The director’s words no longer reached his ears.

In the room where we used to meet in secret, there had always been his parents’ keepsakes, and the baby—so curious and so wary—would touch or throw everything in the room. In an instant, those memories came down heavy on the center of his chest.

Had she remembered any of that unconsciously? All he’d done was feed her chocolate, play her music, put colored pencils in her hand and teach her how to live like a child. Those days were noisy and anxious, that was all....

Staring at the photos of Seoryeong as a child, Lee Wooshin couldn’t lift his head.

He knew from Ju Seolheon’s records that Sonia’s memories were locked away, but it was clear that things floating in the air like the very atmosphere had molded the present Han Seoryeong.

“......”

Seoryeong. Where the hell are you, and what are you doing.

The hot light pouring through the window made his eyes sting.

—Team Leader, where the hell are you...!

Na Wonchang’s voice burst through the receiver in a rush. But Wooshin had gone back to the burned newlywed home, quietly sorting his thoughts, with no room [N O V E L I G H T] to answer.

—Departure is right ahead of us—you have to get your body in shape, fast!

Yeah. Staying put in Korea won’t find Seoryeong. First he would infiltrate the place that seemed most likely and crash into it head-on. Even if it took months, years—no, decades—he would not stop. Wooshin unwrapped a piece of candy and crumpled the crackling foil.

But the situation in Russia was bad.

Most recently, the head of a Russian private military company had staged a mutiny and then died in a plane crash. They called it a crash, but in truth it was a purge.

Not only that—one after another, Russia’s major conglomerates and tycoons, several billionaires, and high-ranking military figures were dying under suspicious circumstances.

A deputy prime minister who was also minister of industry and trade, and the head of a state energy firm, were openly purged; the president of the state telecom was dismissed and the president’s spokesperson took the seat. A vice president of a state bank was found shot dead at his Moscow home along with his wife and daughter.

The chairman of an oil company’s board died of acute heart failure, and deaths among executives who had issued “anti-war statements” were coming out almost monthly. It was by no means a good time to cross into Russia.

—Team Leader, are you listening? I’ve picked up one lead that might be useful.

Rolling the candy loud in his mouth, Wooshin stared into the black window.

—Do you know Sergey Kovarchuk, the Russian steel magnate? He’s known as a close confidant of the president and a very devout Orthodox believer. Recently his daughter divorced. Before marriage she had a reputation for many boyfriends.... So, the thing is....

As the quick flow of words suddenly stalled, Wooshin gave him a nudge.

“What is it, Wonchang.”

—...What about approaching Sergey Kovarchuk’s daughter? Infiltration and covers are your specialty...

“......”

—Right now our only trail is “Kiya.” To grab him, we probably need a line into Russia’s upper crust. If you pose as that woman’s boyfriend and start frequenting the Orthodox Church, I think eventually we can get to Kiya—or the Owl...!

“......”

—Except, uh, she apparently only sponsored young, poor waiters. B-but you’re good at acting... If you just play it like you did with the Owl back then, we can get her to fall for—

“Enough.”

Wooshin cut him off, cold.

He didn’t fail to appreciate Wonchang banging his head together with his and putting in the effort, but his blood pressure spiked and he kneaded the back of his neck hard.

The ache like a rubber band tugging at his occiput went on for a while. He frowned and added slowly:

“Do I look like some prick who’ll drop his pants for anyone and use his dick?”

—N-no... That’s not what I—!

“Not what? What do you think ‘boyfriend’ means, Wonchang. Say it.”

—Uh...

“If I go in as that woman’s boyfriend, you really think I’ll play prim and proper and just wipe sweat?”

A snort slipped out. The candy clicked against his teeth; he spat it out like a loose filling.

“Which gutter rat taught you it’s fine for a black agent to throw his crotch around on the job?”

—......!

“Of all the things you could ask, you’d ask a married man to do tacky shit like that.”

On the other end came the pathetic sound of a hiccup. Face going cold, Wooshin said:

“Don’t issue orders carelessly. You haven’t earned the right.”

—I-I’m sorry...! It’s just, during the Bird Box operation...

Even with his voice shaking, Wonchang couldn’t hide he didn’t buy it. He’d grown up in a conservative household where he’d barely even masturbated; now after pulling a few infiltration gigs, being treated like a slut stung and felt absurd.

So Wooshin answered, dragging his words out even slower. Yeah. That’s why, Wonchang—

“After the op I got a fucking tattoo on my dick. Didn’t the Deputy Director tell you that part?”

Wonchang’s breath hitched, shocked.

“You know how they tattoo there? They stuck a needle into my cock.”

He slowly licked his dry lips.

“And I guess they went too deep, because I stayed hard all day. Know what went through my head?”

—I-I don’t...

“One, that the Owl had gone as far as torturing me. Two, that it might be handy.”

—T-Team Leader, please—calm down....

“You want to try wobbling when you walk?”

There was a clatter, a loud commotion. N-no! I was wrong! he cried.

“Then from now on, before you say anything to me, clear it with Hur Channa first.”

—...Sir?!

“That’s best for you.”

—Hold—hold on, Team Leader...! There’s still rank and chain of command...!

“You bring me only what Hur Channa approves.”

—Team Leadeeer...!

“Do all the sex you don’t want to do yourself.”

Wooshin hung up, irritable. Thanks to that punk Na Wonchang, his mood was shot to hell.

He already felt so crushed by a loss too daunting to face that misery and horror bloomed in him; if this made him miss Seoryeong more, then what the hell was he supposed to do. He drew in a great breath, like bracing himself.

It wasn’t that a hole had been punched in his chest the size of where she had been and gone; it felt like he’d sunk beneath an endless surface entirely.

Except for the body thrashing, everything that flooded in was her. The pressure crushing his organs with overwhelming force was Han Seoryeong.

The savage longing was more merciless than a knife driven straight into the heart. But life without his wife began now.

Na Wonchang thunked his forehead on the desk and sprawled out, having thought and schemed and still ended up worse than square one.

“Uuugh....”

Covering a lone black agent left in the unofficial Overseas National Interests Intelligence Division’s Team 1 was not a job for ordinary energy, and Wonchang was still doing double-duty in Cybersecurity.

On top of that, he’d visited the hospital for nearly three months and single-handedly absorbed Hur Channa’s temperament.

His weight was dropping by the day, and all he got were terrifying threats instead of a single compliment.

“Sister-in-law Owl... where the hell are you....”

Day by day, Lee Wooshin became harder to appease; and his sister-in-law’s friend—that is, the self-made prodigy raised by North Korea—he only wished he could go back to the days when he just worshiped her from afar.

While Wooshin was hospitalized, she had come every day to curse out their boss to his face, then lobbed him packets of Ssanghwa tea, jujube tea, ginger tea, quince tea, and the like.

“My lifespan only extends if sister-in-law comes back....”

With both his flanks metaphorically tearing open, Wonchang still snapped to and went back to the keyboard.

Running a covert cam-tracking program, he scraped faces worldwide and compared them to the Owl’s, hunting for a match. He was grasping at straws.

The First Deputy Director’s seat at the NIS was still vacant, and if the team was reorganized or dissolved, he wouldn’t be able to move as freely as now. He had to find the Owl as fast as possible.

Another Bird Box. Except this time only an empty box remained.

“Hey, hey, up, man...! It’s urgent!”

A rough voice smacked his hunched back. Ah... where had he... they’d done this once before... He hid the narrowing of his eyes at the strange déjà vu and turned.

“Emergency meeting for senior staff! Cybersecurity team, everyone, now!”

“What’s going on?”

He stood up, startled, and asked. His senior grabbed the nape of his neck and hauled him along, panting.

They passed a corridor with the NIS logo and ran up the stairs. The higher they went, the thinner the air and the quieter the sound seemed. An inexplicable, ominous hunch.

“Just a few minutes ago. A threat message came in. Strictly speaking, a terror warning. IP traces to Russia.”

“...A threat?”

“Plan is to detonate explosives in Syrian rebel territory.”

His heart pounded, maybe from the nonstop running.

“The problem is, the message is in Korean.”

“...Sorry?”

What the hell was happening? Catching the furrow in Wonchang’s brow, his senior added an explanation.

It was simple: the U.S. supports the Syrian opposition force, the “Free Syrian Army,” and Russia supports the corrupt government forces. And yet—a Korean, standing on Russia’s side, had issued the terror warning.

“Shit, so the U.S. is losing its mind. Why Korean, out of nowhere? And it’s a woman’s voice.”

“......”

No. It can’t be....

“I don’t know what stunt this is either. Anyway, they’re demanding the identity behind that voice. That’s for you—no, for us—to figure out...!”

Off. Off somehow. No. Cold dread. It can’t be. No way. Please. Cold sweat broke across the shards of foreboding embedding in his brow.

After badge and fingerprint checks, they entered the conference room; a rapid-fire briefing was already underway. From the huge screen, a familiar voice was playing. The blood drained from Na Wonchang’s face in an instant.

—...the first week upon your return, I will drop God’s will like a bolt upon the Free Syrian Army’s military school...

It was the Owl’s—that is, Han Seoryeong’s—voice.

With a face gone ashen, he stole glances at the heavy, grave expressions of the NIS brass.

This was going... very, very... wrong.