When I said nothing, the screen scrolled to the side. This time it was a female student. Like the previous male student, she was an ordinary person who wouldn’t particularly stick in your memory unless you looked closely.
When the screen scrolled once more, this time a haggard man with frizzy orange hair appeared, like he’d bleached it at home. His cheekbones protruded, so he had more distinguishing features than the students I’d seen earlier, but he was still someone I was seeing for the first time.
“……”
“……”
The screen continued scrolling quietly like that, and I confirmed the faces of various people. Even now, I couldn’t even guess why Lee Jiwoo was doing this. But I could definitely feel the intense gaze staring at me without even blinking.
It’s definitely not photos he’s showing me out of boredom. Then what the hell is this? How should I react? If, just if, someone I know appears, should I acknowledge them?
The biggest problem was, if hyungnim’s face appeared at this rate…
“Oh…”
I reacted immediately, making all my complicated pondering seem pointless. Before I could even think about what to do, my body moved first.
With a small exclamation, I raised my hand without realizing and pointed at the photo on the screen.
“Do you know this person?”
“Ah… Yeah, rather than knowing them…”
What is this? Why is this person’s photo on Lee Jiwoo’s phone? It wasn’t a photo uploaded to SNS or secretly taken in passing, but an ID photo no less.
And wearing what looks like a uniform like some soldier… It doesn’t seem like cosplay though.
“Who is it?”
Lee Jiwoo urged. I hesitated and then confessed honestly.
“I don’t know who they are. But they seem like a customer who came to our store a few times…”
A customer I’d seen often, if not a regular. He’d come alone or with friends, and anyway would just come and eat at a normal pace normally, and sometimes drink.
There was nothing special, but I’d seen him a few times so he was familiar, I guess. Since I usually managed customers by giving carbonated drinks as service when they came often, I was usually good at looking at faces.
“Is this someone you know, Lee Jiwoo?”
When I asked with a frown, Lee Jiwoo shook his head.
“I don’t know him.”
“Then why do you have his photo on your phone?”
“Just found out this and that while looking into things… He was someone who was following me until recently.”
“…What?”
Following him? That was a strange sentence. I looked at him with a bewildered expression and tilted my head.
“A stalker… something like that?”
“Similar. But now he’s following you.”
“……”
Lee Jiwoo mumbled nonchalantly as if saying the weather was nice today, but the moment I heard those words, goosebumps rose all over my body. I even felt the back of my neck get chilly.
“So you’re saying Lee Jiwoo’s stalker has now become my stalker?”
“Seems like it. When I went with grandfather a few days ago, I saw him for the first time too and was really surprised.”
He spoke casually as if it was nothing, but it was too strange a story.
“You’re saying you discovered that person there when you came with your grandfather?”
“Yeah.”
“But how did you know that person was following me?”
The front and back didn’t match. Moreover, Lee Jiwoo’s words had been somehow off-kilter from earlier.
“Maybe because he was busy, but Minjun spilled a water pitcher while passing by that table.”
“…What?”
Just like now.
“So everyone sitting at that table was surprised. Including Minjun.”
What is he suddenly talking about? Like a drunk person, there was no context to the conversation. It seemed like he was talking about A, then jumping to C without any warning, then skipping to Q again.
“That’s when I knew. That Minjun didn’t send you drugs, and that Choi Gunho was tailing you and monitoring your every move.”
“…?”
What is he saying? Unlike my bewildered self, Lee Jiwoo’s expression was extremely serious. He was filming a documentary all by himself.
“Choi Gunho is that stalker’s name?”
“Yeah. Choi Gunho, 42 years old, his family home is in Busan and his family lives there too. He has a wife and two sons, and he’ll probably divorce within this year. He’s so busy with work that he can’t go home often. But to make matters worse, he got caught cheating with another woman.”
“……”
“He got slapped five times in a row by his wife and it must have hurt a lot. His gums weren’t good to begin with, but since then his molars keep wobbling so it seems to interfere a lot with his daily life.”
Listening to him recite it like reading a book, I didn’t know how to react anymore. That’s not even personal information… I mean, it was too personal. How does he know that? He was talking as if he’d watched from right beside him.
“You know him well. You must be close with Choi Gunho…”
That’s why I came to the extremely normal conclusion that the two knew each other. Of course, I didn’t know why that guy was stalking Lee Jiwoo.
But my prediction was completely off.
“We’re not close. I’ve never even spoken to him.”
“Then how do you know all that?”
“Choi Gunho is a former soldier who retired due to an unfortunate incident, and now he’s someone who does anything for money… How should I put it. An errand center? A private investigation agency? Anyway, he’s an employee of a company that’s not respectable.”
Lee Jiwoo very naturally ignored my words. Since it seemed like he wouldn’t answer even if I asked more, I changed the question.
“Why did that person stalk you, Lee Jiwoo?”
“How would I know? Maybe there was some secret he wanted to know?”
Could it be that former soldier Choi Gunho was someone hyungnim attached to Lee Jiwoo? Hearing the word secret, hyungnim came to mind first.
“You knew someone unknown was following you but just stayed still?”
“Yeah. Then do you know this person?”
He answered briefly and scrolled the screen to the side again. It was someone I didn’t know.
“First time seeing them. Why did you stay still? You should report to the police or… or, well, catch them and ask why they’re following you, right?”
“What for? Even if I pretend to know, they’ll just get replaced by someone else. This person?”
I glanced briefly and sighed.
“I don’t know. Do you normally get stalked often?”
“Why don’t you know? This was the person next to Choi Gunho.”
“What?”
At those words, I put strength in my eyes and lowered my head. As I stared intently at the phone screen, I thought it did seem somewhat familiar.
“I don’t know about that, but I think I’ve seen them somewhere. But I don’t know them personally. How can I remember everyone’s face after seeing them once? How many customers do I encounter in a day?”
“That wasn’t the first time but the third. You went last year too.”
“……”
Lee Jiwoo said something strange again. Last year was even before we met. Did he just find out while investigating Choi Gunho? I asked with an uneasy expression.
“But why are these people following me?”
“Don’t know. They don’t know either. They’re just doing it because they’re told to.”
The moment I heard those words, I thought of hyungnim’s face again. Could it be hyungnim has people monitor me? I expected he was an unusual person because the work he assigned was so suspicious, but I didn’t know he’d go this far.
Moreover, if it’s from last year, it was much before hyungnim assigned me work.
“This one? Have you seen it?”
I examined the screen with a serious expression. Unlike before, it wasn’t an ID photo but a slightly out-of-focus paparazzi shot. The moment I saw it, my back got chilly.
A large foreign man with short blonde hair and bulging muscles ready to burst was looking precisely at me. Or rather, he was staring at the person who took this photo. Even in the blurred photo, his piercing blue eyes were clear.
“No.”
I grabbed Lee Jiwoo’s wrist as he was about to scroll the screen to the side again. I frowned heavily and asked.
“Who…”
“Hm?”
“Who’s telling them to? To monitor me.”
I stopped him, but he moved his finger and scrolled the screen to the side once more. Naturally my gaze went down, and there sat hyungnim on an expensive-looking red velvet sofa.
“Do you know him?”
“……”
Lee Jiwoo stared at me intently and asked.
