Chapter 66: Happiness Is Not a Clean Thing (4)

"I'll focus on the script."

With that short dismissal, Sua sent them all off and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠opened the script.

Having read that far, Sua nodded. So that was why. No wonder the place was crawling with people. She had wondered what called for so many extras, and here it was: the climax rested on the premise of a bombing in the heart of the city. The more civilians in the frame, the more real it would feel.

She read on.

When she reached the end, Sua tilted her head. Huh? It was bewildering. It couldn't be anything else. What? This is the end? It actually ends like this?

The climax pages she had just confirmed were so loosely written that calling them a high degree of freedom didn't begin to cover it. They were closer to unfinished. In effect, whoever played Lee Gangcheol would have to judge for himself and fill the scene. Not that it cost Sua anything. The script had handed its freedom to Lee Gangcheol, not to Kim Yu-han.

The implication was plain. ...What matters is Kim Seonil. Enormously.

— Lee Gangcheol decides, then acts at once.

The climax had been built like a relay. Sua would run her leg and pass the baton, and the finish would belong entirely to Kim Seonil.

Could he even do it? No — he had gotten the script before she had, so perhaps he had already worked it through in his own way. No. This was her sticking her nose where it didn't belong. She ought to do her own job, and do it properly.

While she was lost in the thought, Director Choi Heewon bellowed.

"Sua! Seonil! Let's begin! Standby!"

At last, the moment to shoot the climax had come.

"Rolling! Three! Two! One! Action!"

The slate cracked shut. Filming began, and in the same instant Kim Yu-han dragged his head up, making no sound. His skull throbbed. He must have taken a hard blow; blood kept sliding down his forehead.

He was bound in a corner of a wide warehouse, and the situation was bad. Red light pressed in at the edge of his vision. From somewhere far off, the blaze was creeping closer.

"...Ah."

He tried to make a sound, but his voice came out faint. Hearing it from outside the warehouse was next to impossible. Whoosh — the roar of the flames would swallow it whole. What he had to do was clear. There was nothing left but to accept death.

"Ha."

Kim Yu-han let out a quiet, empty laugh. How had it come to this?

Clock in, and he was a detective. Clock out, and he was Kim Yu-han, still hunting criminals. The ones he faced had grown bigger and bigger, and this time the quarry was simply too large — large enough to leave even him like this.

He had always known that someday it would be him. From the start he had never spared a thought for his own safety; bringing criminals to justice was his only aim, and so he had long since been ready to be the one who paid. Yes. And so—

"...It's fine."

He murmured it, and the fact that he would die, the fact that a burned corpse would be left behind looking hideous, did not come at him as anything particularly large. He had never had family or friends to begin with.

Except.

"I wanted to clean up even one more. A shame."

That he hadn't been able to clear away even one more criminal — that was the only regret. Nothing else. He kept his silence, feeling the fire spread through the warehouse, and then something began to crackle. A dry sputter of static.

"...A radio?"

What lay at his feet was a radio. The culprit seemed to have left it there on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠purpose instead of confiscating it, meaning to toy with him. Kim Yu-han turned the thought over. Sure enough. A vicious bastard.

Click — that was when the radio connected.

"Kim Yu-han, can you hear me?"

"Kim Yu-han! Respond!"

The voice belonged to Lee Gangcheol. Eyes quietly closed, Kim Yu-han answered.

"I'm sorry, Senior."

This time there was no play in it. His voice was calm.

"I couldn't catch him with my own hands. I should have been more meticulous, and more careful, but I let emotion sweep me away like a fool. I made a mistake. I'm sorry."

And he meant it. Kim Yu-han held that this failure lay in his own feelings. The serial killer who had reduced him to this state was also the man who had killed his parents, and so perhaps — no. He had certainly been too hasty.

Funny. Did I even have anything like love for a family? A short breath of a laugh escaped him.

"...Kim Yu-han?"

Lee Gangcheol had caught that the voice was not the usual one. He understood, around then, that something serious had happened in the stretch when the radio was dead.

"Kim Yu-han, what happened? What's your situation?"

"Rest easy. Fortunately, I've learned everything there is to know about them. Which means your career, Senior Gangcheol — clean until now, without a single stain — is going to stay that way."

Whether the man cared to hear it or not, Kim Yu-han pressed stubbornly on with only what he meant to say.

"Right about now you're chasing him, aren't you, Senior? I don't have to look. The destination is probably Pohang. Their base is there. So call for backup. Catching him isn't the point. Cutting off the boat is."

"Kim Yu-han. I told you to report your situation."

"Senior."

Again he did not answer. Only this.

"Catch him this time, too. Just as you always have. Cleanly."

"This is as far as I go."

After murmuring that last part under his breath, Kim Yu-han drove his foot into the radio and sent it skidding. Shoved a long way off, it was soon swallowed by the flames and began, slowly, to warp.

"Kim Yu-han! Answer me! Kim Yu-han! That's an order!"

Lee Gangcheol's urgent cry. Crackle—! But the radio soon carried no sound at all, and nothing remained around him except the snap of scattering sparks.

In that quiet which was not quiet, Kim Yu-han spoke.

"...It's warm."

Eyes still closed, he slowly lifted the corners of his mouth.

"Good! Sua! That's excellent!"

Director Choi Heewon's shout. For now, Sua's shoot was finished.

"Good work, everyone! Let's strike this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spot first! All that's left is to wait on Seonil's scene!"

With that, several units besides the camera crew set about packing up. The actors were no different. Sua herself went light with relief at the thought of finally wiping the makeup off.

Meanwhile a few of the staff were murmuring.

"Seonil's shooting out on the road today, right?"

"Yeah. There's a car chase."

"Well, it is the climax. Driving and acting, both of them... The difficulty's gonna be no joke. And the pressure must be brutal, with his partner Sua pulling it off like that."

"I know. Still, he'll be fine. It's Seonil."

Sua was no less curious. So how does Kim Seonil mean to finish this? Even so, if he was going to do it, she hoped he would do it well.

That was when it happened. Something suddenly glinted in front of her.

Of all things, the Special Privilege had hung an exclamation mark in empty air. What now? The instant Sua fixed her eyes on it, that alone was enough. Text unfurled, wide.

Resonance? What is this, all of a sudden?

And then—

Fsssssh—! Something activated entirely of its own accord.

...Yeoncheongyeong? A word she had never once heard in her life. And yet its meaning poured into her mind all at once, with the uncanny sense that she had known it from a very long time ago.

It was something the Sua of this moment had no way of understanding.

A short while later, Lee Gangcheol's car was screaming down the road as if it had lost its mind. He was chasing the culprit's vehicle dead ahead. Scenery streaked past in a blur, and the hands clamped on the wheel were slick with sweat.

A pursuit. Catch, or be caught. Between the two of them, there was nothing else.

Outrageous lane changes were nothing out of the ordinary, and speeding went without saying. Lee Gangcheol meant to take the man no matter what. His quarry was a vicious serial killer. He crushed the accelerator harder and shouted into the radio.

"Kim Yu-han! Answer me! Kim Yu-han! That's an order!"

No reply came. And in that stretch of silence, the two cars locked in the chase slipped into a long tunnel.

Quiet, and lonely. And yet fierce — because inside the tunnel, the two vehicles were the only things that existed.

"Kim Yu-han!"

The radio had lost its signal entirely. But then it connected to another channel.

"Lee Gangcheol! Can you hear me right now?"

Not Kim Yu-han. Ha Yunjin — Seo Yeon-ju.

"I hear you! Currently pursuing the culprit! More importantly, I can't raise Kim Yu-han on the radio. Do you know the situation?"

"Kim Yu-han is trapped in a warehouse that's on fire."

"...What? Then—!"

Ha Yunjin cut him off flat.

"Forget Kim Yu-han. We'll send people from our side, so there's nothing to worry about. Focus on nothing but catching the culprit!"

That was when the shock hit Lee Gangcheol hard. What she had said amounted, in effect, to abandoning Kim Yu-han. Even by a generous estimate, headquarters lay a very long way from the warehouse. They could not possibly arrive in time. The only road left to saving him was for Lee Gangcheol to turn the car around. He was the one closest to the warehouse.

"You got that? That bastard! If not now, you'll never catch him!"

Crackle — the radio died with Ha Yunjin's shout. The car had gone too deep into the tunnel. Racing like a mad thing, it had already covered a third of the tunnel's length.

Vroooom — on it charged, like a wild horse, and Lee Gangcheol sank into thought. Past this tunnel, the road forks in two. Kim Yu-han had named Pohang as the man's base. To chase the culprit, the right-hand road. To go look for Kim Yu-han, he would have to break left. The dilemma was immense. Catch a man they had come close to being unable to arrest at all, or save a colleague.

...Yes. Were he only Lee Gangcheol, that would have been the single thing he wrestled with. But Kim Seonil, in this moment, could not give himself to that thought alone.

What in the world...

Kim Seonil thought. What am I supposed to do? What, exactly?

Worrying, in itself, was fine. The unsteadiness the camera caught would read as Lee Gangcheol torn between saving Kim Yu-han and catching the culprit. The car kept running, breathless. Already he was halfway through the tunnel.

What — what — what—!

Kim Seonil felt as if he were about to lose his mind. His younger sister's words were still vivid in his ear.

She had asked. He had answered with a lie.

Could he make a scene that would turn that lie into the truth? He put the question to himself, and the answer came back at once.

Impossible.

He could not make it. Never could he bring a creativity like that to bear.

I'm an actor. Only an actor. Nothing but a puppet! If a writer handed him a script, he digested it like a machine. He was no different from a doll with strings tied all over its body, and all this time he had believed that, and that alone, was acting.

But the situation now? This situation, which had set the ending wholly in his hands? If anything, Kim Seonil hated it. He had never been any good at thinking on his feet, and he did not have the creativity to summon the best possible story. And so he grew desperate, and all he could do was wish. He wished someone would tell him the right answer. Or that inspiration would rise in him out of nowhere. No — even a clue would have been enough. And if even that would not come, then he wanted simply to let go.

It was a kind of giving up. It was, at the same time, surrender.

Kim Seonil said nothing. And the moment he squeezed his eyes shut—

Fsssssh—!

Suddenly. Out of nowhere. Without the slightest warning.

Fsssssh—!

In a single instant, the landscape filling his vision was replaced entirely.

And.

...What?

That landscape was something all too familiar to him.