard.

"Was?"

"Ateez? Kevin? What? Why?" were the only thoughts running in my mind.

"W-What are you saying? Did they do something to him? Did they help him escape from the country?" I stuttered knowing fully aware that Jaehyun won't be telling me anything else.

"Worse. This is all I can tell you for now." He pursed his lips, already turning back and walking towards the hall where everyone else was. I tried to ask him once again but he kept saying I needed to find it out on my own.

"Looks like I don't have any other choice." I said to myself and joined Jaehyun.

━━━━━

I had no idea how and when I had even gotten here but I was already standing in front of the locked door of the ground floor corridor which I was supposed to stay away from. Something inside me was telling me that I would find all the information I have always wanted to find out about Kevin right here. I had decided to not tell any of the boys about this, hence had to sneakily come here in the middle of the night.

I looked around, it was dead silent and dim-lit everywhere. I sighed, kind of unhappy about how I was basically going to do some shit I was warned to not do.

I entered in the password on the digital lock, first the date they came together. A loud beep saying that the password was wrong echoed through the corridor immediately. "Fuck." I murmured to myself, trying my best to decide which one to try next thoughtfully to avoid any more beeps.

"Birthdays? But whose?" I asked myself, already knowing that I won't be able to get in anyways. That's when another thought struck my mind. Hongjoong's office. Maybe, I could finally find something there.

Giving up on the digital lock, I slowly turned the knob of Hongjoong's office. To my surprise, he had forgotten to lock the room and I was already in.

I turned on a few of the lights and looked around, taking a mental note of all the things and stuff he had kept everywhere. The small bookshelf caught my attention and I walked there to take a closer look.

The books were mostly without titles, just mostly some diaries. I went through some of them but they were mostly filled with random mission details or plans of various buildings or just some rough notes.

"Shabby." I spoke to myself after seeing Hongjoong's handwriting in a book filled with names. "Names?" There were many. Just randomly listed names of random people who I have never heard about before. They all were stroked out.

It wasn't a big diary, more like a small notebook but it looked important. I went through the names, losing hope and deciding to continue the search tomorrow but just then, my eyes caught a familiar name in the list. The last name written in the book. Kevin.

His name was stroked out too. "Something worse has happened to him." Jaehyun's words rung in my head and finally, I could slowly picture the scattered pieces together. This was enough proof that Ateez had a connection with Kevin in some way and that they were lying to me the whole time.

I took the notebook with me and returned to my room, carefully leaving everything as it was. I felt disappointed and frightened. I knew nothing and I was going to ask them about everything face to face tomorrow.

━━━━━

"You look like you're about to murder someone haha" Wooyoung pointed at my face and started laughing. I frowned at his joke, being in no mood to laugh at anything. He stopped laughing immediately and pouted at my cold response.

"What's up? You really have that grim look on your face since the morning." Jongho, who was right beside me nudged. I shook my head, waiting for Hongjoong and Seonghwa to come to the office. We had gathered in his office to discuss the mission with NCT and I was going to ask them about Kevin. They surely won't be happy but I needed an explanation.

Shortly after, the duo arrived, straight away going to their desk as usual. Hongjoong walked to his shelf, going through his diaries and picking one of them. "Here it is. The plan of the building they are holding Jiah in." he smiled at himself.

"You have the plan already?" I asked, pretty much surprised at how Hongjoong always had almost everything ready beforehand. "This is not a new place for us, we've been there few times already so I had it." He smiled which was short-lived as his smile slowly disappeared as he shuffled through the other books from the shelf, searching for something frantically.

"What're you searching for hyung?" Jongho asked him. He looked alarmed. "Guys, the diary where we write the names. It's not here." "What do you mean it's not here?? Check again!" Seonghwa joined Hongjoong, desperately searching for the diary which was in my jacket. I gulped before i slid my hand in my huge pocket of my jacket.

"Is this what you are searching for?" I pulled the small diary out of my pocket and held it in my hand for everyone to see. "Why do you have this." Yunho had already snatched the diary out of my hand before I even realized it. He was glaring at me furiously. My breathing sped as i looked at everyone's faces- anger. I instantly knew I fucked up.