2002

On the day Soojung turned ten, a pretty and very tall unnie she remembered often hanging around her parents and named Moon Hyuna came to retrieve her from school. Memory of very sad smile across those beautiful face as she waved her hand hello and pushed a teddy bear with huge soft pink ribbon to the little girl that time forever carved inside the depth of Soojung's mind. Later on the very same day, Soojung learned both her mom and dad had left her forever.

It was an accident, her parents were scientists and the lab where they worked had blown up, spared not even a single soul alive. That was what had been explained by police, and written in local newspaper's headline the day after.

But Hyuna never lied, not to Soojung.

They were spies - her parents and Hyuna - they worked in an organization consisted of highly skilled secret agents, serving for huge companies, multimillionaires, politicians, basically everyone who able to offer biggest sum of money. And even without Hyuna giving blunt explanation to her, Soojung's ten years old excellent brain could already guess that her parents were indeed, intentionally killed by some people who had bad blood with them.

There were two options. First was to fly overseas to the relatives she never knew and start a new life as normal girl; second was stay with Hyuna. Soojung chose the latter. 

And surely, it led her down the same path as her parents.

——————— 

2010

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

When someone become spy, their main purpose is literally to know secrets, to get informations. And they are supposed to complete it in quick and stealthy way, instead of what's seen on movies - going through series of explosions, involved in bloody combat, or constantly firing gun. But sometimes when bad luck strikes, they would have to eventually take someone's life away.

Soojung stepped into the mission all by herself for the first time when she was eighteen. Being sent into the field was birthday present she asked insistently from Hyuna, and she got an easy one. Just surveillance on a shady orphanage suspected for working together with crime organization to sell the kids overseas for underage ion.

And everything went well. Children as tall as her waist running around and asking her to play with them was quite a test for her patience, but beside that it wasn't hard for Soojung to blend in her undercover role as cleaning service staff, then infiltrated into their computer system and found evidence of child trafficking. She plugged her flash drive into USB port, the files smoothly copied into it, and now she only needed to climbed down the second floor, get out of the orphanage and into Hyuna's waiting car.

When she thought it was a wrap, her escape was only few metres away, the unexpected happened. A group of people from the organization actually found the trace she had recklessly left - Soojung had forgotten to shut the computer down - and immediately stormed out chasing her. 

She knocked the first two men down easily and dispatched some others off the balcony, but this last one - who seemed to be the bulkiest and strongest between them - was still persistently hot on her trail. It left her with no other choice.

Soojung took out her loaded Glock and pulled the trigger. It all happened in just a span of one minute; piercing sound of her gun, feeling of recoil, limbs fell to the ground and went motionless, then Hyuna came and they left the building in hurry. But crimson blood seeping from the man's head never left, its brilliant redness ingrained into Soojung's mind and haunted her days after.

"How did you do it?" Soojung murmured, shaking terribly beside her mentor. "How do you continue on living with these stained hands?"

"You know, when I killed for the first time in my life, I did ask same question as you do right now." There was only one person ever allowed into Soojung's personal space, and that someone was Hyuna. The older woman shifted in couch they occupied together, sliding one arm around her back and pulled her close in comfort.

"I still don't know the answer.. The purpose of myself being here, doing all of this. But I know there will be an answer. Life is beautiful yet cruel, someone dear to me said in past. You can strive to be whatever you want, the chances are unlimited, human is infinite, but there's also things you can't control no matter how desperately you try, especially in our line of work. So she told me this wise words."

"What is that?" Soojung asked.

"Let it be. It's gonna be alright, so just let it be."