“Seoryeong will be fine, going forward.”

Leaving Deputy Director Ju Seolheon in silence, Lee Wooshin hung up first. It was the final report, dry and strained as ever.

Ever since the day he showed her a glimpse of the "Bird Box," she had clearly spoken less.

Lee Wooshin tossed his phone aside and leaned his head back against the bed. His pale face was washed in fatigue, and his exhausted gaze was completely dried out. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

The documents signed by Owl had been left behind in Deputy Ju’s second office. He had checked back in with the agents who’d pretended to be transferred to another hospital for a second surgery, and taken an extra walk through the hospital park on purpose to help falsify the CCTV date and footage.

After that, he peeled off the socks he hadn’t yet taken off, the gloves, and the synthetic leather that covered the scars on his back.

During those three-plus weeks spent outside Korea, Codename Maskar’s resignation had been processed, Owl had been confirmed safe, and Kim Hyun had been blindsided by a completely unexpected farewell.

“It’s over. Finally...”

Owl had let go of Kim Hyun. And yet, not once had she said they should break up. Even though she’d said “I love you” so many times... that tiny lie, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

He thought he’d become numb to declarations like that. But for some reason, his lips felt as heavy as iron.

“......”

She said she was grateful. And... that she’d been happy.

The memory of it tensed every muscle in his body again. When she said something like that with a face more like a wife than ever before...

He knew how to dodge bullets—but he didn’t know how to stay unaffected by a confession from his wife. His chest felt like it was caving in and melting.

From that moment on, something inside him began to sink, endlessly. Even he didn’t know what kind of state he was in.

Maybe it was similar to what he felt back in the private detention camp in Cambodia after the Bird Box mission. Wooshin stared blankly up at the ceiling, limbs limp and heavy.

“――”

Was it even okay to feel this devoid of will? On the desk, his untouched meal had dried up, and a thirst that wouldn’t go away clawed at him.

I took such good care of Owl... and now it looked like I really had been dumped. No amount of water could wash it down.

When she mentioned another man, it was like a ringing shot through his head. But once he realized it was himself who had driven Kim Hyun out—he felt a surge of possessiveness, unwilling to give up that position to anyone else.

“...Haa.”

He ran a heavy hand down his fevered face.

Ju Seolheon was wrong. What the deputy feared would happen—would not. Seoryeong wouldn’t go off doing anything reckless anymore. No matter how Rigay tried to shake her, she wouldn’t waver.

This time... he truly wanted to live with her, as himself. To finally settle down. A painfully ordinary dream—to stay, here, on this land. And with that thought, Lee Wooshin dozed off.

“――!”

He jolted awake from sleep paralysis, only to find a nurse glaring down at his foot with a stern face. Their eyes met—and the nurse’s face, wrapping bandages without pause, turned downright furious.

“Patient Lee Wooshin...! Didn’t you get surgery at another hospital? What the hell happened to your foot?! Why are your stitches all ripped open and festering? Did you walk around without your crutches?”

“......”

He just breathed roughly without answering, and the nurse snapped.

“This isn’t what we transferred you for!”

Still, she fastened the bandage with gentle precision, even as she fumed.

Whatever dream he’d had, his neck was drenched in cold sweat. Wooshin pressed his temples tight, trying to hide the tremble in his eyes.

He had never once found the lenses provided by the National Defense Institute uncomfortable—until now. It felt like something foreign had gotten stuck behind his eyeballs.

“At least the bone scan came back okay, so for god’s sake, manage yourself!”

Something felt wrong—deeply, thoroughly wrong. After the nurse finally left, his phone buzzed. Who had he seen in that dream...? Someone was crying. Someone, standing in fire... Wooshin, face stiff like plaster, picked up the phone.

“If this is about nothing, you’re dead, Wanchang.”

—Team leader, Owl hijacked a police car...!

“What?”

His face twisted immediately. She’d signed just hours ago that she wouldn’t cause trouble. Wooshin gripped his collar like he was about to rip off the hospital gown and bolted upright.

—But she went to Sehwa Hospital...!

“......”

—I think... she just wanted to see you, sir. We’ve already cleaned up the mess for now.

“...Haa.”

A thick sigh slipped out. The dreadful nightmare was pushed aside the moment he heard her name—Owl. So she drove all the way here in a stolen police car, huh? Where the hell is she hiding now?

He paced the hospital room, eyes fixed on the door as if he could will it open. If she came back, he’d pull her into his arms and make up for all the lost time.

Once she was back in his arms, he would never let her go again.

They were going to be okay. He was going to make sure of it. She would never have to wait alone again.

But his nerves were on edge, and waiting quietly wasn’t going well. Wooshin reached for the wheelchair again and repeated to himself:

Seoryeong is okay. We are okay. We really are.

Seoryeong peeled off her clothes layer by layer, like shedding old skin, and stepped into the bathroom.

Shaaah—under the pounding rush of water, she surrendered her bruised and battered body. She had to shatter her frozen expression somehow—or that man, as perceptive as he was, would see right through her.

Her fingers were stiff, almost frostbitten. She couldn’t feel her body heat. It was like her senses were broken. She slapped herself hard across the face a few times.

Her wet cheek swelled red in seconds. Still, she just stared blankly up into the water like her head was hollow.

“......”

Is this... really real?

No matter how she looked at it, the two men were completely different people. Voice, build, appearance—everything.

Lee Wooshin was a quarter mixed-race. Kim Hyun was Korean. Kim Hyun had hair down there, but Lee Wooshin was clean like someone with alopecia. Kim Hyun was gentle, but Lee Wooshin had only ever pushed her relentlessly...

It was impossible to believe. And yet the doubt wouldn’t let her go.

“How is that... How could the two of them...”

The water stabbed her eyes like needles—and she was glad for it. How the hell could those two possibly be the same person?

It was the most ridiculous thing she’d heard in her life.

Kim Hyun was the first person who taught her love. And now, he was the one who taught her how to say goodbye. If he really was Lee Wooshin—if her instructor, her accomplice, the one who disappeared, was her husband all along—

“Ah...―”

Seoryeong collapsed, clutching the tiles. Shaaa—the roaring water pounded down on her narrow shoulders, like it was scolding her. Her curled-up body trembled like a pill bug.

So it was all on purpose, then? The way he showed interest in her, kissed her, slept with her—was Lee Wooshin just another mission codename?

The more she thought, the more she couldn’t breathe. The doubt kept growing like a snowball. Her ribcage felt like it was being crushed by the weight.

“What if we sleep together and I end up really feeling like your husband? Then I’d count as a candidate, right? This guy you’re looking for so desperately—does he look like me? Look at me. Really look.”

“......”

“I thought you were all steel, but turns out you’re naive as hell. You really think sleeping with another man will make you sure? That you’ll just ‘know’ because you love him?”

All the words he’d said—all the cryptic things, the strange actions—came rushing back like a violent undertow.

“Get real. There’s nothing easier to fake than sex.”

“......”

“You’ve had sex with your husband. You know that.”

“......”

“It’s because you still believe love is all-powerful. That’s what leads to the kind of stupid confidence that ruins people’s judgment. That blinds them.”

“Guh—ugh...!”

Seoryeong pushed back her sticky, wet hair and hunched over the floor.

“Kh...! Ugh...!”

She vomited bile, retching until her stomach was hollow. Acid burned her throat, and her knees, folded beneath her, soaked up the cold of the tile.

“I’ll help you find your husband. I’ll help you.”

Was this what it meant to open your eyes? Every nightmare was followed by a worse one.

She found Kim Hyun—and lost Lee Wooshin.

It was a brutal exchange.

***

She went to Wooshin’s hospital room late into the night.

The tracker she’d attached to Kim Hyun had stayed at Sehwa Hospital, and its final signal had pinged from the incinerator where medical waste was burned.

The hospital room she entered was empty. She rummaged through his drawers and closet. It didn’t seem like anyone had come in for a while—dust blanketed the window ledge and table.

She went to the bed and buried her face in the pillow—only to fling it across the room at the sudden smell. A molten heat surged inside her like lava, ready to burst.

She stripped off her clothes again and returned to the bathroom. Water thundered down for a while—then she emerged, dripping, naked.

She loosely wrapped a thin sheet around herself and sat, dazed, on the wet floor.

Not long after—click, the door opened, and a wheelchair rolled in.

“You...!”

Wooshin stood upright in a flash and strode forward.

“Your phone’s dead, and where the hell were you—?”

“Where did you go, Instructor?”

“......”

“I told [N O V E L I G H T] you to wait.”

Haa... He dragged a hand through his hair.

“Why aren’t you dressed. Aren’t you cold.”

“I showered at home. On the way back, I actually wanted to buy flowers...”

She murmured the words like talking to herself—then fell silent. The thin sheet fell from her body with a rustle. She pulled him in, and as he hesitated, she lunged forward and kissed him.

“Han Seo—!”

She pushed her rough tongue in like a blade. The moment their bodies touched, a chill crawled up her spine.

She remembered the cold corpse—the shredded skin. The stench of burning flesh clung to her nose. The moment she clung to a dead man’s body, sobbing—now flooded her again through their locked tongues.

That soft flesh... the face that caved in wherever you touched it... even then, he had stayed with her. He—

Seoryeong kissed him harder, savagely. She filled his mouth with flesh, slick and wet.

“Haa...”

She sucked and bit his tongue, tasting something bitter like burnt metal. The zinging sensation—was it pain, disgust, or grief? Wooshin parted his lips like he’d been waiting. That gentleness—that was the poison. That gentleness...

Lee Wooshin—then you suffer the same way.

Her eyes glinted coldly.