The Snake in the Garden
A man emerged from the venue, dressed similarly but without the in-ear earpiece. The driver who'd sent her to buy cigarettes in the parking lot. Yeon-jae's suspicion was confirmed.
Beyond him, the event space stretched out — people dressed in refined elegance moving through the space, listening to explanations while faint classical music drifted through the air. The carefully calibrated lighting, the gentle smiles, the whole atmosphere felt like a world entirely separate from where she stood.
An exhibition. A demonstration, perhaps.
Or maybe something conducted in secret.
While her attention had briefly wandered, the approaching man checked the cigarette held by the security guard and gave a slight nod. Yeon-jae felt a creeping unease under his steady gaze. His eyes were so finely slit she couldn't quite tell where his attention was directed.
She pulled her helmet down tighter and asked.
"Should I give you change? That guy earlier said I could just go."
Instead of answering, the man offered a faint smile and shook his head. His lips never parted.
Yeon-jae fastened her helmet clip and gave a curt nod.
"Alright, I'll be going. AC, I missed two jobs already..."
She turned away, muttering, and the sound of footsteps followed as the men returned to their positions.
Her heart pounded the entire way down the stairs. Once she reached the first floor, Yeon-jae switched off the body cam clipped to her vest. A surge of irritation dried her mouth.
She'd only meant to take a casual look around. But now it felt like she'd run into someone she absolutely shouldn't have — a cold shiver crawled down her spine like a snake slithering over her skin.
"Did you see her?"
The tea in the white porcelain cup had gone cold. Hee-eon, having lost interest in the familiar taste, picked up the cup with an indifferent expression, turning it slowly from side to side as he asked.
The man beside him held out his phone. The notes app was open, and written inside were the words: [I saw half of her].
Hee-eon handed the phone back and nodded slowly.
He'd thought she was just a fly clinging to his back, but since she'd obediently bought the cigarettes, she must have been a different kind of insect — one with other intentions.
He slowly scanned the people admiring the works through the glass windows. Finding fakes among people draped in precious things was easy when you knew what to look for — the playful glint in their eyes, the way they carried themselves.
A watch on the wrist? The clothes they wore, the bags they carried? Or accessories of similar caliber?
No. The real difference lay in how they lowered their gaze, the direction their hands moved, the way they walked. Even the sounds they made — genuine and fake were sharply distinct.
But those who wore fakes carried an unmistakable stench they couldn't hide. That foul, fishy odor of rotten money. And all it took was this organic lump of clay to gather that putrid wealth.
Hee-eon set down the teacup he'd made and stretched lazily, his expression bored.
"She's a woman, right?"
The man, who had been looking in the same direction, nodded. Hee-eon crossed his long legs and let out a soft laugh.
He didn't know who she'd attached herself to, but the delivery person didn't carry the stench of money. Which meant she was desperately poor. An ordinary person who had never experienced the dizzying nausea of wealth.
"Sell that one."
Hee-eon nodded toward someone. The middle-aged woman he'd indicated was showing interest in a rather ornate porcelain plate.
She'd introduced herself at the building entrance, but of course he hadn't remembered her.
And the intent behind introducing a man she'd picked up from who-knows-where as her son was clear enough. For them, the exhibition was a means, the artwork was a luxury item, and the man with his arms crossed was a high-end accessory.
The inner circle, a mess of filth. That kind of crowd was his ideal customer.
People desperate to prove their worth beyond wealth and extravagance.
The way they struggled to climb over each other in their own narrow little world was more entertaining to him than any show.
That was why Hee-eon often decided for himself who would purchase the things he made.
He pressed his lips together lightly and nodded.
"Three times the price would be nice."
The delivery motorcycle came to a stop in the storage area behind the convenience store on the first floor of Echo Research.
She'd left at midday, but now the sun was already sinking toward the horizon. She killed the engine, pulled off her stifling helmet, and let out a long sigh.
The cold air instantly chilled the sweat on her scalp.
She peeled off her sweat-soaked buff and entered the building.
Everyone had already clocked out except for a couple of people guarding the entrance. They weren't close to Yeon-jae anyway — they'd exchange glances but never strike up a conversation.
To them, Jeong Yeon-jae was a pretty girl who was gloomy and unreadable. She had nothing to her name, yet her backbone was iron. If you tried to mess with her just because she was good-looking, you'd better be prepared to lose an ear. A troublesome bitch.
A low-grade gang den full of such people. And yet, it was a place so packed with people scraping together clients that there was barely room to stand — that was the world she lived in.
Yeon-jae climbed the stairs slowly, a convenience store bag in hand and wireless earphones in her ears. She had to pass the offices on the third and fourth floors before reaching her room on the fifth.
In the heart of Seoul, an old brick corridor-style building. Exposed rebar and cracks everywhere made it look like it could collapse at any moment — a desolate, forgotten place.
What she'd learned here was simple.
People earn and spend money in all kinds of ways. They illuminate the world, elevate their names, dream of being the best in their positions. Or they simply wanted peace. They lived for their own lives, their own way of living.
But she existed in the place the light didn't reach. A fifth-floor building where even the streetlights were below her. And because it faced away from the city lights, it was damp and cold.
Yeon-jae opened the clean front door — no flyers stuck to it — and stepped inside. Even if the building was old, flyers couldn't be posted here. To get up here, you had to pass the stairs guarded by those gutter-trash guys.
The door clicked shut, and the familiar darkness waited for her. She'd even pulled the power on the hallway sensor lights. They kept turning on whenever she moved, and it irritated her.
She set the convenience store bag on the small one-person dining table and took a retort pasta from the fridge, placing it in the microwave.
Four minutes and fifty seconds, as the package instructed. While the food heated, she changed into comfortable clothes and turned on the electric blanket. The warmer, the better.
She preferred heating her whole body over staying cold. That was why she lived without air conditioning even in the height of summer, whenever possible.
Changed and ready, she carried the heated food on a tray and crawled into bed. Settling into the most comfortable position, she began eating in silence.
The air in the empty room grew cold.
A collaboration with a famous chef, they'd said... But contrary to her expectations, it was just a familiar, ordinary taste. Plain cream sauce spaghetti.
Still, the flavor itself wasn't bad. At least it was better than the soggy hamburger she'd eaten that morning.
She set down the tray and searched for the documents she'd received that morning. Wiping the sauce from the corner of her mouth, her eyes scanned the text.
They were copies of the autopsy request and case files for Lee I-ryeong's daughter, Yoon Jun-hee, who had come to visit her today. Getting personal information was this easy. South Korea was no longer a country where information was safe.
Anyway... On paper, it was Lee I-ryeong who had turned a simple suicide into a case. She probably couldn't accept her daughter's death.
That made sense. At the height of their honeymoon, Yoon Jun-hee's investment firm was growing at breakneck speed, and her husband, Sa Hee-eon, was making a name for himself as a faceless potter.
So if there was a problem to find, it had to be something between the couple that no one else knew about. With no external factors, the answer had to be internal.
She poked a plastic fork into her mouth and flipped through a few pages when suddenly, she felt as though she'd been struck on the back of the head with a blunt object.
"...Ah."
This was it.
The reason for her déjà vu and discomfort was revealed in the attached photograph.
Sa Hee-eon.
The very man who had sent her to buy cigarettes.