The clatter of dishes stopped for an instant. No way.... With her face gone rigid, Seoryeong looked back. Kiya kept those pitch-black eyes fixed only on her as he went on.

“The almost only source who knows Solzhenitsyn’s body.”

“......!”

Seoryeong clenched her fist. Natalia’s eyes sparkled with interest.

“Don’t tell me he had some freaky kink in bed?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Kiya lifted a shoulder. Natalia studied Seoryeong, who was bracing herself against the sink. Leaning forward over the table, she pleaded.

“I can do whatever it takes. A target as good for banging as Yuri Solzhenitsyn doesn’t come along often to begin with. I’ve staked my whole life on this op. I could spend the rest of my life pretending to love only him.”

“......”

“He’s a man who just looks lonely at a glance. Skips meals and sometimes drinks on an empty stomach. If he’d just stop dodging my hand when I reach, I feel like I could make it happen somehow.... Because he won’t, I want him more, I’m going out of my mind.”

Natalia let out a sweet little moan, mm-h, shifting her hips like she was itching for it.

“I heard Prime Minister Maxim and his son both married East Asian women. The only thing I could force to match is the black hair, but luckily Yuri Solzhenitsyn is blind. If he’d just hold me once, he’d feel right away I’ve got a petite frame like an East Asian woman. That man isn’t a eunuch, is he?”

With an unreadable face, Seoryeong quietly set down the bowl of soup.

“Hm? Hey, lady—say something.”

“......”

“How does he have sex? Is he the type who gets rough in bed?”

Without a word, Seoryeong turned back to the kitchen, suddenly opening the upper cabinet and rummaging through the pots. Seeing not the slightest sign of cooperation in her, Natalia pouted and crossed her arms.

Kiya watched Seoryeong with a strange expression—quietly, but with a scolding air—as she kept moving, searching for something.

“Sonia. You said you’d help—”

All at once, she came striding back with a steaming pot. In the beat where the words cut off—maybe from some cold premonition—Seoryeong brought the pot down hard on the back of Natalia’s head as she lit her cigarette in a prim posture.

Thud, thud, thud—! The aluminum pot slammed down on the same head again and again. Even by the time Kiya jerked up from his seat where he’d been lounging with his chin in his hand, Seoryeong’s face didn’t change an inch; she just moved like a machine.

Thud, thud, thud—! Blood smeared bright red along the rim of the pot and Natalia collapsed like a snapped branch. Then Seoryeong stomped down on her ankle—crack.

Kiya looked back and forth between Natalia—passed out with a broken ankle—and Seoryeong’s flat, unreadable face.

She tossed the heavy pot at Kiya’s feet. Crash, the racket filled the silence of the moment.

“Sonia... what are you—”

“Just.”

“What?”

“I just felt like it. Why.”

“......”

There was no way to explain it except that a murderous urge had surged up. Even she didn’t understand the hot emotion right on the verge of exploding.

Tidying her stray hair, Seoryeong fetched a pair of scissors from the kitchen. Wait, Sonia...! Before Kiya could stop her, she snipped her hair off to about the same length as Natalia’s.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. She flung the handful of cut hair at Kiya’s face like an empty can and muttered,

“Bring me that exact face.”

“...What?”

Kiya just blinked like an idiot. In that instant, she gripped the nape of his neck and whispered.

“You told me to act like a bitch.”

“......!”

“But don’t get it twisted. I give the orders. Always have, from the start.”

Seoryeong fixed her gaze, cold, on Kiya’s face, which had frozen into something strange. Then with a detached hand she slowly stroked his nape and cheek.

Tilting her head as if to kiss him, she whistled a sharp note into his ear. Kiya hunched his neck and went white. His pupils were shaking.

“You’re not the only one who’s been lenient with me.”

“......”

“You want to pant on top of me? Then bow that head nicely. At least make yourself look good to me. I like a bastard who’ll hand me his liver and gallbladder both. If you’re really a stud dog, bring back the ball when your owner tells you to fetch.”

She pressed her thumbnail hard to the outer corners of Kiya’s eyes and murmured,

“That face. Bring it.”

She had to drive Lee Wooshin out of Russia.

She had to meet him... and cut this stubborn, tangled fate.

Holding back a wave of nausea, Seoryeong went on.

“Wooshin has a physical peculiarity. If you don’t know it, you won’t be able to unbutton a single button of Solzhenitsyn.”

***

—We didn’t find them. There are signs they switched cars several times along the way, and Russia doesn’t have as many CCTVs as Korea, so we couldn’t track them to the end....

With a voice full of apology, the report came out carefully. Tormented for days by a relentless fever, Lee Wooshin ground his teeth, rubbing at the jaw that had grown gaunt.

Even with his mind blurring every night from the boiling heat of his body, the scent of her brushing the tip of his nose kept floating up and his dick snapped hard.

From the moment he realized she was his first and last love, his whole body buzzed like he was going to lose his mind.

When he’d plundered her mouth, his whole body had trembled with the certainty that nothing could be more sure than this. The tender inner flesh that crumpled so easily at just the touch of his tongue, the even teeth with that groove scooped out behind them, the spurt of hot saliva every time he brushed her palate....

Especially the way she would, by reflex, rake his forearm with her nails whenever he sucked on the root of her tongue—there was no way that wasn’t Han Seoryeong. It was a signal only someone who had lived as her husband could know.

But having miraculously found his wife and then lost her again right under his nose—it felt like his innards were melting.

He sat slack on the sofa and let his head fall back. His Adam’s apple rose and fell slowly; a sigh leaked out.

—...Sorry, but that’s emotional cheating.

Na Wonchang groused in a sulky voice. At the absurdity, Wooshin tilted his head, the sofa leather giving a heavy rub.

Plenty of household staff bustled back and forth in the main house, but Wooshin paid them no mind, as if they were furniture, and gave a hollow laugh. Maybe he still had a low fever; his breath came out hot.

Propping his fuzzy temple with his palm, he dangled one indoor slipper. The attitude said he’d hear what other bullshit Na Wonchang would spit out.

—Maybe she just happened to wear a similar perfume. When someone’s too desperate... they make the mistake of believing a lie as the truth.

“So?”

—If your condition’s been off ’cause you’ve been running in circles... then honestly it’s more likely it was a misidentification. Our line of work is to start with doubt.

“At last, something sensible comes out of your mouth.”

—R-Right? We compared body type with Owl... the hands and face size were similar. But Owl’s build is bigger, and the brown-haired lady then was thinner. Her posture wasn’t great either.

“So what exactly are you saying?”

—Uh......

“That I grabbed the wrong woman and kissed her?”

—Well, yeah... forcing yourself on someone who doesn’t want it.... That’s a crime....

Wooshin draped an arm across the back of the sofa, showing no reaction. A cold draft swept past him then.

His hair fluttered, and the stifling bandages showed. A few days ago, he had forced them off and tried to open his eyes, and his recovery had slowed. Irritably scratching at the bandages now wrapped even thicker than before, Wooshin said,

“What you «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» see isn’t everything.”

—...For fuck’s sake....

Then from his left ear came a mutter pretending not to be Hur Channa.

—You asked us to be your eyes. If you weren’t going to trust us, why did you even ask...!

From his right ear, an aggrieved-sounding Na Wonchang smacked his eardrum.

—Were you planning to try matching every little thing like this to find Owl? Brown hair, brown eyes! At a glance, the build and size were different! So why did you rush into a kiss! Why did you kiss her! You refuse to infiltrate as her boyfriend, but kissing is fine? That’s a serious double standard...!

The moment of seriousness vanished, and Na Wonchang showed his true colors, badgering him.

“Haah....”

Wooshin pressed his fingers to his temple and sighed. Fuck, I’m telling you it was really my woman. No matter how many programs spit out a numeric match rate—my chest, my cock told me, fuck! Not knowing how to explain this certainty, he just ground his teeth.

As he was tamping his temper down, chatter came into both ears. “Why are you so quiet today, Ms. Channa? Aren’t you the one who should be raising hell over something this ridiculous?”

Then Channa went, “Hmm...,” making an oddly pensive sound, and closed her mouth again. The two started bickering, and Wooshin pulled out his in-ear.

Right before he cut the comms, Na Wonchang—so close his breath felt like it hit right here—yelled, “But absolutely not Natalia Yegorova—!” and he shut his eyes.

“I know, fuck....”

From between slightly parted lips, longing spilled out.