[A COUPLE OF HOURS EARLIER]

Chaewon woke up in a large dark room. Everything was pitch black; she couldn’t see anything around her when she looked around. She tried to stand up but the ropes on her arms and her legs hindered her from doing so. She tried to scream, but her screams were muffled by the cloth wrapped around . Where am I? Who are these people?

She tried to struggle against the ropes and free herself, but it didn’t work. She managed to feel the ropes with her fingertips, and based from her experience, the ropes had the same consistency of those used for anchoring boats. This meant that it would be next to impossible to break through the ropes. Her next instinct was to break the chair instead, so she tried to move her slightly free fingertips around to touch the chair she was sitting on. This led to more disappointment when she felt the cold touch of metal on her fingers. Well, I’m not going to be able to break that.

She was about to give up when she suddenly heard the door open and two pairs of footsteps slowly getting louder in time. Using her keen sense of hearing, she could tell that the first pair of footsteps were heavier and had a steady rhythm to them. From the timbre of the sound, she deducted that the person was wearing high heels with the heels having a base thicker than that of a stiletto; which was common for office workers or women in uniform. The other pair of footsteps had a slightly irregular rhythm to them, as if the owner was hesitating to approach her. The footsteps were also a lot quieter and didn’t have the clicking sound of heels with it, which meant that the person was highly likely to be wearing flat shoes and was behind the person wearing the heels.

The footsteps stopped and she heard a click. Suddenly, there was warm white light coming from above her head. Chaewon looked up and saw a single light bulb just above her head, close enough that she could feel the heat emanating from the said bulb.

“Ya. You’re Kim Chaewon, right?”

She finally put a face to the footsteps when she looked over to where the voice came from. One of the women had long black hair with model-like facial features. She was wearing a black blazer over a plain white blouse and black slacks. Chaewon looked down and saw that the woman was wearing white, medium-high heels. She must be the senior here.

She looked over to the woman behind the brunette and was slightly taken aback by what she saw. The woman had pink hair which accompanied her vibrant face well. The woman had her eyes wide open, which was likely because of shock upon seeing Chaewon was awake. She was wearing a blue long-sleeved blouse with a white pencil skirt; an outfit that was a sharp contrast to her bright hair. Although not as scary as her senior, Chaewon knew that there was more to the woman than her looks.

“Ya! Kim Chaewon!”

Chaewon was then greeted by a slap to her face. She was staring too much at the pink-haired woman that she didn’t notice the woman in the blazer had already walked to her side expecting a reply from her previous question.

Chaewon tasted a tinge of blood in and answered, “Who are you and what do you want from me, ?” The cheeky remark warranted another slap to Chaewon’s face, but now on the other cheek and with the back of the woman’s hand.

“I don’t like rude people,” the brunette said, her eyes looking straight towards those of the girl tied to the chair.

Chaewon spat out to clear and looked up to the woman who just slapped her and said, “Who are you and what do you want from me, ma’am?” She changed her tone in the last word to a mocking one, which seemed to provoke the woman a lot more. The woman was raised her hand to prepare to slap Chaewon again when the pink-haired woman stopped her.

“Eunbi-unnie. Stop it. We need her to talk. She might die if you keep slapping her like this,” said the pink-haired woman, matching her senior’s gaze. The brunette shook off the hand that stopped her, turned around, and walked away from Chaewon to blow off some steam. The pink-haired woman took no mind and approached Chaewon. She looked at Chaewon with her gentle eyes and said,

“Ms. Kim, I’m Agent Kim Minju from the Japanese Intelligence Agency. I’m working with Agent Kwon Eunbi,” the younger woman motioned to her senior who was walking away, “who’s from the NIS, to catch con artists who have been travelling from Korea to Japan and vice versa.”

Without breaking eye contact, Minju crouched down and continued, “You, Ms. Kim Chaewon, are one of them.”

Chaewon tried to bluff her way out of the situation and asked, “Huh? What did I do? I just got here like a week ago---”

“Does the name Jo Yuri ring a bell?” Minju interjected.

“Well, yeah she’s a well-known singer. Other than that, I’m afraid I don’t know---”

Chaewon was again interrupted, but not by a human voice. The sound of a revving motor filled the room. The newbie con artist turned and saw that the sound came from a chainsaw that was held by Agent Kwon Eunbi, who was nonchalantly walking towards her. Chaewon could feel the cold sweat on her forehead as she saw the turning blades get too close for comfort. She looked back to Agent Minju and said,

“Alright! I ran a con on her using her engagement ring as bait, but that’s all water under the bridge now that I gave her the ring!” Chaewon spat out. She was desperate to not be cut by the chainsaw.

“Is that so?” asked Minju with her eyebrow raised.

“YES! ASK HER! I JUST RETURNED IT TO HER EARLIER TODAY.”

“Interesting,” the pink-haired agent said as she stood up and walked around Chaewon. Although the younger’s eyes were gentle, there was something about how she moved that Chaewon felt eerie for a reason.

The senior agent put the chainsaw back down and said, “Yeah, that’s interesting and all, but that’s not what we’re interested in. We want to know if you know the con artist named Heose.”

Chaewon was shocked upon hearing the codename. She remembered Hitomi telling her that Yena-unnie was one of the best con artists in Asia because the police didn’t even know she existed. She had no outstanding warrants on all her codenames, but she was well-known in the criminal underworld. Knowing that these two agents were looking for Heose meant that these two were in a different class compared to Korea and Japan’s police force.

Chaewon thought that this wo