“Seunghyun!
When did you get back?” Lee Wonyoung asked.
“Earlier this morning.”
Even late at night, not a single office in the main precinct was dark.
Incidents were never-ending, so when a big case broke, shifts became a meaningless concept; you ate and slept at the station.
Seunghyun, too, had been on standby all day because of Cha Yeonsu, catching up on a mountain of paperwork.
He was heading out for a cigarette when Wonyoung emerged from the quiet room, looking haggard.
“I heard you had a rough time yesterday, Sunbae.”
“Don’t even get me started.
These reporters get more aggressive every day.
I thought I was going to get pushed over.
And why were there so many streamers?” Wonyoung grumbled, falling into step beside him.
Dark stubble dotted his chin.
He shuddered, recalling the chaos in front of the P-Hotel.
“Good work.”
“We were investigating a drug case, and then suddenly we’re handling a suicide.
The whole team was having a meltdown.
I heard you apprehended an ability user?
Where’d you arrest her?”
“P-Hotel.
Ran into her in the same hallway where we were working.
I could tell from her eyes she’d just used her ability.
She’s at the Ability Center now for a basic evaluation.”
“A celebrity suicide during a drug investigation, and now an ability user on top of it all.
Why do all these complications keep popping up?”
“The ability user… might not be a complication.”
At Seunghyun’s words, Wonyoung’s eyes lit up.
“Oh?
What makes you think that?”
The two men reached the smoking room and lit their cigarettes.
For Seunghyun, it was a smoke he had been craving like mad since yesterday.
Wonyoung also took a deep drag.
The acrid smoke they exhaled quickly filled the cold room.
“She came out of the same room Hwang Seungmin did.”
“What?
You saw Hwang Seungmin?” Wonyoung asked, the thought crossing his mind that Seunghyun might have been the last person to see the celebrity alive.
But why were Hwang Seungmin and an ability user on a hotel floor they had requested to be cordoned off?
The questions just kept piling up.
“I didn’t know it was him when I saw him.
I only realized after seeing his picture on the news.”
“Huh.
So there really is something going on.
An ability user coming out of the same room at that exact time.”
“On top of that, she’s a mental-type.”
Listening to the explanation, Wonyoung scratched the back of his head roughly.
Seunghyun exhaled a plume of smoke and added, his tone tinged with an emotion Wonyoung was too surprised to notice.
“What?
Are you sure?
Well, if you’re saying it, it must be true.
Man, this case is getting seriously messed up.
Of all things, our suspect is a mental-type ability user, the kind you only find once in a blue moon.”
At the word ‘suspect,’ Seunghyun stubbed out his cigarette.
It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Wonyoung was right, of course.
As of now, Cha Yeonsu was the sole suspect and the only witness to Hwang Seungmin’s final moments.
But still.
“We haven’t interrogated her yet, so we can’t declare her the culprit.
For now, it seems she’s circumstantially connected to the case.”
Seunghyun’s thoughts drifted to Cha Yeonsu emerging from the same room as Hwang Seungmin.
A man and a woman leaving a hotel room at different times usually meant one thing.
Seeing her leave under such obvious circumstances, he had grabbed her without a second thought.
And what would he have said then, if they had been ordinary people?
If Hwang Seungmin hadn’t died, and Cha Yeonsu weren’t an ability user?
“It felt like she knew him in a different way, not just as a fan.
Something more… personal.”
“Just hearing you say it makes her suspicious enough.
The internet and media are plastered with Hwang Seungmin’s story.
If it gets out that an ability user is involved, it’ll be like pouring gasoline on a fire.”
Wonyoung rolled his head from side to side, looking exhausted.
With the recent surge in crimes committed by ability users, public anxiety was at an all-time high.
Once a minority dismissed as mutants, they were now appearing frequently enough to be considered a threat to society, leading to growing calls to strengthen the national control system.
“We’ll find something if we investigate.
Until then, it’s best to keep this confidential.
Nothing good will come from leaking it to the press.”
“True.
Oh, are you going to interrogate her?”
“I’ll have to.”
So far, the only concrete information he had was her name.
Everything else was just speculation.
But uncovering the full story was only a matter of time.
She didn’t seem particularly strong-willed; for Seunghyun, who excelled at psychological warfare, it wouldn’t take long.
He tossed the cigarette butt, glanced at his watch, and left the smoking room.
It was about time for her evaluation to be finished.
He had to go to the Ability Center to pick her up, along with the results.
He also had some personal business to attend to, so he decided to head out a little early.
“Ugh, no wonder it’s freezing.
It’s snowing,” Wonyoung groaned and practically ran back inside the building.
Snowflakes were falling silently all around.
A thin layer of ice was already forming on the frozen ground.
For the first snow of the year, the flakes were large enough to obscure the view.
As Seunghyun followed, an unfamiliar vibration came from his pocket.
It was the phone he had confiscated from Yeonsu.
He stopped and pulled it out.
“Uncle” was displayed on the screen as the caller.
The number below it seemed vaguely familiar.
He’d seen it somewhere before…
“Uncle…?”
Seunghyun wiped a melted snowflake from the screen and answered.
A middle-aged man’s voice came through.
—”Yeonsu!
Cha Yeonsu!
Are you done?
What happened?
Why haven’t you been answering?”
A man in his fifties, with a flighty voice.
Seunghyun habitually analyzed the man as he spoke.
“Are you a member of Ms.
Cha Yeonsu’s family?”
There was a sharp intake of breath, clearly flustered by the unexpected voice.
—”Yes.
Who is this?”
Hearing the guarded tone, Seunghyun had a gut feeling this person knew a lot about her.
“This is Detective Tae Seunghyun from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Violent Crimes Unit.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
“Ms.
Cha Yeonsu is currently under arrest.
She is being investigated, so if you come to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency…”
The call ended abruptly.
Seunghyun pulled the phone from his ear, looked at the screen, and tapped the call log.
Her old-fashioned phone, which didn’t even have a lock screen, opened easily.
“Looks like he is the only person she contacts.”
No matter how far he scrolled, the only entry was ‘Uncle.’ Seunghyun used her phone to call the man back, but an indifferent female voice stated that the number did not exist.
He had made a clean break.
“Still, that was fast.”
The moment the man heard she had been arrested, without even asking why, he had cut off his only means of contacting her.
Of course, being abandoned by family was common for ability user criminals.
It was also commonplace for them to be treated as disposable tools by those who used them to instigate crimes.
That’s why arrested ability users usually became consumed by anxiety, losing their minds or falling into conspicuous despair.
Their inner worlds were unstable, despite their superior abilities, which was what made them so dangerous.
Seunghyun wondered how Yeonsu would react when she heard about her uncle.
‘Cha Yeonsu.
Which one will you be?’
Would she despair at being abandoned by the only person she was in contact with, or would she get angry?
He tried to shake off the thoughts.
There was no reason to mix personal feelings with the information he had just obtained.
Whatever the case, he had just gained another key to shaking her.
That was all.
It had to be.
“Hey, can you please knock?
Are your hands going to fall off?” Yoon Injeong grumbled, lifting her haggard face from her desk as the door was thrown open without warning.
Injeong was a forensic scientist who was quite close to Seunghyun, having spent their rookie days together.
Lately, the flood of ability users had her overworked to the point of sleep deprivation, leaving her in a daze and making her even more irritable.
“The results for the ability user I sent for evaluation this morning?”
Detectives.
They were all the same, barging in unannounced whenever they needed something.
Injeong grumbled as she looked at Seunghyun standing before her.
“Ugh, just wait.
Why are you here so early, anyway?” he muttered, burying his nose back in the thick pile of documents on his desk.
This was how Injeong always was, so Seunghyun just shrugged.
“It should be about time.
Doesn’t it usually take around twelve hours?”
“That’s if the evaluation is done right away.
Do you have any idea how backed up we are?
Do you know how many came in today alone?” ‘They’re the only ones who work, huh?’
Injeong ground her teeth in frustration.
Seeing the force with which she signed the document, Seunghyun let out a small laugh.
The staff at the Ability Centers, dispatched from the National Forensic Service, were responsible for analyzing and grading the abilities of arrested criminals.
Evaluating the endless stream of them was pushing the limits of their manpower, so Injeong was practically living at the center.
It was only natural that she felt annoyed by detectives who acted as if they could just drop someone off and expect results on demand.
“Then just send the results later.
Can I take her with me?”
“Ah, her name was…”
“Cha Yeonsu.
A woman.”
Injeong narrowed her eyes, looking at his monitor.
“Let’s see.
The evaluation is done, and she’s in the recovery room… Huh?
That might be difficult right now.”
At Injeong’s words, Seunghyun looked puzzled.
“You said the evaluation is done.
Is there something else?”
“Uh, yeah, the evaluation is finished, but…”
“Then what is it?
Why can’t I take her?”
Injeong shook her head as if it were a major headache.
“Man, seriously, do these ability users have no brains?
Why don’t they give up even after they’ve been brought here?
Do they think public authority is a joke?”
Seunghyun felt a strange unease at Injeong’s sudden annoyance.
Growing impatient, he leaned forward, placing his hands on Injeong’s desk.
Startled by his sudden proximity, Injeong flinched back.
No matter how handsome the guy was, anyone would be on guard when he approached with an expression like that.
“Wh-what?
Back off.
Why are you being so scary?”
“Yoon Injeong.
Speak clearly.
What about Cha Yeonsu?”
“Uh… right now, it seems she used her ability.”
“What?”
“Most of them are like this.
They get caught, and they still try to use their powers to escape.
The police agency isn’t some neighborhood convenience store.
A lot of them really think they can do something with their powers.”
Injeong turned the monitor toward Seunghyun.
A CCTV feed was on the screen.
In it, Yeonsu was lying on a bed with her eyes closed, wearing oversized patient scrubs.
A familiar man, whom Seunghyun recognized, walked over and stood beside her.
It was a Guide from the main precinct.
‘Why is he next to her?’
“That guy did something pointless, too.”
As the Guide typed on a tablet, a notification popped up on Injeong’s monitor.
[Seoul Precinct Guide: Sergeant Lee Yonghun.
ESP: A-003 guiding initiated.]
“Ms.
Cha Yeonsu is currently being Guided.”