Namjoon focus

"We need a way to get past the security in the lobby and their all-seeing eyes," Yoongi said, "And we need to check on the key lock mechanism of the private apartments. I'd bet on magnetic keycards, but we should make sure."

They were sitting in their room, Jimin at the table and Yoongi, Tae and Namjoon on their beds, and discussibg what to do next. Jimin had just had his first walking-in-heels lesson and was massaging his feet with a pained expression while Taehyung was fascinated by how the light sparkled on the black phone case he had bought this morning on his first shopping tour.

"They're keycards," the redhead confirmed absentmindedly, and the cat eyes looked over curiously.

"How'd you know?" Yoongi asked.

"Yesterday I went by to check on the restaurant on the 30th floor. They serve excellent sea food. You'd like it," Taehyung answered nonchalantly.

"Uh, great," Yoongi mumbled slightly confused, and Namjoon chuckled at how much of a weird mix of private and professional the conversations between those two thieves could be. More to himself than to anyone else in the room, the hacker rambled on, "We could erase Choi's card with a magnet, but that's only possible when it's a LoCo card. If it's a HiCo we're screwed. I left my cloner at home and-"

"Sapporo," Taehyung threw into the slightly off-putting monologue of the hacker.

Yoongi's head snapped up. "No, we'll not repeat Sapporo! It was fucking exhausting and cold, and we mustn't leave any traces."

Jimin suddenly seemed all ears. "What happened in Sapporo?"

The hacker sighed. "We used the gondola that's normally used to clean the windows, abseiled ourselves, and cut our way in through the glass. But back then we only needed to cut out a small circle to reach inside and were able to put the glass back in place afterwards. That won't work this time because we have no damn idea what..." The hacker trailed off mid-sentence and his eyes became the size of saucepans, an expression Namjoon had never seen before on the normally cool and collected face. "Tae, you're brilliant."

"I know," the redhead said and looked up, "But please explain again why I'm brilliant." It seemed that even the artist had no idea what he had just said.

Yoongi grinned smugly. "We have no idea what his security system is, nor what safe he has. But if we can get access to the window cleaning gondola of this tower, we can simply look inside," the hacker explained excitedly.

"But we'd need access to the roof," Namjoon noted skeptically.

The look Taehyung and Yoongi gave him was telling him that he had said something stupid once again. To his surprise, it was Jimin who explained why he was looked at like that. "Those two can pick locks in their sleep, man." True, Namjoon thought and hummed understandingly. The door to the roof was probably child's play for those two. After all, somewhere in their luggage was a military lock pick set 'that normal people should not even know of'.

The hacker arranged his limbs in the pillows and leaned back relaxed after one of their biggest problems now had a solution. "So, the gondola it is. Then we only need to take care of the security. Any ideas?"

Namjoon had already thought about that, so he decided to answer. "Well, like Taehyung so nicely mentioned: every visitor of the restaurant at the 30th floor has to take the elevator in the lobby, so tourists passing by the security is nothing uncommon. We simply can walk in and no one will care." They had already glanced into the foyer of the tower's private residence entrance and had seen the two guys behind the monitors in the glass cubicle who were also the information point for residents. Those security man did not seem to care much about who passed the lobby because their full attention was devoted to the impressive ensemble of screens that showed approximately all the security feeds at once.

"That might be true for the dayshifts," Yoongi replied with a nod, "but the guards of the nightshift are the problem. If they see some guys entering the tower while the restaurant is closed and breaking into a private apartment, they won't just watch in awe."

"Why do we have to break in at night?" Namjoon wanted to know. Breaking in at night was a cliché of common people, but he knew more than well that there were more break-ins during the day. It was a logical consequence of the normal working schedule of a normal person.

The hacker explained it to him though, "Because the risk of getting seen by another resident of the same floor is lower that way. Those residents know each other, so they'll ask questions and can play us nasty."

Namjoon nodded comprehendingly. Sounded logical.

"What if we get someone in as a staff member who takes over the security nightshifts?" Jimin asked from the sidelines, suddenly interested in the conversation.

"Namjoon for example. He can speak Chinese," Taehyung added, eyes on his phone case again.

"Of course," Yoongi said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "Because having a lingual wonder boy is all we need. Who cares about a working visa, or work experience, or even an authentic bank account for the payment?" The hacker seemed to be pissed that Taehyung was at his phone again.

The crimson looked up at the aggressive tone and sighed, then he sat up to join their conversation with all his brain, apparently having realized that his best friend did not take his behavior very well. When he spoke, it was with the attitude of a bored man who was sure that they would find a solution for this problem as well. "Technically, Namjoon has work experience with him being a cop and all-" Namjoon's stomach jumped at the mentioning of his old profession. "-but I guess you're right about the payment. And I suppose, we can't fake an identity?"

The hacker shook his head and a frown sneaked its way onto the pale face.

Several minutes passed in silence while everyone seemed to think about their possibilities. Well, not everyone, but at least Taehyung and Yoongi were thinking. Namjoon had no idea how to approach this problem and neither did Jimin, judged by the Cinderella's expectant look at the two thieves.

"What if we don't get them from the inside-inside but from the outside-inside?" the artist asked in his cryptic Taehyung-ish.

"What?" Jimin asked dumbly, and Namjoon was happy that there was finally someone with them who spared him the humiliation of asking.

Yoongi's face had brightened decisively. "He means we should get close to the guards as a resident, not as a staff member," the hacker explained and Namjoon could watch the gears working behind the glossy cat eyes that stared into the off.

"But we can't afford an apartment in the tower," Namjoon intervened confused. This method was just as impossible as the first one.

"There's no need to," Taehyung said with eyes that told Namjoon he was simply to narrowminded to see the big picture, "They only need to believe that we're a resident. The perks of shift duty."

Namjoon still did not understand. "I don't get it."

Yoongi sighed but smiled at the same time; this problem apparently was solved as well. "The trick is to come in before the change of shifts and leave afterwards. The second shift will always only see you leaving the building. It's easiest used on the early shift because leaving a logic behavior in the morning, and businessmen will be out all day, so only the shift in the afternoon or evening would be able to see them coming back. The early shift will think it's a resident who leaves for work."

Now it made sense. "But we have to trick the night shift, not the morning shift," Namjoon noted.

Taehyung grinned widely and looked straight into his eyes. "Right, that's why we need a night club owner." Three pairs of eyes fixated on him, and Namjoon felt like the temperature in the room had increased. "Mr. Kim Namjoon, owner of the Black Dragon, new money, now resident of the tower."

Namjoon sighed. It seemed that he once again had to play a role. Why were it always the rich guys he had to play?

"Let's dress him up," Jimin said excitedly and Taehyung nodded approvingly.

Yoongi shook his head in disbelieve. "What are you? Girls? We don't even know when they change shifts, so calm down Mary-Kate and Ashley."

Namjoon did not quite know what had happened, but the redhead as well as Jimin stared at the hacker dumbfoundedly.

"What's wrong?" he asked confused. That the two were not the designer duo was quite obvious, but why was that a problem?

"You know the Olsen twins? You?" Taehyung asked with wide eyes.

"YouTube's ways are inexplicable," the hacker mumbled embarrassed and made the whole room laugh.

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It was five minutes before eleven and Yoongi and him were waiting outside of the tower lobby.

"I think you should go in now," the hacker murmured and looked at him directly. "You're not Kim Namjoon the ex-cop or counter boy now, you own the Black Dragon-" For some reason the silly name had stuck with them. "-and you've got money. Enough money to afford a loft in this tower and still live comfortably. But you know what it's like to be a small man because you made your way up alone. Now go, new money, and convince me."

The pep talk had done quite a good job, though Namjoon would never admit that. He felt ready now. His back was straight, his nose a little higher in the air than necessary but his face open and his smile warm. He took one last deep breath, then he stepped inside and walked past the two guys in their glass container and up the low stairs to the elevators.

So far so good, he thought when the elevator opened, and he stepped inside, pressing a random button. Now, he only would have to wait for Yoongi's call and come down again.

When he reached his floor, he sat down on the small bench across from the elevators and waited. He never would have guessed that waiting could be this nerve-racking after the years he had spent in observation cars, but he felt much too warm and out of place. The cleaning lady who had entered the floor some minutes ago and slowly walked down the hallway from one end to the other was not helping his nerves either. But damn it, he had done so good as the manager of their fake band during the MMCA job, so why was he sweating it now?

Well, last time he had been a cop on a mission and playing along had been essential to getting what he wanted, so he had been able to trick himself into believing it was all for the greater good. But now he was only Kim Namjoon, here to steal something like a real criminal with no excuse for his behavior because he had signed to become one of them. When he had agreed to Yoongi's plan of getting him out of prison, he had signed to help them with their missions and illegal wheeling and dealing. He could have stayed behind bars, knowing that he was innocent, but he had decided to choose freedom over justice, because justice had failed him. And maybe he had liked it, the work with Taehyung and Suga. He would never admit that aloud though.

But damn him if he could not pull this off. He was the rich club owner Kim Namjoon for now, not Kim Namjoon the idiot who had been tricked into his own social annihilation. He was good at playing roles, so why not put it to use to impress Yoongi a little.

"Wǎnshang hǎo," he greeted the lady when she was close enough not to make this conversation weird.

"Wǎnshang hǎo," she greeted him back with a smile and leaned down to the next hallway trash can to empty it into the big bag on her cart. It was quite clever to do this during the night time when no resident would have to witness the dirty job.

"I locked myself out," he said in basic Chinese, hoping that his pronunciation was good enough. "Now I have to sleep at a friend's home."

"Poor Sir," she answered, "Did you lose the key?"

"No, I kept my card with my smartphone and now it's broken," he said, having remembered the hacker's mumbled words about LoCo and HiCo. Magnetic keycards had two levels. Low and High Coercivity. Modern Systems used HiCo because the information could not get lost by just holding your card against a smartphone or fridge magnet, but especially older hotels still used LoCo cards, which of the information was easily made unreadable by rubbing it against a mobile phone for some seconds.

Her eyes grew wide with pity and Namjoon begged that his long shot had been a hit. "You are not the first one, Sir. The bosses said they would modernize the system, but there is still no change. But you can ask the manager to let you in," she confirmed his guess. Yoongi would be delighted to hear the news.

"I will ask them. Xièxiè," he replied with fake happiness and stood up to press the elevator button to follow through with his words. He could wait for the hacker's call three levels below. So, elated by the news he had to tell, he stepped into the small cabin and rode it downstairs.

Five minutes later, the phone in his pocket vibrated and made him jump. Time to convince the security that he belonged into this place. Determined he pressed the button of the ground level.

Of course, this was not a one-night thing. Yoongi had explained to him that from this day on, he would come here every evening until the day of the job. He would build up the picture of an amiable resident with an uncommon job and slowly start talking to the night shift personnel to find out their weaknesses. A twisted job, if he thought about it, but also extremely exciting, he had to admit.

The elevator door opened, and he stepped out, walked down the stairs, and turned towards the guy in the glass cubicle to greet him with a brief but warm 'wǎn ān'. Then he went out the door with determined strides of a businessman in a hurry.

"It's only one guard," he whisper to the pale smoking man in the shadow of the other side of the street. Yoongi's cat eyes lit up with the same thought he just had. This would make his job so much easier. "And they use LoCo keycards," he added, happy to share his knowledge.

"How'd you find out?" The hacker looked impressed, and Namjoon felt childish proudness bubbling up in his chest.

"I talked to the cleaning lady," he whispered with a grin.

The other nodded appreciatively and buried his fists deeper in the pockets of his ripped jeans. "Good job, Joonie."

Namjoon snorted at the nickname. It was strange to hear it out of the mouth that originally had only hissed at him with venom, but at the same time it felt like a warm shower. He had grown closer to them; he was no longer a foreign part of the gang.

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