CHAPTER 33

“Well, based on what we researched, this is our one and only possible spy…” Seulgi opened her laptop to show Joy a picture of their suspect. 

“You have to be kidding…”

The reception called Seung-wan, Sunmi wanted to enter the building. Seung-wan let her in while watching the confusion in Joy´s face.

“Why is your mouth so open? You don´t trust our research?” Joohyun can´t tell if Joy is impressed or not, her reaction not being exactly what she waited for.

Sunmi knocked the door, Seung-wan opened for her with a smile, realizing that Sunmi indeed bringed them some nice doughnuts. 

“Hi~...What is wrong with her?” Sunmi asked when she saw Joy sitting next to Seulgi, pinching the bridge of her nose with what seemed a stressed look.

“She is in denial of her beloved spy.” Seung-wan simply answered.

“A man?!” Joy finally bursted. “A man dared to fool me?!”

Seulgi found the words amusing and couldn't avoid some giggle to escape . Joohyun just lifted an eyebrow while smiling, definitely not the reaction she expected. Sunmi sitted to the other side of Seulgi in the couch to take a look at the screen; the face of a korean man with short black hair, a little side smile that seemed to convey more of what a first look could tell and a kind yet strong look of his facial features overall.

“Oh, that is Taemin!” Sunmi declared. "He is a sweetheart when I am around, always tries to carry my stuff when I have too many documents…….oh." Joohyun and Seulgi nodded.

“Are you two completely sure this is our spy? A man?!” Joy was flipping on the inside, not only by being actually offended that it was a man the whole time but because if this is true, the person she saw on the stairs has to be the CEO then...right?. “Tell me everything you got as solid evidence that this is the guy.”

Seulgi nodded and decided to explain their process first. “Ok, pay attention please. We runned a background check, again, on the new hires and on the information you gave us Joy. As we mentioned earlier, spies tend to lie about their previous job experience to hide the fact that they were employees of another rival company or to hide the fact that they were hired by someone else to randomly go to a certain company, BUT all of the new hires were honest in their curriculum! It was so annoying! So Irene thought about doing a different approach.”

Joohyun continued with the explanation, “So, I thought about investigating the places they have worked for, since they were in theory all true, maybe one of the companies was doing the whole facade or something and when we got to Lee Taemin, bingo. Seulgi, show his curriculum please.” Seulgi proceeded to change the full screen to Taemin´s CV. “As you can read here, he is 28 and has worked for three different companies, his job position always involves doing statistics about the sales and well, we found some interesting info here.”

“His last job was from a local company located in the Mapo-gu area, this company used to work with international clients and help them with sales and enter the asian market.” Seulgi provided.

“Used to work?” Joy intervenes.

“They went bankrupt, the company phone number should not connect anymore since it was from a rented place BUT someone indeed answered when we called and asked about Lee Taemin, they claimed to be the CEO and that he was a wonderful employee...now, why the phone would still connect if the company was already non existent? And the person claiming to be the CEO on the phone call totally sounded like a young man. I searched on the internet and they still have their website up like nothing happened, like they still exist.” Joohyun continued. “But if you search the address there is a boutique located there now, I also searched for their previous clients and guess what?”

“...Why do I feel this is the moment when you enlighten me…” Joy murmured. 

“Their last client, they lost their job with that last client and then went bankrupt from one day to another...it was an international client located in no other place but England…”

“No.ing.way.” Joy was already connecting this. “Are you telling me that the same motherers that tried to scam Reve Inc. in the past sended a spy?!”

“Well, not exactly. Since Lee Taemin´s company went bankrupt because of them too I don't think they sended him but we are sure his previous CEO has sended him to steal from Reve Inc. since they can´t take revenge from the foreing client, that is probably why they are putting the facade of this local company still existing and doing well.” Joohyun went to the kitchen to grab one of the doughnuts, giving a kiss on the cheek to Seung-wan while she was at it.

“And you two are sure this is our only possible spy? There are no more suspects?” Joy´s gut told her they were telling the truth, but all this felt weird for some reason.

Seulgi nodded, “Positive.” She took a glance at the couple in the kitchen, they were sharing the doughnut now. “Again, unless we take Irene too since she quitted Lotte without explaining why…”

“She didn't tell you either? You are best friends.” Joy said while arching one eyebrow.

Seulgi denied with the head. “She just told me to wait for her to be ready, she didn't want to talk about it…”

“I am not a spy damn it!” Joohyun claimed while going back to the couches together with her girlfriend.

“I do have a question with all of this, if he is the spy what do we do now?” Seung-wan asked by being truly lost here, she has never dealt with this stuff at work before. 

“Well….” Sunmi started, “Since Joy was the one investigating this she is the one to pass all this research to the CEO, in this case you have to send it to Yeri so she delegates it to the Quality department or for the CEO to take the case herself. If Seulgi and Irene have all the evidence documented there is nothing more we can do from now ....”

“And that's it? All of this stress just to pass it to other people for them to catch the guy? Being in an office is boring…” Joy breathes deeply, feeling like an idiot for letting her job affect her personal time. “But yeah, that is the protocol to follow, I guess this is it then. Thank you so much girls, I couldn't have done it without you.”

All of them could tell Joy was more disappointed than relieved that this was over, she was the one to smell something suspicious but she wasn't the one to find anything about him in the end. The women just changed the subject and started to with the intention of having a better ambience, they wanted to cheer her up.

Joy could tell this and she was grateful to have them as friends, but she was not feeling disappointed because of who catched the spy or even of a man turning out to be the spy...something inside of her still has a weird sensation when remembering the unknown woman on the stairs, something inside of her felt like this whole thing was still...incomplete.

Monday, around 4pm.

Reve Inc. is a South Korean company that has been doing well the last years compared to their older competitors, it was to be expected that they will try to drag them down sooner or later. The girls sended Yeri all the investigation and evidence about the spy Lee Taemin and apparently the CEO was in a rush to corroborate the information since a pair of cops entered the building to directly go to the Sales Department to arrest him. 

Lee Taemin resisted, he cursed the company and everyone his eyes could see, he tried to escape the grip of the officers in vain. It was true, he was the spy. He got caught, is over. This is it.

But it was not over for Joy yet. For some reason she got mad, they got the spy but her gut was mad, somehow she craved for more answers and there is only one person that can give them to her.

So with a firm step and confidence all over her face, she went to Seung-wan's office and grabbed her by the arm to take her to the closest elevator.

To say the blonde was very confused is an understatement. "Joy? Is everything ok? Where are we going…?"

"Just come with me, I need you as moral support."

An elevator opened with only Sunmi inside, "Hi honeys! What floor are you going to?"

Joy didn't answer and entered together with Seung-wan, she hurried to close the doors so no one else would enter. Without a word, her finger went directly to the button of the highest floor.

"We are going to the CEO's office?! What are you planning now…?" An already stressed Seung-wan asked.

"My plan is to seek for answers and I am going to get them right now."

"Did you make an appointment? I mean, she could be absent or simply not receive you, no one has seen her face officially after all …" Sunmi tried to reason.

"I don't care, I am going there and will take what I can take. I'm tired of not knowing for whom I have been working my off."

The elevator stopped, slowly the doors opened to give them the view of the so famous office, there was no one sitting on the secretary's desk, who presumably was taking a coffee at the cafeteria. Joy didn't hesitate to walk directly to the closed big wood doors.

"Joy, we-we could get in trouble if we just open her office like that, calm down." Seung-wan claimed.

"No."

"At least knock on the door! We could get fired!"

Joy stopped walking right in front of the doors, took a quick breath and knocked a few times….no answer at all. Joy rolled her eyes, probably the mysterious woman was not even here, but they already got this far, at least they could check it out. She opened the doors with caution and none of the three women were prepared for what was in front of their eyes…

Four white walls. Emptiness, not even a single chair or desk, nothing. The place was completely empty.

"What the hell…" Joy whispered while still not believing this.

The elevator opened again, they could hear distant laughs coming from two women, when said women got close enough, everyone froze.

"Hyunnie?" Seung-wan's eyes got so big from surprise but suddenly felt so small.

"Wa-Wannie… What-what are you doing here?!"

Behind Joohyun, they could see an equally nervous Yeri with a coffee cup in her hand. "What-Who opened the doors? What are you doing here?"

Joohyun was carrying some clipboard with several papers, Seung-wan felt lost and tried to walk to her girlfriend to get some answers. The blonde's sudden approach made Joohyun even more nervous and her hands were trembling, this made some of the papers fall to the ground.

Seung-wan went to grab them only to realize one of them had a photo of herself and several notes on it….this was a report about her.

If Joohyun could see stars in those eyes before, she could see how these stars started to disappear and leave pure pain and sadness. And all because of her.

"Who are you?"

Yeri was the only one to break the tension between the lovers...

“.”