Jiu shakes her head. “She just lives here.” She reaches around to take the can from her roommate. “Thank you.” She pops the tab and takes a sip.
“I’m an assistant at the museum.” Yoohyeon loops her arm around Jiu’s shoulder. “And also her live-in maid, apparently.” She pokes her arm. “Pay me.”
“Get off .” Jiu wiggles until Yoohyeon steps away. Siyeon can’t help but laugh. She can feel herself loosening just a bit. “Sorry- Sorry about that,” Jiu says when Yoohyeon’s slunk back to the hideous couch.
Siyeon shakes her head. “It’s okay,” she says.
“Right.” Jiu returns her attention to her laptop. “Okay, so working for HFPI isn’t like, super hard, but you gotta be prepared for some weird hours.” She spins the laptop around so that Siyeon can see the screen. “Some cases take more time than others, some cases require like, staying up at night, sometimes there’s a week without anything.” There’s a Slides presentation, bright yellow background with black text. Happy Face Private Investigators! On the bottom of the slide is a picture collage - there’s Jiu with a man with a strange haircut, Jiu holding a black and white cat, Jiu shaking hands with a girl with blonde and blue hair.
“How are we getting paid?”
“We’ll get to that.” Jiu taps the spacebar and the next slide pops up. Hours: ??? “It’s gonna depend on the case. The last one we did, we were trying to find this lost cat- that’s a really common type of case, by the way - anyway, it took three days of running up and down Seoul and checking every single animal shelter and alleyway and then finally finding the thing, but I got paid three hundred thousand won, so that was a nice bonus.” She smiles tiredly. “Oh, yeah, fun fact, it’s just the two of us. Which is why I’m so glad that you wanna join me , oh my god.” She stretches out on the table - it’s the least professional thing she’s done so far - and reaches for one of Siyeon's hands. “Seriously, it’ll be so much easier as the two of us.”
Si yeon pulls away. “Is it really that busy?” she asks, curling her fingers into her palm.
Jiu sinks a little, and Siyeon wonders if she hurt her. “Only sometimes. It depends on the case. There was another one, which I think is next-” she taps the spacebar and the little blonde girl comes up again- “yeah, this one, where I got hired by this guy to figure out if his girlfriend was cheating on him. And she was, but she was also confused and gay and didn’t know how to tell him. And that time we got paid like, a ton of money by both parties.” She jerks her thumb towards the couch, where Yoohyeon’s popped her head up. “She helped with that one.”
“Is this about the gay bar?” Yoohyeon calls. Jiu flashes her a thumbs up. “That one was fun. I got a cool pin!” She crawls up onto the couch. “Wait, if you’re gonna stay, does this mean I can show you the pins?”
“Don’t scare her off!”
Siyeon rolls her eyes playfully. There’s a part of her that feels like she should find another job elsewhere, but there’s an even louder part that wants to stay and befriend these people.
Perhaps she can do both. She leans on her hand and listens as Jiu starts talking again.
“We tend to do some pretty petty - like, the legal term - stuff. Y’know, rescuing lost pets, tracking down boyfriends, that sort of thing. Nothing that gets the police on your toes. But!” She claps her hands and hits the button. “Because this is a limited, exclusive service, prices run kinda expensive, y’know?” She grins. “It’s per day of labor with some extra fees if I gotta do something like, sneak into someplace, or I have to pay for legal documents-”
“Or dress in drag-” Yoohyeon chirps.
Jiu’s smile shrinks and she once again turns pink. “Yoohyeonie, please ,” she stammers.
Siyeon cocks an eyebrow. “Drag?” she echoes.
“It’s a really long story and I’ll explain it later!” Jiu waves one of her hands as if swatting the subject away. “I’ve done some weird stuff, but it’s all okay, because look at that.” She taps the button and a whole lot of zeroes pop up on the screen.
Siyeon’s eyes widen. “Damn,” she says.
“That’s the average ,” Jiu says. “It’s already not cheap to hire me, but people like giving tips when you find their cats. Or their soulmates.” She grins again. “Course, you’ll be getting like, half that, but it’ll be even. We’re partners, not like, I’m your manager. Or, we would be partners.”
Siyeon barely understands the last thing Jiu says. She reads the number over and over and over again. The average payout is three hundred thousand won. Between this and her father’s job, they’ll be able to afford the treatment in no time. Just as long as no weird expenses occur.
But she brushes the last thought aside. The funds from this job are going directly into her mother’s account. There’s no room for weird expenses.
Jiu hits the spacebar again and more pictures pop on the screen, but Siyeon pays them no mind. She leans forward on the table, fixes her face into a professionally enthusiastic expression, and asks, “Where do I need to sign to get this job?”
Jiu leans back, a little startled but the sudden intensity. “Um, I haven’t even told you the benefits yet,” she says. She smiles, but she looks a little concerned. “You sure?”
“Absolutely,” Siyeon says. “That much money could literally save someone’s life.” She straightens up and looks around. There are no papers in sight. “So where do I sign?”
Jiu mouths, “Oh,” and then spins her laptop back to face her. “Okay. Gimme just a moment to print something out.” She giggles. “To be honest, I didn’t expect to get this far. The last guy didn’t even bother to show up, so.” She pushes her barstool away from her seat and slips off. There’s an attempt being made at professionalism. “One moment.” It doesn’t last long. She skips on her way out the other door to fetch the papers.
“Oo, you’re making a mistake,” Yoohyeon sings from the couch. She’s dangling off the back, with her frog hood flopping over her eyes and her chip bag barely held in her hands. “Jojo’s never gonna let you go now. State mandated friendship.” She grins. “It’s how she got me.”
“ Stop calling me that !” Jiu shouts. Yoohyeon rolls back onto the couch proper. The last thing Siyeon sees is a single chip flying in the air and then a muffled swear word. She rolls her eyes and turns back around to see Jiu walking back into the kitchen with two sheets of paper and a ballpoint pen with a bank logo on it. “Okay. This is the contract, you can just sign here and here. Everything I just said is just here, and also there’s a couple more details.” She slides the papers across the table. “Any questions?”
Siyeon picks up the paper and scans the text. There doesn’t appear to be a catch. It’s just a weird, slightly illegal job that pays a decent amount of money.
She clicks the pen and signs her name. “Done,” she says, pushing the page back.
Jiu finishes her soda and wipes her mouth. “Wow! That’s great!” she says. “Welcome to Happy Face Private Investigators, Siyeon!” She gathers the pages up, taps them on the desk to straighten them, then puts her hand out to shake.
“Thank you,” Siyeon says. Jiu’s hand is rough and freezing cold to the touch. “When do I start?”
The other woman laughs awkwardly. “Well. About that. Can you meet back here at like, nine PM?” She starts to collect her things, stacking the papers on top of the laptop.
Siyeon slips off her barstool. “Probably?” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Excellent. Bring your energy drink of choice and some warm clothing.” There’s a mischievous twinkle in Jiu’s eyes. “We have a stakeout to do.”
