S̳h̳a̳k̳h̳i̳-̳l̳a̳c̳i̳o̳u̳s̳

EPISODE 14: "Hansel and Gretel"

After Anokhi defends Ahir and his mother, Shaurya stalks off looking betrayed. Chaebol Mommy hears that her son is here and rushes downstairs to see what the commotion is about. He sits by like an angry guard dog while Anokhi and Shagun ask for her cooperation in the Santa backpack story, but to their surprise, Chaebol Mommy is eager to help and seems remorseful that the bags sold in her mall have led to school bullying. She even returns Shagun's aegyo finger-guns with ones of her own, and tells Ahir not to worry about the negative effects the story might have on their mall - if they were in the wrong, they'll have to suffer the consequences. Anokhi is the last to leave Chaebol Mommy's office as the group heads back downstairs, and she notices a familiar earring on the floor. She picks it up and remembers seeing it on her own mother, and then remembers Mom losing her cell phone at Ahir's house thirteen years ago. Shagun finds Shaurya digging around in the trash, and asks why he never showed on Christmas Eve. He doesn't think much of it and just tells her he was sick, and she breathes a sigh of relief. Despite Shagun's protests that Chaebol Mommy seems on the up and up, Shaurya sneaks a stash of shredded papers out of the trash bin. Chaebol Mommy encourages her employees to comply with the interviews, though they're pretty much showing off the backpacks like it's a commercial. Shagun thinks Ahir's mommy is pretty benevolent, and when Anokhi agrees, she hiccups and realizes that she thinks something's off about her. The story goes out on both networks that night, and Ahir texts Mommy another apology. But she doesn't seem very upset at all, and replies that it's fine and she's repenting for her wrongs. Anokhi returns her mother's earring and asks what kind of relationship she has with Ahir's mother, outing the fact that she knows about the phone thirteen years ago and now the earring. But Mom remains composed and calls them mere acquaintances-she points out that she saw Anokhi for the first time in thirteen years too, and Anokhi can't quite argue with that. Shaurya stays up late at the precinct gluing his shredded papers together, while Shagun makes moony eyes at him. He heads out for coffee and she grabs a handful of papers to help, but immediately falls asleep. Anokhi comes in and accidentally messes up the page Shaurya had almost finished before heading out, and gasps to hear that it wasShaurya's and he had been working on it for hours. Horrified, she grabs the whole stack and runs over to Ahir in a panic. She asks for his help reconstructing the shredded paper, but he's already down in the dumps because this is his last night as a detective in the violent crimes unit, all because of that runaway Santa. She declares that this will be a meaningful way for him to spend his last night on the job, hiccups, and immediately says in the same breath, "Never mind, I guess not." Ha. Shaurya returns with coffees only to find his stash of papers missing, and follows the breadcrumbs of shredded papers all the way to Anokhi, crouched in a corner of the precinct with a glue stick in her hand and a guilty look on her face. They sit down to work on it together, and Anokhi apologizes for jumping down his throat earlier. They both agree that something's off about Ahir's mother, and Anokhi tells Shaurya about Ahir stealing her texts for thirteen years, and that it was possible because her mom lost her phone at his house. And then the earring the other day. They guess that Chaebol Mommy is likely not the person they think they know. Ahir's anger flares up when he sees Shaurya coming out of his mall the next morning, and asks if he came here to gloat and check out how empty the department store is. But Shaurya says it's quite the opposite-it's packed inside. He holds up a purchase order he pieced together, which shows that Chaebol Mommy reordered more bags in anticipation of the news, and says that she used the news story as a marketing strategy. Ahir thinks that's absurd, but when he storms inside, it's exactly asShaurya described-people are mauling the luxury backpack department, desperate for the bag that was on the news. He goes straight to Mommy to ask about it, and she feigns surprise at the result. He slams down the purchase order and asks if she really didn't know. We flash back to the moment that Santa was caught stealing one of the backpacks, and even though her employees ask that she be lenient on Christmas (and in front of Santa's son), Mommy wags her finger and tells them to turn him into the police. She tells the manager that they have to have an incident in order to get news crews here, and puts in an order for more bags. Back in the present, she asks Ahir what's so wrong about using a news report like that-he got his story and she sold more bags. He looks heartbroken, and as he walks away, Mommy chides herself for letting him become a reporter.