Kim’s Residence, 6:05 am.

“For the love of- please turn off that alarm, Woohyun.” Sunggyu groaned as he rolled over, his forearm covering his eyes.

The younger male gave a low chuckle and quickly tapped his iPhone, manually turning off the ear splitting sequence.

“Sorry, babe. Duty calls.” The brunette gave a peck on Sunggyu’s cheek before slipping his leather shoes on, ignoring the laces that had slightly come undone.

“Since when do you wake up this early?” Sunggyu groaned as he squinted past his arm and glared at Woohyun.

“Since I got a case.” Woohyun simply stated, grabbing his briefcase and confidently striding towards the door.

“We’re still on for dinner, right Gyu?”

Silence followed, which acted as a confirmation between the two.

Woohyun was about to close the door behind him softly before he had some blankets shuffling,

“And Woohyun?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t call me babe.”

Kim Sunggyu's office, 9am

“Morning, Boss. Got a meeting after lunch with the devils, I’ve got the files ready for you to look over now.” Dongwoo said with a grin, excited that the SM case was getting somewhere (and secretly, because of his late night coffee date(?) with the mysterious consulting detective.)

“Good work, as always, Dongwoo. Actually starting to get a bit concerned about how good you are at this.” Sunggyu grabbed the manila folder, giving his assistant a knowing glance before walking towards his desk.

Sunggyu spent the rest of the morning scanning through the files that Dongwoo had taken from the SM office. Sticky notes were scattered carelessly on the table and on the carpet, joining the crumpled pages lying on the floor filled with flawed arguments that the successful lawyer decided were useless.

Dongwoo was not much different, scanning through pages and pages of employee contracts and circling statements and clauses which were of interest. He rubbed his eyes before reading the next line in Jonghyun’s contract.

I, Kim Jonghyun, will not disclose the information contained in file number 04728.

Multiple signatures followed the document and a tab referenced a small envelope labeled 04728. Dongwoo scrunched his eyebrows in curiosity and quickly opened the envelope. He ran through its contents and took a deep breath.

“Boss, we got a problem.”

Archer’s Café, 1:30pm.

“How did last night go?” Woohyun looked up as the golden brown haired man sat down opposite him.

“Not even a hello to your cousin? Seriously, Hyun?” The other replied jokingly as he waved over at the waitress to bring him a coffee, black, with no sugar.

“Apologies, Hoya. Now, Hyung, please.” Woohyun rolled his eyes as he folded the morning newspaper to the side.

“Surprisingly mutually beneficial for both of us. Here, I’ve got something of interest for you.” Hoya passed a brown envelope to the younger man who grabbed it almost immediately.

Woohyun scanned through it and anxiously thumbed the top of the page.

“This is nothing new, Hoya. I need something substantial.” The younger bit his lip and narrowed his eyes in anger.

“This is all I could find at the office about your dad’s accident. Look at the second page, the back.” Hoya gestured for Woohyun to turn the page as he took a sip of his coffee.

“The records say the police department found no weapon that related to your dad. I call bull. I think someone tried to hide this. This corruption might run deeper than we thought.” Hoya narrowed his eyes as Woohyun read the police report with a sigh.

“Alright, what about the other thing?”. The brunette looked up at Hoya expectedly.  

Kim Sunggyu's office, conference room 4, 2pm.

“They’re late.” Sunggyu stated as he twirled his pen around.

“I-“ Jonghyun started before getting cut off with a look by his lawyer.

“Don’t start, we’ll get on to the unfortunate problem you’ve decided to hide from us after this bloody meeting with SM’s lawyers.” Sunggyu grunted as he ignored Jonghyun’s apologetic look.

Dongwoo gave the pop star a sympathetic smile with a shrug and skimmed down the clauses in Jonghyun’s employee contract to make sure his list of breaches made by SM was completely noted.

The lift opened and far away footsteps could be heard. Sunggyu continued glancing at his documents, knowingly full well that he would be seen as disrespectful to the opposition’s lawyers.

Dongwoo had stood up and offered his hands to the lawyers, surprised at how young they looked.

“Hi, Mr Lee, I believe we’ve met before.” Dongwoo spoke with the shorter SM representative, giving a nod of recognition.

“Please, Dongwoo, call me Sungjong. This is my colleague-“. Sungjong started as he gestured to the other SM representative.

“Nam Woohyun, just Woohyun is fine.” A familiar low voice cut in as he shook Dongwoo’s hand.

At this, Sunggyu glanced up immediately and dropped his pen loudly onto his page.

“What the actual f-“

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Can't even start on the apology! unfortunately, i've outgrown my kpop love but i decided to at least try and finish this story! Let me know if you guys still want me to finish this - if not i'll probably just be on a permanent hiatus. Hope you're all well and have had avery happy new year!