The Tiger King (Chaelisa)

78| And They Were Roommates

Previously: 

after escaping several near-death experiences orchestrated by jinyoung (Jisoo's parents' murder, house explosion and being assaulted  in the forest by their exes yoongi and taehyung, who are revealed to be now tiger king  experiment subjects) chaennie are found by jackson, double-crossing jinyoung.

After a terse phone call with Jinyoung, who reveals Jennie is now being considered a terrorist (framed for the bombing) and learning of Momo's death, Chaennie feel backed into a corner and decide to visit Hani, mafia queen of the dasoni clan who wants to lay claim to tiger king and bring down Jinyoung. 

Jennie enters into a contractual agreement to be a member of the clan, in return for Hani helping her and Rosé retrieve Lisa and Jisoo after coming to an agreement that Hani won't use Tiger King but instead they will make the world believe that tiger king is no more and thus, Lisa can walk free. One of Hani's henchman, Youngdeuk, overhears this change of heart and takes issue with it.

Based on Jackson's intel, Hani's plan is to extract Tiger King during an upcoming extremely secret showcase by Jinyoung, where he will show off the marvels of Tiger King to investors and friends. 

Hani tasks Rosé to use her knowledge of Yang and Jinyoung's frameworks to find out information about the showcase, because her team keeps running into dead ends. Hani tasks Jennie to prepare herself physically by training in fighting since she wants her on the field for the extraction.

Location unknown, JYP Research Laboratories,  circa mid-2000's

"Why don't we think of a new name for you?"

Subject 327 raised its head and stared nonplussed at Dr Brushweiler, who was smiling expectantly.

He had always been an odd doctor compared to the previous doctors. He said strange things that made Subject 327 pause and look properly at the doctor when usually it allocated only a meagre percentage of its attention to his presence. He gave up his breakfast bagels to it, saying he wasn't hungry, even though he knew perfectly well he could get in deep trouble—the Tiger King candidates were on a strict regimen with little to no food to maximise their body's drug absorption intake. Subject 327 caved in at the smell of bacon, salivating pathetically as soon as it heard footsteps draw close in the mornings.

Dr Bruschweiler liked to sit next to the bars of its cell, talking without even having a clipboard on him to scribble notes. Subject 327 had observed him carefully, but unlike some of the previous crafty doctors, there was no sign he was secretly recording their conversations with some hidden recording device either. Stranger still, he even sometimes came in the death of night to talk and tell stories of his nieces and nephews, just because he couldn't sleep and felt like it, according to him.

It was odd, but Subject 327 didn't care, beyond feeling a tiny bit colder when the doctor had to leave.

"A name,"  Subject 327 repeated. 

The doctor beamed and nodded enthusiastically, his spectacles sparkling beneath the fluorescent lights.

"Why would I need a name? I already have one,"  Subject 327 said dully and pointed at its chest. "Subject 327."

Dr Bruschweiler frowned, his mouth drooping at the corners. He shook his head. "That's not a name. You should have a beautiful name, like Pranpriya."

"Pranpriya is gone."

"But—"

"Pranpriya is gone," Subject 327 repeated in a dead voice. "I killed her."

Subject 327 turned back to the labyrinth puzzle it was poring over, a memorisation task set by Ringmaster. If it got it wrong when it was called upon, Ringmaster had ordered for a double round on the electrocution table. During the last test session, it had hesitated to answer a sum by seconds, which immediately earned it an electrocution and a night sleeping next to the snarling black hounds cages, even though the answer had been right.