I've never liked curiosity.
Curiosity makes people dig up answers that should have been left buried. And in a life like mine, knowing too much can be far more dangerous than staying in the dark. But that night, I couldn't ignore one name that kept appearing like a ghost waiting to be acknowledged.
Han Seo-yeon.
I sat alone in my office with a black file folder open on my desk. The woman's photograph was still there—a trauma surgeon, twenty-eight years old, born and raised in Seoul. A spotless educational background. No criminal record. No connection to any underworld organization, at least none that could be officially proven.
There was nothing unusual about her. That was what made me even more suspicious.
Someone with a life like that should never have appeared in a Black Hawk report. I closed the file folder and spoke to myself—an order to stop thinking about things that didn't matter. She was just a doctor. Someone who happened to treat my wound. Someone who happened to make me laugh in a way I thought had disappeared from my life. And someone who, somehow, had begun filling the space in my mind that should have remained empty and focused on work.
I stood and walked to the window. Seoul looked different from this height—smaller, quieter, like a world that had never touched my hands. I lit a cigarette but let it burn between my fingers without taking a drag. An old habit from a time when my thoughts were too crowded to control.
My phone rang.
Do-hyun. A report from Incheon. Red Viper activity, a warehouse near the port, a group that was beginning to move boldly. I gave my orders in a voice that had returned to normal—cold, measured, leaving no room for emotion. That was my life. One minute, thinking about a doctor with eyes that looked as though they understood loneliness; the next, thinking about enemies who might already be sharpening their knives.
Two lives that should never have touched.
And yet, a few hours later, I realized that I'd already begun bringing one life into the other.
At 9:15 a.m., I was in a small restaurant hidden away in Jongno.
Places like this were good for conversations no one else was meant to hear. Lee Min-seok was already waiting—one of Black Hawk's oldest intermediaries, someone who understood how the world worked along the line between legal and illegal.
"Something's strange," he said without any roundabout introduction.
I looked at him, waiting for the details. "Red Viper is moving more boldly. They've started interfering with our distribution routes."
I picked up my coffee cup. "Then they're testing our limits."
"Exactly. And they aren't showing any signs of stopping."
I looked out the window, where the streets of Jongno were beginning to fill with the morning routine. "Don't retaliate."
Min-seok looked startled. He understood the business calculation—when someone stole from you, the usual response was to hit back even harder. But he didn't understand my philosophy. "They've already taken over two entire distribution routes."
"I know."
"If we don't retaliate, they'll think we're weak."
I looked at him in a way that made most people choose to stay quiet. "People who need to display their strength at all times are usually trying to hide a much greater weakness."
He understood now. I wasn't trying to assert dominance—I was looking for information. Every move Red Viper made was a trail, a clue about who was really leading them.
"Let them move," I continued as I stood. "The farther they reach, the more they'll expose. And once I know who's directing them, then we'll talk about revenge."
Min-seok nodded. He'd worked with me long enough not to question the logic any further.
By the time I got into the car, the clock read 10:42. And for some reason, my thoughts immediately shifted. Seo-yeon. I took out my phone and opened the contact I'd saved yesterday. My finger hovered over the screen for several seconds. What would I even say? That I wanted to hear her voice for no clear reason? It sounded ridiculous coming from someone like me, so I put the phone away.
Five minutes later, my phone vibrated.
A message from Seo-yeon. Brief, but it lifted the corner of my mouth—a teasing question about whether I was still alive.
I typed an equally brief reply. She answered with a joke about a doctor's consultation fee. A conversation that had started so simply turned into an exchange that felt alive in a way that was unusual for me.
"Coffee?" I finally wrote.
"Today," she replied immediately.
She sent me a location—a small coffee shop near the Han River. Before my mind could intervene with reasons I shouldn't go, I'd already typed that I would be there.
I realized I was smiling again. I didn't know when that had become a new habit.
The Han River had always made me feel strange. On one side was a symbol of normal life—people walking, couples sitting comfortably, children playing without fear. No unnecessary haste. No paranoia. No hidden weapons.
I parked the car a few meters from the coffee shop. As soon as I went in, I saw her—Seo-yeon sitting by the window in a simple cream sweater and slacks, her hair tied back carelessly. She looked different from the way I usually saw her at the hospital. More real. Closer.
"Hey," she said, raising a hand with a smile that made me pause for a moment.
I sat across from her. The server came over quickly. We ordered—I had coffee without sugar, while she ordered something excessively sweet.
"Do you really not have a sweet tooth?" she asked, looking at me with an expression that felt genuinely curious.
"I do."
"Really? What do you like?"
I thought for a moment. I didn't want to give an answer that sounded like something out of a dark thriller. "Ice cream."
She laughed. A sincere laugh, not a forced one. "Seriously? I thought you'd say dark chocolate or something cold and painful."
"So I disappoint you?"
"A little," she said with a smile that made me want to store it somewhere in my memory so it wouldn't disappear.
We talked until the afternoon began to creep in. About things that didn't matter—Korean food that was too spicy, Russia that was too cold, hospital shifts that were too long. She laughed at the way I chose my food, and I listened to her talk about her patients with a devotion that felt like something no one could fake.
When I asked why she'd become a doctor, her smile slowly faded.
"Because I want to save people," she answered simply. But behind that simplicity was a much longer story she didn't tell.
"Your choice feels like more than just a profession," I said.
She looked at me—not maintaining a façade, but being honest. "There are a lot of things I don't like about my family. Especially my father."
I didn't ask. I simply listened.
"He treats the world like a chessboard," she continued. "Every person is a piece that can be moved anywhere to achieve the desired result."
Something stirred inside me when I heard those words. I'd done exactly that countless times. Turned people into tools.
"And you?" I asked.
"I can't do that."
She said it firmly, and I realized that simple sentence was something I would one day remember in a painful way.
She asked about Russia. About why I was cold. I gave her a mostly honest answer—I'd grown up in a place that never taught people to trust in the goodness of others. She listened without judgment, without trying to fix me with cheap psychology.
"Then you've forgotten how to ask for help," she said softly when I finished speaking.
She was right. I'd forgotten.
When the sun began to set, we walked outside. She shivered even as she refused to admit it, so I took off my coat and gave it to her. She accepted it calmly, and we walked side by side—not too close, not too far apart—like two people who had just discovered they didn't always have to be alone.
That night, when I returned to the Black Hawk office, the atmosphere had changed sharply.
Do-hyun was already waiting, his expression making all the day's calm vanish in an instant.
"We've got a problem."
He showed me the file. Red Viper had found one of our storage sites. Four people were injured. But what made my heart stop was the next sentence.
"It looks like they know you spend a lot of time in Seoul."
I opened the file with hands that suddenly felt unsteady. Inside were photographs that made my blood run cold. Seo-yeon leaving the hospital. Seo-yeon at the coffee shop. Me standing with Seo-yeon.
"Who took these?" My jaw tightened.
"We haven't found them yet."
I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I opened them with a decision already neatly formed. "From now on, no one goes near her."
Do-hyun looked surprised by my tone. He wanted to ask whether Seo-yeon was important. And my answer should have been no—she was just an unfamiliar doctor with no connection to this organization.
But the answer that came out was different.
"Yes. She's important."
For the first time, I realized I'd made the mistake I'd avoided for so long—bringing someone into the world I inhabited. More than that, I'd started to care.
The night deepened when my phone rang. The boss. I knew the voice on the other end would say things I didn't want to hear.
"How are you?" he asked as casually as if he were asking about the weather.
"Fine."
"Have you met her?"
I fell silent. My heart beat harder as I realized he already knew. The boss never asked about anything he didn't already know.
"Yes."
"What do you think of her?"
"She's good."
There was a brief silence. Then he asked in a tone that made me want to smash the phone, "Do you like her?"
I couldn't lie. "I don't know."
He gave a quiet laugh. He laughed like he'd known the answer before I'd said it.
"Take care of yourself," he said, and the call ended.
Something was terribly wrong. I could feel it, like the scent of an approaching storm. And I still didn't know what it was.
Elsewhere, at the same time, Seo-yeon sat alone in her apartment. She opened the coat I'd given her. Something fell from the pocket—a business card with my name on it. She stared at it with a smile that vanished when her phone rang.
Her father.
She answered.
"Seo-yeon. Father wants to see you."
"I don't want to," she replied bluntly.
But when he said it was about me, Seo-yeon's body went rigid.
"Don't get too close to him," he said before ending the call.
Seo-yeon stared at her phone, her hand clenched around it. For the first time, the name Kang Tae-jun—my name—became part of a family secret she'd never discussed before.
And on the other side of the city, I stood at the same office window every night, staring out at Seoul and wondering who the person was who had begun changing everything.
I would find out. But I already knew that choosing to step deeper into her world might be the biggest mistake of my life.