2 AM.
A woman entered through the entrance to Building 104, Lines 3–4.
She got off on the fourth floor — because that was where she lived.
Then, shortly after, the emergency stairwell light on the fourth floor suddenly switched on.
Someone began climbing — past the fifth floor, the sixth, the seventh — and stopped at the eighth.
About thirty minutes passed, and then the eighth-floor stairwell light came on again, and the steps descended in order.
It stopped again at the fourth floor.
It was nighttime, and the footage quality was poor, so he couldn’t make out a clear face — but he guessed it was the same woman he’d seen in the elevator.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Beside him, the truck owner who’d been called out without warning peered in curiously.
The man had looked at him with open suspicion when he’d asked to check the dashcam footage — but the moment he showed his business card, the man’s whole manner changed.
“Did something happen at our apartment complex?”
Instead of answering, Heesin gave a slight smile, and the man lowered his voice.
“Like — a murder?”
“Nothing like that. Someone hit my car and fled the scene.”
“Wow — whoever it was is in deep trouble. Hitting a prosecutor’s car.”
Heesin removed the memory card from the laptop and looked up at the man.
“Would it be alright if I took the memory card with me?”
While the man was thinking it over, Heesin slipped two fifty-thousand-won bills out of his wallet.
“Oh, you really don’t have to—”
“I need it urgently. Please.”
“Well… I mean, I don’t mind…”
The man grinned smoothly and slid the bills into his back pocket without ceremony.
“Hope it all works out for you. I’ll be off, then.”
He shuffled away in his slippers toward Building 106, humming cheerfully.
Heesin watched him go, then packed up the laptop and left.
He went straight up to the fourth floor of Building 104 and stood in front of unit 403.
He pressed the intercom — no answer.
He kept pressing, knocked with his fist — still nothing.
This time he took the emergency stairs all the way up to the eighth floor, examining the floor and walls carefully the whole way up.
Just in case there was any evidence left behind.
He reached the eighth floor and stepped out through the emergency exit — and a sigh escaped him.
He went inside and combed through every corner again.
Someone had clearly been here — but he couldn’t find a single thing that was different from usual.
Only a lingering scent.
He sat down and turned it over in his mind for a long while, then began dialing a number.
“How long will the results take?”
“I’ll let you know by this afternoon.”
“As quickly as possible, please.”
“What’s going on? Did someone slip something into your drink?”
He responded to the doctor’s question with only an ambiguous smile.
He’d always been a light sleeper. No matter how exhausted he was, even small sounds would wake him. He’d never been able to sleep deeply — not since childhood. Growing up never knowing when his father would fly into a rage had kept him in a constant state of vigilance. If he’d been blackout drunk, it might be different — but last night, he’d only had two or three cocktails.
“How’s your neck?”
“Nothing unusual. No needle marks either.”
The doctor finished examining around his neck area and returned to his seat.
Last night, the designated driver had touched the skin near his collar — and that part had been bothering him. Because after that, his consciousness had faded noticeably faster.
“Are you sleeping these days?”
“Yes.”
“Liar. Go look in a mirror. The dark circles under your eyes are unreal. You look ten years older.”
“I suppose I finally look my age, then.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone told me I looked twenty.”
“Oh lord — who said that?”
“Someone. A person I can’t figure out for the life of me.”
“Be careful. People who only say things you want to hear always have a motive.”
A motive… What’s Im Gyeong’s motive with me. No matter how I think about it, I can’t figure it out. At first I thought he disliked me — but lately, that doesn’t seem right either. He’s clearly being considerate, but there’s something odd about it — like he’s always nudging just up to the line without quite crossing it.
“I’ll get going.”
He stood, and the doctor gave a distracted wave.
This man had once decided that medicine suited him better than law and walked away from a law school he’d worked hard to get into. Then he’d become a doctor, just like that, as if to prove a point. Looking back, it really had been the right call. His family had more money than they knew what to do with — setting him up with a clinic was nothing to them.
“Don’t pay on your way out!”
He paid at the front desk without acknowledging that.
The clinic was small compared to the building it occupied, and not particularly busy.
He didn’t think it was a matter of skill. The problem was that he spent far too long with each individual patient. Sometimes Heesin thought he should’ve gone into psychiatry instead.
He left and drove to the prosecutor’s office.
The unease wouldn’t settle, and partway there he pulled over and smoked a cigarette.
Looks like quitting this year isn’t going to happen.
When he arrived and walked in, Chief Inspector Oh pointed to his desk, saying he’d left what he’d asked for.
He sat down and opened the envelope.
A sheet of paper with someone’s personal information came out.
Kim Minjeong. 23 years old. Prior assault conviction. Currently employed at Oasis, an entertainment establishment.
“…”
Chief Inspector Oh came around and added an explanation.
“Seems she’s got quite a bit of debt. In the hundreds of millions, combined.”
“The assault?”
“Apparently she beat up another girl at the same club two years ago. Word from the staff is that Kim Minjeong briefly dated the Oasis owner, and he cheated on her with another girl.”
“Last day at work?”
“Yesterday — but she left right after arriving, said she wasn’t feeling well.”
He repeated the woman’s name to himself and ran his tongue along his front teeth.
Oasis…
The entertainment club where the woman worked was the same place where the now-deceased Kim Haeseong had worked.
It was also where he’d first met Im Gyeong.
A bad feeling settled in.
He turned to the next page.
The personal information of last night’s designated driver was there.
Kim Jinseok. 33 years old. Currently employed at OO Trading. No criminal record.
“Nothing especially suspicious on the surface. Looks like he works at a small-to-mid-sized company during the day and drives for a designated driver service at night. The one thing that stands out—”
“What stands out?”
“His mother is a single parent, and apparently she’s ill and the medical bills are piling up. He’s buried in debt covering hospital costs. That’s why he’s doing the driving gig at night too.”
“……”
“But what’s this about, exactly?”
“Something felt off. I wanted to check.”
Was he just imagining it? But when coincidences stack on top of each other, they stop being coincidences. The scent of perfume on the bedding. The stairwell light switching on. The unusually attentive designated driver. The accumulated medical debt.
He leaned back in his chair and fell into thought.
Just then, he caught the sound of Chief Inspector Oh chatting with staff officer Baek Yeongmi.
“Baek Yeongmi — when did you get that necklace?”
“Oh, you’ve got a sharp eye. You noticed right away.”
“People tell me that. What is it? A gift from a boyfriend?”
“No. My friend and I each got one at a jewelry shop. They’re knockoffs.”
“Why buy knockoffs? Get the real thing.”
“These ones are still incredibly expensive.”
“That expensive?”
A moment later, Chief Inspector Oh let out a sound of alarm — something about what kind of necklace costs several thousand, and that with that money he’d take out a loan and buy a house.
Something flashed through Kang Heesin’s mind as he listened in silence.
A necklace…
He opened his eyes and pulled out his phone, searching for the necklace he’d filed away in the back of his memory.
The image came up shortly after.
He didn’t know the retail price, but the secondhand listing was well over 100 million won.
— You said you’re Kang Heesin, right? I’ll put in a word with Cheolwoong to look out for you.
Surely not…
Yun Sena’s aunt was a classmate of Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jo Cheolwoong — and the necklace he’d spotted on Jo Cheolwoong’s laptop was the same one the aunt was wearing?
Was this a coincidence too?
He stared at the screen with his lips pressed together, then let the thought go.
He was probably just on edge. Surely there were coincidences that kept stacking without meaning anything. Just like running into Im Gyeong — first at the host bar, then at Yun Sena’s home.
Then a message came in.
— Drug screening: no abnormalities. Stop drinking.
Ha ha… so it really was just an overreaction. He let out a breath of relief and straightened up.
Right. Just work. A person’s sense of smell isn’t always reliable. He could have imagined the cosmetics scent. Smell has no physical form — the brain can be fooled. He’d been suspicious, so he’d kept perceiving it that way.
“Right. Work. Just work.”
He was muttering to himself when his phone buzzed again.
Another message from the clinic? He checked it with a neutral expression — and his face twisted all at once.
“……”
He stopped breathing and stared at the screen.
On it, Kang Heesin lay asleep.
The photo was cropped — only the upper body visible — and draped across his chest was a slender arm.
A woman’s…
The face and body were cut out of the frame, but he could tell that whoever was lying beside him was a woman.
Damn it…
The profanity came out before anything else.
What he’d imagined had actually happened.
Chief Inspector Oh glanced over from his work.
Sharp as he was, he’d have sensed that something had just blown up. But curious as he was, he didn’t ask.
In the middle of his stunned daze, a summons came from Jo Cheolwoong.
“I’ll be right back.”
He stepped out of the prosecutor’s room and walked down the hallway.
His mind was chaos the whole way. Who did this. How did they get into his home. Had someone been tracking his every move.
Yun Sena came to mind first. Could it have been her? But Yun Sena had no reason to do something like that. She’d had Kim Jungu kidnapped to protect him, after all.
He stepped into the deputy chief’s office in a mild daze and sat down.
Jo Cheolwoong tossed a document in front of him.
“For now, the Anti-Corruption Investigation Unit 1 will be joining as well. They’ve got more field experience, so it makes sense. Aside from you — five prosecutors, ten investigators, four staff officers, plus an accounting analyst and a digital forensics officer. Jang Seonwu being included is non-negotiable, so just let that one go. Satisfied with that?”
“……”
“Hey. Kang Heesin.”
Could it be Jo Cheolwoong? He looked at the face staring back at him from across the desk.
He’d have plenty of reasons to go after me. I’d made a complete fool of him and humiliated him in front of everyone. The gossip had spread all through the office. Jo Cheolwoong was a man of pride — and he held grudges just as long as Heesin did.
“You went to the Seoil Group founding party over the weekend, didn’t you?”
The out-of-nowhere question cut through his thoughts.
“Pardon?”
“Someone said they saw you there. Did you go?”
“Yes, I was invited.”
“More capable than you look. I didn’t think you had a shot.”
The shot Jo Cheolwoong was talking about was becoming Seoil Group’s son-in-law.
That necklace. It has to be a coincidence. And if it’s not? How did he know about the founding party? Were they close enough to be in separate contact with each other?
“Hey. What’s wrong with you? You’re half out of it. Cold feet now that it’s actually happening? Want to back out while you still can?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Anyway. You’ve got ambition, I’ll give you that. I warned you — you’re holding a burning ball right now. If you’re not careful, your hands will catch fire too. And once you’re in, you won’t be able to let go even if you want to.”
“That’s fine. I’ll cut off my own hand if I have to.”
Jo Cheolwoong gave him a look of weary disbelief and waved him out.
He bowed and stepped into the hallway — and his ears began to ring.
He slapped the side of his head a few times and kept walking.
With every step, his legs felt heavier, like he was sinking into mud.
He had no idea where to even begin cleaning this up.
Just then, a message from Yun Sena arrived.
— Clear your schedule for the weekend. Dad invited you to a family gathering.
“……”
He knew something was going wrong.
But there was no stopping it now.
