“You are who killed her!” SolHi whispered while staring at DooSan, who is a living stone statue on the river shore. “If not you, she would have been alive now. I hope you are happy, Han DooSan. You finally got what you wanted.”

SolHi passes next to DooSan and along with Yoon Suk goes to the two ambulances that are stopped at the entrance on the bridge.

Both detectives are wet to the skin, after they jumped in the water off the bridge, trying to save Si Yoon, but when they took her out of the water, the paramedics only could ascertain the hour of her death, because nothing else could be done for her.

“Sombe, you are wrong this time! Prosecutor Han DooSan isn’t guilty of what happened,” Yoon Suk told SolHi when they were already in the ambulance, both covered with a blanket, but she preferred to keep silent, still staring at a blind spot in the distance, while, dozens of scenarios were written in her mind at that moment. “You also know it, SolHi. We couldn’t have done anything else, even if we wanted it. Yun Si Yoon…”

“Don’t mention her name,” SolHi ordered him and her trembling voice was full of hatred and this made her hands shake too because with those hands she had tried for an hour to save the poor woman, but everything had been in vain.

***

The deafening noise of the ambulance buzzer is heard all around, but DooSan hears all this as if he is in a trance and the bustle provoked by the detectives, policemen, and paramedics, who are checking the place, are a kind of theater play and not a reality for him.

“I killed her?!” DooSan’s lips moved in a whisper, but right away he nodded, trying to chase away the dark thoughts that were taking over him. “It can’t be. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t…” DooSan continued to deny the facts and feeling that he was losing power, he squatted not too far from the body, and while covering his face with his palms, he could see for an instant, how the paramedics were closing the mortuary sac and, in his head, fragments of the past events had contoured with an astonishing speed: his dead brother and a similar sac zipped by someone’s hand.

“Aaa, Min SinJu! I swear I’ll kill you!” DooSan yelled, taking the others by surprise, but he didn’t care about this. The hatred and the anger inside him were boiling and he couldn’t stop the avalanche of feelings that finally took possession of him.

Kan observed the young prosecutor for a short time, but when he understood that DooSan won’t calm down soon and that he could make a mistake without a later solution, the detective approached DooSan, grabbed his arm, and forced him to follow him.

“Detective Kan, I’m not in the mood to…” DooSan tried to oppose, but when he saw the piercing glance of Kan and the reproachful shaking of his lips, he decided that it’s better to shut up.

“Listen to me carefully, prosecutor Han. I don’t know what the hell was in your head when you told a criminal about the witness, but I know that if you don’t shut your mouth now, you can get all of us into trouble. Why? Because your fucking brain isn’t thinking now. Your mouth simply says stupid ideas and the fact that we have another dead body here, isn’t precisely something in our favor.”

Kan stared into Doosan’s eyes, trying to send a hidden message: “don’t be a fool. A quiet mouse has more chances to succeed than a yelling cat. So, shut your mouth, stupid!”

And DooSan got the message and nodded toward the detective because his mind was fast and he understood that a mistake made, with such consequences, should be a lesson to learn and not something to lament. And he was ready to make others pay for this.

***

“She didn’t drown,” GhiYon told SolHi and DooSan, while the two were later present in CNS after the autopsy of Si Yoon’s body was finished. “She was already dead when they threw her into the water. Or at least she was almost dead when they threw her because in her lungs we found only a small amount of liquid.”

“Dead? Because of what?” SolHi stuttered, staring at the dead woman’s body, covered with a white sheet.

“Drugs! They gave her a strong “cocktail” and because she already was taking a lot of pills because of her multiple diseases, she went into shock soon after it and her heart simply stopped.”

“They tried to get rid of her right away!” DooSan mumbled, visibly affected by the forensic doctor’s words. “Shit! And this…”

“...happened because you are a stupid idiot that decided to open his mouth when it wasn’t necessary.”

“Ya, Ian SolHi! Don’t you think that you are unfair now?”

“Unfair? With you? Why so? I’m just calling an assassin with his real name. Something that I learned from you.”

DooSan and SolHi stare at each other as if they were ready to break the other one into pieces, but something that made the man take a step back was what he saw in SolHi’s eyes: “One more word and you are dead.”

“Your glance … is perfect for an assassin!” he whispered, but his remark didn’t get the expected reaction from SolHi. She just threw down a pack of instruments and went away.

When the door closed behind her, GhiYon grabbed DooSan’s arm, forcing him to look at him. “Are you stupid or do you only pretend to be one?”

DooSan looked at GhiYoon’s fingers squeezing hard his flesh, but he didn’t push it away. Even if it hurts, he prefers it, because this way he feels that he is still alive, after all, shits that happened to him all this time and the recent events … if not because of the pain, he could have collapsed, but it still allows him to float into an avalanche of harmful emotions.

“Don’t play with fire, Han DooSan! She’s not stupid! If she entered the police, it is because she knows something.”

“Or because she’s trying to hide something! Don’t worry, I’ll find out what she’s hiding.”

“I hope so, because if you continue to provoke her like you did just what … I don’t know, man, but here is the perfect place for you to be another cold corpus checked by me after she will kill you.”

“You won’t have such a pleasure, doctor Park. I’m not an easy demon to kill.”

“YuSan also used to say this, but finally … he lay down there, on that table and … I was the one who signed the paper result of his autopsy. I don’t want to sign yours too, DooSan. I don’t want to lose you too. Think about it and if possible, stay away from that woman. I don’t like her. She can be dangerous.”

GhiYon took a few steps away, trying to calm down. DooSan instead wasn’t showing any emotion, as if the simple mention of his brother’s name made him remember the case and the purpose he had in his mind when he started to pursue SolHi.

“About the case … find that bastard, DooSan, because this poor woman was killed for nothing. She had only one month to live, but they took it to her.”

“One month? What are you talking about?”

“Lung cancer. The last stage, but as you said before: could have been a danger for Min SinJu, so he decided to get rid of her. That bastard: I can’t believe he still makes trouble for others. I hope someday I’ll check his body too.”

Saying this, GhiYon left the room, leaving DooSan a few meters from Si Yoon’s body, but the young prosecutor wasn’t there: not mentally. He was chasing Min SinJu and he was about to kill him.

***

“That bastard, he won’t accept his guilt never. But just wait, Han DooSan. I’ll make you crawl on the ground because of what you just did,” SolHi mumbled while advancing on foot on a countryside road.

Wearing an oversize parka and a black cap to hide her face, she is advancing toward the place where are seen some abandoned warehouses in the distance, while staring around to be sure that nobody follows her, but in that abandoned place was no living soul: only blades of grown grass and a kind of scent of mold.

Suddenly SolHi sneezed and her body was shaken as if a leaf was blown by the gusts of an unseen wind. “What’s this?” she thought, looking around. “Allergies? Again? But here is no lavender field. Why?”

She looked in her pocket for the inhaler, but there was none. “Aaah, it must have fallen into the taxi. Damn! Right when I need it.”

SolHi stopped in place, looking back, but the taxi wasn’t there anymore and she unhappily grimaced. “He could have waited!” she growled in a whisper when she remembered the taxi driver’s refusal to wait for her, but she also knew that he was right: his job brings him money and she doesn't have enough to pay him for an hour of waiting.

“Well, Ian SolHi, you must recognize that you are stupid! You came here without a well-made plan and now you are stuck in a place, God knows what is sneaking around here. I only hope you’ll return home today, even if it’s a long way on foot till Seoul, girl.”

The road one which SolHi walks is so similar to the one she ran on, 7 years ago, while she was trying to escape from her chaser. And she feels it more and more, with each step she takes forward, but she doesn’t want to stop, even if she’s scared not to live once again the same past events.

“Aaa,” she slowly whispered, when her foot stumbled off a stone. The harsh pain in her toes made her eyes fill with tears, but SolHi wiped them right away … she can't allow herself to be weak. Not now. Not when she finally got a track to the answers, she's been looking for 7 years already.

“Miss Ian, I found what you asked me,” was the message sent to SolHi when she exited the CNS building, intending to go home and that message, she received from a private detective she hired to find the trace, made her heart freeze. “An address. How did he get this? Where from?” but she hadn’t time to wait for more answers and she came here. She thought that she would find more about it when she will arrive at the mentioned place in the message, but there was an abandoned place and a lot of weed-grown buildings, that once served as warehouses for important businesses in town.

“They said that if we…” a man’s voice is heard, coming out of one of the abandoned warehouses and this made SolHi be alert, but instead of running away and hiding, she sneaked toward that place and she could see a group of 5 men, exiting one of the warehouses and coming toward her.

“Why are they here? This place must be abandoned, and … why…?” but SolHi hadn’t time to finish her thought … a hand grabbed her wrist and pulling her hard toward the tall grass, made her fall on somebody’s chest and a palm covered her mouth: SolHi shuddered, staring with wide-open eyes at the one who saved her not to be noticed by the five men, that were approaching her more and more.

When she finally could notice something in the darkness, SolHi saw DooSan, who was making her signs to be quiet. “He … here? Why?” SolHi thought and her heart suddenly throbbed in her chest, interrupting her breathing … DooSan’s hand grabbed her waist, gently, and in a quick movement, his body covered her, as if trying to protect her from something.

She can feel his heart beating fast in his chest … his interrupted breath, reminds her of sweet nights of love, but she chases away the romantic thoughts, slowly shaking her head and closing her eyes. But it is hard to calm down, while his head slowly lied on her shoulder and their cheeks barely touched each other … a sweet pulsation of the skin touching other skin and she doesn’t know why she has the feeling that he has the same sensations while they stay like this.

The five “intruders” are already moving away from them and when they are already enough far of them, DooSan grabs SolHi’s wrist and without one of them uttering a word, they run away from that place, toward DooSan’s car, which is hidden not too far and a few moments later, the car leaves the place at full speed.

***

SolHi’s fingers spread her blonde hair on her back after she took off the cap. She’s doing this to chase away the awkward feeling she has in her chest while sitting in the car, in silence, next to DooSan.

The car is stopped on the road, between the fields, but it isn’t the strangest thing that happens there and SolHi sketched a smile: she and DooSan are wearing similar parkas and both with black caps. Actually, DooSan still has it on his head, while he’s staring in the distance.

“Why are you here?” SolHi finally asked him, without looking at him.

“Should I answer this question?”

“Yeah, while you are here. And what's more suspicious is the fact that you are in the same place as I am. How did you find out that I’m here? Did you follow me?”

“What? Are you a superstar or something to follow you? Don’t be silly. You aren’t someone important for me to follow you.”

“Not the same I remember: five years ago. When we first met after I entered the Police Academy, you said that I will be the most important person in your life. Did you forget it?”

“Important person? Let me refresh your mind, detective Ian: I said then that you will be the person I’ll hate all my life and that I won’t have rest till not to trample you in my feet.”

“Wow, things have changed now. You have this possibility now.”

DooSan looked into her eyes, without understanding what she had in mind. “I’m talking about this place. It’s perfect for a crime. No witnesses. No evidence. If someone finds me later … nobody will know that it, was you who get rid of me.”

“Well, thanks for the advice, but … I’m not you, ok?! I prefer to kill in silence, not hidden. Such places … are perfect for you, not for me.”

“Shoot and hit!” SolHi whispered. He was right: this place is similar to the one she had been attacked, but he doesn’t know all the story. He doesn’t know about the memories that this place is awakening in her head. “Don’t worry, Han DooSan. I promise you that one day you will have the chance to get rid of me!” and SolHi’s inner voice suddenly kept silent.

SolHi’s eyes had slowly filled with tears … she hasn’t the strength to wipe it and the tears … so stubborn, they continued shaking her eyeball, but don’t flow down the cheek and this makes her feel that she lacks air. Her heart is beating fast and slow, as if … “I can't breathe. I can't breathe again,” SolHi thought, but her hand doesn’t want to rise and touch her chest and the reason for this refusal of the hand is because of DooSan, who stays right next to her, looking through the front windshield, looking for something in that emptiness of the fields.

A car is approaching DooSan’s vehicle. SolHi is the first who noticed it and hid them … in a blink of an eye she sat down on DooSan’s lap, taking him by surprise, but the things turned hot when SolHi took off her parka and imitated a kiss on DooSan’s neck … he froze, with both hands beside his body.

“Don’t move! We aren’t alone!” SolHi whispered in his ear and then DooSan noticed the car stopped in front of him and two men getting out of it and approaching their car.

With each step taken by those men, DooSan’s breath is increasing too. And his heart … is beating fast and he doesn’t realize it, because of the approaching danger and because of the woman, sexy sitting on his laps, and his mind, for a second closed the door of rationality … his hands grabbed her body, approaching her from his chest and the shaking of her body, when his hands touched her … was so alluring, so calling him to madness and DooSan did it … he kissed her, passionately, hungrily, as if he was waiting for this moment for so long as if his body remembered a similar event from the past and now he was so nervous to live it once again.

Lips touching other lips … closed eyes … interrupted breath … hands moving along the hot bodies and the eyes of two intruders spying on them, but none of the two involved in this ritual of passion cares about them anymore.

“Let’s go!” one of the two men says when he noticed DooSan’s hand getting under SolHi’s shirt, revealing a little bit of her white skin. “Hormones!” and soon after the other car passed next to them, leaving them alone in that desert that was meant to kill someone, but instead it brought them closer than ever.

The kiss … the caresses … the interrupted breath is increasing … more and more and SolHi feels that she’s losing her head. And she can’t stop. She fought so long with this desire that was hidden inside her chest because she lacks love because she wished for so long to have someone loving her, but what was happening at that moment was madness: she’s about to make love with the enemy, but she can’t stop … she doesn’t want it… even if this can bring her later more problems, she doesn’t care … she wants to live it … to…

DooSan’s hand suddenly grabbed her throat, squeezing it, while his eyes stared at her like a mad person. “You … bitch. Did you think that seducing me will make you run away from me?”

SolHi doesn’t fight with him … she just allows him to do this to her … she’s powerless in front of him, not because she can’t hit him, but because she’s tired of running. If this must end here, then let this end here.

DooSan forces her to exit the car and, pushing her hard with the back toward the vehicle body, he continues to press her throat with his fingers.

“You won’t ever escape from me … you never…” he whispered, over and over again, while SolHi’s lips just move and a barely heard “I’m sorry” is heard coming out of her chest.

“You are just a piece of … you are nothing, Ian SolHi. Just a damn murderer that still breathes thanks of my mercy. But it will end … here and now. You don’t deserve to live, a piece of trash. Seducing me?! You thought that I’m so weak to fall into your arms and to forget about my revenge. Never! Did you hear me? Never!”

His yell is loudly heard all around and his fingers press even more on the enemy’s throat, without feeling remorse … not even when he saw tears falling from SolHi’s eyes and her hand touched his hand, but not to take it away, but helping him to press more, and DooSan remembered what happened in Intensive Care, 7 years ago and feeling that something is pressing his chest … he stepped back, leaving the woman to fall to the ground.

SolHi, feeling the freedom, started to cough, but she did this involuntarily … it was her body that wants to live and not her mind.

DooSan, staring at his victim, fell on the ground, crawling back … he didn't believe that he was capable of this and afraid, he ran away, again … he entered the car and stepping on the gas pedal, he went, leaving SolHi in that desert, alone and unprotected.

***

Barefoot, SolHi is advancing through the lavender field … the flowers that are surrounding her are deadly because their scent leaves the woman without air and a loud wheeze is heard coming out of her chest.

She knows that if she continues in that place she won’t return, but SolHi can’t return. Something attracts her toward a place she sees in front of her … the gray walls of an abandoned warehouse.

“Something reminds me here about me,” spins in SolHi’s head, while she continues advancing toward that object. “It was here where … here where …” but this thought can’t be finished. It’s stubborn and doesn’t want to give her an answer and forcing her mind to remember something, without result, SolHi manages to get to the entrance in the building.

A woman’s yell is heard coming out of that place and even though she understands that the voice is familiar to her, SolHi doesn’t know who that woman can be and she enters.

The place is sunk in darkness, but SolHi continues to advance as if she knows this place … as if she had been once here and in front of her, she sees, as in trance, a raped woman … a woman wearing a white dress, and a man, hurting her. She doesn’t see his face, but she feels his disgusting touches on her skin. And that woman is crying, is yelling something, but SolHi doesn’t hear what she’s saying.

The eyelids of SolHi’s eyes open and close repeatedly, while she’s climbing the stairs to the second floor … and there is worse because she can see the same woman, the same white dress and the same man hitting her … the woman is on the floor, crouched, while the man kicks her belly and yells something to her, but again nothing is heard, but SolHi cries, because she sees herself in that woman … she feels the same pain and crawling back, her heel touches the edge of a hole in the middle of the floor and looking down, SolHi saw the abyss and she is ready to let her body fall … and to not feel more pain she closes her eyes, stretches her arms aside and nothing else is felt then. It’s silent again. It’s silence and no more pain. No more…