Bora was facing her front door. She smoothed down her outfit and hair, and took a deep breath. She knocked on the door, beating her knuckles with unnecessary strength.

She could almost trick herself into thinking her mother would be in the kitchen cooking something delicious while her father would come to get the door. Almost. Truth was, she had no family to come home to.

A few seconds later, the door unlocked snapping her out of her haze. She came face to face with her father. She looked at him, really looked at him this time. His pepper-salt hair. His calm face. Long gone was the vigorous look he adorned while speaking to Jackson. He didn’t look like a man with heavy secrets buried six-feet deep underneath the surface. This time, she looked beyond the façade and suddenly she wasn’t face to face with a caring and oblivious father. No, she was face to face with a man she didn’t know. She was living with a stranger.

She swept past him but halted in front of the stairs.

“Did anyone come by?” She tested, turning around.

“No one.” He replied imperturbable.

Lies, lies, lies. She balled her fists and studied his features for anything that could seem off compared to his usual self. Her last hopes faded out just like matches would die with the breeze.

His lying face is his everyday face, she thought bitterly.

“Oh, Woo Bin came by looking for you. He said you’d left early. Is the exhibition over already?” He dared ask her.

She didn’t reply straight away. She needed to keep up the act. Make him believe she was still his stupidly gullible daughter.

“It’s not. I felt sick.” She lied after making sure she could trust her voice from not breaking.

The art of lying must run in the family, because he didn’t pry for more information, satisfied with her paltry excuse. He nodded and she turned back, running up the stairs before he could go on pretending he cared.

If you’d asked Bora what her life priorities were 24 hours ago, she’d have replied something along the lines of graduating college, opening her very own art gallery and having her pieces exhibited in the world’s most renowned museums. Very mundane things, if you asked her. Now she wasn’t so sure anymore. Things that never mattered before started to matter and things that used to matter now seemed risible. A hole she thought she had sealed reopened in her heart and it was in the shape of a grave.

Midnight struck. 21 years ago she was born. Bora sighed.

Happy birthday, me. Have a wonderful day.

***

Once in her bedroom, she allowed herself some time to gather her thoughts. Basking in the heavy silence, she sat on the edge on her bed and closed her eyes, recapping the night’s events.

Her mother’s accident wasn’t one. What she guessed was evidence of it was confined in a safe. Her father was part of some shady business which wanted her away from that safe. A safe she could access. The safe was the recurring variable. She needed to get to it. But how?

She racked her brain. Where could it be? Probably in a bank but the problem only thickened. Before she could wonder how to get to the safe, she had to find out which bank it was stashed in. She went through the conversation she’d listened in on. No mention of a bank. A detail came back to her and her eyes lit up.

The notepad. She needed to get the notepad.

***

The notepad turned out to be easier to get to than she had originally thought. No ground-breaking innovative plan required. She just waited until her father went to sleep around 3am and tip-toed her way to the living room. There, she rummaged through all the drawers until she hit the jackpot. It was filled with pens and miscellaneous items. She snatched the notepad and swiftly went back up to her room.

She her desk lamp and examined the notebook. The top of the page was ripped – and tucked away in Jackson’s pocket. Marks from the pressure of her father’s pen had been left on the blank page facing her.

She took a pencil and began darkening the page. Seconds later, she looked eagerly at what appeared before her. On the greyed page stood out letters from the previous page.

She squinted her eyes and wrote down what she read. “SC Capital”. And then, “LJH-08SK”. Finally, a series of numbers she couldn’t make out.

She looked up “SC Capital” on her laptop and almost held her fist above her head in victory.

A bank. SC stood for Standard Chartered. A bank implanted in Seoul. She had a bank, a safe number but the numbers she still couldn’t make out. She had a feeling they were crucial to her plan. What if she was asked a safety code and this was it?

Biting her nails, she decided she’d take her chances and improvise if need be.

The bank opened at 8am, meaning she had five hours to prepare. She showered and went through her rack of clothes, picking an all-black outfit. She tied her hair in a ponytail and tucked it in a dark cap. She looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and what she saw puzzled her mind. It was the complexion of a girl she didn’t know, eyes sparkling and fueled with drive.  Her heart was racing. It was like her body was ahead of time and knew the few hours to come would be life changing.

She was gradually cracking her eyes open to her environment and realizing she hadn’t been living properly before. She had accused her father of being a shell of what he used to be but she was no better. Her life had had no real meaning prior to this night, even though she couldn’t tell it in that moment. The thrill of finding a purpose sent tingles coursing through her whole body.

Her train of thoughts was interrupted by the vibrating of her phone. It was Woo Bin. She didn’t pick up. He would try and convince her to let it go but she was dead set on investigating and she wouldn’t back down for anything.

She stayed in her room most of the night, pacing and stretching. She intended on getting to the safe before Jackson. She had to be two steps ahead of him. The earlier, the better. She just hoped his mindset would diverge from hers. Let him wander around Seoul before retrieving whatever he came for.

Just to make sure, she set off her house at 6am and pulled up half an hour later in the bank’s street. She parked her car on the sidewalk opposite the bank. She stayed in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on the entrance. Bora grinned. She had the perfect angle to monitor the comings and goings of people.

She went to get herself a steamy cup of coffee to help her get through the hour and a half of waiting to a nearby café.

7:50 am. A woman dressed in a suit and adorning a neat bun stopped in front of the bank. She eased the shutters up before stepping inside the building. Bora was checking her appearance in the rearview mirror when something drew her attention in her peripheral vision.

Someone came out from an alleyway she might have never noticed had her attention not been drawn to it. The man had his hands tucked away in his pockets and wore a… black cap. She grunted in irritation and violently slapped her steering wheel in dismay when she recognized the features of her father’s acquaintance. Jackson. That face. He was becoming a mutable variable in her grand scheme of things. She needed to come up with a new plan and quick. If not, her opening to get to the safe would be lost until Doomsday. She would never get to uncover the truths ab