AGENT 55

After finishing his meal, Yongnae entered his room.

He didn’t know how much longer he could stay here, but there were two days remaining. Within that time, he had to create an opportunity to find and enter Seo Soo’s room. He asked himself why he wanted to enter that room so badly, but there wasn’t a particular reason. He simply wanted to know everything about Seo Soo.

The people moving around the first floor in the morning would likely be the cleaners or Danny, and the organization members loitering on the upper and lower floors before noon would all be on the third floor. He hadn’t heard the sound of anyone coming out from his own floor.

If that was the case, it meant that Weizhen and Lee Suji also used rooms on the third or first floor; Lee Suji had come at two o’clock in the afternoon even on the second day when he came to give Yongnae the phone. And today, when it became two o’clock, Lee Suji had visited again.

This meant that Lee Suji left the mansion early in the morning and returned home after lunch.

In contrast, it wasn’t certain whether Weizhen vacated the house all day or only in the afternoon, but he didn’t seem to be home after two o’clock.

Earlier, when Lee Suji was telling stories about Seo Soo, unlike Yongnae who was scanning the surroundings, Lee Suji didn’t scan the surroundings at all despite saying it was a secret from Weizhen; this suggested he was certain Weizhen wouldn’t be home at that time.

Lee Suji, who leaves in the morning and returns after lunch. Weizhen, who is absolutely never seen in the afternoon. Ah, perhaps the two of them were taking shifts. He didn’t know what they were shifting for, but what was certain was that from 12:30 to 13:30, the safe window of time for him to examine Seo Soo’s room was exactly one hour.

Within that hour, he had to examine the room where Seo Soo had stayed since he was a child. They say a person’s tastes are revealed by their room, and he desperately wanted to know what kind of tastes Seo Soo had, why he hated the dark, and what kind of memories he held.

Since today was already a lost cause, Yongnae set an alarm for 12:00 PM the next day.

Beep beep beep— Beep beep beep—

Tap.

[PM 12:00]

Yongnae, who had woken up early in anticipation, turned off the alarm and rose from the bed where he had been sitting. He had even heard the sound of a car leaving the mansion at 11:30. It was definitely Weizhen.

Opening his door quietly, Yongnae walked to the opposite hallway with muffled footsteps. Since Seo Soo lived in this house, the door straight ahead, which looked like the master room, must have been Seo Soo’s room.

Click—

Pushing the handle that turned smoothly, Yongnae stepped into the room.

“…Huh?”

However, the place he assumed was Seo Soo’s room was indeed a master room with a very large square footage as he expected, but there was nothing there. Since he was living separately, had he moved all his belongings out? But even so, to leave nothing behind at all?

“…”

But to say he had simply moved his things out, something was strange. The inside of the room was bizarrely clean—too clean. It was as if it had never been used.

…Never been used?

Yongnae strode into the room and began examining the floor here and there.

“…There are none.”

As expected, there were none. There wasn’t a single common scratch or dent on the floor.

Why did he not use such a spacious room? If Seo Soo didn’t use it, it was large enough for a superior or several organization members to use. But why…

No. He had to think about it differently from the start. This was the house where Seo Soo had lived since he was young, but how did it become Yiwon’s mansion? And despite instructing that the mansion must always be kept brightly lit, he himself did not live here; he left this beautiful and quiet mansion behind to sleep in a noisy place.

A bright mansion and a bizarrely clean room that had never been given to anyone.

“…Is he scared?”

Was Seo Soo perhaps afraid of this mansion? Did he witness something like a ghost in this mansion—no, in this room—as a child, so he always keeps the lights on and prevents anyone from using it?

No, that’s not it. That was too far-fetched and didn’t make sense theoretically. Because for that to happen, someone would have had to use this room before a ghost was sighted, but unless the wallpaper and flooring were redone, there were no traces of use here at all.

“Ah…!”

It’s not that, the walls and floors were redone…! Right, the reason this room was bizarrely clean was that the walls and floors were new, so the traces of time differed from other places, creating a sense of incongruity.

But usually, when people move in, they redo the floors and wallpaper. However, they redone the floors and walls here even though no one uses it. Why? Was it simply redone, but the timing for someone to move in didn’t match?

“Oh my, what to do.”

“…!”

“You aren’t supposed to enter this place.”

At that moment, a gentle middle-aged voice was heard from behind Yongnae. It was Danny.

“Ah, that…”

“Please come out quickly. Su will be furious if he finds out.”

Danny, having opened the door to the room, told Yongnae to come out without stepping inside himself. He thought he only had to dodge Weizhen and Lee Suji, but he had been careless.

“I’m sorry…”

Yongnae hurried out of the room and bowed his head to apologize to Danny. Danny merely offered a gentle smile and did not say anything further to blame him. But what if he reported this to Weizhen?

“Um, that… To Weizhen…”

“You already knew you’d be in trouble if Weizhen found out?”

“Yes…”

“Weizhen wouldn’t have even mentioned this room on purpose, so Suji must have told you?”

“…That, yes.”

Was everyone around Seo Soo a ghost except for Lee Suji? To Danny, who was drawing out answers like a sly snake, Yongnae hesitated before confessing everything.

“Are you curious about Su?”

“…Yes.”

“Do you love Su?”

“…”

Danny was a person who had watched Seo Soo from his childhood until now. If I, a fellow man, admitted that fact to such a person, wouldn’t he find it disgusting? Wouldn’t he tell Seo Soo to stay away from me?

“…Yes.”

But I didn’t want to hide this heart. Even if I was perceived as a disgusting male fellow by Seo Soo, it was fine. Being erased from his memory as an ordinary civilian who was used once and then discarded was even worse.

“I see.”

Danny, who had been quietly peering into Yongnae’s obsession-filled eyes, gave a single smile, gestured with his eyes as if telling him to follow, and began to walk ahead.

“In the past, there was a man named Brian Lee, a triad drug boss.”

And then, he began to tell Yongnae a surprising story.

Brian Lee. The second leader of the triad, commonly known as Brian. In charge of the triad’s drugs.

Brian, whose power was second only to Chen Shun who oversaw the entire triad, hated noise; unlike other bosses who lived buried in flashy buildings, he lived in a grand mansion in the quiet mountains.

He had sensitive hearing and nerves, but he was the most humane among the four triad bosses. Unlike the three bosses who viewed the lives of those they employed as trivial and killed them without a second thought if they didn’t like them, Brian was considerably generous to the organization members under him and the servants working at the mansion.

And unlike the other bosses who kept many mistresses, he had no interest in the opposite sex at all and kept only one wife by his side, raising the one son born between them with care. That was why everyone said so. Unlike the other bosses who seemed likely to collapse precariously, the calm and solid Brian would not easily fall.

However, one day, due to a single widow who entered the mansion, Brian’s household was completely shattered.

Was it that Brian, who said he didn’t keep mistresses because he was interested in work rather than women, simply hadn’t met an ideal woman who could shake him? He fell helplessly for a beautiful Korean woman who came in as a new housekeeper, bringing along a young seven-year-old son.

As if the love he had given his wife all this time was not actually love, he sacrificed everything he had to that housekeeper. His house, his money. And even his heart.

He cast aside his wife who clung to him with tears, and abandoned his son who screamed while clinging to his legs. Brian gave her everything. He treated her like a wife, and although no drop of blood was shared, he put her son, who took after her exactly, on his family register and raised him as if he were more of a biological son than his own.

Perhaps she recognized his earnest heart, as she reportedly accepted him in a manner fitting of it. Thus, the two became a formal couple and spent happy days.

However, one day less than three years later, Brian, whose obsession grew worse by the day even though he possessed her, happened to discover that her heart did not belong entirely to him; unable to accept that, on a pitch-black night while a storm raged. He killed her with his own hands.

And it is said that her young son witnessed that sight.