Hana

“Kyungsoo.”

The man in a suit, glasses, and side swept hair taps his fingers against the desk separating the two of us, “I was wondering when you were going to call me.”

Despite his heart-shaped lips and calm demeanor, I knew only too well about how ruthless he could be when working, mostly thanks to Chanyeol. If Chanyeol was a man of gentle manipulation and smiles, Kyungsoo was a man of force. Together, they were a hefty duo.

But Chanyeol wasn’t available, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sure that Kyungsoo would be as valuable to me without Chanyeol to keep him in check.

Did I trust Do Kyungsoo? No.

But did I really trust anyone? Call me a cynic of the worst kind, and I wouldn’t even deny it.

“What can I do for you, Hana?” Do Kyungsoo arches an eyebrow, a hint of a smirk on his lips.

“You know what happened to Chanyeol.” It isn’t a question. And it doesn’t need to be. It was an ugly fact that was sitting on the table, and until Kyungsoo dropped his playful mood from his annoyingly handsome face, nothing important would get done.

And sure enough, Kyungsoo’s eyes harden, mouth turning down, “Yes.”

“You know what I’m going to offer you, right?” I push the folder across the table, the word TERMINATION clearly written across the top. It was a way out. The stakes were a lot higher after what happened to Chanyeol, and I was going to give him a way out.

“You’re asking me to quit.”

“I’m asking you to save yourself.”

Kyungsoo flips through the pages of the folder, and then looks back up, snapping the folder closed and pushing it back toward me, “Hana, I think you’re forgetting who I am.”

And for a second, I forget the fact that he’s a businessman and look at the man that Chanyeol had introduced me to years ago. He was a little younger then, but he looked relatively the same. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol argued too much for their own good, but it usually ended up with Kyungsoo being annoyed with Chanyeol as Chanyeol’s wide grin stretched from ear to ear.

Their cat and dog relationship brought a smile to everyone’s faces, but things changed when they entered the business world. Kyungsoo had grown colder to everyone but Chanyeol had been the only one keeping him sane. In the rare moments that he talked to me as a person instead of a businessman, I saw the hints of the old Kyungsoo peeking through.

“I’m not forgetting who you are. I’m reminding you what happened with Chanyeol,” My voice is softer, almost pleading him to sign the termination document and to run away from what was at stake. Because it could very well be his life.

“I won’t sign it,” Kyungsoo’s lips quirk up. “What’s life without a little danger?”

“A life of safety, really.” I murmur back. “Chanyeol dug a little too deep and someone wanted to eliminate him.”

“I’ll be careful,” Kyungsoo scoots his chair back, smoothing a hand over his hair. “After all, now Chanyeol has to live vicariously through me.” He ends the conversation with a terse, “We’ll be in contact,” before slipping out the door and leaving a hanging silence in the room.

I sigh.

If Lay had been here, I would have called him in and told him to help me convince Kyungsoo, but I had given him a few weeks off so he could work from home and get attached to Ahyeon. Lay, being the over-worker that he was, was still very ahead of deadlines and was compiling our case file against Kim Jongin. In the meantime, the two of us had slowly cut off almost all the information that Kim Jongin had access to, in order to not raise suspicion.

The man never really had a chance. And I was lucky in my instinct to keep the drug testing in a separate sector that the rest of the company was not informed of.

I unmute the four-way phone call with a tap of my finger, and then sigh again. “Jimin, Kyungsoo refused.”

Jimin had been working around the clock in order to secure our finances and shares, and he breathes raggedly into the receiver.

“Did you drink too many energy drinks again?”

“Sue me,” Jimin snaps, and I know better than to push it. The stress was getting to him, and I make a note to get him food and make him sleep an hour or two when I’m home.

Namjoon’s voice, on the other hand, is crystal clear. “We expected that much from Kyungsoo. He’s also the only source of information that we have now.”

Jungkook stays silent, but that was nothing new. He had been silent around me since we came back from the family dinner, and that was fine with me. I had been too busy to listen to his apologies and attempts to talk to me, and I had gone to the doctor myself to switch the ankle boot out for a brace.

Of course, I hadn’t mentioned that I had been so busy because I was running in between work and Lay’s house to see Ahyeon and Yoongi. Only Jimin knew the details, and that’s how I wanted it to stay.

I end the four-way phone call and yawn. It was getting late and most people were clearing out of the building, so that meant I had maybe a thirty minute window to see Ahyeon. Yoongi would probably be there in forty, and I had no intention to break my promise to Lay.

I throw on my coat and slip my laptop into my bag, locking the office behind me. My eyes flicker to Lay’s empty desk before I slip into the elevator, punching in the button for the bottom floor. The lobby is empty, and the security guards nod to me. The taxi is sitting right outside the door, like usual, and I get inside.

But as soon as I turn my head, I freeze. Even though I barely recognized the man from the pictures I had seen online, there was no doubt that his glasses, style, and artfully mussed hair were the same.

Who exactly was Huang Zitao and why was he driving my taxi?
 

Suga
 

Lay had a great poker face. He had made the excuse of some important personal business coming up, and he told me to take Ahyeon for a few hours so he could sort out the mess. I didn’t question