"What are you saying right now—!"
As Hwang Joyun raised his voice, Gyubaek rounded his lips with an, "Oho."
"Frothing at the mouth easily is his characteristic."
The child's words weren't wrong. However, Hwang Joyun was as smart as he was adept at rationalizing himself, so no one knew what might trigger his outbursts.
Iyeon slammed the window shut, sat Gyubaek down on the sofa, and then went out the front door. Sure enough, he was standing at the door as if he had been waiting.
"If you peek again, I'm calling the police."
"S-Surely that isn't your kid?"
The nuance behind those words was peculiar.
"...So what if it's my kid?"
Gyubaek was small for his age. If she said he was entering elementary school this year, even passing neighbors would do a double-take in disbelief.
However, his question was meddling, and furthermore, it was a reprimand directed at So Iyeon for stepping out of line.
"So Iyeon!"
He yelled furiously.
"Y-You... you disappeared like that back then because of a kid?"
"I didn't disappear; I was cut off because of you, sunbae."
"You shouldn't have had time to see a man...! I managed you so thoroughly! How could you have a kid, how could you do this!"
As expected, he didn't seem interested in listening. Suddenly, when Hwang Joyun's eyelids twitched, he pressed down on them with his palm as if used to doing so.
Without a word, Iyeon picked up her phone and dialed 112.
"I'm reporting you."
"...Iyeon, no matter how much I think about it, I just can't believe you're married. If you're living like this because of debt or some unavoidable circumstances, I can take that into consideration to some extent."
Ah, that kind of gaze was what she truly hated. A naive fool deluding himself as someone's savior, obsessed with his own hero play.
But peel back the surface, and he was nothing more than a sick bastard who just wanted to wield his influence. Becoming the target of such a petty man felt humiliating all over again.
"Yes, is this the police station?"
Iyeon spoke on the phone, glaring straight into his eyes.
"A stalker has trespassed into my home, I'm reporting it."
"Iyeon, I'm genuinely worried about you...!"
He dramatically thumped his chest.
"He seems to be drunk, spouting nonsense and causing a disturbance."
She added another charge.
"So Iyeon!"
With a thoroughly betrayed expression, the veins on his neck bulged.
"Then or now, my only sin is that I did it for you!"
At those words, Iyeon took her ear off the phone for a moment and shot back.
"No, sunbae, you just got a taste for killing ants."
Hwang Joyun found Iyeon's flashing eyes unfamiliar. The So Iyeon he remembered was a gloomy kid who easily submerged inward and was easy to subdue.
Now, meeting again after years had passed, Director So felt starkly different from back then.
It was only natural. In the meantime, Iyeon had nearly died after witnessing a live burial, and had even been hiding that murderer in her own house for two years.
And what did that man do when he woke up? Every single day was a continuation of tension. So some naive fool in front of her wasn't scary in the slightest. Iyeon's nerves were already thoroughly steeled.
"Playing king while just playing with ants is hilarious. Even eight-year-old Gyubaek isn't like that."
Hwang Joyun's lips twisted spasmodically.
"D-Do you even know that husband of yours properly? From what I saw back then, his temper was no joke. Aren't you groaning after being scammed into a marriage?"
His tone implied he desperately hoped that was the case.
"What big deal am I asking for? If you just went with me to the district office and showed me one document, this would end cleanly. I think you're more suspicious for not showing it to me!"
"Sunbae."
"Your attitude is what's driving me crazy, don't you know?"
He spat as he pointed his finger at the air.
"I'm not the psycho; you're the worse bitch for driving me to act like this!"
Her blood pressure really spiked, and she didn't want to exchange any more words. A physical fight with this sunbae would be preferable. Iyeon picked up a handful of the dirt piled on the cart and raised her arm as if to throw it. At that, he flinched and stepped back.
"Stay out of my private life. I don't know how you can be so audacious when you don't have a single trait better than a plant."
It had already been years since Iyeon was kicked out of D Hospital. Hwang Joyun wasn't that single-mindedly devoted.
During that time, he'd been getting rejected left and right by other women, and seeing Iyeon after so long, he must have felt nostalgic for how manageable and easy she was, so he was committing this rudeness again.
"And I've got a scary husband now."
"Iyeon."
He begged with a sickeningly devastated face.
"Speaking from experience, my husband bites people really well."
She suddenly recalled that night and cleared her throat. Iyeon lowered her voice and drove the nail in once more.
"But he's also incredibly good at burying things."
She gestured with her chin toward the yard full of shovels.
"Don't stand out unnecessarily."
Iyeon dusted off her hands and went inside.
However, Hwang Joyun, who only remembered the timid twenty-two-year-old Iyeon and thought, 'I must guide the soul of this wandering lamb,' easily forgot her warning.
The spring breeze was chilling.
The moment Iyeon closed the curtains, her eyes met Hwang Joyun's, who was staring coldly this way.
Bizarre eyes staring this way like pitch-black camera lenses, observing her. Her expression hardened at the sickeningly familiar gaze.
From then on, Hwang Joyun's stalking began once again.
* * *
She wanted to wake Kwon Chaeu.
Iyeon's chest felt stifled by the thought that arose dozens of times a day. Her head was so packed full of his name that it felt heavy.
"You reported it again, didn't you?"
The face of the police officer standing in front of the door was impassive.
However, Iyeon was no less cold and expressionless. With only ineffective reports and warnings piling up like crumpled laundry, the exhaustion was entirely Iyeon's burden.
Innocent roses were placed at the front door every morning, and she felt persistent gazes wherever she went.
She ran into Hwang Joyun at least three times a day, and he would offer a casual greeting. He appeared and disappeared coincidentally enough to make her question if it was really him. Like that, a nervous breakdown gradually set in.
It would have been much easier to catch him in the act if he had clung to the window and rolled those horrifying eyes like a reptile, like last time.
Iyeon collected the fingerprints left on the window with tape every single day, and even bought traps used for catching animals.
"As I mentioned last time, we can't confirm his face and identity just from the CCTV. So many people glance over the wall, too."
"...What about the roses?"
"Mr. Hwang Joyun has an alibi stating he had already left for work at that time."
Iyeon dry-washed her face as if exhausted. Her darkened complexion didn't return to its original healthy color no matter how much she rubbed her face.
"Isn't there something you can do? He's definitely watching me...!"
"It's just a feeling, right?"
The police officer pressed his temples and let out a sigh as well. It was a remark subtly blaming her sensitive nerves. There, Iyeon clamped her mouth shut. She didn't want to appeal for help anymore.
Eventually, without any special measures, the police withdrew. At that moment, a young female police officer who had been watching everything from a step behind approached her.
She glanced at her senior getting into the police car and quickly whispered.
"A local bigwig is involved."
"...Pardon?"
"I mean that Mr. Hwang Joyun. We went to D Hospital to check his alibi. The higher-ups immediately called our precinct. They told us not to bother D Hospital."
"..."
"I'm sorry."
The patrol officer clasped her hands, and Iyeon only nodded quietly. If Director Jo was trying to play tricks again with that amazing network of his, it wasn't surprising anymore.
"And because the file of So Iyeon's false report from two years ago is still on record..."
The patrol officer's voice trailed off. She bowed and left the yard. In short, it meant that a single cough from a local bigwig carried more weight than Iyeon's request, given her track record.
'Am I really supposed to do nothing?'
The remarkably innocent eyes that had asked her that today flickered in her mind.
* * *
"If you're going to wake him up, steel your resolve and wake him."
As Iyeon was glaring intensely at the door of the room where Kwon Chaeu was sleeping, Chuja gave a strange piece of advice.
"What do you mean?"
Iyeon ran a hand through her brittle hair and tilted her head. Chuja looked pityingly at Iyeon, whose face had noticeably thinned over the past few days.
"If you're going to use that guy, you need to let go of one thing too."
"...What?"
"I'm telling you to do just one thing. Just one. If you're going to treat that guy as a murderer till the end, it doesn't matter if you become just as ruthless, but if you truly want his help..."
Suddenly, Chuja's deep eyes gently swept over her.
"At least treat Kwon Chaeu like a new person."
"...!"
"Right now, that guy is an empty vessel with nothing inside."
When Chuja pointed out the truth she had been deliberately ignoring, Iyeon wanted to bolt from the sofa.