The Uninvited Guest in the Closet
Outside Oh Hyeon-seong's house, a suspicious line of black vehicles stood parked bumper to bumper.
It was a scene utterly at odds with the usually quiet neighborhood — men in suits standing beside the cars with their hands folded, trading glances and quietly jockeying for position with one another. At a glance, it might have looked like a summit between massive organizations, but the people in question were none other than hunters from the Management Bureau and agents of the National Security Bureau.
Clunk.
Han Su-yeon and Baek Ji-soo stepped down from their respective vehicles. Both had just wrapped up identical schedules in the provinces, and both had decided to stop by Changyeong-ri before heading back up to Seoul — which was why they'd arrived almost simultaneously.
Baek Ji-soo shot her an exasperated look. "Why did you follow me here?"
"Because you were headed to Sunbae's place again, and I wanted to make sure you weren't about to pull something weird."
"I didn't come here to scrap with you. Just stay quiet like last time and leave without making a scene."
Baek Ji-soo brushed past her without another word and headed for the house. She raised a hand to knock, but the gate stood slightly ajar, so she simply stepped inside. Yet the open door seemed to have been left for no one's benefit — the place was empty. There was no sign of Oh Hyeon-seong anywhere.
"Looks like he's out."
"Su-yeon, since Sunbae's not here either, why don't you head back first? I came on separate business."
"I have business too. Ji-hwa contacted me and asked me to come."
"Don't tell me he invited you to come along with him?"
"He did. Said it had been a while since we all saw each other's faces. Wasn't that why you came?"
"Ha. That guy..."
Baek Ji-soo shook her head wearily. In the end, he'd gathered everyone together. The timing couldn't have been worse for her — she'd hoped to speak with Oh Hyeon-seong alone, and now the fates were conspiring against her.
"Hold on..."
Then, standing in the living room, Baek Ji-soo's gaze snapped sharply to one side. Beyond a half-open door, she was staring dead at a wardrobe inside one of the rooms.
Watching her stand frozen in place, Han Su-yeon asked, puzzled, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing... it's nothing."
Baek Ji-soo quickly withdrew her gaze and spun around. "I thought Sunbae had gotten himself a pet or something."
"Hehe, weather's nice today."
Yoo Eun-ha walked along humming a tune. She'd gone down into the village, run an errand for Aunt Hwang, and was on her way back — and as a result, a weighty reward now sat in her left hand.
Kimchi from Aunt Hwang's kitchen really is the best, no contest.
One trifling errand, and the famously generous hearts of the village had stuffed her hands full. The lady was already legendary for her largesse, but this, she thought, was exactly what they meant by country warmth.
Gazing up at the crisp blue sky, she rounded the corner — and THUD! She crashed straight into a man who had appeared out of nowhere.
At first she thought she'd walked into a boulder rather than a person; for a split second her feet actually left the ground. Fortunately, the man caught her mid-fall, sparing her rear end from an unceremonious meeting with the pavement.
"Are you alright?"
"Oh, yes... thank you for catching me."
"No, I should apologize. I should've been watching where I was going — I was glued to my phone."
The man held up a phone with a map app glowing on the screen. Figuring he must be from out of town, she looked up at his face — and immediately went pale with shock.
"Ryu... Ryu Ji-hwa!"
At first she doubted her own eyes. But only for a moment. Had she seen wrong? Or was it just someone who looked uncannily like him? No — there was no way she of all people could fail to recognize him. She followed the domestic and international hunter scene as a matter of habit, but before any of that, she was a diehard fan of Ryu Ji-hwa.
"Oh, you recognized me right away?"
"O-of course I did..."
"I saw a grandmother at the corner store back there, and she was pretty cold to me. She did kindly give me directions, but... I figured maybe I'd been forgotten, since I haven't been active in Korea that long."
"F-forgotten? That's impossible!"
The shout burst out of Yoo Eun-ha before she could stop it. Her face flushing crimson at her own outburst, she ducked her head low.
Oh my god... this can't be real... seeing him out of nowhere, in a place like this...? Right, and I barely even put on makeup today!
She had been a devoted fan since the day Ryu Ji-hwa first stepped into the public eye. She'd once booked tickets to fly to America just to attend one of his fan meetings — plans that had ultimately collapsed due to unforeseen circumstances, though she had faithfully followed every one of his activities since. And now, out of nowhere, she was seeing him in the flesh. Her heart was pounding like mad.
"I'm trying to get to the village hall — could you possibly point me in the right direction? I've been lost for a while now."
"Oh, it's actually really close by... I'll walk you there myself."
"I'd really appreciate that."
Ryu Ji-hwa said with a bright smile.
And so the two set off toward the village hall together, chattering away the whole way. What had begun as an ordinary errand had turned into an impromptu fan meeting. She was still dazed, but opportunities like this came once in a lifetime, and she resolved to milk it for all it was worth.
"You know someone in this village?"
"To be precise, you could call him my mentor."
"Your mentor? Ji-hwa oppa has a mentor? I can't even imagine that."
"Well... he practically raised me. Honestly, it's a bit shameful that I'm only now getting around to visiting him."
Ryu Ji-hwa said with a short sigh. His words took Yoo Eun-ha aback. The fact that he had a teacher he respected this deeply had never been known to the public. More than that, she couldn't imagine anyone in this little village who could fill such a role.
"Still, today I..."
He stopped mid-sentence.
Ryu Ji-hwa froze in place. She followed his gaze and found Oh Hyeon-seong standing there, shuffling along in slippers, dressed in the loosest of loungewear.
"Wondered where you'd run off to. Here you are."
"Oh, oppa, you were looking for me?"
"Sunbaenim!"
Ryu Ji-hwa's face lit up as he hurried toward him, his voice transformed — the tone nothing like the conversation from moments ago.
"Huh...?"
Yoo Eun-ha stood rooted to the spot, too stunned to manage a single word more.
During his long years of service, Oh Hyeon-seong had led countless people in the unit. But with Han Su-yeon and Baek Ji-soo, he'd been more of a senior who steered them along and occasionally offered advice when they hit a wall — less a teacher than a comrade who'd pushed through life-and-death fields of battle shoulder to shoulder with them.
Ryu Ji-hwa, though, was a disciple of his own making, raised by his hand from the training academy onward. He'd been dragged in as a scrawny kid barely into his mid-teens, ground down by brutal training — and for him, Oh Hyeon-seong had been the man who taught him nearly everything he knew, the one person he'd leaned on completely.
"Good grief, how long has it been?"
"I'm so glad you made it out of the hospital safely... truly, I am."
"Don't lay it on so thick."
Oh Hyeon-seong replied flatly. To Ryu Ji-hwa, of course, every word was sincere. Just five years ago, the state of his legs had been truly dire — the fact that he could walk on two healthy legs at all was nothing short of a miracle.
"By the way — you said you got here well ahead of me, and you still couldn't find a single village hall? What have you been doing?"
"The village layout is surprisingly confusing, sir. I especially can't understand why the village hall is hidden away like some kind of state secret..."
"Some things never change. You've always been hopeless with directions."
Oh Hyeon-seong shook his head. Getting into such a state over failing to find a building sitting smack in the middle of the village — no wonder he'd given up explaining and just come out to fetch him in person.
"Speaking of which, every single time I passed through Korea, I went to visit you. How did you manage to turn me away every time?"
"Back then... I didn't want to be disturbed. Sorry about that."
At the time, he'd been obsessed with his rehabilitation to the point of madness. Right up until the day he finally accepted that recovery was impossible and resigned himself to it, his eyes had been fixed on nothing else — he hadn't had the heart to face anyone. Later, he learned the records showed Ryu Ji-hwa had come looking for him more than anyone else, second to no one.
"Anyway, I just stole your conversation right out from under you. Do Eun-ha a favor before you leave — I think she's a fan of yours."
"Ah, of course. Anyone connected to you, Sunbaenim, gets whatever they want."
"So where's your CEO? I thought he said he was coming, but he's not with you and he's nowhere to be seen."
"Huh? I heard he arrived before I did. He wasn't at the house yet?"
"Not a trace."
Choi Jeong-il had yet to show himself. It wasn't as if anyone here didn't know what a hopeless navigator the man was — yet they'd left him to his own devices, and who knew what he was up to out there.
By the time the two of them made it back to the house, Han Su-yeon and Baek Ji-soo had already arrived. The sight of the conspicuous convoy of cars and the crowd of hunters gave him a moment's pause, but hearing they'd come straight from their provincial schedules, he understood well enough. He'd send them on their way before long.
And so four hunters gathered in the sitting room. Ryu Ji-hwa, the one who'd orchestrated this reunion, nodded over it with evident satisfaction.
"A bit sparse for an alumni gathering, but it's good to see us together like this."
"Considering barely a handful of us are still alive, that's a pretty high attendance rate."
"..."
The atmosphere turned to ice in an instant. Sensing it, Baek Ji-soo was quick to own up to her slip.
"...Sorry."
"Give me a minute — I'll bring out some fruit first."
"Ah, let me peel them, sir!"
Ryu Ji-hwa sprang to his feet and hurried after him. It was a gathering of faces he hadn't seen in far too long.
But at that very moment, through the narrow crack of a wardrobe door left ever so slightly ajar, a silent scream was unfolding.
Crazy — what is this? What the hell is going on here?
Lee Gil-sang, his face drained white, hurled curses silently in his head. Hunters who could topple a small nation single-handedly were swarming right in front of him. And beyond that, he could feel an insane number of presences gathered outside the house. They didn't compare to the monsters inside, but there was no doubt that every single one of them out there was stronger than he was.
Han Su-yeon and Baek Ji-soo, Ryu Ji-hwa from earlier — even Choi Jeong-il's name came up. That's it. It's a coup. This is a coup d'état.
Dozens of hunters standing by outside. And if pillars of the nation this weighty were secretly gathering in some rural backwater, then clearly this was a clandestine summit of hunters plotting to overthrow the government. The Disaster Management Bureau, the National Security Bureau — with just those two government agencies moving, let alone the nation's largest civilian power, Aegis Entertainment, they possessed more than enough force to flip the country on its head.
He was witnessing a historic moment firsthand.
Th-then who the hell is the man sitting in the middle of them?
The one and only man he hadn't been able to identify. And yet these titans who could bend Korean society to their will were addressing him as "Sunbaenim," deferring to him with utter reverence.
Don't tell me... is he the country's true power behind the curtain — the one even the President keeps at his feet?
Whatever he was, if he got caught, he died.
In that suffocating tension, Lee Gil-sang controlled even his breathing with deliberate care. The slit of the wardrobe door he'd cracked open to ambush someone now felt like a blade aimed straight at his own throat. It was too late to close it now — the situation had tipped into madness. The instant he moved even a finger, his Absolute Stealth would unravel. An ordinary hunter might never notice even if he shifted, but against these people, it was far too risky. That was exactly why he sat there, trapped, unable to twitch so much as a fingertip.
"Hmmm."
Wh-what now? Why does she keep looking over here?
Lee Gil-sang flinched as his eyes met Baek Ji-soo's. There was no way she could have detected him while he maintained perfect concealment. And yet the weight of her gaze, lingering on him again and again, made him feel like his throat was closing up.
Under the crushing strain, the strength was slowly draining from his legs.
THUD!
"...?"
Every eye in the house turned at once.