After Story 186

“Aren’t you smiling too much?” Haneul asked as she looked at Maru sitting on the sofa.

Her husband, who was talking to the reporter on the TV, was smiling like a pup before snacks.

“I can’t be crying, can I?” Maru retorted while twitching his eyes.

He was right, but she still found him hateful.

She looked at the letter that he was holding. It was one of the gifts sent to JA by his fans.

“Hun, this one’s a college girl that likes me a lot. She says I’m welcome to get married to her any time.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Are you feeling jealous yet?”

Her husband was being really mischievous. The saying that boys will always be boys was probably the greatest saying of all time.

She glared at him before going into their room.

“Aren’t we going to watch this together?” he asked from the living room.

“Watch all you want. I need to focus on writing.”

After replying, she took out her phone and looked up the search term rankings on the internet. Han Maru was currently in 1st place, and there were numerous articles about him.

She looked at the articles and comments one by one and smiled in satisfaction. Whenever she found a malicious comment, she pressed the dislike button.

“You busy?”

Her husband poked his head inside after opening the door. She put down her phone and stared at him.

“What is it?”

“Play with me if you aren’t busy.”

“Why don’t you play with that cute college girl of yours?”

“That’s why I’m here, so I can play with the cute college girl of mine that is in front of me.”

She tilted her head crookedly and spoke, “Don’t you feel embarrassed saying that at that age?”

“You know you like it.”

“I do?”

“I can see you smiling.”

She toned down her expression and sat at the edge of her bed.

“I’m not.”

“Even if you aren’t, watch with me anyway. I tried really hard throughout the shoot for this episode, so I want to watch it with you. I want to hear your opinion as well.”

“I’m sure you did fine. You’re a successful actor after all,” she said as she crossed her arms.

Her husband came inside the room and put his hand out. He stared at her and kept shaking his hand in front of her.

“It’s about to start.”

Her husband kept nagging her to grab his hand. He looked quite freaky but also rather cute.

Having no choice, she grabbed his hand. She relied on the slight pull to stand up from the bed.

After the commercial, the TV became silent for a bit. It was a sign that the drama was about to start.

She sat Maru down on the sofa before leaning against his knees. She found this position most comfortable. Plus she could pull a strand of his leg hair out whenever he said some nonsense, so it was a good position in many ways.

“Should I bring something?” Maru asked.

“No, don’t go anywhere and stay right there. It’s perfect right now.”

She relaxed her neck and looked at the screen.

Light returned to the blackened screen.

The follow-up from last week’s ending scene came out. Detective Lee Daecheol was looking through the case files on his desk like crazy. This was the beginning of episode 8.

* * *

“No way. My intuition isn’t that good anyway. There’s just no way.”

A smell unique to old paper lingered around his nose.

Daecheol looked back at a missing incident from 9 years ago. That case was filed before computer systems were adopted, so there were only paper records.

He placed his index finger on the word ‘missing.’ He slowly moved his finger from left to right and read the outline of the case.

A college girl goes missing in Cheonho-dong. It was a simple case of leaving, and not even an investigation took place. The missing person was last seen at a nearby noraebang in the neighborhood.

Daecheol then walked over to the wall that had a map on it.

The missing case from 9 years ago, 5 years ago, and Changsik’s sister going missing all happened around the Songjung-gu vicinity.

“If it’s not a series of unrelated murders, but a real serial killer….”

Yoon Hojung’s age was only thirty-three. If the missing college student from 9 years ago was his doing, no, if he started even before that, it would make him….

“Holy shit.”

If his assumption was true, then it meant that he had the audacity to nonchalantly keep living in the same neighborhood after committing murder.

No, he was practically at ease because he was in the same neighborhood. To him, Songjung-gu must be his hunting turf.

Rather than looking for prey in an unfamiliar place, he probably judged that committing his crimes in Songjung-gu, where he knew the location of every CCTV, was less dangerous.

He looked at the case file from 9 years ago again. The sentence at the bottom was piercing in his eyes.

[The missing person’s pager was discovered and consequently delivered to the family.]

He looked at the name of the policeman who filed this incident. He immediately went to the administrative department and got a contact number.

“Good day, sir. I’m detective Lee Daecheol from Yangdo-gu.”

-Yes, what is it?

“I just wanted to ask a few questions about a case from a few years ago.”

-A case?

“You filed a report about a missing case nine years ago.”

-What? Nine years ago?

The policeman on the other side responded with a suspicious voice. That was no surprise, as anyone would show a response like that when they found out that someone was digging into a case from nine years ago, especially a policeman.

One of the things that policemen hated the most was having someone dig into a case from the past.

“It’s not a big problem. It’s just a personal curiosity of mine.”

-How many people can remember an event from nine years ago? You know how things work around here, detective. You know how many complaints and events we process every single day.

“I do, I know full well that you must be working hard. But can’t you think about it just a little more? This is about a college girl going missing 9 years ago in Cheonho-dong.”

The person on the other side fell silent. He might be feeling vexed and iffy and was probably debating if they should refuse to reply. Daecheol was planning to visit him if talking over the phone didn’t work out. He was apparently in the investigation support team at Songjung-gu’s police station, so he should be able to get there in twenty minutes by car.

There was suddenly a lot more noise over the phone. The person on the other side seemed to be talking to someone.

He focused on the sound: Do you know who detective Lee Daecheol is? Oh, really?

It seemed that the person on the other side was checking for his identity.

-Detective Lee.

“Yes.”

-You mentioned the college girl incident in Cheonho-dong nine years ago, right?

“I did.”

-I remember a little bit because it was the first case I assisted in after I was appointed. But I think I’ll have to see the report to remember certain details.

“The thing I’m going to ask is pretty simple. I had a look at the report that you wrote while you were working there, and it states that you delivered the missing person’s pager to the family.”

-Oh, yes. I remember that. I was the one who filed the confirmation of return and gave it to them.

“Do you remember anything that the missing person’s family might have said? It’s fine even if it’s something trivial.”

-I’m not sure. I don’t think there was anything.

“I see.”

This wasn’t something he could get an answer to just by pressing him. Asking someone to remember a simple missing case from 9 years ago was a hard request in and of itself.

He supposedly worked in the investigation support department, so he must have a lot of work on his hands as well. It would not be easy to find a fragment of a worthless incident in the sea that was nine years of work.

He asked for one last time,

“Wasn’t there anything like an accessory missing?”

The college girl that disappeared five years ago and was discovered as a corpse also had a pager among her possessions. What Daecheol found out was that the keyring on the pager had disappeared.

And a few days ago, they discovered Changsik’s sister’s phone, which also had a missing accessory.

If this was a case of a single culprit committing serial murders, then the accessory must be the trophy.

He had his hypothesis. What was left now was to check and prove.

Eventually, he heard a voice from the other side.

-Oh! Now that I think about it, the missing person’s younger sister said that a small doll that she gifted the person had disappeared. Apparently, it was hung on the pager, but it wasn’t there when we discovered the pager again.

“Thank you.”

Daecheol looked for the missing person’s family. The address had not changed, so he had an easy time looking for them. He met with the younger sister of the missing person from 9 years ago, who was ten at the time.

“Yes, I remember. My sister always carried it with her. I kinda nagged her to never take it off.”

When the sister asked what was happening, Daecheol replied that it was no big deal. How was he supposed to say that her sister might have been killed to a person who had been waiting for 9 years?

He returned to the police station and sat down at his desk.

4 to 5, five victims, missing accessories, and the crazy murderer who still lives in the same neighborhood.

“Changsik, where are you right now?”

He called Changsik. The clearer the outline of the case became, the more heated Changsik became, and now he was like a furnace. The red-hot boiling liquid metal did not come pouring out just yet, but on the day the container was flipped, red-hot liquid metal would assault people. The person dying would be Yoon Hojung.

A serial killer must be tried in court, not buried in the back mountains somewhere.

-I’m with him right now.

“Are you crazy? What are you trying to do!”

-I’m not trying to do anything. I just… I’m just staying with him. We got pretty close. We’re like brothers and he treats me out for a drink.

“Stop doing anything dangerous and keep some distance from him. I’m making progress on my side.”

-I believe you, detective. I know you’ll get this guy someday. But I think it’s taking too long. These days, I haven’t been getting enough sleep. I keep hearing my sister crying whenever I close my eyes. She wants me to save her, she wants me to rescue her. But I can’t do that.

“Why can’t you!”

-Because she’s dead.

It was an unpleasantly sunken voice.

“You prick. There are things you can and cannot say. This might simply be a missing case. Don’t keep assuming the worst and…”

-I found it.

Those words made his heart sink. Daecheol responded,

“Found what?”

-The thing we both racked our heads to find. The trophy.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“Are you at that guy’s house right now?”

-Yes. It’s right here. The cross that my sister always had on her phone.

He realized the moment he heard Changsik’s voice. This guy had lost his reason.

Daecheol spoke hurriedly,

“Ahn Changsik. Listen to me. You believe me, don’t you? You said you’ll get to the bottom of this case with me, didn’t you? If you still remember that, then leave that place right now. Don’t give that guy any opening to exploit and get out of there RIGHT NOW!”

* * *

His ears felt numb. He kept hearing Daecheol’s shouts, but he didn’t understand. All of his nerves were focused on the cross on his palm.

A cross is a pretty common accessory. There’s no proof that this belongs to my sister — that hope was mercilessly shattered the moment he looked at the back side of the cross.

Writing written vertically alongside some initials pierced his eyes. It was indeed the cross that he had seen several times whenever she visited him.

Changsik looked at the other accessories neatly placed in the drawer.

One hairpin and three accessories with rings on them. They were encased in a clear acrylic container, like how high-class watches would be put on display.

“One, two, three, four….”

He clutched the cross on his palm.

“And five.”

At that moment, he heard the door open. Yoon Hojung, who had left to buy more beer, had returned.

“Changsik! We need to drink some more!”

At that moment, he happened to see a box knife in front of him. His head fell in a daze. He grabbed the knife without thinking.

He could hear his sister’s voice, overjoyed that she passed the test to become a civil servant. Why did it have to be her? Not anyone else, but her?

He knew in his head that he shouldn’t kill someone and that he should wait, just like the detective told him.

However, the moment he saw his sister’s article, the moment he heard Yoon Hojung’s joyful voice, he felt that the world was so unfair.

There was one more thing that was clear to him. It was that even if his guilt was proven, they would keep living under the same sky, breathing the same air.

He might even be released early as a model prisoner.

His sister was no longer in this world, but this guy would keep living.

He felt like retching. It was hard to endure. It was just when he came to the conclusion that he should think about it after stabbing him,

-If your sister really died as you said, then he’s the only guy who knows where your sister’s body is. Are you going to let her rot away in the cold? What about the other victims? If you slit that guy’s neck, you’ll only feel comfortable for a moment. Then you’ll get a number 1 on your shoulder. A number you will not be able to erase all your life!