A couple of days later, Sandara’s hand was almost perfectly healed. There was only one red patch near her palm that twinges occasionally when it comes into contact with a rough surface but otherwise, you’d never have known there was any mishap.

Sandara was seated on the table in her and Seungri’s room with her arm on the table and her palm cradling her chin.

Jiyong has finally, finally, approved the team that will be working with Heechul on her surgery; giving the green light for Heechul to proceed with all the prep.

Sandara’s eyes narrowed as she remembered how her happiness at moving forward was clouded by Jiyong’s teasing.

“You’re good to go.” Jiyong told her as he approached her inside Bom’s office. Bom and Sandara were just hanging out after Bom inspected Sandara’s hand.

“Go where?” Sandara asked.

Just then a panting Heechul arrived. “I told you to wait for me.” He glared at Jiyong.

“Oh?” Jiyong looked at him nonchalantly. “I must not have heard you.”

Heechul rolled his eyes. “Jerk.”

“I know.”

“Uhm.. Excuse me?” Bom interrupted them. “Why are the two of you here?”

“He hasn’t told you yet? Good.” Heechul finally smiled and approached Sandara. “You ready to get your head opened?”

“Really?” Sandara asked. Heechul and Jiyong both nodded.

“Sajangnim over there finally finished his background checks and all the members of the team have signed their non-disclosure agreements.” Heechul shared as he sat down next to the girls and took a bite of the cake the two were sharing. “Yup. I booked the operating room for you and we can do it in two days.”

“That’s great!” Sandara exclaimed.

“What’s so great about shaving off your hair?” Bom scrunched her nose. “Although, if anyone can work it, it will be you.”

“I won’t shave off all her hair.” Heechul reiterated.

“Just don’t go off baking more cakes, alright?” Jiyong interjected with a small smirk before he left the room.

Heechul and Bom laughed at the joke, correctly interpreting as Jiyong’s attempt to not be left out in the conversation and showing that he really didn’t care about the incident.

Sandara, however, pouted.

And here she is one day later, still pouting.

“Oh for goodness’ sake.” Bom exclaimed as she entered the room. “Don’t tell me you’re still pouting over Jiyong’s joke. I told you he didn’t mean it in a bad way. The boy just has a twisted sense of humor.”

“Hmmm.” That was the only acknowledgement to Bom’s presence that Sandara gave.

“You want to prove him wrong, don’t you?” Bom guessed.

“There’s nothing to prove.” Sandara grumbled.

“Doesn’t stop you from wanting to do it.”

Sandara finally gave a small smile. “Maybe.”

“Then let’s do it.” Bom suggested as he smacked her hand on the table.

“Uhh.. That might not be the best idea.”

“Why not?”

“Hello? We almost burned down Seungri’s room. I thought I was the one with amnesia.” Sandara joked.

“Pfft.” Bom shrugged. “Almost doesn’t count.”

“I think the smoke damage in Seungri’s room says otherwise.”

“Stop being cheeky.” Bom replied. “If you don’t want to try baking again, we can try decorating instead.”

“Huh?”

“You know.. We buy those premade cakes and then just put frosting and decorations all over them.” Bom’s eyes sparkled at the thought of delicious cake.

“That sounds fun.” Sandara agreed. “And totally safe. Right?”

“Of course!” Bom assured her. “Let’s make a list of what we need to ask the interns to buy.”

“Can we just ask the interns to buy stuff?” Sandara wondered. “Don’t they have work to do?”

“Duh. That’s part of their job.” Bom informed her. Sandara nodded even though she didn’t completely believe Bom. “This is going to be so much fun! We can use Jiyong’s suite. It has a bigger kitchen.”

“But we don’t need a kitchen.” Sandara pointed out, not really wanting to have to ask Jiyong and explain.

“Oh, right. You want it to be a surprise.” Bom nodded. “We’ll use Youngbae’s room then. He’s much neater that Seunghyun.”

“Should we really be invading other people’s rooms after what happened?” Sandara asked but she was smiling so Bom knew she was on board.

“Fine. I’m sure we can find an empty room somewhere here.” Bom rolled her eyes as she got busy on her phone. “I’m sending the list of items we need to one of the interns of general operations. They mostly handle general tasks so don’t worry. This is as general as it goes.” After a few seconds she did a little body shake. “Ooooh. I was able to reserve one of the studio rooms in the employee quarters. No one’s using it so you don’t have to feel guilty.”

“Maybe we should ask them to buy cupcakes so we can start small and if we mess up it won’t be too bad?” Sandara suggested.

“Okay” Bom raised her hand, showing the OK sign. “This is going to be sooooo much fun.”

_____________________________

Seungyoon and Daesung were running a training exercise on their team. Their team is trying to get information on a case with Seungyoon and Daesung putting up roadblocks to stop them or mislead them. The objective is to sift through the fake info and hack their way to the truth.

Seungyoon was taking the lead in the exercise since Daesung was working on something on his computer. He still can’t believe that the General found Park Sanghyun’s birth certificate when he couldn’t. Okay, not the General exactly, but still. He was still pretty bitter about it so he was refining the algorithims in his search programs so that they wouldn’t miss out on valuable intel!

“Hyung. I think Jisoo has the most potential out of this batch.” Seungyoon commented without looking at Daesung since his eyes were still fixed on the numerous screens in front of him showing their team’s progress on the exercise. The room they were in is what Daesung likes to think of as his domain. It is where all the intelligence magic happens. He has his own office overlooking the entire floor, where each member of his team has his own station equipped with top of the line computers and basically, top of the line everything that would make a computer geek’s heart happy. Seungyoon has his own station separated from the main floor since he supervises most of the day-to-day operations. “She was the one who thought about overriding the code and placing a ghost app on their server -”

“Ohmygahd!” Daesung exclaimed to Seungyoon’s surprise. He stood up and rushed out of the operations central where they were monitoring the exercise leaving Seungyoon scratching his head, dumbfounded.

After a few minutes, Daesung returned with a laptop. Without addressing Seungyoon’s questioning stare, he proceeded to connect the laptop to several wires linking it to the network.

“Hyung? You okay?” Seungyoon asked Daesung who was typing furiously on the laptop before switching back to his computer.

Daesung looked up and crooked a finger at Seungyoon asking him to come closer. Seungyoon, intrigued, edged closer to Daesung. “I may or may not have installed a teeny tiny encryption that may or may not give us access to some hypothetical military officer’s files.”

“You hacked General Yang’s files?!” Seungyoon asked in a loud whisper, fully conscious of the level of secrecy this information needs to have.

Daesung’s eyes widened in mock innocence. “I never said that. Your imagination is running wild again, Seungyoon-ah. You really should lay off all those dramas that you and your friends have been watching.”

Seungyoon pouted but his eyes shone with excitement. “What are you going to do?”

“Look for the truth.” Daesung answered as he resumed working on the laptops. “You should get back to the training exercise. I think Jisoo just disabled another firewall.”

“Oh, .” Seungyoon ran back towards the main computer and clicked a few buttons. Giving an evil laugh he taunted his absent team, “You need to work harder than that if you want to surpass Kang Seungyoon! Bwahahaha”

“Seungyoon, remember that the purpose of this exercise is to teach them..” Daesung reminded his exuberant junior.

“Of course, hyung. Of course.” Seungyoon agreed with a sheepish laugh. Daesung shook his head, smiling at his young protege fondly before returning to work. The codes were extremely complicated and he was having a hard time merging the data but he was confident that he could do it. He’s not their lead computer expert for nothing.

_____________________________

“Are you nervous about the surgery?” Bom asked Sandara as she opened the first box of cupcakes the interns bought for them. “Oooh, these look so yummy!”

Sandara smiled at her friend and watched as she contemplated taking a bite on one of the cupcakes. She gave a giggle as her friend gave in and took a big bite, sighing happily. “Wasn’t the plan to decorate them first?” She asked and Bom shrugged happily.

“We still have so many boxes. This is fine.” Bom waved her hand indicating the surprising amount of cupcakes they received for this venture. Sandara isn’t sure what Bom’s instructions were, but it might be something along the lines of buying enough cupcakes to feed the whole floor. It was ridiculous! “So, surgery?”

Sandara sighed as she placed a cupcake on a cupcake tray, then started going through the frosting they have. There were several different colors of frosting and reading through the labels there were also different flavors! They had sprinkles and marshmallows and chocolates and everything you would ever need to decorate a cupcake. Best of all, everything was ready-made and ready-to-use. She still hasn’t completely gotten over her and Heechul’s baking mishap. “I’m not exactly scared..” She answered Bom’s question as she finally selected the strawberry flavored frosting. “Because I try not to think about it.. So far, it’s working well.”

“Sorry I asked.” Bom looked at her in worry.

“Don’t apologize.” Sandara shrugged as she started swirling the frosting on the cupcake. She frowned in concentration, wanting to get the tip just right. “Ha!” she exclaimed after a mostly successful application. “Looks good, right?” Bom nodded, reaching for her own bag of frosting. “Anyway. I know it’s surgery, brain surgery at that! But I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I mean I know but I don’t know, you know?”

“I can explain it to you again -”

“Please don’t.” Sandara stopped her. “I rather like being in this hazy state when it comes to the operation. Heechul has explained it to me so many times and I understand the process and why but I don’t really want to dwell on it.” She put put down her frosting bag and stared at Bom with a sad little smile. “I know it’s dangerous. I could die. Or be paralyzed. Or lose even more of my memories. Jiyong’s reaction was enough to reinforce that. I know it could be pointless. Heechul has stressed time and again that this is an exploratory surgery. I also know that it could be amazing. What if this helps me get my memories back? I’d be gaining so much. My past, my family, answers..So yeah.. I try not to think about it.”

“Fair enough.” Bom answered after a while. Deciding that it was time for some fun, in her perkiest and most cheerful voice she gushed over the sprinkles. “Ooooh! I love sprinkles! They’re not exactly chocolate but not exactly candy, you know?” She opened the bag and poured out a handful, tossing them quickly into .

Sandara laughed and reached out her hand asking for some of the sprinkles. Bom happily complied and they spent the next few minutes, sampling the ingredients rather than actually decorating.

“So..” Bom started again after they’ve frosted about ten cupcakes. “You met General Yang. What do you think about him?”

“I’m not sure.” Sandara answered. “He seemed nice enough and it seemed like he really loves Big Bang especially Jiyong.. But he also has this scary aura around him.”

“I know, right?” Bom leaned forward and grabbed another box of cupcakes. They didn’t really have a plan but decorating was fun. “There’s something about him that puts me on edge. Seunghyun says it might be military background but almost everyone here has that. I think it’s that smirk of his. It’s so annoying and he looks like a jackass whenever he does it.”

Sandara giggled, slightly scandalized. “He’s not so bad.”

“Yeah.” Bom admitted. “Seunghyun doesn’t idolize him like Jiyong does but even he has mentioned that the General really helped Big Bang through. He provided the stability and discipline that the boys needed. He also showed them what a life with purpose could be like.” Bom paused as she recalled Seunghyun’s words. Generally, her boyfriend really doesn’t like sharing things about his past. It was a mark of trust when he opened up with Bom about his life before the military after they’ve been dating a while. That was when she knew he was serious about her. “But he still looks like a big jerk!”

Sandara tilted her head. “I think he’s lonely.”

“What?”

“No one has ever mentioned him having a family.” Sandara pointed out. “He speaks about Big Bang as if they are his sons. Fondly, sometimes with a little annoyance and frustration but always with pride. He so proud of what they’ve built of who they’ve become but there’s still a little disappointment that they didn’t choose to follow in his footsteps.”

“You’ve been hanging around Hyesun too much.” Bom teased, not unkindly. “I actually never thought about that. When I do think about it, the General has always been there in the background. Although we don’t really interact much, he’s always there. You know, like some creepy all-knowing, all-seeing Big Brother type.” Sandara frowned. “Oh, I’m sure he isn’t that bad. At least I hope. He’s always been involved in the boys’ lives. Giving them missions, sending paying clients their way, sending back-up when needed although that’s only happened once or twice.. BBSI is the best security company on this side of the world, you know.”

“See?” Sandara smiled as she added a heart-shaped chocolate on top her newly frosted cupcake. “He’s the stereotypical strict military father type figure. Besides, Jiyong trusts him.”

“And that’s enough for you huh?” Bom grinned as Sandara blushed.

“I trust him.” Sandara answered, not looking directly at her friend.

“Is that all?” Bom pushed. “Are you sure there aren’t any L-type feelings involved.”

“Lus-” Sandara wanted to tease Bom by changing trust to a word that begins with the letter L; but ended up digging her own grave. “Never mind.”

Bom laughed out loud. “I knew there were lusty feelings! And you just admitted it! I’m so happy!” Sandara covered her face with her hand as Bom continued laughing out loud, giving the occasional shimmy. “It’s fine! It’s natural! You’re both young, healthy, attractive people who are totally lusting for each other. It’s fine.”

“Bo-ooom” Sandara shook Bom’s hand asking her to stop. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Are you telling me that you don’t have any lusty feelings for Jiyong because if you do, I’m totally calling you a liar to your face!”

“Bo-ooom!” Sandara repeated not wanting to answer her question.

“What’s going on here?”

They both froze upon hearing Jiyong’s voice. Sandara’s face paled wondering how much Jiyong has heard.

“Well?” Jiyong asked as he entered the room.

Bom looked a Sandara, an impish glint in her eyes. “Oh nothing much.. Just girl talk about all the different kinds of feeling a girl can have, you know?”

Jiyong raised an eyebrow at the older girl, clearly not believing her.

“How did you find us anyway?” Bom asked as opened another bag of sprinkles.

“I know everything going on around here.” Jiyong was only half-joking. “I needed to talk to Sandara.” Jiyong answered. Sandara looked up from her intense scrutiny of the floor