- fifty two -

"Are you sure you aren't a Defect?"

"No," the boy answered, "I'm not ," both Jaehyun's question that he had asked out loud and the ringing of Taeyong's in his mind.

"But this says otherwise," Taeyong voiced aloud.

Renjun scoffed lightheartedly at the two older boys, cleaning up and organizing his papers into neat stacks.

The 'coding' that Renjun had compiled were only lines and dashes, something indecipherable to both Taeyong and Jaehyun.

"I don't think anyone else could read this besides you," Jaehyun said, gesturing to the papers that Renjun now held in his clutches.

"If anyone were to study coding like I have, they'd be able to understand just like me, or even better," he said, absentmindedly turning to look back at the table he had been working at, seeming to look for something.

Taeyong noticed the sudden distraction that the youngest boy had focused on, the deflation of his voice as he searched longer stood out to him.

"What are you looking for?"

Instead of answering the question, Renjun's thoughts seemed to straighten themselves out, looking at the dismantled cube and quickly walked to the object, closing it and picking it up to hold to his chest.

He moved back to the other two.

"I needed this," he explained vaguely.

"What for?" Jaehyun asked this time.

"This, is the main communication to and from Abigail's base, although I haven't had time to decoding the message, I recognized some patterns, and if I'm successful, I can find a way to reverse it and use it to listen in and find the next moves she plans to do," he said, holding the object closer to the others.

Taeyong was in awe, looking at Jaehyun, who reflected the same reaction as the older.

"Still, I have to decode the messages I've been able to gain, translate them to Chinese, then to Korean so everyone could understand," Renjun felt like he was going to be having some late nights ahead.

Sighing at the thought, he brushed past the shocked older men, before looking back at them.

"Aren't you coming?"

The soft timbre of the younger's voice seemed to pull the older boys out of their thoughts, making them turn and look at Renjun in confusion.

"What?"

"You guys came to let me know that dinner was ready, is it not?"

"Oh! Yes, it is," Jaehyun made eye contact with Taeyong, before going towards the stairs, Taeyong slowly making his way in that direction as well.

Renjun nodded at the other two making their way towards the end destination, and leading up to the dining area.

When they had finally made their way to the table, everyone was already sitting, talking amongst themselves while they waited for the trio.

They didn't miss the rather thick amount of papers in the young Chinese's arms, nor the ominous black box in his clutch as well.

They started to speak in curiosity at the boy before he motioned to the crowd to be quiet.

He placed the pile of papers in front of both Jaemin and Jeno before heading to the side of the room.

Confusion spread throughout the boys as Renjun placed the box at a spare small table that sat beside where Jungwoo and Johnny sat, before walking quickly to the kitchen.

They all remained quiet, Taeyong and Jaehyun making their way to their seats.

Jaemin and Jeno couldn't help but look at each other, confusion and anxiety stiff in their positions as to what the oldest of their own trio was up to, their line of vision leading to the papers with the random lines placed purposely.

The smaller boy made his way to the room again, a roll of aluminium foil now in his hand accompanied with a glass bowl.

He quickly ripped a rather large piece of the aluminum foil, not hesitating to crumple it up and unfold the mass.

He could feel the eyes watching his every move, but he did his best to ignore them as he surrounded the cube with the foil, before placing the bowl over it.

Standing away, he pretended to wipe the dust off of his hands, before facing Taeyong.

"We don't know if they can reverse the messages themselves, so this can either fry the circuits if they do, or scramble the codes so they can't pinpoint our location, leaving Neo City in a disclosed position," he said, the older nodding at the younger's words, but said nothing in return.

Renjun nodded before sitting next to Jeno at the table, his stomach grumbling at the smell of the warm food sat at the table.

Then Renjun noticed the silence hanging in the air.

Renjun looked at the quiet boys, "Let's eat?"

Light laughter broke out, with Jeno's arm snaking under the table to hold the older's hand.

Renjun looked at him, question gaze strongly pointed at the boy, where Jeno just shook his head.

"You're incredible, you know that?" Jaemin said from the other side of Jeno.

"There are others out there like me guys," Renjun said, accepting the food being passed to him by Kun.

"Yes, but they'll never be you, Renjun," Jeno said softly, squeezing Renjun's hand before getting his own food.

Renjun's response was only a sigh with a shake of his head, and continuing to get his own food.

. . .

Taeyong had gathered Johnny, Jaehyun, Lucas, Kun, and Taeil into the office in the basement.

They were all confused as to what the leader could possibly want, well, all except Jaehyun.

"You all saw what Renjun brought to dinner, no?"

"How could we miss it?" Johnny answered, wanting a little more insight.

Taeyong sighed, already knowing the questions the few he had gathered had in their minds.

"He has an ability, one not typically known by other Defects that he had the unfortunate but fortunate chance to find. He can receive codes from devices that send them," Taeyong has explained, although that only caused more questions.

"What do you mean?" Taeil spoke up, intrigued at this revelation.

"When in contact with the cube, he was instantly able to receive the computerized layout of a message being sent from the Capital. Hence the papers the boy brought to dinner. It's what he called 'coding'."

"Woah," Lucas allowed himself to let out.

"Indeed," Jaehyun answered.

"With this information, I think we should test," Taeyong finally got to his point.

"Test, what exactly?" Kun asked.

"It's clear that Abigail has done something to these boys. All of them. We need to figure that out, but what does she specialize in?"

The only thing heard was Johnny's small answer, that didn't fail to catch a hitch in all of the boy's throats.

"Defects."