I never imagined that waiting for someone could become a life-changing habit.
In the past, waiting meant things related to work—waiting for orders from above, waiting for reports from the field, waiting for an enemy to make a mistake big enough to exploit. Now, waiting meant one simple but irritating thing.
A message from Seo-yeon.
At 8:13 a.m., I was sitting in the conference room when my phone vibrated. I looked at it immediately. *Have you eaten breakfast?* I stared at the screen for several seconds until Do-hyun reminded me that the meeting had already started.
"Meeting. Start," I said as I locked my phone.
He held back a smile. I saw it. "What?" I asked without turning to look at him.
"Nothing."
"If it's nothing, don't smile."
He immediately lowered his head. I knew he realized what was happening. Everyone around me was starting to notice. I used to almost never check my phone for anything other than work, but now I looked at the screen every few minutes. I never used to cancel meetings without a reason, but now I started stealing time between my tightly packed schedules. And I had always considered my personal life a distraction. Now, I had one name that could change my mood.
I replied to her message: *I have.*
The reply came right away: *Liar. If you had eaten breakfast, you wouldn't have answered that fast.*
I stared at the screen with a small smile. Do-hyun saw it and immediately said, "Hyung, you've really changed."
I put my phone away. "Focus on the meeting."
The meeting lasted almost two hours. The Red Viper problem was becoming increasingly clear—it wasn't just about taking territory. Someone was providing them with a detailed roadmap of Black Hawk's internal structure. I studied the latest report carefully.
"Who has access to the distribution-route list?"
"Four people," one of the men answered, then named them.
I committed every name to memory. "Check their activities. No direct contact." Then I added another instruction. "From now on, all information about my personal movements is restricted. Especially my schedule."
Do-hyun raised his head. "Including your personal schedule?"
"Especially that."
I didn't explain why. I didn't want Seo-yeon's name appearing in Black Hawk's reports—the fewer people who knew about her, the safer she would be. Or so I thought at the time. But at the same time, I was beginning to realize that something much bigger was moving beyond my control.
That afternoon, I went to the hospital.
Not because of an injury. Not for any official reason. I simply wanted to see her. I waited near the lobby until she appeared—and she looked very, very tired. I stood up immediately.
"You haven't eaten."
"How do you know?"
"It's obvious."
She smiled. "So you're psychic?"
"Observant."
"That means you've been paying attention to me," she said in a way that made me feel caught.
I didn't deny it. Her smile widened. "Why have you been telling me to eat so often lately?"
"Because you forget a lot."
"And you never forget?"
I fell silent, realizing she had caught me in the truth. "I forget a lot too," I finally admitted.
She said, "Good. That means we're the same."
Something simple in that sentence made me feel warm. We left the hospital without a car and walked toward a small restaurant. We suddenly stopped halfway there.
"What?" I asked.
She pointed to an ice cream shop. "You said you liked ice cream."
I was surprised she remembered such a small detail. We went inside. I chose chocolate, while she chose strawberry. We sat outside the shop. There was no grand conversation or secret confession. Just two people eating ice cream as evening slipped into night. I watched her laugh when her ice cream almost fell off her spoon, and for some reason, that moment felt more precious than all the power I had ever possessed.
Maybe it was because my life had always been filled with heavy things—war, betrayal, death. Strawberry ice cream suddenly felt like the most important thing in the world.
"Tae-jun," she called my name without formality for the first time.
"What?"
"Are you always alone?"
I nodded. "Since when?"
"For a long time."
"Your family?"
I was silent for too long. She immediately realized she had gone too far. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I'm not very close to them."
"Are they still in Russia?"
"Some of them."
"Do you want to go back?"
I thought for a long time before answering. "I used to. Now, I don't know."
She didn't ask anything else, and I appreciated that. She said, "Then don't be alone for too long. Humans aren't made to be alone."
I looked at her. "Why do you always talk like a doctor?"
"Because I am a doctor," she said with a laugh.
We started walking again. Her hand brushed against mine by accident, and she immediately pulled away and apologized. I turned to her and said, "Don't apologize. Don't pull away." She looked at me in silence, then gave me a small smile. This time, she didn't pull away.
When I drove her home, she stopped before getting out of the car.
"Thank you for today," she said.
"I'm the one who should thank you. You made me forget about work."
She laughed. "Then I'm bad for your career."
"Maybe."
She opened the door, then stopped. "I'm off tomorrow. Don't you want to take me somewhere?"
I looked at her. "Where?"
"Anywhere you want."
I thought about it. "The mountains."
She immediately frowned. "The mountains? I thought you'd take me somewhere romantic."
"The mountains aren't romantic?" I asked. She immediately shut the door, shouted good night, and ran toward her apartment. I watched until she went inside. How one woman could change my mood so easily remained a mystery.
But everything changed the next morning.
A call from Do-hyun at 6:20 a.m. woke me. "We found the person who leaked the information. Lee Min-seok. We have proof."
I sat up immediately. "Where?"
"The old warehouse."
"Don't touch him. I'm coming."
I looked at Seo-yeon's last message: *I'm ready. Don't be late.* I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling a sudden weight press down on my chest. I wanted to go to her. But work never gave me choices that easy.
I typed: *Sorry. Something urgent came up.*
Her reply came immediately: *Okay. Be careful.*
The warehouse was silent when I arrived.
Do-hyun stood by the door. I went inside and found Min-seok sitting in a chair—his hands weren't tied because he already knew there was no way out.
"Hyung," he said.
"Why?"
"I didn't mean to betray Black Hawk."
"Every traitor says that."
"They forced me."
"Who forced you?"
He didn't answer. I moved closer. "If you don't tell me, I can't help you. Min-seok, who?"
He gave a short laugh. "Since when do you help traitors?"
I fell silent.
"They don't want Black Hawk," he said. "They want something bigger."
"What?"
"The boss."
The room felt colder.
"What do you mean?"
"They're looking for a way to get close to the boss. Because there's something they want."
"What?"
He stared at me for several seconds. Then he said something quietly that froze my blood: "His daughter."
Before I could process the words, gunfire rang out from outside. Everyone moved. We escaped through the back. In the middle of the chaos, Min-seok grabbed my arm.
"Tae-jun, don't let them find the girl," he said desperately.
I froze. "Which girl?"
He didn't have time to answer before a small explosion forced us to move.
After it was all over, I stood outside the warehouse.
Min-seok was wounded. Do-hyun was taking care of our people. But my thoughts were fixed on one sentence that kept repeating itself.
His daughter.
I took out my phone. There was no message from Seo-yeon. I opened her contact, my finger hovering over the call button. But something stopped me. If Min-seok was right, then someone was looking for the boss's daughter. And if the boss was hiding his daughter's existence—why?
I stared at the name on the screen: Han Seo-yeon.
My heart began beating harder. I immediately rejected the possibility. No. Impossible. Seo-yeon was a doctor. She knew nothing about Black Hawk. She hated that kind of world.
But for the first time, a possibility I had never considered before began to take shape in my mind. And I hated it because it made sense in a horrifying way.
I called the boss. No answer. I called again. Still no answer.
Then a message came in: *Don't look into my daughter.*
My blood ran cold as I read the words.
For the first time, I realized the boss wasn't merely hiding something from me. He was hiding someone. And for no clear reason, the woman who had been waiting for me that morning crossed my mind. The woman who didn't even know that her life was moving closer and closer to the world she hated most.
I looked up at the darkening sky.
For the first time in my life, I hoped I was wrong.
But deep down, I already knew that bitter truth. There couldn't be this many coincidences. And all the signs I had ignored until now were beginning to gather into a single picture that made me want to scream.
Han Seo-yeon. The boss's daughter. A doctor. The woman I was beginning to love.
All of it was one enormous lie waiting to explode.