Confidentially Documented
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"You did what?" Eunha yelled as she stood up. She pulled Sunggyu by the collar of his shirt and pushed him back. He stumbled and fell to the floor, but quickly stood again as he looked down. Eunha walked closer to him and slapped him once. Then she did it again, and again, and again, until her hand went numb. Sunggyu's face went numb as well.

"Who told you to rat out my mother and Dr. Choi?" she yelled. "Who gave you the fucking right to do so? You know, I think you're thinking too much nowadays. Remember Sunggyu, you think because of me and you act because of me! You got that clear?"

Sunggyu nodded as he thought, I did it 'cause I love you. I did it for you.

Eunha sighed as she tried to recollect herself. She walked around the room, trying to think of what to do. The worst possible scenarios came to her mind. If Yoongi knew, then Jimin and Baekhyun surely knew, too. Then she thought of something. She grabbed her phone and looked through her photos until she found the one she had taken of Ara and the mystery man. She stopped walking and turned to Sunggyu as she said, "We have somewhere to go."

She grabbed her purse and walked out the door while Sunggyu followed her. She drove this time as Sunggyu sat in the passenger seat. He was quiet and still. Not because he was scared, but because he was trying to process where Eunha was driving. Other than that, her reckless driving left him slightly terrified.

When they arrived at the destination, Sunggyu looked out the window, confused about where he was. It looked like an old home, broken and falling apart. Somewhere eerie that the only thing out of place was the white Aston Martin car parked on the street. The Aston Martin that Jimin had gifted Eunha for her thirtieth birthday not so long ago—one of the two cars Eunha had ever received from Jimin as gifts. One for her birthday and the other—a red Mercedes Benz—for their six-month anniversary. Both were fully paid and completely under Eunha's name.

Eunha looked at Sunggyu and signaled him to stay in the car as she got out. She walked towards the house and knocked on the door. From outside, Sunggyu started getting nervous as he looked around. The area surrounding the car was unsafe, and the people from outside glared his way. He suddenly caught himself bouncing his leg up and down anxiously as he scratched onto his left arm.

Inside, Eunha met up with a man focused on his computer and asked him, "How long will it take?"

She stood next to the man and showed him the photo she had. All the man did was continue to work without looking at the woman beside him.

"I have work to do," he said. "You're not the only one. In five days, it might be ready."

Eunha rolled her eyes as she reached into her purse. She grabbed her wallet and took out some money as the man turned to face her. She threw the money on the desk and asked once again, "How long will it take?"

The guy looked at the money and grabbed it as he counted each bill one by one. He then looked at the photo and said, "I'll give you my email so you can send it. You'll receive the information you need by tomorrow morning."

The next morning, both Jimin and Eunha had the day off. She woke up at his house and in his bed. She had been sleeping in his bed like before on the days she would spend the night, but Jimin had been sleeping in one of his guest rooms ever since he confronted her. He barely gave her a single look whenever he passed by her. Constantly, he would stare down at her from the balcony as he smoked whenever she would return home. She didn't give it a single thought either way. Now that she was pregnant, she didn't need to care much about keeping him close.

Jimin had plans to eat with his friends at his house, which was the only thing he had told Eunha. The point was for her to leave, since she never stayed when his friends were there. She did exactly what he expected of her and left very early. When she left, she went to get the results of the face recognition she had ordered and called Sunggyu to meet her there.

"Who is he?" Eunha asked the man, who was still sitting down without giving her much attention. He was smoking a cigarette this time, and the smoke went all over her. The printer suddenly started making noise as a sheet of paper went out. Eunha grabbed the paper and immediately read, "Jang Jiyong."

That was when she realized something. She could use him. She needed to use him. If she could use him to ruin Ara, she could destroy Baekhyun at the same time. That was what she really wanted. One by one, all of them—gone. Then Jimin would have nowhere to turn to, no one to go to, and he would finally be all hers.

Meanwhile, Jimin went over to visit Minji before the dinner with his friends. He wanted to visit her since it had been a while, but he mainly wanted to see Ara, and Minji knew that. When he arrived at her house, Minji answered the door and allowed him inside. Ara was sitting at the dining table, typing on her laptop, when she saw him walk in. He greeted her, and she greeted him, but that was it. He sat down with Minji as Ara minded her own business. Minji knew very well that he was there to see Ara and not her.

"Wait—I forgot! I was about to head out to pick up my girlfriend from work today," she said, clearly lying through her teeth. She grabbed her keys and ran towards the door as she said, "Ara's making dinner, Jimin. You should stay and eat. I'll be back soon!"

She opened the door and ran out before Ara could say anything. Jimin stood up and looked her way, not expecting her to abandon him at such a crucial moment. Ara looked at him and felt an awkward tension building up. There was an uncomfortable silence as he sat back down.

"Um, dinner will be ready soon," she said. "I'm just finishing up on my homework real quick. I'll serve you when I finish."

Jimin nodded as he said, "Thank you, but I have dinner with some friends today. It's at my house, so I can't really cancel."

Once again, there was silence. Jimin knew he had lost his chance to talk to her at a proper dinner when he said he was meeting with his friends, but he couldn't cancel on them at the last minute. He wasn't the type of person to cancel the day of the plans. Even worse, a few hours before. Even worse, for a date. He valued his friends a lot more.

"Actually—Ara. I need to talk to you in private," he said. "I'm free after dinner. If you are, can we meet up? I won't talk about the case or the masquerade. Trust me, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I just need to tell you something."

He felt like he had been holding it in for a long time when it wasn't even so long. It just felt like ages because he had not seen her as often as before. Now that he had sorted out his feelings, he wanted to confess. He wanted to do it the right way, even if he was engaged. Ara looked at him confused, but decided that she would meet him after his dinner at night. Jimin then left and reunited with his friends at his house for dinner.

"So, Yoongi, how's the investigation going?" Seokjin asked. Yoongi was busy eating until he thought of something as Seokjin spoke. Siwon wouldn't give him the information he desperately needed, so he had to get it out another way—through Seokjin.

"Actually, Jin, I need your help," Yoongi said. "I was looking through the autopsy report from Byun Haneul's death, and there was something strange. The report that the police station had received years ago said there was another DNA sample that wasn't his. It was someone else's. The problem is that it never said what type of sample it was. It was never specified. I asked Dr. Choi—the one who made it—and he said he had later updated the report without that information, as it was a typo. Do you think that's possible?"

Seokjin looked at him, confused, as he said, "The information needs to be included in an autopsy report. Typos can happen. They're very common in autopsy reports. However, Dr. Choi is very exact with his work. Trust me, as a fellow pathologist, I've seen many typos, but never with Dr. Choi."

Seokjin had been working as a pathologist for years. He knew what he was talking about and knew that if Yoongi had a reason to suspect, then it would be reasonable if he also looked into the situation with him. It was a very odd situation in the first place to just leave it as it was.

Later that same day, Seokjin went to his office and dialed the phone number of one of his friends from university. It had been a while since he last talked to her, but they remained best friends for a very long time. The phone rang for a second until a woman answered on the other side and said, "Jinnie? Oh my god, Jinnie! How have you been?"

Seokjin smiled as he heard her voice and said, "I'm doing good, Yeri. And you? How have you been?"

She chuckled and said, "I'm doing great. Lots of work, but I'm doing alright."

There was silence after her words, but it didn't feel awkward to either of them. They enjoyed the comfortable silence of knowing who was on the other side of the call. Someone they had missed and surely held profoundly in their hearts.

"Yeri, I need your help with something. You still work with Dr. Choi, right?"

Yeri nodded even though he couldn't see her, so she replied, "Yes, yes. We actually just sent him some information today for a new autopsy report. He checks them before they're published."

"Do you perhaps recall the autopsy of Byun Haneul?" Seokjin asked. The autopsy had taken place years before, and she had done multiple autopsies as a pathologist, so it was hard to recall a specific one. Byun Haneul, however, was a very well-known name with a very memorable death. It had reached the entire world.

"Yeah, I remember it! Poor man," she said. "It was weird, though. I don't think the car crash killed him. He was fine for an entire week. It couldn't have been it. Dr. Choi was the only one who said his health was declining—I mean, I wouldn't know. I was never present at the hospital. I just think it's very odd, since the autopsy report didn't mention it. Also, when we did the autopsy, we discovered skin cells under his fingernails that weren't his. That was actually very odd. Like if he had scratched someone in the hospital—"

"Scratched someone?" Seokjin asked, interrupting her words. "Wait, do you think he was resisting something?"

The call went quiet once again. Yeri looked around, making sure no one was around her before she said, "Seokjin, I think it was a murder, and I believe Dr. Choi helped cover it up."

+

While Jimin was spending time in his house with his friends, without Eunha interrupting him, his office remained empty and unsupervised. Hana was about to leave work from her late shift when she saw no one was around. She walked to the elevator and was about to press the button for the first floor until she stopped herself. She hesitated, but then pressed the button to the eighth floor. When the doors opened, the secretary who was usually there was gone. No one was around either.

Hana walked by the floor and reached Jimin's office. She looked around once again, but she saw no one. She went inside and closed the door right after her as her hands shook nervously. Jimin's most recent documents were right on his desk. She walked closer to it and sat on the chair, not knowing where to start first. She quickly skimmed through all the papers until she found what she needed.

"Kang & Co. confidential documents," she read. She grabbed her phone and quickly took pictures of the documents in front of her, one by one. She then placed everything where it was and ran out the door.

+

Eunha sat down and crossed her legs as she placed a small white envelope on the table in front of her, just like before. The young man in front of her looked at the envelope and then looked up at her. He knew the envelope was no good news.

"I'm going to be straightforward with you, Jiyong," Eunha said as she laid back in her chair. "I want—no—I need you to do something for me. It's more like a demand than a need, but whatever."

The young man looked at her directly in her eyes, knowing exactly who she was. He recalled everything that Ara had told him at that moment. Everything about Kang Eunha. He just couldn't believe that she would be the one to contact him in order to talk in person. Such a high and almighty person like her. He looked confused at the situation, but he said nothing. He grabbed his drink and took a sip as she said, "I need you to kidnap Byun Ara."

Jiyong suddenly choked on his drink. Unable to accept her words, he stood up and tried to leave until she said, "Your sister is in the hospital, isn't she?"

He stopped walking, making Eunha smirk as she continued, "She got into a car crash and was sent directly to the nearest hospital. Do you even know which hospital she was taken to?"

He turned around as he realized something. The question wasn't as simple as it sounded. It had more meaning to it. Eunha wanted to know if Jiyong was aware of who owned the hospital his sister was in. The hospital was from Kang & Co., and Eunha was the CEO of Kang & Co. His face dropped as he suddenly felt nauseous. The most important woman in business was sitting in front of him at that very moment. The woman who owned the hospital that his beloved sister was in. She was sitting right in front of him and demanding that he kidnap his lover with his sister as hostage.

"By the look on your face, I assume you never told Ara, did you? You never told her the full story about Jang Jia," she said. Eunha looked at him as he remained standing up. He looked down, knowing that Eunha was right. He never told Ara the truth. His sister was involved in a car crash, but he never told her she was in critical condition. He never told others too much about his personal life, mainly to someone he had just met. His sister was on the verge of death, and he couldn't take it. He needed to save her, no matter what.

Eunha looked back at the white envelope and pointed at it as she said, "Take the money, save your sister, and most importantly, do as I say. You have one week."

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• 2650 •
Update #4 for Jan. 10.