Ten Rules of Business, MARK

05

RULE #05: KEEP the relationship professional

The pair found themselves back at Mark's apartment. He would have brought her back to the HQ, but the rest of the members had just returned from a deal and Mark wasn't too keen on making them meet.

Unlike Aera's house, Mark's apartment was small, but it felt way cosier as compared to her own.

"Want anything to drink?" Mark asked from the kitchen.

"Water, please," she replied, only now realising how parched she actually was. Aera sat on the floor of the living room only a few steps away from the open kitchen, Mark joining her soon after as he sat next to her.

"Thanks," she mumbled, taking a gulp from the water bottle Mark had left on the table.

Aera leaned against the couch behind her as she waited for Mark to set up his laptop.

"You ready?" He asked, casting her a side glance.

Aera nodded wordlessly. The past events had left her in a constant state of jitters, her not fully recovering yet. It was only as she sat there on Mark's floor with the stolen thumb drive before them did she finally feel the weight of the night dawn upon her shoulders.

She couldn't believe she managed to pull off something so... illegal. Kwon Aera, the girl who never skipped school and always aced her classes with flying colours; the girl who would never hurt a fly. When did she turn into a criminal? Were her morals still intact, even?

"Aera," Mark's voice snapped her out of her reverie, her vision refocusing to the laptop screen before them. "The files are locked. I'm gonna have to try and break in."

"Sorry." Aera bit her lip guiltily, casting the boy a small glance. "I shouldn't have- do you want to just do it tomorrow?" She suggesting, feeling bad for wanting to finish it all tonight.

"It's fine. It'll only take me a while," he murmured distractedly, fingers already rapidly typing on the keyboard. He paused, turning to face the girl. "You hungry?"

It had been a few hours since she last ate, with it now nearing midnight. Her nerves from before had prevented her from eating much, her body now facing the consequences as her tummy grumbled slightly.

"A little bit, yeah," she replied, hoping Mark didn't hear the embarrassing sound that came from her stomach. "What do you have? I'll go cook something."

Aera was ready to stand up before Mark interrupted her. "Don't need. We can just order in. What do you want to eat?" He asked as he whipped out his phone.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Haechan hasn't gone grocery shopping for this week, so our fridge is basically empty anyways," Mark remarked as he scrolled mindlessly through his phone. "Chicken sound good?"

"Sure," Aera quipped. "Is Haechan your roommate?"

Mark turned to look at her, as though he wasn't expecting the question. In all honesty, he wasn't. Aside from purely work-related matters, they didn't really know much about each other personally.

The fifth rule of business is to always keep the relationship professional.

"Yeah. You've met him," he replied.

Aera nodded in response, remembering the tanned boy she met at Mark's office a few weeks ago. They fell into a comfortable silence, save Mark's tapping of his keyboard. Since he did all the technical stuff, she didn't really have anything to do at this point. Her mind wandered off to her situation at hand— it seemed that that was all she had been doing recently.

So far, they've come to know that the company funds had been used illegally— that was already a given. On the surface, her mom seemed to be innocent seeing as there was nothing Aera could find in her bedroom, in her study, and even in the company building— she checked.

Of course, that didn't mean that she was clear of all suspicions. If anything, Aera was certain that her mom had to be involved one way or another.

She just had to know if it had anything to do with her uncle's sudden involvement in their family business.

"I'm in," Mark suddenly said, causing Aera to snap out of her reverie.

Mark skimmed through the folders, settling on a random one to open first.

"Wait..." Aera whispered, the document catching her attention as she inched forward slightly. "A will?"

"What-"

The doorbell rang, causing Aera to jump slightly.

"Must be the food," Mark uttered as he got up to open the door.

Aera moved his laptop closer to her to get a better view of the screen, rereading the document from the top. Her heart was pounding loudly against her chest as she took in its contents. She went to the next document, and the next one, and the next one after that, not seemingly able to tear her eyes away from what she was seeing.

Just before she could go on, the laptop lid was shut suddenly by Mark who was now standing before the coffee table.

"Hey-"

"We should eat first," he said, his voice stern as he settled the food on the table.

"But-"

"C'mon, Aera. We have all night."

That, they did. Aera knew there was no way she was going to be able to sleep after this. It seemed as though Mark had no plans to, either.

Their supper was a quiet one, with little to no words exchanged as they each were consumed with their own thoughts. Mark had put on a random show on the TV for background noise, but Aera's attention was far from that.

Her mind wandered to the other things she had stolen earlier, stored safely in her bag. She hadn't had the time to look through them with Mark right next to her, but she knew it was wiser to at least get the thumb drive out of the way first. Her assumptions of it being locked with a password were true— she wouldn't have been able to unlock it without Mark's help, anyway.

Aera could only hope there was no mention about the CEO's suicide in it. After all, Mark had no idea of her real intentions behind hiring him.

She couldn't care less about her parents' company. She just wanted to find out the truth behind her father's death.

Aera snapped out of her thoughts at the sound of the main door opening, revealing Mark's roommate.

"You're back late. How was the deal?"

"So-so," Haechan answered tiredly, giving her a small glance before he went to the kitchen to grab a drink.

Aera didn't know what their team really specialised in, having heard the term 'deal' being thrown around constantly. Based on what Mark was helping her with, she was sure it wasn't in the very least legal anyways.

"You ate?" Mark asked, his eyes trained on the random cartoon that was playing on the TV.

"Yeah, Jaehyun hyung's treat. You should've been there. You know he doesn't do that very often," Haechan remarked with a small scoff.

Mark hummed in response, their conversation coming to an end. The words they exchanged had made Aera feel a little something— she didn't know much about Mark's colleagues, but it did seem like they were very close.

She spared the boy next to her a small glance, his eyes still trained on the screen as his hands moved around the table to clean up his mess.

Despite the line of work that he was in, he still looked very much like a normal college boy to her. Somehow, the thought made her warm inside, knowing that despite the fact that they weren't friends, at least she knew she wasn't alone.