Mr Jung sat in his office, staring through the big glass window. He had been sitting motionlessly and stared outside ever since he received the reporting call from his financial manager. The banks didn't want to lend his enterprise money. In actual fact, Mr Jung knew beforehand this would happen - his business experience told him there would be no bank willing to take the risk. The amount of money was simply too huge, and since the news all reported their issue, the Jung Enterprise had already lost reputation. The statistics and numbers were screaming into the bank directors' faces, warning them to not be foolish and lend the Jung Enterprise money. Because who could assure the Jungs will be able to return the money and the interest? And who could assure another miscalculation wouldn't happen in future?

Mr Jung gripped the armrest of his chair at the thoughts of the bitter reality. A sudden rage took over him, a feeling he never showed anyone. Mr Jung was a master in keeping calm - he never released anger in front of anybody except for his wife, who wished him to do so. He had lived long enough to understand anger could drive people to do things they would very regret later. It's said the one who takes a fly into a rage always makes a bad landing. Mr Jung had taken such a fly, not too long ago, on the day he yelled at his daughter as she didn't wanted to get married, and the result was her running away for two weeks.

However, right now, he felt like beating up the one that betrayed him, not caring a bit about the consequences. What landing could be worse then losing the enterprise, anyway?

Mr Jung closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath, letting his rage waste slowly. He tried to clear his mind, thinking about the system he had set up. Where was the flaw spot?

Every project started with the project manager's proposal to the board. Mr Sung, the project manager, looked for available projects on the market and considered the profitability of each offer. He presented the chosen one to the board and a vote would be taking place, deciding whether to take it or not. If at least 70% of the manager board and experts agreed, Mr Sung would continue with the preparation work. He was in charge of calculating the costs and approximating the needed personal force. Actually as the manager, he didn't have to personally do it, but rather supervise and make sure everything worked smoothly and accurately. However, as the one passing the calculation to the financial manager and the approximation to the personnel manager, he could easily change the data others had worked out.

Ordinarily, the financial manager, Mr Park, would check out the enterprise's financial status to decide whether it's financially doable or not. If it was the case, he would submit a report to the president. If it wasn't the case, a report would still be submitted, but with an additional explanation and analysis personally done by Mr Park. Assuming Mr Park was the traitor, of course things where easy to him since he had Mr Jung's full trust and hence all the possibilities to mislead the president. However, Mr Jung always examined the submitted reports carefully, especially those for projects that required high financial investment, like the one of the Kim company. He had never found anything suspicious and thought the risk was worth taking, thus he had set his sign and with that, the execution of the project had officially kicked in. After the president's approval, the execution manager would be taking the lead of the projects while the quality manager oversaw everything, making sure the customer companies wouldn't have anything to complain.

If three of the Jung Enterprise's partner companies hadn't faced the danger of going bankrupt at the same time and needed help, Mr Jung wouldn't have been so venturous and had probably refused to take two high-risk projects at once. He still remembered how the board debated for four days about it until he suggested a democratic voting. Mr Jung was all in all a democrat. In the end, the profit spoke louder than the fears and worries and the Jung enterprise accepted both offers. If the voting had turned out differently, they would have dropped the Kim company project. Personally, Mr Jung would really loath to do so, since that project was the one they won against the Kwon Enterprise.

According to his project system, the most suspicious people were the project manager Mr Sung and the financial manager Mr Park. But considering the fact that all the managers had access to the most confidential files, and any of them could have easily changed the calculation by moving the comma to the left by several digit positions, no manager could be really removed from the suspect list. All those high staff members, however, had been working with Mr Jung for more than five years now. The president couldn't think of any of them backstabbing him, neither could he think of a reason why they would have done that. He was always a good boss, he had good relationships with his employees, he was respected by everyone. Why on earth would any of his closest staffers betray him after so many years, struggling through all up and downs, going through the worst situations together?

Unless the traitor wasn't any of the members on the board, but someone else. Not a normal worker, but not a high staff member either. It must be someone who had experience in financial issues or mad skills in computer engineering. Only an advanced hacker would be able to breach the security of a big concern like the Jung enterprise, not only stealing information but even changing them without anyone noticing. Mr Jung doubted anyone from outside would have been able to do that, which again led to the conclusion there must have been a traitor within the Jung Enterprise.

Mr Jung sighed tiredly before turning around to face his desk again. He hesitated for a moment, then pressed a button of the device laying next to his computer, connecting himself to his assistant.

"Ms Han," Mr Jung spoke into the phone. "I want to see Kwon Yuri in my office. Give her ten minutes."

----------

Yuri ran up the stairs, breathless when she reached Ms Han's office. It was a small yet convenient room, directly leading to the president's office. In fact, the only way one could get to see the president in his room was saying hi to his assistant first. Only if Ms Han smiled, or nodded, or beckoned you to go in, you could proceed. Yuri had always thought Ms Han deserved a much bigger office, for she was one of the most hard-working secretaries one could wish for. But obviously right now, even a small renovation would be hard to do. Truth hurt, reality is cruel, and money is all it is about.

"Ms Han," Yuri was still catching her breath as she almost collapsed on Ms Han's desk.

"Yuri," the middle-aged woman looked up from her desk, relief in her voice. "You're finally here."

"I'm sorry. It couldn't be any faster. Another speeding ticket and they'll take my driver's license from me."

Yuri had really given her best to be present as soon as possible, but there was this ten-minute-distance between Iustit and the Jung Enterprise's building that couldn't be shortened, even without too much traffic. Yuri was anxious on the whole way - Ms Han told her she needed to hurry, because the famously calm president had never "wanted" anyone in his office and gave them time pressure like that.

"You can go in," Ms Han looked up from her phone and smiled to Yuri.

Yuri bowed to her shortly, then headed towards the beige door on the left. She knocked once and opened it without waiting for an answer. As Yuri entered, she already saw Mr Jung sitting behind his large desk, looking at her with eyes that said 'we have a serious matter to talk about.' Yuri gulped nervously, but covered that with a 90 degree angle bow.

"Take a seat, Yuri."

The relaxed voice of the president left her surprised. She had expected it to be calm, but not relaxed. Yuri complied, anxiousness slowly turned into curiosity. At first, she wanted to ask the president about Jessica since she hadn't spoken to the girl since yesterday, when she brought her to sleep. But she quickly decided against it. She knew there had to be something really important that made the president want to meet her in private.

"President, why didn't you call for a board meeting but only me?"

"Because the board is unnecessary for me to decide this." Mr Jung replied, nonchalant to the extent that it scared Yuri.

She kept quiet, indicating that she was all ears. Her eyes followed Mr Jung's hands as he opened a drawer on the left of his desk, taking out some sheets. He placed the papers on the desk and slid them to Yuri. The young girl in front of him narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, ignoring the one-second tiny little hesitation she sensed in his move.

"This is..." Yuri's eyes widened as she realized what those papers were. "President!"

"I want you to fill out this form and bring it back to be before six o'clock." Mr Jung leaned back into his seat, crossing his arms. That was a gesture that said 'don't even try to argue with me'.

"But--I..." Yuri shook her head. "I can't do this, president."

"Yuri..." Mr Jung sighed. "As long as you're still part of this Enterprise, and I'm the president, you have to do what I say."

"But--"

Mr Jung raised his index finger and Yuri became silent at once. She wanted to argue further, to tell him how ridiculous this is, to tell him she wouldn't be able to handle the guilt if she had to agree on this, but she couldn't speak. The fatherly stern look on Mr Jung's face reminded her for a split second of her own father, causing her to not be able to find her voice. Yuri had never talked back to her father when he was still alive.

"You can go now." Mr Jung said softly, lowering his finger. He turned his chair slowly around, showing Yuri his back, indirectly telling her it was no use to discuss this any further. He heard the chair being shoved back as the young girl stood up and he let out an inaudible, relieved sigh.

"Goodbye." Yuri said.

Mr Jung stayed silent and motionless. He could picture Yuri bowing to him, then walking towards the door with a stressed look on her face, the papers gripped tightly in her hand. He knew it was difficult for Yuri to do what he demanded, because in truth, he himself had a hard time before finally deciding, too. But Mr Jung trusted Yuri, at least when it came to taking care of Jessica. If he couldn't save his business and family, at least he could save someone who can take care well of his beloved ones. Of course, he couldn't directly ask Yuri to do him this favor. It was a too big favor to ask from a young girl - replacing the man in the family while he wouldn't able to be there, as he would be somewhere else paying for his unfortunate but miserable failure. All he could do was hoping that Yuri would understand his intention and that the girl loved Jessica enough to not let his daughter down.

As the door opened and closed again with a small click, Mr Jung finally leaned back into his chair, relaxing his body completely. His head fell back and he heaved a melancholy, heavy sigh. Mr Jung was acting mandatorily on the outside, but inside, he knew it would be not right if he didn't let Yuri choose. He couldn't do anything but had to wait for Yuri now. If the girl rejected, he really didn't know what to do.

----------

"Where have you been?"

Yuri had just sat down behind her desk when Sooyoung broke into her office. The black-haired girl looked up from the form and saw her best friend plop down onto the couch.

"The president called me." She stood up, walked to the couch set and sat down on the opposite of Sooyoung.

"What did he say?" Sooyoung sat up straight, looking serious. "How are things going?"

"I don't exactly know. It wasn't a board meeting. He called only me in."

"What for?"

Yuri kept quiet, staring at the tea cup that lay upside down on the small plate. She was feeling exactly like that inside. Upside down. Everything was wrong, and she was totally messed up.

"He wants a separation. He wants to fully give me Iustit back."

"What?" Sooyoung's voice went abnormally high. "You're kidding right? I mean, he was kidding, wasn't he?"

Yuri shook her head. "I'm supposed to fill out that form on my desk and bring it back to him before six. I guess he wants to give me time to think it through, otherwise we could have finished that paperwork in his office already."

"What is there to think through?"

Yuri looked up from the tea cup upon the excitement in Sooyoung's voice. She stared at her best friend with an odd look, not understanding why Sooyoung sounded so relieved.

"Don't look at me like that!" Sooyoung waved her hand. The tall girl rose from the couch and walked to Yuri's desk. "Gosh, he's really serious!" She stared unbelievingly at the form. "I never thought the president is so thoughtful."

"What are you talking about?" Yuri looked at Sooyoung, confused.

"What are you talking about?" Sooyoung asked back, equally confused.

Yuri stood up and snapped the paper out of Sooyoung's hands.

"You're not seriously thinking I would do that, are you?" She shook her head. "I can't do it. I won't do it, no matter how he threatens me."

"Wait, wait." Sooyoung put a hand on Yuri's shoulder and closed her eyes as if she was thinking really hard. "Are you telling me you won't take the offer and you're gonna stick with the Jung Enterprise and go down with them?"

Yuri pushed the taller girl's hand off her shoulder. She walked behind her desk and dejectedly sank down into her chair.

"I guess... yes." She sighed, defeated.

"No way," Sooyoung's fist hit her own forehead before her palms landed on the desk's surface. "Don't be stupid, Yuri."

Yuri's elbows propped onto the desk, her hands went into her hair, rumpling it up.

"I--I don't know." She weakly muttered. "I can't do that to Sica."

"So it's because of Jessica." Sooyoung let herself fall onto the chair on the other side of the desk. "You are afraid she will hate you for walking out on her? This can't even be considered failing her, Yuri. No one can save her family now, this is a fact both you and Jessica have to learn to accept. If she loves you, she will understand and even be glad that you know to save yourself. Plus, this idea came from her father, it wasn't like you suggested to leave or something."

"I can't--" Yuri shook her head. She tried thinking how to explain it to Sooyoung. "She might not be mad at me, but my conscience would. It feels like I'm betraying her. I can't leave her alone like that."

"God, you're not leaving her if you separate from the Jung Enterprise!" Sooyoung exclaimed impatiently. "You can still care for her, you fool! It's not like you abandon her. You're just taking back what you have worked for after all those years. It's not your fault the calculations were amiss, then why do you have to pay for it?!" Sooyoung let out a frustrated snort. "You can't just trash your entire work like that. It's not fair to me, to everyone who works for and with you, not fair to yourself. You told me you worked for your dead parents, you want them to be proud of you, right? Did you forget that? And what about your grandfather? Did you forget your oath to show him how wrong his moral beliefs are, too?"

At the mention of her grandfather, Yuri grimaced behind her hair curtain.

"But Sica... her dad will be in prison... and I--I would be dodging responsibility if I leave her family's business when it's... in such... trouble..." Yuri furiously shook her head. "I can't do that to--"

"Kwon Yuri!" Sooyoung's body shot up from her seat. "Wake up!!! What happened to the person that's so dedicated to work? And why are you not trusting Jessica's feelings?!" As Yuri had no reaction, Sooyoung continued. "She knows you don't cheat on her, she knows you love her, she knows how you feel. She knows you don't want to hurt her. So what the heck are you afraid of? She would probably be upset a day, at most!"

"That's what I can't afford!" Yuri then bursted, too. She breathed unevenly, staring into Sooyoung's furious eyes with her own fierce ones.

"A day?" Sooyoung asked, a touch of sarcasm suddenly present on her face. "A day, Yuri? You give away your work of four years just for a day?" The taller girl scoffed. "You know what? I liked the workaholic so much better. I liked the Yuri before Jessica came so much better!"

"Shut up!" Yuri hissed. "Don't blame this on Sica. You don't understand a thing, Choi Sooyoung!"

"Then tell me!"

Silence filled the room. Yuri averted her gaze from Sooyoung's eyes and stared at the door.

"Everything is not that simple! If the Jung Enterprise loses us, their debt will be higher. Sica's dad's penalty will be even harsher. I am not a lawyer, but I do know that without our money, some more years will be added to Mr Jung's sentence!"

"And so you decide to sacrifice all we have, just to save Mr Jung from a couple of years in prison. I understand." Sooyoung's voice was so bitter, Yuri could taste it on her tongue. "You might think you're devoted, but you're just acting like a complete jerk, Yuri. You care about nothing but Jessica!"

"I have decided, Sooyoung. You know you can't change me. Just go."

The girl on the other side of the desk squinted her eyes and clenched her teeth, suppressing the anger that was boiling inside of her. She let out a frustrated sigh before turning around, stomping towards the door.

"Don't tell anyone about this."

Sooyoung had just gripped the doorknob when Yuri's voice made her stop again. She turned around, looking at the person she still considered her best friend.

"You better not talk to anyone about the president's offer." Yuri spoke unemotionally. "If they see you being so eager about the separation, it will seem suspicious."

"What?" Sooyoung asked, not being able to hide the incredulousness in her voice.

"Don't act like that." Yuri said, slowly. "No database is safe from your computer skills, people know that."

Sooyoung's one eye twitched as she was staring at Yuri - a sign that she was pushed to the edge of her emotions. Yuri knew it too well. She clenched her teeth tightly, waiting tensely for Sooyoung's reaction.

"Are you thinking I am the traitor?"

Yuri got caught off guard at Sooyoung's direct question. There was no anger in the short-haired girl's voice anymore. It was something else - something that bothered Yuri much more, making her feel much more uncomfortable. It was deep, deep disappointment. They had been best friends since elementary school, but Yuri had only seen those disappointed eyes once.

She could remember clearly, six years ago...

"Yuri!" Sooyoung hadn't wanted to let her go after the day she run away from her grandfather's house.

"No Sooyoung, I can't take it here anymore." She had shoved her best friend from the doorway to get her luggage out. "I don't want to be around those people! I can't take it!"

"But you mustn't to go to America!" Sooyoung had pushed her back into her room. "It's too far! What do you want to do there? That's just running away!"

"Then I'm running away!" Yuri had yelled in anger. "I don't care! I just want to go! Why are you making it hard for me?!"

"Because it's just plain wrong! I can't let you do that!" Sooyoung had yelled back. "You're my best friend!"

But Yuri had furiously shaken her head. "I'm sorry. But you can't stop me, Sooyoung, even if you're my best friend."

She then dropped her luggage and pushed Sooyoung aside, getting through the door. She left Sooyoung's house, the only place that welcomed her after she kicked herself out of her grandfather's house. Sooyoung hadn't stopped her anymore. The girl had given up, and it pained her she wasn't able to make her best friend stay. But little did she know, Yuri felt pain in her heart, having to see the disappointment in Sooyoung's eyes, too. Maybe, it was that look that had kept hunting Yuri, causing her to have to come back not longer than one year later. And Sooyoung had welcomed Yuri again, overjoyed and warm, not a bit resentful. Because, plain and simple, Yuri had always remain her best friend. A fact that could never be changed.

"You are my best friend..." Yuri said after the long pause. The two best friends stared into each other's eyes, no avoiding anymore.

"So..." Yuri slowly continued, keeping her voice stable. "How can I think you are the traitor?"

"Good." Sooyoung said, her voice not changing. "Because it wasn't me."

Yuri watched as the girl turned her her back, leaving the room. It wasn't until then that Yuri let out her forlorn sigh. She knew the entire situation was unfair to Sooyoung, but there's no help for it. She simply didn't know better, she had no choice. Then again, it wasn't like Yuri had ever treated her best friend fairly, right from the start.