“So any leads dear Watson?” Jonghyun puffed through his cigar. “We know he’s got personality disorders but tell us what really takes ship.”

Jungshin was busy tapping away on his phone, busy liking all the instagram pictures of his wife that he’d ignored when he was mad at her.

Minhyuk rolled his eyes at Jonghyun. “Call me ‘Watson’ one more time and I’ll fire you!” A ripple of laughter flooded the room at a perfectly executed mimick. Jonghyun wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “Watson, you droll! We must inquest into the conquest of our dear CEO’s health.”

“He’s worse than you, Jungshin,” Minhyuk spoke. “He asked for a background check. Said he wanted everything in five thousand words.”

Jungshin finally looked away from his phone. “Why?”

“Why? Exactly!” Jonghyun dramatized. “Why must he add to our workload when the girl is happy living in a foreign country? Why must one of us-” he nodded at the empty seat that belonged to Yonghwa “-go and visit her to see if she is where she says she is?”

Minhyuk grimaced and Jungshin emitted a low whistle. “That’s hard core, man. He could have just looked her up on facebook.”

“Sherlock, you done with your essay?” Minhyuk inquired checking his watch. “It’s due in a few minutes.”

“It’s all bull crap. Sehun ain’t findin’ here,” Jonghyun lamented. “The girl’s clean. She’s Chinese, Huang Yüzhen. Her eye color is blue due to a melanin disorder. That’s pretty rare! I had a look at her yesterday. man! She’s the spitting image of money grabber, Park Kyungri. No wonder Sehun flipped! I woulda done so too. But get this, this is hilarious! She was working as a translator in one of our hotels and someone made her replace the towels in the used rooms on level nine. And that is how she ran into our delightfully, well mannered boss.”

“Wait! Let me get this straight. This is all just one big coincidence?” Jungshin gaped. “! It can’t be can it?”

“Be rational, why would Kyungri come back?” Minhyuk questioned Jungshin.


“She couldn’t,” Jungshin replied, attention narrowing to his phone once again.

“How did you make five thousand words out of that?” Minhyuk quizzed Jonghyun.

“I bullted,” he replied cleverly. “That’s how I got by in college, the place where I learnt if you wanna do a good background check, there’s always twitter, facebook, instagram and tumblr.”

-

Yüzhen never expected to find a job so quickly after she resigned. When the phone call from Oh corporations came she was astounded to find that Sehun had followed up on his request; it wasn’t a joke. Unlike him, she was dependent on money she earned and so accepted the offer. And without much time to contemplate whether her decision had been right or wrong she’d been told to pack and head to the airport because Mr. Oh-so-bossy was taking a late flight to China.

When she arrived at the airport he was there with a team wearing a scowl as he checked his watch. “You’re three seconds late,” he remarked. “Tardiness will get you fired.”

Yerin eyed her from head to toe, dissecting. She shot an ever graceful smile when she was done and held her husband’s hand to mark her territory.

“Um…” Yüzhen faltered as they began to make their way to the departure gate. She bit her lip impulsively and blurted, “I don’t have a ticket.”

“I have it,” Yerin waved. “Hurry up or you’ll make us late too.”

Yüzhen did as she was told, quickening her pace before they left her behind.

“You’ve received the details of your trip. I hope you’ve revised them,” Sehun said briskly.

“What details?” She asked. Her question made the others stiffen. Sehun didn’t reply after that but signaled to one of his employees instead. Minhyuk appeared on her left and Jonghyun on her right. She felt they were too close and scrunched her shoulders. They introduced themselves before briefing her on what was expected of her at Oh corporations.

Although she was a little stumped by the demands she smiled courteously. They were as strict as nuns in a convent. Perhaps in his past life Sehun had been a Buddhist, seeing as he was so used to austere. She pictured him, bald, eyes closed, that constant frown still enveloping his grim features as he tried to meditate. He might have been that one fellow who carried a cane and did martial arts for the pleasure of putting people down. A nod of the head ensured, that sounded about right.

From the terminal to the VIP lounge, the couple kept their fingers intertwined. Sehun even stopped at the duty free to let Yerin browse, offering loving smiles and hovering close enough to subtly encapsulate her waist as he pointed at rings and necklaces from over her shoulder quirking the sides of her lips.

If anything, their affectionate gestures made Yüzhen queasy. His associates found no bother in this, pretending they couldn’t see any of it. Yüzhen on the other hand found it scary. They didn’t seem like the people she knew almost as if they’d been whisked away, and in their place were lovers who swore by each other like the spirits of Romeo and Juliet or the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd.

Even now as they laid back in the lounge seats, husband had an arm draped around his wife, teasing feet nudging provocatively. Yüzhen resisted the urge to barf, it was like going out with pair not knowing they were a couple and having to watch their sickening moments.

“You’ll get used to it,” Jonghyun, who was sitting nearest, answered her thoughts as he flickered through his newspaper.

She bobbed her head uncertainly. “Yeah, great. I think I wanna go for a walk to shake off the nausea.”

An end of his mouth curved upwards. “Well, in that case, I think I’ll join you. It’s boring here with Tweedle Dee working away and Tweedle Dumb messaging his wife.” He motioned to Minhyuk who was sitting, one leg crossed with a laptop perched, typing away at wind speeds and Jungshin who had a creepy grin on his face as he texted like a ert on a chat line.

“S