#5. Suspect

The atmosphere in the car was heavy.

Three months was too long an absence to bridge with a casual “How have you been?”

Seo-wan sat in the passenger seat, staring blankly out the window.

Ordinary scenes passed outside, yet everything looked unfamiliar to her. It all felt so distant.

“Just a little longer. We’re almost there.”

Jin-woo spoke gently, but she barely reacted.

Her eyes shifted toward him at his words, but there was nothing in them.

When they reached her apartment building, Jin-woo opened the passenger door and spoke softly.

“Seo-wan. You’re home.”

She slowly turned her head.

“…Here…”

“This is your place. You remember, don’t you?”

She gave a tentative nod.

She was home. So why did it feel so unfamiliar?

She followed Jin-woo into the building as he led the way with familiar ease.

When he opened her front door, the motion-sensor light in the entryway came on at once, as though welcoming her back.

The apartment was neat and tidy. By the entrance sat the sneakers she had often worn to work.

The mail was stacked neatly on top of the shoe cabinet, and the faint scent of her favorite “Flower Market” reed diffuser lingered in the air.

“Has someone been…?”

“I stopped by sometimes after you went missing.

I’d open the door, do a little cleaning, and sort the mail. In case you came back.”

His voice grew quiet, tinged with sadness.

“So everything would be ready for you.”

Seo-wan gave him a small smile.

The familiar sofa. The bed she had collapsed onto after working late one night.

The group photograph from her days at the Korean National Police University, still attached to the mirror.

Everything was just as she had left it.

She stood there in a daze for a long time before murmuring,

“…Time stood still here.”

Behind her, Jin-woo asked quietly,

“Do you remember anything?”

Seo-wan closed her eyes for a moment. A single tear fell.

“How have I been living my life?”

“Seo-wan.”

Jin-woo stopped himself from reaching for her and clenched his hand into a fist.

Even now, he needed courage to cross that invisible boundary between them.

Instead, he gently offered her a handkerchief.

“Take a shower and get some rest. You were questioned all night. You need to rest before your body gets any worse.”

Seo-wan gave him a faint smile and nodded.

Jin-woo handed her a freshly washed towel. She breathed in its delicate scent.

“Camellias.”

“That’s right. It’s the fabric softener you used. I happened to wash the towels last week.”

Seo-wan breathed in the scent once more.

The familiar surroundings, the familiar fragrance—they put her a little more at ease.

On her way to the bathroom, she stopped and looked back at him.

“…Thank you.”

Jin-woo only smiled in reply. He watched quietly as she walked away.

For now, all he could do was let her rest.

Warm water poured over her head. It ran over her skin as though washing away the dried blood from that day.

Beneath the stream, Seo-wan bowed her head and stared blankly at her hands.

Faint traces of a cut still marked her palm.

Something sharp had sliced into her skin. It must have hurt, yet suddenly she remembered the strange absence of pain.

Blood trickles down her palm and drips onto the bathroom floor.

Seo-wan slowly sinks against the bathroom wall, watching it fall.

She feels nothing. Thinks nothing.

This is a vision. The present and the vision overlap.

Then a thought flashes through her mind, sharp as a splinter.

“…The pills.”

It had been when she first arrived at the villa. The pills Min-gyu had given her.

“Take these and get some sleep. You said you hadn’t slept in days.”

His voice had been tender, but looking back now, there had been something slightly unnatural about his gaze.

Severe insomnia had left her nerves raw and her body dulled.

She had desperately needed deep sleep, and she had trusted him as a psychiatrist.

That desperation had clouded her judgment.

Soon she had fallen into a deep sleep. Everything she remembered after that was hazy, tangled, out of order.

Had it started then?

From that point on, everything had begun to change, little by little. Her sense of time.

Her sense of space. Even her sense of herself.

When had I begun to fall apart?

“Seo-wan.”

Jin-woo’s voice came from outside the bathroom.

“I’m going out to get some blood sausage soup. From that place you like.”

Instead of answering, Seo-wan turned up the shower.

She heard the front door close behind him, and silence settled over the apartment once more.

When she emerged into the living room with a towel wrapped around her hair, familiar scents lingered everywhere.

At last, her mind seemed a little clearer. Her belongings. Her room. Her own scent.

'It was never this clean before…'

A small laugh escaped her. Then her gaze drifted toward the desk.

Piles of documents lay stacked there. On the desk, yellow sticky notes bore Jin-woo’s handwriting.

[Seo Min-gyu Psychiatry Clinic]

[Jungsan Hospital Director]

[Seo-wan’s Call Records]

[Vehicle 11-1234 — Driving Records]

'How much had Jin-woo uncovered while I was gone?'