“I SAID THROW IT AWAY.”

Heechul smirked, silently clicking several options on his smartphone, “As you wish.” right before he slid the window open between the bookshelves and threw the phone outside. He made sure his phone hit the fence hard to make a loud thud. He returned to Amber, who calmed down a bit after hearing the thud, assuming that he broke his phone for real.

“Now, play your part, Raven.” he said, leaning back with his arms crossed casually. The girl threw herself back to the arm chair, facing her father’s laptop with her eyes fixed on him, still trying to make sure that he didn’t trick her.

Of course she couldn’t see his phone outside the window now, with a notification on the screen saying:

Message Sent!

***

“Why don’t you apply for a scholarship?”

“Yes, isn’t that a great idea? I’m sure you’ll be easily accepted anywhere with such skills!”

“See? Listen to your uncle, Key, don’t end up like your father. Stuck here in Seoul, seeing dead bodies everyday..”

Key laughed at the last comment from his aunt while putting more rice into his bowl. “I’m not into dead bodies, I’m into mannequins. That doesn’t count right?” he said, evoking chuckles around the table. Even his father smiled next to him, which was rather rare lately, especially since Amber’s case. Luckily that night, both of them hadn’t brought up the topic, nor even mentioning the girl’s name. Plus, since it was his mom’s idea to hold a small family gathering, Key was trying his best to be a good host for the guests.

“Kibum-ah, where’s that handsome friend of yours?” his playful aunt asked. This aunt was already in her mid 30’s, yet she was still single and obviously desperate to find a guy.

“Who? Minho?” he said, after swallowing the egg roll. “Kekeke, you want me to set you up?”

The chubby aunt blushed, “Ani.. not him, the other one. Ah..you know, the one who has a twin sister..”

“Huh? No one has a twin..” Key said, pretty sure that none of them has any twins. “Which one is it?”

The uncle from his mom’s family joined the chat, “Ah I think I know! That handsome one, who has a sister that looks just like him! I thought they were twins, are they not?”

Hearing the word twins once again, Key finally understood. He smiled to his aunt, “Aaah, you mean Jonghyun? Yah, that’s not his sister, that’s our friend, Amber. They do look similar, but they’re not blood-related whatsoever.” Those two indeed got that a lot in the past, about them being so similar to each other.

From the corner of his eyes, Key could see the change on his father’s face. He had been like that recently, being over-sensitive whenever he heard Amber’s name. As if her name was a taboo thing to say, or simply a bad luck for the rest of the day. His father, Detective Kim, who had been fed up by all the troubles she caused,-bringing in those Miss A girls into his office, dealing with JYP, and most importantly involving his only son into their life and death game.

“Ah geurae, Jonghyun!” his aunt clapped, and Key swore her plump cheeks were blushing like a teenage girl. He smirked to her, “But he’s a player, auntie. Be careful.”

Mrs. Kim laughed seeing her younger sister talking about something so childish with her son. “Come on, help me finish all this soup. I still have pumpkin pancakes too at the kitchen. Everyone eat a lot tonight, okay?”

The guests around the table thanked her in harmony, taking more food into their bowls. While in contrary, Detective Kim pushed his bowl aside, suddenly losing his appetite. Ignoring the stares of the relatives, he got up from his seat and left to the balcony. Seeing this, Key could only sigh while trying to drift the attention of the guests back into his mom’s cooking.

***

NOW.

“Yes sir.” Yoon the sniper mumbled to himself, slipping his phone back into his coat. He crawled closer to his lens, positioning the target once again. He waited a couple more seconds, making sure his target was clear as he put his finger on the trigger.

Target locked, he mentally noted. Exactly at that second, he pulled the trigger, setting his bullet free towards the only son of the Kim family. But something changed during the shot. Yoon saw another head blocking his bullet from Kim Kibum’s. It was fast, and he wished he could take the shot back when he saw the wrong target collapsed on the balcony. “Sh*t!” he cursed, still eyeing the situation across the building. Kim Kibum approached the collapsed man on the balcony, and the rest of his guests soon crowded the area captured by his lens. Damn.

***

“Abeoji! Abeoji!”

“Kibum-ah! ”

“Abeoji!”

“The ambulance is on the way..”

“Abeoji..!”

***

Heechul could feel his eyes twitched when he read the message on his watch. “Kim Kibum is still alive.”

This must be the worst mistake his men had ever done so far, and the thought of ordering Yoon to shoot himself was quite tempting, considering how that little sniper completely ruined his plan. He glanced at Amber, who was still working to crack the Profiler’s code. The girl sensed it and immediately turned at him. “What now?”

Heechul smiled to her, while thinking of something to fix this situation. Their time at Paris, where his experiment proved that one of Amber’s main weakness is that sissy boy, Kim Kibum. Maybe killing him was a bad move, he thought. Maybe letting him live a little longer could be rather useful.

“Hey Amber, be honest with me.” he started, still standing across the room. “You don’t really like Detective Kim, do you?”

Amber lifted her head in an instance, hearing the name mentioned. It’s been a while since she heard about Key’s father, and she didn’t like how this guy suddenly mentioned his name. “That’s not your bussiness.” she replied flatly.

“Just think about it. Who was the one putting you in jail before?” he smiled when he saw Amber quickly drawn to his question.

Amber knew better than answering Heechul, which wouldn’t do any good at that moment, so she turned herself back to the Profiler. The coding was exactly like how she saw it years ago. A bit hazy, but she could tell the same patterns and codes running there on the screen. I have the key.

1.2.4.7.3.1.7

She had been trying to insert those numbers into places, but so far nothing happened. The Profiler refused to open, slipping away from her. If it were Jia who made all these puzzles for her, the agent would tell her to go for it, to keep the possibilities open, to break every glasses until she find the core. But it wasn’t that simple after all, because facing the Profiler was like facing her late father. The man who was so warm and loved to smile, yet slightly mysterious. Even as a kid, sometimes Amber felt like her father was keeping something behind his calm gestures. At nights he would make his own tea while working inside his study room, with no one allowed to disturb. He liked secrecy, just as much as he loved playing with her and little Max. The Profiler was just the same, from the outside it seemed simple and could be easily solved, but once dealing with it, Amber felt like she keep missing something from time to time. Something was obviously hidden there, she just needed to find the right place.

Appa, what is it?

Amber couldn’t help but recalling the times GD broke into her system. She had to admit that it was still amazing to breach JYP’s security like that. He’s always the type to get whatever he wants. But if that was the case, Heechul would’ve asked for his help instead of bringing her all the way to Japan. Means that could only be one answer: Even GD couldn’t open the Profiler.

She wanted to just stop and ask Dr. Noh, but the man left even before she could talk to him. He was the only hope, and the very reason she came here today. The only man that could probably show her something only God and her father knows. Amber felt her chest tightened as she realized that she was on her own.

While still trying to dissect the code, Amber thought of a B plan in case she couldn’t open the Profiler. Heechul surely wouldn’t be pleased, and she didn’t dare to imagine what could possibly happen to her after that.

“...those boring agents are surrounding the place now...”

For the first time she was gladful for those agents being around. Immediately she opened a new window, typing the basic codes as fast as she could, in an attempt to contact the girls. Suzy and Jia are outside, and she knew it wouldn’t even need 5 minutes to create an s.o.s signal for..

“I gave you a privacy to concentrate on the Profiler, not to mess around.” Heechul said, standing closer to the desk. Amber didn’t bother looking at him as she immediately closed the s.o.s coding in an instance, going back to the Profiler. That guy wasn’t called an agent for nothing.

“At first I thought you were going to work with me here, but since you chose the hard way, I’m afraid I have to break the news to you.” he continued, leaning closer to her until he could place his lips behind her ears. Amber tilted her head away, but Heechul grabbed her arm fast. “Detective Kim is dead.” he whispered low and cold and wrapped it up with a grin.

She pushed him away, and this time he let her loose. “You’re bluffing.”

“Don’t you realize?” he made sure her eyes were staring back at his as he said the following words, “Some lives are hanging at the tip of your fingers as we’re speaking.”

“Especially Kim Kibum’s. Oh, but he was one lucky kid.”

***

Jonghyun grabbed the steaming black coffee in two thin paper cups and quickly made his way back to the corridor where Key was waiting in front of the ER with her mom and a couple of relatives. He was shopping with her older sister at the mall when Key called him, telling him his father was shot. Without further questioning he left his noona with her shopping bags and drove right away to the hospital.

“Eomonim..” he smiled, handing one of the coffee to the middle-aged woman next to Key. The pale mother couldn’t even smile at him as she received the hot cup stiffly and let her cold fingers cupped around it, didn’t look like she would drink it anytime soon.

He then handed the other cup to Key, who hadn’t spoken any words since they arrived at the hospital. Jonghyun sat next to him, patting his back, trying to tell him to keep the positive thoughts up. The doctors were doing their best to save his father, but Jonghyun knew that wasn’t the only thing going on inside his head. Knowing the fact that his father had just been shot by someone, who was still out there somewhere, must had been terrifying him. From his eyes, it was as if the air was being out of Key by each second passing by.

“Kim Kibum-ssi?” a nurse came from the receptionist desk, reading something out of her clipboard. “Someone named Lee Jieun has agreed to pay all the charges for your father. I need to confirm that this person is a relative of yours, Kim Kibum-ssi.”

Key lifted his face when he heard the name mentioned, and at first he thought it was one of his cousins, but then he realized she was far from being his cousin. IU, that scientist girl at the JYP facility.

He rose from the waiting bench, “Yes, I know her. Did she leave a message?”

The nurse seemed to be surprised by his guess as she handed him a memo, “Oh.. yes, she left this for you.”

Jonghyun never heard of anyone called Lee Jieun, so his best guess was that this girl must be someone related to the espionage-friends -that’s how he called them these days, including Suzy and her girls-.

He peeked over Key’s shoulder to read the memo.

I’ll be waiting for you in front of LV.

-IU-

“Who is she?” asked Jonghyun, only to be ignored as Key put the memo into his jeans pocket.

As if planned, the doctor came out of the ER, and before he could lower his sanitary mask, Key had approached him with the only question he had in mind, “How is my father?”

The doctor showed a calm expression when he said, “The bullet didn’t hit any vital organs. But his heart rate is currently unstable, it’s going to take some time until he regains consciousness.”

His mother urged to see her husband right away, but the doctor held her still. Jonghyun tried to calm her down, bringing her back to the bench and lending his shoulder for her to rest. He doubted that Mrs. Kim even noticed him, she probably assuming him as his son at the moment.

“Go, settle whatever that needs to be settled. I’ll take care of your mom.” Jonghyun said, seeing how hard it was for Key to decide anything on his own at the moment. Key nodded, mumbling a weak ‘gomawo’ to him before pacing out to the lift.

***

“Aish jinjja! I’m going in.” Suzy said, ignoring Jia’s call as she hopped out of the van. The agents under the shadows placed within the neighborhood naturally moved when Suzy walked in, silently preparing themselves while at the same time covering her. The girl stride boldly towards the house without even trying to hide herself, knowing that the agents were going to shield her if anything happened. Suzy could tell something was wrong, because Heechul wouldn’t take this long to bring Amber back, unless something or someone got in the way.

She checked the locked front gate, assuming Amber made her way in by climbing the fence. So she did the same, while trying hard not to touch the laser tripwire all over the lawn. Skipping flawlessly to the front door, she pushed herself in with a gun ready in one hand.

A mess, she thought. She could quickly spot those thin layers of blood smeared all over the floor when she entered the house, which led her to a sight she didn’t expect at all at the dining room. Dr. Noh was lying on a bed of blood. She confirmed his death when she couldn’t feel his pulse at the side of his cold neck. “Eonni, Dr. Noh is dead.” she whispered thorugh her communicator.

“Wha- -?! Ah, arasseo, I’ll get the med team as soon as possible.” Jia said across the line.

Suzy left Dr. Noh, following the trail of shoe dirts deeper into the house. She tried to catch any sounds around, but all she got was the sound of her own boots tapping the wooden floor. She noticed how the sunlight streaked in brightly thorugh the crevices of the windows, and she bet on her own life that the culprit must be still hiding inside the house, not wanting to expose themselves under the sun, moreover with agents surrounding the house.

“I know you’re here.” she said to the paper doors lining the corridor. “I know you’re here.” she repeated her words, making sure whoever with Amber right now could hear her voice. If they were smart enough, they could probably sense her presence by now. It wouldn’t be too hard since she knocked her boots loud enough for them to hear.

A glimpse of shadow flashed behind the paper door at the end of the corridor. Then something bumped and crashed inside, immediately driving Suzy to the scene.

***

“His father is dead. He could be next, you do know that right?” Heechul said, keeping that disgusting smile on his face.

Amber was tempted to give him a hard knee kick, but she knew Key’s life was dangling under his hands. She could feel her fists trembling, and the best way to keep them down was to make those hands busy for a while. Not wanting to listen to any of his threats and sickening words, the tomboy pushed herself to crack her father’s code.

There must be a way.

She tried inserting those numbers again, and again, with a different combination, but nothing changed. Something was keeping it safe, and that something was no where to be seen. Amber saw no barriers between her and the lock. She had put the key. But it wouldn’t open, as if an invinsible shield was surrounding it.

Amber took a breath, taking a look at those numbers once again.

1.2.4.7.3.1.7

What are you?

She wondered if Max knew anything about it, because he was there when she accidentally helped her father with this code. 

“Someone’s coming. You better hurry.” Heechul said, leaning closer to the paper door when he thougt he heard footsteps.

Though she might looked like a clueless doll behind the laptop, no one knew what was going on inside her head. She counted, she flipped everything over, she rushed her memories to come back. Her father playing the piano, her mother taking pictures of them, the spilled hot tea on the wooden table, the shoutings and screamings coming out from his father’s library, her father sobbing during dinner, Max playing lego outside the library, a chocolate ice cream she bought for her father one afternoon, her father smiling at her, Max typing slowly at her father’s old computer, the night where she cracked the code, his father scribbling on a paper and laughed..

. . .

“Look here, let me show you something funny.” she remembered her father calling her to sit on his lap while he was writing something down on a piece of paper. She quickly climbed to her father’s lap and stared at the scribbling excitedly. “Appa, what is that?”

She even remembered the sound of his soft chuckles as he told her a not-so-funny joke. “Read those numbers.”

Her younger self read it out loud, “One.. Two.. Four.. Seven.. Three.. One.. Seven..”

His father laughed again, “Kekeke, you’re right. But you can also read it alphabetically.”

“But those are numbers..!” she said, confused.

He patted her head, “Use your imagination! Here, let me draw it this way.”

Her eyes widened when she could finally read those numbers as alphabets. “RAVEN! That’s my superhero name!”

“Right? See what you can do with a little imagination!” he said, creating his own name with number 7 3 3 down the paper. “Now try read this!”

“LEE! Lee! Lee!” Amber shouted, proud of herself to be able to read those ‘codes’.

His father giggled, “Smart girl. Now give appa a kiss!” and she remembered giving a sweet peck on his cheek.

. . .

Amber wanted to scream. After weeks of seacrhing, and after given the idea of using those numbers as the key to the Profiler, it turned out to be nothing but a joke. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t remember about it earlier, but she didn’t like the feeling at all.

Heechul was standing by the door frame, still listening to the footsteps outside. She pulled out her flash drive while he wasn’t looking, and plugged it into the laptop. She copied some of the main codes of the Profiler into her drive and threw her flash drive back to her backpack right before he turned around. “Don’t do anything funny and find him!” he gritted his teeth, looking a bit nervous as the footsteps got closer.

You’re right, appa. I need to use my imagination.        

She quickly closed the Profiler, and created an entirely new coding based on the Profiler’s codes. She could still remember the layout of profile display JYP once showed her, on a video that her father made years ago, so she tried her best imitating the layout, complete with a fake photo she found on the internet and a map showing the location of Kim Jaejoong. She randomly picked an island called Trang in Thailand to be marked on the map, typing down a couple of basic information on the times and dates, and she’s done. She blurred the photo a bit, to hide its facial structure, and blackened the hair a bit, to resemble his childhood photo that GD gave her. She even made a narrative voice at the homepage to ensure Heechul that this was the real Profiler.

“WELCOME TO THE PROFILER. Version 2.1”

A tender voice of a woman managed to get Heechul’s attention from the door. “You unlocked it?” he said, pacing back behind the desk and jammed the keyboard himself, impatiently typing ‘Kim Jaejoong’.

Amber let him get himself fooled with a list of information she made up earlier, and waited, hoping there wouldn’t be any glitch when he played with the fake profiler.

Heechul grinned in satisfaction when he read the profile, didn’t notice the difference in the photo, or how Trang sounded a bit too exotic. Maybe Kim Jaejoong was quite a traveler, Amber thought, because this guy in front of her easily bought it all.

He closed the laptop down and brought it with him. “Well done, Amber.” he said as he hid the laptop behind the bookshelves. Amber slowly took her backpack and was ready to flee off the room, when suddenly she felt pain on her shoulder. She winced, pressing her shoulder with one hand when a familiar scent penetrated into her. She saw blood all over her palm and soon dizziness began to strike.

Without a warning, Heechul dragged her closer to him and made her lay on his lap. He shot the windows a few more times and scratched himself with the pieces of broken glass scattered on the floor. Heechul shushed her, whispering, “Remember, don’t do anything funny.”  Amber couldn’t speak when the pain dragged her down, and all she could see were Heechul’s chin and the dead white ceiling above her.

She heard someone broke into the room.

“Oppa! What happened?!” faintly she could hear a girl’s voice joining them in the room.

“Suzy-ah! Hurry, call the medical team. Amber was shot.” Heechul said, and at the same time Amber felt her body was being lifted to the air.

“Amber, you’re going to be alright.” she heard Suzy talking to her, and she wished she could open . Just to tell her one crazy fact about this guy holding her in his arms.

But she couldn’t say a word..

..and the sounds of their footsteps were the last thing she heard.

***

to be continued...

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