#i like wendy and namjoon's relationship and that regardless of their debates they care for each other truly

[lily-blue]

CODE Z3RO | CODE 08

characters: BTS & Red Velvet genre: thriller, futuristic au warning: death summary: The twelve most ambitious and promising university students are welcomed in Choego, the world’s first entirely artificial intelligence-driven city, to compete for five job contracts that could change their life. But what if something goes wrong? What if they get trapped? What if the city suddenly turns against them? Can they find a way out before the countdown reaches zero? words: 4,4K tagged: @philosopher-of-fandoms​

➼ Chapter Index

Kang Seulgi was one of those people who found comfort in the silence even when it felt sad, despairing and endlessly barren without comforting words that could ease the restless hearts. Unlike Taehyung who seemed unable to shut up whenever the team faced another obstacle, she kept her worries for herself, swallowing down all those nasty swears that formed in her throat once they stepped inside the main researcher building and found nothing. There was no magical computer in the basement that could have put an end to their misery nor important folders that could have contained useful information and saved them. There were no people who could have helped them find the fastest escape route nor food that they could have stolen at least to fill their uneasy stomachs. Not that any of them would have been able to eat. Not with their fallen members’ dead bodies, all that blood and roasted meat, in their mind.

After ten minutes of constant searching, everyone seemed to give up although none of them dared to move or voice out the obvious: what if they had been in the next zone on the list all along and a little bit more than five minutes later the defence system would close them inside of a transparent box that would slowly run out of oxygen? Would they die if they tried to walk into a neighbourhood zone through the invisible fences as Jimin had done? No one could tell for sure. Or at least no one dared to speak up.

They all gathered in the hallway near the stairs and the broken elevator on the first floor just as they had agreed in advance and watched Yoongi walking back and forth, trying to come up with a plan in vain. Lacking essential information such as the location of the main computer or the exact order of the zones, he didn’t know which route they should have followed to get to the bridge without people dying around them uselessly. Even though he wasn’t as selfless as Seokjin had been and would have never given his life to save a mere acquaintance, he didn’t want to lose anyone of their group if it could be evitable. It was basic empathy that for some reason Taehyung was lacking in many aspects.

‘So can we finally agree on that, there’s nothing useful in here and we’re just wasting our time? How much do we have? Three minutes?’ he asked aggressively with his forehead leaning against the wall. He was just as scared as everyone else, it was obvious from the way he kept kicking the metal panel next to a random bedroom, but his behaviour made everyone nervous and it made hard for them to concentrate.

Namjoon snorted and nuzzled closer to his girlfriend whose face was buried in the juncture between the boy’s neck and shoulder.

‘What? Did you all forget how to speak?’ Taehyung asked with anger in his eyes when he turned around and all he could see was a bunch of trembling idiots and the eerie IT guy who was walking down the hallway, murmuring something indecipherable under his nose. The Marketing major hated him for being such a smartass but he definitely hated the others more for acting ever so pathetic. For a second, they had made him believe that they would all die in the fancy palace, the researchers had built for themselves. ‘Even you, Ginger Head? You had such a big mouth back there when your boyfriend speeded up this killing machine,’ he looked at Wendy and from his tone and the tiny sweat drop on his neck, Joohyun could tell that it was defence mechanism. He tried to pick a fight to erase the silence. How human of him.

‘We got in! That was the plan and he made it possible so you should thank him instead of…’ the girl screamed at the lilac haired boy once she pushed herself further from Namjoon and stood up.

‘Thank him? Really?’ the questions rolled off Taehyung’s lips and the smug smirk that hid in the corner of his mouth scared the shit out of the med student. He looked cold like a man who didn’t have anything to lose anymore thus was ready to do anything that could put his heart at ease. For example holding onto the vengeance that he felt towards the Mechanical Engineering major who stepped between his girlfriend and Taehyung in the meantime. His heroic behaviour earned a scoff from the younger. ‘Well then thank you so much for killing us all, Your Highness,’ he said cruelly and even took a deep bow to emphasize the weight of his words.

It was Yoongi who put his hand on the Marketing major’s shoulder and pulled him further from the couple, pointing at the small, digital numbers on the metal panel that he couldn’t stop hitting a few minutes prior, the one that could have opened the nearest door if their bracelets had been still working. The clock told them that it was quarter to twelve which meant somewhere in Choego another zone had gotten cut off electricity three minutes ago. They were safe for the next twenty-seven minutes.

‘Let’s stop it here, shall we? We need to figure out where’s the main computer so that we can stop the countdown and open the gates,’ the IT guy said in a stern voice and looked around, searching for doubt in the other’s clouded eyes. His piercing gaze sent a jolt down in Seulgi’s spine.

‘I…’ she started but her voice was too quiet to be heard and by the time she gathered enough courage to repeat that simply pronoun, Taehyung brushed Yoongi’s hand off his shoulder and leaned closer to the older.

‘You said yourself that this system doesn’t have admins. You couldn’t even open a freaking door goddamnit. How could you save us all with your useless skills, hah?’ he spat the words into their leader’s face and pushing his chest, he shoved Yoongi backwards. When Namjoon and Jungkook tried to seperate them or more precisely when they tried to get Taehyung off Yoongi who stood still like a statue, all hell broke loose and that was enough for Seulgi to turn her back on the team, seeking for peace in the abandoned building. She didn’t fear the city or the invisible fences. What she feared the most was the human factors in the structure. She had learned it in her first year in uni that one couldn’t build a strong construction on a weak foundation. With the lilac haired guy’s attitude, they would never become a real team.

She opened a door on the second floor and sit on a bare table with her legs on the backrest of a chair. It felt nice to be able to breath again far from the noises of the ruckus thus she opened her backpack and fished out her silver cigarette case and a plain lighter. She didn’t think before she put the loosey between her lips and suck a mouthful of the mint flavoured smoke.

She sat in the silence for long minutes before something crashed into the metal door and the cigarette fell out of her slim fingers, burning her pale skin. Seulgi jumped off the table hastily and covered her belongings with her body when the intruder pushed the old-fashioned handle downwards to sneak inside the room. When Yerim’s gaze found hers, the younger seemed honestly relieved.

‘We decided on going forwards. We’ll try to escape through the bridge,’ she said in her weak voice as she stepped inside, leaving the older with no choice but to abandon her cigarette case and the lighter since there was no way that she could have shoved them into her backpack without Yerim noticing. She didn’t want the girl to tell about her habit to everyone especially not Wendy who tended to act like an overprotective mother whenever it came to their health. Seulgi didn’t need lectures, she had gotten enough from her own mother when they had still lived under the same rooftop in the outskirts of Seoul.

They walked side by side silently when a loud noise split the muteness into two, breaking the shelter that the silence had created around the girls. Suddenly the whole hallway went pitch black and then a few still seconds later the lights came back in a bloody shade of crimson. It felt like a living nightmare.

Seulgi grabbed the frozen girl’s hand and pulled Yerim towards the others near the stairs on the first floor. They all looked confused and frightened at first glance as if they couldn’t have believed that the hospital incident had come back to haunt them in daylight. 

Five minutes left until the total evacuation. The same, artificial voice warned them, freezing the blood in Seulgi’s veins who automatically casted her eyes down, looking at her burned finger with guilt filling her lungs. She let go of Yerim’s hand and took a shaky step further from the group, her movements followed by nothing but a stern gaze that was icy like the unforgiving cold of the winter air.

Min Yoongi shook his head and cleared his throat before he spoke up.

‘It’s the fire alarm system. Everybody, get out of the building,’ he shouted and pointed at the stairs behind their back.

The group of nine ran to the said direction with their hearts beating like crazy just to face with another obstacle as they realized that the building had locked them inside as if the system forgot that the main entrance should have been the last thing to close since the fire was nowhere near the door. They were supposed to have at least four or three more minutes to get to the exit goddamnit, a few of them swore under their noses while Taehyung kicked into the shock resistant glass. He acted like a wild animal that had been captured for the first time in his life. He meant to bite everyone who dared to step within an arm’s length radius.

‘The front door is closed. There’s no way out,’ the lilac haired boy informed Yoongi with a frown, making sure that the IT guy understood that it was him whom he was blaming for their doom. If Mr. Smartypants hadn’t insisted to look for the main computer in the researcher building, they would have never stuck in the glamourous yet useless dormitory in the first place. What the hell had they been thinking when they had let him take the role of the team captain? He was just as ridiculous of a leader as the dead man with the bloody tears.

Seulgi looked at Taehyung then shifted her gaze to Yoongi, putting her weight from one leg to another. 

‘We should head towards the basement. That way we can get out of here through the sewerage system,’ she whispered, jittery fingers fidgeting with the hem of her tee. She wasn’t one who was good at making orders and bossing people around but she sincerely hoped that the others wouldn’t question her knowledge, just do as she suggested and rush to the nearest stairs to the basement. After all, trusting her was their only chance.

For the Architecture major’s biggest surprise, no one - not even Taehyung - had said a word before they turned to left and ran to the seventh door on the hallway that separated them from those dozens of stairs that led to the basement level. Since they had already discovered every opened room of the building less than half an hour prior, it was an easy run. Although not all of them was that willing to save themselves if the basement was their only option. Yerim for example stayed still with pure terror in her eyes.

‘The basement…’ she mumbled and her voice cracked when the first vivid picture of her brother reappeared in her mind. She saw him running back to her so that he could pull her out of the danger zone as he had always done. She saw herself falling on her knees and their teammates watching the whole scene from the safe distance of the hallway. She saw Seokjin’s apologetic smile and the blood running down his cheeks. She saw the sorrowful faces and the pity written all over them when she kept screaming even after there had been no tears left in her eyes. How could have she possibly walked down the basement on her free will? Easy. She couldn’t.

Two minutes left until the total evacuation. The robotic voice said when Jungkook reached the right door and leaning his palm against its edge, he noticed that the girl who was always around him didn’t follow him as he assumed. The boy turned around and watched the small group that was behind him but none of the members had an annoyingly childish ribbon in their hair. So much for getting to the entrance first, he swore, letting Taehyung cross the threshold as he took an unsure step backwards and observed the hallway.

Yerim was standing in front of the closed door where they couldn’t escape with the same cloudy expression she’d had next to the computer’s desk in the hospital’s basement.

‘Shit,’ the boy murmured under his nose when he took a deep breath and rushed back to the main entrance regardless of the short period of time ahead of them before the total evacuation, whatever that meant.

On his way back to the main entrance, he could see Wendy pulling her hand out of her boyfriend’s grab and Seulgi reaching the top of the stairs with Joohyun but he tried to shut out the crimson lights and the monotone noise that resembled an enormous clock, counting endlessly. It was crazy as if they had been trapped in a living nightmare in which everyone went nuts. Since when did he care about random girl’s well-being more than his own life? Damn, he hadn’t even shared his favourite snacks with his younger siblings for God’s sake! 

Jungkook almost crashed into Yerim’s fragile body when his steps came to a halt after the fast speed but his presence, for the first time since this whole trial had started, didn’t have any effect on the younger as if she hadn’t even realized that the boy had come back to her. Her usually ruby red cheeks were pale and her gaze was cloudy, unfocused. Therefore lacking a better idea, Jungkook bent his knees and threw the girl over his left shoulder. She was so petite that her weight barely made any difference with the adrenaline running through the boy’s body.

‘I said I’m fine. Help him!’ Wendy raised her voice, pointing at Yoongi when Jungkook passed them by, jogging down the stairs. The boy lifted a brow in confusion but fastly shook the idea of staying out of his head. He wasn’t a hero to begin with and he had never intended to become one if not to become an excellent engineer who saved the future of millions as a well-paid employee under the Cheongsan Group. Regardless of the current chaos, he would have still accepted one of those fancy contracts. It was too valuable to throw it away because of sentimentalism. ‘He has asthma, he couldn’t reach the basement in time,’ he could hear the med student’s stern voice but the snort that followed it merged into the constant background noise, provided by the fire alarm when the door closed behind him and the sobbing dead weight on his back.

‘Fine, but you need to stay right next to me or else I won’t hesitate to leave him here and save you first,’ Namjoon claimed when his girlfriend looked around and took a step towards Hoseok who seemed dizzy as he walked with his hands kept on the wall. ‘You know that it isn’t a lie,’ the Mechanical Engineering major cleared his throat and being left with no choice, Wendy ran after him and Yoongi, following them down the stairs.

One minute left until the total evacuation. The artificial voice warned them in a lifeless tone and Wendy had never felt twenty-four steps that many before.

It was Seulgi and Joohyun who reached the iron door of their safe haven first and what they found was a surprisingly spacious room with ugly, grey paint on its walls and warm water droplets occasionally falling from above from the huge pipes that were placed on the ceiling. It was disappointing to say the least after all the high tech equipments that they had seen in the city and the fabulous interior design of the researcher building made of shock resistant glass, marble and thin metal that shone just as bright as crystals. It looked as if the budget had been cut off in the last minute and there wouldn’t have left enough money for the less important areas that were hidden beneath the ground.

They both snapped their heads towards the hallway when a faint thud followed by a loud swear filled the sphere between the stairs and the door and not long after Jungkook crossed the threshold with Yerim on his shoulder. The girls shared a knowing glance before Joohyun sat on her heels and helped the boy putting the sobbing girl on the floor, leaning her back to the wall in one of the corners. The older shot a faint smile at the panting boy before he stepped away and turned his back on the duo. He didn’t want to talk about the reason behind his actions nor answer to the other’s nosy questions if she had any.

There was less than one minute left when Namjoon dragged his girlfriend inside the room regardless of her weak attempts to pull away, running back to the hallway where the lilac haired guy was struggling to make the endless metres between his aching body and the iron door disappear. From what the redhead saw, he must have sprained his ankle in the rush but his misery was the last thing that Namjoon cared about. If he needed to choose between the world and Wendy, it would have always been the quick-tempered girl therefore choosing between her and the brat wasn’t even a hard decision to make. 

‘He won’t make it,’ the med student claimed angrily as she stamped her foot in frustration, pointing at the boy halfway to the entrance.

Namjoon let go of the IT guy’s shoulder and straightened his back, blocking the way from the girl who was ready to leave them all behind before the worst thing could have happened. Even though the boy had never had a problem with the girl bossing him around and would have done anything to please her, this time he simply couldn’t let her be. It was insane. He would have never forgiven himself if anything had happened to Wendy just because he couldn’t man up and took the rage that radiated from his sulky girlfriend.

Thirty seconds left until the total evacuation. The last warning cut through the lovebirds’ debate, leaving everyone a bit speechless as Joohyun pushed Namjoon out of the way and ran straight to Taehyung to help his injured ankle bear his own weight. She slid her arm on the boy’s shoulder and pulled him towards the room.

‘Come on!’ the girl mumbled through gritted teeth, not quite believing that she really risked her life for a boy who had threatened her less than an hour prior. On the other hand, her actions seemed almost rational considering that she did know how the human mind worked and that her conscious couldn’t have rested if she had let another member of their team die. With Sooyoung, it had been an unintentional homicide but knowing that this whole fiasco was very much real, she couldn’t just stand there and watch the boy got eliminated from the game as she had done with Gangnam Girl. She wasn’t as greedy and competitive for God’s sake. 

They were only a few steps away from the door when a transparent wall started to descend from the ceiling and everyone started to panic. Taehyung balled his empty fist and held onto the sweaty girl with the other, nails digging into the flesh painfully. Joohyun screamed, her eyes brimming with crystal-like tears as she kept moving regardless of the fast speed of the wall that already covered half of the entrance. They were definitely too slow to reach it in time yet as if her survival instinct had kicked in, she marched outright insane, keeping her gaze on the target. Three more steps; Taehyung’s panting dulled her senses and pushed her underwater. Two steps; for a mere second they almost lost their balance. One step; Joohyun’s spine crashed into the wall when they bent their backs but by the time the wall fitted close to the ground they were all safe. The thought alone was enough for the girl to let her tears fall in frustration.

Watching her wobbly legs giving out, Wendy immediately rushed to the girl, sat on her heels and fished a bottle of still water out of her bag to dip her extra tee in lukewarm liquid before she placed it onto Joohyun’s nape.

‘What the hell was that?’ Taehyung screamed out of control, kneeling on Joohyun’s right. He clenched his palms and punched the floor so hard his pale knuckles started to bleed after the third powerful hit. His whole body was trembling in despair and for the first time ever since they had left the dormitory, no one could blame him for how he coped with the fear.

‘You were right. We should have never gone to that basement nor cut the wires of that stupid control panel,’ Joohyun whispered under her nose and her weak comment eared a surprised glance from the lilac haired guy. He had been so used to the disapproving retorts by now that the girl’s statement melted his anger. Though, just for a second, not a single heartbeat more.

The silence that embraced the university students was unnerving to say the least and the fact that Yerim rocked herself back and forth in the corner, humming a lullaby as if it could put her at ease just made the whole situation more uncomfortable. This time even Seulgi felt a bit anxious with her arms crossed in front of her chest while she was waiting for Yoongi or anyone who was brave enough to take the lead and give them an order.

A few ephemeral moments later, she looked down at her burnt finger and took a deep breath, trying to gather enough courage to confess. After all, it was most likely her fault that the fire alarm system had turned on and locked the whole building. Even the fact that it was her idea to escape through the basement couldn’t have made up for it. 

‘I…’ she whispered with an enormous knot in her throat when Yoongi’s question outplaced her weak attempt to tell everyone the truth. 

‘Where’s Hoseok?’ It wasn’t a question directed to the brown haired girl yet his gaze could have burnt a hole into Seulgi’s chest when she realized that the boy was looking at her right hand or more precisely the angry red flesh on her index finger. She shoved her hand into her pocket and turned away.

‘There,’ Namjoon said sternly, his voice cold like floating icebergs, and suddenly everyone’s gaze shifted to the direction he was pointing at expect for Yerim. She didn’t need to take a look at Hoseok’s body to be sure that the boy was dead or in the verge of dying. For her, his absence made it obvious that something terrible had happened.

Jung Hoseok was lying on the concrete a few inches from the stairs, lifeless eyes watching them all with blame and agony. He looked just like those scientists on the dorm’s floor who had died from insufficient oxygen and one didn’t have to be a genius in medicine to put the bloody puzzle pieces together. When the countdown had reached zero, the fire alarm system sucked the air out of the building to stop the fire before the whole research center could have caught on it.

Namjoon pulled his girlfriend close for a hug, looking for comfort in the warmth of her body but it didn’t help much. His stomach was uneasy because of the guilt he needed to swallow down even though a part of him tried to convince him that what he had done had been for the better. He couldn’t have saved another person beside Yoongi and if he had let Wendy carry Hoseok all the way to the basement she might have not made it. Her well-being must have been more important than a random dude’s life goddamnit even if that boy had never done anything wrong to them and playing God was a cruel game to begin with. 

‘Okay, it’s time to get out of here,’ Yoongi spoke up although his voice was wrecked, far from being that firm he had intended it to be. He walked to the iron door and closed it to cover Hoseok’s body then looked around and asked Jungkook to help Yerim stood up. It was his rationality speaking because even after using his inhaler, he felt too dizzy to carry the girl and Seulgi was so out of it that he rather didn’t put more onto her shoulders. Taehyung had Joohyun to lean on while Namjoon refused to let go of his girlfriend who stayed beside him silently. They had been together long enough for Wendy to know when the boy was clingy and overprotective and when he was rather in serious need of her presence to avoid self-hatred. So this time she didn’t protest. 

Yoongi walked to the grey wall across the entrance and sat on his heels as he tried to open the trapdoor that was well-hidden but visible once someone knew what to look for. It cracked open with a loud creak and underneath there was a ladder showing the way to the sewerage system just as Seulgi had said. The boy narrowed his eyes but stayed quiet.

Everyone looked at him with expectation, waiting for him to take the first step.

‘Your excellent idea, you go first, Captain Out of Breath,’ Taehyung snorted with mockery clinging to his words and even though he wasn’t entirely right since the idea itself had come from Seulgi, Yoongi clenched his teeth and grabbed the ladder, starting to climb. It wasn’t like they had any other option.

➼  IX. chapter