8

On the top floor gym,

The gym had glass windows giving the outside view. But the people inside didn't look interested at all as most of them were focused on there exercise. Due to it being the night time there weren't many people, giving James aka director JJ chance to gossip to his heart content with his uninterested best friend.

"So, Charles do you know the guy that debuted last year...." Charles put his finger on his mouth telling James to shut the f*ck up as he was exercising. But James clearly ignored the gesture and started to stuff his story in Charles throat once again.

"Can you not?"

"Why not?" James looked at Charles as if there was nothing wrong with him increasing his Gk. Charles could only blame his luck for having such a bestfriend. The gap between James' personality while working and not working was too drastic.

James pulled out his phone letting Charles to work out all on his own. As if his purpose of coming here was just to accompany Charles while he does his exercise.

"Um, Charles?"

"Yea-h." Charles replied to James while lifting weight.

"The recording room you had, I lend it to someone."

Charles put down the weight as swiftly he could. His expression was as if his most treasured thing was taken away from him.

"Why? To whom? For what purpose?" James quickly took a step back seeing such a great reaction from Charles. He was some what starting to feel guilty about doing it without his permission. But Charles didn't used the room for like years. Logically he didn't had any use for the recording room since the day he stopped composing music or writing songs. And more importantly-

"Didn't you told me to see if the recording can come in use? So I did as you asked me to." James made a note to himself to record their any potential conversations in future. With Charles personality James surely wasn't going go get surprised if in future Charles decided to quit his job to once again start something new. He was unpredictable as usual.

"So, is it okay or not?" James asked Charles once again emphasizing on 'how he was doing everything with his permission'.

"It's okay but who is the composer that doesn't have his own recording room?" Charles genuinely had this question as most of the composer that James knew had there own recording room.

"Oh." James eyes shone brightly for some reasons, seeing this Charles could only prepare his ears for more unnecessary information that he never asked for.

"The new musician, I am working with Chase Xavier. He is talented, you should listen to some of his music. See if it suits your taste. But there is one thing I am wondering about this guy?"

"What is it?" Charles clearly was uninterested but he still asked cause he didn't wanted to seem heartless. While sipping water from the bottle.

"That guy looks gay." Charles chocked on the water due to James sentence, he was both shocked and horrified. But he didn't let it show on his face maintaining his expression.

"Forget about it, aunt actually wanted to meet you this sunday."

"What? Why didn't you mentioned it earlier?"

Then how was I going to change subject right now? Charles thought but kept it to himself. He had thought about coming out of his closest many times but he could never say the three magic words 'I am gay' every time. Cause everyone around him were either homophobic or looked homophobic degrading his already low confidence about his sexuality.

On the other side James had no idea about what Charles was thinking cause it never crossed his mind that his bestfriend was hiding a secret from him.

Crime department

"Sir, the mayor's secretary called about the security issues." A young officer reported to his senior who was reading past reports about the hacker Z and hacker forum. But they weren't of any help at all. They didn't had time to plan everything carefully as the higher up were pressuring them nonstop. Of course the higher would when the mayor was the one being targeted.

That wasn't the only thing stoping them from investigation but the fact that couldn't just question mayor for more details.

"What about the computer experts? Did they found something."

"No, sir but the secretary wanted to talk to you..."

The junior tried to get his senior on what the secretary said but it was to no avail. As the senior only repeated the same sentence.

"Did they found something."

"No, sir not yet." The senior officer banged the desk in disappointment.

"Can they atleast prove that the hacker who is after the mayor is actually Z not some imposter?"

"But officer Grekov"

The junior tried to calm the superior down but officer Grekov didn't seemed to.

The land line phone in the office ranged. It was the senior officer Grekov who received the phone this time. The way he speak on the phone was completely different from the way he spoke to the junior earlier. He was polite, so polite that the junior felt as if he was hallucinating.

"Sir, my team is trying there best. You don't have to worry about the security my team is working day and night to find Z." Grekov was trying to convince that their team was doing fine with the investigation but his expression said something else.

"Sir, we should minimalise the mayor's public appearances these days." Grekov knew what he was talking about Z was well know to take advantage of crowds. But from the other side on the call didn't seemed to be agree with his opinion.