ACT I | SCENE V
{SPY}

THE INVESTIGATORS KEPT their word. hoseok studied the file in his hands quietly in the car ride to her new home. he'd thought she only left tokyo. but he was beyond surprised to discover she had left the entire continent for another one, all to escape him.

a place he certainly had not been expecting. seattle, washington.

his finger trailed over the photo of her in the file. his features contorted in a frown. why seattle of all places? he tried to remember if they had a good gymnastics programme, but nothing came to mind.

perhaps that was the point. she'd picked a place that had no ties with all the things he knew about her in order to throw him off. hoseok paused. did he truly know anything about her? he only knew what she told him. and who was to say those were not lies?

he hadn't had a background check done on her, which was highly uncharacteristic of him. hoseok never let people get close to him without knowing about them. not when he was a crown prince. the risk was simply too high. but he had been acting irrationally since the moment he laid eyes on the woman.

flipping a page in the file, his eyes fell on a still of lilian and ahjeong at a café caught on a cctv camera, only a few hours before she left. her expression wasn't very clear – she almost seemed confused, hurt and irritated – but the piece of paper on the table between them was. a cheque.

hoseok's hand clenched tightly, a wave of anger surging through him at the image. ahjeong hadn't been lying. he'd offered her money to leave. and she hadn't even wasted any time to do so.

the young prince's mind was whirling. he and ahjeong had never really seen eye to eye. hoseok knew that his cousin envied him and would jump at any chance to take the throne from him when the time came.

what if lilian wasn't a mere gold digger? what if she had been nothing but a spy? it made ridiculous sense to the man. maybe ahjeong had hired her to find out his secrets. except lilian wasn't the type of woman hoseok usually went for, and ahjeong knew that. but he also knew hoseok never trusted those women.

with her natural sweet disposition, understated allure and innocence, she didn't seem to ask for attention but nevertheless got it. walking with a subtle grace and a shy smile that had oddly attracted him. hoseok preferred his women more confident, but curiosity had drawn him to lilian. and look where that landed him.

he had let her in, in a way that he'd never let anyone outside his family, much less any woman. he began to wonder if she had used some sort of hypnosis on him. it was the only way he could explain the apparent spell she had him under. now ahjeong probably knew everything she knew.

he flipped over to the next page, detailing her journey after she left. she ran off to osaka that night, spending a couple of days with someone named matsukawa kento in his home. she stopped over at fukuoka to meet an unidentified woman before flying to new york. she stayed there two whole weeks before she bought an apartment in seattle and moved in.

her movements made absolutely no sense to hoseok. and after osaka, there was barely any detail on her activities in any of the places she visited. was it to throw him off? or ahjeong?

flipping the file shut, he tossed it to the side in annoyance. "how long till we arrive?" he questioned, impatience unwittingly seeping into his voice. "a quarter of an hour, your highness." the driver answered, glancing at minho who sat next to him.

hoseok nodded, fidgeting with his phone distractedly. he stared out the window, not really looking at anything that blurred past his vision. the truth was he wasn't sure what he would say to lilian. he didn't even know why he was hellbent on finding her.

normal jung hoseok would have disregarded the whole situation. but then again, normal jung hoseok would have been the one dumping not the one being dumped.

and the fact that she had anything to do with ahjeong was enough to have hoseok on his guard. this was about confronting her on the whole issue, not because he was infatuated with her and needed to see her. he wanted closure and confirmation. none of which that goddamn note had offered him.

"we're here, your highness." minho announced as the car rolled to a stop, pulling him out of his thoughts. he hurried out of the passenger's side to open the backdoor of the car. hoseok stepped out, eyeing the luxury apartment. he got an odd sense of déjà vu.

"shall i accompany you, your highness?" minho inquired, regarding the prince carefully. "no," hoseok replied, not looking at him. the man bowed in response as hoseok made his way in. nodding in response to the doorman, he approached the elevators.

he pressed the button and waited for the elevator to return, foot tapping lightly against the floor. when the doors opened, he stepped in, pushing the button for the eighteenth floor. his mind was the mess left after a tornado had torn through as the elevator slowly travelled up.

stepping out when it dinged open, he turned to his right. there were only two apartments on each floor. "one," he muttered, walking down the hallway. "two," his feet stopped in front of the second door. hand moving up, his index finger pushed down on the doorbell.

listening to the melody play from inside the apartment, his body tensed instinctively when he heard a muffled voice and the clicking of approaching heels.

hoseok's gaze shifted up as the door was opened to reveal the person standing on the other side.

☫☫☫

so things are about to get a bit more interesting. i hope.