Seoul City

Ch. 11 - The Vintage Record

The day after the charity ball started off like any other typical day for Jungkook. He spent the entire morning sitting in his luxurious office at Jeon Corporations, sorting through profit reports and project proposals. As heir to his family's company, he'd been introduced to the business world at a very young age and mastered the art of economics quickly, as if it were in his genes to do so. His afternoon was spent in long, but productive meetings with entrepreneurs from across the country. Although Jungkook enjoyed an adventurous and 'wild' personal life, he was a focused and intelligent businessman. His competence and good-looks worked hand-in-hand to drive all the women working in Jeon Corporations crazy. But, too bad Jungkook didn't mix business with pleasure.

He was looking forward to the evening portion of his day, as he was meeting the Phoenixes to finally reveal the contents of the vintage record he'd bought last night. He hadn't touched it since last night, saving it for his whole team to view at once. Currently, it was tucked away safely in his leather briefcase, which he could not stop glancing at in curiosity. The anticipation of revealing the secrets hidden in that record was distracting him all day.

Jungkook was relieved when his final meeting ended early, around 4:00 pm, and headed directly to the designated meeting place. The Phoenixes had decided to meet in Bambam's basement because they could easily access the city's surveillance footage in case the record didn't reveal enough information about the imposter Phoenixes.

When he arrived at Bambam's place, he wasn't surprised to see Bambam in the pool, making out with Lisa. The two didn't even have the decency to pull apart when they heard his arrival, making Jungkook scrunch his nose in disgust and throw a nearby beach ball at them.

"Oh, hey Jungkook," Bambam belatedly greeted when Jungkook had already walked away, "you're awfully early!"

Arriving early gave Jungkook the opportunity to monitor and organize some of the surveillance footage from around the city and take note of any irregularities. The videos revealed the perpetrators of many crimes, but nothing of significance to the Phoenixes. It was strange that the imposter Phoenixes were so good at hiding their tracks when Jungkook and his team possessed so many resources to find them. Things just didn't add up, and Jungkook could feel a sickening feeling stirring in his guts when he thought about the whole problem.

The meeting officially began at 7:00 pm with all the Phoenixes in attendance.

"Alright, boys, first thing's first, let's address the elephant in the room," Jungkook began the meeting by holding up the vintage record he bought at the charity gala.

"Can we also address what the hell you were thinking last night?" Namjoon raised a brow, causing Jungkook to sigh. He knew they wouldn't leave this topic alone.

"What do you mean?" Jungkook asked, feigning innocence.

"Are you seriously going to go on that date?" Hoseok asked, appalled.

"Well, he better. He paid a hundred fucking thousand dollars on it," Yugyeom shook his head in disapproval.

"Don't tell us you've fallen for a Park?" Hoseok asked again, seeming somewhat amused by the topic but mostly concerned.

"Okay, fine," Jungkook said, growing frustrated and trying to regain authority, "I admit, I may have been a bit impulsive last night, but no one is falling for anyone. Like I said before, I was just trying to have a little fun and it got out of control. It won't happen again."

He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince more, his friends or himself. However, he was glad to see the Phoenixes grow quiet and nod in understanding.

"Now, let's get back to business and examine this piece of evidence," Jungkook said, taking the record out of its worn-out sleeve and playing it on Bambam's record player.

The room had grown utterly quiet and suspenseful as they waited for something to happen. The first couple minutes of the record was just empty noise, making Jungkook very frustrated. His expectations slowly faded with every long minute that passed.

"Well, it appears we were tricked," Hoseok sighed and reached to take the record out of its player and save their ears from the bothersome buzzing.

"No wait," Jungkook held his hands up, still holding onto a thread of hope that his efforts were not in vain. For fucks sake, he'd spent $6000 on this damn thing.

Sure enough, after another minute, a deep, disguised voice spoke.

"June 17. 8:45 pm. 108 Sando, Yeomni-dong."

And then the record stopped spinning.

The Phoenixes looked at each other in confusion as they pondered the meaning behind this message.

"Okay, so it's obviously an address, and those street names indicate it's in the poor neighbourhood of the west side. But, where is it exactly?" Jungkook asked.

"I pulled it up on the map," Namjoon placed his tablet on the large round table for everyone to view, "it looks like it's some clinic on the west side. An HIV clinic, it seems."

Jungkook tilted his head to the side, puzzled. For some reason, that address seemed oddly familiar to him – but he couldn't pinpoint the exact location in his head.

"Is it a meeting place? The date is for today, so it would be in a little more than an hour from now. If we leave now, we could make it in time to catch them," Jin said.

"No, something about it doesn't seem right. Why would they be meeting in an HIV clinic? And especially so early in the evening?" Mark asked.

That cause them to grow quiet yet again as they thought about the situation in more depth.

"Has there been any other reported activity from these imposters in the past couple weeks?" Jungkook asked Namjoon.

"Of course. Last week they broke into some company's office..." Namjoon pondered about it for a second before his eyes grew wide, "wait, wait. They've also made bomb threats throughout the week. Their first attack was in a park and killed a couple people. Maybe this clue is the location of their next target."

Jungkook clapped as things started clicking together, "that's gotta be it."

"Okay, I'll look up the surveillance footage to search for any suspicious activity," Jungkook announced, "everyone else, try to devise a plan for us to infiltrate and get rid of the bomb before they kill more people and blame it on us."

With that, everyone grew busy with work – brainstorming strategies, collaborating ideas, and reaching out to other resources; such as, the cities best bomb deactivators. Meanwhile, Jungkook examined the surveillance footage outside the clinic for a full 24-hour period, his eyes fully focused on detecting any changes. It was around the 6:00 am mark on the footage that he found what he was looking for: a masked figure entering the building, carrying several boxes that were most likely disguised as medical equipment. He made a mental note of the approximate size, number and colour of each box before fast forwarding the surveillance footage to when the masked figure left. Unfortunately, he couldn't pick up any identifying features on the man, except his approximate height and build. He was about 1.75-1.80 meters tall and had a slim but athletic build. Jungkook groaned in frustration because this physical description could apply to almost a quarter of the men in Seoul.

Jungkook randomly clicked through the rest of the surveillance footage just in case anything important popped up. He was just about to exit out around the 7:00 pm mark on the footage, when his eyes caught sight of a familiar pair of scrubs walking into the clinic, reminding him about the significance of that address.

His heart began to beat wildly in panic as he watched Park Chaeyoung enter the building that was about to blow up in less than an hour.