~Chapter 1~

~Much Ado About Nothing~

“Good morning, Miss Im” Called the familiar voice, with warm bursting from the cold exterior of the building.

“Ha-ha, Good Morning Mr. Jung, but don’t you think you should wait until I get to the door to greet me?” I replied, my lips pasted with strawberry lip stain.

“Ha-ha, guess I couldn’t wait”

I made my way up the series of four steps to the rotating doorway and nodded at the doorman that always found a way to fill me with happiness in the cold, brisk mornings in which I would travel to work.

“Have you heard?”

“Heard about what?” I queried, slowing my pace to return to him.

“New receptionist, maybe this time you can become friends?” He chuckled.

“I have no idea what you are referring to in terms of ‘this time’, Mr. Jung” I said as I stared him down.

Within a few seconds, I couldn’t hold it in, we both burst into laughter at the mere thought of me becoming ‘chummy’ with another employee in the building.

“I really must be going though, don’t freeze to death!” I smiled.

“Well, I should hope not, I just wish that management would change this stupid uniform, its freezing in the winter!” He shuddered.

“Tell you what, once I get to my office, I’ll send someone down to bring you a coffee from the staff office” I flashed one of my most goofy smiles, knowing what he would say next.

“Rather freeze than drink that stuff, ugh, always tastes like paper”

“You know the taste of paper?” I replied.

“Dare in high school, anyway you must be off, Miss Im”

“Oh, yes, I do wish I could stay put here all day and speak to you though, Daehyun”

“Well, never the mind… Yoona,” He broke into a smile, “Now, off with you, before I beg you to stay”

“Oh, well okay then, good-bye”

I waved as I walked over to the 4 glass rotating pillars that would allow me entry into the building that I called ‘Work’.

As soon as I walked in, I felt eyes drop onto me, ‘She’s been speaking to the doorman… again.’ They said in their minds, ‘What is with her?’, another line that would almost definitely be thought.

My heels clicked as they met with the tiles, my face unchanging, until I reached the receptionists desk, at which point I place my handbag upon the counter and smiled down at the seated western-looking woman, who was astounded at the silence of the room that came with my arrival. She nervously looked around at her co-workers who were staring holes into my back.

“Good morning, Miss…?”

“Oh, um… Miss Bell”

“Very pleased to make your acquaintance Miss Bell, where are you from?”

Again a confused face, I couldn’t tell whether her Korean was basic, or she was nervous, either way she left a good ten seconds before stuttering a reply.

“I am from Australia, I came here a few weeks ago, and this job offer popped up, so I accepted it”

“Ah, well, that’s the way gaining a job usually goes.” I chuckled, to which she followed.

“Well, I must be off, could you do me a favour, Miss Bell?” I smiled as I leaned in, aware the other people around us were craning their necks to listen in.

“Could you send, Mr. Jung out there a coffee, but not from the staff room?”

“Ah, sure” She weakly smiled.

“Great” I said as I picked up my bag and walked towards the elevator, aware that Mr. Jung would be ecstatic for a cup of warm coffee.

I leaned forward, still feeling the full impact of a thousand eyes bearing down heavily on me, and pressed the button for floor 55.

The top floor.

I sound much too full of myself, don’t I?

Should I not be… should I say being a personal assistant to a CEO of a huge line of companies’ ?, but, truthfully, that CEO is a CEO as a side job.

Yes, a side job.

Mr. Kang is actually the ringleader of ISI.

Institution of Spies International.

He writes out all of the employees pay checks, as well as death orders.

What a crazy world, eh?

I arrived at floor 55, bag strap comfortably sitting upon my slender shoulder, legs striding towards a frosted glass door that led to Mr. Kang’s office, a room that many employees have been feared to be called up to, to me however, it meant a mission, and there was nothing I loved more than a mission. I knocked on the door, which was followed by a brisk, “Enter”

I did so and found my boss, thumbing through files in the cabinet that sat directly across another cabinet of that same making.

My boss had a thing for symmetry, quite like me.

“I have been in this position for 20 years now, and can still never find a file.” He said, biting his lip in annoyance.

“Maybe sir, because that’s my job, well at least it is supposed to be” I said as I walked over dropping my bag on the floor next to his desk.

He looked at me, “I just need to find the file with today’s date”

Within a millisecond, I pulled the file from the cabinet and smiled at him.

He smile back, and took the file from my hands.

“Cheeky, now sit down” He said.

I sat in the brown leather chair that was sat next to a duplicate chair behind the desk.

“What’s today”

“So impatient, Miss Im, patience is a virtue”

I kept silent, I knew he needed silence to concentrate.

“Now, exciting news, you have a new partner!” He smiled up at me.

“What?! But, Yuri? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Yuri… left the company”

“But she didn’t even tell me?”

“Never mind, now you have a new partner, by the name of Kim Heechul”

“A guy?!” I was shocked, in all these years I had never been placed with a male partner.

“Yes, why, are you not agreeing to this?”

“Ah, No, of course I will have to agree but…”

“But nothing, head into your office and get changed” He snapped.

I my heels, and walked into my office that adjoined his and got changed, sliding my black boots up the length of my leg, up until my knee.

The end of my boots couldn’t even be seen, as they merged perfectly with the black pants I had adorned and black shirt that made me look like a criminal.

At least I had my cobalt blue nails.

When I had finished dressing and pulled my hair into a tight ponytail, I headed over to the fireplace that sat at the end of my office, and tapped the brick above it.

A short second later, I heard the familiar whirs of machinery that rotated the fireplace allowing a secret entrance for Yuri and myself.

Now, just myself…

I went through and felt the usual tug of gravity pull me down through the building. Falling, but not quite.

I was never sure how Mr. Kang did this, Magic, he always said.

After falling down 55 floors, my descent started to slow as I reached the ground. I had arrived at what Yuri and I had often referred to as ‘The Subway’

My surroundings lit up as the small circular lights in the ceiling flickered on.

This underground place, was where spies from this building were able to take transport to anywhere in the city, without the interference of civilians.

Mind you, only Yuri and I ever saw use of it, nobody else in the building was a spy, and the CEO always had a helicopter at the ready.

I sat waiting at the benches, feeling saddened by the disappearance of Yuri

“Yuri-ah, why did you not tell me? Why didn’t you say something?”

“What did you want me to say?” Said a low, unsettling voice behind me,

And I turned to face the man, and my mouth dropped in awe.