( elementary, my dear watson ).
↪ on the line... @nsjihae
Haewon, to be put quite frankly, felt like shit. She was running on a mere two hours of sleep and one cup of overly-sweetened coffee, swiping her badge over the building’s card reader multiple times before realizing she’d been holding it backwards and finally gaining access to the elevator. Straight-faced, eyes focused on some non-discernible point in the distance. Completely unlike herself.
“... Haewon, I’m sorry, I really am, but you have to understand why couldn’t tell anyone, I---”
“You do? Oh, that’s so relieving to hear--- the guilt was eating me alive and---”
“Look, Seokmin, I’ve gotta go, but thank you for contacting me. I mean it.”
“Oh! Yeah, of course, maybe I’ll talk to you l---”
10:00 pm. He’d called her at 10:00 pm to unload the weight he’d been holding on his shoulders for three years. Three years. Not because he genuinely wanted to help find Haerin--- no, he contacted Haewon because he felt guilty. If he knew what she did for a living, the kind of connections she had, he never would’ve allowed himself to do that, would he? Because a woman he thought to be an elementary school English teacher wouldn’t have the resources or the connections or the guts to do anything with the information he just handed her. But Haewon did. And her childhood family friend had just unlocked a door she thought she’d boarded up nearly a year ago.
Haewon passed right by her own desk, not even bothering to set down her coffee or her bag, instead making a beeline for the Data Center. Not that she knew exactly how she was going to pull this off. She had the clearance to get into the room, but that was about it--- any knowledge on how to use the databases installed on the computers there went straight over her head. And yet, she was on a mission and nothing was going to stop her, not even her own lack of a plan. Her ID slid over the card reader, lighting it up green as the locks clicked, allowing her entrance. Okay. What now? The Data Center was busy as usual, agents bustling back and forth between rows of computers, hackers in their own little world with noise-cancelling headphones to block out any distraction, Jihae... Jihae.
Haewon’s eyes lit up as she spotted the familiar face, heels clacking against the floor as she made her way across the room, dropping inconspicuously into the chair beside her co-worker’s and sliding it closer to where he sat. “Hey---” she said simply in greeting, offering a half-hearted smile. “You busy right now?” Haewon hardly even left him any time to answer before getting right to the point. “You don’t happen to know anything about the Kim Syndicate based in Changwon, do you?”