"Oh shit," Jay muttered, preparing to start the van so they could escape the scene.

However, before that could happen, two of them had already situated themselves behind their van, making them unable to leave.

Jisung couldn't help but shake in fear, so Ren held onto him like a nurturing mother.

"What's happening?" he whispered.

"I don't know," Ren said in an equally scared voice.

"Are we in skind of mafia shit?" Akira asked quietly, earning him a slap on the back of the head from Jaeyong.

"Sorry," Akira muttered. "I forgot that we're in a serious mood."

Jay squeaked as one of the men tapped the window with the bat.

"Open up," the man shouted.

However, Jay remained unmoving, not knowing what to do.

June, on the other hand, tried to assess the situation.

The car that almost collided with them...

The clothed men holding bats...

This seemed like the usual blackmailing scheme.

He had done this before.

"Open up!" the man repeated, getting impatient.

"What am I going to do?" Jay frantically asked.

"I don't know!" Zeth exclaimed.

"I've never been in such a situation before," Jaeyong muttered, almost on the brink of tears.

"Open it," June calmly said, making the members turn to him with wide eyes.

"What?" Sehun exclaimed.

"Are you crazy?" Ren chimed. "What if they do something to us?"

June pursed his lips.

"If they wanted to kill us, then they would have done so already," June said.

"The fact that they're doing this means that they only want two things—a robbery or skind of threat—a warning, perhaps," he muttered.

"A warning?" Casper asked. "For what?"

June already had a hunch on who it was. However, he didn't want to string hism embers along his issues.

The fact that they were being threatened at the moment already made him feel guilty.

"They wouldn't let us leave until we give them what they want," June said. "So, open the window."

Jay shakily placed his hand over the electric button.

However, before he could even press it, a loud breaking sound was heard.

Their eyes widened when they saw that the window right next to June was now broken.

Jisung gasped in surprise, and although he was fearful, he pulled June to his side to protect him.

June subtly shook his head. How sweet was Jisung to be thinking of June even up to this point?

The other members were still frozen, so June took the tto gently pry Jisung's arms away from his body to face the perpetrators.

The perpetrators, dressed in the usual black boand mask, looked at June with narrowed eyes.

Their boss told them that he was quite the nonchalant man, but the fact that he wasn't even fazed with their raid made them believe that June was a different breed.

"Give us what we want," one of them said.

"Money?" June asked with raised eyebrows, still appearing calm.

The other members feared for their lives, yet June was handling it with such composure that they felt shivers run down their spines.

It was times like this that they were reminded of how scary June could be.

"No," another chimed, amusement heard in his voice.

"You know what we want," he said. "The case."

June pursed his lips. So, he was right.

It had finally started.

First, they tried to attack Minjun, and now they were targeting his members.

"I don't have it," June deadpanned, telling the truth.

"You have a week," the person before him said. "Bring it to him."

"Or else...he will extract it from you."

"Don't tell anyone about this...or they will also suffer."

With that, they went back to their black van and sped away, leaving Jay and the members of EVE with a traumatic experience.

The car was engulfed in silence for a few moments before Jay finally broke it.

"What was that?" he asked before starting the car and speeding to their dorm.

He was scared out of his wits, but his desire to protect the members of EVE outweighed his fears.

None of them spoke on the way there—almost as if they were still traumatized about what had happened.

However, as soon as they got to the parking lot, the members seemed to snap out of their daze.

"What the heck just happened?" Zeth exclaimed.

"We're we just robbed? But they didn't even take our money!"

"That would have been better! Why did they threaten June instead?" Jisung asked.

Sehun turned to EVE with a small frown. "What was that?" he asked.

June sighed before raking his fingers through his hair.

He knew that he could protect himself. Minjun, too, would be protected by the amount of guards that his mom and Haruto had provided him.

However, his members were a different case. They were under the public's eyes—which meant that they were more vulnerable to both physical and mental attacks.

With that, June shook his head.

"We're all tired," he said.

"Let's go up, hmm?"

"Jisung," he said, holding the younger guy's shoulders. "I'll make you your favorite hot chocolate."

***

The members were now back in their dorm,already in their respective rooms after the traumatic experience.

June, on the other hand, remained on the couch, the television playing an ambient sound.

He sipped on the extra hot chocolate that he had made for Jisung. However, he couldn't really taste it with the amount of thoughts running inside his head.

He wasn't paying attention to the show. Instead, he gazed at the distance, trying to make sense of what had happened that day.

It seemed like an entire week had passed, but it had only been a day.

He learned clues from Haruto.

He reached a new milestone with his teammates.

They were presented with a new song.

However, that led his members to believe that he was the main character of the group.

And to top it all off, they were threatened on their way back.

June had all the reasons to believe that it was orchestrated by Laohu and Lin Zhi.

It seemed like they were getting more desperate for the briefcase. However, after hearing what it could contain from Haruto, June didn't want to give it away.

For sreason, he felt like the briefcase would have all the answers to his questions.

So, he needed to find it as soon as possible.

However, before he could start brainstorming once again about where the briefcase would be, Jisung arrived at the couch.

Jisung looked at June with wide and red eyes—almost as if he had just stopped crying.

"Bro," he called.

"Do you want to talk?"