He leaned back in the desk chair.

The overly fuzzy socks he wore kicking up on the ledge as he forced the squeaky coils of the padded seat backward. Dipping him farther down, nearly bouncing as the chair squealed miserably with each of the bouncing presses he forced it into. Those gentle tussles, bouncing him as if their peaks were ocean waves on a distraught storm sea, rocking his body along with the rhythm of the bright music dimly humming over the headphones slung around his neck. Phone pressed against his ear, where those encasing speakers should have been slamming numbing rhythms to sync up with his heart. The shuffling of another person on the other side ringing loud in the silence of his dark room. Their silence filled in by the springing of his old desk chair.

The screen of the running laptop, various stickers plastered to every bit of platinum coating that dared to show, burned into the retinas of his tired eyes. Wires connecting it to the two desktop screens; One horizontal, the other portrait, both presenting him with lines of gray code he yet to touch. The webcam and microphones on his laptop covered by thick layers of electrical tape, the set of desktops in a similar state as their built-in systems were muted beneath the sticky covering. The computer tower underneath the hardened polish clean of his desk humming a worn note beneath the drone of his room.

Those screens the single flickers of paradise in the silent room.

The bright lighthouses, cutting through the midnight hour he wasted his time waiting for, guiding him as he tried to moor back in the docks of his consciousness.

On the other side of the phone call, an irritated voice scoffed softly, "More?"

"What do you expect?" He responded easily, flipping the call onto speaker as he set the device down on his clean desk. Legs crossing over one another, the fluffy threads of his socks careful not to track unwanted mud into his routinely maintenance keyboard. His hands crossed over his chest as well, coming to fiddle with the volume buttons on his headphones, significantly increasing the thumping beats playing over their speakers to fill the space of the lonely bedroom. Incrementally, the rhythms of the playing song began to sink into his mind, occupying him and helping him focus on the conversation. Music tended to help him concentrate, compared to the overwhelming idea that the general songs were a way he used to avoid socialization.

The voice came again over the phone's speakers, significantly more offended as they complained,

"A discount, Minho???"

"No, fuck you, piece of shit, I let you have agency last time and look where that landed us. You didn't pay me," Minho argued back to him, his hands fiddling with the strings his white hoodie he neglected to wash for more than a few nights. It was fine. It wasn't as if a smell was lingering on it, and it wasn't as if he wore that hoodie anywhere but his bedroom. He wiggled his socked toes over, prodding at the pitch black cat tucked neatly atop his desk. A perfect princess. Currently annoyed with him as he poked at the bread loaf of an animal, "Special deal specifically for you: Double the price."

"Ass."

"A decent night's sleep."

"What?"

"What? Huh?" Minho lurched, blinking up at the empty ceiling of his dark room. He prodded again at the cat as it unfurled from it's folded position to scowl at him. Minho kept gently tapping the animal to the rhythm of his music drifting from the headphones as he fussed, "Sorry, I thought we were naming things we don't get."

The voice on the phone shouted at him, "Dick?!"

"A will to live," He listed again, a buoyant laughter leaving his chest as he mocked the other man, "Wow! We're really good at this!"

A notification bubbled at the bottom of his laptop screen.

Careful not to knock the half-full can of some horrendous energy drink blended with in nuclear chemicals, he stopped annoying his cat. Sitting "properly" at the new alert. Scrunched up on the chair, heels tucked on the edge of the chair, knees tucked up against his chest in the illuminious glow of the impossible hour, hunching over to reach the laptop's keyboard. Leaning into it's abrasive light assaulting him. The pixels in their brilliance as they tugged him mercilessly from his reclined position and into the wonderland those lines of code offered to him.

The other mumbled, "I am going to shiver your timbers you piece of... Lice poop."

Minho chuckled to himself at the insult, his mind already preoccupied with the USB mouse, moving the cursor from the screen off the hovering desktop monitors to pop into the laptop. Pulling up the new additional tab to the phone number he kept for this work and the message that unknown name sent him. Quickly reading it over as the glimmer from the screens reflected on his skin. Casting it's ambiguity onto his hand moving the mouse over the text, onto the backdrop of his white hoodie, onto the black cat who stepped off the desk to climb on Minho's hunched shoulders, it's paws settling stretched along him as if it's fur was a shawl to drape over the nape of his neck.

He lifted a hand free, moving to scratch the cat's chin as it purred into his shoulder blades, turning into a loaf on the ledge of his hunched back. Though he knew that black fur would be a hassle to get off from the otherwise clean fabric. Meaning he would have to finally wash the poor hoodie from it's few days of wear.

His fingers kept scratching the purring cat as he scanned the new text again.

"Minho? Hello?"

"Hey, can I call you back Lix?" He sparked up, coming to grab the animal as it's claws dug into his back. Rooting down into the white hoodie as she meowed in protest to him. Regretfully tugging her off to set her down in his lap, though she quickly bounced off of him and ran away to the mattress behind him, her bell collar jingling all the way. With a scoff at the behavior, Minho peeled the phone off the desk and hummed to it's microphone, "I got an interesting message I want to take care of before I do anything else."

"Oh, sure, sure! Something important?"

"I don't know yet. I think it's someone, a client. They're asking for me."

"Nice! Earn that money, Minho. Just let me know when you can do that for me and I'll wire you what I owe. As for-"

"Don't worry. You're asking something super simple, really. And even if there was an issue, you know I can work around it," He reassured him, his own confidence swelling up with it's typical hot air. It's typical pride, akin to the blatant shine of a King's crown, the symbol of ultimate power. The tyrant sitting atop a throne, in the top of a castle, built overlooking a kingdom, in the center of the world. Each shine of the faceted gems another piece of his own inflated ego, and yes he knew his ego was too inflated to be anything but a rivaling to a god complex in the dictionary. Minho was certain his face would be plastered as the raw example of one.

Not that he was always arrogant.

Not that he was always overconfident.

But this?

The requests?

These screens?

The customized keyboard beneath his fingertips that took way too long to be satisfied with the black matte and white rabbit design?

It was his wonderland. An intricate world of endless codes comprised of backslashes breaking down defenses left unprotected. The semicolons, diagonal nonsense, flourishing as flowers in a sinking field. Polished, refined, defined stones in that garden. Backspaces, erasing his work, enters sending him farther into the rose garden gates, the tickling clock in the bottom of the screen screaming he was late to wake, late to sleep, late to stop his endless shift serving tea at this never-ending tea party in the corner of the shrunken tables and tipped world. A fake world, created by the grand mind of the pixels and circuits which demanded an insistence on it's citizens.

Citizens of the city, of the nation, of the country, of the world. All connected by those hazy tunnels which led from teacup to teacup, photo to photo, their data nothing but wires and useless clouds of painted red nothing; The house of cards ready to collapse at the press of a button, the press of Minho's wandering hand, the soldiers lurking to spike him through as his own identity became blended to that network. How everyone had a flicker of that poison altering their appearances, altering their lives, sitting in their hands nowadays. That was the fact of the internet. That was the fact of the digital world.

How at the click of his mouse,

Minho sunk deeply into that rabbit hole.

He brought the glowing paradise that thrived after dark to yield to him.

The other cheered happily, singing softly over the speaker in an overly fake manner meant purely to tease the older, "You're the best. Love you!"

"Love you too. Drive home safe," Minho told him, a soft smile on his expression before he tapped the screen and hung up the phone call. He tossed the device back onto his desk readily catching it's small body. It's case thumping in a hard slam against the polished surface. Announcing to him in it's angry way, he would likely have to replace the scratched up screen protector sometime soon. He would have to eventually uncover the front and back camera from it's peeling tape. He wasn't necessarily paranoid, but he certainly did know the backdoor codes that phones and computers had laying in wait for someone to sweep in.

Minho pulled the headphones over his ears, a final slug from his energy drink sending uncomfortable chills through his spine as the rhythms muted the world. As he became lost in their lyrics. Their melodic drones.

As he was left alone with nothing but the music, and the lines of code on his scene.

Plus the message.

Minho checked it over again.

Unknown User

Unknown User:

Hello! (•ө•)♡
Is this Jackalope?
2:18am

Minho typed back a fast answer on the detached keyboard, a slight smile peeling his lips up as he watched the words appear on the laptop screen.

whos asking
2:19 am

Unknown User:

Silly boy, I am! (^_-)
No one says who's asking unless they're the person being asked for. Checkmate.
2:20am

I got your contact from a friend
2:21 am

They said you do good work and I'm in desperate need of help!! (TдT)
2:23 am

what kind
2:24 am

Unknown User:

My my, you really are suspicious of me
I guess it can't be helped (¯―¯٥)
2:24 am

What else does everyone come to you for, Jackalope?
2:25 am

Hacking! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
2:30 am

≪↭↯⇆⇁↻≫

This has a happy end, but we'll take a few detours along the way

Enjoy c: