Moon Woo-shin, with an absurd look, laughed hollowly. When an answer didn’t come back quickly, Hae-il awkwardly added an excuse.
“Really, just, I’ll only buy food. While also practicing driving, quickly by car. The car has a dashcam too, how could anything go wrong…?”
Moon Woo-shin, who let out a deep sigh, leaned his properly upright body back into the chair. After looking over Hae-il with pathetic eyes, he suddenly held out his palm upward.
“Phone.”
“Here it is.”
Hae-il, who quickly took out the phone from his pocket, gently placed it on Moon Woo-shin’s palm while holding it with both hands.
Even though he’d never told him the pattern, somehow knowing it, Moon Woo-shin unlocked it without hesitation and touched the screen a few times to install something.
He got slight chills. Had he ever unlocked that phone in front of Moon Woo-shin? When the hell did he see it?
It was fortunate that this was a camouflage second phone, and the phone that would really be scary if it fell into Moon Woo-shin’s hands was hidden separately.
The phone, after who knows what he did to it, soon returned to Hae-il’s hand.
“Don’t deviate to other paths and come back within 30 minutes.”
“Yes, thank you!”
He deliberately didn’t ask what he’d installed. It would be either a wiretap device, a location tracker, or an app that hacks the camera to use like CCTV. Or all three.
Hae-il, who calmly greeted with an excited face to avoid pointless suspicion, bowed and quickly left the room.
The surveillance continued, but just leaving that room and those eyes gave him a bit more breathing room.
As soon as he quietly closed the director’s office door and turned around, Kang Cheol-hyeon grabbed his arm. Unlike his powerless hand, his face was thoroughly shocked.
“Hey, Seo Hae-il…”
“Yes?”
“You, man, if you act out like that, you won’t live to your natural lifespan, man…”
It was a tone as if his own lifespan had decreased instead.
“Aw, hyung. You don’t need to worry.”
“Anyway, kids these days…”
If someone heard, they’d think the age difference was over ten years. We’re both in our early thirties with barely any difference.
Hae-il, who appropriately let it pass by, changed the subject of conversation to dig out other information.
“But what’s good to eat around here? Aren’t there other hyungs who originally worked here?”
“I actually just found out about a place.”
While obtaining small bits of direct and indirect information through conversation with Kang Cheol-hyeon, Hae-il moved toward the underground parking lot.
***
For several days, while staying only within Moon Woo-shin’s sight, Hae-il pretended to obediently follow while first grasping the daily routine.
Moon Woo-shin went to work at the crack of dawn every day and got off work late in the evening. There were almost no exceptions even on weekends. At most, he’d rest about one day during the week, and even then, he only stayed inside the house. He mainly seemed to read or work in the living room on the first floor.
Within that tight schedule, the only opportunities Hae-il could escape his eyes were twice a day. Lunch time, 30 minutes, and dinner time, 30 minutes.
Even that wasn’t completely free time since it was under the surveillance of the unknown app Moon Woo-shin had installed.
Hae-il utilized the short and limited situation to the maximum.
First, he’d order food by phone in advance while going out, and pick it up as quickly as possible. Based on driving skills that were gradually becoming familiar, it didn’t take more than a few minutes to pack food from a restaurant right in front of the building and return.
All the empty time in between was devoted to expanding his network.
“Hyung, hello!”
“Oh, youngest. Going to get food for the Director?”
“Yes!”
In just a few days, the number of organization members Hae-il greeted warmly while coming and going increased to nearly ten.
Of course, keeping in mind that all conversations would enter Moon Woo-shin’s ears, the content was mostly just everyday things.
Still, if he broke the ice and built even very light connections, this all becomes flesh and blood later. Sometimes small help that was completely unexpected returns as a big gift.
Just like right now.
“Director Moon is an amazing person.”
“It’s not easy to get a director title at that age.”
Among the people working here, talk about Moon Woo-shin often came up as a topic.
After breaking the ice and becoming a bit closer, they recognized Seo Hae-il as being in the position of ‘the dedicated slave Moon Woo-shin keeps by his side and works,’ and would slip him trivial information, claiming to help in their own way.
Mostly useless coping methods like bowing your head first when Moon Woo-shin smiles, but this time was a bit different.
“How did Director Moon get promoted so quickly? He looked young in age too?”
When Hae-il subtly probed while pretending to know nothing, one person who was in a particularly good mood today chattered excitedly.
“It’s ability, but being pure-blood on top of that, it’s a smooth road, you know.”
“Pure-blood?”
“Ah, you don’t know since you haven’t been here long, youngest? He’s been affiliated here since childhood. I heard Director Moon has been here since he was about five or six years old.”
This was completely new information.
Moon Woo-shin had been in Ban since childhood…?
“…There are organization members that young too?”
“Well, they bring in kids with nowhere to go and raise them. If you educate them well from when they’re babies and raise them, their loyalty to the organization is different, and since they’ve been involved much longer than most guys, they’re well-versed in various organization matters so they work well. That’s why they’re called pure-bloods.”
It was an explanation like some charity organization, but it was obviously child abduction or human trafficking.
It meant they’d abduct kids who knew nothing when they were young, brainwash them to make them loyal, and by assigning important positions to people who grew up like that, they’d expanded the organization’s power.
“I see. Then he must have a strong relationship with the Chairman?”
“Oh, of course. How many years have they known each other.”
“Rumor has it Director Moon brought in quite a lot of useful information from the Special Abilities Agency side. They say our current core business is doing well thanks to him. The trust must be deep.”
“Really? I’m hearing this for the first time.”
“That’s because you’re the lowest of the low, you bastard.”
Just as he opened his mouth to dig out more details while maintaining calmness, the phone in his hand vibrated long. It was the alarm he’d set exactly at 28 minutes.
The eyes of the men sitting in front became sympathetic.
“Time’s up.”
“Hurry and go, youngest.”
“…Yep. Then I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Hae-il, who cheerfully bowed with his usual face, headed to the director’s office with quick steps.
The bag in his hand felt especially heavy.
After arriving in front of the director’s office door in one minute and managing his expression, he knocked on the door with appropriate strength. Though no particular answer was heard, he quietly opened the door and entered inside.
“Director, I’m back.”
Moon Woo-shin, who glanced at this side briefly, fixed his gaze on the monitor again.
Hae-il, who silently closed the door, started taking out the food he’d brought one by one and setting it up on the table in front of the sofa.
As his hands moved busily, his head also frantically extended thoughts.
Actually, deep in his heart, he’d been subtly suspecting Moon Woo-shin in another direction. Wondering if maybe he, like himself, wasn’t a real criminal.
There was no record at all of being registered as an affiliated guide on the Special Abilities Agency server, and no one knew his whereabouts after graduation, but still, it was a “what if” feeling. After all, he was someone who’d voluntarily entered the Ability University himself to belong to the Special Abilities Agency and received education for four years.
The person called Moon Woo-shin that Hae-il had seen during the year or so they were on the same team, though his temperament was unusual, was always a leader with a strong sense of responsibility at least when it came to Gate conquest. Hae-il had never doubted for a moment that he would join the Special Abilities Agency right after graduation and be active as a capable guide. At least until Moon Woo-shin disappeared.
But if the story he heard today was true…
‘Was it the opposite instead? Did he try to infiltrate the Special Abilities Agency to help Ban?’
Objectively, this side seemed much more convincing. It wasn’t that joining the Special Abilities Agency itself was the goal, but the intention was to contribute to Ban’s criminal plans.
Then his sudden disappearance was also explained. He either went into hiding after getting caught right before joining the Special Abilities Agency, or he erased his own traces to join the work Ban was currently planning.
