Chapter 41 - Stalker

"Bulshit... Just a waste of time..." I grumbled under my breath making my way out and banging the door shut. The cacophonous array of ear-impairing sounds appeased a bit with the door now closed, still haunted the ambiance till a mile diameter with its lachrymation. Apparently, the address Mr. Ui Ha gave me, was not the real address. The young master was said to be not living there anymore. The new address brought me here, the greater urban side- Pyeongchang-dong district, taking away long forty minutes on the road due to traffic.

It was after the evening. Reaching into the lane that went towards the house address I had, no sooner booming sound of music and pops had banged my ears. Every house seemed like to be on lights and fire, but not. There was one house that outstood of all. It was the house I was looking for.

All these I had to go through to come here, only to find an alcoholic drunkard high till heaven and his peeps, not a single info could be obtained from their reeking mouths. I sighed, wiping an invisible sweat off my forehead. A faint sound of a phone call from my pocket took my attention. Momo was calling. I quickly picked it up.

"Hello."

"Y/N, breaking news!" Momo's gasps from panting reached before her articulated words, whether to certify her rush hour from somewhere but it did add an effect to the words she spoke to prime me next, "The...there's-"

"Woah, woah. Hold up. Calm down first. Why are you in such a rush? Is it about the dinner party?" I cut a small joke, "I can't understand you if you breathe like that."

"Right, sorry," She took in a deep breath and released the puff in a loud voice. Sizzling through a second of her vocal, she continued again, "I just kind of rushed from the meeting room now to come grab my phone. The thing is-" She took a pause.

"There has arisen a certain debate in the department. Some things happened, and...weh um...uh-"

"Momo, cut to the chase here, what happened?"

"Somebody hacked into our database and rummaged the case files."

I grew curious, "What? How did they break in the security?"

"Same question. Hardly one can ever sidle-access that, considering how tight the security system is."

"Which case files were those?" My eyebrow tweaked, expecting but not wanting to hear the conjecturable answer.

"They didn't scan through just one file, quite a few. But that's the tactic to avoid getting the fact known which file they were actually there for. I know, since the case files which had the traces of getting scanned- most of those were history and from my perspective, insignificant. The only case which was, of all, latest, level A, and confidential, was yours..."

I started, startled, unable to precisely process the whole news of deception in my head. I cried, "What the fu-? Who was it?"

"Duh! I don't know, of course, girl." She was as antsy as me. "So you know, from among us-"

"There's maybe a double agent." My ears had perceived the rash and suspenseful utterance of it, but my eyes had already locked target at the small silhouette jittering under the dancing shadows of pine trees in a distance. The way a pair of tainted glasses were locked at me. A momentary flashlight of a camera gave the conviction about their deed, and I knew who it might be.

"Y/N?-" The phone uttered a small sound of my name called before I found myself bouncing the last flight of stairs down and skidding in that direction. The person didn't have an instant reflex, probably he hadn't expected my rush to them like that. He turned around in a moment and dashed to the main street. That one second of unsettlement of him already had me privileged, as I quickly could shorten the distance between us. He was at least six feet tall. The cap slanted downward to further hide the face from my vision. The gray baggy shirt was almost near my hand, I tried to grab it aggressively. He could perceive my action, so successively giving me a push to the ground, he tried to hop past, in the meanwhile. I grappled his leg. Using it as a prop, I tried to jump up, while my one hand worked to crawl the fingers up and grab onto something which would or could hint me about the identity, at least snatch that cap away. He was strong. The sudden thurst I received as he struck his upper body with me threw me a foot away. He took the chance, Scampering to the other side of the street, he called a cab, hopped in, and whisked away in a moment.

I held myself up placing my elbow on the concrete. A drop of blood sauntered down my lips followed by a stream of a couple more drops next. I clutched the cap with my nails and nibbled onto the cut formed across my lipline. I couldn't see that face, but grabbing the cap was enough to get me to something.

The logo of Seoul Arts High School.

I went back to recall where I had seen this before. It took me a second, leaving me with wide eyes.

The gardener.

I faintly remembered those eyes, when he looked back as I held him back before hitting me. I had seen him somewhere before.

I glanced at the small card structure that had fallen out of their pocket. Which said-

"𝔚𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢! ℑ𝔫 𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔠𝔦𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔞 𝔰𝔲𝔠𝔠𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔣𝔲𝔩 𝔶𝔢𝔞𝔯, 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔦𝔫𝔳𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔞 𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔫𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔦𝔡𝔞𝔶 𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔢𝔯. 𝔓𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔰𝔢 𝔟𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔠𝔞𝔯𝔡-

A barcode at the bottom.

He was one of us.