The morning ca and I woke up to find Miho sleeping in my bed. It was already packed with her plushies and she seed to have thought I was a plushy too in her sleep, cuddling like I was a big Teddy bear or sothing. Not that I didn’t like it.
Despite the difficult night we had, I felt like I slept really deeply and felt refreshed. I checked the ti and it was 10 AM.
Wow. I haven’t slept this long in a while - I thought to myself.
Then ca the knock on the door.
Four knocks. In a shuffle beat.
It was Shin - who else?
"Ti to wake up, ladies."
"Good morning!" Miho suddenly bolted up, no - actually, literally jumped up from a prone position and banged her head on the top bed.
"Ouch..."
I patted her head and yelled out to Shin.
"What do you need us for?"
"A eting."
A eting?
Miho and I got out of bed, stretched our bodies, and walked out of the room yawning together.
The old man said nothing when he saw us. He just turned around and paced away, expecting us to follow, so we followed.
We went up to the third floor and walked down the hallway to a room that I hadn’t been in before. It had both a padded lock and a keypad, which the old man opened. Like at Juho’s hospital and in his studio, it had a lot of digits. I doubt this old fox used the sa numbers for everything and wondered how he rembered all these numbers, considering that he was probably too smart to use sothing silly like phone numbers and birthdays.
Inside the room, there was a big table with what seed to be large sheets of blueprints and maps.
"The job will be in two weeks." The old man dully announced.
"Two weeks?! Isn’t that too soon? I thought you said we have two months!" I protested. I knew this ’job’ wasn’t sothing we could avoid, but I wanted Miho to get back to her... work as late as possible.
"Sotis you have to strike when the opportunity arrives. It will be October 10th, Friday night."
"Hm, hm, hm. So what’s the plan?" Miho asked as if all this was a routine for her.
It probably was. At so point in the past when I wasn’t around.
"It’s at a nightclub, which is also the headquarters for the Ilseong Corporation."
Miho let out a whistle.
"The headquarters of a corporation?" I was the dumb one here.
"Well, in stupid language, it would be a ’hideout for a gang’. Does that make more sense to you now?"
I didn’t want to be stupid, but it did make more sense. But still -
"Sounds way too dangerous. Even to ."
"It is."
"Why are we picking this place then?"
"The job is to get rid of as many Ilseong mbers as possible. We are to bring the company down. This will ensure that they won’t chase Miho anymore."
"And money?" Miho asked. Sharply.
"10 billion Won."
Holy molly.
Combine this plus all the money we squeezed out from Kwon, I thought it gave a faint hope that perhaps Miho could quit this life for good, although I imdiately reprimanded myself in my head for seeing this ’job’ as a money-making opportunity.
"How many targets?" the tigress narrowed her eyes.
"Expect at least 50."
"That’s not ALL of Ilseong guys, no?" She tilted her head.
"No. But we hit them hard at their headquarters, get rid of the boss, and the rest will crumble. We will have cleaners to take care of small fish scattered around the city. But we need YOU to do the big job, Miho."
"Heh~, where would you be without , old man?" Miho quipped.
"Sowhere overseas where the weather’s more friendly. Enjoying my retirent."
"Aw, don’t say that. This is exciting, hehe."
"Miho, this one’s serious." The man warned.
"Well, I’m Gu Miho after all. I can afford to lose a tail or two."
Shin chuckled.
I couldn’t wrap my head around how casually they were talking about this.
"I don’t like it. This puts Miho in way too much danger." Minority voices must be heard. I thought.
"You are in no position to like it or dislike it. You are not here to give your opinion."
"Why did you call into this ’eting’ in the first place then? What do you need for?"
"I will explain."
Shin placed his hands on the table and pointed at the blueprint spread out on the surface with his chin.
"The building has four floors. The ground floor is the dance floor. The second floor has private tables that look down on the dance floor. The third floor has 20 private rooms for VIP guests. The fourth floor also has VIP rooms but they are reserved for corporate guests. The fourth floor has a long narrow corridor with rooms lining each side. The boss’ room is at the end of the corridor. There is only one way to get there. Through the front door, through the dance floor, through the second floor, then the third - which also has a long corridor with no other paths branching out - and then the top floor. You get what I an?"
"Corridor of death. One way to hell. I like it." Miho nodded her head.
"But of course, the boss’ room has an escape route. He would be a fool to trap himself in his office with no way to get out then through this long corridor of death."
"I see. Can we not enter through the back route then and work our way out?"
"Negative. It’s a slide down that leads to a waste disposal container. You will not be able to climb upward through that even with your claws."
"Don’t underestimate cats."
"Forget it, Miho. You are going through the front door."
"But... wouldn’t the boss then run away through that passage before Miho even gets to his office then?" I was no expert at such things, but this seed blatantly obvious.
"Obviously, yes. So we are going to do sothing about it."
"Oh?" that piqued Miho’s curiosity.
"We are working as a team this ti. This job can’t be done alone."
"Yuk, I don’t like working in teams." Miho groaned.
"Tough luck. So here’s what’s going to happen."
Shin waved Miho’s protest away and continued.
"We have six teams for this job. Owl, Raccoon, Tiger, Rat, Canary, and Pigeon"
"Nice nas." The Tiger giggled.
"Owl will work the CCTV part out. They will get the job done. Don’t worry about it. Tiger goes through the front door as she should. About 12 minutes later - by which ti Tiger should be on the third floor at least, Racoon will send the smoke up through their waste disposal tunnel. That should stop the boss from trying to take that route to flee. Once the boss’ office gets filled with smoke they will have to take the corridor of death to get out. Tiger will eliminate them all there, get to the boss’ office, and take the waste disposal tunnel down. By the ti Tiger cos down, Racoon will be gone and Rat will bring Tiger to Pigeon."
"Thank you, Rat." The Tiger giggled again which earned her a scornful look from Shin.
"So what is exactly MY role in this?" Not that I wanted to be involved, but knowing that I was, I just had to ask.
"YOU are the Pigeon."
"Oh, great."
"All you have to do is wait in a karaoke one block away?"
"Eh?"
"On that night, you will go to that karaoke place together with Tiger. You will get a room. Sing for half an hour or sothing, whatever. Tiger will get out - unseen - with a help from a helpful Rat, and go to the nightclub for a little dance. You stay in the room and sing your heart out. Tiger will co back after the job’s done. Canary will cause fire at the karaoke. You wait to be rescued together with Tiger when the firen arrive. There, Pigeon and Tiger have the perfect alibi. They have been having a good night out at the karaoke, there was a fire, and they got rescued - together."
I didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a room waiting for rescue in a flaming inferno, but if I died, perhaps it would be a fitting end.
What Shin said did make sense though. When this job was complete Miho and I could go back to ’normal life’ - IF all the ’company’ that’s after Miho gets disseminated. Once that happens, we need to be free of Detective Choi’s suspicions. Creating this alibi was probably crucial for our way out of this ss.
Perhaps this could really be the last job that Miho had to do.
If only we could survive through this together, maybe we could find that island place that would be perfect for us.
And I hope we’ll have no more wolves visiting us then.
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