The Tiger King (Chaelisa)

37| Confessions: Part 2

Her friends were firmly anti-Momo but meanwhile Dahyun was (had been, she reminded herself bitterly) working with her ex to dig out dirt on JYP and snap up a coveted spot at her dream job but then there was Jackson who was JYP's nephew who also happened to be Dahyun's friend but apparently he was also a shady person hiding some secrets of his own that quite possibly meant he was in cahoots with JYP as well.

And now, after the failed Jarkive bust, Dahyun had been shown the door by Momo, although that was putting it mildly, considering the way Momo was practically frothing at the mouth when she kicked Dahyun out of her apartment (which also doubled as their base from where they carried out investigation and looked up on JYP's history.)

Momo had assembled a sting operation consisting of her own personnel that were planned to swoop in at the right time on the day and catch the culprits red-handed during the transaction. Momo couldn't contain her excitement, patting Dahyun's head and praising her to high heavens. She even tried to kiss Dahyun's cheek but Dahyun brushed her off, keeping Momo at arm's length.

But then the crew (updating them with their status in real-time as they advanced towards their target) hit on a crucial problem.

"Uh boss... there's no Jarkive anywhere..."

"What do you mean there's no Jarkive?" Momo gritted as she glared at Dahyun, her mood nose-diving in seconds.

"It...it doesn't exist ma'am. Maybe your source got a little confused and misheard the name?"

Dahyun bit her lip. True, she had been asleep moments earlier, maybe she had been too groggy and misheard. But despite the realisation, she sat on the couch with her arms folded. Even if she were wrong, she wasn't going to stand down. She simply arched an eyebrow at Mom's double-barrelled glare.

"We can look into other establishments but then we'll be spread thin and there's no guarantee we'll catch them out in the end...there's not enough time..." the voice on the other end of the phone crackled.

"Do what you can," Momo said harshly and threw her phone to the other side of the room, startling Dahyun when the device crashed and shattered to pieces.

"Get out," Momo gritted. When Dahyun didn't react, she rounded on the catatonic girl, eyes turning flinty. "I said, get out!"

"Momo calm down—"

"Calm down? You incompetent useless turd!" Momo screeched.

She paced around the apartment frantically, hitting the theory noticeboard buried under photos and papers and ribbons every time she marched past. The board rattled but didn't fall. Cursing and raging, Momo violently lashed out at the furniture, kicking over a table without even flinching. Papers rained down on them like giant snow flakes.

Dahyun watched from her spot on the couch as Momo mumbled and muttered to herself in increasingly faster and faster Japanese. She gnashed her teeth, she tugged on her hair, she snarled and snapped at thin air as she circled the room—Momo looked on the verge of a breakdown.

"It's the first breakthrough and you had to botch that up!" Momo screamed. "How could you?! You embarrass me! The place doesn't even exist! You couldn't even get the name down right, are you deaf or something?"

She stalked to her cabinet, always stocked full of liquor. She quickly poured herself some amber liquid in a glass and gulped it down, anger oozing from her pores. "Months I've been waiting for this kind of opening to turn that filthy rat in, months! And now you go and ruin it all. I thought I could trust you to do the job properly but no, you're just a stupid college girl! All you're good at is to take your little pictures and dream about your precious magazine job! What was I thinking, trusting you and involving you?"