AGENT 11

“First, could you check this photo?”

Detective Moon held out a photo of a rugged-looking man to Yongnae. Seeing the foul and menacing impression he gave off, it seemed he was one of the organization executives who had been in possession of methamphetamine. To anyone’s eyes, he had the face of a criminal.

“Is that the captured executive? I have never seen him.”

“…This is our Detective Park.”

It was because the appearance of the man who had impersonated him was so striking. That was why almost everyone else looked menacing by comparison.

“…”

As Yongnae fell silent from embarrassment, Detective Moon muttered to himself from the other side that Detective Park did… look a bit like that. After that, he immediately showed three other photos.

“These three are the organization executives.”

Three organization executives. They looked the part. However, these men were also complete strangers. Yongnae shook his head, saying he had never seen them.

Then, this time, Detective Moon turned his laptop toward Yongnae and showed him a video, which featured five men in black suits entering a hotel room. As it was likely CCTV footage, the quality was not very good. But even there, the man was nowhere to be found.

“He is not there.”

“What? He’s not there?”

“Yes.”

He wasn’t. Because that man was handsome enough to be recognized immediately even through a low-resolution screen, he was not among these five.

“Take a good look. These are the ones who manufactured the drugs. Is he really not among them?”

When Yongnae shook his head firmly as if he truly wasn’t there, Detective Moon let out a long sigh and held his head.

“Then who on earth is that son of a bitch who impersonated Detective Park? Who is he?”

He wasn’t a methamphetamine organization executive, nor was he among the five men who went in to manufacture the drugs—the mysterious man. Who on earth was he, the one who impersonated Detective Park?

“Wasn’t he caught on CCTV?”

“They say all the hotel CCTV from that day was erased. Those bastards beat us to it. Fortunately, we had secured the first day’s footage in advance, so we were able to salvage the sight of the guys entering Room 1202. But since you say the guy who hit Detective Park isn’t here, it doesn’t mean much…”

Not only were they manufacturing drugs in a hotel, but they even erased the CCTV for that day; they were quite bold.

“Then, could you perhaps tell us anything you remember about that guy?”

Just then, Prosecutor Ma, who had been listening quietly beside Detective Moon, spoke to Yongnae. He asked him to say what he remembered about the man.

“Pardon?”

“Even small things are fine. Like, whether he has a tattoo, or about how tall he is. Everything you remember.”

Prosecutor Ma said even trivial things were fine as if he wanted to catch the man’s characteristics, but as soon as Yongnae heard that question, he became greatly flustered with himself.

“…”

It was because what he remembered about the man was not trivial.

Yongnae remembered everything—the man’s height, hairstyle, clothes, way of speaking, and even the look in his eyes. And very vividly at that. That was why he had appeared in his dreams yesterday, and why he kept thinking of the man today.

“…That person.”

“Yes.”

“Is very… handsome.”

Based on Yongnae’s explanation, the man’s general characteristics were established.

All the detectives from the Narcotics Investigation Division were in the meeting room, including the menacing-faced Detective Park, who insisted on coming to work saying he had to catch the bastard who impersonated him despite being told to rest. On the meeting room chalkboard, the word ‘Impersonator’ was written, with brief descriptions attached underneath.

—Very handsome.

—Thick eyebrows, light brown pupils.

—Tall enough that a height of 177 cm has to look up.

—White shirt and ivory suit pants.

—Slow and soft way of speaking. (However, he uses informal speech)

Looking at what was written, he worried it might be too obvious that he remembered him in such detail, which made him a bit embarrassed, but he comforted himself by thinking he did well to speak up since it had to help the investigation.

“And…”

And that sweet scent.

‘So that’s why you were sniffing at me.’

He intended to mention that scent, but the man’s words that had made him feel shy came to mind, and his mouth closed of its own accord.

If this were information absolutely necessary for the investigation, Yongnae would have just said it, but even if the scent felt familiar, he didn’t know the source, and he judged that saying it wouldn’t be of great help in catching the man, so Yongnae decided just not to bring it up.

“…It’s nothing.”

“Please tell us.”

However, Prosecutor Ma, who was listening intently to Yongnae’s words from across the table, did not miss this and asked again as if telling him to say what it was.

“It’s nothing.”

But even though Yongnae decided not to answer and even shook his head saying no,

“Researcher. You must tell us everything, even the trivial things.”

Prosecutor Ma suddenly asked somewhat sharply, as if interrogating a criminal.

Even though he must be having a headache from being suddenly caught up in the incident, Yongnae had come all the way up to Seoul to help; instead of being able to offer words of gratitude, he was interrogating him. He could feel the other detectives flinch.

“…”

Yongnae was not a pushover who would just take it, so he furrowed his brow slightly. It wasn’t that speaking about the scent was difficult, but the reckless attitude of the police and the prosecution pushing in like this didn’t sit well with Yongnae.

“…There was a smell of disinfectant and a sweet scent.”

Still, he decided to consider their position as well. They thought they would raid a drug manufacturing site but failed and their colleague was attacked, so how sensitive must they be? Yongnae reluctantly opened his mouth, not wanting to escalate things further.

“A smell of disinfectant and a sweet scent?”

“Yes. But thinking about it now, I think the disinfectant was $CHCl_3$, and the sweet smell…”

$CHCl_3$ is chloroform, the liquid often used in movies to knock someone unconscious by covering their mouth with a handkerchief. Since commercially available chloroform is mixed with alcohol, he had mistaken it for the smell of disinfectant.

And that sweet scent was…

“What about that smell?”

When Yongnae hesitated to answer, the real Detective Park, who had been knocked out by that chloroform, urged Yongnae to answer quickly. Yongnae, after glancing briefly at Detective Park, sighed and reluctantly opened his mouth.

“…It smelled of vanilla and apple.”

To be precise, it was an ‘artificial’ vanilla and apple scent. A scent he had smelled many times somewhere, but couldn’t quite put his finger on where he had smelled it.

Yongnae hadn’t smelled many perfumes or diffusers until now. His radius of activity was quite small, and due to his profession, he didn’t go to places that smelled good. So that scent was probably a smell closely related to our daily lives, enough that Yongnae might have smelled it at least once in his life, but since he couldn’t remember what it was, Yongnae had hesitated.

He thought his sense of smell was fairly excellent, but it wasn’t the perfume of the people at the research institute, nor was it the scent of the diffuser in the library he frequently visited.

Then, what on earth was that scent?

“Vanilla and apple? Can those two occur at the same time?”

But Prosecutor Ma asked sharply again as if questioning the certainty of that statement. It felt as if the air inside the meeting room froze cold.

“It’s not like you smelled it yourself, Prosecutor.”

Normally, he would have let it go with the mindset of the Mingxin Baojian, but Yongnae, whose fatigue had reached its peak because all his schedules had been disrupted for two days, also snapped back with a sharp tone as if he could no longer endure it.

“Oh my, it seems our researcher has a very good sense of smell—.”

As even Yongnae’s tone became sharp, Detective Moon, who was looking back and forth between Yongnae and Prosecutor Ma, stepped in.

“…”

Prosecutor Ma, perhaps not expecting Yongnae to come on so strong, paused for a moment, then bowed his head briefly as if apologizing before leaving the meeting room with his phone.