Clock In

Part 7

Fourth packed up his laptop as he left the office. He had so many thoughts swirling in his head, deadlines, tasks, and the lingering heaviness of the day, but right now, his focus was somewhere else. Phuwin wouldn't be around for the next three days, and he knew this was his window. If he was going to do what he needed to, it had to be now.

The train ride home felt like a blur. His mind was racing, replaying the events of the day, thinking about Phuwin, about the files, and the nagging feeling that there was something bigger going on. The second he arrived at his stop, he all but rushed down the platform, weaving through the crowd, his pace quick and purposeful.

When he got to his apartment, he barely took a breath before heading straight to his unit. The door clicked shut behind him, and he wasted no time, he set the kettle on for hot water, tossing a packet of instant noodles on the counter and grabbing a sachet of coffee. His stomach was running on fumes, but food wasn't exactly the priority right now. He jumped into a quick shower, barely letting the water soak in before drying off. Minutes later, he was seated at the small dining table, the steaming cup of coffee and half-soggy noodles in front of him, laptop already switched on and waiting.

He opened the accounting files, fingers almost trembling over the trackpad. And this time, the files loaded. A quiet, almost shaky breath escaped him as the data filled the screen. Relief, but also anticipation. He scanned the pages, the columns, the numbers, everything seemed intact at first glance, but he knew better. His eyes darted back to the Teams chat and noticed Gemini was still online. That gave him a strange sense of reassurance, though he wasn't sure why. He turned back to the spreadsheets, scrolling through the rows carefully, line by line.

Then, something jumped out at him. His brows furrowed, his heart skipping. The "Others" section, the one that held all the unaccounted money, it was completely empty. Gone, like it never existed. He clicked through another file, a different one. Same thing. The discrepancies had vanished. It was like someone had wiped the slate clean.

Fourth's heart started racing, a sharp pang of panic rising in his chest. The numbers were there before.

He knew they were. And now, they weren't. It wasn't just a small error; this felt like something big, something messy.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, frozen. A knot tightened in his stomach. Whatever this was, he wasn't just dealing with a simple mistake anymore. Something was seriously wrong, and deep down, he knew he had just stumbled onto something way bigger than he ever expected.

Fourth knew that the only way to really get to the bottom of this was to cross-check the accounting files against the audit records. He'd have to go through every single invoice, every single receipt, and double-check if the amounts paid matched what was in the files. It was the only way to see if things lined up, or if something was quietly being buried.

It wasn't going to be easy. But it had to be done, and it had to happen before Phuwin came back. He told himself that, he'd work on it while Phuwin was away. It was the perfect window, and who knew if he'd ever get another chance.

That night, though, his head wouldn't stop spinning. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, arms folded across his chest, his mind running through the possibilities.

Was it just a small error? A mistake during data migration?

Or was it something bigger?

Something that wasn't supposed to be found.

He couldn't tell.

That uncertainty gnawed at him, the thought that maybe he was just overthinking things, blowing it all out of proportion. Or maybe, just maybe, there was something there, something sinister hidden under neat rows of numbers and files.