The Timing of His Return Couldn’t Be More Perfect
In her childhood, the police were not merely a profession to Do Se-lin; they were as familiar as everyday life.
There were always case files piled up in the living room, and the telephone rang day and night without regard for the hour.
In her memory, her father always looked tired, but his eyes changed whenever he spoke with her mother about a case.
"There’s no such thing as the perfect crime. I’ll make sure of that."
The year she entered middle school, Do Se-lin happened to encounter the field of criminal behavioral analysis.
It was a documentary about the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in the United States, and she became so absorbed in it that she lost all sense of time.
Experts who peeled back the veil by analyzing a criminal’s behavior and psychology.
Do Se-lin felt a shiver run through her.
"This is it."
If a detective was the one who caught criminals, then a profiler was the one who understood them.
That was how fifteen-year-old Do Se-lin came to understand profiling.
From that day on, her dream became to be a profiler.
She studied like a madwoman and squeezed out every spare moment to bury herself in books on criminal psychology.
On some days, she would read articles about cases and analyze the suspect’s behavior in her notebook.
That small habit would later become the foundation that allowed her to grow into a field profiler.
As time passed, she was accepted into the Police University she had wanted so desperately, and in criminal science classes she displayed hypotheses and deductions so accurate that even her professors were stunned.
She spent all four years there overwhelming the competition, and of course, she earned the honor of graduating at the top of her class.
And yet the way the world looked at her never changed all that much.
"Is that her? The one whose father used to be the Police Commissioner?"
"Yeah. Do Jeong-hak’s daughter."
"Figures... there had to be a reason she came out on top."
"Commissioner Do. I heard there’s talk he’s getting the ruling party’s nomination this time... Man, I’m jealous."
Cold as it was, the world had little interest in her effort.
It only cared about her background.
"You’re Do Se-lin, are you? You really do take after your father. Hah, hah, you’ll make a capable officer. Give my regards to your father."
Her excellent grades.
Her top-ranking graduation.
Her study abroad in the United States.
Even her rapid promotions, faster than anyone else’s.
All of it was explained away as the glow of her father’s influence.
She hated that fact so much that she worked even more frantically, like a woman possessed.
All so that no one would ever mention her father in front of her.
***
A whisky bar with soft jazz drifting low through the air.
Warm amber light fell across the bar, and old whisky bottles lined the shelves in neat rows.
Neither noisy nor too quiet.
It was the perfect place for two people to sit across from each other and talk.
Do Se-lin ordered two whiskies from the bartender.
"Straight, please."
Clink—
Two glasses, with no ice, were set down before them.
"Do you come to places like this often?"
Do Se-lin looked at her glass for a moment, then smiled faintly.
"Not often. Only when a case won’t come together, sometimes? Try it. It won’t be bad."
Song Tan took a sip of the whisky.
The moment it touched his tongue, a soft sweetness spread gently and wrapped around his mouth.
After that, the faint scent of charred caramel rose slowly up his throat.
It was on an entirely different level from five-thousand-won soju.
"It’s good."
"I figured it would suit your taste."
For a moment, silence settled between them.
Then Do Se-lin, as though thinking over something, spoke first.
"In books and movies, profilers are always portrayed like geniuses, aren’t they? People who can look at a criminal and know everything at a glance."
"Aren’t they?"
Do Se-lin gave a wry smile.
"Not at all. The profilers I saw in the United States were less like geniuses and more like... how should I put it? Extremely obsessive, stubborn people. In a way, they almost seemed crazy."
After drawing a breath, she went on.
"Once, I attended a meeting analyzing a serial murder case. There were five victims, all kidnapped and then killed."
"What about the culprit?"
"They hadn’t caught him. The victims’ families were showing up at the police station every single day, asking when the killer would be caught."
As though recalling the scene from memory, Do Se-lin’s eyes drifted into the distance.
"At that meeting, one profiler said this: the killer would strike again. The only way to stop him was to catch him."
Do Se-lin took another sip of whisky.
"And did they catch him?"
"They did. That profiler narrowed down the criminal’s movement patterns and eventually pinpointed a specific area."
"Was that what impressed you?"
"It wasn’t so much admiration as... pressure. I realized the work I was doing could save someone’s life...? If they hadn’t caught him then, there would definitely have been another victim."
She let out a little snort of laughter.
"After that day, my mindset changed a bit. I started thinking that sloppy analysis could do more harm than good, so I buried myself in study even harder. Thanks to that, I got my master’s in criminology from a prestigious American university, and luckily I was even able to go through the FBI Academy course. When I came back to Korea and people heard I was from FBI Quantico, they practically rolled out the red carpet. Back then, I guess there was nothing in the world to be afraid of."
"That’s amazing."
Song Tan was genuinely impressed.
Her stubbornness and passion, the way she ran straight toward her dream.
It was not something just anyone could do.
"Arrogantly enough, I thought I could solve any case. Now that I think about it, I want to crawl into a rat hole and hide... It’s all old, worn-out history anyway."
"You really did solve a great many cases, didn’t you? That’s why your reputation is so famous."
It was not some hollow flattery.
Even the once-infamous Suwon Overpass Dismemberment Case that had shaken the media was solved because she identified the suspect through analysis of body disposal patterns, and in the case known as the Han River White Umbrella Murder, she played a decisive role in narrowing the suspect by reading the killer’s psychological trigger.
Thanks to that, she became the fastest female profiler ever promoted to superintendent.
With a bitter smile at her lips, she raised the whisky to her mouth.
"Those were things any other profiler could have analyzed too. The cases that were really a pain in the ass, I never even got a proper hand on."
She spoke with a detached calm, as if confessing.
"The real field was so different from what I’d learned in textbooks. People lie constantly, evidence disappears with time, and those tiny variables send a case flying in a completely different direction. Just look at the Kim Chunggon case from not long ago."
A bitter smile lingered on her lips.
"The condition of the body was relatively intact, and there was a clear pattern, but we couldn’t even identify the suspect. No, even with the suspect right in front of us, we couldn’t clearly establish the motive for the killing."
Suddenly, Do Se-lin’s gaze turned toward Song Tan.
"If it hadn’t been for you, Officer Song, the victims would have kept coming. Maybe the case would have remained unsolved forever."
Silence fell for a moment.
Then she continued.
"I spent several nights without sleep thinking about it. What had I missed? Where had I gone wrong? I kept asking myself over and over, and in the end, I found the answer."
"And what was it?"
"It was a problem that had no answer to begin with. Struggling with something that didn’t exist meant I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, was it?"
Do Se-lin’s brows moved ever so slightly.
"Profilers aren’t magicians. That means our job isn’t to create something from nothing. We need enough data, and then it’s the profiler’s job to pile up those fragments, weave them together, and make a meaningful picture. I believed that with complete conviction all this time... and yet what do you know? There really is a magician who can create something from nothing."
She lifted her head again and stared at Song Tan as though trying to pierce him through.
"At first I was furious. Some field detective does what I can’t? How is that supposed to make sense? Honestly, I couldn’t accept it. That’s why I brazenly called you to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency."
Song Tan simply listened to her without a word.
"I wanted to confirm it. Did this person have something special? And I wanted to show you that at least in profiling, I was a step above. That kind of childish competitiveness, the sort only elementary school kids would burn with. Of course, the result was a complete and utter defeat."
"That’s not true. I know nothing about detective work or profiling, so—"
"I know. That’s why I want you even more. If someone like you studied properly, what kind of profiler would you become? Something like that."
Her eyes held honest curiosity.
"So this time, I’d like to make a much more proper, serious offer."
"An offer, you say...?"
"Join our team. Then Officer Song’s life will change completely, one hundred and eighty degrees."
"How exactly would it change?"
"First, I’ll promise full support for your transfer into Police University. After that, if you want, I can even send you to study in the United States."
An awkward silence followed.
"You’re probably wondering what a mere superintendent thinks he can say something like that on. But trust me. If I use what I’ve got, there’s nothing I can’t do."
It was, without question, an outrageous offer.
As she had said, for a police officer it was the kind of thing that could completely change a life.
Song Tan’s gaze dropped briefly to the floor, then rose again.
He seemed to draw in a quiet breath before speaking.
"I appreciate that you think highly of me, but I have no intention of giving up detective work."
"Why not?"
"Profilers are people who try to understand criminals, but I have no desire to understand them. I don’t care to know what kind of life they lived, or what reasons they had. I simply prefer to catch them. If they’re guilty."
From Song Tan’s point of view, that was only natural.
Why go through some cumbersome, complicated process when you didn’t have to?
You could just subject them to a three-course package of pain so intense it would clear their heads in one go.
Apparently she had not expected him to refuse, because Do Se-lin looked slightly flustered.
"There are people in this world who need reasons, but some people just need to be grabbed and held down without any reason at all. I think the people best at that job are detectives."
It was an incomprehensible answer, but the strength of his conviction left her unable to say anything.
She knew further persuasion would be meaningless.
Do Se-lin gave a small laugh and threw back the rest of her whisky.
"I dangled all the bait that would’ve driven anyone else out of their mind, and you still turned it down... Song Tan, you really only ever surprise me."
Clink—
She tossed back the remaining liquor in one go and wiped the corner of her mouth.
"Looks like I couldn’t resist my own greed again. I’m still not good enough, I guess. I’ll have to study harder."
A self-mocking smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.
"Since that’s your will, I won’t cling to you any longer. Still, if you ever need help with anything, call me anytime. I’m actually more influential in the police than I look."
Her eyes had softened considerably.
Do Se-lin smiled and lifted her glass.
"That sounds good to me."
Clink—
Song Tan answered by touching his glass against hers.
And just like that, Song Tan’s short but intense dispatch to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency came to an end.
***
The next day, Song Tan reported back to Annam West Station after some time away.
Since it had been two weeks, it felt a little awkward.
"I’ve safely completed my dispatch duty..."
Song Tan stepped into Violent Crimes Team 1’s office, intending to report his return, then paused.
The office, which would normally have been loud and bustling, was far too quiet.
All the detectives in Team 1 were seated at their desks, but nobody was making the usual noise.
A few of them noticed Song Tan belatedly and looked up.
"Oh, the rookie’s here?"
"Good work."
Song Tan tilted his head.
Normally they would have thrown out some worthless joke, but this felt too dry, too subdued.
Just then, a massive man shoved back his chair and stood up.
It was his mentor, Lee Joo-seok.
"What the hell are you standing there blankly for? Come on. Starting today, we’re back to grinding like crazy."
Lee Joo-seok led the dazed Song Tan to the rooftop smoking area.
"Hoo... the return timing was fantastic."
Lee Joo-seok exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke and gave him a sidelong look before asking casually,
"Nothing happen at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency? That witchy woman didn’t pull any weird crap, did she?"
"Of course not. She took very good care of me, in many ways."
"She took good care of you, my ass. She was just pretending to be nice because she wanted to sweet-talk some innocent kid."
Song Tan gave a faint smile and asked with a tilt of his head,
"By the way, did something happen? The office atmosphere feels a little different from usual."
"No choice it feels different. We’ve been put on full alert."
"Full alert?"
When Song Tan looked at him in confusion, Lee Joo-seok’s brow furrowed.
"Gangsters from other regions have started swarming in, looking to get in on Annam’s redevelopment interests. With everyone sniffing around for a bite of the pie, the Annam local faction’s dragged in other organizations too."
Lee Joo-seok’s voice dropped even lower.
"Meaning we might be headed for a war with the bastards."