Operatives || Park Sunghoon

14 | the betrayal

Sunghoon's POV

"What?" I asked, completely shocked, trying to bend my mind around the fact that her first supervisor had already betrayed her. Thea nodded, her hands literally shaking in my grip. Since we were sitting in the backseat of the car, it was easier for us to face each other while talking.

"There was a mission to find a killer, who used to hold people captives and then kill them." She said, her head hung down. "It was all fake, complete bullshit. All the facts, the details, everything was set up." She said, anger evident in her voice as she emphasised every word.

"It was set up by him, wasn't it?" I asked softly, making her nod at my question.

"He wanted to get rid of me— but—" She stopped, letting out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, I can't do this." She said, shaking her head as she quickly wiped her face with her other hand which was free.

"Hey," I said, my voice gentle. "I know you can do this, come on. It might be useful for us." I encouraged her, rubbing my thumb over her knuckles.

"I'll end up crying, which I don't want to because— it will just make me look weak." She said, letting out a breathy chuckle in the end of the sentence. I smiled at her, shaking my head.

"Crying will never label you as weak, Thea. It just means you have stayed strong for too long— longer than your mind can take." I said, pushing her to go ahead. She looked up at me, slightly surprised at my words. After a few moments she nodded, agreeing to go ahead.

"I just ran around in circles, trying to find out the fictional killer while dodging all the attacks on me." She said, recollecting her past. "I just thought it was my enemy attacking me. But it was my supervisor all along, who actually knew of my every movement." She added, her voice cracking in the middle of the sentence.

"I had a friend just like you have Heeseung— his name was Eugene." She said, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "We knew each other since pre-school. He had the same task just like Heeseung— to guide me through the missions." She said, this time breaking down into soft sobs while recollecting the memories of her lost friend.

"He got suspicious when I had barely survived an accident while travelling from one city to another." She continued, still looking down at the seat, tears streaming down her face and falling onto the leather seat cover. "I don't know what happened after that but— I suddenly got a call at night from him saying our supervisor was setting us up. And that I should return back to his own house instead of going back to the office." She added, her statements interrupted by her sobs every now and then.

"I came back to his house, which was in the same city as my office. My own house was pretty far away, that's why he called me to his own house." She explained, sucking in a deep breath. "I went to his house and—" She stopped, covering her face with her trembling hands and started crying into them. I quickly pulled her in my arms, running my fingers through her hair while she clenched on to fistful of my shirt, crying into my shoulder.

"He was lying dead on the floor, Sunghoon. Bullets was shot on his back." She said, sobbing loudly, letting her emotions loose after keeping them bottled up all this time. "He had folders in his hands, which were probably the evidence against that bitch but all of them were empty, the papers gone before he could give them to anyone." She said, crying harder. Tears fell down my own eyes, after listening to her story.

"Eugene saved my life, at the cost of his own. Mr. Rodriguez must have found out about him knowing something was not right, and he took the chance to get rid of him before he could tell anything to others." She continued, her sobs dying down slowly as I held her close to me, slightly rocking back and forth to calm her down.

"What about Mr. Rodriguez? You said that you thought he was dead." I asked softly, trying not to hurt her anymore. She nodded and separated herself from my arms, wiping her tears.

"He went missing for a couple of days. I tried to hunt him down but then after a week or so, I heard a news where his car had blown up, while he was trying to flee the country." She said, her hands going up to the military chain she was wearing, removing the tags from beneath her t-shirt.

"This belongs to him, doesn't it?" I asked, looking at her face for her reaction. She slowly nodded, looking down at the tags in her hand, on which Eugene's name was written.

"His brother had gifted us one each on the day we became agents." She said, wrapping her fingers around the tag and closing it in a fist. "One day we got drunk and we were just talking about random shit, he made me promise that if one of us dies, we'll exchange these so that we don't forget how much fun we used to have." She said, a soft smile spreading across her lips while tears fell down her eyes, perhaps recalling the heart-warming moment with her friend.

I gave her a sad smile, knowing how much pain she had gone through. She took a deep breath and wiped her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand, sniffling.

"It broke my heart to see him dead on the floor, you know?" She spoke up after a few seconds and looked up at me, her voice cracking. "My entire world shattered into millions of pieces that day in front of my eyes." She added as she buried her face in her hands, breaking down completely. I wrapped my arms around her weak frame while she kept crying for her old friend who had died saving her life.

"He was a hero, Thea. You should be glad he was your friend."