“Buy me some colored pencils.”

That was all Seoryeong said after so long.

After that parallel-line kind of conversation with Kiya, she spent her days lying down helplessly, listening only to the sound of crickets.

When yet more weeks had passed like that, she started to feel pathetic for merely breathing in lethargy.

She hadn’t abandoned him and come here just to live while wounded like this. It was the opposite—she had left because she didn’t want to be hurt anymore....

I can’t keep living like this. So the first thing she ever asked of Kiya was colored pencils.

She just... wanted to try drawing something. Anything.

“......”

Seoryeong tied her brittle hair into a single knot and gripped the cold colored pencil. Letting her hand move as it pleased, she began to sketch something on the blank white sketchbook.

How should I live from now on?

As the lines spread across the page, her thoughts branched out as well.

Should I make use of my skills and open a small gymnastics class? Or should I go back to working at a nursing home in another country?

Then... could I live again like I did at the beginning?

“――”

Seoryeong looked around the cabin—too modest to be called a home, too warm to be called a hermitage.

Kiya had gone out to work again today. Even when he lazed about on the carpet, the moment he got a short phone call, he would immediately put on his cassock and dress himself with reverence.

Seoryeong only watched in silence as she bit into an apple with a crisp crunch. Who’s he going out to kill this time. The thought flickered across her mind, but she didn’t bother to ask.

It was obvious what kind of work Kiya, who had survived Winter Castle and returned to the Sakhalin monastery, would be doing. As for his “pair” who had said he was forced to side with Russia just to find her—Seoryeong only half believed it.

For someone claiming that, you sure seem happy when you go off to work.

Sometimes he would press his forehead against her shoulder as if reluctant to leave, then whisper a prayer and tie his shoelaces. Once Kiya left, the cabin sank into silence again.

I thought I’d return to being the original Sonia, too....

“This feels strange....”

She pressed harder with the colored pencil. When Kiya slipped out at midnight and came back before sunrise, he carried the scent of baguettes, soup—and faint traces of blood.

Some days it was the acrid sting of drugs; other days, he wore black leather gloves.

She had reclaimed her childhood self and even retraced her steps back to the place of her birth, yet she still felt lost. Her body hung heavy, as if depression had taken hold.

“Ah....”

Lost in idle thoughts, she dropped the colored pencil for a moment. The red and yellow pencils connected into a circus tent bright like a canopy, and she added a few white horses bound to poles. Above them, sharp curves gathered into the rough shape of a man’s face.

Her clumsy hand had only managed to slap together some vague features, but the instant she saw it, Seoryeong bit down hard on her lower lip.

A man she had not wanted to recall was smiling faintly from inside the paper. Even from this pitiful drawing, he came to mind instantly, and before she could block it, her vision blurred.

“......”

Really, could I live again—like at the beginning?

Could I live as if I had never met you?

Now I doubt it. Could it even be possible, living normally without you....

I don’t know what you did to me. I had demanded it roughly, I had resented you, I had pointed a gun at you. I had turned my back without mercy.

And yet, whenever I look at paper, I want to draw your face.

Seoryeong buried her forehead into the sketchbook and sat unmoving for a long time.

Then, hearing movement outside the door, she quickly tore out the front page and crumpled it.

“――!”

She rubbed her face over and over in a dry wash, trying to erase the crumbling expression. It was instinctive. She had rubbed so hard her cheeks and the skin around her eyes were flushed red.

When she opened the door, Kiya—back early for once—was carrying something. She could hear him humming a tune.

“Kiya, what’s that?”

She forced her low, locked voice upward as she asked.

“Your present.”

He was carrying on his shoulder a rocking horse, the kind only children would ride. A little wooden horse that couldn’t even fit around her thigh anymore. Seoryeong’s face twisted the moment she saw it.

“Why bring something useless like that?”

It dragged up memories she didn’t want. All she remembered was siblings she no longer even recalled by name or face, sitting on such horses without expression, rocking back and forth. Her younger siblings hadn’t had the strength to survive Winter Castle. They hadn’t lived. Her mood sank further.

“But it’s precious, isn’t it, Sonia?”

Seoryeong didn’t even have the strength to reply. She simply looked away. Kiya shoved himself onto the horse in the yard and rocked back and forth, muttering, “It’s peaceful, Sonia.”

Her chest felt tight. She stared down at her toes. Creak, creak—the horse rocked back and forth, and suddenly Kiya grimaced.

“But my cock’s getting caught, it hurts.”

“Tell me.”

“Hm?”

“What happened. You’re in a good mood right now.”

“......!”

Kiya blinked blankly, then jerked his head down. His lips pressed shut, but his shoulders trembled like he was holding back laughter. No sound escaped, but the crumpled corners of his mouth were proof enough.

“Sonia, did you know?”

Creak, creak—Kiya moved the horse more violently. The old wood groaned as it twisted.

“When sight-degenerated army ants spin and spin until they die, they call it an ‘ant mill.’ A death spiral that never stops until they collapse from exhaustion.”

Where the horse rocked, a dark mark carved itself into the dirt.

“Well, they can’t help it. Ants pass information to each other with pheromones. But with so much information, if they get confused once, they’re trapped in a whirlpool they can never escape.”

“......”

Creak, creak—Seoryeong stared uneasily at the wood, its nails dangerously jutting out.

“They just keep wandering, brainlessly, round ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) and round. If you follow only one thing blindly, you become such a stupid ant. Never even dreaming you’ve been thrown into confusion.”

Finally, the horse broke under his weight. Kiya toppled to the ground—but kept laughing.

“And then they drop dead from exhaustion.”

“...What? Owl did what?”

Screech—brakes squealed, leaving skid marks on the road. Angry shouting burst from behind, but Lee Wooshin’s entire focus was on the urgent call that had come through.

Three months in a hospital bed had made him lose every trace of Seoryeong. The sunken arch of his foot, the pierced side—now filled with scars and new flesh.

But he had not regained all his lost muscle, and his face was still gaunt. Time, however, always moved faster than him, until he could no longer endure even a single second.

That impatience gnawed at his mind, paralyzed his judgment. He had gone through only the most basic rehab, ready to leave straight away.

Then—his head went blank. His stiff eyelids trembled mercilessly.

―Owl has issued a terror warning.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

―We’re still verifying the authenticity of the voice, but the content can’t be ignored. The atmosphere at NIS is tense, Team Leader. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

“......”

―CIA headed to Syria first. Assuming a Korean is really involved, our side may also send agents there. And if... if it really is Owl....

Even Na Wonchang, usually tense enough over the line, held his breath at this moment.

―...An order might come down.

“What order.”

His cold voice cut in pieces.

―...A kill order.

The flesh inside his mouth was ground between his teeth. The metallic, sticky tang stung his nose. Why, in a moment like this, did the face of Deputy Director Ju Seolheon—already dead—come to mind?

Some missions, she had said, you devote your entire life to. What you must discard is not guilt, but the excessive greed of wanting to be loved. Words she had croaked out even as he strangled her, ramming into him now like a knife.

―These things are sensitive, since we’re an ally. At the very least, they want us to show sincerity.

“The chance it’s fake?”

―Still under investigation.... Nothing is certain yet.

“......”

―But that means... we’ll be one step behind, Team Leader. The higher-ups don’t even know whose voice that is yet—if they issue a premature kill order, everything falls apart. If Owl has to be secretly extracted, only you can do it....

“I know.”

The worst possible news—but still, a trace after so long. To a parched man, a single drop of nectar. Wooshin rubbed his trembling jaw with a restless hand.

“Send me the file.”

Let me hear my Owl’s voice.

Whether it’s Seoryeong, or not Seoryeong—it doesn’t matter.

If it’s you—

I’ll gladly become an idiot who believes even your lies.

Wooshin put in his earpiece and played the transmitted file. At the faint breaths followed by a low, steady voice, he collapsed over the steering wheel.

Fuck.... His ears felt like they were splitting. His heart dropped to his toes, his throat burned. Goddamn I want to see you.... He clenched his teeth hard.

But by pronunciation and tone alone, there was a high chance it wasn’t Owl. Still—that wasn’t proof she wouldn’t show up in Syria. Even if it was a trap, he couldn’t pass it by. Even a single strand of hair would be gain.

“I’ll infiltrate separately.”

He wrenched the wheel around.

Protecting Owl had never once ceased being his mission—from beginning to end. Now it was Ju Seolheon’s unchanging command, her dying will. A duty he had to uphold until his death.

As long as you can be safe—

I can trample down all my own desires.

I’ll let it happen to me again, as many times as it takes.