It was well past three in the morning before Miran finally tumbled into bed.  Her head was absolutely spinning with alcohol, and she was surprised that she’d made it as far as her apartment, or even recognised the interior of it.  She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d drunk so much of it anyway: it didn’t taste that great, as far as she was concerned, though Hyeri had assured her that alcohol was an acquired taste, and it was only the third time that Miran had had it.  The first had been an illicit bottle with a friend at university and the second had been at her graduation dinner in significantly more moderation.

Daylight arrived accompanied by a monstrous headache.  With a groan, Miran forced herself out of bed, and discovered to her horror that she hadn’t thought to close the blackout curtains.  Then again, she’d been out well past curfew, and as far as she could remember – not helped by the fact she couldn’t remember much – she hadn’t any lights.  And besides, there hadn’t been an air raid, either, so it wasn’t like she’d accidentally got the city flattened through a moment of very bad judgement.  All that said, she was unsure why a bar would have a license during wartime to be open beyond the midnight curfew, though it did probably help that the place was deep underground.

Staring bleary-eyed at herself in the mirror, Miran wondered if she could get away with wearing the same clothes that she’d fallen asleep in, but concluded not due to their wrinkled state.  She doused herself in water, drank three glasses of it in an attempt to rehydrate herself and alleviate the headache, and then got changed and headed out to catch the number 16 bus.

On arrival at the office, she was gratified to see that Woohyun was in almost as bad a state as she was, and that Key was probably worse off, since he’d curled up on the floor by Woohyun’s feet and gone to sleep.  Throwing herself down into her chair, Miran booted up her computer and dropped her head into her hands.  She had absolutely no idea where to even start with stuff.

After a few mindless minutes of playing Minesweeper, she was woken up properly by Kyungsoo giving the back of her head a light whack as he came past.  Yelping with surprise, Miran rubbed the spot.

“That doesn’t look like work,” was all he said before disappeared again.  Seconds later, she heard a yell of shock from Key, whom Kyungsoo had presumably decided needed to wake up.  Closing the game, Miran forced herself to think about what she needed to do.

The easiest thing to get out of the way was ensuring that all the stuff Baekhyun needed was actually going to get sent.  Miran spent some time organising it with a chirpy woman only a few years older than her called Moonbyul and then took a brief break out at the front of the building in the hopes that the fresh air would help her hangover.  There were a few benches here and there alongside some dilapidated potted shrubs, and she sat down on one of the seats and practically allowed her head to drop into one of the plants.

A few moments later, somebody tapped her wrist.  Miran jolted upright with a shock to see Kyungsoo standing there with a bottle of water.  He was looking towards the building entrance as he struggled to unscrew the cap with his gloves on, and from his coat and scarf, it looked like his decision to leave the building had been done with a lot more forethought than Miran’s had.

“Looks like you had the same idea as me,” he said as he finally got the top off and extended the water bottle towards her.  “I’m pretty sure that the levels of alcohol in all the alcoholic drinks have gone up illegally high since the war started.  But it’s not surprising if there’s a shortage of it.”  He sat down on the bench beside her.  “Also, you’re going to freeze.”

“You really are such a mother hen,” Miran murmured as she took a grateful sip of the water.  Kyungsoo gave a gentle snort.

“I’m the division leader.  I have to make sure none of you are dying.”

Miran almost made a sarcastic comment in reply, but caught herself just in time.  From what Yeri and Woohyun had told her the previous night – what little she remembered of it, anyway, Kyungsoo was still taking the deaths of the agents in his division who’d died as a result of Yerim very hard.  Instead, she took another quiet sip of water and handed the bottle back.  Kyungsoo wiped the rim before taking a few gulps himself.

“So, having established the others are all party animals, how are you getting on?”

“Not very well with this hangover.”

Kyungsoo smiled sympathetically.  “Neither.”

“You don’t look hung over, sir.”

Kyungsoo sighed.  “Unfortunately I have a division heads meeting in ten minutes and I need to make sure no signs of last night’s debauchery remain.”

Miran’s eyes widened last night.  “Whoa.  What did you do last night?”

“I only drank at the bar.  But far too much.”  He drank more water.  “This is about the sixth one of these and I’m also running on three cups of coffee, so hopefully I’ll be coherent at some point soon.”

After staring for a few moments, Miran allowed herself a small smile.  Looking closely, she could see the small lines of stress as he grimaced, and his face was pretty pasty.  He offered her the water again.

“Any updates on Scout or Klutz?” he asked.  Miran frowned.

“Oh.  I meant to leave a report on your desk about that.”

“Probably best not to if there’s definitely a mole running around.”  Realising that Miran wasn’t interested in the water, Kyungsoo took it back again and finished it off.  “Information that’s just lying about like that is far too easily obtained.”

“Somebody broke into my safe, as well, to look through Oh Sehun’s testimony.”

Kyungsoo straightened up in alarm.  “You said somebody had been going through your stuff, but not that they’d broken into your safe.”

Miran shrugged.  “Jongdae’s looked over it.  I was just curious as to why so many people’s fingerprints are all over it and all the stuff inside.”

“Yerim was forever forgetting the passcode, so we spent a lot of time breaking into it for her,” Kyungsoo admitted.  “In fact, if you want somebody who’s good at cracking safes open, your best bet is somebody on our team.  And I went through all her stuff personally while we were investigating her, and after, as well.”

Miran pursed her lips.  “How big was the investigation team?”

“There were around five of us.”

“Can you give me the names?  It would be interesting to see who does correspond to the fingerprints on the safe and who doesn’t.”

Nodding, Kyungsoo got to his feet.  He lobbed the bottle into a nearby bin.  “I’ll do it as soon as the meeting’s over.  Actually, would you like the report we drew up on the internal investigation?  I don’t think it was included in your original case notes.  It might help you trying to hunt down the insider.”

Miran nodded.