On my way home from work, Uncle Taeseok's car was parked in front of the police station.
A black sedan. The smell of old air freshener. Every time I opened the passenger-side door, I strangely felt like I was going back in time. When I was in middle school, on the way home after counseling. The nights he waited for me in silence when I came out late after evening self-study in high school. The hand that patted my shoulder without a word the day I received my acceptance letter from the police academy.
Every time I got into that car, I felt like I was still a child being protected.
And now, that fact was suffocating me.
“Get in?”
Uncle Taeseok spoke briefly.
“Yes.”
I fastened my seat belt.
A strange silence filled the car. The radio was off, and only the lights of the cars on the road stretched across the windows. The city was always noisy during rush hour, but for some reason, the inside of the car was too quiet.
That quiet pressed down on me.
I rested my hands on my knees and quietly regulated my breathing. The wound in my abdomen had gone down a lot, but it still pulled with a dull ache whenever I moved. He couldn't find out. He absolutely couldn't find out. Uncle Taeseok was the kind of person who never missed even the slightest abnormality.
“Do you still see him?”
Uncle Taeseok was the one who broke the silence.
For a moment, I forgot how to answer.
“Excuse me?”
“Your father.”
His hands on the steering wheel didn't shake. His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead. But those words changed the air inside the car.
My father.
I looked at my reflection in the window. A pale, sleepless face. The face I wore before telling a lie.
“No.”
The answer came out faster than I'd expected.
“I've been fine lately.”
My voice was so calm that it sounded unfamiliar even to me.
“I've been going to counseling regularly, and I've been taking my medication. Maybe that's why... I haven't seen him lately.”
A lie.
My father was still sitting in the back seat.
The dead man had his arms folded as naturally as ever, pretending to look out the window. The moment I lied, he slowly turned his head.
And smiled.
“You're getting good at that.”
I pretended not to hear him.
Uncle Taeseok was silent for a moment.
“Good.”
That one word felt strangely heavy.
Had he believed me? Or was he only pretending to? I couldn't tell. Uncle Taeseok had always been like that. He never forced the things I didn't say out of me. Instead, he waited until the day I could say them myself.
That made it even more painful.
I kept lying to the person who was waiting for me.
“How's the practical training going?”
He asked again.
“It's fine.”
“And you still want to go into Violent Crimes?”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
“It doesn't have to be Violent Crimes. You can go wherever you want. There are plenty of jobs besides investigations. Forensics, victim support...”
His words were the same as always.
The way he asked questions, like a father.
Whether I was eating properly, whether I was sleeping, whether the training was too hard, whether the senior officers were treating me badly. He was always like that. He never tried to decide my life for me, but he kept checking to make sure I wasn't walking into somewhere too dangerous.
I knew what he was trying to do.
That was why I grew anxious.
Was someone like me really allowed to enjoy an ordinary life like this?
A life where someone waited for me at home, cooked for me, and worried about my future. Was someone like me allowed to have any of that?
That was when my phone rang.
Mingyu's name appeared on the screen.
My body went rigid. Uncle Taeseok's gaze flicked toward my phone for the briefest moment. I answered as naturally as I could.
“Yeah.”
Mingyu's voice burst through the phone immediately.
“What about your wound? Are you okay? Did you move around today?”
I felt like my heart had dropped into my stomach.
“I’m fine.”
I answered briefly.
“Are you out right now?”
“I’m on my way home.”
I cut myself off, conscious of Uncle Taeseok beside me.
“I’ll call you later.”
“Doyoon, wait—”
I hung up.
The car fell quiet again.
Uncle Taeseok asked, “Who was that?”
I turned my phone facedown on my lap.
“A friend.”
“A friend?”
“Yes. Someone I... knew back when I was in school.”
Only after saying it did I realize who I was referring to.
Mingyu.
Uncle Taeseok would remember him too. The second death. The alley behind the school. The boy who fell down the stairs. And the testimony that made it look like an accident.
Uncle Taeseok didn't say anything for a while.
The longer the silence stretched, the more I found myself holding my breath.
“Do you still keep in touch?”
“Sometimes.”
“Does what happened back then still bother you?”
What happened back then.
He didn't say the dead student's name. He didn't say Mingyu's name, or mention what my hands had done. But we both knew.
I looked out the window.
“I’m fine.”
Another lie.
“It was an accident.”
My own voice sounded strange to me.
“And I’ll never make the same mistake again.”
I added it as if I were speaking to myself.
“I... I’m going into Violent Crimes, like you, Uncle Taeseok.”
Uncle Taeseok said nothing.
By then, the car had turned into a familiar alley. The old apartment complex, the parking lot entrance, the windows spilling yellow light. The place I had once been afraid to call home.
And the place I eventually came to miss more than anything.
The car stopped.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I unfastened my seat belt.
The moment the front door opened, a warm smell reached me. Doenjang stew. Freshly cooked rice. Aunt Eunju's voice.
“You’re home? Doyoon’s home!”
I took off my shoes and bowed my head.
“Hello.”
“Don’t give me that. Why do you look so worn out? Are you actually eating properly?”
At that, Harin poked her head out from the living room.
“Oppa, you seriously look like a zombie.”
“That’s what you say the second you see someone?”
Minjae's voice came from somewhere nearby.
“The police academy is killing you. Sit down. Eat something.”
Everything was just like it always was.
There were plenty of side dishes on the table. Rolled omelet, bulgogi, seasoned vegetables, stew. Aunt Eunju still remembered which dishes I liked. I picked up my spoon and ate. Harin talked about work, and Minjae teased me now and then. Uncle Taeseok occasionally looked at my bowl and told me to eat more.
I smiled.
I was able to smile.
That frightened me even more.
Just moments ago, I had been looking through murder case files, thinking about the missing knife, trembling over the fact that someone knew my old name. But here at this family's table, I was eating like nothing had ever happened.
My father whispered beside me.
“You’re getting better and better at playing family.”
I tightened my grip on my chopsticks.
After dinner, I went into the room I used to sleep in.
The room was almost exactly the same. The desk, the bed, the old lamp, a few workbooks I had used in high school. Even after I began going back and forth between the dorm and practical training as if I were living on my own, Aunt Eunju hadn't cleaned out the room.
“You can come sleep here anytime.”
That was what she'd told me.
I sat on the bed and took out my phone.
Then I opened that photo again.
The knife.
The knife that should have disappeared.
It had disappeared, yet someone had it.
The blade in the photo gleamed coldly. I zoomed in, then out again. The scratch on the handle, the stain near the tip, the dark background. No matter how much I looked, I couldn't determine where it was.
Kang Taeseok's words came back to me.
Does what happened back then still bother you?
I had answered:
I’m fine.
It was an accident.
I’ll never do it again.
I really wanted to believe that.
But Oh Sejun's face came to mind. The eyes that had smiled at me. The voice that had said, “It’s because I’m just like you.” The lips that had moved one last time after he collapsed.
In the end, you’re just like me.
“An accident?”
My father's voice reached me.
I didn't look up.
In the corner of the room, my father sat in the desk chair. He was perfectly at ease, as if he had been the owner of this room for a long time.
“You’re not going to do it again?”
I didn't answer.
The family's voices drifted faintly from outside. The sound of water running as they washed the dishes, Harin's laughter, Uncle Taeseok answering in a low voice. I kept my mouth shut so they wouldn't hear me.
My father smiled.
“You’re good at lying now, too.”
I turned my phone facedown.
“First, you said it wasn’t you. The second time, you said it was an accident. The third time, you said you didn’t remember.”
My father slowly approached.
“So what are you going to call the fourth?”
I clenched my teeth.
Then my phone rang.
A short vibration.
I froze in place.
When I turned on the screen, an unknown number appeared.
The text contained three words.
[Necessary evil]
I stared at the words for a long time.
Necessary evil.
An evil that was necessary.
Something evil, but needed.
I immediately typed a reply.
[What does that mean?]
Sent.
There was no answer.
My father was reading the message over my shoulder.
“Sounds like this person thinks you’re some kind of dark hero.”
I swallowed.
“What do you think?”
My father asked in a low voice.
“Do you think that about yourself, too?”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Do you really?”
The phone vibrated again.
Another text.
This time, it contained an address and a time.
An unfamiliar address.
Near an industrial warehouse complex on the outskirts.
The time was 11:40 p.m. two nights later.
There was nothing else beneath it.
I sent another reply immediately.
[Who are you?] [What’s there?] [Is the knife there?]
But no more messages came.
I stared down at the screen, unable to move.
Was that where the knife was?
Or did it mean I was supposed to come alone?
A trap?
A threat?
Help?
If this person knew me, why had they appeared now? Why contact only me instead of turning me over to the police? Why after Oh Sejun's death, after people had begun searching for the dark hero who killed the serial killer?
My father whispered beside me.
“Are you going?”
I didn't answer.
“Will it solve anything if you go?”
Outside the window, it was dark.
The house was warm, and outside the room were people who treated me like family. All I had to do was open the door and return to them. I could pretend nothing had happened, eat, sleep, and go back to the police station tomorrow.
But the address on my phone wouldn't let me stay still.
Necessary evil.
The words kept echoing in my head.
I didn't want to ask whether I was evil.
But what frightened me more was the possibility that I might truly come to believe I was necessary.
Two nights later.
In the end, I headed for that address.
My father walked beside me.
I couldn't hear the footsteps of a dead man, but I knew he was smiling.
And that night.
I realized it again.
The moment a person crosses the line is quieter than you think.
That day, my fourth murder finally took place.