“Ah, of course you have a back-up plan.” Hwayoung said while nodding, “Hey. By the way, what passport did the IAI give you when we came here to Seoul?” She asked, suddenly switching to half English half Japanese so Eun Ae, Soo Jin and Hye Su wouldn’t be able to understand in case they eavesdropped, “Because they got me to use my real passport with my real name on it.”

Haneul paused then slowly rotated her neck 90 degrees to the left and looked Hwayoung in the eye and continued the conversation in Japanese, “You too?”

“What? They made you use your real name too?” Hwayoung said incredulously, slightly alarmed that the IAI made one of their best agents under 25 use their real name, “Isn’t that stupid though? Seeing as you’re already on the wanted list of a couple of illegal organizations and that this is extremely dangerous for you!”

“My fake names are on the lists.” Haneul corrected but then softened her tone and looked at the ground as she thought, “But I’m sure songsaengnim had a reason for giving me my real passport…”

“When was the last time you travelled with your real passport?”

Haneul stopped to think hard. In her short lifetime so far, she’d used 53 different passports, 14 different drivers’ licenses, 45 different aliases and spend at least 934 hours with extreme different disguises on. Despite her great memory, she had forgotten the first time she had ever used a fake alias, or a fake passport, or disguises that made her look completely different. She’d forgotten the amount of times she’d moved from one country to another as somebody other than Jang Haneul, herself. But she knew all of the times added together was probably still in its single digits and that all those times were probably at least over 8 years ago.

Despite the fact that she still had exact counts of times she wasn’t herself, she just couldn’t remember the last time she was herself. Not Suzuki Michiko, a Tokyo girl. Not Wang Linming, a landlord’s daughter. Not Kim Minyoung, a downtown Seoul girl. Not Jiang Jiejing, an average Chinese student from Shanghai. Not Jung Heemin, a humble carpenter’s daughter, or even as one of many other of her past aliases. But just as her. Jang Haneul. The girl who had been helping put corrupt officials behind bars since she was 6. The girl who had 2 university degrees and 1 musical diploma by the time she was 13. The girl who could sing 4 and a half octaves at ease and 5 when she tried, could run 100m in under 12 seconds, had an IQ of 173 at the age of 10, carried a 3^rd dan black belt in Taekwondo and a 2^nd in karate and judo, could lift up to twice her own weight and could crack government system databases. The girl who was three grades above the norm for people her age before she stopped attending her middle school in China at the age of 9. The girl who only had one person friend she herself could bring to call a friend. The lonely girl whose only immediate family was a mother who often left her for work. The girl whose eyes cloud over and carry no emotion and only ever showed a slightly spark once in a blue moon.

The girl who’d been messed with so much already that she no longer had a proper understanding of human emotions.

“I’ve… forgotten.” Haneul softly confessed in Chinese as she slowly opened her eyes and frowned as if it were impossible that she had forgotten anything. And really, it was almost impossible that someone with a memory like hers was able to forget anything.  “When was the last time I was allowed to be myself I wonder… Where did… Jang Haneul go…”

“Maybe that’s what Miyoung-nim is trying to tell you.” Hwayoung softly said in Japanese as she patted Haneul’s back and remembered how found Miyoung was of Haneul. She’d always told Hwayoung that Haneul was her favourite student and how Hwayoung would see that look of a mother’s love in Miyoung’s eyes as she told Hwayoung stories about Haneul. Hwayoung never managed to put a smile on Miyoung’s face like that, never quite managed to put that spark into her eyes and put that life into her. Hwayoung bitterly smiled to herself at those memories.

“What’s she trying to tell me?” Haneul asked, switching to Japanese again with an honestly confused expression on her face.

“To just be yourself this time.” Hwayoung whispered to Haneul and sighed as she remembered the amount of times Miyoung had tried to convince Hwayoung to quit ‘before it was too late’. At first Hwayoung’s teenage mood problems just kept telling her it was because Miyoung hated Hwayoung and loved Haneul so much more, but she later on realised, and maybe just a little too late, that Miyoung actually had a proper reason for this. She discovered that Miyoung had watched Haneul live a cruel life with estranged and heartless cruel people all around her. She watched cruel things befall Haneul’s mere ten year old self. She’d never told Hwayoung exactly what happened with Haneul when Haneul was merely ten, but all she did tell Hwayoung was that it pained Haneul whenever anyone brought it up. And Hwayoung could tell it was something big. Very big. And she had a slight bunch what it was, but she was too scared of hurting Hwayoung deeply by bringing it up.

“Why would she want me to be ‘myself’ though?” Haneul asked with a bitter smile upon her face, “Miyoung’s part of the IAI. Important and high up too. She’d never ask me, an agent, to be myself. All anyone high up in the IAI wants us agents to be is someone other than ourselves. So I’ve really learned never to believe them when they say to be yourself.” Haneul said and then laughed a laughter full of bitterness and sadness.

“I think Miyoung’s different though.” Hwayoung said softly while avoiding Haneul’s eye in case she gave anything else, “I feel like she loves you enough to let you be who you want. And look, let’s stop talking about this. The girls look ready to go.” She said as she pointed to the three girls at the other end of the room with Eun Ae finally hanging up despite her being the first one to start calling, “Let’s continue this conversation another time.”

“Don’t bother.” Haneul muttered sadly, “Just don’t bother.”

--------------

“Wah! Noona! This apartment complex is just so…” Dongho trailed off, unable to find a word to describe it.

“Yes?” Haneul said as she walked as she normally did (using the Zadornov scanning technique; commonly used for scanning for any ambushers within a 10 metre radius of you without having to look around conspicuously) towards the apartment building that her penthouse was located in.

“Ah! Miss Jang! Welcome back!” The same ahjumma said at the front desk and stood up and bowed at Haneul, “Master Dong is back in Seoul but asks me to pass on the message that he won’t be able to come over and stay in his apartment tonight so you can utilise to your liking.” She peered behind Haneul and saw a large group of boys and girls, of which all the boys were slowly taking off their sunglasses. “Oh my. Miss Jang! Who are these people? Your friends?” The ahjumma said in a surprised voice, for she had never seen Haneul come home with anyone close to her age before other than Woohyun and obviously Hwayoung earlier before. But Hwayoung gave off the feel of an agent to the ahjumma anyway so she didn’t think anything of it. But these 10 extra people gave off somewhat the feeling of normal people, if you looked past how gorgeous all of them looked, that was. “So many friends! I’m so happy for you!”

“Ahjumma!” Haneul whined and pouted at the ahjumma awkwardly (though a few of the boys and Hye Su actually found it adorable), “You make it sound like I don’t have any friends! You don’t seriously think that do you?”

The ahjumma was silent for a few seconds, “Miss Jang. Do you really want me to answer that question?”

“Yeah… Not really.” Haneul said as she scrunched up her nose and rethought it, “You probably only think I have Woohyun oppa, don’t you?”

The ahjumma laughed and just patted Haneul’s head. The ahjumma’s name was Ryu Heesun and she was an IAI approved guard for Haneul’s apartment complex. The apartment complex wasn’t actually IAI owned, but the Heesun ahjumma was IAI approved and checked and was in fact a guard for Haneul while she was sleeping. She often swapped shifts with another IAI approved guard, her older twin brother name Ryu Heechul. But Haneul didn’t like him much as he wasn’t as nice and friendly as Heesun. “There, there. We all know that the reality is that you’ve really only got your oppas. That reminds me, why don’t you have any female friends?” She said with a wink at Haneul.

“Ahjumma!” She exclaimed and pouted, “You know why! And I’m related to half of those ‘oppas’ you’re talking about!”

“Alright, alright. Here you go Miss Jang. Your keycard.” She said and passed it to Haneul. Haneul smiled. When it was the keycard it meant that her apartment had already been changed around.

“Kamsahabnida ahjumma!” Haneul said smiling brightly and waved at the ahjumma as she walked towards the lifts. Haneul pressed on a fingerprint sensitive up button for the lift. The lifts second from the right (there were six in a row) soundlessly slid open and all 12 of them somehow managed to squeeze in. Haneul resisted the urge to press the button for five floors and simply pressed on the button for the 20^th. “Man, the maximum for these lifts is only 11 people.” Haneul announced and struggled to turn around slowly in the packed lift to look at everyone. “But that’s 11 people weighing 80kg each. I’m going to guess that none of you are 80?” She said with an eyebrow raised. Everyone in the lift shook their heads.

When it finally arrived at the 20^th floor, despite the ride being only a mere 20 seconds, Haneul felt a feeling of gratefulness she had only felt once before from finally being able to get out a lift ride. And that was the time a lift managed to break down when she was on the way up, though the lift never did arrive at her intended destination with her in it. She simply opened the top of the lift that time and climbed out with hiking equipment she happened to have on her. She was 10 at the time.

“Right. This way guys.” Haneul said as she tugged on her jacket to make sure her keycard was still in her pocket. It was. She pulled out her keycard and swiped it and opened the door to find a slightly different looking apartment in front of her. Her 19^th century vase with small explosive marbles in it had been emptied and filled with fresh flowers in purple water instead. Her collection of special knives in the kitchen and her GPS tracking clock had also been removed from her living room. She smiled widely as she looked at it. The maintenance had done a good job. She made a mental note to thank them personally later for being able to change her apartment into what she liked to call ‘Seoul Apartment ver. 2’ within the 23 minutes she had requested for it.

“Wah! Noona! Your apartment looks so good!” Dongho exclaimed excitedly.

“Yeah… It really is very nice…” Soohyun mumbled as he looked around and grabbed onto Dongho’s arm to stop him from running around and breaking anything expensive.

“Hyung! Let go of me!” Dongho said while whacking Soohyun’s hand on his arm.

“No. You might break something.” He said and glared at Dongho who just harrumphed and looked away.

“Thank you Dongho.” Haneul said with a smile on her face, “It’s good to know you think my apartment looks nice.” She said though honestly, she was feeling rather insecure without her special poisonous gas bomb tennis ball around. (complete with a gas mask of course.)

“Are those satin pillows I see?” Jaeseop said with a huge grin upon his face. He looked at Kiseop with a look in his eye and immediately both of them raced towards the sofa.

“Hey!” Hwayoung yelled at them, “Not the 18^th century French couch!” Haneul looked at Hwayoung bemusedly that Hwayoung was caring more about the state of Haneul’s furniture than Haneul herself was.

“Seriously!? 18^th century? French?” Jaeseop said with a look of amazement upon his face. “Next thing I know you’re going to tell me that painting over there is from 15^th century Renaissance Italy!” He said as he pointed to a framed picture of a glass bowl of fruits.

“It is though.” Haneul said as she headed towards the kitchen and looked in the pantry. It was fully stocked up. “Ah… Maintenance and service does a good job.” Haneul thought to herself and nodded. She then turned around to everyone who somehow managed to get rid of their awe and sit on the 18^th century couch with the 2 seops and asked, “So what do you guys want for dinner? It’s late and all but I’m going to guess you guys haven’t had a proper dinner yet.”

“I want only the freshest produce and taste in my food.” Dongho said sitting upright and acting posh and then collapsed onto the sofa laughing then suddenly sat upright again and asked, “Hey. Since your cousin’s the rich boy does that mean his apartment’s nicer than yours?”

“Nope. I told you. He’s a doting cousin. He likes to buy expensive things for me more than for himself.” Haneul said as she opened her cupboard and looked through it. She finally found what she wanted; her clay tea set which was handcrafted by a master artisan in China over 10 years ago. The same artisan gifted 3 identical tea sets to her grandmother who gifted one of them to her. She brought it out and looked through the pantry for some tea leaves. “Aw man.” Haneul said in an aw shucks tone, “I’m almost out of the 7^th Grade Longjing tea Woohyun Oppa personally bought for me from Hangzhou last time he as there.” Haneul said as she pouted. “You guys are some lucky people. I have just enough to make all 12 of us some.” She said with a smile and went to her tea water boiler to heat the water to 75 degrees Celsius, the perfect temperature for Hangzhou Longjing tea.

After a few minutes, Haneul came out with a beautiful tea pot and 12 matching and equally beautiful tea cups. She placed it on the crystal table in the center of all the couches gently and kneeled down carefully to pour the tea into the cups gingerly. After all 12 cups had steaming, aromatic tea in them, she gently handed a cup to each person. “Drink up.” She said with a smile after she gave the second last cup to Dongho with a bow and went back to kneeling next to crystal table to drink her own cup.

After she finished downing the cup of tea, she placed the cup back on her serving plate and simply stayed there kneeling and sitting on her feet in the position for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. When she watched the last person finish their tea, she got back up carrying the plate and gestured for them all to put the cups back on. She went back to the kitchen and placed the serving plate, cups and teapot on the kitchen bench and then went back to the living room.

“So, what do we wish to do now?” She asked, sitting on plush armchair across the table from the 18^th century couch which everyone else somehow managed to fit on.

“First, can we go exploring?” Dongho said with a big smile upon his face.

Haneul smiled. She was confident that the maintenance had manage to clean up everything she wouldn’t want everyone else to see so she smiled and nodded. “I’ll go bake while you guys go exploring then.” She said with a gentle smile and god up and walked soundlessly to the kitchen.

“Yeah!” Dongho said jumping up excitedly and ran into the nearest room which was the bathroom. The others just decided to follow along while Hwayoung decided to pull out her laptop and start doing her own thing. Every so often while Haneul was baking her red velvet cupcakes, she’d hear Dongho and Eun Ae’s loud voices yelling out things like “Awesome!” and “Wow!”

Haneul then heard the Xbox being and the boys yelling out things while she was playing it. “Where did we get an xbox from?” Haneul wondered to herself as she spooned the cake mixture evenly between her cupcake patties. After she finished putting the muffin tin with the cupcake patties on it in the oven, she heard the TV being turned off already. “Lost interest already, ey.” Haneul muttered to herself as she took out her electric beater to make the frosting. She heard Dongho and the rest of them wondering around some more and then just as she was about to turn on the electric beater she heard a voice call out.

“Noona! Come over here for a second please?”

“Alright.” She said and then sighed as she put down the electric beater and walked towards the source of the voice. She paused as she realised they were in the study, frowned and just walked in. “What’s the problem here? Do you want to use my laptop or desktop or something to go on the internet?”

“Nope.” Dongho said and held up a small frame which caused Haneul to freeze.

The only thought that ran through Haneul's head was, "Not again."

Glossary:

7^th Grade Longjing tea – Longjing green tea is a variety of roasted green tea which originated from Hangzhou in China. It’s divided into 7 grades, with 7 being the highest and most expensive.