Moonbyul gave a grateful nod in greeting to Dr Wendy Son, RVSM’s resident doctor, as she passed by her at the entrance of the medical centre. Knowing that Solar was in good hands, Byul instead strode down the corridor and the office of one Kang Seulgi: one of her oldest and closest friends from the military, who was not only a good soldier but also a tech whizz and whose fiance (a certain Bae Irene) left her family’s corporation to set up RVSM with her. After meeting when Seulgi started her basic military training and Byul had already been selected for the special forces, Seulgi was later snapped up by their superiors in the Military Intelligence and Engineers divisions as she had proven to be a natural with computer software and coding. Seulgi’s military background and experience with advanced tech, and Irene’s executive and business savvy brain led to the creation of the small but efficient RVSM, that was partially helped when they recruited Moonbyul quite early on; her special forces experience and her brief stint with the Secret Services bringing a whole new set of marketable desirable skills.

“Hey, Seulgi.” 

Seulgi’s head snapped up from the three computer screens before her and surprise morphed into a big goofy grin, “Unnie! I missed you!”

And like the teddy bear she was, she stuck out both arms and legs as if asking for a full bodied hug. Byul chuckled as she moved in from the doorway to go stand next to the seated Seulgi and avoiding the limbs, playfully messed up the younger girl’s hair. She glanced at the computer screens that Seulgi had been staring intensely at when she had walked in earlier and said, “Irene-unnie will not be pleased you were playing Counter-Strike at work again, Seulgi-ah…”

Seulgi merely winked as she smoothed down the hair that Byul had ruffled as she replied, “But you won’t tell her, so she will never know! Bros before hoes, you know?”

“She’ll kill you if she hears you say that.”

“I know, so don’t tell her that either!”

The stupid banter between them had been present almost throughout their friendship and the pair giggled at each other before Seulgi brought them back to business.

“So, I know you’re not just here because you missed your best friend. How can I help?”

Moonbyul gave Seulgi a quick summary of the incident and asked her to pull up all footage related to it. She watched (in slight awe as she often did) as Seulgi’s fingers flew across the keyboard and within minutes, she had videos from social media, news outlets and even CCTV (Byul was sure that was not necessarily accessed the legal way, but as always, she would never tell) pulled up onto her three screens.

The CCTV footage from a nearby lamp-post actually showed them the most, as it sat high above and behind the crowd with the camera pointed down towards the entrance to the studio, essentially giving them full view of the fans and Solar. They could clearly see the small bunny mask girl inciting and encouraging the fans or actively pushing them into the barrier but then they caught sight of another bunny mask wearing fan (likely male, judging by the size and build) standing at the back of the crowd, doing exactly the same. Due to the sheer number of people, Byul had not been able to see him. 

This concerned her. “So their stalker isn’t just one person.”

Seulgi nodded, looking equally disturbed, “Yeah, they may actually be a group of sasaeng fans.” 

Just then Seulgi saw Moonbyul jumping in with the fire extinguisher and was silently proud of how her friend always found a solution to anything, thinking fast on her feet before anyone could even react let alone act. They continued watching as Byul picked up Solar and turned away, just as the smaller bunny mask surged forward suddenly, catching up to bodyguard before she was fully clear of the stunned crowd with Solar in her arms. Seulgi frowned as this weird fan brushed past Byul, turned and calmly walked towards the taller bunny mask before leaving as if nothing had happened; because she could see the spreading patch of crimson on Moonbyul's white shirt as she moved away from the camera. Leaning back in her chair, Seulgi confirmed with her own eyes what she had just witnessed and glanced at the torn white shirt now stained with blood and open cut on her friend's back. 

“Unnie… your back’s still bleeding.”

“Hmm…? I’ll be fine.” Byul shrugged as she focused on scrolling through the footage, seeing if she could spot any more bunny masks in the crowd. “I’m not sure what these bunny mask sasaengs want. I don’t know if that knife attack was actually meant for me or meant for Solar-ssi. I also don’t understand why the CEO keeps shutting down any Police investigations and not telling her. It all doesn’t make sense.”

She straightened up and ran a frustrated hand through her hair, “Can I get you to open a file on this, Seulgi-ah? Try to trace the creepy messages they leave in the fan-cafe and other social media sites and see if we can link it to these bunny masks. There was also some sort of IED that failed to go off that might be sitting in Police Evidence somewhere - can you get all that data for me, please?”

Seulgi nodded distractedly, “I can do all of that, unnie, but please can you go and see Wendy after she is done with Solar-ssi?”

Byul looked down and seeing the concern in her friend’s face, she relented. “I’ll go see Wendy later. And besides,” she added jokingly, “this is nothing compared to some of the things I’ve lived through, right? So I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

As she walked out of the office, Seulgi let out a sigh and muttered sadly to her retreating back, “That doesn’t make me feel better… You’ve been through enough already, unnie, this was meant to be an easy assignment.”

It was meant to be an easy assignment.

Except it wasn’t and Byul wasn’t given any reprieve as she walked back into the medical centre to find that CEO Eric had just arrived and was flapping around in a frantic panic. As soon as his eyes fell on her, he immediately crowded into her personal space and used his height to full advantage.

“ You ! You had one job! One job ! You were meant to protect her!” He jabbed her chest with a pointed finger a few times as he continued screaming in Byul’s face, “I should have you fired for your incompetence! What the  were you doing instead of protecting her?!”

As with train wrecks, everyone within earshot couldn’t help but watch. 

Moonbyul merely clenched her jaw and taking a step back, stood to attention as if she was still in the military, replied with a curt and quiet, “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

There was a brief silence as the now red-faced man in front of her took in a deep breath, the vein in his neck bulging as he prepared to scream again.

“Eric.” Solar’s melodious voice sharply cut across, immediately deflating him. She looked and sounded a lot better than she had earlier. “Moonbyul-ssi actu