Lee Wooshin rolled the window all the way down, desperately trying to flush out the warmth of the car’s heater.

Every time the snow, fine as rice grains, landed on his skin, he remembered holding her close and sucking on her lips. A wretched memory that surged up again and again.

The familiar alleyways and stone walls were the same. In the daytime they’d walk hand in hand, and at night they’d sneak kisses. All of it rushed him into flooring the gas pedal.

Brow furrowed, he kept jabbing the window button even though it was already fully lowered. Despite the cold air rushing in, it still felt like her scent lingered inside the car.

Just then, a soft glow flickered from the phone he’d carelessly left propped on the console. He had switched it to silent, not wanting to wake Han Seoryeong — and now more than ten missed calls had piled up.

Every one of them was from Na Wonyang.

As soon as he answered on speakerphone, a voice nearly shrieking a whole octave higher tore through the cabin.

—“Team Leader...! Why are you only picking up now? It was urgent, super urgent...!”

Wooshin didn’t bother to hide how tired he was. Resting his elbow on the window frame, his black hair scattered over his eyes in the wind. His lazy voice oozed irritation and fatigue.

“What is it, Wonyang, in the middle of the damn night.”

—“The Deputy Director is summoning you...! And Owl’s caused a major incident!”

“Owl? What the hell kind of incident? I just dropped her off.”

—“I don’t even know where to begin, but... it’s the 5 billion won...!”

“...What?”

—“Owl hit a VIP’s relative’s account. And that account had 5 billion won in it. She left the signature ‘Kim Hyeon’. That name’s almost never known, and all the IP logs trace back to Owl’s home.”

“...!”

The loosened tension in Wooshin’s body snapped taut. His head rose sharply.

—“Everything’s been chaos since, so I couldn’t get in touch. The Deputy Director’s been right next to me the whole time.”

Scratching and hair-pulling sounds echoed over the line.

—“And the IP wasn’t even properly masked. It’s like she wanted us to find it. Like Gretel scattering breadcrumbs...! But no — that’s not even the important part!”

Though he wasn’t drunk, Wooshin’s head swirled with confusion. Her lingering scent in the passenger seat only disoriented him more.

And to say that wasn’t important — then what the hell was?

Just as his brow clenched tight—

—“The Deputy Director sent agents to her place to interrogate Owl!”

SCREECH—!

The brakes shrieked. Wooshin gritted his teeth hard enough to crack his jaw and yanked the wheel for a U-turn.

It had already been fifteen minutes since he’d dropped her off.

If male agents were interrogating her, it had to be a surprise attack. And Han Seoryeong had been drinking — her reflexes would’ve been dulled.

Even if he cut the return trip down to seven minutes...

His grip on the wheel turned white-knuckled, veins bulging with pressure.

—“Team Leader, where are you going?! I’m not done talking! The Deputy Director’s summoning you!”

Over the tires screaming on pavement, Na Wonyang raised his voice.

“Then why the hell didn’t the Deputy Director give me any kind of heads-up before sending people to that house?”

His quiet murmur flattened Na Wonyang’s shouting like a hammer.

“The fuck gave him permission to send agents there, huh?”

His eyes in the rearview mirror were razor-sharp — like a shark’s tailfin.

—“Th-that’s... I found that odd too, but technically you’re assigned to a different operation now. Bird Box is over. That’s why the Deputy Director said...”

Na Wonyang hesitated, then recited his words quickly, like reading from a prompt.

—“This mission is entirely separate from Bird Box, so he won’t be sharing intel.”

“Wow. So much for keeping her husband in the loop.”

Wooshin licked the inside of his cheek, then pulled a cold, tight smirk.

He stomped harder on the accelerator, ignoring the red light.

“If you’re gonna cut me off, do it clean. Don’t call me back unless you want me doing the dirty work again.”

His voice dropped low, heavy with tension. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, but the pressure only twisted tighter.

Then—

—“Apparently she made a deal. Owl said she’d give them one phone call in exchange for the 5 billion.”

“...What the fuck are you even saying?”

The fury exploded from him before he could stop it.

But even so, it wasn’t hard to piece it all together.

Owl had provoked the NIS again, just like with the defection attempt.

‘Kim Hyeon’ kept coming up.

And now the Deputy Director had agreed to a deal?

A surge of disgust filled him, but his mind remained deadly clear.

“If you lot can’t even trace one fucking bank account, then the NIS should shut down.”

—“W-well... it was already withdrawn in cash... traced it as far as a Macau casino. I haven’t slept in three days tracking it down...! But as you know, once money hits a gambling circuit—”

“Yeah, it gets laundered and becomes impossible to trace.”

There was no way Owl did this alone. A casino... it reminded him of the Bangladesh Bank job years ago — it had ended the same way.

Suddenly, a young face flashed through his mind. Wooshin’s expression twisted into a scowl.

Just a few days. She’d only been out of the training camp a few fucking days, and she already pulled something like this.

He drew a ragged breath, his chest tight with fury. Her scent still clung to his nose, only dragging him deeper into a pit.

Fuck...

A heat he couldn’t explain boiled in his gut.

No matter how many fingers he shoved into that wet hole,

no matter how hard he sucked her lips,

he couldn’t erase Kim Hyeon from her body.

It was like trying to scrub off an old tattoo.

Han Seoryeong had chased after Kim Hyeon — without a hint of shame, hesitation, or guilt.

Watching her from behind the face of a stranger had been like swinging on a shattered swing set — his emotions whiplashing between rage and despair.

He didn’t care what to call it, didn’t want to name it.

Emotions weren’t meant to be nurtured. They were meant to be suppressed.

Buried, not examined.

Emotions were the mark of weakness.

And whenever you showed them — all you got in return was the ugly truth of people’s real faces.

The grotesque, hideous faces behind their masks...

Even Owl, with her gentle and demure expression — it had all been a lie.

A bitter smile ghosted across his lips.

That was the single, most brutal lesson he’d learned when he abandoned Russia — the savage land his grandfather had once called home.

To own nothing.

To be nothing.

Only the hardened mask remained — a man’s greatest weapon, and identity.

A law of life never to be broken.

To shake off his inborn loathing and self-disgust, Wooshin had grown obsessed with utility.

Only the life of a competent black operative had kept his empty self functioning.

—“So, Team Leader... I really need to start the call soon...”

“......”

—“We’ve got Kim Hyeon’s voice data stored in our system. So, right now...”

He wanted desperately to check how badly Seoryeong had been hurt —

But what held him back, in the end, were the mission, the orders, and the chain of command.

That was the most rational and effective way to control a man like Lee Wooshin.

Regaining clarity, he turned the wheel again, like a well-trained machine.

His gaze, stripped of emotion, turned icy.

—“There’ll be a one-second delay, but we’ll overlay Kim Hyeon’s voice convincingly. Also... this was the Deputy Director’s order. I’m sorry... it doesn’t sit right with me either...”

Wooshin’s brow twitched.

As he listened, a wrong note kept scraping at the back of his mind.

The night road stretched endlessly, like a pitch-black tunnel with no end in «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» sight.

—“So just leave the call to us, and you should head over to the Deputy Director’s secondary office...”

“Our Wonyang sure has a fucked up way of talking, or maybe I’m just dense.”

His voice cut in like a chill wind, brow furrowed deeply.

—“...Sir?”

“Owl’s looking for Kim Hyeon. So why the hell would I leave that to you?”

—“...Pardon? Uh... so that’s because...”

Na Wonyang stammered, like replaying an error in his brain. But when Wooshin softly, but sternly said:

“Wonyang.”

He choked back a sob and shouted:

—“That’s because it won’t be you, sir. Another agent will impersonate Kim Hyeon...!”

A day that had already been unbearable reached its peak.

—“Do you really think Deputy Director Joo Seolheon would ever hand over an actual black operative? He doesn’t see ‘Kim Hyeon’ as a person. To him, it’s just an NIS trademark. Agh—! We’re starting the call now! I’m swamped, so I’m hanging up!”

And with that, it felt like stitches burst in some buried piece of his soul. The cold clarity in his head boiled over. His vision broke apart.

Already on edge about the fakes—

Now this?

Wooshin clenched his jaw, swore viciously, and jerked the steering wheel again.

The place he returned to—was once their assigned housing, the newlywed home he had shared with Han Seoryeong.