Woohyun and Key looked like a pair of guilty schoolboys who’d been caught trying to pull a prank on the headmaster.  They sat side by side, both fiddling nervously with their hands and neither meeting anybody’s eye.  Soojung was keeping an eye alternately on the recording devices and the body language of the two men, while Chanyeol sat there with a pen and paper, scribbling down notes.

Miran had found it difficult and awkward to ask questions, and not purely because of the nature of the video.  Even though she knew (or, at least, assumed) they worked hard, she was used to them being a couple of goofballs when she interacted with them, and since they’d both been kind to her, she felt bad grilling them, especially over something Key was so clearly embarrassed by.

Still, they more or less cooperated.  Well, Miran thought they were cooperating.  It was hard to tell, because it was a sensitive subject and while they answered her questions, they were both so different to how they usually were around her that she wouldn’t have been hard pressed to believe that they were two completely different people if somebody had told her that they were.

“So you’re having an affair with the COO’s wife,” Miran clarified again, trying to straighten the details out in her head.  She had to remind herself that just because she’d discovered what Woohyun had been hiding, there was no proof that either he or Key weren’t up to anything else besides messing around with the chief secretary of the agency.  After all, Gayoung quite possibly had access, formally or informally, to pretty much every single department in the building, knew pretty much everybody in the building, and was married to its chief of operations.  To anybody looking to mine information, she would quite possibly be the best person to go after.  “And this has been going on for nearly…” she looked down at her notes again, and then glanced at Key’s file.  “Almost since the day you set foot in the building, on and off.”

“I’m not the only one she’s been sleeping with,” Key interjected sullenly.

Miran looked up at him sharply.  “And what was the appeal?”

Key was silent for a long moment.  “Favours,” he said curtly.

Miran pointed her pen at the screen and everybody in the room reddened.  “Just ual ones?”

Key’s hesitation was enough to give her the answer to that.

“So I could have you indicted for eliciting information you’re not supposed to have access to,” she sighed.  “Splendid.”

She could have sworn she heard Key muttering, “Gayoung’s not supposed to have access to half of it either.”

Soojung and Chanyeol exchanged glances which Miran didn’t miss.  Clearly Miran hadn’t misheard.

Soojung piped up for the first time.  “How many other people could you name that are having an affair with Shin Gayoung?”

Key looked absolutely scandalised at being asked such a question.  Leaving Soojung to deal with that, Miran turned to Woohyun.

“Why did you delete the security video?” she asked.  “You knew I needed it.”

Woohyun took a moment or two to meet her eye, but Chanyeol spoke before he could open his mouth.

“Out of curiosity, how many security videos have you deleted?”

Woohyun’s face drained of colour.  “I— sorry, what?”

Chanyeol tapped his fingers on the tabletop beside him.  “I was just wondering.  I mean, Shin Gayoung seemed to know to go to you rather than asking Key, so to me the obvious connection is that she knew you knew how to, which suggests you’ve done it for her before.”

“Key asked me to do it,” Woohyun said blankly.  “And he’s my best friend, so of course I did it.”

“And how long have you known about the affair?  Are you involved with Shin Gayoung too?” Miran pressed.

“Since it began, and no.”  Woohyun looked irritated at the suggestion.

“Fair,” concluded Chanyeol before Miran could say anything else.  “Well, I guess that’s all for the moment.  If we have any more questions, we’ll call you back.  Thanks for your cooperation.”

Woohyun was out of his seat and heaving his suit jacket around his shoulders in a matter of seconds.  Key was already at the door, Soojung having finished whatever business she had with him.  The two men left, Woohyun pausing to pull the door to, his other hand just visible reaching into his pocket.

“Well, Woohyun’s lying,” Chanyeol concluded immediately.

“Why did you just dismiss him like that?” Miran demanded crossly.  “I still had questions I wanted to ask him.”

Soojung interrupted them, looking a little disturbed.  “Do either of you know who Kim Taehwan is?” she asked, gaze still on the piece of paper Key had written names on.

“Kim Taehwan?”  Chanyeol swivelled around to face her.  “He’s an archivist in my cell.  Sometimes stands in for Shin Gayoung on reception.  Why?”

“Key’s given me the names of three people he knows – or at least, says – are involved with Shin Gayoung in a similar way to him and Kim Taehwan’s the only one I don’t recognise.”  Soojung looked a little ill.

“Who are the others?”  Miran pulled the piece of paper towards her and looked down at Key’s scruffy handwriting.

“Key said he wasn’t totally sure about Yixing, but that he’d actually caught Gayoung and the last one.”  Her voice faltered a little.  “Cho Kyuhyun’s supposed to be dating my cousin.”

Shoving the paper away, Miran plonked her forehead down on the table.  “Ugh.  Why are ual relationships so complicated?”

There was a very awkward pause.

Chanyeol scraped his chair back and got to his feet.  “Well, I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m hungry.  Lunch?”

Miran looked up, half minded to tell him she really didn’t care about eating when she was so confused – especially since she wanted to wrap up all the affair stuff as soon as possible as it was possible it wasn’t relevant to their case (even though Soojung had pointed out that it was very common for people to develop relationships or even sleep around in order to get close to somebody to get information, and that did in part look like what was going on with Gayoung, which was worrying anyway).  Soojung was sitting directly across from her, evidently distressed.

“Do I tell Sooyoung about this?” she mumbled to herself.

It was a valid question.  Miran sat up, wondering if there was a correct way to respond to it, but at that moment, Chanyeol’s laptop burst into life, drawing everybody’s attention.  A sound-wave screen appeared, the sonogram flickering up in green, and Woohyun’s voice echoed through the speakers.

“Gayoung, where are you?  I need to talk to you – it’s urgent.”

None of them could really hear what the response was, and Miran concluded from the static that Woohyun was probably on the phone.

“No, it can’t wait.  Listen, the rookies somehow got hold of and restored the video you asked me to delete with you and Key— no, I have no idea how they did it and it shouldn’t even have been possible.  … I have no idea how much they know.  That’s why I’m ringing you now.  They hauled me and Key in for questioning.  They were quite naïve about it, but one hundred percent they’re going to go to you next and answer questions.  … We cooperated, of course – what do you think?  If we hadn’t done or if we’d told too many lies, it would have made us suspicious.”

“Sorry, sir,” said another voice.  “You have something on your back – just let me get that for you.”

Woohyun thanked the person and then his voice faded, being replaced by a general hubbub.  After a second or two, Chanyeol reached out and saved the sound file before closing the programme.

“The bug got removed.”  He sounded disappointed.

Soojung and Miran both stared at him.

“How on earth did you get a bug on him in the first place?” Miran asked.  “You didn’t even touch him!”

Chanyeol held up a very slim piece of plastic.  “Not the best quality, I grant you, but they have adhesive on both sides and attach much more strongly to fabrics than plastics, so I slipped one each onto the chairs they were sitting on.  The programme on my computer was set to boot up and record when the bug picked up voice vi