Untitled, 2018

Chapter 72: Backfire and Fire Back

I looked up at him sadly. He nodded reassuringly. "Stay. We can get to the bottom of this right now." I turned around and stood facing the other three in the room. Dr. Kang spoke first. "There's no reason for Hanna to have compromised her research either. Right now we're just throwing accusations around."

I got ticked off. "I've met those competing research group interns once. She's dating one of them." There. I said it.
Wang and Kang both looked at Hanna for her response, and she fumbled for a bit before calling me a liar again.

We stood there longer still, and Mateo sighed. "She's right. Um... I've been suspicious about this too, but I wasn't sure about it, because I didn't know what was going on and didn't want to burden any of you with it. Hanna... don't lie, you're definitely dating that tall intern. I saw you with him a few times on dates when I was there. I watched you give him files to look at sometimes too."

I looked at Mateo in surprise. He'd known? Hanna stood still for a moment. "That's my... personal business– we're not together. I just know him."
Dr. Kang spoke. "You... gave him files? Did you hand him all our data? Our progress reports too?"
Hanna squeaked, "No, I--... he just wanted to know where we were in our progress. You know I've been working hard, I wouldn't compromise our own data. He just wanted to know how far we were in the process so that they could work faster too."

Mateo spoke, "Often the companies we went to had already spoken to their research group... so this is why. It was so frustrating for me since I was in charge of it. You gave them our potential contacts too."

"That's not... I worked hard to make sure our research would be the best, so that our group could beat theirs because of merit! I wouldn't sabotage our work." Hanna protested.

I wasn't having it. "Not only did you remove files and give them to their group, you replaced them with fake data for us to process. If I hadn't noticed, our research would have been so very inaccurate. Our margin of error would have been insane. That is sabotage, Hanna."

Hanna looked around, a little lost and flustered, unsure of how to defend herself. I silently thanked the stars that she'd inadvertently confessed. Otherwise we'd be in a deadlock. But in a moment some of the camaraderie I'd felt for her at the beginning of the internship poured back in. She'd been the first person to introduce me to other people at college, and she and her friends had included me in their little parties and activities until I'd branched out and started hanging out with Bangtan. It rubbed me wrong to see Hanna so exposed and cornered. Wang asked me and Mateo to leave the room, and I immediately rested my head on the cool wall once the door closed. I closed my eyes and tried to run through the scenarios of what could happen to Hanna. She could be in serious trouble if Wang and Kang were to escalate the issue.
"All for a boy," I whispered.

Mateo leaned on the wall next to me and spoke to me in a hushed voice. "Why didn't you tell me about the files? I could have helped."
"I didn't want to alarm you or Hanna. I thought I had to deal with it alone."

He clicked his tongue. "We're here for you to rely on. Don't always try to solve things all by yourself."

I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn't find any excuses. So I just said, "Sorry."

"Don't feel bad for her. She made the choice to do this to the research group. It wasn't just once or twice either."

"I know... it's just that... why'd she do it?"

"Probably got a little blind in her devotion to that boy. And it would be pretty easy for her to get away with. Sticking to your principles can be hard sometimes."

I turned to face him. "I think I almost did that too, which is why it's so scary."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "What's it like, being with the man you've admired for so long?"

I narrowed my eyes. He laughed. "What? You don't think it's obvious from our perspective? I think the whole research group can tell you're in a relationship."

I groaned. "Okay, but I could be in a relationship with anyone."

He looked away and smiled. "Impossible. Do you know how into each other you two seemed? It's discouraging to everyone else interested in you, you know that? You've not dated anyone else in your time here, right?" I shook my head.
"See? It's because people can tell they don't stand a chance against that guy."

I turned to the wall again. "Well it'll be over tomorrow. Though, I don't know how I'll do it. How am I supposed to forget him?"

Mateo sighed and paused, thinking for a minute. "Break it off completely, then. Hate him, get over him, forget him."

I smiled wistfully. "This is Park Jimin we're talking about. I couldn't hate him if I tried."