"Ms Pearson! Lovely to see you, please come in. This must be your daughter, thank you all for joining us tonight."

"Pleasure is all ours, Chairman. I trust Seohyun is well?" my mother smoothly replied, inclining her head with a gracious smile at the balding man who nodded in response.

"Yes my wife is just down the corridor, she will be delighted to see you. Please, step inside."

After a few more rounds of thanks, my heels finally touched the inside of the Shilla Hotel. I hadn't joined my parents on a business event like this for quite some time, and having only turned sixteen this year it was the first proper evening event I'd been invited to. I suspected there would be more to come - my stepfather was the recently appointed new CEO of Samsung after all. 

The actual event was boring. There was no other way to put it. High ranking officials, rich businessmen and their families and the like all mingled in the fancy ballroom in the most expensive part of Seoul, but despite the tinkling laughs and light exclamations, it was obvious from the first overheard conversation that it was all power play.

Particularly regarding the children.

"Oh, is this your Jennie? What a beautiful woman she's grown up to be. It is a shame we haven't seen her at any of your executive meetings, Ms Pearson, my Jungwoo would have loved to see her there." 

"Ah, I'm afraid she's been busy studying in England, dear Chang. Education is more important than attending some boring meeting she has no interest in, don't you agree?"

A high pitched, fake chuckle.

"That's a shame that she didn't study here, Jungwoo has loved Dwight, it's the best school in our country. Did you know... " and so on and so forth. 

I was bored after the first ten minutes of walking around with my mother and greeting people. Thankfully, excusing myself was easy as my stepdad joined us, and my mum gave me a reassuring squeeze when I told her I was going to get us a drink.

Scoping out the room as the daughter of on of the more affluent businesses took a grand total of two minutes. I was able to scope out the people my stepfather labelled as potential attributes for the future, the wives that my mum particularly disliked, the people I was told were our 'allies' and hence, should be nice to.

It was much more fun doing another, different kind of scan of the room, through a different perspective - one that was taught to me while I was studying in England. It showed me that the security detail in the room was moderate to high, there was a blind spot in the cameras behind a decorative Japanese screen, there were exactly twenty eight emergency escape routes - twenty nine when including the windows as we were forty floors high, and probably only about five if I took my parents into account.

I could see the people differently too.

That family my mum said that she hated because of their snobbiness - they had had a rough evening before attending this party. Nothing was wrong with the way they were presented - they were all clean, styled perfectly and not a lip stain out of place. Expected of these people. However, the stiffness in the way the wife responded to her husband, the firm grip he had on her arm, the hint of strain in his smile - it all added up. The diamond ring was fiddled with, and she had accessorised with multiple others on the same hand for some reason. 

Another family scuttled from business to business, talking eagerly about their relatively new startup - it was obviously the first time they had been invited to such an event - their son's eyes were sparkling at the extravagence of the place. He would soon come to realise that it all meant nothing, I thought rather placcidly to myself, letting out a small sigh as my gaze flickered away from the reflective window that I was studying their family from. To any other person, I was simply admiring the night view of Seoul.

I wasn't usually the kind of person that was noticed. I never really left much of an impression on anyone, and I liked it. I could be the girl next door, the cashier at 7/11, the girl walking to school early to work on extra credit - I really could be anyone. It was a particularly helpful trait in my line of business.

Tonight however, after garnering some attention when I walked in with my mother, and because I was dressed up like a doll, it took some time before I was able to melt into the shadows of the room with my glass of champagne and simply observe... while looking sufficiently absorbed so no one could approach me without seeming like they were intruding.

This new form of entertainment only lasted another ten minutes, after which I had a full read on pretty much the whole room, and I singled out the members of this company that made me uneasy. It was then that I felt something in the pit of my stomach and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. 

I was taught to never ignore my instincts.

I moved with a new fluidity, my mind clearing as I used the classic two one three scanning route of the room. I took a new base from which I had a better view of the exits and noted the position of my family. There were five 'off' people scattered throughout the room - three were butlers, one was a twitchy bodyguard and the other was a businessman who was strangely only wearing a two thousand dollar suit.

It was only when I walked to the tables serving beautiful canapes that I found the sixth one through the reflection in the shiny trays on which the food was presented.

A boy who seemed closest in age to me in this whole room. 

Who sauntered past a particular businessman.

Whose hand disappeared inside his pocket to fish out a sleek iPhone XS. 

And that was when the familiar tingles of excitement ran down my spine.

This was going to be a lot more fun than I expected.