Chapter 49

He stammered uncharacteristically, but the line had already gone dead. Mu-yeong blinked in sheer bewilderment before pulling himself together. Whether he would actually have to put on a solo masturbation show in front of Choi Yook wasn’t the critical issue right now.

Two things took immediate priority. First, seeing that Choi Yook was spouting such utter nonsense, it was obvious he had no idea where Mu-yeong was actually located.

Second, factoring in morning rush-hour traffic, he had to leave for Gangnam this very second to avoid being late. Choi Yook wasn’t the kind of person to offer leeway even if an elephant had broken out of the zoo and totaled Mu-yeong’s car.

Seo Mu-yeong hurried down to the underground parking garage. The instant he got into the van, he plugged in his earphones and turned on the audio recorder retrieved from Choi Sijin’s car. His plan was to listen to as much material as possible before arriving. The moment the vehicle surged forward, he accelerated the playback speed.

—“I told you not to buy that—!” That was standard-issue bitching over the receiver. —“Romance again? A script has to actually suit me to—!”

That was the next most common flavor of bitching. Seo Mu-yeong fast-forwarded through the audio file, skipping ahead continuously. The conversation he had been waiting for finally surfaced after he entered Hannam Bridge.

—“Yeah, Mom. What is it?”

Choi Sijin replied sullenly. The blaring violin concerto he had cranked up to ear-piercing volume dropped slightly. Even so, his voice repeatedly surfaced and sank beneath the background noise.

—“When? …Isn’t it enough if only you go, Mom? Why do I have to tag along…? I’m successful because I have talent. Why is that thanks to you? …You don’t even know that? I’m busy— Ah, shit! I’ll go, alright? I said I’ll go! Stop whining already. …Mangjong? Ugh, seriously… I’ll go, I’m going. Happy now? You drive, Mom. …Come to my place by three in the afternoon, then.”

The phone call disconnected shortly after. Seo Mu-yeong organized the information he had just heard in his head.

So Kim Jeong-seon wasn’t the only one visiting ‘that place’—Choi Sijin was going too. But he still had no clue exactly when they were supposed to go. Since it was tied to Choi Sijin’s fake birthday, it would likely be around then, but while the three o’clock timestamp was clear, no specific date had been mentioned.

While he turned the problem over in his mind, the van drew steadily closer to the hotel. He listened through the remainder of the recordings, but there were no further mentions of ‘that place.’ The rest consisted merely of Kim Jeong-seon nagging Choi Sijin to keep his conduct immaculate until that day.

With lingering regret, Seo Mu-yeong parked in the hotel’s underground garage. Shoving the audio recorder deep into his backpack, he left the bag on the passenger seat and boarded the elevator.

Leaving behind the backpack he always carried made his shoulders feel strangely bare. Even so, meeting Choi Yook with the audio recorder on his person was far more dangerous. Choi Yook possessed razor-sharp instincts; while Mu-yeong hadn’t been caught yet, there was no telling when the man might sense something suspicious.

Standing before the suite number Choi Yook had texted him, Seo Mu-yeong pressed the doorbell. A glance at his phone showed he still had plenty of time to spare.

“Section Chief, I’m here!”

Seo Mu-yeong announced his arrival energetically, gently rolling his ankle, which ached from running around since dawn. As he waited for a response, the door swung open abruptly. He looked up, only to freeze mid-motion.

Leaning against the doorframe, Choi Yook wore a bathrobe, looking as though he had just stepped out of the shower. His dark hair, half-dried with the towel slung around his neck, gleamed with moisture so intense that it appeared almost blue.

Water droplets dripped from those dark strands, wetting his exposed collarbones and chest. With his usual swept-back bangs falling over thick eyebrows, his fierce, intimidating impression was softened slightly. He even looked a bit younger than usual.

At the same time, the hairstyle accentuated the contours of his eyes, making his gaze feel all the more precise. Choi Yook’s stare slid slowly from top to bottom. It was an appraisal that dismantled the dazed Seo Mu-yeong piece by piece.

From the ball cap pulled low over his shadowed eyes, nose, and mouth; down to his throat where his pulse hammered wildly; his rising and falling chest; all the way to his feet clad in sneakers with frayed heels.

Uh, what is this?

Seo Mu-yeong looked at him, completely at a loss. He couldn’t think of how to react. Usually, even when his thoughts stalled, his body would react out of habit, but even that proved impossible now. His throat felt clamped shut, as if the cheerful greeting he had shouted moments ago belonged to an entirely different person.

Seo Mu-yeong merely parted his lips in a faint flutter. Just as Choi Yook’s gaze seemed to linger on the slight opening of his mouth, Choi Yook snatched off Mu-yeong’s cap, seized his forearm, and yanked him forward.

“If you’re here, get inside,” Choi Yook muttered, his voice dropping low.

Seo Mu-yeong stumbled over the threshold into the suite. The door clicked shut behind him, the electronic lock engaging with a smooth hiss. Though it was a given that he could never turn his back on Choi Yook anyway, the stark realization that every escape route had been cut off made the hair on his arms prickle.

Choi Yook hauled Seo Mu-yeong deeper into the room. Only when they reached the foot of the bed did he toss the ball cap carelessly aside and release his grip on Mu-yeong’s wrist.

The king-sized bed was covered in rumpled bedding. When the off-balance Seo Mu-yeong inadvertently collapsed onto the edge of the mattress, Choi Yook dragged a chair over and seated himself directly across from him.

The distance between their knees was barely a handspan. The seat of the chair was lower than the mattress. Even so, the sheer difference in their frames meant Choi Yook was still looking down on Seo Mu-yeong.

Seo Mu-yeong curled his hands tight against his thighs and watched him. Wearing an indifferent expression, Choi Yook leaned back and shook out his damp hair with the towel.

“I called you over because I remembered what Hong Soon-ja said yesterday.”

The man broke the quiet without preamble as he continued drying his hair. It was a relief that he hadn’t summoned Mu-yeong over Choi Sijin, yet it was far too early to relax. Choi Yook continued with chilling certainty.

“She said Kang Shim-soo attended a funeral in Seoul and seemed to bring back a young girl.”

For someone who despised Hong Soon-ja so vehemently, his grasp of the core facts was razor-sharp. Seo Mu-yeong shook his head in frantic denial.

“No, that’s not right,” Seo Mu-yeong countered with desperate conviction. “She only said Kang Shim-soo was wearing a black suit and that the kid looked dispirited. How does that automatically mean she attended a funeral? A black attire can be worn to a wedding, and the child might have simply been carsick in the taxi.”

Though delivered to protect his own skin, the logic was reasonably sound. Yet Choi Yook was not so easily swayed.

“You told me yourself that she was a woman who rarely ever left Mangcheon. And if it were a family event like a wedding, she would have worn a hanbok instead. Without a single missing-person report filed for the kid, the odds are high that her parents had died. Furthermore—”

Choi Yook leaned his upper body toward Seo Mu-yeong. The space between their faces collapsed in an instant. As Mu-yeong froze in place, Choi Yook studied him at leisure before continuing.

“I was wondering who could have died back then… and when a faint lead crossed my mind, I checked the archived files this morning,” Choi Yook murmured, his dark eyes narrowing slightly.

“…” Seo Mu-yeong held his breath, unable to offer a single reply.

“Kang Shim-soo’s daughter and son-in-law died around that exact time,” the Section Chief revealed with chilling clarity. “That makes the pieces fit together perfectly. Even if they were estranged, a mother would still have to attend her own daughter’s funeral.”

A look of quiet satisfaction settled over Choi Yook’s face. Whether he was pleased at having extracted a vital connection from Hong Soon-ja despite her curses, or simply relishing having bested Mu-yeong in an argument, he was clearly in high spirits. Seo Mu-yeong leaned forward slightly, mirroring his posture.

“Then how did that child ever cross paths with Kang Shim-soo? You said yourself that the couple had no children.”

Whichever way one looked at it, that was the most pivotal fact. Choi Yook leaned back against the chair again, an irritated shadow clouding his features.

“That’s the problem. If she didn’t bring back an orphaned granddaughter, then who did she take, and why? A respectable corporate employee and a civil servant wouldn’t suddenly take in an unadopted child and raise her as their daughter.”

So he even knows what my parents did for a living. Seo Mu-yeong nodded vigorously. He felt deeply relieved that one of the core backgrounds capable of pinpointing his true identity had been rendered completely useless.

At the same time, a spiteful satisfaction surged within him. Wasn’t the complete evaporation of ■■■’s identity, which had once been perfectly intact, all because Choi Sijin stole his name? Ever since that ritual, like damnatio memoriae, every single record of ■■■ had been wiped clean—his birth registration records, his family registry certificates, and even his resident registration number had vanished without a trace.

It was quite a spectacle watching Choi Yook run in circles because of that bureaucratic void. Even if the guiltless Choi Yook was getting dragged through the mud in vain, Mu-yeong was hardly in a position to feel sympathy for him.

Even so, Seo Mu-yeong needed to divert the man’s attention away from the funeral parlor. Fortuitously, he had just acquired a decent scrap of intelligence.

“Since that’s a dead end anyway, why not approach this from a different angle?”

Seo Mu-yeong offered the suggestion with lively enthusiasm.

Leaning forward, Seo Mu-yeong brought up what he had learned. “I heard something from Hong Soon-ja-ssi yesterday. She mentioned that Kim Seo-gyeong emphasized that something important had vanished from the scene of the fire. Couldn’t Inspector Kim Jae-cheol be hiding something?”

“Well, I’m rather skeptical on that front.” Choi Yook scoffed with languid indifference. “Kim Jae-cheol isn’t exactly an upright official worthy of a memorial stone. If an opportunity to make money came along, he’d have no reason to pocket it without telling me. I don’t even know whether something actually vanished or not, but even if it did, that evidence would be completely useless for tracking down the kid.”

“…” Seo Mu-yeong fell silent, unable to contradict him.

“Put the investigation into Kang Shim-soo’s disciples on hold for now and dig into her daughter and son-in-law’s acquaintances,” Choi Yook commanded firmly. “Someone might have seen something—either in their ordinary routines or at the funeral home that day.”

“…Understood,” Seo Mu-yeong answered with a compliant nod.

Seo Mu-yeong felt a sharp prickle of alarm. Even if every official document concerning his existence had vanished into thin air, the memories etched into the minds of living people would not have disappeared so cleanly.

After all, Yoon Hee-sook and Hong Soon-ja still remembered his very existence. If that was the case, he could not allow Choi Yook to direct his scrutiny toward his parents.

“It will take some time,” Seo Mu-yeong ventured cautiously. “Both of them have been dead for years, after all. And perhaps…”

Seo Mu-yeong offered a supple smile as he met Choi Yook’s dark eyes.

“That child might have had nothing to do with Kang Shim-soo’s daughter and son-in-law at all. She might have simply brought back any random girl who caught her eye, trying to fill the void left by the grief of losing her own child.”

Seo Mu-yeong framed his grandmother as a shameless kidnapper as he spoke. I’m sorry, Grandma. But you hit me pretty hard back then, so please understand, he murmured inwardly.

Choi Yook knitted his brows in surprise. Straightening his spine from where he had been lounging in the chair, he closed the distance between himself and Mu-yeong once more.

“I thought you were busy defending Kang Shim-soo,” Choi Yook drawled with cool amusement.

“I’m merely raising possibilities you haven’t considered, Section Chief. And just as you said, people with intense religious devotion often have rather peculiar ways of thinking.”

Seo Mu-yeong added words tailored to cater to Choi Yook’s prejudices. Evidently pleased by that sentiment at least, the Section Chief let out a dry, incredulous chuckle.

Choi Yook let out a chilling scoff. “True enough. Those who claim to serve gods are all out of their fucking minds without exception.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”

When Mu-yeong drew the line against such extreme rhetoric, Choi Yook’s gaze sharpened in an instant.