Chapter Text
“Can someone tell Heeyeon to hurry the hell up because it’s freezing up here.”
There’s a moment of static before she hears a frustrated whisper across the comms.
“I can hear you Junghwa. I’m trying okay, but I haven’t been able to get close. This guy’s just impervious to my flirting.”
Junghwa can feel the tips of her fingers turning numb as she rubs her arms viciously to keep warm. The night wind is brutal, and the altitude from her spot on the roof certainly didn’t help. Should have worn something warmer , she could almost hear the nagging in Solji’s voice. But in her defense she thought Heeyeon would have lifted the keycard for the safe by now.
“If only you tried half as hard to charm this guy as you do with girls we’d be finished by now.” Another voice chimes in, with an annoyance equal to Junghwa’s.
“Ahn Hyojin, you’re welcome to take my place flirting with this terrible excuse for a meatsack.” Junghwa could practically see her gritting her teeth as she spoke.
“Hey hey, play nice now. We’ve got a job to finish,” Solji interjects. There's that nagging. Motherly, Heeyeon describes it. Junghwa just calls it as she see it: annoying.
“You don't have to tell me,” Junghwa retorts, trying not to let the chattering of her teeth permeate their comms. “I've been ready for ages.”
Suddenly, a loud thunk comes across the comms that sounds eerily like the sound of a body hitting the floor. They all pause before Solji responds.
“Uh, is everything okay?”
“Got the keycard!” Heeyeon yells triumphantly.
“Did I just hear a body drop?” It's pretty rare for Hyelin to check in during a job. She's usually browsing the food channel during their jobs. Her part comes later.
“He'll be fine in an hour or two,” Heeyeon replies. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Heeyeon, this isn't what we meant by take care of him.”
“Hey, like I said. You're all welcome to come and do this yourself,” Heeyeon hisses. “I was getting tired of smiling okay my face was starting to cramp.”
“Can you guys have your moral debate some other time?” Junghwa loudly cuts in. “Hypothermia, remember?”
“Heeyeon’s moving towards the lift to the seventeenth floor corridor now,” Hyojin announces. “You're up Junghwa.”
“Finally,” she mutters.
She checks the harness fastened around her waist one last time, before anchoring one end of it to the ground near the roof’s edge. She steps on the ledge of the twenty-four story building until she's balancing her entire weight on the heels of her feet.
This is her favorite part.
Junghwa takes a deep breath and jumps, cascading down uninterrupted for three seconds before she kicks her feet out against the building and skids to a halt. Right in front of the seventeenth floor. She rotates her body slightly to face the glass of the window and fishes around in her back pocket for the laser Hyojin gave her earlier.
Hold down the red button and aim it at the glass.
Junghwa aims the laser at the window pane and draws an oval the size of her body. The glass burns easily in the wake of her movement, without sound, just like Hyojin promised. After the laser has done its work, she gently presses against the glass cutout and maneuvers her body into the room.
There’s a beep at the door and Junghwa’s body automatically tenses. She’s got one hand on the glass, ready to propel herself out the window in case she needs to make an escape.
“God, you wouldn’t believe the amount of effort it took to get this card.” It’s Heeyeon, in all her bitching glory. “Our client this time better be worth it.”
“Did you disable the motion sensors in the control room?”
“Of course,” Heeyeon replies cheerily. “I’d never leave you hanging.”
Junghwa distinctly remembers at least three instances where Heeyeon’s left her literally hanging from a building but Hyojin’s voice cuts through the comms before they derail any further.
“The safe guys, the safe.”
Junghwa makes her way to the center of the room, where the safe’s encased in a glass dome and positioned mid-air, held together by two long carbon columns. Heeyeon holds the keycard to a sensor pad on the front of the glass dome. A beep, and the glass opens.
The locking mechanism is fairly advanced, one of the newer iterations of impenetrable safes Junghwa’s seen being touted at showcases. Nothing she can’t crack, of course.
“Okay, now use the auto dialer I gave you,” Hyojin instructs. “Stick it on the area next to the lock and you’ll have have the combination in minutes.”
Hyojin had bragged about her little magnetic box for weeks now, something about cutting edge and stroke of genius and a lot of other technical things Junghwa hadn’t been paying attention to. She rolls the box in one hand as she stares at the lock. A new lock she’s never worked with before.
She’s never been one to walk away from a challenge.
Junghwa takes out her earpiece and shoots Heeyeon a look, who smiles back knowingly and similarly removes her earpiece as well. Junghwa nods back a thanks and tucks Hyojin’s creation back into her bag, taking out her own equipment instead. She puts one end of the listening device into her ears and the other against the door of the safe.
She closes her eyes and listens.
No one really teaches her about safe cracking. Or social skills. Or anything aside from her particular brand of skillsets. But somewhere along the way though, Junghwa learns it’s something she has a natural affinity for. It’s also something she loves. Sort of like diving off buildings. It’s a different kind of exhilaration where she can hear her heart pounding in the silence of her focus.
And cracking safes is better than cracking skulls.
She’s not sure how many minutes had passed when she suddenly hears the muffled voice of Hyojin in the room.
“I know both of you have pulled out your earpieces again so I’ve taken the liberty to hack into the sound system in your room. They’ve found the disabled motion sensors. There are guards heading to your floor now.”
Another thing Junghwa loves. The absolute adrenaline coursing through her body from the pressure of having to crack the safe before she’s caught. It’s not a shared sentiment among her crew, as evidenced by the strained annoyance in Hyojin’s voice.
Heeyeon understands though, and stays calm as she keeps a lookout through the peephole on the door. Junghwa’s almost got the last digit.
“They’re nearly on your floor. I estimate a little under three minutes before arrival,” Hyojin warns.
Finally, she hears that last click and immediately enters the six digit code.
1-8-0-4-0-2.
The safe door creaks open.
“Grab it and go,” Hyojin yells. Junghwa doesn’t question how she can see her opening the safe but just chalks it up to another one of her hacks. She quickly takes the packet from the safe and slides it into her bag.
“Too late,” Heeyeon says. “They’re on the floor. We can’t exit this way.”
“Junghwa,” Solji’s voice cuts clearly though the comms. “Can your rope hold two people’s weights?”
Junghwa glances at Heeyeon, who shakes her head vehemently.
“Guess we’ll find out,” she grins and throws her own harness at Heeyeon, who makes this indiscernible whining noise as she puts it on.
She’s barely hooked the end of the rope onto Heeyeon’s harness when the guards bust through the doors, four guns pointed directly at them.
Before they even have the chance to say stop, Junghwa grabs the rope with both hand and jumps, throwing the two of them backwards out the window. Heeyeon’s screams can barely be heard over the shriek of the wind as they make a straight drop for the ground.
The whole thing lasts barely ten seconds but Heeyeon tells her later that it felt like a few eternities. The rope tugs them backwards to a sharp halt, just a few feet from the ground.
“God I could have DIED,” Heeyeon shrieks, between heavy breaths of panic.
“I measured the rope exactly to height on the blueprint of the building. Don’t be dramatic.” Junghwa rolls her eyes, ignoring Heeyeon’s continued screeching as she takes out her phone to check on her hair.
“Hey, if the two of you are done yelling and fixing your hair can you get your asses in?”
Solji yells at the two of them as she drives by, in possibly the least discreet getaway ride imaginable.
“Is that a…red Ferrari?” Junghwa squints.
“Beggars can’t be choosers now get in,” Solji demands, as the two of the quickly hop into the backseat. Her foot slams on the pedal before either of their body even touches the leather of the seats, leaving a trail of angry guards chasing in their wake.
They speed past five lights and cut through a few one way streets before Solji confirms into the comms.
“Alright, I got them.”
“Thank god,” Hyojin sighs heavily. “Our client’s paying us good money for this.”
It’s something she always does. Hyojin who hides her concern by pretending to be in it for the money. But Junghwa knows her. Can hear the way her voices wavers for a split second. A strand of worry slipping through a singular crack in her voice. It’s the same as the first time Junghwa heard it, when she was hovering on the brink of death.
“We’re gonna have a talk about methods when we get back,” Solji glares at Junghwa through the rear view mirror, who immediately scowls. “But all in all, the mission was a success.”
“SHE THREW US OUT OF A TWENTY FOUR STORY BUILDING!”
Junghwa laughs as she hears two clicks in her earpiece, of Hyojin and Hyelin both signing out.
---
Junghwa hates the post-mission review, but it’s something Solji put in place to “improve on their methods and efficiencies”. Heeyeon uses it as a sort of complaint box and Hyojin uses it to personally attack Junghwa.
“We could have avoided all the craziness towards the end if Junghwa had just listened to me for once.”
“My methods worked just fine okay,” Junghwa retorts. “You’re just mad you didn’t get to test out your little box.”
“For the ninth time, it’s not a box it’s a highly advanced auto dialer,” Hyojin shoots back.
“ Constructive criticism, remember?” Solji emphasizes.
“How’s this for constructive,” Heeyeon pipes up. “Junghwa, without any regards for my safety, just-”
“God if you bring up the trauma of your fall again I swear to god I’m gonna throw you out this building.”
“Hey guys,” Hyelin cuts in. They all turn to her as she holds up the contents of the packet - a metal plate and a wad of cash. “These are consecutively marked bills.”
“What does that mean?” Heeyeon asks.
Hyelin holds up the metal plate closer for them to see.
“This is a printing plate for the 50,000 won bill.”