“Where are you,” Jane whispered to herself as she ran her hands along the bottom of his desk. At the moment Chunji and Byunghun were in a meeting so she had one of the few free moments to herself in the office and that itself was spent looking for any places he would hide any hardcover information. So far she had found nothing. She released a heavy sigh and pressed her palms into the cool hardwood underneath herself, using the force to push herself up.

 “Better be finished,” she jostled the mouse and looked at the data showing on the monitor. Her glossed lips tugged into a smirk as she pulled the usb out of his computer. No matter, by then Ricky was already scouring whatever information was stored within his computer. She pushed the recently emptied usb drive into her pocket and walked out of the office closing the door silently behind her, she was barely in her seat before she saw the duo turn onto the hallway, walking towards their office space.

 “Jane,” Chunji smiled pleasantly, a childlike eagerness flashed in his eyes as he placed his hand on her desk, leaning towards her. “I have a surprise for you.” Byunghun grunted in obvious distaste as he walked by the two, sitting down in his desk with a dissatisfied curl of his lips.

 “Do you?” Her eyes widened as she looked at him, Chunji felt a strange glee from seeing her opaque eyes widened in feigned curiosity. He wasn’t so dull to have missed her hidden sincerity, the whole week she had been reluctant to show him anything from behind her mask. But it was that same mask that kept him so infatuated with the idea of her as his pa.

 “Tonight at seven we will be getting together for supper, I expect you to be dressed to the nines.” He jabbed one of his slender fingers at her before pushing himself off of her desk. “And Byunghun,” he swiveled on the heel of his shiny black shoes smirked at his executive assistant. “I expect you to be on your best behaviour.” Chunji ignored the snarl that flashed across his friends face and walked to his office, closing the glass door behind him. Jane’s eyes snapped to the computer screen as a message flashed onto her office chat.

Just because he accepted you doesn’t mean I have

Byunghun

 Jane’s nose crinkled as she read her message, the message itself wasn’t what bothered her, it was the contents. Her eyes lifted as she stared blankly at the younger man, rolling her eyes her fingers flew across the keyboard as she typed a response.

If you want to reveal your angst to me, at least use a less clichéd phrase

Jane

 His nose flared as he glared at her and she barely contained the impulse to stick her tongue out at her companion. Both adults were filled with the inherent need to out mature the other, resulting in the two acting like complete children. The only thing that was good about the situation was that somehow Chunji always missed the moments in which Jane lacked decorum. With the way the two assistants treated each other one would assume that they were siblings.

 “Oh! And Jane,” Chunji walked up to her desk and held a piece of paper out to her, she blinked slowly staring at his hand with a blank face. “You should leave early, you need some clothes for tonight. You have to spend money on yourself, these are the places you need to go to. Get your hair done, I told them how I want it, buy a dress, shoes, and some jewelry. Just give them my name and they will put it on my tab,” reluctantly she took the paper from him and scanned the shops. Every single one was in Myeongdong, she could almost feel her soul leaving her body in a stupefied wisp as she calculated the approximate amount of money he was going to lose by treating her.

 “Pardon?” She could feel her tongue stumbling over her words as looked at Chunji, suddenly only seeing an image of money leaking out of him like a fortune fountain.

 “I already ordered a taxi, it will be here soon. You have the rest of the day off to get ready for tonight. So you better look your best,” Jane logged off of her computer, pulling her coat on as she stared at Chunji is disbelief. “Tonight is going to be a good night,” he smirked at her, looking absolutely pleased before he turned back to face his office. That night was going to be the final test, the only thing that would confirm Jane’s involvement in their office. But there was an odd joy that came with the knowledge of what he planned, he had a feeling that everything would turn out right.

 “Okay, goodbye,” she bowed in farewell before grabbing her bag and pulling it onto her shoulder before leaving the office. Jane pressed her finger into the button for the elevator and waited for it to arrive. The minty flavouring of her lip gloss filled as she bit her bottom lip, she had attempted to have a proper conversation with Chunji all week long and she had failed the whole time, and suddenly he decided to have the longest conversation with her ever. In that span of time he had given her free access to buy whatever she liked at a list of expensive stores and (rather forcefully) told her to accompany him to dinner. She doubted it was proper but it was progress.

 The moment she heard the familiar ting that signaled the elevator had arrived she stepped in and almost bashed the button for the main floor. Jane tapped her heeled toes against the expensive carpeted floor of the elevator she could feel the shaking anticipation that only came with the knowledge that she had at least a few hours to be herself once again. The moment the door opened she almost flew out with the speed she was walking, almost immediately she had a taxi hailed and got in. G.NA opened her bag and pulled out a moist toilette and roughly wiped all of the gloss off of her lips.

 “Where are we going?” G.NA muttered a response to the taxi driver as she undid her hair from it’s bun ruffling it into it’s usual flat design. Even though she had left her workplace she was still working, she only had a few days before she would need to meet with Niel, though if she were lucky she would be able to force the meeting unto Ricky.

 As soon as her personal phone rang she pulled it out and answered it, “what.”

 “Well you sound happy,” Ricky’s chirpy voice rang through the receiver, “so why are you leaving early? It’s barely even noon.”

 “Shopping,” she responded with her habitual one liner, fully expecting Ricky to extrapolate all the information he needed from it.

 “Alright, alright, I’ll meet you at the store,” her eyelids dropped as she hung up the phone. G.NA knew there was no way she could deny him, she had become accustomed to his stubborn mule like attributes. Her face seemed to lose emotion the further she got from the office, it wasn’t due to losing her mask but rather because she was becoming consumed with her thoughts. For her she was never off the job, not until the last won meant for her was in her bank account

 “Are you paying by credit today?” The taxi driver broke her from her musing, inhibiting her from continuing to run through her mental plan of Chunji’s office. She really didn’t have much time to scrape up information for Niel, if she didn’t come with enough she was fully expecting him to fire her. And that was unexceptable G.NA was never fired.

 She lazily scanned the price of the trip and nodded, swiping the money machine on her way out. The moment her heels hit the pavement Ricky latched onto her, “Noona~ are you ready to go shopping?” His cow like brown eyes were big and enveloped her with his childish innocence that most certainly did not match with his job.

 “No,” she sighed heavily as she walked into the dress store that was in front of her. She didn’t bother questioning his ability to get to the shop before her, Ricky seemed to have connections everywhere. In fact she would not have been surprised if he had gotten flown to the shopping district.

  “Well I’ll help you look,” he opened the door to the store letting his partner enter first. “I was thinking a nice coral colour for you,” instantly Ricky was walking through the aisles of expensive dresses and looking at their designs. “You have always looked nice in that colour,” he pulled out a short tight black that would have just barely covered her bottom, “or we could go classic.”

 “Not necessary,” she shook her head as she scanned the room. G.NA was used to dressing less than appropriately for her work but she liked avoiding such situations. It was always troublesome the reactions that was garnered by the opposite ; she wasn’t about to put herself in the line of fire on purpose.

 “Are you, Miss Jane Choi?” A young attendant walked up to them, her small round face was emblazoned with a coy smile that was pointed at Ricky as she awaited the answer.

 “Yes, I am,” instantly Jane was back, her glossless lips were pulled into a smile as she looked at the racks of dresses.

 “Oppa said to make sure that you didn’t spend less than a million won,” the girl turned and walked away as Jane’s eyebrows arched.

 “Oppa,” she mouthed to Ricky before silently snorting and going back to looking at dresses.

 “He’s popular, is he really that attractive?” Ricky reached around her and plucked a fedora off of a display manikin and dropped it on his head.

 “Eh,” she stared at him blankly before appraising his image, the hat matched well with his image but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

 “Eh to me, or eh to him?” Jane ignored him and walked down the rack diligently looking at the coral dresses. “Noona~” She could hear him huffing behind her as he placed the hat back down upon the head of the manikin.

 Mutely she lifted up a simple coral dress, equally silently Ricky pointed to the price tag that was a meager (in his eyes) 300,000 won. “Fine,” she put it back on the rack and stepped back. No matter what she did she always gravitated towards the things that were the least expensive, it was really not her fault.

 “You have to look at the price tag first, like this,” he grabbed a beautiful light azure dress that was bunched at the bottom, there were coloured jewels sewn into the bodice, no doubt that was where the price was coming from. “This dress is two million won,” she sighed staring at him as he grinned and placed it back, “and also not your style. You know,” Ricky glanced at the attendant that was watching them before leaning in to his partner, “you have to learn how to show your emotions properly when you are on a mission.”

  Instantly the two smiled at each other. It was strange G.NA tended to be more stoic in her normal life but when she was on a mission she was full of exuberance and emotion. Unlike Ricky who was unbelievable emotional and active during his normal life but he tended to lose all that personality in a mission. He always ended up looking like a brooding and (dare she say it) attractive man in the room.

 “This?” She picked up a black dress, it was rather old fashioned and was pulled in at the waist giving it an almost forties feeling and it’s collar raised close to the neck. Ricky scrunched up his nose and sighed as he checked the price tag, as if fate was against him it was in the right price range.

 “Alright,” he spoke heavily as if his very words were weighing his mouth down. “Try it on.” Jane smiled to herself as she went to an empty stall. In her world she had found the perfect dress, it was simple and was literally right on the minimum amount of money she was allowed to spend. Once in the stall she slowly removed her clothes, not rushing herself. Under her dressy work outfit she was wearing plain black undergarments, she was never one to be showy unless her job called for it. Sighing she tugged the zipper down the back and stepped in the dress before pulling it up. She zipped it up as much as she could before grimacing, it was far too hard to do on her own.

 “Are you going to help me?” She questioned as she opened the door to the stall, her face blanched immediately when she saw Byunghun leaning against the wall opposite her. “What are you doing here?”

 “Stopping you from looking like,” his upper lip curled in distaste as he looked at the dress, “that. Get out of it immediately, that looks ugly.”

 “Ricky,” Jane’s voice was low and threatening as she called her partner to attention.

 “Here!” Ricky chirped as he walked up with three more dresses of varying colours. “Look! It’s your companion! He was thoughtful enough to help me choose different dresses for you to try on.” Ricky looked proud of himself as he hung the new dresses up in her stall. He paused momentarily to stare at the dress, “you’re definitely not wearing that, I don’t know why I even let you choose. We both know how bad your dress sense is.”

 “Get back in that stall and change into the red dress,” Byunghun demanded, as soon as Jane closed the door she could hear Ricky’s laughter in response to something her associate whispered to him. With a scowl she pulled on the dress grimacing at the way the dress clung to every curve on her body. The dress reminded her far too much of an operation she did in Milan a few years back.

 Shaking her head she took off the dress and tried on a blue one. “Jane, how does the dress look?”

 “Milan,” her response was short but immediately Ricky understood and nodded, that was a nasty project. It was understandable that she didn’t want to wear it, in that project he was infiltrating a mafia family, it was absolutely cliché, and she had been in the background. Of course she hadn’t stayed in the background for long and almost ruined the operation after she stopped one of the family members from getting too hands on with her.

 “What about Milan?” Byunghun’s eyebrows shot up as he tilted his head to look at Ricky.

 “Bad experience, the dress must look too similar,” Ricky grinned as he looked at the stall door. “It was a nice dress though, flattered her figure very well. I’m sure every guy wanted to be the one escorting her.”

 “What was the event?” Byunghun straightened hiding his eagerness to know more about the elusive person that Jane was turning out to be. Despite not wanting to feed into his friends strange plans too much he always ended up helping Chunji. He always liked seeing his friend happy, and nothing made his friend happier than understanding; whether it was a puzzle or a movie he enjoyed figuring things out.

 “I’m a lawyer, companies hire me to sort out their problems. I usually end up getting invited to formal events and I drag Jane along with me,” Ricky nodded to himself, proud of his ability to spin the truth. It was not as if he had made it up on the spot, he and Jane had spent a while constructing the perfect cover. They always did, they also learnt it back and forwards so they could tell it either way and that was the key to a good lie. Liars were usually incapable of telling a story backwards but they could tell it whichever way asked.

 “And Jane’s your girlfriend?” Byunghun questioned watching as Jane marched by them leaving the stack of dresses behind her.

“No,” Ricky laughed loudly catching the attention of both Jane and the attendant, who was trying hard to not look too sultry to the two handsome gentlemen. “Childhood friends,” Ricky walked by Byunghun and chortled as Jane showed him a dress. “No chance, try again.”

  Byunghun watched them suspiciously, he caught the way Jane would barely say a thing and Ricky would somehow get a whole rant from it, but that could be from knowing each other so long. He hadn’t failed to notice how Ricky always seemed to be touching her, whether it was her shoulder, arm, or back, he always tended to touch her, but he could just be a skinship lover. He didn’t fail to notice how Jane seemed to trust his every judgement trying on every dress he told her to or dropping any he disagreed with, but that could be because she knew how bad she was at fashion.

 They seemed so much like a couple and that would certainly throw Chunji off, or make him more determined, Byunghun grimaced at his thoughts. He could never tell with Chunji, either it was too much effort or it was a good puzzle. There was no correlation between what made him annoyed or what excited him. Byunghun knew the boy back and forth; except when it came to what was worth his effort.

  “What about this,” Jane, annoyed with Ricky’s revealing choices, grabbed the first dress her hand stopped over and pulled it out. It was a cute strapless grecian dress. The bottom of the dress flared out and would reach a decent length, mid thigh, the waist was embroidered with a small line of silver jewels.

 “Coral, 1,500,000 won,” Ricky nodded in approval before grabbing the one that was her size. He pushed it into her arms with a cheeky grin, “go try it on,” Jane nodded and walked away. “What are you thinking about, you haven’t put in any output at all. From what Jane has said that doesn’t seem like you.” Ricky moved back to Byunghun’s side, observing the faint glaze of the shorter man’s eyes.

 “Tonight, I think my boss is planning a celebratory dinner, I think he’s officially hiring your friend.”

 “What else would this be? A firing party?” Ricky’s eyebrows lifted in mock amazement, he was fully aware that Chunji did in fact do such things. The CEO seemed to enjoy spoiling the people he was about to destroy, afterall his opinion meant a lot. If somebody that was that close to him got fired they were questioned by their interviewers if they remained in the corporate world, after all Chunji only had the best and if they were fired, they weren’t the best.

 “Sometimes,” Byunghun’s lips curled up in a faint smile. His friend had always liked setting people up then disappointing them, he always liked the suspense as they worried over if they were being celebrated or fired. Then again most of the personal assistants also didn’t care if they got fired because they always seemed to hope that their boss would get drunk and frisky. Women, Byunghun knew he would never understand them.

 “Jane won’t get fired, she’s good, you’ve got to admit that.” Ricky rapped his knuckles against the stall door and leaned his head against it. “Noona~ are you done? Are you going to come out and show us?”

 “No,” Jane yanked the door open sending Ricky off balance. “I’m done,” she walked by them towards the counter with the coral dress she had selected.

 “Is she always so short clipped?” Byunghun frowned as he watched her talking to the attendant that had stepped behind the counter. “She is quite stoic, I don’t think we have ever had someone so that hides their emotions so much.” It wasn't that she was blank faced, which she could be at times, but she was almost inhumanly calm. No matter the task he gave her she kept a level head and completed it successfully. She also didn't waste any time flirting, she was a good worker.

 “Jane?” Ricky narrowed his eyes at Jane, it was rare that she was subdued in her fake personas; she usually acted chirpy or excitable. “She has always been like that,” for once Ricky was telling the truth to their target. For once Jane had chosen a more natural approach to the job, he wasn’t about to critique her, he trusted her decisions well enough. However, there was always the worry that if she acted too much like herself she might get comfortable.

 “I see,” Byunghun nodded in understanding not asking anything else. Jane walked up to them not reacting when Ricky willingly took her dress bag from her.

 “Where to next?”

 “Hairdressers, she needs to do something with the mess she calls hair.” Byunghun refrained from acting like Jane was there as he stepped out of the shop, typing on his phone.

 “Must be Chunji,” she whispered to Ricky as they followed after their targets long time friend. Jane wished that Byunghun wasn’t there, not only was he still (although mildly) harassing her he had somehow gotten along with Ricky easily. Though that in itself wasn’t much of a feat.

 “Must be,” Ricky parroted as he linked his arm in hers. Jane barely even blinked at his action, the two had gotten used to linking arms and touching each other a lot. They had often played the part of a couple in their investigations so of course they had to live up to their claim and act physical when the situation called.