The footage was grainy, the kind that blurred from time, low resolution, and intentional tampering, but even through distortion, truth had its own shape.
Detective Choi leaned over the monitor, one hand braced against the desk, the other navigating through the timeline with slow precision. The timestamp blinked at the corner of the screen:
02:14 a.m.
Rooftop Access, Kang Industries Headquarters.
They watched in silence.
First came Ji-woo.
Alone.
Shoulders tense, movements purposeful yet heavy, as if the file clutched to his chest weighed more than paper ever could.
Then, two men appeared behind him. Security uniforms, caps pulled low, faces swallowed by shadow.
Choi paused the video.
Ara stepped closer. Her voice was cold steel.
"That's them."
Areum whispered, barely breathing, "The ones Kang sent."
Choi nodded, jaw tightening. "They didn't follow him to talk."
He pressed play.
On-screen, Ji-woo backed toward the rooftop edge, shouting something, but the audio file was corrupted, static drowning his words. One security officer advanced; the other stood guard, gaze sweeping the empty rooftop like a lookout.
Then movement from the side.
A third figure burst into the frame from the stairwell.
Joon-ha.
Running. Desperate. Terrified.
His voice ruptured the static for a split second, enough to capture the plea:
"Hold on!"
Ji-woo reached out.
Their hands touched.
Fingers hooked.
A fragile, trembling connection, a lifeline too thin for fate.
Then their hands slipped.
Ji-woo's body tilted backward.
Gravity claimed him.
Joon-ha collapsed to his knees, mouth open in a silent, gut-wrenching scream the ruined audio could no longer hold.
Choi froze the frame the moment Joon-ha's hands reached into the empty air where Ji-woo once was.
The room stayed silent for a full three breaths.
Then Areum broke.
"He… he tried to save him."
Ara whispered, "And they made him forget."
Choi opened another document, a medical record stamped with red ink:
AMNEX-9
Dosage: 120mg
Purpose: Memory Suppression / Trauma Stabilization.
Administered: 48 hours post-incident.
"They didn't just erase the truth," Choi said, voice heavy.
"They rewrote it."
Areum sat back, staring at the paused image of Joon-ha screaming on the rooftop, undone, broken, alone.
"He thought he was the killer," she said.
"He lived with that guilt."
Ara's voice cracked with fury. "And Kang let him believe it."
Choi exhaled slowly. "He engineered it."
The truth in the room weighed more than the air could carry.
Choi's apartment, once barely more than blank walls and old furniture, now pulsed like a war room.
Every flat surface was covered:
Files.
Flash drives.
Ledger printouts.
Maps marked with red pins.
Copies of bank transfers.
Names of those who disappeared.
The truth wasn't scattered anymore.
It was arranged.
A mosaic of the empire Kang had built on silence.
Choi stood at the center, arms crossed. "We have everything. The footage. The medical records. The shell company transfers. The witness statements."
Ara added, flipping through a binder, "The van logs. The missing driver's last known messages. The coded entries from the ledger."
Areum placed a final folder on the table. Her hands shook.
"This," she said, "is Ji-woo's last message. The one he sent the night before."
Choi opened it.
Inside was a single line, handwritten in shaky but deliberate strokes:
If I don't make it, tell Joon-ha he was never the villain.
Silence.
A heavy, grief-thick silence.
Areum looked away, blinking fast. Ara swallowed hard.
Finally, Ara spoke. "We're ready."
Choi nodded. "But we don't release it yet."
Areum snapped her head up. "Why not?"
Choi pushed a USB drive across the table. "Because Kang is watching every one of us. And if we move too fast, he'll bury us before the truth breathes."
Ara leaned in, voice low. "Then we wait. But not long."
Areum whispered, "The world will know. Just… not yet."
_______________
President Kang's office was colder than usual.
He stood by the window, staring down at the city, a living, breathing machine he believed he controlled. The lights blinked like obedient servants.
His phone buzzed once.
A message from his head of security:
They have the footage.
He didn't flinch.
He didn't even blink.
Only set his glass down, the ice chiming against crystal like a countdown.
A soft knock.
"Sir," the assistant said, "someone is here to see you."
Ara stepped inside, uninvited but unwavering.
Kang's lips curled faintly. "You've been busy."
She said nothing.
He poured himself a drink, the slow, deliberate ritual of a man who believed he still owned the room.
"You think you've won?" he asked.
"I think you're afraid," Ara said.
Kang laughed, elegant, empty. "Of you?"
"Of the truth," she replied.
His jaw tightened.
He stepped closer, voice dropping to a threat coated in silk.
"This isn't your war, Ara. Walk away."
She met his gaze without blinking.
"It became mine the day Ji-woo died."
"You think you're righteous," he hissed.
"You're just another pawn."
Ara leaned in, voice like winter.
"Then break me. But remember, pawns reach the end of the board too."
Something in his expression flickered.
Tiny.
Quick.
Fear.
"Get out," he said, voice clipped.
She left.
And as the door closed behind her, she realized something vital:
He was no longer calm.
He was cornered.
And cornered monsters stop calculating.
They start attacking.
__________________
The penthouse was dim, quiet, almost painfully still.
Joon-ha sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, sketchbook open on his lap, pencil abandoned. The city outside was blurred by rain, a watercolor of lights smudged by grief.
Areum entered quietly.
She didn't say his name.
She didn't ask permission.
She simply walked in and placed a tray beside him
Tea.
A mild sedative.
A folded blanket.
Small things.
Gentle things.
He finally looked up.
"You came back."
"I never left," she said.
He closed the sketchbook. His voice cracked.
"They're calling me a murderer."
"You're not," she whispered.
"I saw him fall." His hands trembled. "I tried to hold on."
"And you did," Areum said softly.
"But they made you forget."
He looked at her, eyes glassy with shame and something older, a grief he didn't remember earning.
"Why… why would he do that? My father?"
"Because he needed a scapegoat," she said.
"And you were the perfect one."
He didn't speak.
She knelt beside him, brushing his hair back gently, a gesture soft enough to steady a storm.
"I won't use you again," she murmured.
He swallowed.
"Then why are you here?"
She met his eyes.
"To love you," she said.
"And to finish what Ji-woo started."
His breath caught.
He closed his eyes.
And for the first time in weeks, Joon-ha slept.
Deeply.
Peacefully.
Without nightmares.
Areum stayed beside him, watching the city pulse beyond the window.
Because sometimes, love isn't loud.
It doesn't break doors or scream in hallways.
Sometimes, love is the quiet decision to stay
even when everything else tells you to run.