Empty Eyes
She'd managed maybe two hours of sleep.
The phone alarm cut through the silence like a blade, and Oh Sae-ah's eyes snapped open on reflex. Gray dawn was seeping into the bare, minimalist studio. The exhaustion of an all-night investigation clung to every inch of her, thick and sticky, but she sat up without a moment's hesitation.
Standing before the bathroom mirror in nothing but her underwear, she faced her own reflection. Shoulders heavy with fatigue. Faint dark circles. And behind them, a stubborn flame that had burned all night without going out.
She splashed her face with cold water. The ice-cold shock against her skin honed her foggy mind to a razor's edge, and inside her head, yesterday's CCTV footage began to play on its own. That ghostlike gait — impossible to believe it belonged to a man who'd just killed someone. No hurry. No hesitation. Perfect self-control.
Forgetting even to towel the water still dripping from her face, she headed straight for the kitchen. The coffee machine's button broke the silence. This much sleep would have to do. Somewhere in this city, right now, the killer was still breathing.
She knocked back the last of the coffee, and that was the end of her brief rest. Oh Sae-ah set the cup in the sink and headed for the bedroom without hesitation. She opened the closet. Clothes of identical color and cut hung in a row, as if they'd been photocopied — even the time to decide what to wear was a luxury she wouldn't allow herself. A white shirt, cool against her skin. Black slacks with a sharp line, hugging her legs. Last, she picked up the worn leather jacket slung carelessly over a chair.
The familiar smell of leather. The heavy weight settling on her shoulders. It wasn't just a jacket. It was a second skin — something that had endured years of blood and dust and despair at countless crime scenes. A hard shell hiding everything soft underneath. The metallic rasp of the zipper going all the way up, and in the mirror, Oh Sae-ah's eyes became a hunter's once more.
She grabbed the car keys and phone from the table and headed for the front door without a second thought.
A metallic click. The moment she opened her door, the door across the hall opened at the same time. Oh Sae-ah's gaze drifted toward it naturally.
A woman with a black bob. Elaborate flower tattoos covering both arms. Her hair was still messy from sleep, and the face visible through it had eyes that were somehow empty — as unreadable as dawn fog.
Oh Sae-ah's eyes narrowed. Something familiar about that face. Information raced through her mind. The features. The air about her. And those tattoos...
Didn't a man live there alone?
A faint memory flickered. She'd glimpsed him once, months ago, when she'd first moved in.
Before the question could fade, another figure appeared behind the woman. A young man, short and looking somewhat awkward. He glanced at Oh Sae-ah over the woman's shoulder, then quickly looked away — like an insect afraid of the light.
The pairing was strange. The woman's overwhelming presence. The man's cowering demeanor. And more than anything — not a word between them. Not even a glance. The woman and the man turned without speaking and started down the stairs of the old apartment building. Their footsteps echoed dryly down the hallway. Oh Sae-ah watched them for a moment, then shut and locked her own door. With a metallic click, she too headed down the stairs for work.
The man and woman had left the building and were walking toward the main road. On her way to the parking lot, Oh Sae-ah found herself watching them disappear.
What was it? A sharp question cut through her thoughts. Why couldn't she stop thinking about those two? It wasn't just that he was the guy next door. The woman's empty eyes were one thing. But that man's walk... shoulders slightly hunched, even, measured strides. Was it just her imagination that it overlapped with the blurry figure she'd rewound hundreds of times on the monitor last night?
You're tired. Seeing things.
She shook her head and climbed into her car, turning the key. The engine's rumble seemed to scatter her thoughts. In the side mirror, the empty alley corner where the two had vanished came into view. The uneasy feeling didn't go away so easily.
Inspector Oh Sae-ah arrived at the station and headed straight for the digital forensics lab on the third floor. The door opened onto stale, humid air thick with the residue of an all-nighter. Empty instant ramen cups and energy drink cans littered the desks. The analysts sat frozen in front of their monitors like zombies. She started with the CCTV tracking.
"Do we have the suspect's route?"
At her voice, Lieutenant Kim — hollow-eyed, still staring at his screen — stood up.
"We tracked every path overnight, but I'll give you the conclusion first... we lost him."
Lieutenant Kim pulled up the final analysis map on the screen. Hundreds of lines and dots spread across it like a spiderweb, but the suspect's trail cut off at a single point.
"He deliberately stuck to residential streets and construction-site alleys with no cameras. The last image we have is at the Jungang-ro bus stop."
He played another clip. On the screen, a bus camera showed only the faint back of a man with a black hood pulled low.
"We identified the bus and checked the interior footage, but as you can see... he'd already sat down in a blind spot. Face unidentifiable. He got off five stops later, and after that, he vanished again."
Oh Sae-ah said nothing. She left the last afterimage of the ghost who'd vanished so completely on the monitor, and walked out of the cold lab. In the hallway, she scrubbed her face with a rough hand — the gesture of someone trying to force the exhaustion and the dead end back down.
She headed for the Violent Crimes Team 1 office and found Squad Leader Park. The office was a mess from the all-night investigation, thick with the sweet smell of instant coffee mix. Squad Leader Park had been wrestling with a mountain of paperwork. He stood when he saw her, and spoke before she could even ask.
"Team Leader — the victim, Park Kyung-chul. His family situation is complicated from the start."
"First, his legal spouse ran away over a decade ago. Current cohabitant is Kim Mi-young, thirty-eight, owns a hostess bar. She's currently on a trip to Jeju Island."
"......"
"And there's a daughter. She's still registered at the victim's address, but it doesn't look like they actually live together. Based on neighbor interviews, the relationship wasn't good."
"Pattern of running away and coming back since she was a student. Frequent screaming matches, apparently."
Squad Leader Park pulled a personal information sheet with a photo from the file and handed it to her.
"Only immediate family is Park Ajeong. One person. We contacted her to notify her of the death. She's on her way in for a witness interview. Should be here soon."
Daughter.
Oh Sae-ah took the document. The moment she saw the name and the photograph, every movement in her body stopped.
NAME:Park Ajeong
AGE:23
RELATION:Daughter of the deceased
The woman in the photo was the same woman she'd run into that morning — the one with the elaborate tattoos on both arms.
Her mind went cold. A strange shiver climbed her spine. The victim's daughter. Park Ajeong. The awkward-looking young man who'd been with her. And the killer who'd walked like a ghost on the CCTV, in perfect control of himself. Three completely different puzzle pieces locked together in front of her eyes with a sickening click.
"...Team Leader?"
Squad Leader Park called to her, puzzled by the look on her face. Oh Sae-ah lifted her head slowly, as if coming back to the present. Her eyes were darker and deeper than they'd ever been.
Her voice was low and firm. Squad Leader Park's eyes went wide.
"You personally, Team Leader?"
"Yes."
A short answer. It left no room for further questions.
That she'd come out of the apartment across from hers this morning? That she'd been with a man who walked like the ghost on the CCTV? She couldn't say any of that. It was just a feeling that wouldn't leave her alone. Instinct without evidence was the same as delusion. If she said it now, she'd throw the team's entire investigation off course for nothing. Oh Sae-ah swallowed the words.
Oh Sae-ah tore open a packet of instant coffee mix, dumped it into a paper cup, and poured in hot water. The sweet smell hit her nose, but she felt nothing. She just held the scalding cup, leaned against the sink, and closed her eyes. The noisy office receded. Yesterday's crime scene reconstructed itself in her mind like a film, and the murder began to play out as a simulation.
Oh Sae-ah opened her eyes.
Surgical knowledge. An engineer's hands. Perfect self-control.
The two people from this morning surfaced in her mind again. The woman with the empty eyes. The man who seemed somehow cowed. It was still just a hypothesis.
She knocked back the rest of the coffee in one go. Time to meet Park Ajeong. While she'd been overlaying the mechanical sensations of the killer in her simulation, she'd realized her own fingertips were trembling, just slightly. She clicked her tongue and shoved the faintly shaking hand into her leather jacket pocket.
A narrow room, every surface lined with sound-absorbing material. Cold LED light fell across the table. A dark polarized window on one wall stared into everything inside with relentless attention. Across the table, Oh Sae-ah faced Park Ajeong and her empty eyes. Squad Leader Park sat silently beside her, notebook open.
Oh Sae-ah studied the woman opposite her. The same woman she'd run into outside her own door that morning. There was nothing on that face that belonged to someone whose father had just been murdered. No grief. No anger. Not even shock. Just a black, still swamp of unknowable depth. Only the elaborate flower tattoos wrapping both arms stood out with an eerie vividness against that colorless presence.
Oh Sae-ah broke the silence first.
"First, I'm sorry for your loss."
Park Ajeong didn't answer. She just nodded, barely.
"You are Park Ajeong, correct? Daughter of the victim, Park Kyung-chul."
"Yes."
The voice, too, carried no emotion at all.
The basic confirmation done, silence settled again. The camera lens in the interview room. The two-way mirror beyond the wall. And Oh Sae-ah's sharp gaze. Any number of eyes were on her, but Park Ajeong didn't move. She simply looked back at Oh Sae-ah.
Oh Sae-ah felt as if she weren't looking at a living person at all, but down into a deep, dark well.
