I've got a cavern of secrets

None of them are for you

Even if you wanted to keep them

Where would you find the room?

She doesn’t know Giselle's real name. Nor does Giselle know hers. They are gambling their lives for strangers whom they barely know anything about, yet even the sight of her makes the quick drum of her heart fade into a stable rhythm. Minjeong slips the spycam towards her on the bench, national secrets diluting with a simple exchange. Giselle gives her a curt nod, pocketing the camera in her purse. No thanks, no gratitude. Not like she expected anything.

Minjeong waits for a few seconds in case Giselle has something to tell her. She scratches the peeling paint off the bench, the brown paint getting stuck under her fingernails. Giselle refuses to look at her. Minjeong waits. She mindlessly follows the figures rushing past them — a simple Wednesday afternoon, after work, during the last kicks of the summer. Minute by minute the sunlight disappears, dipping under the horizon and they are running out of time. One sharp flake of the thick brown paint stabs the soft skin under her nail and it starts bleeding. Giselle still doesn’t speak. 

“Do I have anything from home?” Minjeong asks, forcing apathy in her voice. 

It doesn’t work. If she has to ask, she’s already showing her cards. Giselle glances over at her, a sigh leaving her lips. 

“Winter—” she starts, voice sounding softer than usual around her code name. Minjeong’s stomach shrinks into a tight ball. “We have intel that the new first secretary might be secretly working for MI6. We cannot risk communication now with your family. The stakes are too high.” 

She knows. She read through the file about Yu Jimin. Her name was mentioned by an insider at MI6 by passing, but her history was scrubbed clean so there’s no guarantee. Too clean, if Minjeong can say so. Oxford graduate with a Political Science degree, got her first job right after university at the Office of Foreign Affairs in Britain and has been climbing the ladder ever since. She’s been on diplomatic missions all around the world and now, she got her First Secretary job in Seoul. The ambassador wasn’t too happy about it. 

(“Jakarta, Moscow, Santiago, Wien. I don’t know who she sleeps with to get these jobs,” the ambassador said crudely as he threw her manila file on the table and pointed at the list of her previous experiences. He earned some awkward laughs from the assistant attachés and it egged him on. Pulling the attached photo of the woman closer to himself, he raised his eyebrows suggestively. “But I hope he doesn’t mind sharing.”

If that day Minjeong accidentally bumped into him with a mug of scorching hot coffee and made him end up at the hospital with second degree burns, that’s her own business.)

She gives a nod. She could kick and scream at her handler, then she’d be removed the next day. Her place here is as fragile as the thin webs of secrets she’s infringing. Minjeong wonders if she could be anything other than a spy. 

“You will have to be careful. We will stop the scouring now for a while. Your task is to soften up Yu Jimin and get tangible evidence that she’s a plant. We want to know what files she’s looking into, what’s her possible target, if her mission is colliding with ours,” Giselle lists, voice serious. She falters for a second, glances towards Minjeong. “It’s not an official order but — don’t engage with her too much. We don’t know how serious she is or how dangerous. If she’s dangerous at all. We need you there Winter so don’t take unnecessary risks.”

Giselle, as a handler, has always been a little too soft. Minjeong had handlers who barely let her breath, who demanded weekly updates about the mission, who saw nothing in her other than a treason committing machine. Minjeong can only imagine the pressure that rests on Giselle’s shoulders because of her — and even with the additional burden, she still doesn’t ask the world from Minjeong. Maybe it’s the sunlight caressing her cheeks, maybe it’s the affection that keeps her warm.

“Got it.”

Minjeong can feel the laser focused gaze on her face as Giselle tries to place her reaction. Rummaging through her handbag, she pulls out an envelope. It’s already opened, its content was already handled by careless rubber gloved hands, emotionless stares scanning the letter for any secret code, any morsel of information that could mean Minjeong is playing a double game. Or if she’s invited to one. 

The downside of espionage is that not even the closest to her heart is allowed to know. For what her family knows, Minjeong is really working as a typist at the British Embassy of Seoul and they still wonder how she did it. Daughter of a fisherman and a vendor, little sister of a deceased private from Busan, and even before that from Pyongyang. But Minjeong was too little when they uprooted their lives and moved; her mind always connects childhood with the sound of seagulls and the salt mist in the air. She worked at the local military base as she became of age, but the helpless rage she felt opened more doors than she expected. Innocent-looking, young, non-threatening, woman — these were the keywords the National Intelligence Service looked for during the recruitment. 

Now, she’s planted into the embassy with a fake university degree and a graveyard name. 

“This is the last letter for a while now. I’ll have to burn it once you finish reading,” Giselle warns as Minjeong is tearing the letter out of the envelope with the hurry of the famished. 

Dear Minjeong,

I hope you are doing well at the embassy and the big city is treating you well. 

Your father has been very lucky with the sea the past few weeks so we have been busy. We decided to surprise you and we recklessly bought you a train ticket to come home for Chuseok, even though you said you might be busy. The English don't take a day off for Chuseok, do they? Hopefully they will still let you come home for a few days. Your brother must miss you a lot. And we do as well. 

Write soon!

Love,

Mother

Minjeong runs the pads of her fingertips on the dips and curves of her mother’s handwriting. She wishes the last letter she’s allowed to read for a while to be longer, a thick book filled with the fresh laundry scent of her mother, the scent of salt of her father, and the warm scent of homemade sundubu-jjigae that fills their house. She wants to read pages upon pages of mundanity that she took for granted. About the public market hearsays, the current tides, the loud bark of the neighbor’s dog as Minjeong slips him a few secret treats. The laughter of her brother, the coarse material of his uniform, the pinched look between his eyebrows as he left them to only return cold and unmoving. 

“Where are the tickets?” Minjeong asks as she carefully folds the letter and slips it back into the envelope. 

Giselle takes it from her. She opens a silver case, slim cigarettes lying in a perfect line. She takes one, lights it until the end burns like a small sun. After a deep inhale and a slow exhale, she says, “You’re not allowed to go.” 

“I know. Can I still have them as keepsakes?” Minjeong watches as Giselle holds up her letter to the end of her cigarette and it catches on fire. In a few seconds, only ash is left from the former love — Minjeong feels similarly. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

“And I also know that I’m asking for too much from you Giselle — but, can you please send a letter to them that I cannot make it to Chuseok? I don’t want to worry them.”

“Yeah,” she says, blowing out smoke, “I can do that.” 

The sun completely disappears behind the skyline of Seoul. Minjeong walks home, into her flat of bare walls and barely slept-in bed, still tasting the ash in .

***

Yu Jimin was officially introduced on Monday morning. A stunning woman with a hard look in her eyes, in her neat light blue costume and shining Mary Janes. Minjeong sits behind her desks, fingers frozen mid-typing as the ambassador swept in with her, a suave smile on his lips and a hand way too touchy on Jimin’s shoulder. For a moment, Minjeong agrees with the ambassador — Jimin looks way too young for a first secretary position. Her face is dewy and youthful next to the sun spotted face of the ambassador. Mr. Crook had none of the previous grievances about his new personnel, now that Jimin pleasantly nodded along with whatever he said, long neck and elegant knot bobbing along but not laughing at crudely made jokes.

Minjeong continues typing away a report, some half-drunk tourist losing his passport, because she rarely needs to be anything but just a pair of quick typing hands and she’s grown to learn that she prefers the quick call of ‘Typist!’ to the butchered version of her name. 

The typewriter dings as she reaches the end of the page. Jimin curiously looks at her way.

“And her?” Jimin asks, a raspy voice hugging her perfect Oxford English accent. 

“The typist. She’s a wonder with reports.” 

Minjeong forces a tight smile on her lips and hopes it comes off friendly and bows her head. Under the table, her hand turns into a fist. Whoever planted Yu Jimin had done a terrible job — everything screams special about her. The NIS plucked Minjeong out of the military base because she could make herself perfectly invisible. On the contrary, Jimin attracts attention, a stray blazing orb between the drab men surrounding her to steal a glance.

For the first time since Jimin stepped into the embassy, she smiles. 

“And this is Mr. Fox, Second Secretary—” 

The moment is broken. Jimin turns away from her, the small bridge that was suddenly pulled up between them crashes to the ground. 

Minjeong slowly lets her fist unwind as Jimin has her back to her. For a moment, she was torn out of her blandness; for a moment, all limelights were turned towards her. She’s never met another spy before; she assumed most of them would be like her. Anyone you would know: a distant acquaintance, the neighbor who nods at you in the morning. One of her tasks is to get evidence that Jimin is a spy and word of mouth will not be enough — yet, Minjeong has no misconception that she is one. 

Now, the harder part is to support this. To find confirmation that supports her theory. 

Giselle’s instructions are contradictions — know her motives, but don’t make a contact. Get physical evidence about her spying, but take care of yourself. 

Minjeong hasn’t met another spy before and maybe that’s why she’s being drawn to Jimin like a moth to the open flame. She has little regard for her own safety. 

So she does as she always does. Flits around the embassy, brings coffee to the ambassador and his yapping herd, types away on her typewriter as the stack of to-do files piled higher and higher with reports the attachés shake off of themselves. Minjeong writes them, trusts the files under their noses for a signature and uses this time to listen in to the conversation between Jimin and Mr. Crook through the slightly ajar door to the ambassador’s office. 

It’s hard to hear them over the excited prattle of the embassy. But Minjeong catches Mr. Crook’s hand slipping over the old, mahogany table to hold Jimin’s hand, his thumb running over her skin. Nausea hits the back of Minjeong’s throat, the previous ‘hope he doesn’t mind sharing’ flashing through her mind. Is Jimin a honeypot agent? Is she planted here to seduce Mr. Crook until she can press every small morsel of information and state secrets out of him? 

(When Giselle was introduced to her, as a successful handler of several in-land and Japanese missions, she pulled her aside to say: “Try to make yourself useful. These men will try to put you into the role of a seducer but prove them wrong. Show them you’re more helpful being distilled in the ranks of the embassy than under the ambassador. But remember — you have to do a lot more than they expect. Not even your 200 percent will be enough.”

When Minjeong brought back three years worth of inside and outside correspondence and detailed reports about the embassy as a whole, the NIS found her more suitable for the role of a typist than the secret lover of Mr. Crook. 

Maybe some spies don’t have handlers who care.)

Jimin suddenly clears and pulls her hand away from Mr. Crook’s touch. The air felt suffocating and cold, as she pulled her chin back, immediately putting a distance between them. 

“I would appreciate it Mr. Crook if you treated me the same way you do with your male colleagues. I’m here to serve my country and for no other reason,” Jimin says, slow and polite. She doesn’t make herself smaller, her hands stay on the table as she shuffles through her documents. Minjeong tries to crane her neck to see the face Mr. Crook makes but the attaché in front of her clears his voice, holding the signed report out to her. Before she has to leave, Minjeong hears the clear ring of Jimin’s voice. “I would like to discuss the lack of official reports to the Foreign Ministry before we move on with the tour.”

Minjeong cannot help the small puff of laughter leaving her lips. The attaché raises an eyebrow at her but leaves her to be. 

On the way back to her desk, Minjeong brews a new portion of fresh coffee. Fills the fragrant beverage into her indigo ceramic mug and leaves on the desk of the previous First Secretary. It’s not reaching out, it’s not making a move, she reasons. But all reason and rhyme leaves when Jimin finds the steaming mug on her desk, long fingers wrapping around the body as she sips from it, tension leaving the tight set of her shoulders. 

***

Jimin runs the crimson red lipstick over her lips. She smiles at herself, rubs off the lipstick smeared on her teeth. Minjeong watches her from the side as she washes her hand for too long, the cold water making her finger joints ache. Don’t take unnecessary risks, Giselle voice warns her in the back of her mind, but was espionage ever not risky?

Something in Jimin is off-putting. She’s an oddly contrasting person — Minjeong feels drawn to her by sheer curiosity, while the cold edge of her demeanor makes her reconsider. Instead, she waits and hopes that the first building block of the bridge between them will be placed by Jimin. And her wishes seem to come true as Jimin’s eyes flash over at her in the rusting mirror, gentle brown eyes sticking to her for a moment too long.

“You’re Kim Minjeong, right?” Jimin purses her lips, like she’s in thought. Minjeong’s mind buffers at the smooth pronunciation of her name. Narrowing her eyes, a small smile curling at the corner of her lips, Jimin adds, “The embassy typist.”

“Yes,” Minjeong responds too fast. Clearing , she quickly wipes her hands and bows her head once again. “I’m glad we finally met, Miss Yu.”

Jimin bows as well. Minjeong catches the last milliseconds of her hand dropping beside her, a quick backpedaling and opting out of a handshake, and she stifles a smile at the sight of a stumble. The contradictions keep stacking: Western habits and soft, round Korean vowels. Jimin recovers easily, repeating back the pleasantries.

“Thank you for the coffee. I assume it was you,” she adds.

“I thought you would need a pick-me-up after your conversation with Mr. Crook.” 

“Did you hear it?”

Minjeong shakes her head. “I acted out on my own experiences.” 

The try at a friendly banter misfires as Jimin’s jaw tightens. To have something to do with her hands, Minjeong turns back to her reflection, to the heavy bags and hollowed dark eyes in the mangy yellow light, and pinches her cheeks to have some color on them. It’s a redundant move — glancing towards Jimin’s way, catching her already watching, blood rushes to her cheeks immediately.

“I heard you studied at Cambridge.” It’s not a question. Minjeong nods once. “I had a friend there, I often visited. Lovely place.” 

“As is Oxford.” 

Minjeong studied the map of Cambridge enough to know every secret nook, if it comes up in conversation between Oxbridge-born diplomats. She could talk about it for days. The NIS made her repeat the names of each professor, drilled into her head the teaching styles, the acknowledgments. But standing in here, the suffocatingly small women’s toilet with Jimin, the scent of harsh bleach and Jimin’s sweet perfume lingering in the air, the ready-made lies stick in .  

Jimin studies her face for a long moment. This time, Minjeong doesn’t back down — stands the scorching heat of curiosity on her skin, the unreadable expression that makes her want to scramble to say something. 

“I know we’ve just met,” Jimin starts with the ease of someone who practiced this line over and over in the mirror, “but I really wouldn’t mind someone showing me the ropes here. I admit, the First Secretary position has put me into a difficult spot.”

An additional file arrived at her apartment that morning. Opening it up, Minjeong found information about Jimin that had been probably scrubbed from existence by her possible employers. Detailed reports about her university days, including the list of lectures and seminars she attended, the kind of people she befriended, the part-time jobs she took. It’s easy to objectify her task when a person is made up of data, dressing in a fairytale-like quality. 

But the Jimin that stands in front of her is nothing short of a real being; living and breathing, however perfect-looking, with small bursts of awkwardness that makes her painfully human. 

“You mean me?”

Blood red lips pull into a half-smile. 

“Well, Mr. Fox offered as well, but I would prefer you. By a mile.”

The do not engage alarm still rings through her head, but Giselle’s voice comes sporadically quieter. 

***

The indigo mug stays on Jimin’s table but Minjeong cannot bring herself to mind. She buys a similar one, brick red and a little unshapely, and places it next to the others. It’s the highlight of her day, to stand next to the brand new automated coffee maker, listen to the rhythmic sound of the machinery and the loud hiss of the steam until the air is filled with the scent of coffee. Most of the embassy drinks tea; unchecked diplomat bags carrying a wide variety of Earl Grey and Rooibos blends, but Minjeong prefers the tangy taste of coffee. 

Minjeong is used to being the first one at the embassy in the early morning hours. She lives near, and the apartment is too hot during the August humidity to stay in while the sun is up and shining. The birches and camphor trees growing around the embassy give a little haven from the sweltering heat; the silent offices let Minjeong hum under her breath as she’s clicking away on her spy cam over TOP SECRET labeled files. Usually Mr. Fox arrives second, and says nothing about the typist being here before anyone else as long as she’s typing away his reports with an upcoming deadline and has his tea drink-ready on his table.

But now, as Minjeong steps between the thick, red brick walls, the sound of a screeching machine welcomes her. Following the noise, it leads her to the office of the First Secretary.

“Good morning, Minjeong!” Jimin beams from her table. A stockpile of manila folders and a few scattered pens are the only things on the table; no smiling spouse from a frame, no knick-knacks reminding her of home. Even Minjeong has a framed photo of a family that is not hers, but she’s coming to terms with their unfamiliar faces. 

The only personal thing that Jimin brought is the little transportable radio, pouring out a loud static noise as Jimin winces and tries to find the right transmission. Under the thick noise, phantom words float around in languages that are not familiar to Minjeong’s ears and ultimately, Jimin turns off the little radio. 

“You’re early,” Minjeong says hastingly. 

“Oh, yes. I wanted to look around before anyone else arrives.” With a rueful smile, she pats the mountain of folders. “Also, the previous First Secretary left me with a handful of tasks.”

Minjeong eyes the leaning pile. “How nice of him.”

Mr. Mark Stevenson left the embassy with such haste, even Minjeong failed to recover what made him flee so quickly. He was an old man, shiny spots on his balding head, but had the decency to do his work alone — sadly that cut Minjeong out of developmental finance reports and negotiation details. But it seems like the old man barely did any of his tasks other than showing up an hour late and leaving an hour early every day.

“Yes. He must’ve known my dream was going into premature cardiac arrest.” 

A snort leaves Minjeong’s mouth, an involuntary reaction to the surprising sarcasm. 

“I could help you,” she offers.

Minjeong tries not to look too happy about it. The NIS has been breathing down her neck for wanting the documentation of the finances for so long, and now, Jimin might be the key to it. Perhaps the feigned exhaustion and the sprinkle of annoyance would be enough to let Jimin’s suspicions rest and hand over some of the heavy paperworks. 

Jimin tilts her head to the side. 

“Hm,” she hums, correcting the pile before it topples over. “You do that a lot? Help others with their work?” 

A landmine was placed right ahead of Minjeong’s nose and she walked into it, no questions asked. Now, ears still ringing from the blast, she tries to look unfazed. 

“Nothing too serious, I only get to do the boring work for others.” 

“The boring work is usually the most important.” 

Minjeong flashes her a toothy smile. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better about it.” 

The ticking of the clock on the wall fills in the silence that settled between them. Minjeong wonders if Jimin is the type of spy who carries a weapon on her, just like the tiny revolver that Giselle carries around in her handbag or the one lying in Minjeong’s empty apartment. She wonders if Jimin was the type who pulled it out and held it against Minjeong’s head to force her into confession. Suddenly a heavy stack of manila folders are placed in her hands and her knees almost buckle under the surprise weight. 

“Thank you for helping me,” Jimin says, the words fitting into awkwardly. She flits around the office, shelving files that Minjeong knows for sure don’t belong under those case numbers. All the while Minjeong stands ineptly in the middle of the room. “I’m— I’m not exactly very good at accepting help, but I’m trying.” 

Minjeong blinks. She shifts the heavy workload from one hand to her other and tries to ignore the spike in her heartbeat by the sudden burst of honesty. 

“It’s okay,” she presses through her teeth. 

Jimin nods. She lets out a long breath, like she was just as nervous of the small glimpse of realness as Minjeong is. Another sigh comes and Jimin stops her buzzing. 

“Can you— can you please move into my office? Just for today?”

Minjeong can only grab her trusty typewriter from her desk by the janitor’s closet, heart beating in . 

Her mug is placed on her make-shift table in the corner. Minjeong looks up, stunned as Jimin gives her a half-smile, soft lips inviting. 

“I didn’t know how you take it, so I tried to make it similar to the one you made me,” Jimin says, sheepishly, like she didn’t just go out of her way for Minjeong. Like she didn’t just do the unthinkable, like she didn’t just treat Minjeong as a human being. For some reason, there is an odd pressure in the hollows of Minjeong’s chest as she takes the still steaming mug. She doesn’t trust herself with words for a moment.

Minjeong sips from the coffee. Bitterness burns her tongue and , making feel sour. Still, she pulls her lips into a smile and holds onto it, despite nausea hitting the back of .

“Thanks. It’s perfect.”

Jimin seems to preen under the praise. Minjeong’s heart stops, waits, and re-starts. She walks around her own table, settles down. Flipping a file open, she starts reading and Minjeong keeps an eye out for her, curious. Jimin plays with the rim of the indigo mug, a fingertip running along the edge, before her hand wraps around the body and she raises it to her lips. The reaction comes immediately.

“Ugh.” Jimin’s face scrunches up, repulse evident as she pushes away the mug of still steaming coffee. “This is disgusting!”

Minjeong cannot stop the laughter ripping through the seam of . She tries to swallow it, but it engulfed her as Jimin sticks out her tongue, her expression still heavy with disgust. Minjeong has been walking on thin ice all day, trying to polish herself into a perfect undercover spy, so Jimin wouldn’t continue setting her up until she, ultimately, falls into one of her traps. Yet. 

Jimin, poignant and smart, one of the youngest First Secretaries ever — Minjeong has been a little intimidated. Spy or not, Jimin is the first one at the embassy who paid her attention other than a grunt and a heap of to-write reports. To be seen, by such clever brown eyes, is a heady feeling and Minjeong is afraid that if it gets into her system, running through her veins, addiction will be unavoidable and inevitable. 

“You should’ve told me, Minjeong,” Jimin chides. 

Jimin plucks the mug out of Minjeong’s hands and pours it out in the sink. Her brows are etched together as she washes out the mugs with water.

“It was okay. I would’ve drunk it.” 

“I was afraid so. In no means do I want to poison you.”

Minjeong bats her eyelashes. “You’re charming me, Miss Yu.”

Jimin’s movements falter for a second before she reignites and continues. Over her shoulder, she takes a peek at Minjeong, the start of a playful smile blooming on her heart-shaped lips.

“Oh, Miss Kim, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

A landmine. A landmine over a landmine over a landmine. Minjeong steps on them, willingly, because she likes the teasing lilt of Jimin’s voice around her name, and suddenly the hours poured into scouring the embassy for morsels of information dwarf against the sudden magnetism that pulls her to Jimin. 

Standing up, she takes the still wet mug out of Jimin’s hands and shakes off the water droplets. She can feel the burn of the other woman’s eyes on her face but Minjeong refuses to look.

“I could show you how to make coffee,” she proposes. “But I really don’t mind making it for you.”

“Do you ever mind something?” Jimin huffs. She wipes her hand on the coarse material of her skirt. “You almost just poisoned yourself so I would feel good for myself.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Minjeong—”

Stepping closer, until their shoulders knock together, Minjeong lowers her voice to a stage whisper. “I mean, maybe I offer this so I can save myself from future intricacies.” 

“Oh.”

“But I truly like using the coffee machine. Helps me zone out a bit.”

A conspiratory grin spreads on Jimin’s lips. “An odd way to say you like to take breaks.”

“What can I say? Running the show here takes all my energy.”

It’s easy — to fall into this back-and-forth. Minjeong barely had time to interact with girls or women her age. Most of her time was spent at the loud public market, her mother and the other vendors yelling to possible customers, the scent of salt and fish lingering on her clothes long after they went home. Then at the barracks, tending to the injured, and chit-chatting was limited by the -out silence and relevance of the hospital wing. Now she’s stuck with the click-clacking of the typewriter and the obnoxious laughter of men in power, who see through her once established she would not seek the warmth of their beds. 

There’s a tug on her blouse at her elbow. The oddly childish move breaks her away from spiraling deeper and deeper into self-pity.

“Please show me how to use the coffee maker.”

***

Minjeong works on autopilot as she flits around the small kitchen area of the embassy. She doesn’t explain anything — partly, because she doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know the exact measurements or times or the names of the parts. Learning from her own trials and errors, she shows Jimin the way she taught herself. Beside her, Jimin watches every miniscule movement like a hawk preying on a small mouse, but the silence that settles over them over the hum over the machine is pleasant.

She almost lets out a small laugh, thinking of how Giselle would react if she shared this thought with her. 

(Then she swallows around the dry, bitter thought how the guys at the NIS headquarter would react and how Giselle would try her damned best to shield her from the show, until they are both kicked out with fake names, fake identities and the lingering feeling of paranoia as their only possessions.)

They earn odd looks from their colleagues as they beeline towards the kettle, but a steeled look from Jimin is enough for them to immediately turn away and mind their own business. 

“Ah, I see,” Jimin says at the end, as Minjeong is pouring fresh coffee into her indigo mug. “Maybe I overstuffed the machine.” 

Minjeong thinks there might be something else behind the mistake but lets Jimin lull herself into this dream.

With steaming cups, sampled for consumption, they return to Jimin’s office. She keeps to her job, fast fingers typing away on the typewriter, the rhythmic click-clack of the keyboard and the rustling of the paper are the only noises that fill the room. Sometimes she hears the cry of ‘typist!’ from outside, but after an especially loud one, Jimin disappears from the office to talk to the committer in a strict, hushed voice.

“I hope you really don’t mind that I basically kidnapped you for today,” Jimin says as she closes the door of her office, back leaning to it. “I had no clue everyone here is tied to you with an umbilical cord.”

She waves her off. “They do just fine without me. I can do whatever they want tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow is the weekend.” 

Minjeong shrugs. She doesn’t want to say out loud that she spends the weekends here, mostly snapping away pictures of files. Weekend lunchtimes are the only times Minjeong can slip into the office of the ambassador and dig through the only drawers that are not closed with a key. The key that hangs around the old man’s neck at all times and Minjeong wondered if scamming it off of him or learning how to pick a lock would be the quickest to look at the top sensitive files that are hiding away there. 

Now, with Jimin in the picture, maybe those options are also made more difficult by the constant clever gaze that rests on her shoulders.

It doesn’t matter. Minjeong went through a grueling training and came out of it as a class leader. She went undetected throughout the one and a half years she’s been stuck at the embassy, not even one colleague has raised his eyebrow at her in suspicion. She should just keep her head low, lull whatever notion Jimin has of her, and really get out the knowledge the training had put in her — so far she had an easy job and easiness brew contentment in this case.

Suddenly there’s a warm hand on her shoulder. 

“Minjeong, you can go home,” Jimin says, voice soft.  “You don’t need to stay behind for me.”

The ache in her neck is a sure way to know she’s been working for too long. She rolls her shoulders to relieve the tight knot and only now, notices the yellow lights being inside the office. Checking the clock on the wall, 10pm reads back. 

Minjeong shakes her head. “It’s okay. I like being here.”

“You must like being home as well.”

A dull ache pounds behind her eyes and as she reaches for her mug, it appears empty. Next to her is a huge pile of finished reports and documents waiting for Jimin’s signature, on her other side is a similar pile still untouched by both of them. 

“It—It’s lonely at home.” 

The blunt honesty surprised even her. She wants to backtrack, to swallow back the words and the small pity she catches in Jimin’s eyes. Instead, the hold on her shoulder tightens. 

“And our colleagues like that you like being here.” Jimin says, opening the door wide and eyeing the heap of documents placed on Minjeong’s desk that collected during the day of her absence. She clicks her tongue. “You know, you can say no to them. You should be doing simple reports, not their jobs.”

“I like doing them.” She shrugs. Opening one of the folders, she purses her lips to run through its content, while she adds, “I like doing things of importance. It makes me feel like my job here matters.”

Half a lie. Half the truth. 

Minjeong finds this version of a careful balance easier to sell. Easier to blur the lines between half-truths and half-lies — it is lonely at her apartment. It’s barely lived-in, because at least at home she doesn’t want to act as someone else. She has a makeshift bed, a table, and a chair. Some resemblance of a wardrobe and a kitchenette. The walls are bare and her clothes are folded in neat piles, depressing drape over depressing drape. She goes home the latest she can and arrives the earliest she can bully her own body to get up on minimal sleep. 

She pours down caffeine on where well-restedness should lie. Instead, sleep eludes her and worry sits heavily on her chest during the nights. 

Jimin looks displeased by the statement. “Your job does matter.”

“Every job is a small step towards something, no?” Minjeong laughs. “One keyboard at a time.” 

The joke falls flat. Minjeong feels like a windowpane, transparent to Jimin’s clever eyes. 

“Sometimes the small things matter the most,” she concludes. 

Minjeong cannot explain why she feels choked up from this. Why there is a warm pressure on her eyes, why constricts. Perhaps it all boils down to her constant state of stress, the restlessness that keeps her awake at night, makes her listen out to the smallest noises in fear her time has arrived — she was discovered. Jimin spoke of her job at the embassy, sacrificing her faux life to type away on the typewriter. What Jimin probably didn’t mean is that her job as a spy matters.

The National Intelligence Service never told her that. Giselle has told her she’s useful, being planted here. But did it matter in the grand scheme of things, what she’s doing here? Is she saving lives or ruining others by taking her time photographing documents that are passing through the embassy? How is that useful?

“Thanks,” she croaks. 

She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t allow herself to cry.

The thing with Jimin is that she seems to pick up on small things. 

“Would you like to join me for dinner some time?”

***

The concrete dinner invitation came on Friday afternoon, as Jimin cornered Minjeong with a bright smile on her lips and the promise of actual good Merlot like Minjeong had ever had the chance to have any other than piss-poor versions of alcohol that burned through her airways and made her wish to be put out of her misery the next day. Dazed, she accepted the invitation and the little post-it note that was ed into her hands with the exact address line. 

Only during the afternoon rush does Minjeong ask, “Do you need me to bring anything?”

Jimin looks up from pouring coffee into her mug. 

“Just yourself,” she says with a smile that makes Minjeong almost drop her own mug.

Now, Minjeong stands in front of her door with a lukewarm bottle of makgeolli. 

(Minjeong had money now. She received salaries for both her work for the NIS and the embassy — that doesn’t mean she knows how to spend it, though. What the hell even goes well with Merlot that she can get at the corner shop? The stoic woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow at the question and gave her a bottle of makgeolli. Minjeong didn't have the courage to say no.)

In the wrinkle of her skirt, she hid her spy camera. It’s a small thing, barely bigger than the palm of her hand, yet she keeps checking it. It feels obvious — she’s not used to covering up her tracks so thoroughly. Her fear of being discovered dwindled during the first months at the embassy because no one paid her attention. And now it roared back to life with those warm brown eyes and cheeky smiles; and Minjeong tries to not think about the bug she’s about to plant, resting inside the collar of her shirt. 

As she reaches up to knock on the door, Jimin appears on the top of the staircase with a basket under her arm. She falters for a moment before she comes bouncing down the steps.

“Oh, Minjeong,” she says, lips already pulling into a bright smile like it’s a pavlovian response at seeing Minjeong. She tilts her head. “You’re early.”

She’s in fact fashionably late. It took time to hide the wires of the bug and to practice removing them as quickly as possible. The NIS didn’t say it aloud to plant a bug in Jimin’s apartment, but this is the only feasible way to get the information they want. 

“Sorry.”

Jimin waves her off, and she’s already opening the door. “You’re lucky, I was just getting this watermelon from the upstairs neighbor.” 

When they step inside the place is almost bare. It’s similar to Minjeong’s apartment, but while Minjeong’s ready-made excuse to the state of her living conditions is ‘from the salary of a typist?’ Jimin has a way better reason. 

“I just moved here,” she says sheepishly as she toes off her Mary Janes. 

Minjeong follows along. With nylon stockings, she pads after Jimin like a lost puppy. It’s a little apartment, not as pokey as Minjeong’s is, but it’s probably more than enough for Jimin who also stays more at the embassy than at her own apartment. 

(Minjeong wonders if she has ghosts as well that drive her out.)

Jimin is a good host. She coos over the small bottle of makgeolli, invites Minjeong to sit and offers her tea. The ice sheen that was always intact at the embassy, that protected Jimin from the oppression of their colleagues, melted away. 

“Do you often invite colleagues over?” Minjeong asks, sipping from her tea. 

“No. Just the really special ones.”

Minjeong is already running hot. The late August afternoons are hot and heavy, the storm clouds are gathering in the sky, and the scorching tea in her hands doesn’t help — neither does Jimin’s easy flirting. She only nods. Wills her cheeks to stop from pinking, but it’s a battle she already lost.

“You look pretty today,” Jimin says after a second too long staring, awe in her voice. The tea goes the wrong way and Minjeong coughs, surprise and embarrassment caught up in , and Jimin misunderstands her reaction. “I mean, you’re always pretty, it’s just—” 

“Thank you,” Minjeong rasps through coughs before Jimin could continue. 

Yes, she took a few extra minutes to paint her lips with the lipstick she got for her birthday from her mother. The shade felt ill-fitting and odd on Minjeong’s face and she wanted to wipe it off. Instead, she forced herself to pat the color on her cheeks lightly, like she watched her mother do long ago. She liked herself a lot better when she was chubby-cheeked from the homemade food and had a light in her eyes that matched the determination of warriors. Minjeong slightly wonders if Jimin would find that part of her pretty as well. 

When her coughing dies down, Minjeong says, “You too. You’re always beautiful.”

Jimin shoots up from her seat, steps back. 

“I— I will start dinner. You can stay here, I’ll put on some music. M-Make yourself at home.”

Before Minjeong could ask if she needs her, Jimin disappears into the small kitchen. 

Heart beating in , Minjeong listens. Jimin sings, voice low and husky to the British radio channel that flares and silences from the kitchen. The noise makes the little hairs rise on Minjeong’s nape as she wanders around, trying to act innocent if Jimin was to step inside the room. Clammy hands hold around the spy cam, hidden in the wrinkles of her skirt — this is the only chance she’s got. Her eyes sweep through the bookshelf. Dusty trinkets, poetry books, jewelry. On the table are scattered pens and notes. Cursive English with mundane things noted down like find the nearest pharmacy, buy plants, ingredients of a shepherd’s pie?, yet Minjeong takes pictures of them. 

Codes, they might be. Highly unlikely, though.

Maybe Minjeong is just a weirdo going through the stuff of her superior, snapping pictures of her to-do lists to hand in to the National Intelligence Service without her being the wiser. She bites the insides of her cheeks, she snaps another photo of the open book on the table, Milton’s Paradise Lost, dog-eared somewhere in the middle. 

“Minjeong!” The yell rings through the empty walls from the kitchen and Minjeong winces. The spycam almost slips from her hands as she stuffs it back under the waistline of her skirt. 

“Yes?”

“I forgot to ask,” Jimin starts, then halts. The quick pitter-patter of her bare feet on the hardwood floor makes Minjeong flee back to the bookshelf, eyes drawn to the foreign titles, when Jimin appears in the doorframe. “Are you allergic to anything?” 

“No. I’m good with everything.”

“Don’t just stand around. Sit down anywhere.”

Jimin in the sanctity of her home is different from the stone-cold facade she wears daily to the embassy. Her hair let down from the tight knot she wears during the day, moving behind her like gentle waves of the sea. She looks softer in the faint overhead light, almost nervous as she flits between being a good host and a good cook — and the careful balance tips over with a loud yelp and the clattering of a pot. 

Minjeong rushes to the kitchen, socked feet almost sliding from under her. She finds Jimin with her finger under the tap.

“Are you okay?” 

“Mostly.”

Walking up to her and peering over Jimin’s shoulder at the reddened skin. She’ll live. Minjeong bends down to collect the fallen pot and spoon, while Jimin stands over the running water. 

“I heard at the embassy that you’re quite good with burns,” she says, a smile curling in her voice. 

The lumped shape of gauze peeked out from under the crisp white shirt for a good few days, and the ambassador refused to let her into his office for two weeks after the so-called accident. It was still worth it, even if Minjeong was unable to turn in any new top secret communication between the embassy and the ambassador for those weeks. 

“Ah, that was an— an accident.”

Jimin stops the water and starts digging through one of the drawers, pulling out a band aid to wrap around her burned fingertip. She’s close enough that the whiff of her perfume lingers in Minjeong’s nose. 

“Either way, thank you for defending my honor without even knowing me.”

“It was a cruel thing to say,” Minjeong mumbles.  

“It is a cruel world,” Jimin says, leaning to the kitchen cabinet, “but I have thick skin.”

Dark eyes lock into hers, expectant as she waits for Minjeong to make her move. A game of chess, Minjeong realizes. And it’s her turn to place her piece. 

There is something in Jimin that makes Minjeong spill the content of her guts; maybe it’s just the theory that Jimin is an agent hidden in the red brick walls of the British Embassy. Maybe it’s the relief of it — another spy planted in the same place means something is seriously wrong with the place. Even if Minjeong only spends her mornings clicking away on her camera, placing bugs, and typing away endless sentences for bureaucracy, it’s important. Giselle always tells her she is important. But being a part of something big while she’s making herself infinitesimally small makes her miss the importance. 

Jimin is her antithesis. She came in with a whirlwind, jaw squared and politeness used as a pointed sword. She carved a place for herself at the embassy, with a presence larger than her frail body while Minjeong erased the lineart of her own being to become a spy. 

Maybe Jimin is just an oddly confident woman whose magnetism messes with Minjeong’s mind. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, to have another spy, someone with similar experiences — whose guilt is also slowly eating her up from the inside for lying to loved ones, whose fears of being discovered are also so huge that sleep evades her every night, who’s under the same soul-crushing stress that grinds her bones to dust. Maybe it’s just a certain kind of hunger for someone to fill the hollow of her stomach with these twisted feelings. 

Minjeong thinks of playing bold. Opening with the truth. 

Instead, she just smiles and her head to the side. 

“Do you need me to help with anything? I can be your little sous-chef for the day.” 

Jimin raises an eyebrow. “You like helping people, don’t you?”

Minjeong shrugs. “Maybe I’m just a tad bit worried about the quality of the meal after tasting your coffee.” 

“I’m a big believer in learning from our mistakes.” 

“So you brought me here to be a sacrificial lamb on the altar of knowledge,” Minjeong concludes, earning a laugh from Jimin. It’s a laughter so quick and sharp, it’s like sparkling bullets and Minjeong finds she doesn’t mind the holes they create in her sense of self. 

Thunder claps from outside and Minjeong winces. She finds herself constantly at the edge in Jimin’s company. From under the thick fan of her lashes, Jimin glances up at her.

“I thought you, of all people, would be honest with me.”

It feels a lot like a second chance. Minjeong refuses to step into this dance — Jimin has to offer something first to have her sing the tunes of truth. But she hopes, she desperately craves that Jimin commits quickly to hold her song, because Minjeong suffers from the suffocating silence like a voiceless songbird.

“Me?” Minjeong lets out a small, self-deprecating giggle. “Didn’t you tell me I’m a people pleaser?”

“You’re also awfully blunt at times. Refreshing quality, don’t misunderstand me.”

“You flatter me.” 

Jimin mock bows. Then swats Minjeong’s hand away from the knife on the counter.

“Seriously, I don’t need help, I’m just a little nervous.” 

Minjeong blinks. “Because of me?”

“You say that like you’re just a nobody.”

“Exactly.” 

“Not for me.”

Jimin’s gaze settles on her, a lock clicking in place and Minjeong has no key for it. Jimin has been here for little over a week and stuck to her side most of the time — and Minjeong would love to say she’s immune to the blatant flirting of a pretty woman but that would be a lie. 

Minjeong knows barely anything about Jimin. Yet she knows she’s not merciless. Because Jimin grins, a row of pearly whites shining at her and letting air into Minjeong’s squeezed lungs, and the lock is open again.

“It’s alright, really,” she says, opening a drawer to sort through the knives. “I will manage — hope you like mak-guksu.” 

“I like it.”

“Perfect.”

Minjeong takes another contemplating look at Jimin as she flits around the kitchen. It’s a small room, barely big enough for one person, and when Jimin asks her to move a little so she can get to the fridge again, Minjeong decides she’ll be okay. Slowly slipping back into the bedroom, she aimlessly walks around the room, categorizing everything, listening in to the muffled sounds of Jimin at work. At one point, with sizzling static noise, the radio comes alive again. 

The rain hits hard against the windowpane, and the humidity starts rising in the room. Sweat collects on her temples as she pulls out the first drawer of the nightstand. Jimin hums loud enough to know her exact location, yet the creeping feeling still leaves goosebumps on her skin. This is a small apartment. One second she misses from the rhythmic dip and rise of Jimin’s voice, mistakes her footfalls to the knock of the ra