Before Seoryeong could answer, the ambulance pulled over onto the shoulder.

Without a word, he unbuckled his seatbelt, slammed the driver’s door shut—bang!—and came around to the back as if surging forward.

When Lee Wooshin removed the mask hanging over his ear, Deputy Director Ju’s face visibly hardened. The woman who had been spitting venom now looked like she was about to kill someone.

“You bastard...!”

Her blazing eyes snapped straight toward him.

Sure, his looks attracted attention wherever he went, but wasn’t this a little too blatant? Seoryeong grabbed the Deputy Director’s face and forced her gaze toward herself.

But the woman, flushed all the way up to her neck, growled through the obstruction like she would pierce it through.

“Why... to this extent...!”

Her words were ground out between clenched molars, snapping one after another.

Ah.... Seoryeong could fully understand the Deputy Director’s state of mind. In a situation of torture and interrogation, a well-built man suddenly walking in—anyone would tense up.

Then, a floating smile surfaced on Lee Wooshin’s face.

“To take it away.”

The man sat on the auxiliary seat and tapped the oxygen tank.

“So you can know what it feels like to have it stolen.”

“......!”

How long can you endure? he murmured, fitting the oxygen mask to the Deputy Director’s face.

Because his back was turned, his expression couldn’t be seen—but the corners of the Deputy Director’s eyes twisted in fury.

The man opened the valve of the cylindrical tank and began adjusting various parts. From her eyes, it was a process she couldn’t possibly follow. The pressure gauge began to wobble violently, and shhh—air hissed out.

The Deputy Director began pounding on the seat. A desperate breath fogged the plastic mask, and her face started to pale—maybe something had malfunctioned.

No. He was sucking the oxygen out instead.

“This should be enough, shouldn’t it...!”

The Deputy Director scratched at the emergency bed in agony, screaming. But her voice, muffled inside the transparent mask, only came out as a suffocated mumble.

“Kim Hyeon, just take him...! Are you deaf or something...!”

“What kind of accomplice obediently listens to the hostage?”

“Y-You...!”

“Still able to breathe?”

Wooshin tilted his head, a cryptic smile on his face. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

“That won’t do.”

“Gkh...!”

“Our dear Deputy Director needs to experience what this feels like too.”

He worked the oxygen tank more harshly, aggressively drawing the air out.

“Some people never even knew what this was.”

“.......”

“Some people have to pretend they never knew until the day they die.”

“You... sick bastard...”

Even as her breath caught and choked, the Deputy Director squeezed the words out from her throat.

Then Lee Wooshin looked at Seoryeong as if nothing had happened. His silent gaze seemed to ask: What do you want to do?

If she wanted Kim Hyeon, she could have Kim Hyeon. If she wanted the truth, he looked like he’d bring her that too.

For some reason, the weight pressing down on her chest began to melt just a little. The stickiness of her hatred thinned. Seoryeong reached out and grabbed the back of his hand.

“――!”

The Deputy Director’s accusing gaze was still like a wall of thorns, refusing to vanish—but even so...

So what if she grew up without parents? So what if it left her with one more hole she didn’t have the answer to?

You can live without knowing. She had. She was the proof.

But, cruel as it is, there are some things that are too hard to live without.

They said truth was made up of ten thousand shards?

One was enough for her.

Her choices were always singular. Always....

“That person. I just want to see him. I want to see him right away.”

The hand that touched and then left her shoulder felt like ice. The choking rasp from the Deputy Director—oddly, it almost sounded like laughter.

***

The ambulance drove endlessly before finally stopping in an undeveloped reed field somewhere in Gyeonggi-do.

Am I... nervous?

Watching the three black vehicles racing in from the opposite direction, Seoryeong licked her dry lips.

Standing behind Ju Seolheon, her hands cuffed behind her back, she looked out over the vast reed field.

Every time the cold wind brushed her cheek, it made a shhhh— sound, crashing like waves.

The hostage exchange was simple.

Hand over Deputy Director Ju Seolheon. Get Kim Hyeon in return.

On the way here, she’d turned on the Deputy Director’s phone. To reduce the risk of being shot on sight, she chose this field, which offered no cover, as the meeting point.

No more than three people. That was non-negotiable. If they violated it, the exchange wouldn’t happen. Lee Wooshin was to escort Ju Seolheon to the handoff point.

“What does Kim Hyeon look like?”

Seoryeong locked eyes with the Deputy Director at close range. Even in her disheveled state, the woman held herself upright.

“To me? Pathetic and ugly.”

She sneered, but it didn’t really sting. And yet Wooshin’s expression, seen out of the corner of her eye, was oddly hollow. Was it good? Bad? The shadows beneath his eyes looked dead.

Because of that, Seoryeong’s mood began to sour as well.

That man, he... he... —her lips tightened, and she turned her head away.

Just then, a luxury sedan stopped in the middle of the reeds. The thick car doors opened, and three men in sharp black suits stepped out in unison.

“Haah...”

Her heartbeat pounded thunderously inside her stomach, speeding up rapidly. Dizziness surged, and her breath caught at her throat.

She could really see Kim Hyeon. With her own eyes. She could really meet him.

She felt like she had finally reached the finish line.

While she stood there stunned, Lee Wooshin walked forward and handed over the Deputy Director. His hand briefly brushed hers as he passed—and it was cold enough to be startling.

Without thinking, Seoryeong looked at his face. His eyes, when they met hers, looked deeply sunken, his aura sharp as a blade.

Wooshin’s lips moved slightly, as if to speak—but then he clamped them shut. As he turned his back in silence, her throat tightened inexplicably.

“.......”

She bit her lips, unable to hide her unease.

The two grew more distant—but Kim Hyeon was nowhere in ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) sight. The men clearly weren’t him.

When they reached the meeting point, Ju Seolheon had her subordinates untie her bound hands.

Then, the trunk burst open, and something that looked like a sports bag—but longer, heavier—dropped at Wooshin’s feet.

At that exact moment, the Deputy Director raised her hand and struck him across the face.

Once. Twice. Three, four times—!

“――!”

The slaps rang out clearly, audible even from this distance. Five, six, seven, eight...! Her small body staggered, panting for breath, but she didn’t stop.

What the hell...! Seoryeong’s legs twitched. Nine. Ten. When she finally landed the tenth, she slammed the door shut and climbed into the car.

Her once smooth, pale skin was brutally swollen—easily visible even from here. But Wooshin merely spat blood onto the ground without flinching.

He picked up the bag, which looked impossibly heavy, and started walking toward Seoryeong.

With each step, his expression changed. At first, as if resolved—but then his pupils began to waver, like seasons turning.

His pace slowed. Like a shadow, he walked... and then suddenly, he stopped.

“――.”

Like someone lost, he dragged a hand down his face. A cold wind blew, making the reeds shudder like startled birds. And in the middle of them, Wooshin stood alone.

What... what’s going on right now? Where’s Kim Hyeon? What’s with that bag...?

Everything felt like a maze. The emotions became unbearable. Seoryeong shouted without realizing:

“Instructor...!”

And in the blink of an eye, Lee Wooshin vanished from sight.

“......!”

What... where did he go?

Seoryeong immediately dove into the reeds. Her pale lips released ragged breaths.

Then she saw him—walking decisively toward the riverside. Her eyes widened.

She ran down the sloped field without slowing and fell hard. Her white blouse was instantly stained, her skin scraped—but she sprang back up.

“Han Seoryeong, don’t move!”

That rough, booming shout—it had been a long time. Her legs froze instinctively.

“...Instructor. Kim Hyeon. My husband... where is he?”

Her voice trembled, seized by instinctive dread.

The NIS vehicles were already gone. But Kim Hyeon wasn’t there. It made no sense.

Was it a false listing? Had she been tricked by the Deputy Director?

Then where did it go wrong? What had she overlooked?

While thoughts tangled in her head, the man stood there, trying to throw the bag—finally acquired with such effort—into the river.

“What are you...!”

But the bag looked heavy. His hand was veined, taut with strain.

That’s strange....

Why is that Lee Wooshin carrying just a bag like it weighs a ton?

What the hell is inside—

Before the thought finished, Seoryeong pounced like an animal. She clung to the bag, tore the zipper open.

She didn’t know who gasped first.

“――.”

A sharply defined brow, long monolid eyes, a clean nose, sun-darkened skin.

A face she used to sketch gently, holding her breath, afraid to wake her peacefully sleeping husband.

A face she sometimes hated herself for not daring to trace more fully, fearing her own greedy touch.

Her eyes fell on the rapidly decomposing remains.

Wooshin reached out to cover them—but she slapped his arm away, hard.

Beeeeep—a piercing ring in her ear.

“Ah...”

Her hand trembled helplessly. Still, she clutched the bag and gently caressed the unfamiliar but familiar face.

What was this?

Even in her pitch-black, blurring thoughts, she obsessively touched the corpse.

She couldn’t stop.

She traced the soft ear, the jaw, the Adam’s apple, the broad shoulders. Her fingers knew these contours. Her heart trembled violently. It was as if she had finally found her missing piece.

The zipper went farther down.

And then, she saw it—the gruesomely slaughtered corpse of one man, a sight too terrible to bear.

“...Is this... Hyeon... ssi?”

The voice asking that question was hollow, innocent, utterly vacant.