The Aftermath
DBU's Team F
The morning breeze feels horrible at this time of the year. I hardly able to open my eyes due to the wind and it feels awful to let my hands out of my jacket. To think that I'm actually all the way South makes me feel so annoyed at the weather. Imagine if I were in my house right now? I might just curl on my bed and never come out. Assuming that I didn't have this case to deal with, of course.
"Aren't we supposed to work separately?"
I stop walking, looking over my shoulder as I pierce my eyes. Jaejin is walking unwillingly behind me, his hands are on his tablet because I told him to catch up with everything that he has missed. So apparently, he hasn't been putting his earpiece on because he couldn't stand the fact that Bob would interfere his conversation with Peach, and mostly because Skull would actually call him just to talk about random stuff.
"We have less than 6 hours to find the tiger. And you aren't exactly doing a great job at doing it alone," I answer.
"But this is awkward," he protests.
"Awkward?"
"I just slept with you and you turned out to be Gibson!! Oh God, I'm tainted! Give me back my fun time!" Jaejin exclaims.
I roll my eyes as I randomly kick him on the leg. "Do you think I would have slept with you if I knew you were Roy?!"
"I'm so eating popcorn while listening to this," Bob speaks up.
Jaejin's face turns into horror as Bob literally sounds like he is munching on some popcorn. He puts his tablet back to his backpack as he tries to stop himself from shivering at the fact that Bob, among all people, is the one that has the knowledge of this unwanted event.
"Bob, off. I can find out where you live just as easy as how you can hack into our devices. I have my personal informants. And no, you don't know who they are."
"Oh, Gibs! You're no fun!! Fine, fine, fine. I'll turn this thing off. But, what about sending me a great acoustic guitar from your shop. I will keep my mouth shut on this," says Bob.
I frown, "How did you know that I own a shop?"
"I'm a hacker, remember?"
"You son of a b--…"
"Taylor 712ce-N?" Bob demands.
"That is expensive!" I complain.
"Shouldn't be a problem for Jonghun-ssi, right?!"
"He knows your name?!" Jaejin's eyes widen up.
"And probably yours too. He knows everything about us even when he's not supposed to because he's nosy like that," I sigh. "Okay, fine. Give me your address so that I can send it to you."
"Oh, nice try, Jonghun-ssi. Not gonna give you my address. I'll send someone to your shop to take it from you. Deal?"
I'm that close to just say no to this deal, but Jaejin is giving me the look. It looks almost as if he is trying to make me give in to the offer. He's probably worried that Mr. H will find out about this and maybe he doesn't want to make an uproar on his first month getting transferred to the DBU. Why is he here anyway? A space-grid expert? He definitely doesn't look like one. He looks more like a recovering drug addict or something.
"Deal," I say at the end. "I'll email you the transaction number then."
"Awesome! Signing out now, people. Call me when you miss me," says Bob, half laughing.
Jaejin stares at me confusedly, probably isn't prepared to be in this team. He probably was thinking that this would be a highly organised team that would help him for being new. It might shock him to no end to know that blackmailing isn't so uncommon here, and that our analyst will not work on an empty stomach, or that our informant is a very chatty brat. Sleeping with his field partner was probably the last thing on his mind when he agreed to take this job. Dude, even I never imagined that things like this would happen to me.
"Last night never happened," he speaks up.
"Never happened."
"And I'm not Jaejin."
"You're not. I'm not Jonghun either," I nod, agreeing.
"This will be the only time we work side by side like this," he continues.
"Unless it's an emergency situation, yes, this will be the only time."
"Good."
We spend a while to just stand there and stare at each other. It's such a waste really, because I would have really continued meeting Jaejin for some fun time if not because he was Roy. He's not all that super gorgeous or anything, but he has a somehow intriguing and unforgettable face. He was also less of a pain in the when he didn't know that I was Gibson. Such a regret.
"This way, Roy," I say at the end, turning around to head to the location that Peach said has the highest probability of appearances. And I now have to stick with Jaejin’s codename, sadly.
---
Some of the doubts that I have on Roy suddenly disappear when I actually get to see him working with my own eyes. His analytical skill is far beyond Peach's and he's actually a very serious person when it comes to work. He says very little during the search, and he also manages to narrow down Peach's search area even further just by reading the data.
He notices movement better than I do, even when he has zero field-experience. Not once or twice he actually sees the tiger while I only manage to catch a glimpse of it. His hearing ability is amazing too. As someone that plays piano and guitar, I will consider myself sensitive when it comes to sound. Roy, however, can listen to something that is really low, as low as a vibration.
But that's pretty much all about it. Everything else is still very doubtful.
"Damn it, tablet!" he groans, shaking his tablet in a furious way.
"What's wrong?" I turn to him.
"This damned tablet hates me, obviously," Roy frowns. "And so does every other technology device that Skull gave me as a matter of fact."
"Weren’t you a space-grid expert? Aren't you guys supposed to be very high-tech or something?"
Roy looks at me unamusedly, as if I just said something totally bizarre and unexpected.
"Exactly. This is very primitive. Each one of us has our own A.I. They're pretty much intelligent agents that assist us. In short, every command, calculation or whatever, is done using a voice command. I hardly had to touch a keyboard or a screen. And what is this operating system? IOS? Freaking Apples," he complains, frowning when he still fails to deal with his tablet.
"Android, actually. The hardware is Korean-made," I answer, half laughing.
"Why doesn't DBU use WSO's own operating system? It's an insult to our amazing A.I." he complains.
"It's too high-tech for some, and more often than not, it doesn't really supervise our job. Bob is using standard WSO’s operating system (WSO-OS) though. He's actually reconstructing WSO-OS to fit DBU's job. Once he's done with it, we all will have a proper WSO-OS equipped devices. But then again, it seems that our current devices are 'too high-tech' for you."
"Oh come on. I doubt you even know what A.I. means."
My smile disappears from my face. He obviously is a smart- and I obviously a little bit behind in the brain department. So what? I don't know what A.I. means, big deal. I doubt he knows how to use a plasma gun. Skull didn’t even give him a tranquilliser. That is expensive. Even more than a bullet. Skull obviously doesn’t trust Roy’s skill when it comes to firearms.
"What did Skull give you for your handgun?"
Roy tilts his head at the question. "G37. Why?"
"A normal handgun?! Seriously?" I frown.
"I used to have a G21, so this is a massive improvement," he shrugs. "What do you have?"
"Well, like what I told you, a tranquilliser," I answer. "And plasma gun HG7," I grin.
This time his smile disappears. He clearly thinks that it’s so unfair but he doesn’t seem to have an argument to throw at me. Disappointment is clearly written all over his face - just the kind of face I was expecting from him. Twitching his upper lip at me, he walks pass me and tries to concentrate on the searching. Butthurt much?
"You don’t have a plasma handgun qualification, do you?" I smirk in satisfaction. A newbie will forever be a newbie.
"Didn’t need one. They only wanted a doctoral degree in physics," he answers me in an annoyed tone. "I’ve read your CV. Do you even have a bachelor degree? What was it again that you have? A diploma?"
"Hey! I have two diplomas!"
"Two diplomas," Roy emphasises.
When I want to argue more, Roy's eyes suddenly divert away from me, his hand travels slowly to the back of his jeans where he has kept his gun. I quickly realise that this can only mean one thing. There's something that is moving behind me.
So slowly, I turn my head - hand steadily reaches out for my tranquilliser gun. There, just a couple of meters away from me, the white tiger that Peach has been talking about the entire day (pretty much repeating everything that Bob has said to us) stands proudly by the side of a tree. Its eyes are fixed on both of us, boring instinctively at its potential preys.
"Do you think you can handle a tranquilliser gun?" I say to Roy.
"What?"
"I'm gonna allure him towards the pagoda. Get to a higher ground or anywhere that you find comfortable at all, then shoot it with my tranquilliser. We wouldn't want a bullet in this thing when we send him back, would we?"
Roy clicks his tongue disapprovingly, but seemingly moving closer to where I stand anyway. “Ready...?” I cue, waiting for the right moment for the plan to work.
“Go!”
I throw my tranquilliser gun to him, running all the way to the tiger to shift its attention only to me. It works. The white beauty quickly gets fixated at me, stepping back a little to see what I am up to. It doesn’t move an inch when I stop just about a yard from it, seemingly calm but its eyes tell it all. It wants me.
I glance at my surrounding to find Roy’s position, but he’s no where to be found. Good, he should be ready soon. I drag one of my leg to the side slowly, eyes now back at the creature before me, somehow admiring the well-defined tiger. It follows my movement. Slowly and gently, almost as if it feels more curious about me than wanting to eat me up on the spot. Now this will be a good time to escape.
As soon as I start to run away from it, it jumps forward - its two strong front legs are aimed at me. I manage to dodge them just by an inch, the edge of my dark grey jacket is caught by its claws. Damn it! It's my favourite jacket.
I run off towards the forest’s direction, but fail to make it far when I feel a massive power crashing me down. My body falls onto the ground, rolling around in the mist of a fight between finding my balance and avoiding the tiger’s attack. One of its claws manages to scratch my left cheek, I can taste my own blood as I continue to struggle. Any minute now, Roy! Shoot this damned thing or it’ll be the end of me!
Suddenly I feel a stinging pain on the outer side of my thigh. And everything goes black.
---
I wake up on the ground, all sticky from dried sweat but my fingers feel numb from the winter cold. My head is spinning, even more when I try to sit up. What the hell happened?!
“You’re awake?"
I look up, finding Roy sitting on the edge of the temple’s entrance step. “What happened?" I ask.
“You got knocked out. But I managed to shoot her before she did any damage.”
“She?” I frown.
Roy pulls his hand out from his jacket’s pocket, pointing his finger towards the direction of the pagoda. “The tiger, I mean. It’s a she.”
There, a similar wave that I saw yesterday starts to open up. Before it, lies a big white tiger that I went against before I got knocked out. On its shoulder, there are two darts of tranquilliser sticking into its firm back muscles. It seems that Roy managed to shoot him before anything bad happened to me.
“You used two?!” I glare at him.
“What?! I was panicked! She could have eaten you, you know.”
Perfect. Now I will have to make up a story as to why I needed two darts even when I’m one of DBU’s best shooters, and while trying to hide the fact that I kind of worked with Roy in this. Mr. H is very meticulous and he hardly misses small details like this. I might want to be careful about it.
“We should push her to the time-leak and seal it,” I say, standing up while trying to fight the never ending headache.
Roy nods. He quickly walks towards the tiger while I reach out to my abandoned sling bag on the ground, taking the time-sealer from it. I’m not surprised when I find Roy trying his best to push the tiger to the time-leak and failing miserably. He definitely needs to build more muscle and train his stamina. Looking like a recovering drug-addict is not really appealing, especially for this job.
“Do you even exercise?” I frown, helping him with the push.
His face turns sour almost right away. But there’s something holding him back that he doesn’t retort back like he usually does. Maybe he just wants to get the job done as soon as possible and to get some rest right away. And with that sour face, he keeps silent and just goes with it.
I let him deal with the time-sealer, knowing that this will help him to learn how to use ’primitive’ technologies on the field. I definitely do not want to keep on being the one that brings all the equipment. If this continues, I will have to ditch my bag and get a backpack instead.
When everything is done, I quickly pack my stuff, fix my coat and try to find my lost hat. It must have fallen during my fight with the tiger. I then look down to clean the dirt on my pants, only to notice an awfully familiar dart on the outer side of my thigh.
"Tranquilliser dart?" my eyes widen up, pulling it out from my thigh - a rather familiar stinging pain quickly travels throughout my body.
"Oh… I forgot to mention that I accidentally shot you," Roy mumbles, slowly stepping back.
I fist my hand at the realisation that Roy actually wasted three tranquilliser darts; and one of them is on me! I turn my head to him, eyes are piercing hard at the other guy. He smiles awkwardly in return, stepping back again.
"Well, I guess that's all for today. Good job, Gibson!!!" he exclaimed, turning around and running away as fast as he can.
T-that brat! I'm gonna kill him one day!
---
Things have finally calmed down after the tiger incident. There is no report on any attack in Changwon, and residents have started to forget about what happened. This also includes my life. With no case to work on, I am now back in my shop; helping Jonghyun with the book keeping and whatnot. Just living normal life as if there was nothing interesting happened recently.
"No business trip this time?" Jonghyun asked.
"Nope," I smile, staring up to Jonghyun.
Jonghyun is from Busan. He's tall, even taller than me. His skin is fair, way too fair. I still remember the day he came to my shop, asking if I was still looking for a full-timer while pointing at the classified board I put on my window. His dream is to become a musician. Sometimes, during the weekend, he will perform at a local bar and I will come to support him. Of course, he learned everything from me.
The sound of the door being opened brings me back from my thought, the bell that I have attached to the door makes a beautiful ring and lightens up the shop. A tall, lanky guy walks in. He looks young, but cannot be a lot younger than me. His hair is disturbingly straight and silky, his long legs suit the skinny jeans that he's wearing, and overall, he looks pretty casual. Then, a goofy smile grows on his face when our eyes meet.
"I'm here to see Choi Jonghun-ssi?" he speaks up, smiling widely and brightly.
"That's me. What can I help you with?" I put the guitar that I was tuning back to its stand, quickly making my way to our customer.
"I was told to personally get an acoustic guitar from you," the tall guy answers.
"Do you have the receipt?" I turn to the cashier table, walking behind the computer to check on it.
The guy looks at me confusedly. He quickly trails his hand to his jeans and takes his phone out. "I don't have the receipt. But I have the transaction number."
"If it hasn't been paid, in some cases it's alright. Only for regular customers though. But I prefer the receipt, to be honest," I explain.
He looks at me again, smiling this time. There is something about his smile that makes me want to literally scratch it away with a fork or something. It's a great big smile, but it looks annoying.
"Well, I was told that I should just give the transaction number to you and you'd know what to do," he places his phone on the wooden table.
I stare at the screen, quickly entering the transaction number to my computer. "Taylor 712ce-N?" I mumble, scheming through the purchasing detail - which surprisingly is empty.
"Yeah, that's the guitar," the guy comments.
"Let me check on it first," I say at the end. "Jonghyun! Come here and take a look at this!"
Jonghyun quickly came to where I am, taking over the computer to have a look at the transaction that is on the screen. He read through it one more time before turning to me while mumbling "Ah, this one."
"Do you know about this?"
"Yeah. You called me about two weeks ago to spare a Taylor 712ce-N. You said it's a gift for a friend but you wanted a transaction code, so I left the payment part empty," Jonghyun explains.
It then suddenly hits me what this transaction actually means. There is only one person that I remember forced me to give him an acoustic guitar. Can it be that this person…?
"You look bigger in real life," the customer suddenly speaks up.
I turn my head to him, eyes widen up.
"Can I get my new guitar now, Gibs?" he grins.
I swear that my body just freezes at the name that he used to call me. This can't be happening. This is a breach of work ethic!
Bob. ing Bob.
In person.
------
I totally forgot to post this even when I was done with it long ago OTL. My bad! Will work on the next one soon.
P.S. If you have any suggestion or whatnot, feel free to tell me :D
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