Discovery
The Target
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That night, their little army of rebellion were gathered once again in their usual headquarter, the Jang residence. Only today, there was an additional guest.
There was a knock on the door, and Dong Woo was the first one to answer it. The heavy rain and the flashing thunder made the drenched out guest seem more terrifying than he ought to.
“Ji Soo oppa!” Hana’s head popped out from the door leading to the living room. She waved him a quick hello as Dong Woo took the cotton coat from Ji Soo, not exactly the right choice of attire.
“You look like you were swimming in the rain,” Ki Bum uttered, staring at the newcomer from top to bottom. Anyone knew he was about to start nagging about the fashion, but Tae Min gave him a quick nudge to stop talking.
“You were the ones who wanted me to come over during this weather,” Ji Soo spoke bitterly, receiving a towel from Dong Woo to dry himself with. Well, actually it was given to Hana who helped him dap the droplet of water away.
“An umbrella exists for a reason. Use it,” Ki Bum remarked with a lazy eye roll.
“Behave, Ki Bum,” Hyun Mi quickly muttered to her friend. If the two had to play the bad cop good cop role during their missions, it was clear who was in charge of what part. Hyun Mi motioned to Ji Soo to take a seat at the kitchen’s island counter.
“So,” Ji Soo began, wiping his face dry before he absorbed everyone’s face looking at him, “These are the bunch of people rebelling against the organization?”
“It’s not a rebellion,” Hyun Mi quickly corrected him before anyone could put up a protest. “We simply love the organization so much to the point we seek out any flaws we can fix to become an even better company.”
Woo Hyun was the one who voiced out a small chuckle. She quickly turned around, meeting his eyes who looked at her with so much adoration. Lately she had caught him staring at her like that, a gaze that distracted her from everything. She should’ve known by now it was better not to look at him at all. Perhaps she had been staring at him with a similar look on her face.
“Please don’t tell anyone about this, please.” Hana clasped her hands together, squinting her eyes shut as she pleaded to the cryptologist.
The harshness in Ji Soo’s gaze faded, and he let a small smile slip. “You know I’d always be on your side.” He ruffled Hana’s hair in a small mess.
Everyone knew the two were close, but no one actually knew how their friendship started. Perhaps there was something more between them indeed. As long as they got the cryptologist to be on their side.
“Have you found anything about the photo I sent you?” Hana then asked, slightly blushing.
Ji Soo took out a sheet of paper he had neatly folded inside his bag. It was supposedly the transcript of the message he had decoded using his special talents.
Everyone soon gathered around the kitchen island, trying to take a peek at the paper. With black ink, it bore the name of an account penned as “Comme Des” along with a serie of numbers. They immediately recognized what it was.
“We have a bank account number! We can track down the account holder’s location at least,” Maerin said excitedly, seeing Hana and Dong Woo already on it when they copied the number to their laptops.
“So this Comme Des person is probably the one who funded everything?” Tae Min guessed, clearly remembering that the employees of SWEG Corporation had to pay their interest to this mysterious identity as well.
“Maybe,” Ki Bum said. “Although that probability seems too easy. Maybe it is a cover up for yet another person.”
“How many people do we need to keep trailing after? The more people we track down, the more their crimes are being revealed,” Hyun Mi whined. The innermost part of her didn’t complain though, knowing it was the only reason she had to stay close to Woo Hyun—the guy who still made her heart skip a beat in the most cliche way possible, simply because he could.
“Which reminds me that Jung Ho Seok has been proven of committing embezzlement,” Maerin suddenly said. She had requested Hana to look into it days earlier, but forgot to share the information since they were preoccupied trying to learn how to count Black Jack cards.
“The dentist Han Mira hasn’t been paying her taxes for a year either, but somehow got away with it,” Hana added.
“Min Ho did prefer funding companies that are shady and illegal with their acts. But at this point, I don’t know whether it was Min Ho or someone else who commanded him to,” Woo Hyun spoke, earning everyone’s attention.
“Are you saying this Comme Des person instructed him to?” Ki Bum asked, eyes squinting at Woo Hyun suspiciously.
“That, I do not know,” Woo Hyun said, slightly glancing over to Hyun Mi who kept her attention on anything he’d say. “What I find interesting is the fact that all these companies are doing something illegal against the law, and yet no one knows about it. As if someone who has authority over the law is secretly working together or protecting them.”
“Like a lawyer?” Tae Min suggested, seeing the other shrug. “He needs to be a very prestigious lawyer to be able to do that.”
Silence took over when they squeezed their brain in an attempt to put all the information together. There was a large social network that connected anyone to everyone, which made it harder to find a common mastermind behind this. Dong Woo’s sudden gasp was what broke the tension.
His face was pale and surprised to the point his eyeballs nearly jumped out of its socket. His hands shifted his laptop facing the others, displaying the real name of the account holder and the address that traced back to a street name they were more than familiar with.
“This is our headquarter’s location,” Tae Min gasped.
“Who is Lee Jin Ki?” Maerin questioned the full name of the account holder.
Hyun Mi exchanged a look with Dong Woo and Ki Bum, all knowing the answer to that simple question. Her lips hesitated momentarily before she replied an answer that would break everyone’s trust.
“Mr. Lee.”
That night, they were very quick in forming a plan to infiltrate the headquarter, particularly Mr. Lee’s office. They functioned like an ordinary office and worked on an eight to five basis, unless otherwise required per mission. Only a few researchers or analysts would still be present at this hour. It was an hour to midnight.
It gave them the perfect camouflage to go down along the corridors as if they still had a mission to carry out. Only the few people who tagged along—consisting of Ki Bum, Hyun Mi, Woo Hyun, Tae Min, and Maerin—were silently prancing on their steps.
“Why did you insist for Woo Hyun to come along?” Hyun Mi was still mad at her partner for somehow convincing the politician to join their nighttime adventures. It was too dangerous to a newcomer who had no clue regarding the headquarter’s blueprint. Despite its modern layout, it consisted of many dizzying corners and walls that could easily turn this into a giant maze. Plus, he was the target. He was like a lamb walking right into the lion’s den.
“He might know the companies that Choi Min Ho tried to fund. So he should be able to recognize anything suspicious or worth of value to us in the office,” Ki Bum said, once again glaring at the politician like he had zero trust in him.
“It’s okay,” Woo Hyun reassured the girl next to him, secretly happy how genuinely concerned she was for him. She had always been looking out for his well-being, but there was something more to it this time. Almost as if she personally didn’t want him to get hurt instead of it being a mission to keep him
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