She hadn’t realized she was thirsty until the first sip of water burned its way down her throat.
But this man was like saltwater: the more she drank, the thirstier she became.
It felt good in the moment, but in the end, it would slowly kill her.
Even now, as she shivered in what felt like prison garb, he sat across from her with a smooth, relaxed smile.
Feeling suddenly shabby, Yeonsu dropped her gaze again.
“You used your ability again.
I told you it wouldn’t work here.”
She kept her eyes fixed silently on the floor.
Seunghyun spoke again.
“Because you ignored my warning, a Guide got hurt.
Did you know that?”
“He could have died from the backlash of your reverse guiding.
He’s been pulled from active duty and is undergoing treatment.”
Yeonsu pressed her lips together.
She remembered how, when the fever from the backlash had raged through her at the Ability Center, she had ruthlessly devoured a faint energy she’d sensed nearby.
She had no memory of what happened after that.
“If it had gone on any longer, you could have killed someone, Ms.
Cha.
If I hadn’t been there.”
She turned her head and looked at him.
He was leafing through the file with an indifferent expression as he spoke.
“If you hadn’t been there…?”
So it really had been Seunghyun who appeared before her.
She’d dismissed it as a hallucination brought on by the backlash, but she had received his help yet again.
Seunghyun lifted his eyes from the file and met her gaze.
“That’s right.
I went to you.
It was quite a sight.”
He was saying he had been the one to suppress her backlash.
“Detective, are you a Guide?
Otherwise, how…”
The question that had been nagging at her burst out.
Inwardly, Seunghyun let out a weary laugh.
She was so naive; it was almost too easy.
Team Captain Mun-gyeong’s worry that she might lie suddenly felt pointless.
“Think what you like.
In any case, our wavelengths seem to match.
I heard your condition has improved significantly.”
Yeonsu glared at him, at that sly smile and the evasive answer.
He knew everything about her, from her ability to her power levels, as if he had picked her apart.
Yet once he had what he needed, he acted as if there was nothing more to see.
“Let’s get back to the case.
Ms.
Cha, on November 10, did you meet Hwang Seungmin at the P Hotel?”
“I did, but that was…”
“What did you talk about?
Are you in any way connected to his suicide?”
“No, I… I had nothing to do with that.
I did meet him that day, but he sought me out.
And all he did was quietly leave the room.”
It was certain that she was the last person to speak with Hwang Seungmin.
They couldn’t definitively say she was involved in his suicide, but the circumstances were suspicious.
“That day, was Hwang Seungmin the person you used your ability on?”
“…Yes.”
“Your ability is psychometry.
What memories did you read?”
She had read the truth he had been hiding.
And she had run away from him because of it.
Yeonsu didn’t know where to start or how much to say, so she kept her mouth shut.
With sharp eyes, Seunghyun continued to fire questions at her.
As she struggled to answer, she wished the cutting questions would stop.
Each one felt like another layer of clothing being stripped away, and her breathing grew strained.
“What did you do with Hwang Seungmin in the hotel room that day?”
“That…”
The horrible scuffle with him and the memory of being chased flashed through her mind.
And the strange man she had met when she ran.
Kwon Yujun, if she remembered correctly.
“Did you have relations with him?”
As she replayed that day’s events, Yeonsu stared at Seunghyun in disbelief.
“What are you…”
“I asked if you had sexual intercourse with him.”
Her face flushed as she glared at him.
He looked back at her calmly, his expression unchanged.
“A man and a woman came out of a hotel room together.
It’s a natural line of questioning to confirm the possibilities.
We also have to check for any romantic entanglement.”
The more he spoke, the more she seemed to waver between shame and resentment.
After wrestling down the surge of emotion, she averted her eyes and spoke.
Her tone was icy, but her words trembled.
“…No.
I never did.”
“I see.”
“That day… the one who slept with me was you, Detective.
Not Hwang Seungmin.”
She stared straight at him, her eyes full of fury.
As she clenched her fists, the chain connecting her cuffs scraped harshly against the metal table.
“Ms.
Cha.
That was not ‘sleeping together.”
“Fine.
Then call it treatment.
Guiding.
Whatever you want.
Either way, the ‘relations’ you’re talking about were with you, Detective.
Make sure you record that clearly on that fancy laptop of yours.
That the one who slept with me that day was you.”
“Ms.
Cha.”
He called her name in a low, warning voice.
But she didn’t seem to hear him.
“You make sure you put it in the record.
You’re my proof.”
“What are you talking about?
What on earth…”
“The proof that I didn’t sleep with Hwang Seungmin.”
Watching his face twist, Yeonsu felt a fleeting satisfaction.
It was a self-inflicted wound, but she didn’t care.
She just wanted to claw at him in any way she could.
“You would know, wouldn’t you, Detective?
Did I seem like a woman who’d done it before?
I don’t think so, do you?”
‘Because that was my first time.’
At her self-destructive words, a sharp edge flashed in Seunghyun’s eyes.
“Ms.
Cha.
Watch your mouth.”
Yeonsu gave a crooked grin.
Her expression twisted into something strange, a cross between a smile and a sob.
He remembered her trembling eyes as she had tried to act nonchalant while changing clothes in front of him, her body stiff as a board.
She had no guile, no knack for scheming; she just hurled her rough edges at the world with all her might.
To him, she already looked like a complete wreck, but he wasn’t finished with her yet.
“I have nothing more to say about Hwang Seungmin, so just give me my phone.
You said you’d let me call someone once I finished all the tests.”
He took her phone out of his pocket and set it on the table.
Her hands twitched toward it, but the chain held them fast.
“So, who are you planning to call?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Running his fingers idly over the surface of her phone, he spoke in an offhand tone.
“Your ‘Uncle,’ is it?”
The moment he said the word ‘uncle,’ her expression changed.
“…Give me my phone.”
“Of course.
I should respect your rights.
But this uncle of yours—is he family?
Or just an acquaintance?”
While she was being tested, Seunghyun had looked into the “Uncle” who’d called her phone.
He had found traces of that man’s number in an unexpected place.
In the notebook of his late partner, Iseok.
After Iseok’s senseless death, Seunghyun had read the notebook until it was worn.
The “Uncle” number on Yeonsu’s phone had seemed familiar, and a quick check confirmed it.
“Who I contact is none of your concern, Detective.”
“It is not.
Whether it’s a lawyer or family.”
He pushed the phone toward her.
She caught it in both hands as it slid across the table.
Just as she hurriedly moved to press the call button, his next words stopped her finger.
“But that uncle of yours… his job doesn’t seem like the kind that takes well to calls from a police station.”
“What are you… What did you just say?”
Under the number in Iseok’s notebook, there was a note: “Namyeon-dong Private Investigator.” The moment he found her uncle’s number in that notebook, he knew he had to drag her into this.
He’d given Mun-gyeong a plausible reason for using her ability, but that was just a bonus.
Hiding his true intentions, he continued calmly.
“He runs a PI office in Namyeon-dong.”
Watching the color drain from her face, he knew he was right.
His heart pounded.
Finally, there might be a break in Iseok’s case, which had stalled for lack of a clear suspect.