Chapter Text
kim namjoon faintly remembers the megawatt smiles on his parents’ faces as they shove the latest model of their sister-company’s newest laptop tablet into his chest. it was apparently a birthday present, and of course, nothing less was to be expected from rich parents who were nearly at the status of international tech moguls. namjoon, however, didn’t understand why they would hand him a laptop computer, knowing that he already has one. more is bigger and bigger is better, he presumes. they probably assumed that namjoon would use the new gear for teenage things, like videogames and illegally downloaded rihanna songs—he’s kinda in love with her, beyoncé, and nicki minaj; the holy trinity—but no. maybe they even thought he’d do something the typical prodigal son would do, being as he’s the only son. they may have assumed that he’d finally take interest in the recent family business if they somehow coaxed him with a shiny new never-before-seen object.
that’s what’s wrong with namjoon’s parents. they do not think outside the box as much as they think. they’ve failed to notice that namjoon doesn’t really give a single shit about all the bling he flashes, the cool electronics, and restraining ties he used to have to wear to important business dinners. he just wanted, maybe, a card? or an old picture of him at age three with his chubby-faced adorable granny. after all, grandma knows best.
regardless, because namjoon never was one to whine explicitly to his parents, he took the object with a feigned smile and made himself well versed with the fancy, thin board.
what a degrading way to describe it, but hey, that’s what it was.
namjoon went to a three and a half star private school that he chose for himself on a whim. the school was full of either intelligent or talented kids, but there were the few airhead roaming through the corridors just waiting to feel offended and oppressed by some nonexistent force in order to pick a fight. that’s why namjoon chose this school. it has its routines and bad apples, but that’s what makes it so interesting. it was madly obvious that some—most —of the attendees there were previously from public schools, on scholarships; some of the most intelligent came from the lowest motherfucking trash heaps in korea. it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, it made character. it’s just the way life was; humble beginnings.
namjoon has one roommate, from his grade, hoseok. he’s a particularly popular student, known almost exclusively for his dancing and so-sunshine personality. namjoon wishes it would rub off on him. it didn’t.
hoseok taps him, as namjoon clicks away on the other computer, seemingly unamused at the mechanics of it all. he wasn’t a damn computer engineer and they couldn’t make him one!
namjoon’s legs are stretched across the futon, and it is sunday. they’re already done with their homework and basically done for the whole weekend. they’re stuffed, too. their ever-shrinking appetites are making ramen noodles and one half-bowl of kraft’s macaroni and cheese enough to suffice for the night.
finally, hoseok scolds, “move your damn legs! let me sit,” and then he proceeds to move the damn legs.
“dude,” namjoon complains, easily whining to hoseok—someone in a room with him that was his age for once; hallelujah.
“so... for your birthday, your parents gave you the latest laptop, and i gave you a hug and a bag of british potato chips that tasted like shit,” hoseok starts, hand under his chin, analyzing, “how should i feel? should i be jealous or amused?”
“i dunno, but my parents have always had this thing for excelling past others. i think they’re just too used to business rivalries.”
“and you’re not?” hoseok scoffs.
namjoon looks at him, and with purpose he says, “not particularly. no.”
“by the way, why did they even give you the laptop if you have one already? i’ve never even seen you craze over a new iphone so why would they think a fancy laptop entices you? ah, but your other one’s for homework, right?” hoseok asks rhetorically. “that’s right. your laptop’s for assignments and your phone is for porn.”
“what?” namjoon chokes on his spit at the accusation.
hoseok is suddenly figuratively dying, laughing at his friend.
after a long pause of hoseok’s laughter, he looks at namjoon’s face, noticing the fakeness of it all. “are you seriously telling me that you jerk off to ri-ri look-alikes?”
“don’t act like you don’t try to get at tinashe in your daydreams.” namjoon’s clapback game soared.
hoseok was defeated, replying simply, “touché.”
there was a pause. it lasted for an exact minute before namjoon lets their conversation sink it. “we’re sick perverts.”
hoseok shrugs. “yeah, we are kinda pervy,” he stands, “either that or we’re straight teenage boys,” hoseok slaps namjoon’s thigh before walking off. “and i’m off... goodnight!”
“goodnight, i guess.” namjoon salutes.
✵
namjoon goes to class and actually dwells on the laptop. right now he’s in an advanced biology class, made specifically for a whole year above his grade, and one of his other friends, yoongi, was in here. a hyung.
luckily, they sat right next to each other, so all the dazed, unattentive look on namjoon’s face looked different that usual. namjoon and yoongi were both avid at not participating in class, but namjoon always manages to hear at least something. now, when they’re dismissed halfway through the class, yoongi grabs his wrist as the youngest of the class, strides forward, like he didn’t notice him and had no goals for eating lunch either.
namjoon turns around, looking at the shorter male. yoongi’s dark hair always fell right onto his eyes—namjoon doesn’t know what the fuck he sees with all of that extra-ness, but that wasn’t the subject of the matter.
yoongi releases his grip once he realizes that he’d caught the other’s attention. “are you okay?”
“yeah, hyung. i’m fine. are you okay?”
“yes. i am okay.” yoongi responds, annoyed. “it’s just that... you weren’t acting you in class. you’ve been like that since your birthday when your parents visited. you sure you’re alright?”
“yeah...” namjoon was hesitant.
“are you sure?” yoongi pressed, knowing he was lying.
namjoon nods.
yoongi walks forward and scoffs. “i know you’re lying. you’re a suckish liar. but you’re eventually gonna tell me once we get in the cafeteria and you start ranting.”
the pair walk down the intricate hallways to the beloved cafeteria. once there, they find their usual table, they sit in the seats and start grabbing french fries and raw broccoli off of people’s plates.
“bitch!” taehyung exclaims as a good half of his water is drank, effectively making him get a hard-ass slap on the back from namjoon.
“sharing is caring.” namjoon supplies, looking up to greet seokjin who was just then making his way to the table. “hey, seokjin-hyung.”
seokjin practically peels the square reading glasses off his face, folding them and shoving them into the case that he kept in his pocket.
“hi, namjoon,” he takes a bite of his chicken sandwich. he notices namjoon staring and rolls his eyes, offering namjoon the other half, “you’re not poor, you know.”
“being a beggar isn’t a trend, you know.” namjoon responds. “and i am poor. it’s my parents who aren’t,” he emphasizes.
seokjin makes a face, mocking him.
“taehyung called me a bitch.” namjoon blurts, making taehyung drop his fork.
“oh, my gosh, hyung, so goddamn petty,” taehyung’s motor mouth started, “you’re such a kindergartener, you tattle-tale. you have no idea how many ground rules are in our dorm because of him and now he’s gonna—”
hoseok laughs, “let me guess, take your phone?”
“worse.” taehyung, the art prodigy states. “he’ll stop helping me with my homework; which means my grades will drop and my mother will be up here faster than the flash himself to personally take away my phone and probably give me a bump on my head from a good thwack.”
“yikes,” jungkook chuckles for the first time.
it was them and their squad of six. the bangtan boys, literally the self-proclaimed most gifted students in the whole school. no one else called them bangtan, so it was pretty dumb already, but the dumb stuff is always the most amazing.
kim seokjin was the eldest, here on a musical scholarship for his singing, he wasn’t perfect, but every lesson he got, he improved and progressed faster than the rest. he was also legitimately good at math, and that was already a lot of people’s hell.
min yoongi—who had unanimously been renamed as suga by his teammates—was the second oldest, here on a sports’ scholarship. he was a student athlete, a jock. he played basketball. he tried explaining all the positions to the other members before but they could never grasp it so he stopped trying. on the side, he tries to improve his other hidden skills, his musicality.
jung hoseok was a dance major, going under the alias j-hope, leading the school’s dance team as co-captain choreographer. he was very proud of his position, and to be honest, everyone knows he’s better than the actual captain, he just didn’t want to deal with all the extra effort of managing a team.
kim namjoon was in the junior minds program—basically a government/debate/writing/analysis class all in one for all the ‘most’ intellectual students in the school. he really disliked being isolated by talents and elective classes but it was just the way that all schools were set up. classes literally had classes—let it sink it.
kim taehyung was an art prodigy. he couldn’t really draw a definitive picture but he could really fucking color and shade. at first, his group of friends poked fun at him for calling brush contouring a talent, but once he forced them to try to shade a drawing of a circle to make it look like a perfect sphere and they all failed miserably, they shut the fuck up and appreciated. taehyung could draw things similar to animation, both eastern and western—but if you had a realistic drawing and needed a painter, he was your guy.
lastly, but certainly not least, was jeon jungkook. he was a dance prodigy, just as hoseok, but he was also fairly popular because people recognized his talents in other aspects, too. for example, he was pretty good at singing, and american football, as long as he was punting. although, he kinda does fit the stereotype of a dumb jock, yet he was smart enough to make it into the middle-college in the first place.
middle-college is a new concept swarming through asia and europe. it basically starts when you’re the age of a high school senior and ends when you’re a college junior, prompting you to graduate out of there, already having some college requirements fulfilled, and then all you have to do is endure your senior year of college. most people leave by the the time they’ve reached the level of college freshmen or sophomore, though, wanting to experience real college campuses, although theirs was damn near close!
jungkook was at the bottom of the totem pole, being at the level of a college freshmen. taehyung was at the college freshmen level as well, only due to his late birthday and schooling—though he does take some sophomore classes as well. namjoon was at the college sophomore level with hoseok, while yoongi and seokjin were at the junior level. basically, they were all college-aged, in their late-teens and early-twenties.
“seokjin-hyung, i think the glasses looked kinda nice on you. why’d you take them off? plus, aren’t you blind as a damn bat without ‘em?” yoongi laughs, biting into a donut; athletic dieting be damned.
seokjin blows him off. “they’re ugly. they make me look ugly.”
“not on you; nope. i don’t see it.” yoongi says. “i don’t know if you noticed, but you’re a trendsetter around here. if you wear it, just watch, in five days tops, people will be walking around with fake glasses replicating yours. it’s better to be a hipster and follow the trend before it even exists, you know what i mean?”
“no,” seokjin laughs, contagiously making the others chuckles as well. “no, i don’t know what you mean. that’s was the most i’ve ever heard you say in one sitting; i gotta let it sink in and mentally digest it.”
hoseok laughs, looking at him. “yoongi-hyung, is the sky falling? why do you have a sudden urge to talk? please, say more.”
“if you’d let him,” jungkook mumbles, but the comment isn’t unnoticed. he and hoseok were always competitive. it never really was over anything deep either.
“can it, brat,” yoongi says to jungkook, while simultaneously shaking hoseok’s arm from his shoulders that was busy fidgeting with the pin on his uniform collar.
hoseok laughs triumphantly, poking a tongue out childishly at jungkook, who only does the same in response.
jungkook and yoongi were the quiet ones, but they soon piped up when namjoon’s birthday was involved.
a few jokes circulated about how shitty their makeshift party plan was but it worked nonetheless. jungkook then remembers to apologize to namjoon for his behavior, scratching oddly behind his neck. “yeah, sorry for going a bit extreme on the birthday punches. i couldn’t miss an opportunity to smack a hyung for once.”
“for once?” taehyung makes an unamused face, staring directly at the younger one. “that is that straight-up bullshit! you hit me all the time! what the fuck?”
“taehyung stop cussing or else an avocado seed will end up in your left eye socket,” seokjin threatens.
it didn’t really make sense because no avocados were present in sight but everyone knew seokjin and he had his ways and just refrained from messing with him. he’ll magically make some shit appear. shit.
“so, y’all know that secret present in the black gift bag that namjoonie’s parents gave him when they stopped by?” hoseok starts, slinging his arm back around yoongi’s shoulder. everyone made affirmative sounds, not understanding what the big deal was. it wasn’t their present, so why should they care?
“well, yeah. it’s a zutter. the newest of it’s kind, too.”
taehyung flips, immediately asking to have it. “it’s the new zutter laptop with all the cool snap-crackle-pop features?”
“i don’t even know what those are.” namjoon admits, slightly discombobulated.
taehyung frowns. “of course you don’t.”
“basically the little snap sound it makes when you dislocate the tablet from the keyboard then put it back on,” jungkook clarifies.
“can i have it?” taehyung asks. “jeez, i know you have no use for it! you don’t do anything.”
“gee, thanks.”
“to be honest, if your parents are just giving those away, then slide them my name. have them send me stuff; you know, to the son they never had,” yoongi adds, and namjoon just looks at him. “what? i need music equipment.”
“i’m so serious, though; namjoon-hyung rarely likes the gifts his parents give him, but always loves the cheap crap we give him! honestly, a thrift shop is his world,” taehyung trails off. “hyung, i’m trying to bargain here.”
namjoon scoffs. “and what would you do with it?”
“everything you wouldn’t do with it.”
“break it?”
taehyung pouts, briefly folding his arms. “rude.”
“it’s not even about the computer really. it’s about me and my parents . i don’t wanna be the bratty kid who doesn’t appreciate the stuff he’s given, but all i do is homework and after-school clubs. after that, i’m too tired to look at a screen for more than five minutes without dozing off. you’d think having me as their son for twenty-one years would open their eyes a little, but no. no it didn’t. i was thinking about selling it since it’s such a waste.”
“no...” hoseok starts, pondering.
jungkook adds on to hoseok’s unspoken thought. “i don’t think you should do that. that’ll be doing the exact thing you said you didn’t wanna do. you don’t wanna be the bratty, bitchy rich kid—well then, find a use for it. buy a videogame or something. watch netflix.” and that moment, jungkook converted himself from jock to intellectual.
“yeah, that’s a good idea. get a damn game.” hoseok agrees, and yoongi nods.
seokjin snorts, before nearly cackling, finding the whole situation funny, “i know this can’t be just me, is it? we literally just made a group decision to buy a single computer game. how hilarious is that? honestly it makes me wanna cry out of excessive laughter at how pressed we’re being over namjoon’s laptop.” he chuckles. yoongi groans a little.
he then adds, “well, hyung, you’re preaching to the choir.”
✵
later that day, after school, namjoon finds his way to the local game shop, keeping an eye out for anything that can be played on a computer or system of the sort. he’s never actually been inside though, and he can sense the slight vibe of enthusiasm although it’s still quite thin and nonexistent.
he finds only two things, looking into their details on the back.
one literally had no pictures nor illustrations of the fantasy scenes bound to be encountered, instead displaying a paper-white background, and the information looks terribly typed in namjoon and the world’s least favorite font, comic sans. of course, namjoon, not knowing anything about games other than the amounts of pokémon he played in the 90s—like every other nineties baby—goes to the front desk asking for the greater of the two. the white one intrigued him, only because holding it felt weird and heavy, as if a real world was to be revealed and unfolded. the other one felt like generic plastic; it could’ve started off as a plastic bottle, even—a biodegradable means of reducing, reusing, and recycling.
namjoon slides the chubby kid behind the counter the two games, seeing as the younger teen is clearly more experienced in this field than he ever will be. “which do you think is better?” he asks.
the kid, his name tag reads 테이트, so tate, pops open the first game, forgetting that the discs aren’t inside and sighs. “this game is good for new gamers. it’s not too complicated, and it lacks difficult commands. really though, it’s better on a fullscreen tv, and i’m not even sure if they translated it out of original english so...”
“that part is fine. i can speak english pretty well.”
tate nods. “well then, that’d be good for you... but,” he looks at the intricately colored and designed cover of the other game, entitled ‘xana’s dominion’, and actually physically recoils, chilling even. he turns the small figure over to the backside only to see blank whiteness minus the few words and tries to explain something. “are you seriously interested in this game? it’s so serious and scary. it’s used, but in perfect shape as if it was made just today! people have gotten addicted to it, and some people even said it’s haunted because on the bottom there’s barely any acknowledgements to the creators... it’s strange.”
“okay?” namjoon notices the others vehement rambling. “but can you tell me about the game itself?”
“oh gosh, no. i guess it’s one of those play-to-win, ‘survival of the fittest’ types of games. the last owner who got this game was actually a computer scientist in training who had twins, a son and daughter, who were really interested in it. she told the manager that the kids kept complaining, and she admitted to tampering with the programming in an attempt to fix it. those kids should be about fifteen now, probably still having nightmares from when they were eleven and bough the craziest videogame ever.”
“i think you’re just taking the game a bit too seriously. you make me feel like i’m in a video game right now.” namjoon complains.
“look, hyung nim,” the young one emphasizes, “i tried playing this same, exact game—this is like the only copy in existence—but i couldn’t even crack through the cipher mess in the beginning.”
“which makes it all the more challenging, and all the less babyish. i think i’d like something like this. it’s a glorified brain-teaser. much better than this other option. i’ll take it.” namjoon said, tired of the kid’s jibber-jabber. the kid simply shrugs in response. “how much is it?”
“for you—cheap. but for future references, i told you so.”
“okay...” namjoon just got some money out of his pocket.
“also,” tate pipes up, “do you know where that local abandoned factory is?”
“yup. why?”
tate leans slightly. “that factory is still semi-functional, but i guess it’s been put off the map. that game—that system—is known to take up a ton of power, but the factory has a huge computer system. but it’s kind of hard to locate, since it has nine elevators in that place.”
namjoon’s bemused face catches tate’s attention. “why do you know all of this?”
“my friends and i snuck in there once. we learned a lot.”
“yeah... seriously.”
✵
namjoon is back on the futon, late at night, as hoseok is near, curious about what he purchased.
immediately, the screen opens, with a dark background with green lines and slow-falling numbers like he’s really solving online cases and cracking codes.
there were eight player slots available, so namjoon clicks the first, entering his favorite initials, rm. immediately, hoseok scoffs, waving his hands up in disbelief, “gosh, you’re not a rap monster, you dumbass.” namjoon ignores. “well you may as well add me in for the next box, and everyone else,” hoseok jokes, but namjoon does it anyway because he knows that hoseok may play this game more than he himself. so now there was rm, ksj, sg, jh, kth, and jjk. he went to the next page, the first task.
decoding binary.
it reads, “please decode the following code to reveal our hero’s name: 01001010 01001001 01001101 01001001 01001110. ”
“oh hell no, this is nuttier than squirrel shit! who do they expect to know this?” hoseok vents. “you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“ me.” namjoon sighs. “they probably expect me to know this. well, too bad for them, this is the twenty-first century. hoseok, can i see your phone?”
“um... sure?” he hands it to the other.
namjoon quickly types in the code on the screen into a binary code translator website and smirks victoriously. jimin!
the hero’s name was jimin.