Chapter 10

Don’t Get Hit by the Second Arrow

The sheer, immense impact shook her body mercilessly. At the very end, after her forehead slammed hard against the front seat, everything felt unreal—as if the world had slowed to a crawl.

The dull, continuous crashes of thick iron plates shattering and collapsing could no longer be heard. There was only a single, unbroken, high-pitched ringing sound.

Click-clack—

The violent, churning motion finally ground to a halt. It felt like a bizarre sensation of the soul being ripped straight out of the body. Through her steadily fading vision, Miso saw the door of the car pop open and caught the silhouette of someone bending down to look inside.

“H-Handsome… a-asshole?”

Recognizing the identity of the stranger, Miso managed to mutter a single, labored phrase before passing out cold.

“I’ll give it to you, give it to you—I’ll give you everything—my love to you—”

A clumsy, thoroughly unmelodic humming tickled and irritated her ears.

“Gasp!” “Eek!”

With a short cry of surprise, Miso bolted upright. A nurse who had been organizing a tray of medical supplies while humming her awkward tune shrieked in shock. Plump and with sharp, distinct features, the nurse clutched her startled heart and scrunched up her face.

“Patient! You scared me! What are you doing, suddenly jumping up like that?!” “Wait… am I dead? Is this a dream?”

Having just barely survived the very threshold of death, Miso was too bewildered to register reality right away. As she blinked her light-brown, faintly dreamy eyes and asked, the nurse clicked her tongue in disbelief, walked over to the window, and yanked back the dark curtains.

“Did she hit her head… She looks so young, too. Tsk, tsk.”

Without answering Miso, the nurse muttered to herself, grabbed her box of supplies, and headed toward the hospital room door.

“Well, keep resting, patient. I’ll let the doctor know you’ve woken up.” “Ah, wait, wait—I have something to ask you…” “Um… I think you’ll have to ask your guardian about that!” “Pardon? Guardian?”

With a cheerful reply, she closed the door briskly, as if signaling that no further questions would be accepted. As the nurse departed, a settled quiet filled the room, and Miso finally turned her gaze to the window that had been thrown wide open.

‘Ah, it’s blinding.‘

Shielding her eyes hastily with a slender arm against the intense sunlight, Miso slowly adjusted through the filtering beams and lowered her arm.

“I really survived… What about Young-ah? What on earth is going on?”

Staring blankly at the unusually clear blue sky visible outside the window with a lingering sense of helplessness, the hospital room door swung open smoothly at that exact moment. And stepping through it was a cold-faced man Miso already knew: Yoo Eun-ho.

“What is this?” “W-What… what is this?”

It was a mercilessly callous question to throw at Miso, who had just high-fived the Grim Reaper at the gates of the underworld and barely made it back.

“Just like last time, how did you know about Han Kang-soo and end up with him?”

Eun-ho asked Miso with a somewhat agitated expression.

“Don’t I have every reason not to answer you this time, too?”

From Miso’s perspective, there were plenty of things she could explain, but she didn’t like Eun-ho’s attitude of rushing her without giving her even a second to sort out her thoughts. It was a sharp reply given out of matching irritation.

“Shall we go down to the police station with your friend and talk it out there?” “Young-ah! Where is Young-ah? She’s alive, right?” “Ha…”

At Miso’s anxious demand regarding Young-ah’s whereabouts, Eun-ho couldn’t answer easily and let out a deep sigh.

“Where is Young-ah!!?”

Sensing a dangerous, unstable current in Eun-ho’s reaction, Miso shouted frantically. Wiping a tired face with one hand, he set aside his usual cool composure and began to speak with careful hesitation.

“Your friend’s condition isn’t very good. To block the car from plunging into the reservoir, we had no choice…”

Before Eun-ho could even finish, Miso leaped out of bed. Violently ripping out the IV needle taped to her delicate arm, she rushed toward the hospital room door. However, the moment Miso placed her hand on the doorknob, the bold rush gave way to a sudden, overpowering wave of vertigo that threatened to knock her flat.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

Eun-ho closed the distance instantly, grabbing her pale wrist.

“Let go of me!!”

Unable to control her surging emotions anymore, Miso violently shook off his grip, threw open the door, and bolted straight down the hospital corridor.

And there, piercing through the fog of her barely maintained consciousness, she spotted Jin-tak. He was leaning against the wall under a flickering fluorescent light that felt worlds away from the bright windows, his head bowed.

“Young-ah… where is Young-ah?”

Tears already flowing endlessly down her face, Miso asked. Following the direction of Jin-tak’s gaze as he stood with his back to her, looking into the hospital room, she turned her head. There lay Young-ah, wrapped from head to toe in bandages stained red with seeping blood, barely clinging to a weak, fragile breath aided by an oxygen mask.

A month later. Han Kang-soo, arrested at the scene by the reservoir on the day of the incident, readily confessed to both the murder of Kim Hyun-bin and the attempted murder of Miso and Young-ah. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The noticeable bruising on Young-ah had improved enough for the blood-stained bandages to be removed, but she still remained unconscious, breathing in soft, shallow gasps. Miso sat beside her, watching a news broadcast reporting on Han Kang-soo’s trial.

“Good and evil… can we really call Han Kang-soo purely evil?”

Miso asked the unconscious Young-ah with a slightly sorrowful expression.

“He killed a person, so he’s evil.”

Right at that moment, someone answered from right behind Miso, so quietly she hadn’t even noticed them enter. Startled, Miso spun around to find Eun-ho. Noticing Jin-tak smiling awkwardly and Eun-ho maintaining his characteristically chilly expression, Miso turned back around with a hardened face to look at Young-ah.

“Then is Kim Hyun-bin, who killed Han So-jung, a vicious murderer, or an unfair victim killed by Han Kang-soo?” “Murder is just murder. You can’t attach any other meaning to it.” “Why are you even here? I already gave my full statement about that day.”

Exhibiting clear signs of exhaustion, Miso tried to change the subject.

“Well, Ms. Miso… since Ms. Young-ah’s identity is still unverified, it’s protocol for us to investigate. If she can’t get health insurance coverage, hospital bills are going to be a huge problem too.”

Jin-tak spoke as gently as possible with a troubled look, but since Miso herself knew nothing about Young-ah’s background, she had nothing she could say. As the uncomfortable silence settled back in, choking off their breath once more, Jin-tak stepped in again.

“Anyway! You look exhausted, Ms. Miso, so why don’t you go home and get some rest? I’ll personally take responsibility and watch over Ms. Young-ah!”

At Jin-tak’s words, Miso—who looked as though she would never dream of leaving—hesitated for a moment before standing up.

“Then… I’ll leave her in your care for a little while.” “Don’t forget that at the time of the accident, to protect you, Ms. Jeong Miso, your friend didn’t run away—she threw her body in front of you so you could wake up unharmed.”

Right as Miso was about to step past the hospital room door, Eun-ho drove another dagger straight into her back.

“Consider this a warning never to risk your life on nonexistent things like ghosts ever again.“

At Eun-ho’s low, razor-sharp words, Jin-tak grabbed his arm as if telling him to stop. Standing before the hospital room door with her back still turned, listening quietly, Miso slowly pushed the door open and stepped out into the corridor.

Walking down the hospital hall, Miso gritted her teeth to hold back the tears welling up in her reddened eyes, clenching her trembling fists tight.

Passing through a thick iron door that felt entirely cut off from the outside world, creating a sense of heavy alienation, Miso entered the crude, cement-coated visitation room.

“Phew…”

Having never set foot in a detention center before, Miso couldn’t hide her nervousness as she waited across a transparent acrylic partition for Han Kang-soo to appear.

Creak—

Han Kang-soo appeared, looking even more emaciated and gaunt than when she had first visited his home.

“I suppose I should be glad. That I’m still alive…”

Breaking the pitch-black silence, Miso spoke first.

“…” “No, wait. If I had died, it would have been the perfect crime, leaving no trace behind for anyone to find. Do you feel regretful and wronged? After all, even if Young-ah and I vanish, there’s no family left to look for us.”

In Miso’s calm confession of having no family, a fleeting image of his own daughter, So-jung, seemed to mirror back. Han Kang-soo’s expression—which had remained stoic the entire time—flinched. She could feel the tightly locked emotions inside him beginning to churn.

“Young-ah still hasn’t regained consciousness. The thought that I might lose her left me staring into an abyss, tormented to the point of wanting to die… Han Kang-soo, you’re the one who made Young-ah like that, but somehow, it felt like it was all my fault.”

In the end, tears began to stream from Han Kang-soo’s tightly squeezed eyes.

“You must have felt an overwhelming sense of guilt toward your daughter as a parent, too. That’s probably why you thought killing Kim Hyun-bin would lighten that burden just a little bit. But… Han Kang-soo.” “Gk… sob…”

It was around then that Han Kang-soo, his eye rims gradually reddening, finally broke down and wept aloud. Struggling to hold back her own tears that threatened to burst at any second, Miso continued in a trembling voice.

“Paying for your sins isn’t something that can be settled by prison time alone. Even if your crime went undiscovered, you’ll be sentencing yourself to a relentless, endless punishment inside your own heart. It’ll be harsh, but… spend the rest of your life atoning. To Kim Hyun-bin, and to Young-ah.” “I—I’m sorry… sob.” “Han Kang-soo, please… don’t get hit by the second arrow.”

Rising from her seat first, Miso opened the door and walked out. The sound of Han Kang-soo’s sobbing filled the hallway all the way until she pushed through the thick iron door at the end of the visitation corridor.