CHAMPION | NCT

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C H A P T E R
F I F T Y - T H R E E

After being transferred to the hideout, Mark made sure to lock and tighten the securities of the house. Yangyang left a few minutes ago, telling us that he needed to go back the city before someone noticed his disappearance.

It's gonna be a chaos in there. But I doubt that the government would publicly announce the kidnap of Jaemin. They're going to do the dirty work themselves and hunt us down.

If they could kill Yuta's parents, they could kill us too.

The rest of the DRMs were in a state of shock after we revealed to them how the kidnap and escape happened. They couldn't stop looking at the cyborg where Jaemin's in and, honestly, neither could I.

"When he saw us," Renjun said, shivering because of the cold, or maybe because of something else. "When Jaemin saw us, h-he ordered all of his bodyguards to get out."

That made me swallow a lump in my throat.

They might have removed his Neowaves, but not his heart. He still had remnants of his feelings left.

I saw Jeno pace through the living room in an unsteady manner, walking the same direction over and over again like a broken robot.

"And Jeno," Renjun continued. "Jeno was able to pass the securities safe and sound. It's crazy! And then Yangyang came. And I don't know, adrenaline passed through us like... whoah."

"Mark, are the doors locked? Windows? Cameras ready?" Yuta asked.

Mark nodded. "All set."

We placed the cyborg in the middle of the living room. Chenle and Jisung were near the corner of the room, while Donghyuck and Jungwoo were right beside Mark, eyeing the robot.

Yuta approached his creation, his steps measured and his gaze sharp. He circled around the cyborg for a while, surveying it in different angles. Then he stopped when he was standing just right behind it. His fingers traced the slopes of its mechanical skin, to its artificial shoulder blades and, finally, they found its way on the location where the nape of its neck was. Pressing a button, Yuta backed off when he cyborg shifted and produced a loud, vibrating sound.

Tick ticks of a machine followed. The clicking of metal against metal. The folding and unfolding of plates and tubes. The shrinking of wires and screws. The cyborg got stocked out like building blocks that were falling, one by one, in a systematic and methodical way. Green lights glowed on-and-off like a time bomb, as the cyborg got reduced into bits of machineries and equipment.

The spherical metal head was no more, replaced by dark brown hair. Human hair. Skin was no longer made of metal. It was golden and humane. The hands that looked like screws became fingers, long and slim, one, two, three, ten. Ten fingers of a boy.