AGENT 18

Right, the man had said he only gets involved in big matters, not things like this. …If so, did manufacturing drugs count as a big matter? Is that why he showed up? But wasn’t the task of finding drug raw materials also a big matter?

“…Yes.”

Yongnae himself didn’t realize it, but a dejected, sulky voice slipped out, clear enough for others to notice. Looking at Yongnae, everyone exchanged glances as if they understood something.

“Anyway, I climbed hills today, so tomorrow you go to the real estate agency with the Teacher and go around the neighborhood.”

“Are you crazy? And be suspected of being a gay honeymoon couple? I’ll go find out and send the addresses in real time, so you wait nearby with the Teacher and then go check them out.”

“Why do you always do the easy jobs?”

“Smart people naturally do the easy jobs.”

“Then am I ignorant?”

“I told you, look at your head.”

“So what about my head!”

As if a suffocating silence had never swept through, the living room became noisy again with the childish bickering of Glasses and the bald man.

Thud—

Before his wet hair could even dry, Yongnae threw himself onto the bed. Yongnae was the type who couldn’t lie on the bed without washing, and he also had the habit of not letting a single drop of water get onto the bed, but perhaps his amount of movement over the past few days had been too much compared to usual, as his body seemed exhausted and unable to endure any longer.

“…Sigh.”

Since he had climbed a hilly neighborhood after staying up the night before, he should have passed out the moment he lay on the bed, but for some reason, Yongnae couldn’t fall asleep. Just yesterday he had said he would go home and sleep deeply again, but being here, he couldn’t achieve deep sleep. Was it because he was in a space close to the man? Was it because he thought he didn’t know when he might meet the man? Like someone who had taken stimulants, Yongnae’s consciousness remained sharp.

“…”

But if he happened to find the killer, would this link be severed before he could meet the man again? There was a one-week period, but he could find the killer as early as tomorrow.

…Should he have just taken his time going through the list for a week to buy time?

No, that wasn’t it. Rather than stalling for time to see the man, it was far more important to find the killer quickly before they murdered someone else.

He knew that, but…

“…I’m crazy.”

He could only think that he himself was crazy for having such thoughts. Someone might be in danger from the killer right now, and his own parents were likely heartbroken and searching for him.

To think he was merely wondering if he could see the man one more time. This was a clear sign that he had completely lost his mind.

“Are you really crazy?”

However, the real madness lay elsewhere.

“No, there are 297 houses, and 230 of them have basements? Are you sure about this, f—ck?”

— They say most of them have basements because they were built by almost the same company.

“F—ck, then that means you’re telling us to go to all of them.”

— You have to go to all of them.

“F—ck, are you joking? We already have a problem popping up here too.”

— What problem.

While Glasses was looking into the houses with basements at the real estate agency, Yongnae discovered a major problem while circling the New Town in the car with the bald man. Each of the houses was much larger in size than expected.

He tried to go around to the back of the houses that didn’t have yards to catch a scent, but most of the houses had yards wrapped around both the front and back. At this scale, if a murder had been committed in a basement, it could be difficult even for him to catch that scent.

If that was the case, he would have to catch the scent that spreads when the killer opens the basement door and comes out, but since he didn’t even know which house it was, waiting near every single house for a basement door to open was something nearly impossible.

A sure method was to call the homeowner out and catch their scent, but this was also quite a tricky task. A manager might come out instead of the owner of that house, or a security guard might come out. Therefore, the surest method was to personally go inside the house. If he went inside the house, he could immediately catch even a very faint smell of blood.

When Yongnae, having finished this judgment, relayed this content to the bald man, the bald man scrubbed his hairless head, saying things had become a headache.

Afterward, he placed a call to relay this content to Glasses, but a bolt from the blue came back from Glasses: out of 297 houses, 230 had basements.

— Then what do we do.

“What do you mean ‘what do we do.’ Come to the officetel first. Let’s devise a method again.”

— Don’t just come back; go around near a few houses just in case.

“No, this punk thinks I’m his lackey…!”

Click. Glasses, having given the order, hung up the phone without mercy, and at that, the bald man became considerably indignant and pounded the steering wheel repeatedly.

Beep—!

Eventually, he hit the horn by mistake, and a short honk rang out; at that moment, the frowning gaze of a woman passing by while pushing a stroller turned straight toward them. To hear a horn in this quiet and peaceful neighborhood, she had a sensitive face that looked as if she would file a complaint immediately.

Since he would be going around the houses with the bald man from now on, it was not good to do things that attracted attention around the neighborhood.

“First, calm down, and let’s go back to the officetel. We’re drawing attention.”

“Does this little pipsqueak think he can just look down on me more and more?”

“Are you talking about me?”

“No. Not the Teacher, but Weizhen.”

Weizhen? What is Weizhen? Judging by the nuance, it sounded like a name…

No way, is the name of the man wearing glasses Weizhen?

“…The person wearing glasses?”

“Yeah.”

“…Wasn’t he Korean?”

“What are you talking about? Anyone can see he’s a Hong Konger.”

Glasses is a Hong Konger? But he speaks Korean that well? Where did he study terms like sa-heul?

“…I thought that person was Korean.”

“That guy? What happened to your eyes?”

“It’s because he speaks Korean so well.”

“Pffft— then you don’t happen to think of me as a Hong Konger or something, do you?”

What is this now? This time, truly startled, Yongnae even widened his eyes and looked back at the bald man without a word.

“…What.”

“…”

“What, is it for real?”

“…Were you Korean?”

The man in glasses, whom he naturally thought was Korean, is a Hong Konger, and the bald man, whom he absolutely thought was a Hong Konger, is Korean?

“Isn’t this crazy? Anyone can see I’m Korean!”

If that were the case, wouldn’t he have thought from the beginning that he was just a Korean thug trying too hard to look cool? The bald man’s snake-skin tattoos gave off a full exotic feeling, but first of all, since he had a strong feeling of not speaking Korean as well as Glasses, he had thought he was definitely not Korean.

“…What is your name?”

One shouldn’t judge a person by their looks, but seeing the fierce tattoos and the sharp, upturned eyes, he felt like the name would somehow be something like Dokgo Tae-shik or Wang Chul-joong.

“Lee for plum, Su for outstanding, Ji for wisdom.”

“…”

“Lee Suji.”

“…”

Just how far would the plot twists continue?

“It’s a name my grandfather gave me.”

“The name is very neat and pretty.”

A long silence was about to follow for a moment, but by Yongnae’s quick response, the situation that almost led to a major accident was quickly smoothed over.

But Lee Suji… Discussing whether a person’s proper name suited them or not was a very rude thing to do, but he still couldn’t help being a little flustered.

“It’s flustering, right? To have the name Lee Suji with this face.”

“Well…”

“It’s the same ‘Su’ for outstanding, so why isn’t my beauty outstanding?”

He wondered who else used the character ‘Su’ for outstanding in their name, or if he was talking about a celebrity. Since it didn’t seem like saying that he was outstanding in other artistic fields would be much comfort, Yongnae decided to just keep his mouth shut.