My third murder had finally happened.
Whenever I thought of those words, strangely enough, the first thing that came to mind wasn't the scream, the blood, or the dying man's face.
It was the sound of rain.
The rain that night fell as though it had been following me for a long time. It had rained on the night I killed my father, on the day the second death occurred, and on the day I stood before the line I'd sworn never to cross again.
Rain always erased something.
Footprints. Sound. Smell. And the traces people left behind.
I hated that fact.
Whenever it rained, the world became clean far too easily. It washed the streets as though nothing had happened, and people put up their umbrellas and went home. Even if someone died, by the next morning the alley would be an ordinary alley again.
That terrified me.
Because my father's words—that it was quieter than you'd think when someone disappeared—felt a little more like the truth every time it rained.
The man's name was Oh Sejun.
I first saw him during my field training at the police academy. He was a witness in the case of a missing college student. Her name was Jung Hayeon. She was twenty-two. She had disappeared on her way back to her apartment after finishing a late-night shift at a convenience store.
The last CCTV footage showed Hayeon passing the entrance to an alley. After that, there was nothing. Her phone had been turned off, and neither her wallet nor her bag had been found. Her friends said Hayeon was never the kind of person who would disappear without a word. Her parents came to the police station every day and repeated the same thing.
“Please find our daughter.”
Every time I heard those words, I thought of Mom.
Had Mom wanted to say the same thing to someone? To ask for help. To ask someone to notice. To say that my husband wasn't an ordinary man.
But no one arrived in time.
When I'd once asked Uncle Taeseok why he wanted to become a police officer, he told me:
“To arrive, even if it's late.”
I held on to those words for a long time. They were why I entered the police academy, why I put on my training uniform and looked through unfamiliar case files. I wanted to become someone who arrived, even if it was late.
But in Hayeon's case, I grew strangely impatient.
I didn't want to be late.
I didn't want to turn over a case file after someone had already died. I didn't want to see the word corpse added after the word missing. So from the moment I saw Oh Sejun, I couldn't take my eyes off him.
He was just a witness, they said.
He had been making deliveries near the same alley on the night Hayeon disappeared. The police asked him a few questions, and he answered with excessive calm. He said he might have seen a girl who looked similar, or maybe not. He said he thought he'd seen a drunk man following her, but he wasn't sure. He said he'd only been passing by.
The way he spoke was strange.
He looked like someone who claimed not to know anything while knowing far too much. His eyes didn't waver, and the corners of his mouth were turned up ever so slightly. When other people talked about the missing-person case, they lowered their voices. They were careful, in case the missing girl's family heard them, in case a single word caused someone to collapse even further.
But Oh Sejun was different.
He answered as though he were solving a boring quiz.
“She was pretty.”
The moment he said it, I tightened my grip on my pen.
The detective assigned to the case glared at him.
“Do not describe a missing person that way.”
Oh Sejun shrugged.
“Sorry. I was just saying what I remembered.”
He turned his head and looked at me.
More precisely, he looked into my eyes.
I knew at that moment. He was looking at me. Past my name tag identifying me as a police academy cadet, past my awkward position as a trainee, past the anxiety I had desperately kept buried—he was looking at something deep inside me.
The thing my father had first left inside me.
The thing only the dead could recognize.
Or perhaps the thing only someone who had killed could recognize.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
He asked.
I didn't answer.
He smiled.
“Do you see something in me?”
The back of my neck went cold.
From that day on, I couldn't forget Oh Sejun. As a trainee with no official investigative authority, there was almost nothing I could do. Organizing paperwork, sitting in on witness statements, listening to what my seniors said. That was all.
But I kept digging through the files.
The alley where Hayeon disappeared. Oh Sejun's delivery route. The time he gave in his statement. The blind spots where the CCTV cut out.
At first, I thought it was just suspicion. That I was being too sensitive. That I was treating a man like a criminal simply because I'd seen eyes like my father's.
But one discrepancy after another began to appear.
Oh Sejun said he'd never seen Hayeon. But his statement included the color of the cardigan she had been wearing. He said he hadn't gone into the alley. But the position of the drunk man he described could only be seen from inside the alley. He said he hadn't gotten a good look at Hayeon's face. But he called her pretty.
I should have told my senior.
I should have reported it to the detective assigned to the case.
Uncle Taeseok would have done that. He would have said suspicion wasn't something you nurtured alone, but something you confirmed with evidence. That the police couldn't act on anger. That arresting someone was different from hating them.
I knew that.
But that night, my father appeared.
In my room at the training dormitory, beneath the fluorescent light that had been switched off. I was sitting at the end of my bed when I saw my father sitting in the desk chair. He was wearing a black coat that wasn't wet. It was raining outside, yet he was as neat as ever.
“This time, you can arrive first.”
I closed my eyes.
“Shut up.”
“You don't want to be late.”
“I'm not listening to you.”
“Really?”
My father smiled.
“Then why are you still thinking about that man?”
I couldn't answer.
“Do you think that student is still alive?”
My breath stopped.
My father slowly rose from his seat. A dead man's footsteps made no sound. Even so, I knew he was approaching from behind me.
“If you're wrong, that's a good thing. It ends with you suspecting one strange man.”
His voice brushed against my ear.
“But what if you're right?”
I clenched my teeth.
“What if I am?”
My father whispered.
“Then you're late again.”
That night, I left the dormitory without an umbrella.
Looking back, I should have stopped there. I should have taken out my phone and called my senior. I should have contacted Uncle Taeseok, at least. I should have said, “I saw someone suspicious. I don't think I should make this decision on my own.”
But I didn't.
That night, I wasn't a police academy cadet.
I wasn't a child who wanted to become a good person, either.
I was simply someone who didn't want to lose sight of another person.
And the desire not to lose someone sometimes changes into the belief that you have to catch them. The belief that you have to catch them changes into the belief that you have to stop them, and the belief that you have to stop them begins, at some point, to resemble the belief that it's okay to kill them.
That frightened me.
Even so, I couldn't stop walking.
Oh Sejun headed toward an old residential neighborhood. The alley was empty because of the rain. The shops had pulled down their shutters, and the streetlights blurred in the water. I followed him at a steady distance.
He stopped behind an abandoned building.
An old banner reading DEMOLITION SCHEDULED was soaked with rain and plastered against the wall. There were no people, no CCTV cameras, and no lit windows nearby.
Only then did I realize.
I hadn't followed him there.
He had brought me there.
“Kid.”
Oh Sejun turned around.
He wasn't surprised. He smiled as though he had known from the beginning.
“What were you thinking, following me all the way here?”
I clenched my fists.
“Where is Jung Hayeon?”
The corner of his mouth lifted a little higher.
“Who?”
“The missing college student.”
“Having fun playing cop?”
“You saw her, didn't you? That night.”
Oh Sejun didn't answer.
“No. You didn't just see her.”
My voice trembled.
“You took her.”
The rain came down harder. Water poured endlessly from the edge of the abandoned building's eaves. Oh Sejun stared at me for a long time. Then he suddenly let out a quiet laugh.
“Kids these days aren't scared of anything.”
“Answer me.”
“What if I say I did it?”
I swallowed.
“I asked where Jung Hayeon is.”
The look in Oh Sejun's eyes changed. The playful expression disappeared, replaced by something deep and cold. I had seen those eyes before.
They were my father's eyes.
No—more precisely, they were the eyes my father had turned on Mom.
Eyes that already saw a living person as an object.
“That student…”
Oh Sejun spoke slowly.
“She screamed at first. But eventually, she got quiet.”
The world stopped.
I grabbed him by the collar.
“Where is she?”
“What? You think you can save her?”
“Where is she?!”
“You're already too late.”
Those words shattered something inside me.
Too late.
That one phrase kept echoing in my head. Like Mom's scream. Like the view of my father's back through the crack in the closet door. Like the child's short breath as he rolled down the stairs.
I was late again.
I had wanted to arrive, even if it was late. I hadn't wanted to be late this time. In the end, I was late again.
Oh Sejun pulled my hand away and said,
“Your eyes are exactly the same.”
I froze.
“What did you say?”
“You've killed someone too, haven't you?”
He stared straight into my eyes.
“The first time is scary. The second time is confusing. By the third, you get used to it.”
“Shut up.”
“No, you haven't.”
He laughed quietly.
“You know why you find me disgusting.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Because you're just like me.”
Those words stabbed me before any knife could.
I let go of Oh Sejun's collar. Then I took a step back. I should have. In that moment, I really had to be a police academy cadet. I had to become someone who suspected people, found evidence, and arrested criminals. Not someone who killed.
I pulled out my phone with trembling hands.
“Turn yourself in.”
The smile vanished from Oh Sejun's face.
“What?”
“If you surrender now, you'll at least have a chance to tell your side of the story in your own words.”
“What does a kid like you know?”
“Otherwise, I'll make sure you get arrested.”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“Choose. Are you going to surrender, or are you going to be arrested?”
A brief silence.
In that moment, all expression drained from Oh Sejun's face.
I had seen emotion disappear from a person's face several times. The moment my father stood before Mom. The moment he looked down at the child sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. And now.
Oh Sejun reached into his pocket.
My father's voice came from behind me.
“Too late.”
The blade flashed briefly beneath the streetlight.
I tried to step back, but the wet ground caught my ankle. Oh Sejun lunged. My body moved first. I caught his wrist, and the tip of the knife grazed my collar. A moment later, hot pain spread through my abdomen.
I couldn't breathe.
I staggered into the wall. My palm was slippery. I couldn't tell whether it was rain or blood flowing from my body. Oh Sejun lunged again. He was no longer smiling.
He was trying to kill me.
There was no doubt about it.
I shoved his wrist away. I thought I heard the knife hit the ground. Or maybe I hadn't heard it at all. The rain was too loud. My heartbeat was too loud.
Oh Sejun wrapped his hand around my throat.
“Kids like you always end up here.”
He bared his teeth.
“No matter how hard you pretend to be good, you always come over to our side.”
I struggled to breathe.
“I…”
No voice came out.
“I'm not you.”
I shoved him.
At that moment, Oh Sejun's foot slipped. His body tilted backward. It happened in an instant. I think I tried to grab his arm. Or maybe I didn't.
Memory always cuts out at the decisive moment.
Crash.
A dull sound rang out.
Oh Sejun was lying on the ground. Rainwater pooled near his head and flowed away. He was looking at me with his eyes open. His lips moved.
“See…”
I froze.
“In the end…”
His voice was barely audible.
“Just like me…”
He didn't move after that.
I stood there for a long time.
No—I think I stood there.
The rain fell. My clothes were soaked, and my abdomen hurt as though it were burning. Someone kept laughing inside my head.
It was my father.
“That's three.”
He said it.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“This time, you followed him.”
“I didn't mean to kill him.”
“You keep saying that.”
My father laughed.
“You didn't mean to kill him.”
I sank to the ground. My hands were shaking. Every breath felt like it tore open my abdomen. I had to find my phone. I had to call for help. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do.
But my hands wouldn't move.
Oh Sejun's words kept repeating in my head.
Because you're just like me.
Your eyes are exactly the same.
Just like me in the end.
And I don't remember anything after that.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a white ceiling.
The smell of disinfectant filled the air. The fluorescent lights were off, and the sky outside was beginning to grow faintly bright. When I tried to move, a dull ache surged through my abdomen. I swallowed a groan.
“Don't move.”
The voice was familiar.
When I turned my head, Mingyu was there.
At first, I thought I was still dreaming. The boy who had once been sitting on the ground in the alley behind our school. The boy who had turned my second murder into an accident. The boy I'd exchanged a few messages with after that day before we gradually drifted apart.
That Mingyu was standing beside me in a white coat.
“Mingyu…”
My voice came out hoarse.
Mingyu looked at my face, then turned away.
“You're awake.”
“Where…”
“A hospital.”
“Why am I…”
“You called me.”
I searched my memory.
Called?
I didn't remember calling anyone. I vaguely remembered taking out my phone. But I had no idea whether I'd dialed a number, spoken, or whether anyone had answered.
“What did I say?”
Mingyu was silent for a moment.
“You asked me to save you.”
I closed my mouth.
“And I couldn't understand the rest. All I heard was the rain, and your breathing sounded wrong. Your location sharing was on, so I was able to find you.”
“Did you come alone?”
Mingyu didn't answer.
His silence was an answer.
I slowly tried to sit up. Mingyu pressed down on my shoulder.
“I told you not to move.”
“The man…”
Mingyu's face hardened.
“Don't ask.”
“Is he dead?”
Mingyu looked at me for a long time.
The fear from long ago still remained in his eyes. But it was different from back then. At the time, Mingyu had been the boy who was being beaten, and I had been the strange savior who appeared before him. Now Mingyu was the one saving me.
That was even more horrifying.
“Mingyu.”
I whispered.
“I have to report myself.”
Mingyu's hand stopped.
“I have to. I… I have to explain.”
“Can you explain?”
I couldn't answer.
Mingyu spoke in a low voice.
“You followed him, the two of you got into a fight, he died, and you were stabbed. But your memory cuts off. Is that right?”
“He was the killer.”
“Do you have proof?”
I bit my lip.
Oh Sejun's confession. His claim that it was already too late for Jung Hayeon. What he had said while looking into my eyes.
Everything I had heard with my own ears.
Behind the abandoned building in the rain. A night with no witnesses. A dead witness. A police academy cadet with a stab wound. And a child who had killed someone in the past, now living under a new identity.
Mingyu already wore the expression of someone who had thought through all of it.
“They're going to make you unable to say anything again.”
“Even so…”
“This time, I saw it.”
I looked at Mingyu.
“Saw what?”
“Your face.”
Mingyu's voice trembled.
“I saw it at school that day, too. The face you wore when you looked down at the stairs after pushing that kid. Everyone said you'd saved me, and I said the same thing. I've never thought that was wrong. If it hadn't been for you, I'd have kept getting beaten.”
Mingyu caught his breath, then continued.
“But you looked similar yesterday.”
I couldn't say anything.
“I was scared.”
That one sentence pierced something deep inside me.
“That was why I couldn't just leave you there.”
Mingyu checked my wound again. His fingertips were calm, but his eyes kept wavering.
“There is no record.”
He said it.
I stared blankly at him.
“You weren't admitted to the emergency room. I asked a senior I know to treat you, that's all. You can't stay here long.”
“Why are you going this far?”
Mingyu didn't answer.
Outside, the sky was slowly brightening. The rain that had fallen all night had weakened, but it still hadn't stopped. Drops ran down the window, tearing apart the faint light inside the hospital room.
Mingyu spoke in a tiny voice.
“Because you saved me that day.”
I closed my eyes.
Saved.
That word always dragged me deeper.
I wanted to save someone.
I really did.
But strangely, every time I reached out to save someone, someone died.
The next morning, I went to the police station.
The word went seemed ridiculous. I wasn't even a real police officer yet. A field trainee. A student who organized case records, followed the senior officers around, and learned about justice from a distance. And yet my abdomen was wrapped in bandages, and pain that hadn't faded all night lay hidden beneath my shirt.
Mingyu told me not to go.
He told me to take even one day off.
But I had no choice.
It would seem stranger if I disappeared. Someone would ask where I'd been the night before. And more than anything, I needed to know how Oh Sejun would be found.
The police station was as noisy as usual. Phones rang, someone flipped through a case file, and the smell of coffee drifted down the hallway. Everyone was busy with their own work, and no one paid me any particular attention.
That normalcy frightened me.
I had spent the night beside death, yet the world was acting as though nothing had happened.
The radio crackled as soon as I sat down.
Static.
After a brief burst of noise, the voice of a detective heading to the scene came through.
“Body found behind an abandoned building. Male. Identity is being confirmed, but the victim is believed to be Oh Sejun.”
My fingertips went cold.
Someone beside me said,
“Oh Sejun? Wasn't he the witness in that missing-person case?”
Another detective cursed under his breath.
“Where's the scene?”
The voice on the radio continued.
“Near the residential redevelopment zone. It rained heavily overnight, so the scene is in poor condition. Most of the bloodstains and footprints in the area appear to have been damaged.”
I held my breath.
“What about the weapon?”
A brief silence.
Then the answer.
“None has been found so far.”
The world tilted.
I gripped the edge of the desk.
There was no weapon.
That was impossible.
I had definitely seen it. Oh Sejun pulling out the knife. The cold sensation as it grazed my abdomen. The sound of something hitting the ground.
But there was no knife.
Rain could wash away bloodstains and fingerprints. It could erase footprints. It could blur small traces.
But rain couldn't take a knife.
Someone had taken it.
Who?
Mingyu?
No.
Mingyu had said he was already frantic when he found me. Just getting me out of there would have been more than enough. More importantly, if Mingyu had taken the knife, he would have told me. No—would he really have?
Oh Sejun's accomplice?
The thought sent a chill down my spine. What if Hayeon's disappearance hadn't been Oh Sejun's doing alone? What if someone had been watching him? What if they had seen me follow him?
Then whoever took the knife knows me.
They know I was there.
They also know I was the last person to face Oh Sejun.
I lowered my head. Pain surged through my abdomen every time I breathed. My hand on the desk was trembling.
Then someone stopped behind me.
A familiar smell.
The smell of a wet coat.
The presence of the dead.
I slowly turned my head.
My father was standing there.
In the middle of the police station, where detectives walked back and forth and radios crackled. My dead father was looking down at me in a black coat that appeared to be wet from the rain.
He was smiling.
“Why are you so surprised?”
I couldn't say anything.
My father bent down and whispered in my ear.
“You weren't the one who took the knife.”
My heart seemed to stop.
He laughed even more quietly.
“Then who took it?”
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
My father was still there.
A single drop of rain fell from his fingertips.
Then he said,
“Doyoon.”
I swallowed.
“This time, are you really sure you don't remember?”