Chapter 97 …
“What kind of proof is that?”
Choi Woojin looked down at Lee Yuji with an unreadable gaze.
No matter how much he tried to shake her off, she wouldn’t budge.
With firm strength, Yuji used the handcuffs to stand directly in front of him.
Then she tightly gripped the handcuffs that linked her wrist to his.
Her fingertips touched the spot where Woojin’s pulse beat.
Every time he looked at Yuji, the uncomfortable emotion that had always overflowed from deep in his chest surged up even more violently now that he had met her here.
The four arms that had once swayed before his eyes.
The thick, sticky blood that had dripped down.
The sharp, fishy stench that stung his nose—whether it was oil, blood, or the smell of torn metal, he couldn’t tell.
All of it still lingered here.
Here.
The place where his parents had died.
More than anything else, the scent of overwhelming guilt remained.
“How did you know to come here?”
“That’s—”
“You stuck a spider on me, didn’t you? That thing you always use. It’s not a hacking program… it’s like an eye, isn’t it?”
Damn.
Woojin almost cursed out loud.
She figured out that much?
He should have known from the moment she started solving case after case with that dopey-looking expression.
That tone, that face, those actions that made her look slow—
they had all been an act.
He wasn’t the only one skilled at acting.
Still, she hadn’t discovered his regression.
In the first place, there was no way anyone could even guess something like that.
Then… wasn’t this actually a good thing?
Suddenly, Woojin had that thought.
He wrapped his hand around the wrist of Yuji, who was holding the handcuffs.
The handcuffs that had been stretched taut between them—cutting into both their wrists—were pulled closer toward Woojin.
The moment the cuffs stopped digging into their skin—
“Yeah.”
Woojin spoke while gripping Yuji’s wrist.
He could feel her pulse.
He thought it would be racing—
—but it was slower than expected.
That irritated him.
“Well then, this works out nicely.”
“…What?”
Yuji’s eyes blurred with confusion.
Because he had pulled her wrist, their bodies had drawn close, and the lantern Yuji was holding shone directly into Woojin’s eyes.
Within the pouring beam of light, Woojin recalled a woman who had once approached him.
Han Seongye
That name tag.
He had never been able to forget it.
“Mister police officer… do Mom and Dad have to stay here?”
“Mister.”
At the innocent words of the five-year-old who still called her “mister,” the woman answered calmly.
“Everyone has a time when they have to leave behind the people they love. Yours just came a little early, but you don’t need to feel wronged.”
A police officer who had no hesitation saying such things to a five-year-old child.
“Because someday, I’ll have to leave my daughter behind too.”
He only understood what that officer meant much later.
Inside the blinding light, he slowly traced Yuji’s eyes, nose, and lips.
Do they look alike?
No—
Honestly, not really.
Maybe the nose was similar, but the rest seemed to take after her father’s side.
The daughter of the woman who had calmly pulled him out from between his parents’ corpses and saved him… was standing right here.
Which meant—
this was an opportunity.
Woojin smiled at the thought.
“I’ll help you. You help me. Let’s use each other. What’s so bad about that?”
A chance for Woojin to take revenge on Han Seongye.
Your daughter should learn, for a long time, what the guilt of the one left behind feels like.
Thinking that, he stared at Yuji.
Looking again…
Maybe she did resemble her after all.
Especially those tightly pressed lips.
[Why? Did something happen to my sister?]
Hearing the voice over the receiver, Kwon Ikseong replied expressionlessly.
“No. Nothing like that— I’m out right now, and I had something to ask if she was home, but she wasn’t answering her phone.”
[I thought she had plans with you, Investigator Kwon. Did she get another guy in the meantime?]
At Lee Yugyeom’s words, Ikseong looked at his own expressionless face in the side mirror and asked,
“She went out with a guy?”
[Ah, no, not like that. She just went out alone. I think she was calling a taxi. She’ll probably drink with her friends and sleep over at their place. I don’t really know her friends’ numbers…]
“You don’t know?”
Yugyeom was momentarily speechless.
Ikseong could instinctively tell his question had flustered him.
[After that incident… it’s kind of an unspoken rule not to pry into Lee Yuji’s private life…]
That incident.
Yugyeom only referred to it that way, but Ikseong had a rough idea what it meant.
It must be the case that made Investigator Lee Yuji quit taekwondo.
She had said she dreamed of being an athlete for a long time, so like most students in sports and arts tracks, her entire social circle must have revolved around that world.
Friends, lovers, coaches.
Everything would have been interconnected.
Then in an instant, it all shattered—some stayed, some left.
So from the younger brother’s perspective, it had become awkward to ask who his sister was meeting.
“I know.”
Ikseong continued looking at the side mirror and lightly rested the back of his head against the headrest.
“I just got a message. From Team Leader Pi.”
[Team Leader Pi?]
“Yeah. Investigator Lee Yuji’s partner. Looks like the two of them were drinking, and she contacted me.”
[Ah… I see.]
Hearing the relief in Yugyeom’s voice, Ikseong briefly clenched his jaw.
The muscle there twitched faintly.
[That’s a relief.]
“Sorry for calling so late.”
[No, it’s fine. That happens. Fighting.]
“Fighting…?”
[Just… be careful with office romance. I just want my sister to finally escape being forever single. Honestly, I just hope someone decent is around her.]
“Ah. Right.”
Ikseong recalled those bright, clear eyes of the girl who had been drinking the beverage he bought her.
When Ham Ina briefly met Lee Yugyeom in the lobby, she said he didn’t resemble Yuji at all, but Ikseong thought the two were very alike.
That subtle softness about them.
The way the kindness in their eyes seemed like it would never go out.
You didn’t need any special skill to notice that.
“Yeah. I’ll do my best. Thanks.”
With that, Ikseong ended the call.
One thing he confirmed from this conversation was that Investigator Lee Yuji had not gone to a public office to issue a line-of-duty death certificate.
In the first place, that certificate wasn’t something issued immediately upon application, nor was there any need to go in person to apply.
Ikseong knew that—but he deliberately didn’t point it out.
He figured she must have had something she wanted to hide.
If she went so far as to cover it up with a story about her parents…
But a strange intuition brushed against him.
This time, it was definitely a skill.
That thing called “Focus,” which had exposed his father’s affair even when he hadn’t intended to use it, stirred on its own.
The Incheon city data that Yuji had even turned into a slime to obtain.
And the clues about unreported dungeons hidden within that data.
Based on that, he had also been conducting his own investigation.
He first examined the areas where dungeon breaks had frequently occurred after Go Cheolwon became an employee in the Incheon Dungeon Management Department.
Then he looked at lands that were later designated as “development restriction zones” or purchased by local governments after Go Cheolwon became mayor.
There were overlapping parcels.
But since they were all under local government jurisdiction, it was difficult to begin a search without sending an official cooperation request.
Difficult to begin a search.
The moment that phrase crossed his mind, remembering Investigator Lee Yuji was no coincidence.
Whenever it was difficult to begin a search…
Whenever an obstacle appeared that rule-bound Kwon Ikseong couldn’t cross…
Yuji always did something.
Risky.
Throwing her life on the line.
And that uneasy feeling was why he had looked at Yuji’s computer.
The password was ridiculously easy to crack.
dlrtjd84
For some reason, it was his name.
And the 84 was probably his birth year.
He had noticed because whenever he was nearby, she had the habit of turning her body away from him before entering the password.
Six English keystrokes, two numbers.
Usually that meant a combination of a name and birthday—
and one she didn’t want him to see.
So when he opened Yuji’s computer with that password, a map window was already on the screen.
Incheon, Michuhol-gu, Dohwa-daero XX-gil, XX
