6PM, Naksan Beach
The setting sun painted the sky with a canvas of fiery orange hues, casting long shadows over the dark sand of Naksan beach as night crept steadily over the horizon. A chill wind swept through, rustling the palm trees that fringed the shoreline. The frigid air gnawed at Hangyul's hands as he strode along the desolate shore, his grandmother trailing behind. After a few steps, he halted, allowing her to catch her breath.
"Hangyul-ah, it's so cold. Let's return to our house," his grandmother pleaded, wrapping herself in a dark scarf.
"Hmm," Hangyul responded, turning back and gently taking her hand. Together, they made their way towards the road where Hangyul had parked his car. He opened the car door and assisted his grandmother in settling into the backseat. As he walked around to the driver's seat, he noticed a looming figure cast in shadow behind a lamppost. He chose to ignore it, started the engine, and drove away from the desolate Naksan beach.
Pulling into the driveway of an old house enclosed by a wooden gate, Hangyul parked the car in the courtyard. His grandmother attempted to get down of the car on her own but stumbled on a few pebbles.
"Wait, Grandma!" Hangyul rushed out of the car to support her. "It's okay, dear. I've managed on my own all these years, without you, without your parents. I know how to take care of myself." A soft smile graced her wrinkled face, the first since her discharge from the hospital where she'd spent over two weeks. She had yearned for a breath of fresh air and had pleaded Hangyul to bring her to their old home in the rural village of Yangyang.
"Hangyul-ah, do you remember visiting this place in your childhood? Your parents brought you here when you were in the first grade. I used to live here alone, but they insisted I go and stay with them in Jinhae," Grandma reminisced about their shared past. However, Hangyul's memory of his past was vague. He could only recollect a hazy memory of his mother leaving him with Doctor Park at the mental asylum. He had cried out, but she had walked away heartlessly, her back turned to her child. His memories darkened after those final moments with his mother.
"No, I don't remember," he responded firmly. Hangyul guided his grandmother to her bedroom, her worried expression never leaving her face. She expected coldness from him, given that he had been cut off from the outside world for a decade. Humanizing himself would be a daunting task.
"Lee Hangyul, never blame your mother for that decision. It was a painful choice that she and I had to make for your well-being. You were the reason for that decision, with your sociopathic and violent behavior," she said, her tone filled with sadness.
"And did that decision even help me at all? Living in that dark, cold, and dismal mental hospital was equal to living in a dark hell. Before expecting warmth from me, consider the suffering I endured all these years as an experimental subject for a doctor who had lost his sanity." Hangyul's words pierced his grandmother's heart like sharp, pointed arrows. He stormed out of the room, forcefully sliding the wooden door shut behind him.
Grandma sank to the cold floor, tears glistening in her eyes. "You don't even remember being responsible for your father's death... How do I explain that we had no other option but to separate you from us?" She muttered these words to herself, sitting there in silent contemplation, staring blankly at the closed door.
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7 AM
Hangyul's slumber was shattered by a series of loud knocks at the gate. He stumbled out of his room and made his way to the courtyard to answer the door. As he swung the gate open, Seong-ah pushed her way inside, shoving Hangyul aside in her urgency.
"What are you doing here in Yangyang?" she demanded, her question sharp and unrelenting.
"Tsskkk... Seong-ah, for God's sake, please just leave me be. I'm trying to find some peace in my life," Hangyul mumbled, rubbing his bleary eyes.
"Who's at the door, Hangyul-ah? Who's knocking?" his grandmother called out from inside the house.
Seong-ah peered curiously into the house. "You're here with your grandmother?"
"Get out immediately, or things will get ugly. I don't want to start my day choking you," Hangyul warned, grabbing her arm, pushing her out, and firmly shutting the gate in her face. Seong-ah stumbled and fell to the ground, but she quickly regained her footing and began banging on the door with increasing intensity. "What a dickhead! Open the door! Do you have any idea what went down at the beach?!"
Hangyul had heard it all. He was aware of what had happened the previous night. He had been there, a silent observer to the gruesome events. The killer, shrouded in darkness, wearing a black mask and a hat concealing their identity, held a glinting screwdriver in gloved hands. The night was so dark that Hangyul couldn't make out the victim, but he could hear the agonized cries of a young girl, accompanied by the relentless sound of waves crashing on the shore. The high tide of the sea that night had partially submerged a car's tires in the water. Following a final, harrowing scream from the victim, the murderer had calmly exited the vehicle and walked towards the main road. Hangyul had sat inside his car, its headlights off, concealed in the pitch-black darkness that had descended due to a power outage. The murderer had passed by Hangyul's car, and Hangyul had turned his head slightly to look at the rearview mirror, only to see the murderer standing at a distance behind him, their gaze fixed on Hangyul through the mirror. Hangyul had met that eerie gaze with an evil, sinister smile on his face.
"Hangyul-ah!! Why are you standing out in the cold? Come inside," his grandmother's voice pulled him from his reverie as she entered the kitchen.
Hangyul returned to reality and reopened the gate to check on Seong-ah, only to find that she had left some time ago. With a heavy sigh, he closed the gate and re-entered the kitchen.
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2 PM, Naksan Beach Resort
Seong-ah's frustration boiled over as she continued to call Jung Bomin incessantly since the previous night. "Why won't this fool pick up?!" she exclaimed. "How the fuck am I supposed to record the interview without Bomin?"
Haneul strolled into the lobby of the resort and observed Seong-ah's agitated pacing as she stared at her phone. He couldn't resist a teasing remark, "Having trouble with your cameraman?"
Seong-ah rolled her eyes as she saw him approaching but chose to ignore Haneul, focusing on her attempts to reach Bomin.
"I've heard that no cameraperson can endure your peculiar attitude, and they flee within 3-4 months! I suppose Bomin..." Haneul chuckled at her annoyance.
"Shut up! At least he's not a clown like yours," Seong-ah retorted, gesturing towards Minjae, who was playing with a puppy in the hotel lobby.
Haneul flashed an annoying smile at her and headed to the reception desk. A keycard was handed to him there. He turned back and playfully dangled the card key as he continued to taunt Seong-ah, "The food truck owner!" He raised his eyebrows and smirked, relishing the reaction he was getting.
Seong-ah stood there helplessly as she watched him ascend the stairs, with Minjae following.
"Jung Bomin... you're a dead meat....", she muttered to herself.
Haneul and Minjae arrived at the first-floor and Haneul pointed to the door of room 102. "Shall we open the door with the card key?" Minjae asked.
"No, knock first," Haneul instructed.
A knock on the door led to a man in his mid-forties opening it, his voice quavering as he asked, "Who are you guys?"
Haneul pushed him inside the door and barged the room with Minjae.
"I don't have time for that little act of yours. I know you were hiding from the detectives since the night of Kang Jurin's murder. So... can we spill the truth now... Han Dongshik-ssi?"
The man sat down on the bed and began to babble, "I don't remember... It was too dark... I might have hallucinated or something... I was just leaving after work—"
"Did I ask you?" Haneul interrupted, gripping the man's shoulder tightly. "Dongshik-ssi, did I ask you about that night?" Sweat beads dotted Dongshik's forehead as Haneul's grip intensified. "We were here for a casual chat, but now that you've shown such a keen interest in this case, tell me... tell me whatever you saw that night." Haneul wore a sly smile.
"I saw nothing! I remember nothing!" Dongshik shouted and suddenly pulled a knife from his pocket, attempting to strike Haneul's face.
Minjae sprinted over to him with revolver in his hand but Haneul signaled him to hold his ground. Haneul swiftly struck Dongshik's neck with the palm of his right hand, rendering him unconscious.
Dongshik slumped onto the bed, and Haneul ordered, "Minjae, take him to the holding cell for further questioning."
"Wasn't he the one who called the cops after witnessing the car crash?" Minjae inquired, frustrated by the witness's erratic behavior.
"It's easy to silence people. Don't worry, darling. He'll spill the truth eventually," Haneul reassured, chuckling as he watched Minjae struggle to remove the man from the room. Haneul locked the door and affixed a strip of yellow tape with "crime scene" written on it.
Unbeknownst to Haneul, a door in the room adjacent to Han Dongshik's creaked open briefly. A blue side bag was tossed out, followed by a garbage bag sliding into view. A housekeeper approached to collect the garbage bag but abruptly recoiled as a strong force pulled his hand back.
"Hey! Stop! Get lost!" Jung Bomin emerged from the dark room. The housekeeper was taken aback by the disheveled man, clad in a red leather jacket without a shirt underneath. Bomin's hair was tousled, and his eyes were swollen red. He wore baggy jeans and clutched a white shirt in his hand, seemingly in the midst of changing. The housekeeper hastily retreated and muttered to himself, "What a strange guy", walking past the reception counter.
Seong-ah overheard his words while still standing nearby. She had witnessed Haneul escorting the eyewitness to the holding cell, and her suspicion grew. Seong-ah rushed upstairs and collided with Jung Bomin as he exited his room.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing here?!" Seong-ah exclaimed in shock.
"I... I saw your calls... and contacted the director... got... got the address from him," Bomin stammered, avoiding Seong-ah's gaze.
"Hey, Bomin? Look at me! Show me your eyes," Seong-ah demanded. She grabbed his jaw, forcing him to face her. "Why are you closing your eyes? What's with the redness? What did you do last night?" Bomin remained silent, which only fueled Seong-ah's anger. "You've gotten yourself into something, haven't you? What is it? TELL ME! ANSWER ME NOW!"
"I was just drunk, sunbaenim. I partied here last night," Bomin replied with his eyes still tightly shut.
"Then why are you covering your eyes, Bomin? What's wrong with you?" Seong-ah moved her hand closer to his eyes and, at the same moment, received a call on her phone from Professor Sungtae. Taking the opportunity, Bomin hurried to the bathroom and retrieved an eye lens case from his blue bag. "Shit!!! It hurts!!", He placed a black lens over his swollen irises, wincing in pain.
"Jung Bomin! I know you're in there! Come out right now!" Seong-ah called out to him from outside the washroom. Bomin stepped out, facing her anger with his head down. "I'm sorry, sunbaenim."
"So, now you're finally opening your eyes. I know... the story you told me earlier... there's more to it, Bomin. You certainly didn't come here for a mere party. Well, you can't deceive me for long. And if those fake lenses are bothering your eyes, you can take them off," Seong-ah said as she wiped a tear from his eye and playfully slapped his cheek, a smirk forming on her lips. Bomin's expression grew darker as he realized how he had made a fool of himself.