“Is that Woohyun? I could be Woohyun’s target, right?” -Kim Sunggyu

Sunggyu flattened himself back against the control panel, heart pounding. Woohyun was armed, and it was only a matter of seconds before he noticed the open elevator and came to investigate. Then again, Sunggyu was also armed, but that was little comfort to Sunggyu. Something was wrong with the entire plan, and the last thing he needed was to run into his best friend and second-in-command when they were both under pressure and orders to kill.

Sunggyu sighed internally, yearning to close his eyes but deciding against it for the sake of vigilance. He was under a great deal of pressure. Under normal circumstances, Sunggyu dealt with pressure relatively well. But this time was different. He was being pressed by two opposing sides, and from the way things looked now, the results would be deadly. He was under pressure from management to do his job as a leader and set a good example for his team by eliminating his target and contributing to the eradication of The Chameleon. Conversely, he was also under pressure as an individual operative because the entire security procedure seemed illegitimate and suspicious, and as a spy, he had a responsibility to help his team survive. If he carried out the plan, at least one member of his team would die. If he had evidence that Dongwoo was The Chameleon, Sunggyu would do his job in a heartbeat, although not without sorrow. But in Sunggyu’s mind, there was no possibility and no evidence that Jang Dongwoo was guilty.

And so it came to be that Agent Kim Sunggyu reached an impasse.

Sunggyu’s attention was diverted back to the corridor when he heard the scuffling sound of footsteps. Woohyun turned to face the other way, gun cocked. Sunggyu squinted in the dark, straining to see what was going on. Then he heard voices.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Woohyun asked, forcing his paranoid words out in a businesslike tone.

A few seconds passed, the footsteps came closer, and the other person presumably came into view, though Sunggyu was still unable to see them.

“Oh, it’s you,” Woohyun said, visibly relaxing but keeping his gun where it was.

“Yeah. Looking for someone?” The voice replied.

Hoya.

Woohyun shrugged. “I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing here?”

“My job. I see you found a weapon?”

“Mm. I did.”

“It’s pointed at me.”

“You’re pointing your gun at me too.”

“Fair enough.” Hoya came into view, inching toward the elevator, gun aimed at Woohyun.

“Alright,” Woohyun said.

“I’ll be going, then.”

As Hoya moved past Woohyun, Woohyun turned to face him, and Sunggyu seized the only chance he saw.

“Hello,” Sunggyu said, announcing his presence, and emerged from the darkness to face the two men.

Within seconds, Woohyun and Hoya’s eyes and guns were on Sunggyu.

“Hyung.” Woohyun stared at him, his face pale in the insufficient light.

Sunggyu weighed his options. He had made the right decision by leaving the elevator. He knew that. If he had stayed there, he might have surprised Hoya on his way in and gotten injured. As for his next step, he decided that it would be best to maintain a policy of avoiding people until he figured out precisely what was going on and what he could do about it. Running into Woohyun and Hoya complicated things somewhat.

“Don’t mind me,” Sunggyu said warily, holding his gun low so that it caught what little light there was. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your...” He trailed off. “I was just passing through.”

He continued down the hall, walking backwards so that he could keep the both in sight.

“Why? Why are you acting like that?” Woohyun’s eyes widened, and he gestured to Sunggyu’s eccentric gait.

Sunggyu gave a bitter smile. “I’m not taking any chances.”

“Why? Do you think you’ve been targeted?”

Sunggyu halted in his tracks. He stared back at Woohyun, shaking his head more as a sign of amazement than as an answer.

“I don’t know why I would be. But something strange is going on. You probably know it too.”

“I know. The Chameleon.” Woohyun frowned.

Sunggyu shook his head. “Something’s not right.”

“But they gave us our orders, hyung. We have to do this-” He stopped to compose himself. “We have to find The Chameleon. At any cost.”

“Woohyun.” Sunggyu tried to gauge how much he could safely reveal, forgetting by habit in the current perilous situation that the man before him was his most trusted confidante. “The cost is too great for what it is. There’s something else going on.”

“Something else? What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know either.”

Woohyun was silent for a moment. “Who’s your target?”

Sunggyu ignored him. Breaking his gaze, he saw that Hoya had vanished. The elevator doors were closed, and the display above showed that he had taken the elevator to the next floor.

“I don’t know.”

“Who’s your target?” Woohyun repeated. “Mine’s...Sungjong. My target is Sungjong.”

Sunggyu’s mouth fell open. Lee Sungjong? Now there were at least two people from his team on the list of suspects. Something was very, very wrong. But at the very least, this meant that he could trust Woohyun with his thoughts and his life. Right?

Sunggyu lowered his gun and approached Woohyun. “Sungjong?”

But Sunggyu needed a way to see if Woohyun was telling the truth.

“My target’s Sungjong,” Sunggyu said, eyeing Woohyun and awaiting his response.

Woohyun cracked a wry smile, and that was all Sunggyu needed to see.

“Hey.” Sunggyu nodded to Woohyun. “Let’s work together.”

Woohyun raised his eyebrows. “To eliminate our targets? Are you...are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Sunggyu asked rhetorically. “Look, something’s up, something I can’t figure out, and I’ll tell you what I know. But I can’t do this on my own. Let’s team up; it’ll be just like old times.”

Woohyun looked away momentarily. When he raised his eyes again, something was clearly amiss. He appeared to be grasping for words, which was very unusual for him.

Sunggyu remembered the folded papers in his pocket. “Seriously. If you tell me who your target is, I’ll tell you mine. We can work together.”

“Why?” Woohyun shifted his weight between his two feet. “Why do I need to? We have our assignments. We have our orders. And now we just have to...to carry them out. So that we can get rid of The Chameleon! Don’t you want him gone, hyung? Don’t you? You won’t have to worry about him again.”

Sunggyu could perceive that Woohyun was getting worked up over something, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was distressing Woohyun so much. It could very well be the stress of his mission, or perhaps it had to do with The Chameleon. Sunggyu decided to let it be.

“It’s not like I’m your target, right? So show me,” Sunggyu persisted. “Just show me your target. It’ll make everything easier.”

Woohyun watched him, his mouth slightly open, the familiar crease between his eyebrows showing.

In that moment, something fell into place, and Sunggyu wished he had left while he had the chance. Woohyun seemed preoccupied, and he was not as receptive to Sunggyu’s mentions of a possible larger issue as Sunggyu had expected him to be. Woohyun could be preoccupied by one of two things: The Chameleon or his target. The Chameleon and his target were essentially the same thing, since the suspect list supposedly contained The Chameleon. The only reason that any of the operatives would be worried about The Chameleon at a time like this would be that they were The Chameleon. But Sunggyu knew with certainty that Woohyun was not The Chameleon. Woohyun was his partner, his friend, and Sunggyu knew that his anger towards the traitor was genuine. It was also possible that Woohyun knew who The Chameleon was and was worried about them, but that also seemed unlikely. Woohyun had been furious from the first day they had heard about the security breach to this very moment.

Thus Sunggyu came to the conclusion that Woohyun was thinking about his target. Perhaps he was thinking of how to kill him. If Sunggyu was right in his suspicions about the suspect list, Woohyun might also be thinking about how not to kill his target. But why would Woohyun be thinking about his target so much when the only person in sight was-

Him?

Sunggyu shivered imperceptibly. Suddenly, the hall was spinning around him, and only he and Woohyun were standing still.

“Alright,” Woohyun said finally, still watching Sunggyu with that same expression. “Let’s reveal them simultaneously.”

Sunggyu had run out of choices. If Woohyun’s target really was Sungjong, then Sunggyu had found an ally, and they could puzzle out their situation while protecting each other. If Woohyun’s target was Sunggyu, then Sunggyu would die. But running away was no longer an option. If he were on the suspect list and he ventured further on his own, he would also die. It looked to Sunggyu like he was the only one who was hesitating.

Sunggyu felt eyes on him. He couldn’t tell if they were Woohyun’s eyes or those of a stranger peering at him out of the black. He took a long, silent breath. This was it. He could take a risk, or he could wait to get killed.

“On the count of three,” Woohyun said, “We’ll reveal our targets.” He stared steadily into Sunggyu’s eyes.

Sunggyu gulped. If only there were a way to know for sure.

Woohyun’s next words would echo in his head for a long time, being his bridge back to sanity.

“One.”

It occurred to Sunggyu that he should raise his gun, just in case, but his hands wouldn’t seem to move fast enough.

“Two.”

It also occurred to Sunggyu that he should run, just in case, but his feet were planted to the floor.

“Three.”

It occurred to Sunggyu that if he died, no one else would know that there was anything wrong with the suspect list and the orders to kill.

“Show me,” Woohyun said.

“After you.”

Woohyun shook his head. “We agreed to do it at the same time. Take out your papers.”

Sunggyu slowly reached for his pocket and withdrew the target profile. Woohyun uncapped his case and pulled out his papers.

“On the count of three,” Woohyun prompted.

“You already counted to three.”

“Yeah, I did. So we’ll reveal them now.”

“Alright.” Sunggyu unfolded the paper containing Dongwoo’s name and photograph, preparing to turn it around.

“Now,” said Woohyun.

Sunggyu flipped his paper and searched Woohyun’s paper opposite him, trying to make it out in the dark. Finally, the words he was looking for presented themselves to him. He recognized the face in the snapshot, which stared blankly at him with small eyes.

Of course, Kim Sunggyu would recognize the face in the photograph anywhere. It was his face.

Woohyun was staring at him blankly, too. The crease between his eyebrows was gone, and his face was too calm. Sunggyu looked back at the two people he knew best: himself and Nam Woohyun. But now, he wasn’t sure how well he knew Woohyun. Sunggyu couldn’t predict what the younger man was going to do next if his life depended on it.

And Sunggyu’s life did depend on it.