Paradigm

Chapter V

Seoul, South Korea. April 1993.

San managed to make it click with the young woman. Honestly, he did not even pretend a lot, she was a very sympathetic person. Being an excellent romantic, he invited Bora to hang out together after her lectures. She wasn't attending the same university as him since she studied art history and restoration of works of art. Therefore, he was waiting for her directly at their rendez-vous place.

It is common knowledge that ladies love chic men. Therefore, he had ironed his favorite shirt accordingly, which he would wear with pants and trendy shoes. He absolutely loved playing the role of someone he was not, that was sensational ! He clearly did very well to stick his nose into Hongjoong's business !

He locked the door of his flat and went down the street while whistling distractedly, which hardly ever did. An urban legend said that city-dwellers had a better fashion sense than anyone else. Indeed, he never came across more eccentrically dressed people than in great megapolis like New York, Tokyo or even Seoul to a certain extent. The problem with those people was that if one ever pushed their curiosity to get to know them, one would quickly find out that their personality was completely devoid of eccentricity. Just sickening conformity. The actual passionate and fascinating people, the originals were a lot rarer and usually did not wear any outside mark of their difference. Of their beauty.

After around ten minutes of relaxed walk, he sat at the best table of a trendy café of his neighborhood and promptly analyzed the people around him.

There was a couple in their forties devouring each other with their eyes, two teenagers with a speech rate over the average, a seller with an unreal beard chewing gum after gum conscientiously...

Bora entered the place like she owned the world, radiating self-confidence and joy. She nodded at San while smiling widely, catching everyone's attention. Even at a distance, one could smell her coconut fragrance.

She was six minutes and thirty seven seconds late.

San detested lack of punctuality. Six minutes and thirty seven seconds was a lot.

-Sorry I'm late, I got held up by a teacher.

Mmmh. Damn teacher.

-That's nothing, he mumbled with a forced smile that he hoped was credible.

-Jjoong told me you were a bit manic about punctuality, I know it's not nothing.

The comment made him smile for real, because it was absolutely void of any judgment. People usually found manics annoying - which they probably were.

-You are well-informed, he teased.

She had a fashion style that was much less modern than the other members of the group, a bit boho and colorful. The difference wasn't excessive but still noticeable. She was always wearing a crystal pendant set with six other stones in the colors of the different chakras around her neck. She generally hid it under her t-shirt.

After a few minutes of silence in order to choose a drink from the menu, San talked again.

-Something in your organization is bothering me.

-What is bothering you ?

-If you are so renowned in your field, how come you are so few ?

-That's actually an excellent question. We actually drastically select our members. We are the elite of the elite gathered by our intellectual competences and fields of expertise. Hongjoong is the best scientist of his university - no offense to you - and he clearly has the potential to become the most influential physician of the continent. Wooyoung is outstandingly brilliant in psychology and profiling. Yunho studies microbiology and chemistry as a double degree and Mingi... Mingi's case is more complicated.