“My phone…”
“It kept ringing, so I answered.
As soon as I said who I was, he hung up.”
Yeonsu hurriedly pressed the call button and lifted the phone to her ear with both hands.
The cuffs bit into her wrists, but she was too desperate to feel it.
“The number you have dialed is not in service…”
‘Please.
Please…’
She hung up and redialed, again and again, only to hear the same recorded message.
Seunghyun waited in silence as her face filled with despair.
“After he hung up, I called right back, but the line was already disconnected.”
Yeonsu was too stunned to speak.
‘That can’t be.
No.’ She pressed the call button again, and again, in a frantic loop that bordered on panic.
“Stop.
It won’t change anything.”
With the only person she could call now gone, she must have felt completely cut off from the world.
He had seen this often when dealing with Espers, but watching this small woman unable to let go of her phone left a bitter taste in his mouth.
As if she hadn’t heard him, she kept repeating the same motion.
Unable to watch any longer, he quietly rose from his seat and walked over to her.
Just as she was about to press the call button again in a daze, he laid his hand over the back of hers to stop her.
Her movement froze.
Leaning over her, his body almost shielding hers, he spoke softly.
“A PI office.
Your ability, psychometry.
It paints an interesting picture when you put them together.”
“Ah…”
“Namyeon-dong PI offices.
I wonder how many there are.
Should I find out?”
His pleasant voice rang in her ears with ominous clarity, like a wedge driven into something already crumbling.
Realizing he intended to drag Seokjoong into this, Yeonsu bit her lip.
“Just… leave my uncle out of it.”
She couldn’t let Seokjoong be pulled in.
If it came out that he’d been using an Esper for illegal surveillance, he wouldn’t escape serious charges.
If he disappeared, she would be truly alone.
A fear bordering on terror seized her.
“Well, that’s not up to me.
It will be up to my superiors, depending on your attitude, Ms.
Cha.”
He squeezed her hand lightly where it lay under his, then let go.
As his warmth left her skin, goosebumps broke out along her arms.
The interrogation room felt several degrees colder, and her hands were turning icy.
“What… what do I have to do?”
Grabbing the hem of his jacket as he pulled away, she looked on the verge of tears.
Like a child begging for her mother not to be taken away, she pleaded with him.
Clenching and unclenching his fist, he gently pried her hand off.
“We’ll see.
For now, this questioning is over.
I hope you’ll think of more to tell us.”
He gave her a brief glance, then turned and left the interrogation room.
“Hng… hic…”
A quiet sob slipped through the gap of the heavy, closing door, but he shut it as if he hadn’t heard.
His part was done.
He left the interrogation room and entered the one next door.
Inside, Mun-gyeong was sitting with a patrol officer.
Since they’d seen everything, there was little to add.
After sending the patrol officer out, Mun-gyeong spoke.
“Good work.”
“…I think you can go in tomorrow, Captain.”
“Mm.
She’ll probably need some time.
After that much pressure, she might even call for us first.”
Knowing her uncle had abandoned her, Cha Yeonsu had nowhere left to turn.
She would be trembling with anxiety in the holding cell, her mind racing.
Twenty-three, with no one to rely on and no real-world experience—she’d have no choice but to yield to Mun-gyeong’s persuasion.
“Go home and get some rest.
We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
“…I’ll head out, then.”
It had been a long day.
He had brought Cha Yeonsu in and stayed awake for more than twenty-four hours—no, closer to forty-eight.
As Seunghyun walked down the long corridor of the precinct, the fatigue he’d been holding at bay crashed over him.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his dry, gritty eyes and headed for the parking lot.
Even the cold wind did nothing to clear his dazed mind.
He had broken her, just as he’d intended.
No, ‘broken’ was too mild a word; he had found every one of her vulnerabilities and twisted the knife, knowing each jab would leave her a bloody mess.
No one but a sadist could enjoy tearing another person apart like that.
Even so, he had no regrets.
She was the one who’d brought up Iseok first.
If she hadn’t, he never would have resorted to such a cheap trick to keep her from slipping through his fingers.
Besides, the number her uncle had was the first real lead they’d had in the Iseok case in a long time.
He couldn’t afford to let her go.
If using Cha Yeonsu—and by extension, her ability—was what it took, Seunghyun was prepared to inflict even deeper wounds.
He thought of Iseok, his classmate from the police academy and his former partner.
He remembered the horrific state of the man’s final moments, which he had witnessed with his own eyes.
He remembered holding Iseok’s sobbing parents at the funeral.
With bloodshot eyes, he had made a vow: no matter what, he would not let Iseok’s death be in vain.
This was the first real lead they’d had in ages.
There was no room for personal feelings like pity or compassion.
He got into his car and was about to start the engine when he froze, catching an unfamiliar scent in the air.
He’d driven her straight from the hotel; her scent had soaked into the upholstery.
“Fuck…”
Leaning back in the driver’s seat, Seunghyun felt his mood sour.
The sound of her thin, broken sobs from the interrogation room echoed in his ears.
Blaming the damn scent lingering in his nostrils, he started the engine and rolled down all the windows.
The air that rushed in was so cold it made his skull ache, yet Yeonsu’s scent clung to him as if it had been etched into his skin.
He drove through the quiet, pre-dawn streets.
The sky was so dark it looked ready to dump a load of snow at any moment, without a trace of moonlight.
By dawn, the sky, which had been sulking all night, finally unleashed a heavy, early-season snow.
The city streets were a mess of white, black, and slush.
After a sleepless morning at home, Seunghyun got a call from Mun-gyeong around noon.
He changed quickly and headed straight back to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
He didn’t need the details to know what it was about.
“Cha Yeonsu asked for you.”
It was exactly what he had expected.
“Faster than I thought.
I’ll get a room ready.”
Assuming Mun-gyeong would be handling her, Seunghyun started to get up, but Mun-gyeong stopped him.
“Seunghyun.
She asked for you.”
Seunghyun’s expression was one of surprise.
“Me?”
“Yeah.
She said she’ll only talk to you.”
He couldn’t quite grasp her intent.
People didn’t usually have warm feelings for the ‘bad cop,’ so he couldn’t understand why she had specifically requested him.
Still, a request to meet wasn’t a bad sign.
There was no reason to refuse.
“Understood.”
He was curious what she had prepared to say after a night in the holding cell.
Maybe she just wanted to unload the curses she hadn’t managed to throw at him yesterday.
He let out a faint, amused snort, imagining the sharp words that might come from that delicate mouth.
He’d played the bad cop; now it was time to be the good one.
He was ready for whatever she threw at him, be it insults or venom.
“What did you just say?”
Seunghyun couldn’t quite process what he had heard.
So right now…
Her intense emotions from the night before seemed to have settled.
Yeonsu’s voice was flat and cold, her expression stripped of all feeling.
He had no idea what this woman was aiming for.
“You heard me.
You told me what you want, Detective.
Now I’m telling you my terms.”
She had entered the interrogation room in a calm state.
Maybe she had slept even less than he had; her pale face looked even more drawn, the rims of her eyes faintly red with exhaustion.
She had asked what he wanted from her, and he had proposed that she cooperate with their investigation using her ability.
Up to that point, everything had gone exactly as he had planned.
But what she said next was something he had never seen coming.
“So you’re saying…
you want to make a deal with my body?”
Yeonsu nodded.
Devoid of any hint of a smile, she didn’t look like she was joking.
He’d never imagined she would propose trading her ability for his body as if they were bartering goods.
“That’s right.
You’re not just going to use my ability; you’re going to fix it, too.
Otherwise, you won’t be able to use it for long, will you?”
She spoke of herself as the object of the deal with chilling indifference.
He had expected her to be more emotional, like yesterday, but instead, she was as detached as he had been.
She learns fast,’ he thought with a hollow laugh.
“Ms.
Cha, I think you’re misunderstanding something.
We never asked you to make a deal.
You’ve already broken the law, and you’re involved in a man’s suicide.”