„I feel I lack air,” muttered DooSan, unbuttoning two buttons to be able to breathe. This didn’t help him breathe better after this or feel calmer. On the contrary: he felt even dizzier than before while the storm was acting up in his head and soul. How not feel like that when a lot of questions spun in his head? Thousands of questions that had no answer, just as DooSan stopped understanding what was wrong or right at that moment. What he knew for sure was that „I’ve been blind. I’ve been so blind and I haven’t seen the truth in front of my eyes. You are an idiot! I’ve been so blind, hurting the one I love more than my life.”

Eventually, when he couldn’t control the storm from his soul anymore, Doosan stopped. He stopped right in the middle of the street, feeling a great pressure over his chest: the guilt. Yes, the guilt born from his ignorance, from the hatred he felt over the years, for all the stupid things he told her, all the accusations he randomly made, and for his stupidity of starting a fight with SolHi, whom he considered his worse enemy, even if he didn’t know if she deserved that or not. Something he regretted so much at that moment, just as he hated being a snob because „I didn’t want to be like that,” he said. „I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be happy and bring justice to YuSan.”

At that moment though, when he asked himself the next question, „Who brought justice to her eventually?” DooSan covered his face with both palms. A question he didn’t have an answer for, just as he understood that he was so confused at that moment. It was impossible for him not to feel all this because, by then, all that helped him to move on had been hatred and the desire to take revenge. Yet, though when he lost the target that motivated him to always move on, at least this happened to him in the last few years, and that he didn’t have another reason to move toward her, DooSan understood that all he had at that moment was despair and collapse somewhere and let the world forget him.

However, the world wouldn’t have ever forgotten him. He was sure of this: that the world never forgot, and a vivid proof was SolHi, whom the world always judged in the last seven years for what happened, even if that world wasn’t sure that she was guilty of what had happened that night. Even so, the world didn’t care about this, just as DooSan didn’t care about this. Until that day when, stopped in the middle of the street, with all those people passing by him in a rush, he understood that the world also judged him, just as the world judged everybody.

Yes, DooSan was sure of this: that he was judged by people’s eyes and by the humans’heart. He saw all this in that strange sparkle seen in their eyes, in the eyes of those passers-by, who were squinting at him so much that DooSan even thought that they were pointing at him with their fingers. Was he hallucinating? He wasn’t that sure. He only suspected that they made fun of him for being stupid all that time because… how the hell could he judge a woman and fall in love with her after this, not knowing who she was in fact? Especially, how could he be that blind, denying an obvious thing and ignoring the clue that life put in front of him?

What kind of clues? The fact that SolHi was afraid of people. At the same time, he heard her saying so many times that she hated to be touched, especially by men. Yet, he hadn’t ever wondered or asked her why she was doing this. If he had done this, he would have at least suspected that it was because of what happened seven years ago and would have looked for evidence to help him find out the truth. Something DooSan didn’t do eventually: stubborn like a donkey, he focused only on that truth known only by him, which convinced DooSan that he and YuSan were the only victims while SolHi was the butcher. That’s why Life slapped him so painfully that night, a slap that DooSan felt so well over his face when he finally found out the reason behind the beloved woman’s pain.

„Yet, I’ve been so blind,” DooSan murmured, suddenly opening his eyes when he felt that the light of the cars that passed by him bothered him. He also felt bothered by all those glances focused on him - the glances of the passers-by that didn’t pay even two pennies on him, but still had the shame to judge him. It was felt in their whispers, which seemed a kind of divine punishment for DooSan at that moment.

Suddenly, feeling that someone grabbed his arm and then told him, „Are you okay?” DooSan opened his eyes again, seeing a young woman next to him. He wasn’t hallucinating: she was real. She was only one step from him because, seeing him staggering to his feet and about to step outside the sidewalk, she rushed to grab his hand and bring him back to reality. Then, while DooSan dumbly looked at her, trying to understand if she was real or not, the young woman insistently looked at him, with a certain sorrow in her glance, not understanding what could have happened to that worker that he got to wander the streets as though he was crazy.

She received an answer to her question only after moments of staying and staring at each other. It’s when DooSan finally said, „I’m fine.” After that, he released his arm. He did it so suddenly that he made the woman stagger to her feet. That’s why DooSan rushed to apologize, saying that he did that without thinking. An excuse that didn’t work for her because she seemed upset with his behavior.

For such sorrows with a stranger, Doosan didn’t have time. That’s why, before the young woman could react and accept his excuse, DooSan turned his back to her and walked up the street where he had headed by then. She did the same, heading in the opposite direction, probably considering him a kind of jerk or maybe an ingrate.

Turning his head for a few moments, DooSan saw her leaving. She didn’t look at him even once, not even to make sure he was fine. Why she should have done this when he was only a stranger? „An uncouth idiot,” as she could have thought about him because DooSan had seemed pretty rude when he released his arm. Even so, „I can’t think about all this now,” he told himself, staring at the cars that seemed to rush somewhere, blinding him with their powerful light.

Because of the same lights, when he felt a little dizzy and unable to continue walking, DooSan sat on the sidewalk. Then, supporting his head with his palms, he murmured, „What happened to me? More… what happened to us?” Questions he asked in a whisper while his eyes filled with tears. DooSan suddenly wiped those tears, somehow mechanically because they reminded him of forgotten dreams, of pain and sorrow, just as they reminded him of a cruel life that spied on him from all over just to make sure it’d be able to show him once again its fangs and let him know that it didn’t forget him. A life that spied on him from the shadows, ready to jump on him and take revenge for everything DooSan did to others, even for those sins with no blame as he often thought, which were still sins in people’s eyes.

The moment he remembered what Kan told him earlier, it’s better to say when he asked him, „I ask you now, Prosecutor omniscient: if SolHi has been taken in pieces out of that warehouse, how has she been able to kill your brother?” DooSan shuddered. After that, he raised his glance and looked around, thinking that Kan was there and it wasn’t a simple memory.

Kan wasn’t there though. Only the memories and the passers-by accompanied DooSan at that moment. Strangers that were accompanying another crazy stranger who hadn’t trusted his soul and the woman he loved, even though she proved to him so many times before that she was a good woman. Even so, he still looked for evidence of her guilt, inexistent evidence that he considered so real.

Finally remembering her, DooSan winced again, whispering her name. Then, he stood up and looked around, afraid, as though he didn’t know which way to choose. His heart knew this though, the heart that summoned him toward the place where SolHi could have been: home. He asked the taxi driver to take him there eventually, a taxi he stopped right in the middle of the road, caring less about the vehicles that honked while passing by him, just as he didn’t care about the fact that he could have been killed there. All he cared about was to find her as soon as possible.

***

„SolHi! Are you here? SolHi, do you hear me?” DooSan shouted, entering the apartment and taking his shoes off while walking. Yet, SolHi wasn’t there. He didn’t find her even in his apartment or in the coffee shop where she used to be sometimes when she was sad to listen to some jazz. She wasn’t even on the roof of the Prosecution Building, although that one was her favorite place when she wanted to be forgotten by the world and hug loneliness, as it seemed at that moment - that she ran away from the entire world, trying to isolate herself completely.

Not finding her anywhere, DooSan felt desperate. „Where could she have gone?” He wondered. „At this hour and the state she was?” When he asked himself such questions, he was so close to the edge of the roof, crouched and looking down at that anthill of cars that rushed somewhere on the crowded roads. Cars that not only made an infernal sound with their honks but also seemed to blind the horizon - so many vehicles seemed to pass by there at that moment.

„Silence,” the man suddenly said, standing up. „SolHi always looks for silence when she’s sad or confused. She feels like that right now, and the perfect place for her might be that motel. Yes, she talked to me about it the night she was fired from the supermarket. She said that day that it was an oasis of calmness, right when we passed in front of it. Yet… did she go there eventually? No, I don’t think so. It’ll be too much if she chose that place, in particular.”

Not at all convinced of that idea, DooSan still headed toward the motel. He wanted to check it at least, just to make sure he wouldn’t regret it eventually. He felt he had to do this: to look for her even in the snake’s hole if he had to. It was fundamental to find her that night, alive and safe. If not… if something had happened to SolHi that night, DooSan was sure he wouldn’t have forgiven himself for this ever.

***

Enough empty bottles, of soju and beer, were lying on the cold wooden floor at that moment… the floor of a motel room, furnished in bad taste, which seemed so unwelcome at that moment. There were probably around ten bottles there. And, although they seemed that have been randomly thrown, it wasn’t anything like that. At least, this seemed to be so because of their position that reminded others about the sea waves or about the feelings that pressed over one’s chest when the entire world was against him.

This was what SolHi felt at that moment. She was sitting on the floor, with her back against the cold wall, drinking so much while other bottles, full this time and still unopened, were to her right. Bottles that were waiting for their turn because it was a sure thing that SolHi would remember about them and would finally take them in her arms.

This thought of „SolHi will remember” wasn’t at all bad. Why exactly? Because, even if she seemed outside of reality, a kind of shadow that wandered the streets with no purpose, she still remembered that motel, which made her feel once so much peace inside. „The perfect place to hide,” as she had told herself so many times before. „A nest that’s only mine, unknown, where I can hide in moments of crisis and great pain, just to make sure nobody will ever find me.”

When SolHi decided to find a perfect place to hide, she was still sitting on the cold floor of the ambulance. She didn’t care about this at that moment: neither about what the paramedic told her, who checked her vital signals to try to understand how bad her state was, nor about what happened with Nam Yun Ho that night. She didn’t think about him at all or that she’d been drugged. All she wanted was peace and hide. She wanted to be alone and nobody found her. For this, she had to be alone, and the only chance for her to get it was to lie.

SolHi was damn good at lying. Especially, she was good at lying to herself. A trick she learned when she was still little when, each time something bad happened to her, her mind was „hiding” the pain, and she thought that nothing bad happened. It was her way of moving on: forgetting about the events that really hurt and living her life.

She did the same at that moment too. She lied to herself that nothing happened that night and told the paramedic that she wanted to go home and have some rest. She didn’t care that he told her about the cocktail they gave her, which could have harmed her so much. All she heard and thought about was that she’d be fine, something she also told the paramedic. After that, she pushed him away from her and went.

Leaving the ambulance behind, SolHi wandered on the streets for hours. She kept running her hands through her hair while walking, feeling itches on her skin, and she was scared. And, like always when she was afraid, SolHi ran her hands through her hair, thinking that this trick would help her. After that, looking around, afraid and with empty eyes, she saw only unfamiliar and unfriendly faces that seemed to grin at her and want to harm her.

This made her enter a supermarket eventually. She did that because she felt so suffocated after she had wandered the street for so long. Minutes after that, she left the supermarket, carrying two bags with shopping after her. Where to go? „At the motel,” she decided. She had to get there no matter what. It was her „perfect place to hide.” A place she always knew to find when she needed it. Places she looked for each time she felt suffocated and wanted to hide even from herself and her problems.

That „hiding” wasn’t only a caprice for SolHi. It was a defense mechanism, something similar to the ostrich that hides his head in the sand not to see the problems. Yet, this didn’t mean that she hadn’t to see or solve them later. Even so, SolHi had to fix herself first and, only after this, solve her problems. That’s why, for the moment, when she felt so powerless in front of them, she preferred to hide and gather strength to be able to face those problems eventually.

Before that, when her mother was still alive, SolHi could afford to stay hidden only for a short time. The maximum she could afford to stay in her „shell” was one day, and this was so because she knew she was responsible for SinHa. At that moment though, once SinHa was gone, SolHi told herself that she could finally afford to stay hidden from the world for a very long time. At the same time, she could afford the luxury of living her life at will or destroy it as she often wanted, something she couldn’t do though.

Honestly, at this idea of „destroying her life” SolHi was damn good. She did that so many times, unconsciously. Sometimes, she was also doing this willingly, and this was so because she lacked the power to fight. Even so, even if she hopped to collapse one day and that everything would be finally over, the „destroying everything” was her perfect mechanism of reanimating herself just to find new powers and move on, making sure she’d be able to defend herself from problems and the world. Mostly, hiding didn’t help SolHi. That’s why SolHi sought another trick: drinking, just as she decided to do that night even if she didn’t have to do that, not after that „fake” cocktail Nam Yun Ho gave her.

She didn’t care about this though. She didn’t care about what could have happened to her or that she had to take back that valuable thing she gave to the seller of the supermarket in exchange for the drink: a pair of expensive earrings, which she received from DooSan for that mission, and a golden bracelet. Well, she „got” this one from DooSan’s apartment, not asking him if she could take it or from where he had it. At the same time, she didn’t care about how she had to pay for that room because, when she entered and asked for the room, she told the boy from the reception that her partner would come after her and he’d pay. When exactly would her partner pay? SolHi didn’t say just because she had no idea if she’d be found there. It also didn’t matter too much: if she’d be found or not, just as it didn’t matter to her if she’d be forced to pay for that room or not. What was important for her at that moment was to be alone, to drink, and to be with her demons even if she was in a motel room.

This idea of „alone with her demons” wasn’t a simple quote or something metaphorical because SolHi felt them on her shoulders right after leaving the ambulance behind her. Then, she felt them dancing around her all the way to the motel. She felt them next to her even after she closed the door by kicking it, falling on the floor after this only a few steps away from the door.

When she fell on the floor, SolHi gnashed her teeth. She did that feeling her right shoulder hurting her, which she dislocated during the accident with DooSan. The joints and wrists hurt her too, pain that made her insistently look at them, seeing them red because of the belt that had been wrapped around them. This made her hiss through her teeth at one point, „Damn, it really hurts!” After that, to decrease the pain, SolHi emptied another bottle of soju.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Soon after emptying the first bottle of soju, SolHi felt a kind of relief. She also felt her mind a little bit clearer, something that made her smile even if sadly while staring at the bruises seen on her arms and legs. Bruises that didn’t hurt though or at least she didn’t realize this. That’s why she didn’t pay too much attention to them. Yet, although she didn’t care about the bruises, they still reminded her of Nam Yun Ho, „That dog that bit the hand of the owner that fed him.” After this, supporting herself with the palms that she stuck to the floor, she pushed herself back, closer to the wall.

The coldness of the wall made SolHi smile. Then, deeply breathing, she burst into laughter. It was a hysterical laughter that came out of her chest, as though she had lost her mind or she had one of her mother’s schizophrenia crises. Yet, it was none of this: neither SolHi lost her mind, nor she suffered from schizophrenia. What amused her so much was to remember that, because of her own foolishness, she’d been a victim that night. She’d been overconfident when she thought she could defend herself and deceive others, not thinking even for a second that the fooled one could have been her eventually.

She understood that only after she approached the „fly” that night. Yet, even if she felt insecure and somehow different than usual, she approached him. Why exactly? Because she told herself that it wasn’t time for panic, not before time, and that she needed some time to think about how to get rid of problems. Thus, if she had to, she would have fought because she was good at this and could defeat him.

SolHi would have undoubtedly defeated him that night if that one had been a fair fight. Yet, it wasn’t a fair one because it seemed that even fate laughed at her that night. How exactly? Simple: she allowed him to deceive her and she also deceived herself when she drank that cocktail the „fly” brought for her. Before that, she asked him, „Isn’t too early for a drink?”

„Not at all,” he responded, smiling, taking another glass from off the tray of the waiter that passed by them. „It’s just a fresh start,” he added, bursting into laughter again and making his friends laugh too.

The only one who didn’t laugh because of his „joke” was SolHi. She did that because she suddenly felt strange being with them: seeing only unfriendly and unfamiliar faces around, which constantly warned her not to „deceive herself or drink.” Because of that hunch, SolHi tried to drop the glass as she did that day. Yet, the „fly,” who seemed to anticipate her moves already or know her tricks, suddenly grabbed her hand and forced her to drink when he told her, „It’s how we can get to know each other better. And, don’t worry: all of us drank a similar glass one day.”

His words should have warned her more. Especially, after he whispered into her ear, „Later, something hot waits for us.” Words that made SolHi smile, telling him that she agreed because „The warming should be equal to what is coming: the only way we can get closer to each other tonight.” Yet, ah… she’d been so wrong in thinking all this. What she should have done at that moment was to turn her back to him and drop the mission as she promised to DooSan. However, she couldn’t because she didn’t want to hear later that she’d been a coward and she ran when she should have stood there. So, instead of her own safety, SolHi chose to take the risk of heading toward nowhere and drinking from her cocktail.

Moments later after drinking, SolHi felt dizzy. Understanding this, she tried to say something to the idiot who dared to drug her, but she couldn’t even stutter something. She simply fell, but felt no pain. All she felt was a strange dizziness, and she felt this when she came back to her senses and she understood she wasn’t walking but was carried by someone on his shoulder. She understood that because of her head that swung in the rhythm of his steps. Because of this, everything moved in front of her, although she clearly felt the muscles under her - a well-worked body, of the „barrel” on whose shoulder she was.

She didn’t pay too much attention to the individual who was carrying her on his shoulder but to the place where they were at that moment. She did that, trying to remember as much as possible. Then, if she had escaped that place, alive, she was sure she could describe it. That’s why she kept looking around, trying to understand where they were.

Looking around, SolHi realized that they advanced on a kind of corridor sunken in shadow. Judging by the humidity and the smell, it was a kind of basement or something like that. Also, she saw doors on both sides of the corridor, doors behind which strange sounds were heard. „Probably there are clients that enjoy the body of the young women they paid for,” SolHi told herself. „Yet, all this is strange because, as far as I remember, such services aren’t rendered in this place.”

Most likely she’d been wrong because there weren’t only such services rendered there but they were also secret. If not, such a basement hadn’t even existed, just as those booths, inside of which hell knows what was going on, had existed. Yet, not all this made her extremely attentive but the fact that from one of the booths, which was far in front of them, the muffled shouts of a young woman that asked for help seemed to be heard.

When those shouts became clearer, the „barrel” stopped. SolHi didn’t call him a „barrel” for nothing because he was a tall man, sturdy, with a round belly that was seen through the white cloth of his shirt, which he wore under the jacket. A black jacket on which SolHi saw a lot of white fluffs, which he didn’t see or deliberately ignored, too busy to carry girls on his shoulders than clean his jacket.

Staring at the man’s jacket, SolHi suddenly became attentive because the shouts heard from behind the door, in front of which they were, became rare and barely heard. This made SolHi wonder at one point, „What the hell is heard from there?” A question she asked only in her head, closing her eyes to hear better. She even shook her head at one point, trying to clear her mind. Something she didn’t manage to do eventually, just as she couldn’t understand what happened behind the closed door.

Only eventually, when she clearly heard the moan of a man, SolHi winced. „Pleasure,” she told herself, staring at the door. „Sick pleasure. Otherwise, I can’t explain why I’ve heard those shouts before. They came from here.” And, understanding this, SolHi felt she wanted to puke. She even gasped at one point when the „barrel” pushed her up, after she slipped from his shoulder.

The moment SolHi gasped, the „barrel” put her down. The sudden move made SolHi feel even dizzier than before, something that increased the nausea she felt in her stomach, something damn unpleasant. Even so, she managed not to vomit but stay on her feet, controlling herself a little. Thus, she looked at the man’s face, trying to remember his features. A „curiosity” for which she’d been rewarded with a growl when the man hissed through his teeth, „Don’t even think about this.”

SolHi didn’t understand what he tried to tell her. She didn’t even try to understand it because all she wanted at that moment was a good bed to throw herself onto and sleep a lot just to make sure she’d recover. Yet, she had to leave such thoughts for later when she heard someone’s footsteps behind the door. This made her attentive. Not only did she become attentive but also the six penguins that were with her, including the „barrel.”

Looking around and seeing the six individuals, SolHi smiled. „I haven’t ever thought about getting to the North Pole to see penguins. Or, to see them, it was necessary only to get to such a basement?” A remark after which she burst into laughter.

The moment she felt that the foaming steed from her soul, the one with the name laughter, was about to get out of her soul, SolHi leaned her head back, and this made her lose her balance. Instead of falling, she hung to the side. This happened because of the „barrel,” who grabbed her arm. Because of this and of the sharp pain felt when she touched the floor with her butt, SolHi suddenly yelped. It was undoubtedly because of him, after he released her to allow her „fully suffer that night.”

Soon after this, touching her injured shoulder, SolHi looked at the idiot in front of her, showing him her fangs. Not for long because, the moan and someone’s steps approaching the door, steps that touched a wooden floor, made her attentive. She even stopped breathing while trying to understand what would happen eventually. Because of this, she heard a strange buzzing in her ears: it was because she kept her breath, something that made her want to vomit again.

She forgot about this the moment the door had been suddenly open and SolHi saw the top of someone’s shoes. Those were black shoes, of a man, she was sure of this. That’s why she raised her glance, seeing the top of the belt that hung in the air while the owner of the shoes was trying to zip his pants.

SolHi didn’t look at him for long because that belt, which started to swing in the air, reminded her about the night seven years ago. Then, looking past him, she saw a young woman that was lying on the floor of the room from where he got out. SolHi wasn’t hallucinating seeing that woman, she was sure of this. That woman was as real as the blood under her, a hint that she had been brutally beaten and that that bastard hurt her body after this when he hungrily possessed her just to fulfill a sick caprice.

Staring at the unconscious young woman, SolHi shuddered. This also happened because of Nam Yun Ho, whose voice she suddenly heard in her left ear, something that made her understand that he hurt that woman. It also seemed that he had the same intentions for SolHi, whom he saw sitting on the floor and staring at his first victim. That’s why he bent a little, whispering after this, „So, baby, do you believe me now when I tell you that all I want I always have? What exactly? You and me in tender positions.” After that, seeing SolHi shaking with all her body while staring at the other woman, he kissed her forehead after grabbing her by the hair and leaning her head back.

His unpleasant smell of perfume and sweat made SolHi feel even dizzier than before. That’s why she closed her eyes. She also did that, trying not to see the unconscious woman anymore, who reminded her of herself because she had also laid like that seven years ago. „Just as I’ll probably lay now that I’m in the paws of this idiot,” said SolHi to herself, right before losing consciousness in Nam Yun Ho’s arms.

***

„Everything was real,” murmured SolHi, drinking a little more from the soju bottle. „It’s been so real and it’s felt that way. I still feel everything on my skin and in my soul, just as I feel it on the top of my head because that jerk didn’t have mercy when he pulled my hair.” After that, tangling her hair more than it was already, SolHi sighed and kept touching her head.

So suddenly, her sigh turned into a cry. She was even shaking with all her body while squeezing the soju bottle in her right hand while her left palm covered her eyes, as though she was trying to hide her tears. Also, from her chest, strange sounds were heard, something that reminded her of a growling - something that was undoubtedly due to the conflicting feelings she had at that moment.

As suddenly as she started to cry, SolHi stopped those tears from falling down her cheeks. This happened because of the open window at which she was staring at that moment. It also happened because of the white curtain that was hanging at that window. A curtain that was weirdly dancing with the wind at that moment while, behind the white almost transparent cloth, a black shadow was seen.

The contrast between black and white made SolHi shudder. This happened because she compared it with the dirt in her soul, the one that had tormented her for years, bullied by people, a soul that looked only for peace at that moment, the peace it didn’t have though. And yes… at that moment, there were also the ghosts of her past that were tormenting her, something intensified by the wind that blew harder at one point and moved the curtain to the side. Thus, SolHi clearly saw the silhouette of a man that was with his back to her, with his hands in his pockets, and looking through the window, in the distance.

Seeing him there, SolHi froze for a few seconds. Then, she covered her mouth with both palms when she realized that the silhouette was familiar to her. A silhouette that terrified her for years because it was the silhouette of the man that attacked her seven years ago. Yes, she was sure of this because the image was clear. It couldn’t be clearer than this, as she was sure that he was real: he was there, in front of the window, as though he came to make SolHi payback for the fact she survived that night.

The moment SolHi saw his face, she gasped: it was Han YuSan. She clearly saw his face and his sick smile, a face that she deeply buried in her mind because she did not wish to see him again. Even so, he turned back into her life that night… a black night when she was alone and couldn’t control herself. It wasn’t only because of the drugs they gave her or of the alcohol she drank after this, but also because she wasn’t sure of herself and this paralyzed her.

Dropping the bottle, SolHi let the alcohol drip on the floor. She didn’t move after this: she just stuck to the wall, shaking because she saw him turning toward her. And, while weirdly smiling at her, that YuSan started to walk toward her. Because of this, SolHi started not to realize what she was doing at that moment and started to pull herself next to that wall as though unconsciously trying to get to the door.

The moment the wall ended and her back touched the void, SolHi started to shudder again. She was shaking from top to toe, yelling in her head, „No, it can’t be,” and she yelled all that considering the wall as her support. Yet, once it was gone, she felt lonely again… alone in front of Fate. Even so, she didn’t give up but started to drag herself on the floor, this time toward the window while the silhouette in front of her started to walk in a circle as though imitating her.

They moved like that until she clearly heard again the shrill made by metallic legs touching the cement floor. It was the same sound that she heard the fatalistic night when her attacker dragged the chair on the floor, sitting on it eventually. A sound that drilled through her brain, making her shout, „Enough! I don’t want to hear this anymore! That’s enough!” After that, grabbing one soju bottle, which she had felt closer to her, SolHi threw it toward YuSan. The bottle, passing by him, hit the wall, breaking into pieces.

Han YuSan laughed at her clumsiness. He laughed to drive her crazy and make her wish to kill him again even if something told her that he was already dead. It was because of a voice that she weakly heard in her head, which kept telling her, „He’s dead, SolHi! He’s not real! He’s just an illusion because you have been accused of his death.”

SolHi didn’t believe the voice though but asked Han YuSan, „Why? What did I do to you that you want to destroy me? Why? I’m only a human that wants to live! Let me live, once you are dead, for God’s sake!”

„To let you live?” The imaginary Han YuSan asked her. „Why? If I’m dead, you cannot also live. Especially, why let you breathe when I can torment you? Over and over again until you lose your mind completely! I have the power, Ian SolHi and I’ll do it: I’ll make you squirm like a worm for everything you’ve done to me.” Then he smiled. He sickly laughed when SolHi told him:

„You are just a fake. This isn’t you. No, you aren’t that Han YuSan I used to know.” Then, saying this, SolHi closed her eyes, trying to escape reality.

She suddenly opened her eyes the moment she heard a noise to her left. Looking over there, she saw Han YuSan, the one who wore a gray suit that night, pouncing over the one in black. Then, when the door had been opened with a bang, hitting the wall to the right, SolHi winced and looked over there this time, terrified. She didn’t see DooSan there or the receptionist, who was accompanying him, but the void behind them.

Seeing her outside the reality, DooSan froze. He shuddered even more the moment he saw her standing up and stopping with her back to the open window while touching the edge of the windowsill with her hips. Thus, while staring at him, SolHi shuddered from top to toe, something that told DooSan she was hallucinating. Because of this, he talked to her in a kind voice, telling her, „It’s me, SolHi! Do you know me? I’m DooSan!”

SolHi shook her head. She wasn’t trying to clear her mind but to chase away the image of the bloody hammer she was squeezing in her hand while that Han YuSan, whose head she hit, the one in black, staggered to his feet. All this seemed so real that SolHi squeezed her right fist so hard that she hurt her palm to the blood.

Seeing her shaking like that, DooSan told her, „SolHi, listen to me: I’ll slowly approach you, okay?! I’ll do it very slowly, with no sudden moves. I’m just coming close to you, with no intention to hurt you. All I want is to talk, this is all: as we have always done. Okay?”

Poor DooSan suddenly swallowed hard when SolHi asked him, „Prosecutor Han, are you okay? Are you fine now?” A question that confused both DooSan and the receptionist, who exchanged glances.

Eventually, understanding that his only chance to succeed with her was to play the same game, DooSan nodded. „I’m fine, I swear. More now that I see you safe. You see me, right? I’m Han DooSan, I’m fine.”

„No,” SolHi murmured in a low voice. „You aren’t the one I know.”

Cold beads of sweat ran down DooSan’s back when he heard her whisper. More when he saw SolHi touching the window with both palms. Even so, terrified to see her jumping through that window, he told her, „Of course, I’m the one you know. There isn’t another Han DooSan in this world, SolHi. You know me.”

„I thought I knew you, but no… I never knew you. I only lied to myself that I knew you, not to feel this guilt anymore because… I really wanted to ask you for forgiveness for what I did that night.”

„What the hell is she talking about?” DooSan wondered. „More than this, why do I have the feeling she’s not talking to me? If it’s so, who is she talking to?” Yet, he had no idea what was in SolHi’s head at that moment. That’s why he asked her eventually, „SolHi, do you know me? I mean… who am I? I don’t remember.”

SolHi stared at him this time. „You are Han Do… No, you are Han Yu… No, I can’t remember. I don’t know who you are and why you are here. Did you come after me?” She asked through tears.

„Yes,” DooSan tried to calm her down. „You know very well that I’m always with you. I’m right here, one step from you.”

„Why? Is this because you hate me and want me dead? You want to take revenge on me for what happened 7 years ago when… when I’ve done what I’ve done.”

„SolHi, what are you talking about? How can you say I want to harm you? All I want is to be with you and for you to be safe.”

„No, what you want is to get rid of me! It’s what you wanted all this time… you all. It’s a pleasure I’ll give you now… the chance to get rid of me once and for all.” Saying this, SolHi took one more step behind her, leaning over the windowsill. Not alone, but with DooSan, who jumped to grab her hand and bent through the open window…