The Crown | myg

twenty

"Try not to make a mess," I whisper as I move from the desk to the wardrobe, while Beomgyu works on rummaging through the nightstand and bookshelves. When I find nothing in the wardrobe, I angrily slam the door shut and walk to the center of the room.

Beomgyu moves away from the side of the room he was to check, and he shrugs at me before sighing and rubbing his temples. I check my watch before tilting my head back and sighing.

"Two minutes," I growl as I stare at the ceiling.

As I'm staring at the ceiling, I notice something in my peripheral vision and I move my head so I can see it fully.

An air duct.

"Beomgyu, I'm gonna lift you up," I say as I get onto my knees and cup my hands in front of me. "Open that duct."

"Shouldn't I be lifting you-"

I glare at him.

"Okay."

Beomgyu walks over to me and stands on my hands. I stand up and lift him so that his eyes are level with the duct near the ceiling. It's not hard to lift him, I work out, it's literally part of my job to be able to carry people and to have muscles.

"I found it," Beomgyu nearly screams as he pulls a box from the duct and closes it again. I bring him back down to ground level and, the moment he hits the floor, the lights in the room turn back on.

"Let's go," I whisper as I grab Beomgyu's wrist and run out of the room and down the hallway beside it. This time, however, we don't stop. We keep running just in case Kimoon comes back and sees us running away from his space.

I stop and open a door before pulling him in the room with me. The light flickers on when I touch the switch and I sit down at my desk. My arms open wide in a welcoming gesture. "Welcome to my room."

"Does everyone get a room of their own?" Beomgyu asks as he looks around my room. "Bed and everything?"

I chuckle. "Every room on this floor has bedrooms, all equipped with queen sized beds, dressers, closets, desks - basically everything you see here," I gesture around the room. "But you decorate them yourselves, make them your own."

He gestures to the bed and I nod, to which he sits down. "How do I get one?"

"Currently only me, Kimoon, Daehyun, Jaesuk, and Seojoon have one," I say as I place my legs atop one another on my desk. "Seojoon needs to know you'll be around for a long time before you get one."

"What if I pretend?"

"No can do," I say in a dead serious tone. "Had to take an oath, ceremony, cut yourself for proof. That's where I got this scar."

Beomgyu stares at me, his jaw hanging agape, speechless.

"I'm joking," I laugh. "None of that was true."

Beomgyu nods before speaking. "How did you, you know, get the scar?"

"I was in love with someone, in a relationship," I take a deep breath and remove my legs from atop my desk. "During one of our missions, he was deep undercover, we both were. It had been months. He was pretending to be from a street gang, I was pretending to be the leader's girlfriend, it was all working out, until-"

Reminiscing in the past, one of the hardest moments of my life, the only thing that has a scar to be remembered by, it's hard for me. But not harder knowing that the man I'm talking about is still one of my colleagues.

"Until it came time to become one of them officially," I suck in a deep breath. "He had to show his trust in the gang. His way in was to hurt someone he knew, someone he was close with. The gang leader brought me in and forced him to give me a Glasgow Smile, but only one side at a time."

I take another deep breath in and exhale.

"He had one side done, my cheek disconnected from itself, the skin hanging there, I was basically drinking my own blood at that point, and that's when the others showed up," I whisper. "They had been listening in for months, we would often report back to them and tell them the gangs plans. When they overheard when I was to be harmed, they rushed to my aid. When they got to us, one cheek was already shredded, ripped from its own skin. I was wounded."

"I'm so sorry," Beomgyu says in a low voice, his eyes nearly leaking tears.

"It's funny," I chuckle through sobs. "You think someone you love would back down in a situation like this, but he did it. He didn't blow his cover, he willingly sliced my face open, and he was about to do the other side, but he was pulled away from one of our members. I was saved before I could be hurt anymore."

Beomgyu stares at me in complete shock, his body stiff.

"I can't imagine what you've been through," he breathes. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you."

"But it's our job," I sniff. "We all came back to work and pretended it didn't happen, even though I had stitches in my face for what felt like forever. You wanna know the worst part?"

He nods.

"One of the reasons I left was because I hated seeing him, I hated that everyone pretended like nothing happened," I pull my shirt into my hand as I make a fist. "And now I have to see his stupid face every fucking day."