Chapter 64
“Never mind the blonde. She’s not our target.”
If they’re talking about Angel, then it seems they managed to shake him off safely.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived.
Now what should I do? Waiting for Angel to come back doesn’t seem right.
“What? You found her? I’ll be there soon, so hang up.”
Based on the conversations I unintentionally overheard earlier, it seemed like someone had come to look for someone else.
Senna… There must be some connection to Yugyeom.
Soon, the sound of footsteps faded away. As the footsteps disappeared into the silence, my heart raced faster and faster.
It was more fear than relief. The chances of us being on the same side were very slim.
A breath fell on my neck from above.
Probably a young man, taller than me, judging by the grip on my arms. He was wearing a black suit.
Then a strong gust of wind blew.
The boxes stacked high shook, then toppled towards me.
The man pulled me back while still holding me, and I slipped out of his grip through the chaos.
Just as I turned around to aim the gun…
“…!”
The hand holding the gun trembled. It remained motionless below my waist.
I should have aimed the gun as soon as I turned around. That’s how I’ll survive.
But even as the seconds passed and the distance between us narrowed, I remained frozen.
“What a coincidence.”
Was this also a twist of fate?
“Or is it destiny?”
Such whimsical thoughts crossed my mind.
Otherwise, there’s no way you’d be here in front of me.
“I missed you, Miss.”
Why did that obvious lie hit me so hard?
* * *
“This is the last place left. We’ve searched everywhere within the coordinates, but it’s not showing up anywhere around here…”
The night in Hong Kong was brighter than the day.
The alleys behind the glamorous city were dimly lit by drunken men and women. Some had lost money gambling, while others used money won on big bets to buy pleasure drugs.
But when day breaks, they all disappear like mirages. Only the wind roams the empty alleys. It was a desolate city, like a dead city, and he hated it.
“And Senna?”
The wind fluttered his black jacket along with his white shirt.
Yugyeom rubbed his temples, closing and opening his eyes. He hadn’t had enough sleep, and today his head was pounding more than usual.
“He said he’d loosen his grip and come back. Should I contact Mr. Yugyeom to let him know you’re here?”
“Nah, not yet. We’ll see later. Thanks for your work.”
Yugyeom smiled gently.
The organization member, who had never faced him before, barely managed to greet him before rushing off into the alley.
Left alone, he soon changed his pace. His long legs navigated the streets skillfully, without hesitation.
The place where his steps stopped was a burnt-out ruin.
Yugyeom sighed deeply, leaning against the wall. His cloudy eyes stared at the charred remains.
“…”
When he stood here, he felt like the child he was back then.
A child who didn’t know his name and for whom this place was everything.
It felt as if a line had been drawn in front of him, and he didn’t dare to step any closer.
“But don’t you really have a name? How do you live without a name?”
Winter had passed, but the wind still chilled him to the bone.
Yugyeom turned his head after a while. As he turned, his pace quickened.
“When will you stop looking for her?”
As soon as he turned the corner and left the alley with ruins, he saw Ich… lounging on top of a barrel.
He had been lamenting alone, but when he saw Yugyeom, he began to complain in earnest.
“You’re not satisfied even though there’s nothing left for you to find now. Do you want to be satisfied only when you’ve ruined everything?”
“We have to keep looking. We almost got into big trouble because of you.”
Yugyeom said with a smile. Ichang swallowed a sigh that almost came out on its own.
Ichang jumped off the barrel and took out a lemon candy from his pocket.
“Maybe they used another hacker instead of her.”
Yugyeom had disappeared around the time when Ichang started bothering not only his computer but also other minor organizations.
Since then, Ichang had disappeared after falling into Yugyeom’s trap, only to disappear again afterwards.
“It seems like it was the right time for a coincidence.”
If it was 44 who pretended to contact Yugyeom as Senna, it wasn’t hard to guess who was behind it.
“Well, that woman would have already contacted you if she wanted to. She’s even tried to get me on her side.”
Ichang trembled as he remembered the time when Yuhwa, who recognized his skills, tried hard to pull him over to her side.
The price for not going over was quite high.
“What did she say in the text?”
Yugyeom asked, taking out a cigarette pack from his black jacket.
“I don’t know about that. But considering how easily we were fooled, it seemed plausible.”
As the sweet and sour taste spread in his mouth, his head spun.
“Oh?”
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Wow, the candy broke as it was being chewed.
Suddenly, a question that hadn’t occurred to me before came to mind.
“But how did Cha Yeonbyeol know that she’s a spy?”
Even if Baek Hawon knew, could Cha Yeonbyeol know? She wasn’t even a senior member of Baekcheon.
And yet she knew and even brought her along with her…
“No way…”
Like a puppy wagging its tail, Ichang spun around in place. Yugyeom’s eyes narrowed as he watched him.
After spinning around for quite a while, Ichang clapped his hands and stopped.
“It seems like I stood out too much.”
His face brightened with a clear judgment.
“Yeah, she wasn’t good at acting.”
Ichang laughed contentedly as he took out another candy. There were still over ten candies left in his pocket.
Yugyeom’s lips twisted as he looked into the empty space.
“…Well.”
Sending someone who could easily be exposed as an important spy?
Yugyeom laughed as if mocking, took out a lighter, and lit his cigarette. But before he could take a puff, a noisy sound came from the other end of the alley.
A man and a woman passed by at a fighting speed, followed by a group of about six people. If he wasn’t mistaken, he thought he saw a familiar face among them.
After the whirlwind passed by, silence returned to the deserted alley, and Ichang blinked with a dumbfounded expression.
“What’s going on? Just now…”
Yugyeom, holding the cigarette in his hand, let out a laugh that seemed to escape him. His glassy eyes curved like a crescent moon.
“It’s Senna, right? I felt like I knew some of the faces there, too… Oh, come on…”
Ichang tried to deny with a forced look.
“Go check it out.”
Yugyeom gestured towards where the group with Senna had gone.
“Me?”
“Should I go instead? Can I?”
Ichang’s eyes wavered. Since the department store incident, he had been determined not to let Yugyeom get involved with Cha Yeonbyeol again, even if it meant stopping him by force…
He hoped it was a misunderstanding, but she seemed different from the usual people he dealt with just for a purpose…
Even though it would never happen, what if the face he just saw was really Yeonbyeol’s?
“Oh! No! You stay here!”
Yugyeom nodded gently with a soft face as he watched Ichang waving his hands.
“Hey! Take me with you guys!”
As Ichang’s figure disappeared, the unlit cigarette fell to the ground with a light thud.
Stepping on the cigarette, Yugyeom casually walked in the opposite direction from where Ichang had disappeared.
He felt a sense of unfounded confidence. He felt like he could find her.
With each step, an emotion with no name surged within him. Despite feeling like hitting rock bottom, he kept bursting into empty laughter inexplicably.
Because of being drunk, not in the right mind, because the wind was blowing, because it was that day, because it resembled someone.
‘Sorry.’
The unfamiliar phrase he heard for the first time in his life felt so unfamiliar that it took his breath away for a moment. For various reasons, his legs trembled uncontrollably on that day on the street.
Almost to the point of grabbing her.
But if it’s today, he felt like he could end this state.
He felt confident that he could cut off that breath that confuses him so much, that reaches him, before it reaches me.
Yugyeom smiled faintly and moved forward.
And at the end of that step, there she really was.
