A smile curled deeply at the corners of his lips, as if recalling someone.

She was quite the piece of work... A glint of greed flashed in the wrinkles near his eyes.

“There just haven’t been any decent girls until now, that’s why we never recruited one. Female personnel are actually useful in a lot of ways. Not just for that kind of work, either. And yet—what do you know—I’ve come across something quite interesting.”

Kang Taegon swirled the glass that now held only ice, and smiled with satisfaction.

“Cold and calm... yes, just like ice—solid.”

Even thinking about it again, those eyes had been strange. He’d already received a thorough report, but it was still hard to believe.

Aside from concluding that her pain tolerance threshold was far higher than average, there was no other explanation.

She’d endured something that most people wouldn’t face in a lifetime, and yet that young woman hadn’t shattered in the slightest. Not even battle-hardened soldiers with years on the frontlines found it easy to wear eyes like those.

Kang Taegon gave a breathless laugh and shrugged. The memory of those ridiculous eyes stirred another chuckle.

It had to be one of two things. Either it was her innate temperament, or she’d already been through something far worse—hell itself.

Yet Han Seoryeong’s file had been so ordinary, it bordered on dull. He’d assumed there’d at least be a few offenses in her record... How had someone with that kind of personality managed to go through life without ever causing a single incident?

“If my instincts still count for something, she won’t quit halfway through training.”

Kang Taegon’s voice dropped low.

“It’s not just anyone—we need a female bodyguard to serve him directly.”

The man set the empty glass down on the desk, the city nightscape behind him.

“Wouldn’t do to have a drifter for that job, would it?”

Then he reached out and gently stroked a sculpture shaped like an eagle clutching a cross in its beak.

“Very well. I’ll see you when you come to Korea. Guess we’ll have to wait for that young lady to climb all the way up here.”

On the monitor, Han Seoryeong’s ID photo was blown up in full screen.

The winter orchid sent by CEO Kang Taegon had bloomed before she even realized it. She hadn’t watered it, hadn’t wiped its leaves—and yet it had blossomed on its own.

She’d only opened the enclosed brochure once, and then locked it away in a drawer.

Was it a message not to borrow someone else’s hand, but to do it herself?

That she’d get what she wanted if she became an operative?

Whether this was a real opportunity or an outright trap—she couldn’t tell. That’s why she hadn’t dared to touch the pamphlet again.

Even so, whenever she recalled the bolded headline printed at the top, her heart would start racing, anxious for no reason.

Why the hell is this happening...

Seoryeong pressed down hard on her solar plexus, like someone with indigestion.

From that point on, she found herself staring at the drawer for long stretches, without knowing why.

“Oh my, looking at the flower again?”

“...!”

No, I was actually staring at that weird brochure beneath it...

“How about going out for a walk? Get a bit of sunshine. It must be boring being cooped up in the hospital all day, especially for someone young. Hold on—I’ll grab your coat and scarf...!”

The caretaker chirped excitedly and, in an instant, bundled Seoryeong up.

And just like that, she was shuffled out for a walk.

Seoryeong stepped outside, her plaster-cast arm strapped to her shoulder brace.

Since that day walking the streets of Thailand with Channa, this was the first time she’d strolled around with any sense of ease.

Channa still hadn’t regained consciousness. One cheek stiffened in the cold, but the winter wind was equally frigid.

Seoryeong had always had nowhere to go. She simply walked wherever her feet took her.

That’s how she’d lived every day before meeting Kim Hyeon.

“......”

Eventually, Seoryeong sat down at a bus stop, watching strangers come and go with a blank stare. She then opened her empty phone and scrolled through the equally empty photo album.

Even knowing it was pointless, her thumb kept swiping across the blank screen.

Imagining the man who should’ve been there, etched in her mind...

“So my oppa’s friend replied to me yesterday...”

“No way, for real?”

“That’s not even the end. Listen—he used way more ‘ㅋ’s than before. These days he mixes ㅋ’s and ㄱ’s and just sends them like crazy. That means he’s totally into me, right?”

A gaggle of girls in school uniforms passed by, giggling and smacking each other on the shoulders—some seriously, some playfully.

Seoryeong watched the teens for a moment and then stood up.

She’d figured out where she wanted to go.

***

Jiseul Girls’ High School Gymnastics Club.

She didn’t know why her old high school suddenly came to mind.

Expressionless, Seoryeong stared at the worn school nameplate before stepping inside. The campus, mostly emptied of students, was quiet. Finding the gymnastics room wasn’t hard.

Once a repurposed auditorium, the massive gym had once been this private school’s pride and joy.

When she slid the door open, a long-forgotten smell flooded in.

“......”

She took in the familiar equipment with her eyes, one by one.

The spring floor, the vault, the uneven bars, the horizontal bar, the balance beam...

Dust drifted lazily in the air, sliced by light pouring through wide windows.

The old wooden scent, the grips worn down by countless hands, the white chalk powder...

It was as if the period of her life spent here had been preserved in a glass case.

At that moment, one light after another flicked on in the empty gym.

Turning around, she saw a young woman with a whistle around her neck entering, followed by teen girls in gym leotards with windbreakers over them.

They seemed to freeze at the sight of a stranger suddenly standing alone in their gym. Then, the woman’s eyes widened.

A coach, perhaps. She furrowed her brows and stared hard at Seoryeong, then rubbed her eyes, as if unsure of what she was seeing.

Her face paled like she’d seen a ghost, and she slowly stepped forward.

“Wait... are you... Han Seoryeong?”

The woman’s eyes scanned her from head to toe like she was checking every inch.

“You really are Seoryeong?”

“I am.”

“...!”

“You’re Han Seoryeong? Seriously?”

“Yes. But... who are you—?”

“You don’t remember me? The year you dropped out, I was the vice-captain of the Jiseul High gymnastics team...!”

“Ah...”

Now that she said it, the woman’s face finally clicked into place.

“Wow—seeing you here again, I seriously thought I was seeing a ghost...!”

She let out an overly dramatic exclamation.

“God, how many years has it been? I can’t believe I’m seeing you again—and in the gymnastics room, no less! I don’t even know where to start—this is just so sudden...!”

“......”

“Have you been doing well? Oh, right—I’m coaching at our old school now. What about you? What’ve you been up to? I still hear about some of the others every now and then, but you... it’s like you vanished completely.”

Even such a simple question about how she’d been made Seoryeong’s mouth stiffen.

Because when she thought about the gaping, explosion-like crater in her life—it was all too much.

She simply gave a vague smile, brushing it off.

But the woman, now fully energized, turned to the curious students sneaking glances and called out, “Hey girls—come say hi! This is your senior!”

A crowd of girls gathered around, bowing politely before scattering again.

“Time really flies, huh? Hard to believe it’s been ten years since we wore those same uniforms.”

The kids peeled off their windbreakers and began warming up, and Seoryeong silently watched with a dry, distant gaze.

The woman—who really was the coach, it seemed—continued talking to Seoryeong while simultaneously shouting, “Alright girls, start with anaerobics and then move on to agility drills!”

Seoryeong let out a short, dry laugh, nostalgic despite herself.

Then came a string of updates about former club members she barely remembered.

The coach clapped her hands suddenly.

“Oh, right—have you heard about Joo Dae-eun?”

“......”

Seoryeong paused, trying to recall who that was.

“She quit the team and went into performing arts. Got into theater and film studies. These days, she’s on TV a lot. Plays up her gymnast background on talk shows—sells the image well. They always request old footage from our high school, but everything got lost years ago, so we always have to turn them down...”

Ah—her.

Seoryeong finally remembered the classmate who’d fallen off the uneven bars and landed with her leg bent backward.

Her lips curved into a crooked smile.

“The girl who broke her leg, right?”

“......”

The coach blinked for a moment, as if caught off guard.

“Do you... remember how she got that injury?”

She awkwardly brushed at her bangs as she asked.

The coach had never forgotten that day.

Back then, Jiseul High had a reputation—one of the few schools in Korea that actually produced promising gymnasts. And every student in the program knew the names Joo Dae-eun and Han Seoryeong.

Dae-eun, the daughter of two Olympic medalists, had been touted as a gymnastics prodigy since childhood. Naturally, the entire program was built around her.

And the unspoken hierarchy centered on Dae-eun—until it was broken.

By a fellow freshman named Han Seoryeong.