6:58pm

*Knock*

No response

*Knock Knock*

It still goes unanswered

*CRASHHH*

The girl inside the room flinches and almost shrieks before she yells, “WHAT THE MINNIEEEE?! I JUST FIXED THAT DOOR!!”

The calm and collected “door smasher” responds, “We’ve established this many times. I knock, you answer. If you don’t say anything after two knocks, the door gets busted down.”

“Dumb rule I don’t remember agreeing too” Miyeon huffs.

“This is why you don’t play Truth or Dare while intoxicated. Your drunk always picks dare and then you end up having to serve a punishment when your chicken tries to wimp out.” 

“Your fault for letting me take the dares… You just wanna have an excuse to boss me around,” Miyeon whines.

“Yes, but for good, responsible, reasons stupid. Look.”

Minnie picks up the table clock next to her and points to the time.

“7:03pm. We are now three minutes late. You would think after all this time you could’ve worked on your punctuality ..”

“Oh lighten up General. We’re not like those C.U.B.E girlies that have to fly places, we can just teleport. It only takes ten seconds man!! Besides it’s just the two of us and we have all night, we’ll be fine. Now pick a top for me to wear.” Miyeon turns around holding up two different black tops she fetched out of her walk-in closet.

Minnie scoffs “I believe you fail to realize you don't have a choice here just because “no one knows your face” ma’am. You gotta wear that turtleneck.”

“Mannnn, but it’s summer. I mean the design is cute but did you see the lace on this one??” Miyeon says waving the top in her other hand. 

“Did you forget little miss princess that just because your face isn’t out there doesn’t mean you aren’t. That guy from yesterday snapped a pic of us, we may have knocked him out but he already sent the photo over.”

“Wait he did? Dammit, I thought we got him before that..”

“What did you think your dad meant when he said at least one of us has our face out there?”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t pay attention when he said that part.”

“Stupid.”

Miyeon rolls her eyes.

“Anyways, could you not have intercepted it before it was transferred to the rest of C.U.B.E.?”

“I mean yeah, obviously I have a copy of the pic, but so do they. Kinda mad at myself for not being able to crack down on their anti-virus software quick enough. I could do it now but there’s no telling how far it’s been spread or the number of copies they made…”

“They didn’t catch my face though right??” Miyeon asks, a bit worried.

Minnie opens the file on her watch that projects the image for Miyeon to see for herself.

“No, because you were looking away, however, they did catch your neck tattoo. Yes, it’s kind of grainy, but considering that their elaborate defense system was a struggle for someone like me to crack instantly, I’m sure they have some kind of tech genius on their side that was able to enhance this enough to a clear image. My point being, you gotta cover that up, it’s not a unique tattoo and besides, the turtle neck is sleeveless so stop fussing. Unless you really wanna take the lace and toss on a scarf.”

“You-- see this is why I can’t ask you for fashion advice, like, SERIOUSLY?!! A SCARFFF… WITH THIS?? WHAT AN UTTERLY ATROCIOUS COMBINATION” Miyeon says the last line in her “overdramatic fashionista voice” but she was genuinely offended at Minnie’s suggestion. 

“Just hurry up and get changed. I’m ready so let’s get a move on before any agents swamp the area and make our task difficult.” 

“Pfft, relax Minnie. They won’t be much of an issue, let alone a match for us and you know that.”

“GO.”

“Alright, alright.” Miyeon steps into her change room, yes, her room is big enough for a walk-in closet AND a change room. Little miss princess seems to be a fitting nickname bestowed upon her by her best friend.

“Be careful when you meet up with them. We’ll cover more of these meetings quicker by splitting up but these guys can be a bit crafty so make sure they don’t try to scam you or pull any shenanigans.”

“I may be a bit rusty for being out of the game for about a year but I’m not a newbie Minnie. I know what I’m doing and so do you. We’ll be fine, you seem more uptight this time around than the last time either of us went on a mission.”

Miyeon hears the pause in response and realizes what she said.

“I mean-- … sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up or even allude to it man.”

She hears a sigh from the girl outside before she speaks.

“No, it’s fine. You can’t always try to adjust your conversation to avoid mentioning it altogether.”

Miyeon exits her change room and walks over till she’s standing right in front of her bff.

“I know. But I can try.”

She pinches both of Minnie’s cheeks and pulls them up.

“Ow.”

“Smile ya goof.”

“You’re dumb.”

“That’s not a smile.”

Minnie tries to split a grin with whatever face muscles she still has control over. As you can imagine, she looks dumb, ironically.

“There’s my Minnie,” Miyeon says with a laugh. 

“Ohkhay nhow let ghoe, mah fashe ish hurthing..”

“What?” Miyeon says after releasing the poor girl’s cheeks.

“Ahhhhh.” She says while holding and moving around her jaw. “The sweet, sweet feeling of blood circulation.”

“Drama queen much?” Miyeon says while putting her mask on. 

Minnie raises a brow “You really think you have the right to say that about anyone besides yourself?”

“Yeah you’re right. Snarky queen is better. Or Sassy, it has a better ring to it right? Sass Queen.”

“You can stick to General thank you.”

“You’re no fun sometimes…” the older girl whines. “Hey, we look kinda like those idols when they wanna be “incognito” in public haha.” she remarks when noticing their black hats and masks.

“Do we really?... The last thing we need to do is attract attention to ourselves…” Minnie states concerned.

“Oh don’t worry about that. If anything they’ll think me to be an idol or model and that’s a fine cover story. As for you, with that get up no one would think of you to be either of those trust me.”

“How flattering. Thank you.” Minie says flatly.

“Any time sweetie.” Miyeon says with a wink.

“Ew. We are well behind schedule so I will take this moment to leave before I throw up in my mouth. The coordinates are already in your watch so you’ll just teleport right there. You know where you have to go so don’t waste any more time.”

After she says that, Minnie turns her watch to input her coordinates manually, clicks the two side buttons together, and with that, she starts to dematerialize in front of Miyeon.

“Hmph, how rude of her.” Miyeon says in offense over the rejection of her sisterly affection. 

She walks over to her wall mirror to take a good look at herself before leaving. 

To think it’s been more than a year since she’s done something like this.

Back to the good old days

She clicks the buttons together and watches her reflection fade away to particles until there’s no one staring back at the mirror.

————————

“Look how much time we lost… it’s already 7:25pm.” Soojin says in an unsatisfied manner upon landing. 

“I told you we should’ve just left without her and let her catch up later. You know she’s slow at flying anyway.” Shuhua responds.

“Heyyyy!! You’re the one that took so long to get ready at home!!”

“And you were no help in picking up the pace of flying so you’re at fault too!”

“WELL WHAT DID YOU WANT ME TO DO WHEN THAT PIGEON WAS COMING AT MY FACE?! HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF DENTS THEY CAN LEAVE ON PLANES IT BASICALLY WOULD’VE TAKEN ME OUT COMPLETELY!!”

“I wish it did... would've done us a favour.” Shuhua mutters under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Despite Yuqi not being able to hear, Soojin can pick up on almost everything which is why Shuhua received a (light) smack on the head from behind.

“Unnie!!?” Shuhua whines when she looks back at Soojin, flashing her puppy dog eyes full of hurt.

“We have a task. Stop the bickering, drop the puppy eyes, and focus.”

Soojin really is like a mother sometimes trying to control her two bickering daughters 24/7.

“Now, as I said before, we’re gonna split up and try to hurry our pace to cover as much as we can tonight. I’m going to go to the tattoo parlors, the locals know me so it will be easier to chat up and see if they can help dig up any records on this tattoo since it’s our best lead on figuring out Miyeon’s identity.”

“Good idea, makes sense for you to search there anyway. I’m gonna scope the area for as many security cams I can find and download the footage off of.”

“You’re going to download and sit through all that footage to try and find Minnie or Miyeon?” Shuhua asks.

“ARE YOU INSANE?!!! THAT WILL TAKE MONTHSSSSS.”

“Then care to explain your “quicker” method genius.”

“Gladly!!” Yuqi chirps up and Shuhua just rolls her eyes at the mood switch she pulled. Anything to do with tech gets this girl excited.

“I’m going to run a software I was developing earlier today which will be able to scan through the footage for any matches based on the one picture of them we have. It will be easier for Minnie since it’s a pretty clear shot of her face but it might have more trouble spotting a girl’s neck tattoo. But hey, maybe I’ll get lucky and catch both of them in the same scene!”

“Alright so we both have places we’re gonna check, where are you planning to scope Shuhua?” Soojin asks as she turns the attention of the conversation to the youngest.

“Umm, I don’t know exactly. I guess since you’re going in the city and you’re camera hunting, I’ll search more of the private and secluded areas on our map.”

Shuhua pulls up the map hologram on her spywatch. “Probably over here like the warehouses, piers, and docks, and then maybe check back at their initial area of landing.”

Soojin doesn’t seem to completely be alright with Shuhua’s last place of investigation. 

“Hmmm I don’t know Shuhua, with the place being abandoned to begin with and that being their only sighting we know of, I think it’s best we investigate there together after. In case there could be those two or other criminals lurking there, I just don’t trust the area to be safe enough to go there alone right now.” 

“Oh, okay then, I guess I’ll just search everywhere else then.” Shuhua says.

“Sounds good, so I guess we can disperse now right?” 

“Saying big fancy words doesn’t make you sound smarter Yuqi..” 

“Well if I said “split up” it would’ve been redundant cause Soojin unnie already said it.”

“Yeah, she said it not you, so it doesn’t count, right Soojin unnie?”

Shuhua turns around to look for her but notices she’s disappeared into thin air.

As she’s looking she notices Soojin who’s crossed the street and is walking by a building, about to turn a corner out of view.

Shuhua yells quickly “SOOJIN UNNIE!! AM I RIGHT!??!”

She doesn’t stop nor looks in her direction, but as Soojin approaches the corner, she holds a thumbs up momentarily for Shuhua, as she actually disappears out of view.

“Ha see that Yuqi, I was right you dumba--” 

How convenient. Just as Shuhua turns back to face Yuqi, she too has magically disappeared, Shuhua can’t even find her while searching around.

It’s really a baffling thing about that girl. Slow as a snail in flying but speedy as a race car when it comes to walking.

Shuhua looks behind her at the fountain that they initially landed by. It was a cement one with a special sculpture at the top, one of those which water will spout out of it. It’s a griffin, she thinks.

“Well Mr. Griffin, I guess it’s just you and me.”

Almost on command, Shuhua spots a bit of the old cement on part of the fountain crumble off.

“What the. How Rude!!” 

And with that, Shuhua heads off, in some random direction. She didn’t look but she’ll end up somewhere useful. Probably.

Hopefully...

————————

The sun has just set behind the horizon as a girl enters the familiar tattoo parlor. The bell that rings once the door is opened, the sound of the tattoo machines, and the smell of ink in the air. Ok maybe the latter of those three is personal preference but it was the sounds and people that made Soojin feel at home in a way. Over the years, she would frequent this place a lot off duty and got close with the artists so it’s always a pleasant feeling to step into the little shop.

This time on a weekday the place is usually pretty empty, even the receptionist has left. The artist near the front is cleaning her tools but she looks up as she hears the chime of the bell.

“Evening little lady.” she says with a smile.

“Hey Amber unnie, Chaengie around too?” 

 Almost on command, Chaeyoung turns the corner and walks down the hall whilst undoing her ponytail.

“You called me?” She calls out to Amber only then to have her eyes make her way to the visitor by the door.

“JinJin unnie!!” she says as she goes for a hug

“Nice to see you too Chaengie.” Soojin says as they release, ruffling up the younger's hair a little.

“You know it’s around closing time but I think we can make an exception for our favourite customer haha.” Amber chuckles. “So whatcha feelin today hun?”

“I’m flattered but if you ladies couldn’t tell by my get up, I’m on duty today.”

“Oh yeah! I didn’t even notice my bad! Love the leather though, very spy chic.” comments Chaeyoung while she checks out the material.

“Just stopped by to say hi then?”

“Of course not. Work or not you guys know I’d stick around for a while anyway.” She says with a cheeky wink. “But yes, today there is business to take care of that kind of involves you guys.”

“Are we in trouble? I swear whatever it is I had nothing to do with it, blame Amber.” Chaeyoung says while pointing at the eldest.

“Glad to see you have my back kiddo. For real though, anything we did wrong?”

“No no, don’t worry guys. I actually need your help with identifying someone. It’s a stretch to begin with but any leads would be great. See, there’s this big elusive criminal me and my partners are tracking, they just recently entered the country so we’re tryna figure out what they may be up to and obviously prevent it. Problem is, she’s so unheard of we don’t even know what she looks like, all we have is this neck tattoo that Yuqi was able to enhance and clear up from a picture.”

Soojin pulls up the picture on her spywatch projection. 

“Now like I said it’s a stretch, she could’ve gotten it anywhere, who knows how long ago, but any chance if you guys could look back in your records and find something that could help as a link that would be great.”

“Oooo it’s pretty! Come with me to the back JinJin, it might take a while but if you have the time we can look through the records, they have pictures so hopefully, that could help us match it up.”

“Actually, I think I can make your search quicker.”

“What do you mean Amber unnie?”

“Now don’t quote me on this but I may or may not remember doing this tattoo on someone.”

Soojin and Chaeyoung’s eyes go wide.

“Hey! I said don’t quote me I don’t remember every single tattoo I’ve done but for some reason, this one seems to stand out a bit more to me. I vaguely remember the girl who asked for it, she was really pretty and I think it was her first tattoo. Must’ve been in the last 5 years at least so that should narrow down the search right?”

“YES!! Omg that helps a lot, I wasn’t actually expecting her to have got it here let alone YOU to have done her tattoo but this is a great lead!!”

“Come on JinJin!! Le