At [N O V E L I G H T] the gunshot that made her hair stand on end, Seoryeong bolted outside. Deputy Director Ju Seolheon—just what are you trying to do with my face...? No matter how she thought about it, there was no way it was for anything good.
But the body that had once been hit with paralysis toxin faltered again, and she had no choice but to grab hold of Lee Wooshin. Supported like that, she made it into the hallway—yet the once-bustling archdiocese was as silent as a back alley.
The Blast Corp security guards were nowhere in sight. Burly foreigners and the workers who had been moving between the sanctuary and the work area now lay collapsed, injured, tangled together.
The feeling was really bad. Among them, even the foreign security guard who had handed her a pair of sunglasses lay on the floor with a dagger stuck in his neck.
“This place is really...”
Her stiff steps grew more urgent. Her head was still muddled, but she couldn’t shake the restless need to see Ligai... to see that man one more ti.
What the hell did he an, ‘our daughter’? Never in her life had she heard anyone refer to her as a ‘daughter,’ nor had she ever imagined it. Seoryeong’s brows clenched hard.
Is that why the NIS targeted ? Because I’m the daughter of a terrorist who wrecked the Russian Pri Minister’s family? But what does that have to do with Korea? Without realizing it, her nails dug into Wooshin’s forearm, and he spoke.
“Blast Corp isn’t going to be able to slip past the law. So the mont you confirm the face, we leave, Han Seoryeong. If you so much as hesitate, I’ll throw you over my shoulder.”
“Got it.”
She answered obediently, and in her head she repeated it firmly to herself.
Right. Don’t dawdle. Keep your head straight. Soon you’re going to have to marry this man for the second ti. Not soone else—you decided this yourself. Don’t ruin it.
Seoryeong calmly gripped his hand tight. Wooshin’s lips brushed long across the back of her clasped hand before pulling away.
“――”
Then, as she opened the door, an ominous scent hit her nose. An indescribable chill ran down her spine. She broke away from Wooshin and ran. As her staggering body slamd into the heavy door—
Bang—!
The second gunshot froze her in place. It took a few monts before her mind could process what her eyes were seeing.
Ju Seolheon, with a hole in the center of her forehead, was locked in a gaze with her as if tied together by rope. Then Seolheon’s eyes widened—and curved, almost as if smiling.
It was an expression Seoryeong had never seen before. The dead woman’s eyes, never closing, were nailed into her. Strangely, her heart dropped with a thud.
“What the...—”
Her breath burst out and her shoulders heaved roughly. The sight of soone with her exact face being killed was shocking enough, but the client was dead. Ligai Viktor’s temple had been blown open.
Why... why are those two...
How could a terrorist and the Deputy Director of the NIS be clinging to each other like that? She had imagined Ju Seolheon would use her stolen face for every kind of filthy stunt, but this... Everything had been chaos since she woke from the coffin.
The two of them, their chins locked into each other’s shoulders, slowly tilted toward the floor. Seoryeong resisted the twitch in her ankle and looked to the edge of her vision—at the black priest’s robe.
“Don’t misunderstand.”
Kiya awkwardly tried to hide the gun behind his back.
“Ligai wasn’t my doing.”
When she stayed frozen, he shoved the gun away into his clothes and started walking toward her. Kiya hadn’t changed much from when he was young. A priest’s robe suited him not at all.
She ran her gaze over him differently from before. The boy who used to cry at the drop of a hat, whose hands and feet were small like a girl’s, had grown very tall. As her stare lingered, Kiya suddenly shut his mouth and gave her a strange look.
“Han Seoryeong, get out.”
Pushing her back by the shoulder, Wooshin reached to his belt and pulled out a telescopic baton. He charged at Kiya like a hunter, striking for the head.
Bbak—! The crack resounded loudly, and the two were locked together like magnets. Wooshin hamred blows into his opponent’s chest and ribs, driving him without pause.
Back when they’d been on an op, Kiya had only acted weak, making noise. Now, he moved sharply, savagely. He smashed Wooshin’s jaw in quick succession, loading his gun.
But pik—! A silent shot from sowhere grazed Kiya’s wrist.
Wooshin spotted the hole in the priest’s robe and imdiately crushed down on Kiya’s shoulder. He followed with a series of kicks up under the right ribcage, making Kiya cough hard.
Normally, a blow to that exposed area would drop a man into a fetal curl, but Kiya bore the pain with unsettling ease. Wooshin clenched his jaw at the sight.
“You thought you could get caught in the act and walk away clean?”
Pulling out a penknife, Wooshin stabbed into Kiya’s shoulder and twisted his arm.
“Not yet?”
Kiya bared teeth wet with blood in a grin. It looked like he was yawning at Wooshin’s threats, but Seoryeong caught the aning instantly.
It was: You still haven’t found Kim Hyeon, have you? She hesitated, the gun she’d picked up from Ju Seolheon’s side half-raised toward Kiya.
“I’m not bad. I didn’t do wrong.”
Kiya’s words were squeezed out against the wall.
“I only did what that Deputy Director asked to.”
“......”
“What’s wrong with keeping a promise? I’m not bad at all.”
Seoryeong looked down at the two bodies sprawled dead on the floor. Her eyes were emotionless, as if looking at strangers, yet she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
A man in a grotesque wreck of a state, and a high-ranking NIS official who had stolen another’s face to embrace a criminal—both were a disgrace to their honor.
And yet, as if possessed, she bent one knee and closed Ju Seolheon’s eyes. At the sa ti, she tore off the overhead mask roughly. Staring for a mont at the strangely peaceful face beneath, she turned away coldly.
“Instructor, it’s done. Let’s go now.”
She kneaded the stolen facial skin in her hands like dough as she urged him on. The idea of leaving any trace of herself in a scene like this made her uneasy and on edge.
She debated what to do with Ju Seolheon’s gun, then tucked it into her waistband. There was no ti to leisurely wipe fingerprints in a situation this urgent.
In that mont, the door burst open and n in black suits flooded in, surrounding the scene.
“――!”
She couldn’t tell who they were with, but when they t her eyes, they began dragging her out without hesitation.
“Are you Han Seoryeong?”
“Let go of ...!”
But their grip on her arms was iron.
“An arrest warrant has been issued for the entire Blast Corp Special Security Team, including CEO Kang Taegon. Violations of the National Security Law, bribery, improper solicitation, violations of international law—the charges number in the dozens. You’ve conducted work benefiting drug dealers, Russia, and other dictatorships, haven’t you?”
“......”
“From this point on, we’ll clean the scene. Don’t let the prosecutors catch you. Get out before the police swarm in. These were the Deputy Director’s last orders.”
She struggled to make sense of what they were saying.
She glanced at Wooshin, but it seed he was in the sa position.
The n tugged at Wooshin in a manner both courteous and not, their lips moving quickly. His expression was stone as he looked back at Ju Seolheon’s body one last ti.
Seoryeong was still in a daze, but Wooshin ca to first, brows furrowed.
“I get it, so get your fucking hands off.”
He shook off every hand and wrapped an arm protectively around her. She let him lead her out, glancing back as they moved. First at Ligai, then at Ju Seolheon... and then—
A trained group had Kiya pinned to the ground, binding him. Even with one side of his face mashed against the floor, Kiya kept grinning to the end.
It wasn’t the sa desperate fight for survival as the old days, but the ease in his deanor, as if used to it, was suddenly unbearable to watch.
How old are you now, and you’re still getting yourself caught like that. The sight of Kiya with both arms wrenched behind him by agents made her stomach turn.
That was why she pursed her lips and whistled without thinking.
――!
Kiya would recognize her signal without fail. They had used it countless tis—when avoiding a bear, when leaping out a window, when catching hands after a turn. He’d know instantly.
Sure enough, his dazed gaze turned toward her. The stiffness around his eyes softened, as if certain he slled Sonia. A single tear fell—just one drop.
Run. And follow.
Sonia sang.
Reviews
All reviews (0)