Chapter 03.
As soon as daylight broke, Yuju kicked open the director’s office door.
Bangā!
The bare minimum courtesy of a knock was omitted. In truth, she had never really bothered with it anyway, but today she especially didn’t have the luxury of time.
She hadn’t slept, she hadn’t eaten, and she had thought far too much. The things that had thrashed around inside her head all night were still tangled up without being sorted out, and there was only a single answer that could put an end to this chaotic state.
Ihyeon merely raised his head from looking at some documents. Without a single trace of surprise, an attitude as if he had expected her to come already grated on Yuju’s nerves.
“Try knocking for once. This isn’t your office, you know.” “I’m just trying to save a busy man’s time.”
Yuju dropped heavily into a chair with a dry retort. The sound of her sitting down was quite loud.
Instead of leaning her body against the backrest, she placed her arms on the armrests and faced Ihyeon head-on. No matter how you looked at it, it was the posture of someone who had come to fight.
“……”
Ihyeon slowly scanned her. His gaze moved from top to bottom, then back up.
Hollow eyes that clearly showed the remnants of an all-nighter, veins bulging prominently over the back of her hands, and even her uneven, halting breathing.
By all accounts, she looked like someone who hadn’t properly made it through the night.
“Did you sleep?” “No.” “Meals?” “That can wait, too.”
Ihyeon closed the folder and let out a long sigh. Leaning his body against the back of his chair and crossing his arms, that leisurely gesture made Yuju’s nerves stand on end.
“Chae Yuju, did you come here to pick a fight with me right now, or to collapse?” “Both.”
Ihyeon fell silent for a moment before laughing low, but the meaning contained within it was so multifaceted that Yuju’s eyebrows went up for nothing.
“……”
Yuju glared through the glasses Ihyeon was wearing. It was a gaze that gave away absolutely no hint of what he was thinking.
Even after rolling in the same organization for over five years, those eyes remained opaque, and the moment she met that kind of gaze, the report she had received from Jimin all through the night echoed in her ears like tinnitus.
āJung Taeha was indeed processed as having died in a fire nine years ago. There are no records of him entering the NIS, and he doesn’t pop up in unauthorized personnel searches either. The name of the newly arrived Team 5 leader is Do Haesung. They say he was handpicked directly by the First Deputy Director while serving in the UDT.
The records were flawless.
Naval Academy, UDT, Foreign Intelligence Bureau. The man’s life, flowing smoothly enough to be summarized in a single line, wasn’t common, but neither was it unfamiliar. It was the kind of standardized life that this line of work desired, yet Yuju couldn’t believe it.
If an agent couldn’t trust the data, they died in the field. She knew that better than anyone.
“Just who did you dredge up and put here?”
It was a low, clear voice. The more she tried to suppress her emotions, the more distinctly the voice emerged, blending accusation and distrust directed at Ihyeon.
“Looks like you saw the Team 5 leader’s face.” “Director.” “I’m about to start believing in doppelgangers now.”
Yuju’s eyes targeted Ihyeon directly. It was a blade-like gaze demanding an answer, yet Ihyeon didn’t blink an eye.
Instead, he slowly tilted his head and stared straight back at Yuju. An expression so shameless it bordered on brazen made her brow wrinkle.
This man never panicked. To be precise, he was someone who never showed it even if he panicked, which made it all the more confusing.
“Are you joking with me right now?” “If it were a joke, I’d have it easier.” “Director!” “Yuju.”
Ihyeon buried his body deep into his chair and called Yuju in a serious voice, stripping away the playfulness.
“Do you think I wasn’t startled? At first, I thought my own eyes had gone bad, too. I was on the verge of having a heart attack thinking a dead guy had walked in on his own two feet.”
Beyond Ihyeon’s gaze, a page of youth spent clinging together on a green campus flashed vividly by.
Ordinary days where people who liked each other gathered to eat and worried about exams felt like they would go on forever. But Jung Taeha had died, and Chae Yuju had never been able to return to that version of herself ever since that day.
“And yet, no matter how much we tear down his background and check him down to the marrow, he’s a guy without a single point of contact with Jung Taeha.” “Did you tear into it yourself, Director?” “Do you think I can’t even filter out a fake identity made by someone else when proving a guy who came under my command?”
At Yuju’s doubt, Ihyeon pushed a single file across the desk toward her. Sliding across the desk, the file touched the tips of Yuju’s fingers.
“He’s been living as a black ops agent for 10 years. The path Do Haesung has walked is different from the very beginning.”
Yuju snatched the file up in a grip and turned the pages with rough movements.
From the unfamiliar name Do Haesung to his date of birth, education, and career, the man’s life filling the paper flowed without a single inch of overlap with Jung Taeha’s.
“……This could all be fake, though.” “Do you think I can’t even filter out a fake identity made by someone else?” “You literally just said that.” “Because if you hear it twice, you believe it twice.”
At the trivial wordplay, Yuju’s eyes narrowed.
“Just because people look similar doesn’t mean they live the same life.”
Looking entirely unbothered, Ihyeon picked up his coffee cup. He was the kind of person who could drink coffee even in this situation.
“Whether that man is Jung Taeha or not, my stance doesn’t change.”
Yuju gripped the edge of the file so hard her fingernails turned white. She could feel the corner of the paper digging into her palm, but that too lasted only a moment.
“An order to cooperate with a figure of unclear identityāI cannot accept it.”
She had explicitly said she couldn’t accept it.
As she stormed out of the director’s office once more, as she walked down the corridor, all the way back to her office. It was a statement that had never wavered once inside Chae Yuju’s head.
The sudden joint cooperation order, and that face which was unpleasant just to look at. She couldn’t accept any of it. That was the conclusion Yuju had reached.
Then what on earth was this situation right now?
It was the moment she rounded the corner of the hallway. Clutching files she had just picked up from the analysis lab with both hands and heading toward her office, Yuju collided head-on with someone.
“Ah!”
The impact was greater than expected. Her feet tangled, causing her to lose her balance, and the files shot up into the air.
Faster than her flailing hands could grab at empty space, something solid snatched Yuju’s waist. Her body, about to tumble to the floor, was pulled back by force, and by the time she came to her senses, Yuju was burying her face in a broad chest.
Rustleā
Only the sound of files scattering in all directions filled the hallway.
It took less than a second for her to raise her head, but that one second stretched out agonizingly long.
Right in front of her nose was Do Haesung’s face.
At that instant, somewhere inside Yuju’s head, a very old drawer silently clicked open.
Nine years ago,
“Let’s stop here.”
Just three letters. With a smooth voice devoid of any excess fat, he ended those two years just like that.
“Why are you suddenly doing this? Just yesterday we…?” “It’s not sudden. I’ve been thinking about it for a very long time.” “At least give me a reason.” “I’m sick of everything.”
Yuju grabbed his damp sleeve with trembling hands. Pride had long since been washed away by the rain.
“It means your body and mind are both boring to me.”
Only then did she hear something shattering miserably inside Yuju.
The next morning, he picked up his coat.
“Live well.”
And the door closed.
Yuju hadn’t been able to forget that sound for nine years.
“Shall I let go?”
Haesung asked low. The arm holding Yuju didn’t move. As if waiting for her to answer, it just stayed right there.
Lifting her gaze, Yuju couldn’t easily open her mouth.
The time she had struggled so desperately to forget collapsed all at once. Over a mere voice.
