What the hell... Seoryeong tried to shake off his hand, but the more she struggled, the tighter his grip became. Her hand, turning dark red as the blood circulation cut off, ached as if it might burst.

“If you want to run, then go ahead and try. But no one can describe your face as well as I can. Your voice, your intonation, every little unconscious habit or trait—you’ll all end up on a composite sketch.”

“......!”

“Even if I lose you, the whole world will help me find you.”

Wooshin’s lips curled into a satisfied smile.

“So come with me, let’s go home together. You don’t want to live your whole life running, do you? That shit... it’s fucking hard. I tried it. It’s not a life worth living, Seoryeong.”

He spoke like he was begging—or threatening. At that instant, her mind flashed forward and a chill ripped through her guts. Her legs twitched reflexively.

I have to run. I have to get up now and run with everything I have. But her body was frozen, immovable.

All her nerves were focused on the blood soaking his side. Even as his body spasmed in convulsions, Wooshin never once took his eyes off her.

Why. Why go this far. He wouldn’t apologize, yet wouldn’t let her go. Where did that arrogance come from?

A red emergency light flashed from a distance, making her squint. Gunshots had erupted from the hunting lodge warehouse, and now people were pouring in behind police cars.

They covered their mouths in shock, gathering around the horrific accident scene. Some of them, she realized dimly, were the same tourists who had attended their wedding.

Someone’s been shot...! Someone’s hurt...! Short screams rose from every direction, and Seoryeong’s vision spun dizzily. The silent desert road was suddenly filled with chaos.

The swelling voices around her made her stomach churn unbearably.

Was it me who shot Wooshin? Or did he shoot himself? Maybe it was because of the hallucinations—her finger had reflexively pulled the trigger. He had guided her hand cleverly, but the feeling of her finger on the trigger was real.

She raised her trembling arms. Since the moment she’d hurled the bucket at him in the warehouse, her palms and her thin slip had been smeared with blood. But the onlookers, knowing nothing of the circumstances, only pointed and screamed.

Even under the burn of their accusing stares, Wooshin was slipping into unconsciousness. Those eyes that no drug could close were at last drifting shut.

As she pressed hard against the bleeding wound in his side, a faint voice escaped him.

“Did it hurt so much... because I was Kim Hyun?”

“......!”

“But when Han Seoryeong... when you went crazy searching for me...”

“......”

“Strangely... it calmed me down. I don’t even know what this feeling was...”

As her shoulders shook, his flickering gaze brushed across her bare skin.

Even with his cold hands, Wooshin started unbuttoning his shirt. It was senseless, absurd. His hands flailed, but still tore at the buttons with persistence.

“I wanted to make you give up... but that tasted so sweet.”

He gave a bitter laugh.

“This time, I’ll be the one to come find you. So don’t go too far...”

Wooshin’s eyes shut completely.

“...Just wait a little, looking at the stars.”

She stood there like an idiot, unable to react. Her nose bridge froze, her ears went numb, time itself seemed to stop.

When she finally looked around dazedly, her eyes met those of the house’s owners. The landlady shouted something in a sobbing voice, but Seoryeong could barely hear. Her husband had wrapped his arms around her as she collapsed in despair.

“What... what happened...!”

The landlady screamed, face pale.

“Are you hurt, miss? Whose blood is that—are you hurt? You’re not, right?” 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

“Ah, this...”

Her mind, detached from reality, returned her to a day long ago. The day she’d rushed to the police to report Kim Hyun missing. She looked down at her palms with a strange expression.

“Ah... this is ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ my husband’s blood... my husband’s... yes... this time for real...”

She muttered blankly. The people who had once toasted her with genuine joy at the wedding now looked at the bride with eyes of condemnation.

She didn’t resist at all as cold handcuffs closed around her wrists. She only watched helplessly.

***

“Blood pressure dropping below 90, hang more fluids!”

“Doctor, we don’t know where the bullet lodged—hold down under the shoulder here!”

“Gauze and pads! Sir, don’t close your eyes, stay with me! Contact the hospital for a transfusion, and insert a chest tube now. Get the betadine ready!”

The emergency medics fastened an oxygen mask to Wooshin, cut open his shirt, and pressed round defibrillator pads to his chest. Dozens of hands busied themselves attaching wires.

The last thing Seoryeong saw was the paramedics swarming him. Then, following witness statements, she was taken to a holding cell in an Azerbaijani police station.

The holding cell, in the fire-dark dawn, had polished iron bars worn smooth by countless hands. All around her was cold concrete. A single bench was bolted down in the moldy space, but wherever she sat the chill seeped in.

Amid the huddled bodies of people snoring, Seoryeong kept scrubbing her palms.

“――”

She tried to wipe off the blood, but it wouldn’t come off. With a blank face, she spat on her palm. Every time she scraped at the hardened stains, the heavy cuffs gouged her reddening wrists.

Obsessively, as if she would strip the skin off her hands. Then, a tear dropped, dry and sudden. Her frantic scrubbing froze.

Don’t cry. Seoryeong ground her teeth. Why the hell are you crying. What’s there to be sad about. Wooshin just fucked you over again. That’s all.

She quickly wiped her damp cheeks and went back to scrubbing. But the feeling of being buried in the mud only deepened.

“Sonia.”

Suddenly, her hands stopped altogether. A low humming, and a long shadow stretched across the cell. She jerked her head up—Kiya, with a sorrowful look, pressed his forehead to the bars.

“I hate seeing you locked up in a cage.”

He slammed his head against the bars with a bang, lips jutting out. He’d always worn a priest’s cassock, but today he was dressed like any other traveler.

Without the austere air of priestly garb, he looked several years younger. But the eyes revealed were darker than ever.

“Why now?”

She asked flatly. Kiya smiled faintly.

“I was watching your wedding. The lamb was good. I probably ate two whole ones myself.”

“......!”

“But maybe it didn’t sit right, I thought I’d vomit to death.”

He rubbed his stomach and frowned.

“Now that it’s done, let’s go back.”

Seoryeong gave no answer, only staring at her blood-stained palms. Seeing her blankness, Kiya suddenly thrust his hand between the bars and tugged at her arm.

“Snap out of it, Sonia. It’s not like this is the first time we’ve lost an agent.”

“......”

“Besides, I should be congratulating you on getting your memories back. For me, today’s the happiest day. You should be glad too—you got to empty a whole magazine into Kim Hyun’s body. Why the long face?”

Kiya scowled, kicking at the bars.

“Get up. I hate the sight of these iron bars.”

“No...”

Her voice barely came out.

“He’s... in surgery. I have to see him through...”

“Kim Hyun?”

“...No. Wooshin. Lee Wooshin. The man I married today.”

“You’ve married that fucker how many times now? Like I care what his name is! I told you to realize it in your own way and end it, but I didn’t tell you to marry him twice, Sonia.”

Блядь! Blyad, blyad, he cursed, rattling the bars violently as though eaten alive with spite. Блядь! Fuck! это полная хуйня! This is complete bullshit! Сука, son of a bitch!

The furious curses made a few prisoners startle awake, but Kiya paid them no mind. Looking closer, Seoryeong saw that the police who had been watching the cell had all vanished from their posts.

She looked at Kiya anew. Then he slipped a key into the lock and glared at her.

“Sonia, do you want to rot in a cell like your father, for the rest of your life?”

“......!”

“Who do you think put you in here? We don’t have time. You have to run.”

“...I know.”

Wooshin had tormented her to the end. To stop her from leaving, he’d shoved a bullet into his own side, turning his wife into a fugitive. She wiped her bloody hand against her chest.

People bleed when they’re shot. It had been a gun accident, Wooshin’s vile scheme. He’d even chosen a spot away from the vitals on purpose.

“Sonia, let’s go back.”

Creak—the cell door swung open, and Kiya held out his hand.

“Yeah. Let’s go...”

The moment she grasped his hand, the wedding reappeared in her mind—petals scattering like bursts of light.

Shutters clicked, flashes popped, applause roared endlessly. Hearing once again the cheers of people who had celebrated her so sincerely, Seoryeong took her last march into the dark. Hand in hand with someone else.

Because she would never come back out into the world again.

On the ground, the wedding ring spun and spun where it had been dropped.