Cough, cough.
Faint coughing filtered through the tail end of the audio file. Footsteps, light and careless, grew distant, and cheerful singing played in the background—She had a husband, had a husband...
The recording cut off cleanly there. Lee Wooshin stared blankly at the now-dark screen. His once-pale face crumpled in utter devastation.
“Fucking hell...”
It was as if a bolt of red lightning had scorched the whites ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) of his eyes. Crimson capillaries spread like firecrackers.
The Deputy Director of the NIS having a candid conversation with the Russian boogeyman about an operation as classified as “Bird Box”—
This was a recording revealing Seolheon’s true intentions, which even he, the operation’s lead, had never been told.
The tendons in his hand bulged as he gripped the phone like he might crush it. Was there any chance he’d misheard it? Was the file possibly fabricated—even by one percent?
The first possibility he considered was blackmail.
But what could possibly be used to threaten soone like her—the youngest Deputy Director in NIS history, a figure of legendary ambition?
Unless she had so catastrophic vulnerability capable of destroying her...
His thoughts abruptly cut off.
“――.”
Before the Special Security Team was deployed to Sakhalin—
How had Ju Seolheon been acting? She’d been excited. Defensive. Hesitant.
He already knew she had curated and edited even basic intel on the Owl to her liking.
You’d have to be fucking insane.
And then there was Kiya, still baring his teeth with performative bravado. The absurdity of it made Wooshin let out a dry laugh. As he bit down hard to suppress a curse, his phone buzzed again. But once more—it wasn’t the one he wanted.
—Team Leader... I heard you were injured. Are you all right? Would it be okay if I visited? I promise I won’t get within ten ters...
The mont he picked up, a trembling voice greeted him. Wooshin massaged the back of his stiff neck and closed his eyes quietly.
“Forget that, Wanchang. Did you finish digging through what I handed over?”
—Ah, yes...! The connection between the NIS Director and CEO Kang Taegon—it’s confird. A few board mbers underneath them too. Thanks to the poison tap you installed, we pulled a mountain of evidence.
“You did well.”
—Then... are you really quitting for good, Team Leader?
“.......”
—If the resignation goes through, where are you planning to go?
“I was planning to start a new life.”
A faint laugh escaped him. Couldn’t seem to shake this innate tendency to sche under a mask.
Lee Wooshin twisted his lips and rolled his bandaged foot in a slow arc. The pain seared like molten tal, but he bit down and endured. Then, bracing himself, he placed both feet on the floor and stood straight.
His brow twitched with pain for a mont, but whatever had been lingering in his waxen face drained away completely.
“Dig up what Deputy Director Ju Seolheon did during her days in the ANSP.”
—...Sorry?
“See if there’s any trace of her traveling to Russia.”
There was a scuffling sound on the other end, as if the other person were scrambling to react.
—W-Wait, Team Leader...! Why are you suddenly targeting the Deputy Director—
“Ju Seolheon once ntioned—”
There was an agent who had gone missing after infiltrating Winter Castle. An agent who vanished without a trace after recording the final day there.
Ju claid she’d only heard about it through rumors. Said she didn’t know the na, the gender—nothing.
Suddenly, Wooshin’s expression turned ice-cold.
“She might’ve been a field agent in the past.”
His eyes, now frosted over, stared out the window.
***
A week passed more quickly—and more quietly—than expected.
After the string of calls that had nearly set her phone on fire stopped cold, ti moved strangely fast. Every ring tone had made her feel like she was about to get scolded, but now that everything had gone quiet, it left a different kind of unease.
Seoryeong had begun packing for the Equatorial Guinea mission without telling anyone. The itinerary called for a rendezvous at a French port, followed by a journey down the Atlantic coast to the destination—at least several weeks in total.
And just before she left her ho for good, a sudden impulse struck: to open her husband’s room again, after so long.
But as she placed the old key in the doorknob, the mory of slamming her back against that very door—fucking Lee Wooshin in that sa space—tripped her like a hook around the ankle.
Her shoulder blades had struck the door hard while sothing thick and hot pounded into her from below, again and again.
The mory ca unbidden and flushed her nape a furious red. She pressed her lips together and gripped the doorknob tightly, forcing it to turn.
“――.”
A familiar sll—yet sohow no longer the sa.
Clean white cloths now draped so of the furniture like expired produce.
Once, just seeing the room had made her want to scream, cry, smash everything, or hold onto it and never let go. There was a ti when she wouldn’t take a single step beyond that threshold. But now, it all felt like a distant dream.
Frozen by the unfamiliar dissonance, Seoryeong finally moved when her phone buzzed in her pocket.
“Yes... Hello?”
—Unni, it’s Channa. I checked—it is a tracker!
At that, Seoryeong looked down at the transparent sticker film on her wrist.
—That plastic you gave —it’s a real-ti tracker tab.
Which ant Kiya had been right: there would only be one chance.
Seoryeong had placed the tracker on herself as a form of preparation—ready to slap it onto soone else at a mont’s notice if needed.
—Please be careful, unni...!
“Thank you.”
When she answered blandly, Channa’s voice suddenly rose in pitch.
—I’m not saying that lightly! You know how the region’s caught up in this whole new Cold War ss—everyone’s swarming in, Chinese or Arican, trying to grab a piece! And look at Equatorial Guinea—run by a dictator and still licking China’s boots! They can’t even smuggle out their own money anymore...!
“Which is exactly why it’s a perfect ti.”
—What?
Seoryeong quietly lifted the corner of her mouth.
The Equatorial Guinea mission had been one she’d wanted to join ever since the Special Security Team began focusing on naval training.
Ever since Team Leader Lee Wooshin explained that the Chinese military—who built the ports for Equatorial Guinea—had to be passed like a gate.
“They’ll fear most a minor incident turning into a diplomatic crisis.”
—.......
“And that goes for our own country too.”
—...Wait, wait—
“Channa, do you know what the most dangerous enemy is at sea?”
At that question, Channa groaned, as if she couldn’t bear to listen.
This unni again... Her voice spread in helpless waves of protest.
Three tis. That was the rule.
If she’d failed twice, she was due for a success.
Seoryeong yanked off the white cloth and finally faced Kim Hyeon’s belongings.
“This ti... he’ll have no choice but to co for .”
***
“Agent Han Seoryeong!”
Jin Hoje grinned from ear to ear despite a burn that stretched from his neck to his cheek like flickering flas. At the sound of his booming voice, Seoryeong finally let her tense shoulders drop.
She had rushed to the hospital instead of heading to the airport the mont she heard that Jin Hoje had regained consciousness.
Not even his grueso injuries could dim his boundless energy. He was already chirping excitedly about starting skin graft procedures as soon as his strength returned.
That bright, optimistic personality—so reminiscent of Kim Hyeon—
Seoryeong couldn’t help but observe him with quiet scrutiny.
“But what’s with the backpack? Are you going sowhere, Agent Han?”
“Ah... I’m just doing so cleaning at ho.”
It was an awkward excuse by any asure, but no one pointed it out.
As she shared the aftermath of the accident with Jin Hoje, listening to the senior agents bicker over who’d handled things better, Seoryeong eventually slipped out of the hospital room.
Once outside the building, she hastened her steps for no real reason.
She adjusted the bulky backpack slung over her shoulders and crossed the indoor garden—and then her feet ca to a sudden stop.
“――.”
It was the first ti in a week she’d seen that face.
In the distance, Lee Wooshin sat alone in a wheelchair, fiddling with his phone.
The thick, Styrofoam-like bandages were now much thinner.
He was lazily rolling the chair back and forth with his good foot—like a man chasing soone who owed him money.
Seoryeong stared at him silently, then settled onto a bench tucked safely out of his line of sight.
Thud!
Soone fell hard with a noisy crash beneath the bench.
Startled, Seoryeong glanced down at the man who had clearly tumbled there.
Mid-twenties, maybe? A boyish face peeked out from under a dislodged cap. He was clutching his chest as if in the middle of an asthma attack, his skin pale.
He couldn’t take his eyes off Seoryeong. Then, noticing himself, he quickly hid his phone and turned his head in panic.
A plain cardigan, gray laptop, an unopened sandwich, and banana milk.
His laptop, wide open, displayed a rapid stream of unknown code or programs.
As her eyes drifted toward the black screen, a hand shot out like a harpoon and slamd the lid shut.
When their eyes t, his throat bobbed with an audible gulp.
“Bu... Bung... Ow— No, uh, hi, no—I an, nice to, I an—”
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