“You really have never seen a crime scene like this before, right?”
The moment Uncle Taeseok said it, my heart began pounding like crazy.
I was afraid the sound would leak out.
The pounding against my ribs was deafening.
Could Uncle Taeseok hear it too?
Could he feel how badly my body was shaking through the fingertips resting on my shoulder?
I had to answer.
If I said no, it was over.
But I couldn’t say yes, either.
I slowly raised my head.
Uncle Taeseok’s eyes were focused on me, not the crime scene.
They were the same eyes as always.
The kind that dug relentlessly into whatever was hidden between lies and silence, just as they did when he examined a case.
What did he mean by asking?
Did he really know something?
Or was he just checking because I seemed strange?
Rainwater ran down the back of my neck.
It was cold.
That coldness helped me hold on to my senses.
My lips barely moved.
“Yes.”
I took care not to let my voice crack.
“It’s my first time.”
Uncle Taeseok didn’t answer.
That silence scared me even more.
It didn’t mean he believed me, but it didn’t mean he suspected me, either.
I wanted to avoid his eyes, but I couldn’t.
The moment I looked away, it felt like that would become my answer.
“Okay.”
After a long while, Uncle Taeseok spoke briefly.
“Then that’s all.”
His words didn’t reassure me.
If anything, those three short words felt like they would follow me around forever.
Just then, another detective called out to Uncle Taeseok from a distance.
“Detective Kang! I think you need to come take a look at something!”
Uncle Taeseok took his hand off my shoulder.
“Stay here.”
He said it curtly and walked toward the crime scene.
I stared blankly at his retreating back.
Had I been found out?
Or had I left something behind?
I thought there was nothing left at the scene.
It had rained, the ground was wet, and the evidence must have been scattered.
But was there really nothing?
Was there some trace I hadn’t noticed?
Under my fingernails, beneath my shoes, on the hem of my clothes, in my hair, in the reflected windows of places I thought were outside the CCTV blind spots.
The thoughts multiplied without end.
Once the calculations began, they wouldn’t stop.
Where had I put the shoes I’d worn that day?
Had I washed those clothes?
Had the rain really washed everything away?
Or had it only pretended to, leaving a piece somewhere behind?
Then I heard his father's voice.
“Kang Taeseok seems to know something.”
I clenched my teeth.
Dad stood among the people.
No one could see him.
He wasn’t looking at the place where the bodies had been. He was looking at me.
“You haven’t been thorough enough, so of course you’re going to get caught.”
I didn’t answer.
“Are you going to tell the truth?”
Dad smiled.
“Or are you going to pretend you don’t know anything until the end?”
Instead of answering, I looked toward the crime scene.
Even from a distance, it was a mess.
Rain that had fallen all night had pooled on the ground, and the dirt had been crushed into mud.
The forensic team’s white gloves and evidence markers stood out strangely against the gray scene.
I listened closely.
The detectives’ voices came and went through the sound of the rain.
“About the hairpin found in the pocket. It’s almost identical to the one in the photo the family submitted.”
“Is it the same pin the girl was wearing on the day she disappeared?”
“We need to confirm, but it matches the features her mother described. Pink plastic, with a small scratch on the side.”
“What about the identity?”
“We still don’t have anything definite on the male victim. No wallet, no phone. We’ll have to run his fingerprints.”
“Cause of death?”
“There’s external trauma, but we won’t know for sure until the autopsy.”
The moment I heard that, I became even more certain.
The man I killed really was the culprit.
Han Jiuk.
Three words in a text message.
If that name was real, then the owner of the unknown number had known from the beginning.
Who that man was, what he had done, and even that I might kill him.
Had it been a trap?
Or had he simply given me an opportunity by chance?
Whatever the truth was, I had to confirm the details of this case.
That day, I made a choice unlike anything I would normally have done.
Once the crime scene had been cleared, I should have gone back to the precinct where I was interning.
I should have filed my report, cleaned up, pretended I knew nothing, and gone home.
But I headed to Uncle Taeseok’s precinct instead.
I hadn’t decided why I was going or what excuse I would use.
All the way there, I asked myself the same questions.
What are you trying to do?
What are you going to do after you confirm it?
If I confirmed that he was the culprit, would that make what I had done justified?
There was no answer.
Even so, my feet kept moving.
And strangely enough, the words came out before I reached the door.
“I have a favor to ask you, Uncle.”
Uncle Taeseok looked at me.
“What favor?”
“It’s about my internship report. I’m confused about how to organize a scene involving an unidentified body… You said before that you’d show me how you organize the flow when you review case files.”
It was a lie.
I wasn’t even sure he had ever said anything like that.
But my voice sounded surprisingly natural.
As if I had been preparing those words for a long time.
That frightened me.
The fact that lies came out so easily.
Uncle Taeseok’s eyes narrowed for a moment.
He suspected me.
Without a doubt.
But it lasted only an instant.
“I’m swamped right now.”
“I’ll wait.”
I lowered my head.
“I’ll ask you when you’re free and then head out.”
Uncle Taeseok sighed.
“I need to check something with another department. Sit here. When I’m done, we’ll leave together.”
“Yes.”
As I watched him disappear down the hall, I was overcome by a strange feeling.
He trusted me.
Even while suspecting me, he had ultimately left me alone at his desk.
I wasn’t grateful for that trust.
It felt heavy.
Once he was gone, I slowly sat down in the chair in front of his desk.
It was an opportunity.
There were papers spread across Uncle Taeseok’s desk.
Unorganized case materials, some crime scene photos, note cards, and a file on the victim.
I tried not to move.
I couldn’t look at them.
They were documents an intern wasn’t allowed to examine without permission.
It was a violation of regulations, and if I was caught, my internship could be canceled altogether.
More than anything, it would mean betraying Uncle Taeseok’s trust.
But my hand was already reaching toward the papers.
It felt as if my head and hand were moving separately.
Very carefully, I slid aside the paper on top.
I glanced around once.
Several people remained in the office, but no one was looking at me.
The unidentified-body case materials from today.
And underneath them, the file on the missing girl.
The materials for both cases had been placed together.
My throat went dry.
I turned the page.
The location where the case occurred.
Where the body had been found.
The pink hairpin discovered in the pocket.
The missing girl’s family’s statement.
The items she had been wearing on the day she disappeared.
And the section for the provisional identification of the male victim.
There was a name there.
Han Jiuk.
It was the same name from the text message.
My fingertips froze.
It was true.
The man I killed was connected to the missing girl’s disappearance.
He wasn’t just a passerby with a strange look in his eyes.
He wasn’t a monster created by my instincts.
He really was at the center of the case.
For a moment—a very brief moment—I felt relieved.
I was immediately disgusted with myself for feeling that relief.
Someone had died, and I was relieved that I had been right.
What I wanted to confirm wasn’t the truth.
I wanted proof that I wasn’t a monster.
I needed a reason to tell myself it was okay because I had killed a bad person.
The moment I realized that, I took my hand off the file.
I knew that relief was the very emotion I needed to guard against most.
Once I knew what it tasted like, I would start looking for the same reason again next time.
That fact didn’t save me.
If anything, it dragged me even deeper down.
His father's apparition was sitting across from me at the desk.
He had his legs crossed comfortably, as if he had been sitting there for a long time.
And he smiled as he looked at the file in my hands.
“You killed another serial killer.”
I held my breath.
Dad slowly leaned forward.
“Congratulations, Doyoon.”
I set the file down.
My hands were shaking.
Dad whispered in a low voice.
“At this point, it’s not a mistake. It’s a talent.”