Myoui Mina grew up in a luxury estate that was the size of a small tropical island. Think perfectly trimmed and landscaped gardens. A hedge maze in your backyard. Think lawn tennis courts, pool houses, an 18-hole golf course and a cheeky little equestrian center. Mina grew up learning to do pliés and pirouettes. To wine and cheese tastings. To afternoons with a violin tutor from the Japan Philharmonic. To summers in Monaco.

Sana and Momo were well aware of Mina’s privileged upbringing. Naturally, they found it hilarious that Mina was going to take on the role of a homeless person in their ploy to kidnap Kim Dahyun.

This morning, after they dressed into their disguises, Mina asked the other two how she looked. She had on a faded green windbreaker, a ratty pair of sweats, chunky socks and dirty canvas slip-ons.

“Awww, babe. You look like a million bucks,” Sana had said with a loving sarcasm.

Momo, on the other hand, was already doubled over, pointing and laughing at Mina like an old man. Momo was slapping her thigh, really into her fit of giggles, and it made Mina want to punch her.

“Wait. Your hair.” Sana stepped over and buried her fingers in Mina’s hair.

“What are you… Argh!”

Sana ran her hands through Mina’s scalp, tossing the dark hair this way and that, tangling it up, tugging occasionally. She then took handfuls of hair, rubbed it all together, and piled it on top of one another. Momo, who hopped onto the kitchen counter (after packing herself some snacks), watched with great interest. A final whirl-around and then Sana stepped back. “There you go,” she said.

Finally released from her sorry excuse for a hairdresser, Mina shot Sana a what-the- look. “You gave me a headache!”

“I always give you a headache.” Sana was so casual about it.

Momo threw up her hands. Turned to Mina and said, “you should get used to it by now.” She took out her car keys and jumped off the counter. “Let’s go, lesbians. Hut hut!”

Ugh. The sacrifices Myoui Mina had to make…

- - -

Mina spent over an hour fixing surveillance cameras within a five hundred meter radius of their mark. Their mark was a piece of electric blue chewing gum that Momo had spit onto a specific spot on the sidewalk. That specific spot was where Sana was supposed to “engage” the target.

The sunglasses Mina wore were installed with tiny cameras and the lenses had a holographic display projecting texts and figures like, say, the details Nayeon sent in: adjustment instructions for each public surveillance camera they were to encounter in the course of this operation. Creating these blind spots was the quickest way to work around Songdo City’s extreme security measures.

Now, she was down to Camera ZS219. The last of it. Thirty degrees clockwise, then tilt sixteen degrees upwards.

Mina had to manually move the cameras. The problem was, they were mounted four meters up utility poles. To avoid suspicion, she used a tool Dr. Chou herself had invented. It was an extendable reacher grabber, like a fishing pole with a mechanical claw at one end. The special thing about this tool though was that it was made of reinforced aluminum oxide films. Aluminum oxide had almost the same refractive index of air. It was see-through. Basically invisible.

Jihyo said Dr. Chou Tzuyu, an accomplished Materials Science engineer, worked very hard on it and even went as far as using Nayeon as her test subject.

“How?” Mina, Sana, and Momo asked together.

“Doctor Chou kept snatching her wig,” Jihyo had said.

Mina, who at the moment, was violently prodding a very stiff-hinged Camera ZS219 to point upwards, still had no idea if Chief Park was joking or not. To the uninitiated, those being the passing civilians, Mina was this sad, frustrated homeless person who was shaking her fist at nothing and damning the system to hell.

So much for avoiding suspicion.

When Mina was finally done, she retracted the reacher grabber and hid it in her windbreaker. Her phone vibrated right after, signaling a notification.

Okaaaaay.

Nayeon just sent a selca of herself giving a thumbs up.

[ Text: Congratulations on not ing up! ]

Then another selca where she pulled a duck face.

[ Text: Dropping some certified grade-A PERFECTION on your screen ]

Mina groaned. The people she had to work with!

- - -

“I can’t believe the great Myoui Mina is dressed up as a bum.” Momo hooked an arm around the ‘poor homeless woman’, whipped out her company phone and stuck it up. “Lemme take a selfie.”

Momo smiled like an idiot.

Mina, prim and proper Mina, went middle finger up (f-u-k-me) at the camera.

After examining the shot, Momo just had to laugh or she’d piss herself. “You make a great hobo. Dirty, hopeless, absolutely rude. The look on your face! You’re so done with the world!”

Mina rolled her eyes. “That’s because I am.”

“True,” Momo replied with a shrug.

Mina shook herself out of Momo’s hold. “How’s Sana doing?”

Momo swiped and tapped at her phone screen until a tab of a live video came on. Just a glimpse and Momo raised her eyebrows. “She’s having the time of her life, apparently. Look.” She angled the phone so that Mina could see as well. The footage they were looking at was courtesy of Bonjour, the robotic bird that flew overhead, programmed to keep visuals on Sana. The same Sana who had just knocked herself into Kim Dahyun, expertly spilling coffee on the poor kid. Momo hooted. “And… touchdown.”

For a while there, Mina and Momo just stood to watch Sana work her magic.

“How does she do it?”

“Huh?”

“Her aegyo. It’s threatening to add a number to the Richter scale.”

“I don’t speak geek, Mina.”

“The devastation she can potentially cause is beyond the limits of this earth.”

“Oh.”

They listened in on Sana and Kim Dahyun’s conversation.

You’re so hot.

Momo gasped. “Dang, that was smooth, like… Patrick Swayze smooth.”

“What do you mean smooth?” Mina hissed. “She’s being too forward. Sana’s supposed to seduce the girl. Not scare her away!”

“Mina,” Momo said softly, putting a hand on Mina’s tense shoulder. “Relax. Satang’s got this.”

I mean, the coffee. The coffee’s hot.

Mina sighed in relief. “Good save.” Then, in the video, she saw Sana taking out a handkerchief. The signal.

“Showtime,” Momo said. She was already on it, pulling out the car keys. “Remember, once I get to the meeting point, bring the car up.”

“Got it.”

Momo slowly handed the keys over to Mina. “Be careful with her.”

“I will,” Mina said. She wasn’t