Even months later, the newlywed home, burned pitch-black, still reeked of smoke. Dressed to the nines, Lee Wooshin looked around their newlywed home with a ravaged gaze.

It was his first time coming in since the fire. Ash scattered on the floor crunched under his shoes, and a chill inappropriate for summer clung to every corner.

The kitchen where the spark had started, the frames with their borders charred and crumbling, the dining table melted into black slop....

Left as it was, the once-warm newlywed home had turned into a haunted house. Wooshin’s face twisted with raw pain.

His phone kept buzzing in his pocket, but he switched it off at once. Time was short, and it was probably loudmouthed bastards asking where he’d run off to in the middle of rehab.

Instead, he ran his palm down the stained wallpaper and furniture.

“――”

He sat in a dining chair warped out of shape and stared blankly across the table. Not being able to see with his own eyes whether she was eating properly set his insides on fire.

Fuck, I should’ve cooked more of the things she liked. Not rations, but only what she loved, as much as she wanted. I should’ve eaten slow. Slower than you, so I could keep your eyes on me longer.

He swept a hand down his gaunt cheek. Swallowing thorns couldn’t hurt worse than this.

“...The name of the strongest child. Sonia.”

Whenever he had a spare moment, he [N O V E L I G H T] read and reread the materials of Ju Seolheon that he’d copied onto his tablet. There was nothing else he could use to feel Han Seoryeong, who had vanished; only by reading the report could he breathe.

Every time a word snagged his eye—words that had no place in an ordinary childhood—the corners of his eyes crumpled in grief. Monastery, communal childrearing, abuse, training, circus, high officials, diocese, chip, surgery.... And still he didn’t stop, reading and reading until it was memorized.

Seoryeong, I don’t want to part from you. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life like this—separated—drowned in regret and pain.

I want to meet the baby who ran on her own legs, the shy blind wife, the bulldog-tough Agent Han Seoryeong—all of them. I want to hold you. I want to love you the way you want and calm you down. He closed his eyes quietly, as if enduring a stabbing pain in his chest.

“With what heart did you set this place on fire.”

But when he thought of not finding his wife and being left alone forever—alone in this world—it hurt like his lungs were filling with water.

Can we ever come back here again.

“How hot were you, then.”

Wooshin couldn’t bring himself to leave the ruined newlywed home for a long time. He wanted to cake the ashes she had burned to nothing all over the soles of his shoes.

The late Ju Seolheon.

At the sight of the name stuck to a palm-sized ossuary, his brow tightened as if it had been waiting. With a rigid face, Wooshin bowed.

For an agent who had led a mission called the Red Veil through Russia’s brutal cold, her end was so paltry and empty. Not even buried with the one she loved. Wooshin’s fear stood right before his eyes.

There wasn’t a single photo where Ju Seolheon was smiling. Staring at the blunt ID-style portrait, he opened his mouth.

“I’m going to destroy that document on my end.”

Speaking the decision aloud made his heart thud, heavy.

“I don’t want Seoryeong to ever find out who her birth mother is.”

There was, of course, no reply, but he tightened his eyelids as if to listen for one.

“She’s had a hard enough life as it is—I can’t stand the idea of it getting worse from here, Deputy Director. We’ll just have to stay the bad bastards to the end. You wanted to make your bones by catching Rigay, and I approached the Owl on orders and then pulled out.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed, unyielding. CIA, espionage tools—those were wounds-only information she had no need to know.

If by some accident Seoryeong learned the truth and exploded—asking if he’d deceived her yet again, why he hid her birth— Wooshin clenched his fist tight.

“I’ll live with her resentment for the rest of my life.”

Better I be hated than bruises form inside you.

He bowed his head again.

“...Rest easy.”

Thank you for letting me live as the Owl’s husband—if nothing else, for that.

Of the countless bad moves you made, that will probably be the one you regret the least.

Wooshin tore the title page from a forged passport and folded it like a note, tucking it into her columbarium niche.

Joo Seoryeong. Take even that empty name with you.

An old, shabby-looking signboard, polished to a glossy clean. After an hour and a half’s drive, he arrived at a children’s home on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.

Great trees swished in the wind, and children were playing in the shade. Wooshin watched the lush green yard in silence and loosened his tie.

“How can I help you?”

Maybe because he was so tall and wearing a black suit, a teacher’s eyes found him at once.

Although getting close, stirring people up, and extracting information was his specialty, his mouth wouldn’t open for some reason. From the moment he stepped in here, his chest had been shriveling up.

“...I’d like to see the director.”

“Would you follow me?”

Following the teacher down the corridor, reddish sunlight poured through the full-length windows. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

At least it’s somewhere the sun reaches—that’s a relief, baby. He clenched his jaw at the peals of laughter drifting in from outside.

In the empty director’s office, Wooshin fell into habit, memorizing the positions of the objects around him. Then his gaze snagged on a wall packed with framed photos of the children.

Bending closer, he scrutinized the faces in the pictures—and found a child who wasn’t smiling.

“Ah....”

His pupils, behind black lenses, trembled finely. Seen like this, she overlapped with Ju Seolheon’s impassive face.

At the sight of that child’s mouth corners sagging in a sulk, a desperate urge rose to scratch the photo out with his fingernail.

Among the countless frames, Wooshin, as if ghost-guided, picked out only Seoryeong’s photo and stared at it until time slipped away. For the first time in a long while, light returned to his parched eyes.

“Hello. And you are—”

Just then, someone approached.

She was short, with tightly curled short hair, a plump director. She broke off mid-sentence, glanced once at the lanky Wooshin, then twice at the photo he was staring at. A wary glint slid over her face.

“That photo. Are you looking because you know her, or because she looks like a child model?”

“...Both.”

His throat rasped with metal.

“No one’s ever come looking for that kid. Pardon me, but what’s your relation?”

“I’m her husband.”

The words came out without an instant of hesitation. His throat burned like it had touched flame.

“Seoryeong... got married?!”

The director’s eyes went so wide they creased her brow; she covered her mouth with both hands.

“That kid?”

She sounded disbelieving. But the emotion passed quickly; the director hardened her face again and looked at him with suspicion.

“Did you... come to dig into her past?”

“Sorry?”

“If you’re her husband, that means you’re already married. If you lived fine and only now show up—what’s your angle? What, life happened and now it doesn’t feel right... you regret it... something made you suspicious, so you came?”

“......”

“Insurance. Fraud. Something like that involved?”

As she continued, the director’s eyes began to quiver.

“Or... did your parents’ health suddenly de— ahem, deteriorate?”

So this is the reputation our Seoryeong has.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Whatever brought you here, I don’t know—but while that kid could be sharp-handed, she wasn’t that bad. She was alone all the way until she became independent from here, and she must have liked her husband so much she went and got married.”

“......”

“Is Seoryeong doing well?”

Shame made it hard to breathe. Reading something in his darkening face, the director’s eyes began to flutter quickly.

Please.... Clasping her hands like she was releasing pent-up anxiety, she blurted:

“Tell me it’s not an assault charge.”

“......!”

“A clean no-fault divorce would be better. If you stir all this up and poke at that kid—”

Laughter almost bubbled up. As the stiffness left his face, he was scalded with longing.

He wanted to hold Seoryeong, to nip the bridge of her nose and ask how coy she’d been with him; then to brag that he was probably the only one who liked her temperament.

To tell her that she needed him, and he needed her. To say it again and again, and kiss her.

The longing was so deep it was wearing through his guts. I need you. I need you, who fit perfectly in my arms.

“No. Divorce isn’t even a dream I’m having. I can’t give up my wife.”

“Ah...!”

“Then... may I see more photos of Seoryeong?”

When he asked with a faint smile, the director brought over albums stacked up to her chin.

Those glossy eyes, the sharp nose bridge, the expressionless face. Even behind that heavy mask, had you always hidden a face like this? Naive, fierce, and lovable.

In time, Seoryeong—standing off at a distance from her peers for the photo—grew bit by bit. She wore a school uniform, then graduated. Only then did the exact face of the Han Seoryeong he knew so well emerge.

As he couldn’t tear his eyes away, the director brewed cool green tea and spoke.

“She quit gymnastics, right when everyone’s busy prepping for jobs. Out of nowhere she said she wanted to wear a white coat. She’d never been close to studying in her life, so doctor was out of the question; I told her at least try for the nursing aide exam. She failed. So she studied something else and went into a nursing home.”

When she set the cup down, the ice clinked.

“Later I asked her why she suddenly wanted a white coat.”

At something he’d never heard before, Wooshin lifted his head.

“She said it wasn’t the white coat—it was the stethoscope. She couldn’t explain it well, just said she liked stethoscopes. Anyway, I thought it was a path that didn’t suit her.”

Ah. The sound boiled up from deep in his throat.