Chapter 01
“Bae Seohyun? She hasn’t come to school yet.”
Jinju, who had been close with Seohyun for a long time but had recently grown distant from her, answered indifferently.
When Seobin’s disappointed expression showed she hadn’t gotten the answer she wanted, Jinju’s eyes sharpened.
“But why are you asking me where your sister is? Shouldn’t you be the one who knows?”
Faced with Jinju’s biting words, Seobin couldn’t say anything.
Because her sister hadn’t come home last night.
To celebrate finishing their final exams, Seohyun and Seobin had planned to watch a movie together.
They were going to see a film starring Seohyun’s favorite actor, then go shopping afterward.
They were going to stop by a bookstore to buy workbooks for summer vacation and even argue over whether they should buy the deluxe box set of their favorite basketball manga.
But Seohyun never showed up at their meeting place.
And she never came home.
She couldn’t even be reached now.
“Ah… I’ll try calling her again.”
Seobin awkwardly nodded and turned away, but Jinju called after her irritably.
“Hey. Go check the swimming pool. She’s probably there.”
“Huh?”
Seobin looked back in confusion.
Jinju stared at her with widened eyes, as if asking, Don’t tell me you didn’t know.
Quickly changing her expression, Seobin replied calmly,
“Okay. I will.”
She politely bowed to Jinju before leaving, but her mind was in turmoil.
The swimming pool?
Why would her sister, who hadn’t even come home, be there?
Even so, Seobin found herself heading toward the pool.
Suppressing the strange sense of dread rising within her, she recalled her conversation with her sister.
“Bae Seobin, don’t be late today. If we want to make the movie on time, we have to leave as soon as we’re done.”
“Okay. Why are you making such a big deal out of it today?”
“…Well, there’s something I want to tell you.”
“What is it? Tell me now.”
“No. I’ll tell you later. It’s important.”
When Seohyun had said those words, there had been a faint blush on her face.
Seohyun was normally straightforward and honest.
What could possibly make her that shy?
Of course, after Seohyun disappeared, Seobin never got to hear what it was.
Bae Seohyun…
Where are you? What are you doing?
Biting her lip against the growing unease, Seobin quickened her pace.
Before she knew it, she had stepped outside the building.
As she rounded the corner of the main building, the sight before her turned her mind completely blank.
For a high school swimming pool, the newly built modern gray-and-white building was almost extravagant.
In the place that had once been nothing but white walls and shimmering blue water, the lights of an ambulance flashed.
Seobin stopped in her tracks, staring blankly at the scene before her.
The wail of ambulances and police cars.
The anxious murmurs of gathered students.
Then paramedics emerged from the swimming pool entrance, now blocked off with police tape, wheeling a stretcher.
A thin wrist slipped out from beneath the white sheet covering the figure.
The silver bracelet around that wrist glimmered.
It was identical to the one on Seobin’s own left wrist.
“…!”
Seobin clamped both hands over her mouth to stop the scream bursting from her throat.
She couldn’t breathe.
Sis…
Why…?
Nothing made sense.
In an instant, her vision blurred.
As the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance, the white sheet slid aside.
Bathed in the summer morning sunlight, part of the figure’s forehead was revealed.
The corpse’s skin was swollen, pale to the point of bluish discoloration.
Seobin’s entire body began trembling like a leaf.
As a paramedic reached to pull the sheet back into place, the dead girl’s face was exposed.
The horrified murmurs of the onlookers grew louder.
At that moment, the shadow of a large hand covered Seobin’s eyes.
“Don’t look.”
A boy’s low, calm voice fell from behind her trembling back.
Even then, tears streamed endlessly down her face.
“Ugh… Hic…”
Unable to contain her grief any longer, Seobin instinctively lunged toward the stretcher.
The boy caught her wrist and pulled her tightly into his arms.
“N-no… Let me go! Let go! Please…!”
She twisted desperately, trying to break free.
But the more she struggled, the tighter the boy’s strong arms wrapped around her small body.
In the end, Seobin broke down sobbing in his embrace.
Her light-blue school uniform shirt became soaked with tears.
Her vision grew blurrier… then darker.
And with that, darkness descended upon her life.
Eight years ago.
The day her sister left her forever.
4:50 PM.
Sanghyeon Daily Editorial Office.
Amid the frantic bustle of reporters racing to meet the publication deadline, Seobin walked into the newsroom.
“I’m back, sunbae.”
“Oh. Any new updates?”
Woo Jihyun, a fifth-year Social Affairs reporter, asked absentmindedly while finishing an article about a neighborhood of tiny basement rooms that had recently been flooded by heavy rains.
“Nothing new. The hospital’s public relations director repeated exactly what was said during the briefing.”
“Damn it… We got nothing.”
Meanwhile, several online gossip sites had already begun publishing sensational stories claiming that an idol group member had abused narcotic painkillers, or that a top actor had been present at the scene.
“I’ll head back to the hospital after the meeting and wait there until they release another statement.”
“Forget it. We’re not getting anything today anyway. First thing tomorrow morning, go talk to the Digital Entertainment desk and see if they’ve dug anything up. We’re the Social Affairs department, not Entertainment.”
“Yes, understood.”
Leaving Woo Jihyun’s self-deprecating remark behind, Seobin set her laptop bag down at the small desk in the corner of the Social Affairs section and finally sat down.
She had woken up at five in the morning, visited every police station, precinct, and fire station in her district, then spent four hours waiting outside a university hospital room where the idol had been admitted.
Only now was she finally able to sit comfortably.
“Ha…”
A weary sigh escaped her lips.
But before she even had a chance to catch her breath, an angry shout erupted from behind the blinds of the editor-in-chief’s office.
“You little bastard! Who the hell do you think you are?! So what if you’re a reporter? You’re just a salaried employee! If I tell you to stop, you stop! At least pretend you’re stopping! Are you going to take responsibility if we lose Sarim’s advertising because of you?! Huh? You think Sarim’s an easy target?”
At the mention of Sarim, Seobin instinctively looked toward the office.
Woo Jihyun glanced at her and snorted.
“Don’t worry about it. Senior Gu’s always like that.”
“Ah… Okay.”
Seobin sat back down.
To her senior colleagues, she probably looked like a three-month rookie startled by the rough atmosphere of the newsroom.
Well…
That image wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
After the editor-in-chief’s one-sided yelling continued for a while, Gu Bonghwan finally emerged from the office.
He slowly returned to the farthest corner of the Social Affairs department, where books and research papers were stacked like a fortress around his desk.
“Wow, Senior Gu is amazing. That’s what I call journalistic integrity. Refusing to bow to people in power. I officially respect him now.”
“Integrity? That’s not integrity—that’s recklessness. Guys like him are always the ones who end up causing trouble.”
The passing reporters continued making comments, but Gu Bonghwan ignored them all, put on his large headphones, and immersed himself in his work.
Seobin stared at him intently.
A strange light flickered in her eyes.
She intended to ally herself with anyone who held leverage against the Sarim Foundation.
That was the very reason she had joined Sanghyeon Daily in the first place.
And now…
Three months after joining.
With her probation period nearing its end, it was finally time to start making her move.
Unfortunately, reality was different from her plans.
She was still spending fourteen hours a day running between police stations in search of newsworthy stories.
“…Sigh.”
Seobin let out a deep breath.
Just as she was thinking she should call her friend Hari tomorrow—a police officer at the Metropolitan Police Station—
“Good afternoon, President.”
“It’s an honor to have you here, sir.”
The entrance to the newsroom suddenly grew noisy as the company president unexpectedly appeared.
President Oh Sangil.
He wore a black suit, an unfashionable striped tie, and had a greasy-looking face.
At his appearance, every reporter immediately stopped working and stood up.
Seobin followed her seniors and rose to her feet.
Although he was the president of the newspaper company, he was known to care less about journalism than about cultivating relationships with chaebol families and entering politics.
He had never once stepped into the newsroom before.
His sudden appearance left everyone bewildered.
The editor-in-chief hurried over to greet him.
“President! You didn’t have to come all the way down here. I could’ve come upstairs.”
“Mm. Long time no see, Director Hong. Everything going well?”
“Yes, sir. Everything’s the same as always. But… is something the matter?”
The editor-in-chief swallowed nervously, wondering if something had gone wrong.
Just then, a tall young man walked into the newsroom.
A perfectly tailored luxury suit.
Elegant, effortless movements.
A faint smile on his face.
Yet somehow, that smile only made him seem colder.
It was Kim Sahyeok.
Seobin’s first love.
And the man suspected of killing her sister.
The moment she recognized him, the world before her eyes faded just as it had that day.
Suddenly…
She realized that it was summer once again.
