Chapter 3

Her POV

I had no idea what's on earth things happened like that. I bumped into the guy who got tricked into buying a stone-broke sapphire from me in few days recent. Once we're being at a stalemate, a confrontation began to be held.

First off, I denied all his accusations come toward me and told him we've never met each other before in pretend. Not all the fraud will commit their crimes. Yes, I was a fraud for a long, long time that I won't ever be pleaded to retrospect. Hell knows, he pressed the tipping point of mine.

Inside the apartment unit, inadequate light from the lamp near the couch chanced the darkness gobbling up the entire flat. Busying myself to fix the bracelet on the settee placed against the wall next to the open-kitchen where closed to the entrance of the apartment. In the mid, a voice that I was so familiar with chimed in from the left side of the bedroom hallway. That was the man voice.

The guy was Lay, my company ever since I started to embark this path. And for me, I hoped you guy remember that my name is called Nam Da Jung for now on. As all you know about our profession, so don't take every piece of our words very serious. From this moment, let us start with the authenticity of our names. For the crooks, names were not the most important and needs because their name were decided that what they had from the shady past.

"Wow, what's going on? Power saving?!" Lay approached his body to my direction with both of his hands tucked inside his pant pockets. His voice full of nonchalant and signature smile he wearing all the time. Yet, it repulsed me most of times because you may not know what behind that grins. I ignored his presence by making my focus back on the repair. At the moment I moved my sight back to the position, the bracelet on my hand got stole away from Lay, which causes me throwing him a devil glare.

"What you doing here?! Bracelet is broken, unusual one!" Throwing his body to the rattan chair next to mine on the left with his right hand still inside his pocket while having his right hand held my bracelet with a playful smile. Showing no expression, I stretched out my body to his and tried to snatch it back; yet, he rose his hand high up to avoid my attack.

"Seems like I've missed something interested, right Da Jung ah?!"

I stood up my body to reach his level to get back the bracelet more easily. I rebuked him my anger in return of his behavior as soon as I recapturing the bracelet. "You such a jerk, Lay!" I feel cheesed as I placing my on the cane sofa. After then, I buckled the bracelet on my left wrist.

"You think so, I tried hard to build up my image of an alpha male, you know!" He jerked up his left eyebrow and flashed me that smile which I be fed up with like always. He sat up and fixed the collar of his black and white shirt in order to show his gentleman-like side. No need to act up you're sweet guy around me, it did nothing but disgusted me.

“Oh, you did?!” I crossed my leg, leaned my body a little forward his direction with my hands stacked on my right knee and sent Lay my dubious glare as I questioning him about his word. Then, he sparkled me his warm smile with his dimples showing up caused by the smile. Those dimples made him look cute, yet devilish.

“Of course!” Thereafter, Lay got up from the seat and proceeded himself to the kitchen with his left hand still inside his pant pocket. When he arrived to the kitchen, I heard a sound of the faucet been turning on. Water streamed out by it and the noise of a collision of a stainless steel pot and stove afterward. And then, different noises came from the kitchen. No need to tell, he was trying to make dinner for us.

Although he was annoying sometimes, but I hated to admit that he has merit that admirable that is his cooking. As Lay working on our dinner, silence dropped over us. But suddenly, Lay’s voice caused an echo around the empty house.

“How were those two rogues? Get rid of them yet?” I just simply responded his question and memory started to replay inside my head. As soon as Lay and I set up the liar game, we hired two rogues as extras to the achievement of our plan. When everything is arranged, the keys figure in this little conspiracy, which is I, also began to make preparations.

--------------------------------------------Four days ago-------------------------------------------------

A night before our plan starting to unfold, I wore a flimsy white t-shirt and a dark wash slim jean legging as walking to the bathroom. I twisted the doorknob in order to open the bathroom and entered it. Inside the bathroom, Lay poured few buckets of ice cube to the bathtub about eighty percent full of water.

Sensing my appearance Lay stopped his action and turned his head to the bathroom door. We exchanged glances and I made my way toward the bathtub as Lay putting down the empty bucket on the top of the toilet cover and leaving the bathroom. But soon he returned back to the bathroom with a fan.

I slipped into the bath and sunk myself down into the tub. Once I bathed my body into the water, the shiver ran through my spine and numbness penetrated my skin to my bone even I had my clothes on. I could tell that the water is cooled below zero degrees Celsius.

“Ready?” As my body full covered by the ice cubes, Lay asked me for verification before him putting the plug into the socket provided inside the bathroom. I took a deep breath and clenched my teeth tightly as I giving him a nod.

Lay the face to the strong mode after placing the fan on the ground. Strong winds blew my head out as my whole body trembling due to the coolness. According to our plan, I must be in a sick state in which to remove their defenses to me. Yet, we don’t have a particular target for this scam, we just choose them depend on their lucks. So it has nothing to do with us.

As we know, greedy is the weakness of people; therefore, in order to satisfy their desires, they will not hesitate to take advantage of others and their loved ones and also even sell them from feed their greediness. Once they have had this aspiration, our plan will be able to successfully achieve our objectives.

Soaking in ice water for about two hours, I came out from the tub and Lay waited for me inside the bathroom moved toward me. He tried to cover my body with the towel but got rejected by me. I shook my head for no necessary.

“It a’ right!” My voice was shaking as the word coming out from my mouth. Under my insistence, Lay led me out the bathroom to the living room. Not even my voice, but also my body was quivering as I sitting down on the settee. Just then, Lay bought an ear thermometer and sat next to me. Next, he helped me to take my body temperature.

“I think it’s enough!” Lay moved the ear thermometer away from my left ear and read the degree on the thermometer. His words gave me the feeling not a little equivocal. I told him to show me the thermometer that he refuses to. I used my spare to snatch the thermometer from his hand forcibly.

“No, it’s not there yet!” Since the number hasn’t reached the expectation, I commanded Lay to turn on the air conditioner. At first, he planned to ignore my words and do nothing. Then I attempted to do it myself. When I was ready to stand up my little weak body, Lay held down my shoulder as to inform me that he will do it. 

For those bruises, just makeup effects to create the illusion of battering. We deliberately painted the bruises not that obvious to avoid to be discovered after undergoing the diagnosis.  And that was how thing working along with our game.

---------------------------------------------Flashback END-----------------------------------------------

I’m knocked back to reality from the recall as the phone inside the flat ringing endlessly and the voice of Lay called me likes something emergency.

“Nam Da Jung, answer the phone! I’m busy with the spaghetti now.” I hurriedly picked up the telephone as I stretching my right arm to the right side. After answering the call from somebody, I adjusted my position and sat closed t the small coffee table that we used to put the lamp and telephone on top.

Following the ‘hello’ I said to the caller, I yelped out my amazement as the voice of the caller reaching my right ear. My eyes cannot help to open as wide as possible due to the astonishment.

“Agassi, it’s me! Sorry for calling you at this kind of hour, I just want to make sure something!” Oh my goodness, I seriously gave him my real contact number. How could this ever happen? My brain must have out of function that moment because of that reminisces. I my hair with the thought of helpless and trouble.

“Agassi, do you have any interest of designing jewelry? We have this position open few day later in the recruitment event.” That Kris guy’s voice kept on sending to my ear. I planned to stop him from speaking, yet he gave me no chance to make any response until him asking me for opinion.

“What” As I trying to tell him about what’s in my mind, my sentence got cut off from him after me just uttering out a word. I led out a sigh with hopeless in secret, and slightly shook my head.

“What is your name, Agassi? You need to submit an application form before reporting to the event meeting. But you don’t have to worry about it; I’ll take care of it. However, you’re going be on your own while doing the interview.”

“Hey, listen. I” Finally, I thought he was done with his speech and made an attempt to speak for myself. Nevertheless, truth proved that I’m wrong. His nagging voice annoyed me a bit. Headache hurts me so much now.

“I will help you prepare everything, you only need to bring yourself and that all.” Oh god, I cannot resist him anymore. If I don’t stop him now, I cannot imagine how long it gonna takes him to end.

“Enough! I don’t need your help and have zero interest of everything you said.” I hung up the phone as quickly as I finish my warning.

“Don’t ever call me again!” I put the phone back hardly to vent the chesses emotion caused by that Kris guy. Soon after, Lay ran out from the kitchen with the apron on and the ladle as he heard the clash I made as I put down the telephone.

“What has happened? Who’s calling?”

“None of your business! Mind your own stuff, your soup is overflowing now!” I acted coldly toward Lay’s question and shifted his focus back to his cooking. Hearing my word Lay screamed for help and rushed back to the kitchen like his life was in dangerous. He turned off the fire on the stove as it made a ‘click’ sound.

Thirty minutes passed, the dinner seems liked ready while smells of hot dishes running through my nostrils. Shortly, another sound of ‘click’ came out as if someone opened our apartment door. I moved my eyes away from the television screen in front of me to the right side. As expected, the door got opened and a middle-aged man with quite tall and muscular figure entered our flat.

“Ahjussi!” As soon as I saw his appearance, I called out to him as my body straightened up and walked with him to the diner table naturally. He nodded his head slightly to show his response to my call. Getting our body close to the diner table, we both stretched our arms to pull out the chair next to us as I heard Lay’s complaint voice echoed for this while.

“Ahjussi, you seriously good at choosing time. You will show up every time I finished my cooking.” Ahjussi giggled a bit at Lay’s word. I think you guys might have interested in the identity of Ahjussi who just appeared out of nowhere. Moreover, Lay and I looked really close with him. Of course, we’ve known Ahjussi since we were knee-high to a grasshopper, and Ahjussi just like our guardian.

However, the day I met Ahjussi was shorter, compared to Lay. The first time that we cognized each other, Lay already be on Ahjussi’s side for a while. And, on the other hand, Ahjussi was our leader, the real culprit out of everything. Ahjussi taught Lay and me all the tricks that required becoming the one of the successful crooks.

Dissimilar with other swindlers, we were more professional than them under the training Ahujssi gave us. In order to make every of our targets more convincing, erudition was the most important qualification other than everything since trying to be clever is indispensable. Most of our financial swindle involved in huge amount of money; we must become deadly ingenious to prevent any clues to be found from the victims.

Though we most likely uneducated, but we had multiple comprehensive and authoritative skills than those highly educated one, especially Ahjussi. He acquired the skill of psychological welfare. From the subtle facial expressions changes and the body language signals of a person, he was able to understand the others' psychological status just by looking at them. He had a kind of ability to unravel what is hidden inside a person’s heart. And that’s what made him a genius swindler Ha Woo Jin.

“I heard the depositor attempted to keep a hold on our transaction. Unfortunate to him, we’ve cashed the check before he did it.” Crunching the spaghettis, Ahjussi’s voice started to speak up from the beginning. Ahujussi’s word caused me to choke from the eating. As quickly as I did, Lay passed over a glass of water and I swallowed the water with a gulp.

My reaction might be a little bit of over, which drawing their attention hastily. I rolled my eyes around and awkwardly to continue my meal in an attempt. How can I tell them I almost screwed up everything by losing control in front of our target and admitting myself of what we did to him? On top of that, he knew how to contact me because of my reckless action. However, this seems like no efficient at all.

“Nam Da Jung, do you think you can hide thing from Ahjussi’s mind-reading?” Lay warned me being honest would be better off. Knowing no way for me to escape, I fixed my eyes to Ahjussi’s side and opened my mouth to tell them the things happened today. They froze and listened to my word, but I ignored whatever reaction they giving out.

“Dang it, Nam Da Jung! You truly want to ruin us, don’t you?!” After my sentences ended, Lay was the first one who responding to the risky situation I accidentally put them on. Here the first time that I didn’t fight back with what Lay said because I was at fault. Without saying anything, I glanced over Ahjussi, but there was no sign of emotion on his face.

“Take that offer!” Out of nowhere, those three words slipped out from Ahjussi’s lips as we waited for Ahjussi to speak up, which Lay who been anticipated something’s he find to be fun to happen. Yet, thing turned out to be just the opposite. Lay and I tilted our head and looked at Ahjussi with a hint of confusion.

“Da Jung, I want you to show up to that interview event and hunt down that job offer!” Ahjussi made himself clear enough to let me and Lay to understand his discourse. As expected, Lay and I exchanged glances afterward. We both had no idea what was going on in Ahjussi’s mind.

“Ahjussi, you must be kidding us, right?  If that so, Nam Da Jung she will be in danger” While Lay speaking up for me, his sentence got cut off by Ahjussi as he told us his real thought to clear off our doubts. We shifted our vision to Ahjussi’s side.

“J. Crown is going to be our following aim and task.” Ahh, that accounted for it. No wonders why Ahjussi want me to be recruited just like Kris. Since Ahjussi was our leader, I had no choice but to accept this challenge. Being a jewelry designer huh?! I’ve never thought myself will come into contact with such an occupation. Without notice, I turned the bracelet on my left wrist.

-------------------------------------------End of DaJung's POV---------------------------------------------

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