“You idiot!” Chaeyoung seethed. “How can you even call yourself a comedian or a magician or whatever when your jokes are so bad, they literally kill?”

Jongdae’s head shot up, expression injured. “Hey, first of all, she’s not dead! And second of all, maybe she passed out because I was just too hot for her heart to handle. The ladies love me, you know.”

Grudgingly, Chaeyoung admitted to herself that the comedian-magician was strikingly handsome with his chiseled jawline and feline eyes. But it certainly wasn’t enough to make up for his blatant stupidity and inability to recognize when he had done wrong.

“Don't flatter yourself. You're a solid two point five out of ten, and I'm being generous," she lied, ignoring his offended wheeze. "But that's not the point. You can’t just give the Minister of Defense a !”

It had taken half an hour for the ambulance to bring the minister safely to the hospital, and Chaeyoung had only just received word that the minister’s condition was stable. Joonmyun was already upstairs shouting frantically into the phone, and she could feel a massive PR headache coming her way.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a .” Jongdae sulked, eyebrows pulling together. “If you’d given me like five seconds longer, I would have pulled out a coin from behind her ear -- it was a magic trick! Here, I can even show you -” He reached toward her ear, only to be shoved away.

“Don’t touch me! If I’d given you five seconds longer, the Minister would be dead!” Chaeyoung could feel her ears flushing scarlet with rage.

“But like I said, she’s not dead! You can always reschedule this meeting anyway.”

“Reschedule?! Do you even know how important this meeting is? How long it took to organize in the first place? And you, you ruined it, and now everyone’s going to blame me! My God, I’ll be lucky if I don’t get fired!” Chaeyoung’s lips trembled. She couldn’t afford to lose her job. Sure, her younger sister made plenty of money from her mukbang broadcasts, but it wasn’t nearly enough income to support both of them, especially considering the cost of housing in Seoul. And if she got fired over something as stupid as this, she would be the laughingstock of the business world, condemned to never find a decent job again.

“You… you might lose your job over this?” Jongdae’s voice faltered, face dropping.

Chaeyoung nodded, refusing to meet his gaze.

Raising a hand as if to pat her shoulder before (wisely) reconsidering and leaving it hovering near her ear, Jongdae shrank. “I’m sorry."

Her eyes softened. “If you’re really sorry -”

“But don’t worry, you can always support yourself using this!” Jongdae cackled as he flashed before her eyes a 500 won coin he had pulled from behind her ear.

Chaeyoung felt herself entering full-on Hulk mode.

"Kim Jongdae!”

---

From the South China Sea, Kris guffawed as he watched the primary target’s fists clench. He pitied Yixing for being the one who was supposed to bring her in -- this one wasn’t going to be easy, he could already tell.

“Yo, yo, yo, Kris my man, you’re laughing way too hard for this to be remotely work-related!” Kris flinched and minimized the screen as his supervisor, Henry, clapped him on the shoulder.

Damn, this is what happens when I spend too much time out of the field; I can’t even catch a fool with no field experience like Henry sneaking up on me, Kris grumbled internally.

“Hi, Henry.” He sighed. Just the fact the two of them were the only Chinese Canadians in the entire military base was, in his opinion, not a good enough reason to qualify Henry as his bestest friend forever, but evidently it was for Henry. Yet at times like this, Kris couldn’t complain -- it was nice having a supervisor who loved you when you weren’t always on task.

“Whatcha up to now, Kris?” Henry pulled up a chair, oblivious to his employee’s discomfort.

“Nothing?” Kris sent him a hopeful smile.

“C’mon, don’t be like that. No one laughs that hard while processing nuclear missile trial data; number-crunching's a bore, even if it is for the Chinese government’s top-secret weapon arsenal. We’re friends -- I won’t tell on you to the big guy. What were you watching?” Kris flailed mentally.

“Llama… llama videos,” he said lamely, unable to think of anything. Henry’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline.

“Llama videos?” Kris cursed himself mentally. Couldn’t have come up with anything better? You’re really getting rusty, Kris.

“Yeah,” Kris said, this time with more conviction. “Llama videos.”

Henry paused, and then a grin lit up his face. “Cool! I like llamas too!”  

Much to Kris’ distress, Henry had clearly decided he didn't feel like working either, and the next two hours were spent watching videos of sneezing llamas.

---

“If you’re calling this number, then you already know who I am. Leave a message after the tone and I’ll call - no, Henry, I won’t let you feature in my voicemail message even if you can beatbox, I don’t - Beeeeeeeep!”

Luhan groaned and slammed the phone down on his desk. Why isn't Kris picking up? He was supposed to report to me twenty minutes ago, and he’s rarely late.

Bzzzzzzz.

One new message from Angry Bird.

“Finally,” Luhan grumbled. “Took him long enough."

From: Angry Bird

To: Marilyn Mengroe

Sorry I missed our virtual date, sweet cheeks. Henry made me watch llama videos with him for TWO. HOURS. But I had to make time for my honey bun, so call me ;).

Luhan snorted at the winking emoji. To protect each other's identities in case anyone’s phone was ever found by an enemy, they all used code names. Luhan’s name had been chosen in the hopes that any enemy would assume “Marilyn Mengroe” was a cutesy nickname for some girlfriend of Kris’ rather than a dangerous rogue agent, a strategy both Kris and Luhan had turned into a running joke.

From: Marilyn Mengroe

To: Angry Bird

Don’t you dare try to butter me up -- I’m mad at you >.< You know our date today was really important to me, babe! I’m calling now to yell at you!!

This time, Kris picked up on the first ring.

“What the , Kris?! Llama videos?” Luhan asked, fists clenching.

“You know how Henry is, Lu! He’s so clingy and annoying, but he’s my supervisor, so I can’t even tell him to just go himself like I tell everybody else!”

Taking pity upon hearing Kris’ grumpy voice, Luhan relented. “Alright, whatever. I don’t have much time now. Did you get into the surveillance cameras or not?”

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