Because We Have Eyes
Could he actually remember me?
From the previous loop?
Or maybe, just maybe.
"You look familiar."
I nearly stumbled backward.
And that was despite the fact that Yu Hyeonjae's gaze carried none of the trademark arrogance of a man in power. No — despite the fact that it leaked no emotion whatsoever.
It was a stare that radiated a strange, suffocating pressure.
Then again, maybe I was only jumping at shadows because of the debt I owed him in the last loop.
This was also the first time I'd ever faced him at this distance, calm and composed, eye to eye.
"Ah, my apologies."
Yu Hyeonjae, who had been watching me without so much as a twitch, blinked for the first time and offered a greeting.
He looked like a marionette that breathed through its mouth and moved on its own.
"I thought you might be one of our employees, but I suppose not."
I sighed inwardly.
"Correct. Not yet, anyway. I came in today to interview with Yuwi Guild. I'm Seon Yuhan."
"Aha. I see."
His smile was smooth, like something painted on with a brush.
"Did it go well? I hope it did."
The man was genuinely missing a few screws.
Interview or no interview, we were trapped in a labyrinth and about to die on the spot.
But he said it with such effortless, matter-of-fact absurdity that it somehow instilled a baseless confidence in me — that maybe we really could get out of here.
"Uh, hello. I'm Choi Jaeha, I work here on the 16th floor at Howol Accounting Firm. It's an honor to meet you...!"
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Choi Jaeha. What a shame we had to meet under these circumstances. And forgive me, but you would be...?"
"Oh! Hello. I'm Hwang Juyeon. I'm not an employee here — I came for a magic show at the daycare. Um, this child's name is Jeong Jiho."
"Pleased to meet you. And you as well, Jiho."
Yu Hyeonjae dropped to one knee without a trace of hesitation, bringing himself to the child's eye level.
"You must have been terrified. Thank you for holding on so bravely."
How should I put it — it was exactly what you'd expect from a man who'd clawed his way up from nothing at a young age. The way he interacted with people so smoothly, even in a situation where lives hung by a thread, was genuinely startling.
"Ah, so you came straight down from the 2nd floor... It seems the floors have gotten mixed up."
We gave Yu Hyeonjae a concise rundown of the situation, and he absorbed it without showing so much as a flicker of shock.
"As it happens, a small emergency exit I'd never seen before appeared over here. When I opened it, there was nothing but a staircase leading down — and yet B5 should be the lowest floor. I did suspect the floors themselves had changed."
He was the guild's CEO, after all; he seemed to grasp the labyrinth's outlandish quirks with practiced ease.
"Impressive, honestly. All of you made it down here without any serious injuries."
"We got lucky. Are you hurt anywhere, sir...? You must have been shocked too, the building suddenly turning into this."
The CPA from Howol Accounting addressed the CEO of Yuwi Guild as if the man were his own boss.
Consistency in a person really is a lovely thing to see.
Though frankly, at Yu Hyeonjae's level, even someone who wasn't a Jaerae Group employee could stand to treat him like royalty.
"I appreciate the concern, but I'm perfectly fine."
The CEO's lips curved gently upward.
"I earn my living from labyrinths. Being trapped in one isn't novel enough to send me into a panic."
Considering the area had been quiet as the grave, I had heard every wet, miserable retch of this man vomiting in painfully vivid detail — and here he was, wearing a spotless face and pretending nothing had happened.
His ability to brazen it out was world-class.
"Now that we've all been introduced, we should form some kind of formation for safety's sake. Jiho in the middle..."
As he briskly arranged our positions, the three of us — everyone except CEO Yu Hyeonjae and child Jeong Jiho — exchanged glances, as if we'd silently drawn straws.
A wordless agreement was reached.
We would not bring up the sound of retching we'd heard before we came face to face with him, nor the reddened rims of his eyes when we first met.
Whether he believed we hadn't noticed, or was asking us to pretend we hadn't, I couldn't say. But if a man wanted something hidden, digging it up uninvited was poor manners.
"Which of you three should take the very back? Ideally someone who doesn't spook easily during horror movies."
"Hmm..."
"Ah. I'll take the rear."
"Good, that settles it."
And so the five of us arranged ourselves into a diamond formation.
At the front, Yu Hyeonjae.
Choi Jaeha, Jeong Jiho, Hwang Juyeon.
And at the back, me.
"If we get separated, it must only be into twos or threes — no one ends up alone. Mr. Seon Yuhan, keep your flashlight on its dimmest setting."
"Sir, is something drawn to light?"
I tried to recall the shape of the thing that had taken my heart last time.
The ear that gladly receives the origin of all beings' prayers, the mouth that bestows the sermon of suchness, the hand that extends the compassion of perfect awakening... O World-Honored One, come from the machine and go toward truth, O One for whom coming and going are not different — truly bearing your name, virtuous and noble, wise and compassionate, merciful and benevolent, generous and gracious...
"No, Mr. Seon Yuhan."
Through the dim, blurry glow of the flashlight, Yu Hyeonjae looked straight at me.
A chill gaze — and precisely because of it, one that anchored you to reality.
"It doesn't seem to have eyes."
"Then why would you..."
"Because we do."
That quiet, businesslike voice bored into my ears in an instant.
My body shrank back before I could stop it.
I had no choice but to grasp the implication of that perfectly ordinary sentence — the one saying that we are the ones with eyes.
Which meant that we, the ones with eyes...
"Do not witness. Whatever it may be — anything that could startle you."
It meant there were things we must not see with those eyes.
"If you witness it, do not be startled. If you are startled, cover your mouth. I can't be certain, but..."
Yu Hyeonjae had been speaking in a smooth, unhurried flow — and then his voice faltered for a moment.
"It seems to come to sounds above a certain volume. A scream, for example."
Oh. So that was it.
Come to think of it, last time Yu Hyeonjae had kept telling me to stay calm, too.
And I'd gotten the wrong end of the stick, flipped my lid, and roared my head off.
So that's why I died, apparently.
"Wait, then..."
Choi Jaeha, gripping the child's hand tight in one of his, covered his mouth with the other and whispered.
"Shouldn't we be careful with conversation too...?"
"No."
Yu Hyeonjae answered with extra force, as if to reassure us.
"This much, it definitely cannot hear. As you can see."
"I'm sorry, but... how exactly did you come to know that...?"
Hwang Juyeon asked the question.
There was a blade hidden inside her careful phrasing.
"I was just about to explain that. I was originally with Driver Kim — ah, my personal driver..."
Yu Hyeonjae narrowed his eyes slightly and put on a complicated expression.
"Once we realized this place had become a labyrinth, we began exploring separately — checking the cars down here, trying to open doors, that sort of thing."
"Every single car?"
"Yes. If something is off about one, that in itself is a clue."
Besides, unlike the ground floors built in a hollow-square layout, the underground parking lot had no open void in its center, so its actual area was even larger. Even a conservative count would put at least fifty cars down here.
"Did you find anything?"
"Ah, nothing major, but I did notice some strange skid marks. I'll show you in a moment."
Yu Hyeonjae gave me a small nod, almost asking permission, then continued.
"I don't know what he saw, but Driver Kim suddenly began to scream, so I ran over — he was in a panic, rambling incoherently. And then, before long, something like a grotesquely misshapen Buddha statue appeared, and Driver Kim's heart..."
Yu Hyeonjae's brow furrowed faintly, and his sentence trailed off as he looked at Jeong Jiho.
Choi Jaeha and Hwang Juyeon clearly understood what came next; their faces darkened.
"I should have taken his hand. Instead, I ran..."
It was a very flat murmur. As if he were forcibly pressing the emotion down.
"In any case, that's how I came to suspect the thing is drawn to loud sounds. Now then — let me show you those skid marks, and after that, perhaps we split in two and finish the remaining sweep."
CEO Yu Hyeonjae wiped even that faint gloom cleanly from his face and took the lead.
Tap, tap-clack...
Five different sets of footsteps fell out of rhythm, like musicians each playing a different song.
"Here we are."
A stark, vivid tire mark stretched in a long slash across an empty space where no car stood.
I looked down at the black streak without a word.
"Wait, you can't build up that kind of speed in a parking garage — not long enough for a mark this size, even if you tried...?"
"The location's odd too, isn't it?"
Following Choi Jaeha's lead, Hwang Juyeon tilted her head and pointed at the skid mark.
"The mark runs way too close to that pillar. If it were a real car, the body would have clipped that column — it shouldn't have been able to leave a mark like this in the first place."
"Exactly. That's why I found it strange as well."
CEO Yu Hyeonjae nodded along to Hwang Juyeon's observation.
"I was in the middle of investigating it further when, well... that happened with Driver Kim."
"But what more could you even investigate with this...?"
"The tread pattern."
"What?"
My muttered remark suddenly drew every gaze.
I glanced around warily and spoke up.
"Um, tires aren't all shaped the same, so... I was thinking it might be worth checking the cars that use the same tread pattern as that mark first."
Granted, that wouldn't narrow the list down to a handful — but it had to beat tearing apart every car in the lot at random with nothing else to go on.
"An excellent deduction."
The co-CEO of Yuwi Guild's eyes glinted, an unsettling fire in them.
"I heard there's a recruitment meeting for new Red Weavers today. Was that interview of yours the one you mentioned — not for an Agent?"
The gap between a Red Weaver recruitment meeting and a Red Weaver Support Agent hiring interview was about the size of the gap between a CEO and a job applicant.
"No, sir. I really did come for the Agent Team interview, and the only kind of escaping I'm good at is, at best, an escape room."
"Ah, that too is a fine qualification for a Red Weaver."
The man was impossible to reason with.
Is that the kind of person he was? Quietly unreasonable. And this isn't even the time for it. He's bizarrely out of it.
"Well, we can pick that conversation up later. For now, why don't we simply split into two pairs and fan out in both directions."
Yu Hyeonjae made a light gesture, as if cleaving our group down the middle.
Choi Jaeha and me.
Yu Hyeonjae, Jeong Jiho, and Hwang Juyeon.
"Fine by me."
"Hmm, sure, I guess..."
Hwang Juyeon shrugged, and Choi Jaeha agreed with visible reluctance. Jeong Jiho nodded without a word.
I looked at the child and the woman standing at Yu Hyeonjae's side.
Their chests split open, and their whole bodies soak through, black and red.
No.
That's not real.
"Then, Mr. Seon Yuhan, photograph this mark and examine it together with Mr. Choi Jaeha."
And so Choi Jaeha and I approached the nearest cluster of parked cars.
"Ha, how much does all this cost? The VIP section really is a different world."
Just as the CPA was busy marveling at the lineup of executive parking spots—
Bzzz.
The phone reduced to a flashlight buzzed in my hand, then flashed brightly to life.
Out of pure habit, I unlocked the screen and checked the message before I could stop myself.
A crawling, prickling chill slithered up my spine.
Whip.
My head snapped around before I knew it.