Kim Jongin was bored.

"Seulgi, you there?" he murmured, knowing full well that the comms unit he had in his ear would pick up his voice despite its small size.

"How many times do I have to tell you - it's Bear when you're in enemy territory!" came the familiar irritated voice of his friend. Jongin smirked in amusement, knowing full well she loved glorifying their job. He scanned the room once more, checking for tails or anything of interest.

Except a few shifty looking butlers, a woman who was drinking far too much white wine for her small body, and a sulky girl looking out into the city, there really wasn't much to note. It wasn't that he was expecting anything - he wasn't here on a job, after all - it was just something he did naturally now. Watching the rosy cheeked men who had had a few too many gulps of wine and the laughing women who's eyes were in fact shooting daggers at their companions... Kim Jongin sighed. 

The things he did for his mother. 

Speaking of which, she had moved to speak to - wasn't that the CEO of Samsung? His remarriage a few years ago had caused quite a stir in the business gossip sections since the woman was already with a child. Jongin assumed the woman standing next to him was that wife. A movement close to them caught Jongin's eye, and a thoughtful look crossed his face as he took a drink from his champagne.

"Hey Seul, was it Hyundai or Kia that caused that headache for my dear mother a few weeks ago?"

"Umm let me check." Sounds of tapping on keyboards reached his earpiece and Jongin placed his empty champagne glass on a passing waiter's tray.

He did not miss how the waiter jumped slightly at the action, and curiousity peaked.

"Something's... up." he breathed, walking towards his target as Seulgi confirmed it was one of Kia's executives that had spread the rumour of his mother's scandal with one of their workers. He hated that despite her success as the CEO of a multi billionaire business, her status as a single mother was always targeted and it pissed him off.

Jongin brushed past the man responsible, not breaking a stride as he slipped the businessman's phone out of his pocket. The back of his neck tingled, but he ignored it to plug the phone into one of Seulgi's tapping devices.

"Oi Kai. Want me to call the boys?" 

Within ten seconds of him taking the phone out, Jongin had replaced it without anyone being none the wiser. The twitch at his back was becoming irritatingly prevalent though, and he checked the room another few times to be sure.

If he hadn't, he would have missed the nod one of the bodyguards gave a butler on the other side of the room.

"Hey hey - this guy's been busy. Has four sugar babies, two girlfriends, three ..." 

Jongin tuned her out as he scoped out his mother and stalked towards her. Just before he approached her however, someone else had reached the pair she was talking to.

"Mother, Father, please could we be excused?" 

It was the sulky girl from earlier! 

"Oh Jongin! This is Mr and Mrs Pearson, and this must be their daughter. Say your greetings honey." his mother said brightly, not realising that behind her, Jongin could see certain shifts within the staffing rank that were making him Very Worried Indeed. 

"Mum. You need to go. Now." he muttered through a very strained smile. 

Confusion spread over her face, and Sulky Girl turned to stare at him for a very long second but he couldn't decipher her gaze.

"This way Ms Kim. I've loved the new addition to your Oled TV collection, is it really true you've managed to extend 4D TV into peoples' homes?"

Chatting amicably, she briskly lead the three confused adults towards the elevator, and Jongin followed.

"Oh, I'm such a klutz. I've forgotten my handbag. I'll be down in just a second!" Sulky Girl exclaimed, looking perfectly sheepish as she pressed the G button in the elevator before stepping out. She looked expectantly at Jongin, but he shook his head as the doors started closing.

"I'll come with you to find it." he replied smoothly, waving at his mum as the doors shut.

It was not a moment too soon, as that was when the gunmen began to shoot.

"Everyone get down!" one of the butlers roared as he shot with a pistol at the ceiling, causing the guests to scream and run, only to be met by large men in dark suits streaming in with guns of their own from the fire escape stairs. Without a single reaction to the sudden chaos, Sulky Girl reached into one of the potted plant decorations on either side of the elevators and grabbed a pebble. A swift throw later, the elevator's screen showing that it was going down was shattered - just in time for some men to charge round the corner and scream at them to get away from the elevator.

It was at this point that she began screaming and scuttling away almost comically in her high heels - just as the spoilt daughter of a businessman would.

Her gaze said something entirely different however, and Jongin was very, very intrugued.

-o- 

The guests were rounded up in the middle of the ballroom, with five men poining their machine guns to prevent them from moving. Women were sobbing, the men were white-faced and trembling, and I was staring at my new companion who was muttering to himself.

Or someone.

Did he have comms??

I clutched his hand 'in fear' as the gunman stepped back to let a man with a plain white mask get closer, and used this opportunity to ask him whether we had back up in Morse code.

There was no response.

I looked up at him expectantly, only to recieve a blank look back and I was very, very close to rolling my eyes. 

I thought this kid was NIS, or at the very least, an NIS trainee. Didn't the Korean National Intelligence Service teach their trainees Morse code? I quickly organised the information I had on him:

He pickpocketed one of the businessmen's phones like a pro.

He was obviously not just a thief - he called the CEO of LG his mother. 

He was also evidently not in on this scheme - whatever this was - since he wouldn't have looked so genuinely worried for his mother's safety.

So he wasn't a spy, or a thief, but then how did he realise this attack was going to happen at the same time I did through observation skills alone?

"...We are not here for your money. We are here to make a point." 

At that, I turned my attention to the masked man. That did not sound good. 

"We also know the likelihood of us getting out of here alive are very slim, and we are all prepared to die for our cause."

Double .

It had been eleven minutes and seven seconds since they had attacked. Within two hours, the entirity of Korea's defence system starting from fire engines, police, NIS and eventually the army and probably eventually the CIA would gather outside. The thought of the American foreign intelligence system made me realise that the man was speaking in American English.

I could speak fourteen languages and at school we used a different one every breakfast, lunch and dinner, and yet it seemed understanding a language and realising not everyone did was something I had yet to get used to. 

"Which ones of you here understands what I'm saying?"

There was silence.

Apparently the silence was too long however and one of the men stalked forward and dragged a woman out in front of the man, a gun cocked at her temple. She was screaming, sobbing, on her knees as people gasped. 

I stiffened. That was the woman who we had spoken to first upon entering the party.

The masked man crouched to her level, tilting her chin up condescsendingly.

"English?" he asked quietly, and she shook her head rapidly, instead pointing a shaking finger at ... me. There was only a short pause before I had replaced her position at the masked man's feet.

I looked must have looked sufficiently worried, since he patted my head 'reassuringly'. 

"Be a dear and tell them what I'm about to say, won't you?"

I was dragged up to face the crowd, and I used the new viewpoint to see that my previously twenty nine exits had been reduced to four, and that was including the window. With my currently limited information, there were zero extraction methods and pretty much no chance of me getting all the hostages out without the guards noticing. I needed backup.

"This girl speaks English." 

I translated. 

"She did not come up when I asked. I had to do it by force. I don't like doing things by force."

Like a malfunctioning robot, I shakily repeated what he said. It was only in the corner of my eye that I saw the man holding the machine gun at my head shift, and yet it was enough for me to react, turning my head so that his strike only glanced off my cheek as opposed to slamming into my temple. 

Either way, I screamed in pain and fell to the floor, acting as if it had hit where he aimed it, smearing the blood from the cut on my cheek further up my face to make it seem worse than it was.

"But I'm afraid that this is what happens when people do not do as I ask, when I ask for it." the man whispered into my ear, and I relayed this through my sobs.

"Do as you want." he told the gunmen in broken Romanian, before being escorted out by four of his men. That left six in here. The one that hit me dragged me up and I was able to see into the eyeholes in his mask. 

Blue eyes.

Foreigner.

American?

"She's a pretty one isn't she?" he jeered in Romanian, and I realised with a start that they didn't understand English. They were just muscle - they didn't realise they were being sent here on a suicide mission.

"Look at her glaring at me like that. I've heard the Asian ones are usually fiesty." he laughed, slapping my cheek a few times with his coarse hands.

"Put her back. We need to get rid of the security cameras now - plenty of time for all that later, Adrian." another man snapped at him, and I heard shots - presumably shooting at the cameras. 

Adrian shoved me down back towards the crowd of hostages and I stumbled, hitting a solid wall that stabilised me. Looking up I saw the boy - Jongin was what his mother called him - who looked very, very angry. I gave him a warning squeeze and let my legs give out from under me, making him crouch down with me in his arms, shaking my shoulders to make it seem like I was silently sobbing.

"Tell your support to call 5533 218. Tell them racoon is caged, but with a fox." my tone gave no question, and within five seconds he was relaying it to whoever was on the other side of his comms. 

"Is your support on site?" I whispered after he was done, and at his bewildered expression I rephrased. "The person on the other side of your comms - are they downstairs?" 

He stared at me for a full second before giving the slightest nod.

"That'll have to do." I sighed, eyes scanning the guard switches through my hair. This was proving to be a lot more serious than I expected. 

I was just glad my mother was safe.

-o-

Seulgi was biting her nails.

Her entire station was set up in the back of the delivery van parked behind the Shilla Hotel, and she watched the outside world as the police, firemen, and a bunch of people in suits turn up and argue with each other outside the main entrance. They were all shouting into radios, earpieces and it was all just a mess - the shots that rang out from the 40th floor had ceased, but the cameras in the room where Jongin was being held hostage had been destroyed close to an hour ago, so she had no visual.

It was an understatement to say that she was stressed. At three firm knocks to the side of her truck, she leapt up and scrambled over her equipment to open the truck door.

"You guys are so late I am so - " the girl stopped, eyes wide as she stared at the foreign woman in front of her. "U-um. Hello?" she stuttered the only word she knew in English. The woman smiled reassuringly at her, gesturing into the truck.

"Kim Seulgi, please could I come in?" she asked in perfect Korean, and that made the poor girl's face become even paler. She nodded and let her in, trying to kick all the empty crisp packets and energy drink cans under her messy blankets. The woman entered and gracefully sat herself down by the computers, eyes scanning the interior in one sweep.

"You were expecting others?" the woman asked, and despite her tone being gentle, it was also very firm. Seulgi didn't even consider lying as she nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose.

"How rude of me, I didn't even introduce myself. My name is Jessica, and I've heard you need some help. Could I speak to my agent please?" Jessica asked politely, and yet it felt like an order. Seulgi quickly relayed the message to Kai, transferred her side of the comms to speaker mode and passed a headset to her.

Jessica took a computer as well and was tapping away, blue eyes focused as she spoke to her agent in swift English. 

"Can you help Kai?" Seulgi whispered, wringing her hands together in worry. 

The smile that graced Jessica's lips was warm, and Seulgi felt that everything was going to be okay. 

"We will do our best, but we need your help."

Seulgi nodded eagerly. 

"Anything."