Seomun Ihwa looked over the alley.
The sparsely populated night street was perfect for dredging up every random incident she had ever seen or heard about on the news.
“Awwng. Sunbae, you really ca all the way out here.”
“I heard our Director Kim started a new project, so I got curious.”
“Sunbae. I told you, I’m a Park.”
“Really? As long as I rembered your na, that’s enough....”
“Usually the surna is part of the na.... Ah, whatever, I shouldn’t even bother saying it.... Thanks for rembering at least two syllables.”
Instead of the drink Park Jaeyoung handed her, Seomun Ihwa took the storyboard into her hands.
“This what you’re shooting right now?”
“Yeah. This scene.”
Drama storyboards usually looked like little more than scribbled sketches with brief instructions.
But Park Jaeyoung’s was different.
There was a vividness to it that made it seem as though sothing might leap right off the paper at any mont. It suited her perfectly, obsessed as she was with detail.
“Hm....”
Seomun Ihwa stared at the page, ntally adding sothing of her own.
That alone was enough for her to reconstruct the entire scene.
The character enters from the left.
Walks forward.
The cara follows behind.
Every instruction written into the storyboard moved through Seomun Ihwa’s mind as smoothly as flowing water.
Rustle.
She turned to the next page.
At so point, even the staff around the set had fixed their eyes on Seomun Ihwa.
“Gulp....”
The surroundings beca so quiet that the sound of soone swallowing could be heard.
Everyone was waiting for Seomun Ihwa’s reaction.
Her gaze stopped on one particular panel.
What caught her eye was none other than Han Yeoreum’s Lee Seohae.
“This should be interesting.”
Without lifting her eyes from the storyboard, Seomun Ihwa said,
“When do you roll? I’m curious.”
“Awwng... anyone watching would think you’re the main writer here. Honestly.”
Director Park was smiling too at her positive reaction.
Then Park Jaeyoung called Han Yeoreum over.
“Here. The one I told you about.”
“Ah.”
“Hello! I’m Han Yeoreum. I’m truly a huge fan of yours, Writer. It’s an honor to et you.”
Seomun Ihwa rely tilted her head with an indifferent look.
Monts like this happened far too often in her life.
Actors introducing themselves.
Long greetings about how they had always been her fan.
Polite bows bent deeply at the waist.
That was why she had already forgotten the na she had just heard.
“Going in!”
Director Park’s voice spread across the set, and the actors took their places at the marks prepared for their blocking.
Seated in the chair arranged for her, Seomun Ihwa glanced once at the face on the monitor, then skimd the storyboard in her hand again.
‘Jaeyoung really is incredible when it cos to scene direction....’
At this mont, the only na Seomun Ihwa rembered in this place was the director’s.
* * *
An alley where an unpleasant sll mixed into the chilly night air.
A damp, stale stench rose from the drainage grate.
Despite the streetlamp, the road remained dark.
Lee Seohae was there.
There was none of the fear an ordinary person might carry while walking alone at night.
Lee Seohae walked straight ahead, posture perfectly upright.
Shoulders squared.
Her pace unhurried.
‘Good....’
Director Park bit down on his lip as he watched Han Yeoreum’s Lee Seohae through the monitor.
Eyes that seed rely to witness society.
A faintly detached face that was, in every way, Lee Seohae.
Most of the signs she passed were dark, and the few still lit offered no real comfort.
The atmosphere was the complete opposite of walking through a brightly crowded district, but that gave Lee Seohae no reason to quicken her pace.
She walked forward with a briefcase in one hand.
The sturdy heels she wore clicked against the gray asphalt.
Click. Click. Click.
There were footsteps following behind her.
Lee Seohae’s gaze, fixed forward until now, shifted subtly to the side.
As if trying to look behind her through the edge of her vision.
Click. Click. Click.
Step. Step. Step.
With sharp instincts, Lee Seohae realized it imdiately.
This person had no destination.
Only an objective.
Click—. Click—. Click—.
Step—. Step—. Step—.
Everyone’s stride was different.
Yet for the footsteps to overlap this perfectly could only an one thing:
the target was her.
Even with suspicious footsteps trailing her through the silent alley at night, not a trace of expression changed on Lee Seohae’s face.
If anything, that rational composure suited her profession—one built on thoroughly analyzing phenona—better than anyone else.
The narrow alley split into three paths, the flyers plastered over the streetlamp pole peeling at the edges.
Lee Seohae chose the alley to the right.
Then, as if suddenly in a hurry, she quickened her pace.
Clickclickclickclick.
Stepstepstepstep.
The footsteps matched perfectly.
The man behind her deliberately mirrored her stride, like a predator provoking its prey.
Even though he could have caught her the mont he sped up.
As if telling her to keep feeling fear until she was fully in his grasp.
“....”
She had chosen wrong.
Lee Seohae should not have taken the path to the right.
This was an even more deserted place.
A dead end was coming.
Then—
Clickclickclickclick!
Lee Seohae sped up.
But no matter how fast she moved, the alley she entered ended in a dead end.
The man followed her leisurely.
“Huh...?”
But when he turned the corner, there was no one there.
Instant irritation flared across his face.
“Fuck....”
Muttering under his breath, he walked deeper into the silent alley.
She had definitely hidden sowhere.
Dii-ri-ri-ring.
Then it happened.
A phone alarm rang near a parked truck.
A smile spread across the man’s face.
How could it be this cliché?
The woman trembling in hiding was probably cursing whoever had idiotically called her at this exact mont.
He strolled toward the truck.
Step. Step. Step.
A suffocating fear ruled the narrow alley.
The man stood before the brightly glowing phone, the corners of his lips lifting.
“Ah... where are you hiding?”
His tone made it obvious he already knew Lee Seohae was behind this truck.
Because the greatest pleasure for a predator was striking the instant its prey let its guard down.
He looked down at the lit-up phone.
That was when—
“Ugh—!”
Crash.
The man lurched violently and fell.
A belt had wrapped around his ankle without him ever realizing when.
He flailed, bracing his palms against the asphalt to keep from being dragged, but it was useless.
“Ghk!”
The soft skin of his palm scraped raw against the road.
A long sar of blood dragged across the ground.
What entered the man’s panicked vision was the phone Lee Seohae had dropped.
[Alarm: From ]
It wasn’t a phone call from sowhere else.
Using the smartwatch on her wrist, she had triggered an alarm on her own phone.
The predator was over there.
The prey was here.
Because Lee Seohae had lured his feet close enough to the underside of the truck with the phone, the suspect was pulled beneath it as if being devoured.
“You were hiding here.”
Lee Seohae had not been hiding behind the truck.
She had been waiting for him in the last place he would ever expect—
the empty gap beneath it.
The man vanished under the truck in an instant.
Unlike the suspect, who was dragged by the ankle, Lee Seohae had already moved back outside the truck.
Her small fra let her move quickly.
She pulled only the man’s ankle—tightly wrapped in the belt—straight out from beneath the truck.
Then she aid precisely at his shin.
Thud.
“AAAAAH!”
It was excessively efficient.
Sothing cracked in the half-lifted leg.
Because of Lee Seohae, his leg bent completely the wrong way.
Gripping the end of the belt in her hand, Lee Seohae handled it as though it were a leash.
“....”
Her eyes were sunken.
Those black irises held sothing fundantal.
A darkly settled rage.
She was clearly not looking at a person.
And yet the cold fury directed toward the suspect—flipped beneath the truck with only his ankle sticking out—could be felt in full.
Lee Seohae gave the belt clenched in her grip two sharp shakes.
“Ugh....”
The man could not crawl out.
There was a raised lip at the side, making it impossible for anyone but a woman as small as Lee Seohae to move through easily.
He tried crawling forward like a dog, but the belt tied tightly around his ankle gave him no escape.
He even tried kicking out with one leg in resistance, but Lee Seohae was standing atop the raised edge.
All his foot t was solid stone.
With calm hands, Lee Seohae took a pair of handcuffs out of the briefcase.
Click.
She fastened one cuff around the bare ankle exposed below the belt, and the other around the truck wheel.
“You fucking bitch!”
Only then did the man fully realize what had happened to him, and he thrashed.
Lee Seohae’s expression did not change at his curses.
The only thing that seed to concern her was how dirty she had beco from being under the truck monts ago.
She pulled out a handkerchief from the briefcase and carefully wiped her hands.
Then she brushed off her hair.
She pressed the button # Nоvеlight # on her smartwatch and silenced the alarm.
She seed utterly uninterested in the suspect.
Walking halfway around the truck, Lee Seohae picked up the phone she had left on the ground.
Then she made a call.
“Yes. Detective. This is Lee Seohae.”
Unlike the man screaming beneath the truck, Lee Seohae was not excited in the slightest.
Her voice was level.
Even.
That alone made her seem like a higher life form.
Proof that she stood on a completely different level from him.
Half-turning back, Lee Seohae looked up at the streetlamp.
Beneath the white light hung a blue road sign.
“If you’re asking where... it’s the back road at the three-way intersection off Sujeong-ro. Huimang-ro 4-gil.”
A shadow flickered clearly at her feet.
Her small body looked swollen with malice.
A massive shadow was tied to Lee Seohae’s ankle.
“...Huh!”
Then Director Park suddenly shouted without aning to.
“Yeoreum! Nosebleed! Hold on!”
Blood was running from Han Yeoreum’s nose.
* * *
‘Ah....’
Did I get too worked up?
I stared in surprise at the director rushing toward .
Sothing warm had been running past my lips, and only now did I realize it was my own nosebleed.
“You said you didn’t sleep! So it was true!”
“Wet wipes. Wet wipes.”
No one paid any attention to Hyeong Changuk, who was still tied to the truck.
Every eye was on , the one bleeding from the nose.
‘See this? This is ....’
Maybe Hyeong Changuk had enough sense to read the room, because he couldn’t even bring himself to ask to be untied. Only his ankle kept twitching beneath the truck.
“Awwng. Why are you laughing? Is this funny right now?”
“No, no. I’m just happy you’re worried about .”
“You really are impossible.”
But it was true.
Director Park smacked my back, saying how absurd it was that I was laughing in the middle of this.
Still, it didn’t look like the bleeding would stop easily.
Once it starts, it always keeps going for .
‘How much delay will this cause?’
Stop the nosebleed.
Redo the makeup.
At least thirty minutes.
‘No, wait.’
Wouldn’t this actually be better?
In that cramped space under the truck, I could easily get hit by a thrashing knee.
‘Because the space is tight.’
Rather than coming out without a single injury...
“Director. Can we do just one more take?”
At my question, Director Park looked at like I had just said sothing insane.
“From the handcuffing-at-the-ankle scene to the phone call. Just one more.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Quickly, before the nosebleed stops.”
The words ca out while blood dripped steadily down.
For a mont, the entire set froze.
“That sounds interesting.”
A voice ca from behind.
“Why not keep going?”
The owner of that voice was Seomun Ihwa, still seated in the chair beside the monitor, looking straight at .
* * *
Following both of their words, Director Park resud filming.
Pitch-black night.
Lee Seohae erged through the narrow gap, calm as soone who had just caught a stray dog.
‘How...?’
Her gaze was different from before.
He couldn’t quite explain it, but there seed to be the faintest trace of malice in those dark eyes.
‘Could it be because she got hit?’
The earlier Lee Seohae could have co out clean.
But now, this Lee Seohae had a nosebleed from the suspect’s resistance.
Han Yeoreum conveyed that difference in setting through her eyes alone.
A far denser concentration poured across her side profile than before.
After fastening the handcuff to the ankle, Lee Seohae raised her index finger beneath her nose as if checking.
Dark red blood dripped down.
This ti, Lee Seohae hesitated for a mont—
and did not take out the handkerchief.
As if the hand dirtied by striking him bothered her more than being hit.
Click. Click. Click.
She walked steadily around the truck.
Then bent toward the fallen phone.
The first hand she extended was the right.
But in the next instant, it was the left hand that picked up the phone.
‘...Because she didn’t want blood on it?’
It was a mont too short to consciously calculate.
But just like Lee Seohae truly would, Han Yeoreum chose the left hand instead of the bloodied right.
After wiping the phone screen against her collar, Lee Seohae called Gam Seonghwan.
“This is Lee Seohae.”
The line was different from before.
The silent malice toward the suspect bound beneath the truck.
That emotion filling her eyes was caught on sothing, unable to fully erge.
Social status.
Face.
Reputation.
Those things bound Lee Seohae’s ankles.
“Please co quickly.”
After giving the address, Lee Seohae added the next line.
Director Park stared at her back.
The okay sign did not fall for several more seconds.
It was the result of an unconscious desire—
he simply did not want this Lee Seohae to end yet.
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