Rule #32: Turn your biggest weakness into your greatest weapon

Saera looked up and watched Mark who was sitting at a small table in the center of the bakery with his laptop.

He finally gave in and let her  open the bakery for the day.

Apparently she was using up all the eggs and milk at his apartment and figured that he might as well let her mess her bakery's kitchen up.

Now that he knew what Sang Min looked like, Mark felt a bit more comfortable letting her around people.

But she was pretty sure he just felt bad about keeping her away from her brother's place. Fortunately, learning a huge secret of hers didn't have him treating her any differently.

And she was grateful.

She mindlessly stirred the bowl of batter while watching him work. He was biting on his lip as he typed away, his brows slightly creased.

It felt comforting to know that Mark knew about Jinyoung. Only Mireu knew about him and there was sense of solace in the fact that Mark knew as well.

It made her feel closer to him.

Jinyoung's death was something that she had accepted and moved on from, so talking about him, wasn't too hard on her, but it still felt liberating.

Especially confiding in Mark, the man who told her all of his secrets already.

And not to mention Mark was really good loo-

"Ahem, you know I'm here too, right?"

Saera jumped and snapped out of her daze and looked over at Jackson who was sitting across from Mark, with a pout and his arms crossed.

Mark looked up and stared at Saera whose face was suddenly a blaring red. "I…uh…I know you're here. What…uh…what are you talking about?"

Jackson snorted, "Sure. It's not like you were ogling Mark or anything, completely ignoring my presence. Do I look like chopped liver to you?"

Saera's jaw dropped and Mark's eyes darted to her, staring at her curiously as she choked on her spit.

She slowly backed away from the counter while holding the bowl, "I'm going to go to the kitchen…um…10 minutes until opening and Mireu's not here to help so…um…I'm just going to…yeah."

Mark's eyes filled with amusement as she stumbled through the door and raced off to the kitchen.

God, she was cute.

Ever since he learned about Jinyoung, he found himself looking at her in a different light. She seemed so much stronger than he could ever imagine. He couldn't imagine what else she was hiding.

She amazed him.

"Unbelievable." Jackson scoffed, "Like, it's not like I want her hitting on me, but she could at least pay a little attention to me every now and then. I'm looking after her brother."

"Well technically BamBam is doing all the real work." Mark chimed.

Jackson scoffed dramatically, "You're the worst."

Mark chuckled, "Don't be such a baby."

"Oh, that's easy for you to say, when you two aren't flirting, you basically just stare at her while biting your lip. It's so uncomfortable to watch. I can't wait until customers come in and distract her." Jackson tsked while looking at his laptop.

This time it was Mark's turn to flare red, "We don't flirt."

"Are you kidding? All you do is tease each other with inside jokes and share these light touches. Ugh." Jackson said in disgust.

Mark ducked his head down in embarrassment, "Shut up."

He ignored Jackson's laugh and just focused on his screen. His fingers  raced across the keyboard as multiple windows popped up.

His eyes darted across the screen, following the combination of numbers and letters that made algorithms.

Seo Sang Min://Medical 

He quickly hit enter and waited impatiently before the screen lit up with granted access. Mark's eyes widened as he scanned the documents, trying to make sense of the vernacular that he wasn't familiar with.

Seo Sang Min suffers from severe Schizophrenia and Dissociative Personality Disorder.

", Jackson look at this." Mark said as he turned his laptop towards his partner.

Jackson's face darkened when he read the contents of the file, "Damn, this is going to make everything harder. No wonder he's been breaking his pattern with the fake Mireu, there's more than one person in his head."

"If Saera's right and Sang Min is working with someone then there's a chance that his partner is manipulating him and taking advantage of his illness." Mark added.

"Which makes tracking Sang Min completely useless."

Mark turned to see Saera staring at them, having over heard the whole conversation. "Yeah, we need to track his partner down first."

"But I don't think his partner is around anymore. The partner is either dead or MIA." Saera pointed out.

Jackson's eyebrows creased, "How do you know that?"

Saera tapped the side of her forehead and he immediately nodded in understanding.

Mark said nothing and just stared at the screen. He had a few people he wanted to look into but he didn't really know if any of them would lead him to anything.

"How did you get access to this anyways?" Saera asked while leaning over the laptop.

Mark's eyes darted around nervously "Uhh…"

"Are you kidding? Mark can hack his way into everything." Jackson heckled.

Mark scowled at him, "At least I didn't learn how to lock pick and hot wire cars when I was 16."

"Hey!" Jackson said defensively, "Those are important skill sets."

A half smile grew on her face, "I can't believe you two are the men that are supposed to serve and protect."

"Don't you feel safe?" Mark asked with a teasing grin.

Saera rolled her eyes and flipped the open sign, "Oh, yeah, really safe. I think I can sleep with my doors unlocked."

"Well you sleep next to me, behind my doors, so yeah, you should feel invincible." He called out.

Saera shook her head good naturedly, "Try not to disrupt the customers you two."

Mark grinned as he watched her disappear to the back and come back carrying a tray of cookies to set up. His attention was caught by Jackson who snorted loudly.

"Sure, you two don't flirt at all. I must be crazy."

-----

A few hours later, Mark had a very nosy thought.

He was running out of ways to kill time until names crossed his mind.

Park Saera

Park Youngjae

He looked over at her and saw her smiling at a customer, making cute faces at their baby while she wrapped up their order.

His fingers lingered over the keys before he threw caution to the wind and typed Saera's real name in. He hit enter and low and behold, her picture popped up. He clicked on her name and let the results roll in.

There it was.

Every government documented detail since birth. Her health card, passport, birth certificate and her business ownership forms. They were all compiled together which surprised him.

Why would she bother changing her last name if she wasn't going to do it legally and make it official.

She was still renewing her documents under the name Park.

Knowing Saera, there was a chance she didn't change it officially so that she would have Jinyoung's last name, but if that was the case, then why would she bother changing it all?

He clicked on her birth certificate and zoomed in on her parents' name and was stunned to see the two lines with their names out with a black bar.

He looked Youngjae's name up and looked at his birth certificate only to see the same treatment.

So did Jinyoung's, even his death certificate had his parents' name out. Mark looked over Jinyoung's file, there wasn't much about it aside from the autopsy report but that was only accessible by MEs and even he didn't have the abilities to hack into that.

According to the government, Saera, Jinyoung and Youngjae's parents were unknown.

He looked over at Saera again, the crowd had left and most of the customers were filtering out of the store.

He wondered what other tragedy reigned over her.

He couldn't even imagine anything worse than Jinyoung.

"Dude, if you're going to stare, at least try to be sly. You're so embarrassing."

Mark closed his eyes and grit his teeth before turning to look at Jackson who was just watching him in amusement, "Don't you have something better to do than watch my every move?"

"Not really. You're the one who dragged me here, forcing me to use my vacation days." He jeered.

Mark rolled his eyes and stood up before closing his laptop, "Watch my laptop, I'll be back."

Jackson watched Mark turned to the counter that Saera was behind and laughed.

"Dude, you've got it bad. This is amazing."

-----

"Can I get a coffee, half milk and 4 sugars?"

Saera felt a smile grow on her face when she recognized the voice and turned, "4 sugars is a bit excessive, isn't it? And half milk? Does it still count as coffee at this point?"

Mark made a face and leaned his elbows on the counter, "What happened to the customer's always right, routine?"

"I never said you were wrong. I was just giving you my opinion and anyways, I thought you hated coffee." She said with a raised brow.

He nodded, "I do hate coffee, just not yours. I like your coffee."

"So I've won you over?" She asked bashfully while pouring him a cup.

Mark narrowed his eyes at her, "Just this round, psychic."

Saera tilted her head and smiled at him when she heard the bells of the front door. Her eyes slid to the door and her smile started to fade.

"Um…Mark? I think…"

"Oh, I'm so glad you guys are open."

Mark felt his heart skip and turned to his mother and sister standing behind him. His eyes shot to Jackson in a panic who only shrugged with the same bewildered expression.

Saera cleared , "Mrs. Xiong! Yuan! What a nice surprise. What are you two doing here?"

"Ever since I came over to work on that project with Youngjae, I've been dying to come to your bakery but we never had the time and now you've been close for a long time." Yuan said excitedly.

Mrs. Xiong smiled and put her arm around Yuan, "How are you, Mark? It seems like the two of you are going strong."

"Um…yeah." Mark said nervously, "We're good."

Saera darted her eyes before she lit up, "Yuan, why don't you come over here and look at our pastries and tell me which one you want. It's on the house." 

Mark's face was filled with alarm as Yuan cheered and skipped away, leaving him alone with his mother.

"You know Mark, I've been really looking forward to having dinner with your parents. Do you know when they'll be free?" Mrs. Xiong asked brightly.

Mark looked at Saera and immediately found her looking at him in concern.  "Um…you know, I think they might be really busy with some businesses overseas."

He felt his heart crack when he saw the crestfallen expression on his mother's face, "Well, I guess another time, then."

"What if me and Mark have dinner with you instead?" Saera blurted out.  

Jackson's eyebrows raised with a smile as he watched their exchange. Mark's face was a look of total shock and confusion, as he mouth 'what the are you doing?' to her.

He didn't want to spend more time with them, it was only going to hurt more.

"Really?" Mrs. Xiong asked with excitement.  

Mark looked frantically between Saera, Yuan and Mrs. Xiong. "I…uh…" Saera gave him a firm nod and he was too lost to think on his own, "Yeah. I mean, I guess we could. We don't really have anything on for today."

"Oh this is great. You guys should come over now and we can make an early dinner. It'll be so much fun." She gushed.

Mark looked at Saera who shrugged, "I can close up early."

"Yeah and I have paperwork to catch up on anyways, so ending early works for me too." Jackson said, cutting in obnoxiously to remind people he was still in the room.

"Then it's settled." Yuan said with a squeal.

Mark turned to Saera with a helpless look but the girl only winked at him before walking to the back.