The sound of a loud ringtone immediately pulled Byul out of sleep. With her surroundings beginning to be pieced together, she reached out for her phone. There was an automatic smile on her face upon seeing the caller ID.

“Good morning.”

“Hey, sleepyhead,” came Sehun’s voice. “It’s almost seven. Aren’t you supposed to be up?”

“Mmhm,” she mumbled sleepily as she rubbed her eyes.

“I looked into Kim Jongin.”

The name had pulled all of the tiredness from Byul’s body like a vacuum and instead replaced it with adrenaline. She sat up from bed abruptly, causing her vision to be fuzzy for a few seconds. “Already? What did you find out?” she asked and hung on to his every word.

She had tried to ignore it, but Byul could no longer lie to herself that she wasn’t waiting every waking second to figure out the answer to the burning question in her head. The friend that she had warmed up to—was he who he said he was?

Or was that all part of some sort of grand master plan set out from someone who wanted her dead? That the boy was being paid off to be nice to her. To offer company. To offer friendship.

“He’s clean. Don’t worry about him,” Sehun said.

Byul felt a relieved breath leave her body. She had hoped as much as she could that her friend was good and she was glad that Sehun could confirm this. “Y-You’re sure? It only took you a night to look into him?”

“You’re doubting me?” he joked. “I’m sure. He’s in almost every class that you’re in. Strange, but it’s just how it is—a coincidence. Everything checks out. Even his background. He’s just a normal guy from Suncheon. Keep letting me know if you feel like someone is acting suspicious though, alright?”

She didn’t even want to begin to ask how Sehun managed to know everything about someone’s whole life in one night. “Okay, I understand. Thank you, Sehun.”

Byul’s classes had ended about a half-hour ago, though she found herself spending some time in the library. She eyed the endless lines and stacks of books, momentarily forgetting what she was even there for. Reading all the book titles off their hinges was hurting her head.

“Stupid survey assignment,” she muttered under her breath, letting a finger run over the book hinges as she walked by them. “It seems like such a waste of time to go around asking people to fill these out.”

Jongin snickered at a thought. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend to fill one out?”

After Sehun’s confirmation that Jongin was clean, she felt herself relax more around her friend’s presence. It was a huge relief that she had not spent all this time befriending and getting to know someone who was possibly out to claim the price on her head. Byul looked down at the sheet in her hand that listed all the questions that were supposed to be answered on the survey assignment. The first few questions were basic ones you would ask a stranger to get to know them better.

“You know what’s funny? I don’t really know what Sehun does for his job. Whenever I ask, he answers kind of vaguely. Or maybe I’m just not understanding something.”

“What does he say?” Jongin asked, seemingly interested in a book he spotted because he stopped to stare ahead of him at the shelf.

“Personal hire,” she said. “What does that even mean?”

“Have you been to where he works?”

“I think he works from home. He goes and sees clients and stuff though. And, umm...” Byul tucked her hair behind her ear in thought. She wondered if it was okay to tell Jongin all this, but thought that he was the only one she could really talk to about that. If she said anything to Jangmi, she would go on and on about how right she was about Sehun.

Jongin looked at her evenly, waiting for her to continue.

“And he gets into fights a lot. I remember this one time his friend brought him into my apartment. He was all bruised and cut up.” She shrugged. “You think he has to fight people for business? Would that even make sense?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

Byul recalled the blood on his shirt. Maybe it wasn’t even blood. She was drunk after all and might not have been in the best state of mind. She recalled how he single-handedly and effortlessly stopped an armed man from robbing the convenience store they were in. “He might? He’s strangely good at fighting. He might be an undercover FBI agent or something.”

Jongin snickered.

Byul looked up at him, confused. “What’s so funny?”

“Working for the FBI?” He seemed to think it was a hilarious joke because he couldn’t get the grin off his face.

“I don’t know, Jongin. I think it’s weird that he doesn’t really say where all of his money comes from also.” Sehun was obviously getting more money than the average salary, but from what kind of job? Maybe it was the opposite of the FBI. Was he in a gang of some sort? Byul wanted to fully trust Sehun. She felt bad for even doubting him or thinking that he had some kind of ulterior motive.

“Got it.” Jongin plucked out a book from one of the shelves. He turned back to Byul and expected to hear a sigh of relief from her that they had finally found the book they were in search of, but instead he saw a troubled expression. “You seem worried. Are you thinking twice about him?”

Byul didn’t want to mention Kim Kyungmin who was reported dead on the news after Sehun had been probing into every possible information about him. “I don’t want to,” she said to answer Jongin. If it hadn’t been so quiet, Jongin would not have heard her.

“It’s probably nothing. He’s just a really private person.”

“That’s true. He is.” Byul followed Jongin as he scanned the book to borrow it. “Probably nothing,” she repeated to herself.

“Is he picking you up?” he asked once they were out of the library and slowly heading out the building.

“Yes.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“See you. Bye!”

The two split ways after a wave. As per usual when Sehun wanted to see Byul after her classes, they met up by the front of the campus. She could spot him from a mile away with his tall physique and broad shoulders. While occupied with his phone, Sehun was leaning against his fancy new silver S-Class Coupe Mercedes Benz that he’s been wanting to get for a while. It added to his collection of vehicles. Byul wondered again how he managed to afford the thing so quickly, but she knew it wasn’t her place to ask. The flashy car began to turn some heads.

Sehun looked up when he heard her approaching footsteps. “Hey, long day? You seem tired.”

“A little.” She sheepishly smiled.

Out of courtesy, Sehun opened the door for her before rounding the front of the car to get to his own seat behind the wheel. She cozied herself inside the car’s sleek interior as they rolled into the main road.

“Thanks for picking me up. You didn’t have a lot of work earlier today?”

Sehun looked outside the window at the shops they passed, wondering how hungry he was for food. “I finished up quickly. Nothing too messy.”

His words were always so puzzling whenever he described what he did for the day. Byul knew he wasn’t good with words, but he couldn’t be so terrible as to not be able to properly tell how he spends his time, right? Byul looked down at her lap where she had rested her folders and papers. She remembered her assignment.

“I have this assignment. I’m supposed to let people take this survey and properly correlate all the data later on. Can I ask you a few questions right now? It’s all anonymous when I hand it in. Don’t worry,” she said, wanting to push him into agreeing.

“Sure, I can help.”

Byul slid a pen out from her bag. She first filled in Sehun’s very basics such as his gender and checked off the correct age range. She stared at the blank space beside the question she wanted to ask first. “Occupation?” Byul questioned without looking at him, anticipating his answer.

“Hm,” he pondered. “Put down ‘Independent Contractor.’”

She scribbled that onto the sheet. The next new questions were general ones that she decided to skip. “Nowadays, people are often stopped by police for many different reasons. Since age 18, have you ever been stopped by police?”

“Kind of?”

“These are yes or no questions.”

“I guess…” Sehun squinted out the windshield in thought. “Yes.”

Byul wrote that down and moved on to the next question. “During this contact, were you ticketed and/or given a warning?”

“Yes.”

She saw the next boring question, though decided to make up her own. “How often do you engage in conflicts that turn physical?”

Sehun raised an eyebrow at her when they stopped at a red light. “I thought these were yes or no questions.”

“I guess not this one.” She forced a smile.

“Okay, I…” he hesitated and Byul didn’t fail to notice.

“You have to be honest on these, Sehun.”

“I often do,” he said after a moment.

Byul tried to react calmly with a straight face as she pretended to write that down. “Is it for work or something else?”

“That’s really the next question?”

She forced out a laugh. “I didn’t make these up.”

Sehhun thought it was odd, but believed it made sense since it was a Criminal Justice course. “Then put ‘work.’”

Byul took a deep breath and felt her fingers clench tightly around her pen. It looked like it was in danger of snapping in half. Her next question was just at the tip of her tongue, though she had to take a moment to compose herself before saying those words together in that order. When she spoke, it didn’t sound like her own voice.

“Have you ever killed anybody?”

Unexpected to how Byul thought he’d react, Sehun laughed. “Are you serious? These are actual questions?”

She gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Yes, this survey is about the general public’s involvement and contact with the criminal justice system.”

They arrived at her apartment and before she knew it, the question simply dropped at that. Byul followed behind him as they headed inside the building. Looking at Sehun’s face, he seemed so… normal. Too relaxed. Why was part