Assumptions

Of course it wasn't a system glitch.

Ryan knew that very well.

The HQ had one of the top end technologies at their disposal and that's exactly why the possibility of a glitch such a small function itself seemed a fat fetched idea.

Ryan lied.

He had purposefully asked the question at the dining table. Just so that he could see Seojin's response. He knew very well who had arrived before him.

Ryan Oh was an extremely observant person. Not even the tiniest of details could go past those keen eyes of his that were always busy analyzing anything in his field of vision. Being trained from his high school days, his innate talent of deduction was honed to the peak of perfection, his brain, it had barely taken him minutes come up with three possible outcomes once he saw the display. However it was aso this nature of his that prevented him from sharing this with the rest of the team.

"Yes. It was indeed Azrael. I never thought I'd get to see him at the HQ, reporting a successful mission at that. There were no issues. The item was acquired safe. It seems that you were right.

When you had called me that day saying he is ready, I never expected it to be this fast Mr. Bang How did you even convince someone as stubborn as him?

What? His weakness? Oh.

Yes. Of course. I never expected you to be wrong either sir. "

Mr. Choi closed his phone as he turned back, his expression calm.

However that soon dropped as he saw who was standing on the other side of his desk.

"7 Archangels, Ariel. Here to receive re-installment." Ryan's face was blank as he reported, rendering a shocked reaction from his chief who had just registered the other man's presence.

"Ryan.. What are you... I. ."

"I was here to get my Pager re-installed, but now it seems.... "

"Yeah yeah, your re installment. "

Thinking that the agent hadn't heard anything of his call, Choi was quick to brush off his initial reaction, picking up the other's phone as he began to work the re installment.

However his breath of relief was short lived as he heard the words that came from Ryan next.

"I heard hyung's code name Chief..." The brown haired man looked down at his chief, whose fingers stopped typing at his words.

"Ryan, that was just something between me and the CEO. Nothing else. "

Choi once again tried to brush it off again with a smile and a glance at the agent who was still standing at his place, not even a twitch in his expression.

"I'm sure you wouldn't want one of your S class agents failing his missions would you? " Ryan's next words erased the smile off Choi's face. He wasn't usually like this, but hearing the codename of his team member at a place where he was rarely mentioned before drove him to using such a method to get the information out.

" Ryan Oh, are you threatening me?"

"That's funny chief, you know what I'm saying." Ryan scoffed at his superior's words.

"Agent Ariel, as your chief, I'm not obliged to reply to your threats in any way."

Choi's voice had none of the playfulness it had earlier.

Ryan sighed.

"Take it however you want chief. If it really is nothing serious, why can't you tell me?... " Ryan now looked back at his chief, an eyebrow raised as he answered.

Choi closed his eyes, furrowing his brows as he left a breath before looking back at his agent, sighing as he returned the phone, which now showed that the re-installment was complete.

"Look. I know you are not gonna listen to me no matter what I say, so you better keep it to yourself what ever I'm gonna say. " It wasn't that he doubted Ryan's ability to keep a secret, but rather Seojin's expression from before that made Choi hesitate.

Ryan smirked as he heard his chief speak,

"Now we are talking chief. "

He said, as he sat himself down on the seat, his lapel badge's crystals gleaming in the light..

"Seojin is already taking missions."

"What do you mean he is taking missions? He isn't supposed to till two weeks later! And why didn't his Pager notify us? " His eyebrows furrowed as heard his chief's words.

" He isn't doing it like before Ryan. You probably weren't notified because the tapping on his Pager must have been removed." Choi looked at the agent in front of him display slight surprise on his face.

"Then why are we still not told about his first successful mission in years? "

Ryan didn't waste anytime, as he pushed back the other man's words to the back of his mind. He would think about the Pager later, because what he wanted to know now was something else.

"Even you are not supposed to know. He himself has asked me to not let you guys know. He just left half an hour ago after reporting his first one. " The chief answered.

Ryan was thinking of the chief's last words before he had left the office.

If Seojin had gotten the tapping in his pager removed from somewhere else, Ryan would have already known, but he didn't. That could only mean that Seojin himself removed it.

It was very much unlike Seojin to hide things from them. Other than his reason for not ranking up, there was rarely something that the other had not shared with them. Ryan had known that there would be changes in Seojin's behavior because of the obvious reasons, despite that he had still believed that the man's true self was still the same.

But now, he didn't know. Whatever he had been doing currently confused Ryan. The man he knew like the back of his hand was now a stranger to him.

Ryan hated when things weren't in his control. He hated it when things didn't go as he planned, when his calculations went wrong. And right now, that's exactly what's happening.

Whatever he had known about his hyung was now turning haywire.

All the calculations he had made about Seojin's behavior were now turning wrong.

Ryan had learned all of his members behavior patterns. He knew their personalities by heart.

Another perk of being someone who was even more observant than his boss. He knew each and every step his members took, and why they took it. He could easily deduct from their faces what they were feeling, calculate five steps ahead of them even before they themselves thought of it.

But somehow, this wasn't the case when it came to the eldest.

Before, he used to be the easiest to read, one look at his face and Ryan could easily understand what the man was thinking. But now, he couldn't. Seojin's actions and moods were now harder to read. Ryan could no longer calculate ahead of the other. All he knew about the elder was now useless.

He was now thinking that he may have to start all over again, understanding his hyung now, because the one he knew was now of no use. Ryan switched off the bed lamp, closing his eyes, hoping to drift off to sleep as he slowly began putting his thoughts to rest.

'What are you planning hyung?'

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