"Wait, I didn't mean it like that!" Zelo said quickly, looking ready to defend himself.

"Then what do you mean? Breaking into my best friend's company? I would never help you do that!" I exclaimed. "Zelo, I know you're not the type to do something like that, so explain."

"Okay..." He looked relieved that I gave him the oppurtunity to hear him out. "So, you know how the SeoMate Company is split into two divisions, right? One division was moved to Seattle while the other stayed in its original location, Namsan."

"Right." I nodded, recalling that as the reason why Seohyun's family moved to America was to expand their company.

"Well, Seohyun's father left a group of people he trusted in charge of the Namsan division and report back to him every now and then. But among those people is a sleeper agent for my parents. They leaked some information out to my father about the SeoMate Company's plans." He continued.

A sleeper agent; so basically a spy. Whoa, I didn't know Zelo's parents played dirty...

"There's a file containing an important document somewhere in the company building here in Namsan." Zelo continued when I didn't say anything. I nodded, listening intently.

"The files are about Seohyun's stocks or land grants or whatever the fancy the fancy term for the official looking documents are. My parent's spy has been looking for it and once they get their hands on it, my parents can use the information to blackmail Seohyun's parents."

"And what do you want to do?" I asked, curious.

He looked at me in the eye. "I want to find the file first and bring it back to Seohyun's father so my parents won't be able to do anything. But there's a password to the file and apparently only Seohyun knows it."

I tried to process what I had just been told. 'Wait, why do you want to-"

Zelo nervously cut me off with another request. "I was thinking you would know the password."

My head was starting to hurt from too much thinking. Why was the 'enemy' of Seohyun trying to save the SeoMate company when his family could be the ones in control of it soon? "What... what makes you think I know?"

"Because you're Seohyun's best friend." He answered. "You know it, don't you?"

I shook my head. "If her parents don't know then how should I?"

"So that means you don't know it either." Zelo lowered his head, looking crestfallen.

I nodded. "Sorry... but may I ask why you want to give the file back to Seohyun's father? Aren't you supposed to be on your parent's side and help them take a step closer to taking over SeoMate?"

This time he didn't answer. Was it something he wasn't comfortable telling me?

I sighed and looked up. "But... I'll help you."

He looked up. "Really?"

I nodded. "Even though I don't know what you want to do, I'll help you."

The maknae's face immediately lit up. "I promise I'll tell you why after, okay?"

"Okay. So, how are we going to 'break in'?"

Zelo grinned evilly, his eyes glinting. "I have a plan."

-- ♥ --

"Zelo, I think this is a bad idea..." I gulped and gazed at the huge building, at least twelve stories or so tall, standing in the distance.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine. Our plan is foolproof." Zelo said confidently, re-adjusting his black hat.

His plan was to go into the building, find the room with the file, type in the password, and bring it with us back to our apartment safely without getting caught.

Yep, it was foolproof alright.

We were both wearing all black for this 'mission'. Today was a Friday and it was around 8pm, so that meant most of the workers would be at home right now, decreasing our chance of getting busted. We were going to put Phase 1 of our mission into action: get across the parking lot and to the abandoned back door like a ninja.

"I've never been inside the SeoMate building before and Seohyun has never showed me. How are we supposed to know where it is?" I questioned him.

It seemed like Zelo had all the answers. "I have a good guess on where they hid it, so just leave that to me." He then tugged on my sleeve and motioned for me to follow him. "Kaja!"

"Wait, Zelo-"

Too late. He was already making his way halfway across the parking lot, dodging from car to car and hiding behind it. I reluctantly followed him, making sure to hide in the safety of the shadows even though the parking lot was practically abandoned.

I wasn't as swift as Zelo and it took me a while to catch up to him at the abandoned back door of the building. Which made me wonder, again, how he would know of such an entrance. I mean, this back door was on the far side of the parking lot located behind the building, next to an area full of trees. You don't just take a walk and find a place like this every day... do you?

I looked up and saw a blinking light in the corner of the wall of the building. "Zelo, what about the security cameras?"

"Don't worry about those!" He said happily. "Just like my father, I have people in here that work as secret agents too, only just for me. Once they give me the signal, that means they have immobilized the cameras and the camera room so we can enter."

I was getting more nervous by the second. How could Zelo freak out about homework but be calm about this? And why does he seem like an expert in this? "What signal?"

The camera light blinked again but this time the blinks were faster, then it hit me that it must have been morse code or something. Zelo saw it and turned the doorknob to the back door, which looked pretty old and ancient. I followed him as we walked down a narrow corridor, a trail of weak lightbulb flickering along the wall. We reached a door and he opened it, revealing the first floor of the building; the waiting room, the rest rooms, the front office and whatnot.

"Zelo, where are we-"

"Shh!" He held a finger up to his lips to shush me. "Just follow me, no questions asked!"

That was particularly hard to do, since all I had on my mind at the moment were questions, questions, and more questions. Zelo turned a corner but then abruptly walked backwards, making me bump into his back.

"There's someone on the other side!" He whispered.

"Did he see us?" I asked, worried.

My partner in crime slowly stuck his head out from behind the wall, but only to withdraw it, grab my hand, and pull me to run in the direction we just came.

"Oh crap, he's coming this way!" Zelo exclaimed. "Crap crap crap!"

We turned a few corners, thankfully not running into anybody else, and I spotted an emergency exit staircase.

"Over there!" I pointed and Zelo nodded, getting my message. We both rushed over to the door leading to the staircase. Zelo twisted the knob and opened the door, only to come face-to-face with another man in a fancy business suit.

The businessman stared at us, wide-eyed, and we both stared back, equally as wide-eyed, as if to mock him. We stayed quiet and not moving like that for a while before Zelo unexpectedly ran past the man and going up the stairs behind him. Not knowing what to do, I followed him without a second thought about the man that had seen us. 

"Wait up!" I called out to the maknae, who was already one flight of stairs ahead of me.

"Did he see us?" The blonde called to me, gripping the railing and looking down. "Is he following us?"

"N-no." I replied, panting, while looking back and taking two steps at a time to catch up. The man wasn't following us, which was puzzling. Shouldn't he be yelling and trying to catch us kids or something? "He's not."

"His name-tag said Kim Jonghyun on it. He's that under-cover worker I told you about." Zelo muttered. "This is bad, this is bad."

"Well, what are we going to do now?" 

He looked back at me. "Run. Just run and don't get caught."

And so we did. Quietly running up the stairs, we traveled to the next exit door leading to the third floor. I panted and felt a cramp on my side. How fast can this kid run?

Zelo led me out to the office cubicles where some of the workers stayed late to work. The lights overhead were dim and the sound of fingers typing on keyboards filled the air. The uneven click-click seemed to echo off the walls.

Stealthily, we both ducked down and crawled behind the dividers of the cubicles, searching for a way to the other side. Like ducks, we slowly moved forward when the light of the small work office ahead from us went out. Another businessman stepped out and would see us if he looked up from the briefcase he was fiddling with.

I panicked. I admit it, I panicked when the man stepped out and thought of getting caught scared me. 

Without thinking, I grabbed Zelo's arm and turned back to where we just came. He seemed taken aback but managed to keep up with me and stay quiet so nobody would pay attention to us. Not looking back, I saw a random door along the hallway and I opened it, shoved the maknae in, and hastily locked the door behind us.

The room was dark. Dark, as in all lights were off and the only light coming in was through the space between the edges of the door and the wall.

I had expected it to be a large meeting room or something, but the smell was... murky, with a little with of soap? It was like I was sniffing a rag that hadn't been washed in months.

"Eun Mi, this is the janitor's closet!" Zelo hissed somewhere nearby. "And ow, that push really hurt you know."

"Sorry, I didn't know what else to do. That man could've seen us." I replied, my arms stretched out in front of me and trying to see if I could feel anything in the dark. "How big is this janitor's closet? And did a dead unicorn die in here or something? It reeks."

"I don't know... Let's see and- YAAAAA!"

My foot slipped on something and I fell forward onto Zelo, making him fall over. Wincing, I got up on my elbows and hovered over him. "Sorry Zelo, I slipped on something and may have knocked something over on some shelves..."

"It's okay." He said. I got off of him and suddenly a bright light flashed in my eyes. Zelo had taken out his phone and put the brightness all the way to max, lighting up the closet and giving us vision.

With the other hand, he rubbed the back of his head. "Aish... My head hurts. You made me hit my head on this block-of-concrete behind me..."

We both looked at the thing behind him, but our eyes widened as we discovered it wasn't a block-of-concrete. It was a black box-cabinet-safe and there was a small glow-in-the-dark keypad on the side. There was a large rag next to it on the floor, probably there to cover the safe but Zelo had accidently uncovered it during the fall.

"Do you think...?" He trailed off because he didn't need to ask; the file was definitely in there. Why else would a cabinet-safe be hidden in the janitor's closet where it smelled like rotten eggs mixed with death?

"Wow, that was really easy." I exclaimed. We had found the hiding place really fast.

Zelo leaned down examined the keypad. "Yeah, it was easier than I thought. Have you thought about what the password could be?"

"Yeah, I have some numbers in mind." I replied, crouching down right next to him. "Just give me some time, okay?"

He nodded and backed away, standing up for me so I could have some room. "Okay. I'll be by the door, making sure nobody comes by and hears us talking."

I'm surprised we were caught yet; Zelo and I weren't exactly the quietest ninjas here. Shaking my head, I tried to concentrate on the task at hand and punched in her birthday, 0628.

"Of course it's not her birthday, that's too obvious." I bit my lip and tried to think harder when the cabinet stayed locked. Usually, passwords were the date of something important to that person. The password could be the date of an important event in her life. 

Doubting myself,  I punched in my birthdate. It wasn't really my actual birthdate, though. I was raised in the orphanage when I was little and nobody knew my birthday, so Seohyun gave me a birthday herself. It was the day she met me. Three days after Friendship Day, August 5th.

I held my breath and pushed the buttons in the right sequence. My index paused on the last number before letting my hand fall to the side and I waited for the cabinet to unlock. Best friends are important right? The day we met should be it...

But the cabinet refused to open.

Zelo poked his head inside the doorway. "Noona, what's taking so long?"

"I can't figure out the passcode!" I whispered back to him.

Zelo urged me with impatience in his voice. "Well, try something quick! What if the janitor finds us here? Or lock us in here on accident?"

I sighed in frustration and pulled on my hair. What could the passcode be? It wasn't her birthday or the day she met me, so what other dates could there be?

Then I suddenly thought of something.

I ran over to the maknae and pulled him inside the room, surprising him. "What is it? Did you find it?"

"No, not yet." I said hurriedly."But tell me the day you guys met, hurry!"

"Huh?" Zelo looked confused at what I had said.

"The day you and Seohyun met each other." I repeated. "When was that?"

"Er, I don't remember exactly..." He said.

"You have to remember, come one Zelo!" I said, worriedly. "Balli!"

He scratched his head innocently and scrunched his forehead, thinking. "It was someday in November..."

I jumped up and down in place, too nervous and jittery to stay still. "And...?"

"I think it was a couple days before Thanksgiving because I remember mom telling me to go greet some co-workers before Thanksgiving break..." Zelo trailed off. "I think I know it, just wait a second!"

I was officially going crazy. As Zelo struggled to remember, I stood there and wondered what would happen if we got caught. Would we get arrested? I wonder what L.Joe would think of me then: what would he do? Would he-

"1123 or 1124!" Zelo cried out suddenly. "It's either one of those numbers!"

I nodded and rushed back to the locked file cabinet, flipping the cover of the keypad up and pushing in the first number 1123. I closed my eyes, hoping to call my nerves, when I heard a faint click from inside.

"Zelo! It's open! It's open!" I practically screamed in whisper-tone.

The cabinet door swung open, revealing a thick file case filled with papers that probably held important information to this company. Delighted and relieved, I reached out to remove it from its hiding place when the door to the room swung open and the figure of a women stood in it's doorway.

"Stop!"

~Ljjang창조♪