Chapter 103
“Right. We should finish what we were talking about yesterday, yeah?”
“…I don’t… remember?”
My voice flipped.
Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck, but I forced the most harmless expression I could.
“What did I say?”
“Mmm~ You called me a psychopath. Asked if the reason I carry a gun isn’t because of criminals, but because I’m planning to shoot you.”
…Shit.
Another fragment from last night flashed through my mind.
Me reaching toward the revolver with the empty chamber.
And then—Pi Sowon, reflexively snatching it up and pointing it straight at me so I couldn’t take it.
What did I say the moment I saw that?
‘See? See this? She carries it around to shoot me. You saw that, Team Leader?’
Team Leader?
Only then did I remember—vaguely—that someone else had been there.
Who was it?
Baek Sangjin? Or… Ikseong?
Either way, I’m screwed.
Seriously.
‘Go ahead, shoot! Shoot me! This is a bulletproof head! I trained for 20 years to make this stone skull, you psychopath!’
‘…Ugh.’
Before I knew it, I was kneeling on the bed.
“Team Leader.”
“What. Bulletproof head.”
“……”
This person is going to hold this over me for ten years.
And I’m at the limit of pretending I don’t remember anymore!
“I committed a grave sin! Just this once!”
“Once? I remember more than once. You called me a psychopath, told me to try shooting your bulletproof head, and—”
Pi Sowon trailed off and suddenly shut her mouth.
Then she abruptly stood up, stretching her body like her back hurt.
“…And you rode on my back all the way here.”
“…I did?”
That part I definitely didn’t remember. I lowered my head, face completely crumpled.
I couldn’t even think of anything to say anymore.
Because I was genuinely sorry.
I’m usually strong with alcohol thanks to my muscle mass, but I’m weak at drinking gatherings.
The reason is simple—I never touched a drop of alcohol while I was training.
In short, even if I tolerate alcohol well, I don’t actually know my limit.
And I have this habit of stubbornly enduring things until I suddenly crash.
‘Even after quitting taekwondo, there was that time I blacked out drinking alone.’
I should’ve remembered that.
But that damn Choi Woojin made me forget.
“…I threw up too, didn’t I…?”
“You did.”
“I’m sorry. The laundry bill…”
“You shouldn’t pay me—you should give it to him.”
Pi Sowon rubbed the back of her neck like it hurt and jerked her chin toward the door.
“…?”
No way.
With a growing sense of dread, I watched Pi Sowon walk to the door.
Please. Please…!
And when she opened it and said this, I knew—once again—that bad premonitions never lie.
“Team Leader Kwon. She’s up. Did the dried pollack soup delivery arrive?”
“It wasn’t delivery. I cooked it. Please come out and eat.”
‘I don’t wanna take a taxi… I wanna take the subway… gotta save money… gotta save money to buy food for our Sibangi… our Sibangi eats a looooot…’
‘I’m sorry, but if you keep resisting, I will carry you into the taxi. Please understand.’
‘Not getting in…! Not getting in… bleeegh…!’
…You’ve got to be kidding me.
I threw up in front of my favorite person.
* * *
With steaming dried pollack soup in front of her, Lee Yoojin sat there looking utterly depressed.
Like this was her own funeral table.
The expression was so much like Lulu’s that Kwon Ikseong paused for a moment.
But Pi Sowon, sitting beside him, didn’t seem to care much.
Because while eating the soup, she said:
“…You’re good at cooking.”
Sounding genuinely surprised.
“I just measure according to the recipe.”
“What is this, a chemistry experiment?”
Even as she said that, Pi Sowon had already started mixing rice into the soup and eating.
Meanwhile, Lee Yoojin couldn’t lift her spoon, nervously watching Kwon Ikseong.
‘This is… Ikseong’s house.’
She looked around the model-home-like interior.
Mid-century style lighting, minimalist bookshelves, a jet-black sofa.
It suited Ikseong—and yet, somehow didn’t.
She thought she knew why.
‘He basically just moved into a place already stuffed with furniture and lighting.’
As proof, the bookshelves were tightly packed with criminal investigation texts, but there was no TV on the TV stand, and the desk held only a clock and a tie pin—nothing else.
The place was basically just a storage unit to him.
Come home, sleep, wash, leave.
There was no way Kwon Ikseong personally picked out this carefully arranged furniture.
As a fan, seeing her favorite character’s house—something never described in the novel—should have been thrilling.
But Yoojin couldn’t even bring herself to properly look around.
“Do you not like dried pollack soup?”
At Kwon Ikseong’s question, Yoojin quickly shook her head.
“No! I like it!”
Warm soup the day after drinking? No way she’d dislike that.
Especially when it was food made by her favorite person.
The problem was—that favorite person was her superior.
And she had thrown up after drinking in front of him last night.
‘Damn it…’
“It’s very delicious!”
She took a spoonful and gave an exaggerated thumbs-up like she was in a commercial.
“…That’s a relief.”
Kwon Ikseong looked slightly flustered, then returned to his usual impassive expression.
Seeing that, Yoojin became gloomy again.
In a small voice, she said to him:
“I’ll… pay the laundry fee.”
“It was mostly liquid, so the washing machine handled it fine.”
“…It was mostly liquid…”
Ikseong had meant it considerately, but Yoojin only drooped further.
It felt like an invisible tail had gone limp behind her.
Moments like this always left him unsure what to do.
So Kwon Ikseong simply slid a cup of warm honey water toward her.
“Drink.”
“Yes, sir.”
It absolutely wasn’t an order, but Yoojin obediently listened even while sulking.
As the warm honey water went down, the burning in her stomach eased a little.
Her parched thirst faded too.
“Ha…”
“Are you alright?”
At his question, Yoojin gave a small nod.
There was a bit more life in her eyes now.
How could someone be that transparent?
“…But why am I here—”
“So you do remember bits and pieces? I thought the ‘I don’t remember’ thing was all an excuse.”
“…Yeees…”
Yoojin drooped again as she answered.
Pi Sowon set down her now-empty soup bowl and spoke.
“You wouldn’t give us your address. Digging through your resume would be a privacy violation. If we tried to check your wallet, you started yelling that the psychopath was stealing your wallet. Our place was farther, and this place was closer. Oh—and leaving a woman alone to sleep at a man’s house felt a bit off.”
So you slept together?
“You can’t exactly trust Team Leader Kwon, right?”
“Huh? Even if you don’t trust me—”
Yoojin said that, but Pi Sowon only muttered, “Well…” while staring at Kwon Ikseong.
To Pi Sowon, Ikseong was still a suspicious man.
When she had asked if he liked Lee Yoojin, he had answered that he did.
But in the taxi yesterday—
‘About what you said earlier. Do you mean you like Lee Yoojin romantically?’
‘I’ve never thought about that.’
‘If you think about it now?’
After a brief silence, he answered:
‘I don’t intend to think about it. Investigator Lee Yoojin is an excellent investigator and my colleague.’
In other words, he didn’t want private feelings to disrupt a professional relationship.
Though, for someone saying that, hadn’t he already disrupted that professional relationship for personal reasons?
For example—launching a helicopter on his own to rescue Investigator Lee Yoojin and getting disciplined for it.
And the biggest issue of all:
He clearly knew Yoojin’s home address.
Yet he deliberately brought her to his own house.
That was the truth.
In fact, he had already taken her ID from her wallet and checked the address.
If Yoojin hadn’t said this at the time, the taxi would have gone straight to her home.
‘You can’t go home drunk…’
‘Why not? Your parents will scold you?’
‘My parents passed away… and now I have my younger sibling…’
‘So what. Is your sibling a nag?’
‘They worry about meee…’
Leaning against Pi Sowon’s shoulder, Yoojin looked up at her with completely unfocused eyes.
‘Like you, Team Leader. Because… they’re afraid I might die. That it might happen again.’
Pi Sowon found it hard to forget those eyes.
