“That woman...”

Seoryeong swallowed once. It was a name she felt she could no longer say so easily.

“Where was Deputy Director Ju Seolheon... buried?”

“She’s in the columbarium.”

Seoryeong nodded without expression. Nothing showed on her face, but it was Lee Wooshin who kept stealing anxious glances.

He angled his head slightly, peering closely at Seoryeong’s complexion. Seeing the furrow in his brow worrying over her, she spoke first.

“If I say I don’t feel anything at all... do I look frightening to you?”

“Of course not.”

The answer came at once. Seoryeong pressed her face briefly into the gentle hand that stroked her cheek.

“I’m not sad because I have no memories. It just felt like listening to someone else’s story. Even if they were my birth parents... I never spent time with them, never actually lived with them.”

“......”

“And I deliberately hid that I was a Winter Castle rat from you, Instructor. The anger I felt toward Kim Hyun—there’s nothing like that toward those people. Even so...”

They must have laid everything down and found peace. A thin wisp of breath slipped from her lips like incense. Wooshin, holding the seemingly composed Seoryeong, set his chin against the fur of her ushanka.

Her arms naturally circled his waist; meeting his eyes squarely, she smiled. It was a shy smile, wrinkling the bridge of her nose, unable to hide her embarrassment.

“Come to think of it, Instructor, you failed before I did. I was right under your nose and you still didn’t recognize me.”

Her lips twitched as if to say serves you right. Ten years running as an NIS agent to find the Winter Castle documents, and to look for me—whose face and name you didn’t even know—you went and had a fake marriage with me and disappeared?

Her reddened cheeks rose, as if she had just heard the funniest, most ridiculous story in the world. Wooshin couldn’t take his eyes off that innocent face for a while, then suddenly turned his gaze aside.

“Do you still think of Kim Hyun?”

When she stared back, Wooshin’s jaw bunched. Turning his head to fix on some spot on the lake, he looked like he was debating whether to say it or not. The tips of his ears were oddly red.

“I’m asking if you still love Kim Hyun.”

“......!”

“Why can’t you answer right away?”

When Seoryeong only widened her eyes at him, he met her gaze like a glare. As she stayed frozen with her mouth shut for quite a while, Wooshin drew in a large breath, looking put out. His inappropriately tense eyes clung stubbornly to her closed lips.

At the end of a silence that felt like eons, just as Seoryeong’s round eyes shifted, he suddenly seized and bit the small bridge of her nose.

“Ah...!”

Even as she stumbled back in surprise, he didn’t stop, coming down with his mouth. He swallowed her lower lip greedily, gripped both her cheeks to hold her still, and sucked deep.

Fearing she might just go flying on black ice, Seoryeong cried out without thinking. The answer came out, unexpectedly, clean.

“I want my child to look like Kim Hyun!”

“...What?”

Wooshin, who’d been pressing in hot breath, let go of her face in blank astonishment.

“Because I want him to grow up as kind as Hyun.”

“......”

“So I’d even pass his name down. It’s beautiful. I can be sure now that Kim Hyun wasn’t an illusion to me.”

“No—no matter what, you can’t just—”

When Wooshin dragged a hand down his face, unable to go on, she quickly added,

“Of course the surname will be Lee.”

“Enough. From now on I won’t even bring up the Kim of Kim Hyun.”

“Why? Instructor, you’re Kim Hyun!”

“I don’t look like that hairless bastard, and I’m not built like him.”

“What kind of nonsense... You’re the same person!”

“No. If you saw someone on the street who looked like Kim Hyun, you’d lose your mind.”

“Me?”

“You did it often. You’d sniff and go chasing after them.”

“When did I ever—!”

She started to flare up, then paused. A face had already flashed through her head.

“Who did you just think of?”

“......”

Seoryeong kept her mouth shut, but seeing Wooshin somehow turn more menacing, she let the corner of her mouth lift.

Even thinking it over again—unbelievable. That Kim Hyun was Lee Wooshin—how did that make any sense... What once felt like a cruel realization stabbing through her ribs now turned into a thrilling shiver that set her heart racing.

“How are you Kim Hyun, Instructor?”

Her tone of still not believing made him freeze. His face looked like he’d been caned.

“That Hyun was Lee ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) Wooshin...”

It was a laugh he hadn’t heard in a long time—rare and precious. Seoryeong burst into audible laughter. At the prettily curving ends of her eyes, Wooshin stood dazed and frozen, then finally let out the breath that had been stuck.

Stuffing a guilt that might never leave for life back into his throat, he threw away his dignity and lunged again.

As he planted noisy kiss marks all over her face, she crumpled, laughing once more. Wooshin took in that lovely expression like engraving it with his eyes, then sealed her mouth again with a dense, lingering kiss.

“I’m the one who can’t believe you.”

Under the torrent of stars, their mouths met again.

***

―......

―......

Silence bombarded both of Wooshin’s ears through the earpieces, and he let out a weary sigh. What on earth were these two, barely a mouthful between them, thinking? He’d expected nagging to come screaming in and split his eardrums, but the two of them were frighteningly quiet.

From the moment he resolved never to keep secrets from Seoryeong again, he’d meant to tell her about the existence of this in-ear. So he dug out the staff and transceiver he’d kept powered off and reconnected them.

“What kind of backup is this crap?”

He’d wondered for a second if the connection was unstable, but a faint, trembling breath erased the doubt. Wooshin realized this was the two of them staging a protest in their own way.

“Did you slap your rookie tag back on? Keep emotions out of your work.”

At the scolding, someone ground their teeth in one ear. Judging by the lame sound that didn’t even grind properly, the one with the biggest complaint was probably Na Wonchang. But the way they kept condemning him with silence was obvious, and Wooshin rubbed at his brow.

“I was going to tell you anyway.”

—...Knew it would come to thi—!

—Don’t make any statements yet—! Please be quiet and let him speak!

No sooner had he started than both sides burst out as if they’d been waiting. Wooshin grimaced.

“Listen up. Here’s what happened—”

—No, keep your excuses. I can’t do this anymore. I won’t stand it! Team Leader, what did you tell me? That being Owl’s husband was your calling, that you even quit the NIS for that. You said the second marriage wasn’t a smokescreen, it was real! Then how can you say two different things with the same mouth? How can you—manage two, two women—! Was it the chest in the end? You like breasts that much?

“......”

—Hur Channa, who ought to have grown up seeing only good things in the South, took this way harder. You know that? As soon as comms cut, she just kept laughing...!

—You thickheaded brat, that’s because—!

Good grief, can’t you tell just by looking—! The sound of Hur Channa thumping her chest with a fist carried all the way through. Wooshin swung the staff toward himself and glared ominously into the camera.

“Shut up before I come there in person.”

A stillness like after a typhoon swept through. Pressing his throbbing temple, he checked the time.

Even having left Seoryeong sleeping soundly in the bedroom for a moment had him anxious to madness. The bedroom door was locked, CCTV was rolling all over the corridor, and still he couldn’t live with it, as if his heart had been left there. Grabbing his forehead, he spoke.

“I found Owl.”

—......Sorry?

“She’s wearing Natalia’s face. I meant to tell you, but there was never any chance.”

Na Wonchang gasped, then choked.

“Enough. Get a glass of water, clear your voice, and come back. In a bit I’m going to tell Seoryeong about this in-ear, so be ready to introduce yourselves.”

—...W-wait, wait. Do what?

“My wife’s very anxious, so don’t talk nonsense. If you don’t want to die, use your head. Bring up breasts and you’re dead. Stick to wholesome talk. I’ve got plenty of that.”

—I’m... going to... introduce myself to Owl... sister-in-law...?

“Drop the dopey voice and inspire trust. Trust, Wonchang.”

—I’m not some leaky bucket...!

“Didn’t you know? You’re a cracked gourd.”

—Th-this is like an unofficial family introduction, right? Okay, then I’ll start by checking the dictionary meaning of ‘wholesome’...

His voice, full of forced spirit, flustered and circled around. Haa... Wooshin shook his head irritably and stood. Maybe he should just hide the in-ear. The impulse swept him for a moment, then he corrected himself.

If lies piled up one by one like that, at some point they’d grow out of control and wound her heart.

He was a man who had made a living out of slyly hiding everything from start to finish, but in this new relationship with his wife, he had to tear it out by the roots.

In that vein, if he pulled back the curtain between work and home and introduced subordinates he’d never mentioned before, her vague anxiety might ease.

—But Team Leader, there’s a problem. ‘Wholesome’ means sound and upright.

“Yeah, roughly that.”

—What would count as... uh... you soundly played the role of Kim Hyun... uprightly tattooed your genitals... soundly ordered an investigation into Owl... uprightly kissed that brown-haired foreign woman...

Wooshin finally thunked his forehead against the window and clenched his fist.

“You fucking idiot who can’t tell up from down.”

—Why curse! You kissed her! You did! You grabbed a woman who said no and kissed her!

“Enough. Shut it. Shut it all!”

Just then, beyond the window, he faintly saw a strange black sedan pull up to the heavy front gate. His eyes, which had been burning, narrowed at once, cooling.

“Check today’s visitor,” he ordered low. The market-like cacophony in his ears flipped to work mode, and only the clatter of keyboards sounded.

—Oh...!

Na Wonchang’s exclamation coincided with the car door opening. Why has that person come here... Hur Channa muttered, suspicious but stiff.

From the driver’s seat, a long leg came out first. A man in a neat suit looked up in curiosity at the Solzhenitsyn mansion.

A man with his grown-out hair tied back halfway.

“That’s Blast Corporation operative Yu Dawit.”