Around 24 hours ago

In T.O.P's wallet are three photos. One is of his deceased wife, whose portrait hangs behind his desk, and the other photos are of two of his employees.

And although T.O.P has many people under his employment, only one of the photos is of a thief.

His first thief.

It's of Max. He remembers taking it, a somewhat blurry photo that can be attributed to the lack of familiarity he had with electronic devices back then. Max had been 12 or 13 then, T.O.P recalls, when his mouth was still too big for the rest of his face, turned downwards in a serious expression in the photo.

He hasn't found time to get rid of it yet, but he takes it out roughly now and rips it in half immediately before he can hesitate. The pieces of the photo haven't even settled at the bottom of the bin before T.O.P slides the other photo out, gently this time.

Fei's expression is just as solemn as Max's had been in the now torn photo. T.O.P thinks he's only seen her smile once or twice, and even then, they had been small twitches, pockets of amusement that the world was not supposed to see.

He'd convinced her to let him take the photo, saying that it was for staff records, and she'd relented eventually, with that impassive face she always wears. She's never been scared of him, he knows. T.O.P had thought that because she is a female, he'd be scared of her like every other woman who has been in his life. But Fei never cowered or trembled in front of him−even Max could not count that feat to his name−and though he will never admit it to anyone, it unnerves T.O.P.

At one point, T.O.P had thought that he loved her. To this day, he still does not know if he really did or still does, because even now, she is the only person in his life whom he has allowed to keep their privacy.

He doesn't know her full name, where she's from, or even where she was before she came to CS. All he knows is her age; Fei had been 18 when she'd joined CS, the same year T.O.P had recruited Max. Back then, he didn't ask her anything more than what she told him and now that she will no longer under his employment, he doesn't know any more about her than he did when she first came. T.O.P had simply let her keep her privacy without a valid reason.

It isn't like him.

But now, T.O.P knows that it doesn't matter whether or not he loved or might still love her. He had told himself once that he cared for Max, but times and circumstances had changed, and if he could let go of his pride and joy, his first thief, then his secretary could go, too.

I can't kill her.

T.O.P doesn't plan to kill her. Not because he loves her− he considers his feelings irrelevant now− or because he can't kill a woman; he's done it before.

He's not going to kill her because he's still afraid, afraid of Fei because he knows nothing about her, and right now, she is on a plane back to Korea, and he has no idea where she went and why she left the country, and if he kills her, he may never find out. He may never find out why she never smiles, where she's from, why she came to CS in the first place.

Who she really is.

***

Now

*<