[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
A day had passed. Or perhaps an eternity. Time in the luxurious Pyeongchang-dong villa had become an elastic, meaningless concept. For the rest of the world, the sun had risen and set. The news had moved on from the "security incident" to sports scores and weather forecasts. But for Jo Yu-ri, the sun remained frozen in the sky, its light a constant reminder of the darkness into which she had plunged.
She spent the hours in a limbo of guilt and fascination. The revelation from the mysterious woman in the hat hadn't eased her burden; it had made it heavier, more complex. The anonymous man who haunted her nightmares now had a name, Leo, and a story so incredible it seemed straight out of a movie. She spent long periods staring at the tablet the woman had left behind, now locked, imagining the photos she had seen. Leo in the jungle, smiling. Leo in the desert, defiant. Leo in the Arctic, fleeing. Leo in Monaco, fighting.
He was a man made of extreme moments, a mosaic of guts and twisted morality. And she had been his latest, fatal adventure. She clung to the black hoodie like a shipwreck survivor to a plank. It was the only tangible thing left of him, a shroud that smelled of danger and sacrifice. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she buried her face in the fabric and inhaled deeply, trying to find a trace of him, an echo of the man who had leaped into the abyss so she could sit safely on a silk sofa.
The group moved around her with careful delicacy, treating her as if she were made of glass. Min-jun brought her food she didn't taste. Ho-yeon read her fashion magazines whose pages she didn't see. She knew they were worried, but she felt separated from them by an abyss of experience. They had been spectators of the final act. She felt like the scriptwriter.
The lie they had agreed upon gnawed at the foundations of her reality. Every time she saw her own face on the news, associated with the official story of the "failed drill," she felt a wave of nausea. They were actively participating in erasing him, in turning his incredible life and his ultimate sacrifice into a convenient footnote for the government. And she couldn't say anything. She was trapped in the cage of security he had bought with his life.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEE JUNG-JAE AND WI HA-JOON - THIRD PERSON]
In the afternoon, as the sunlight turned golden and melancholic, Lee Jung-jae and Wi Ha-joon stood on the balcony, gazing at the city. A tense silence, heavy with unspoken thoughts, had settled among them all.
"I've never seen anything like it," Jung-jae finally said, breaking the silence. His voice was deep, thoughtful. "We play men in desperate situations. We fake bravery. But that... that was real. The way he assessed the situation in the hallway, the decision he made in a split second..."
"He was a professional of a caliber rarely seen outside of elite special forces," Ha-joon replied, arms crossed. His analytical mind hadn't stopped working, trying to piece together the puzzle. "Every move was calculated. His escape across the rooftops wasn't blind panic; he was using the terrain, breaking lines of sight, moving towards an escape point he already had in mind: the river."
"The Scepter of Osiris, the Midnight Sun Brooch..." Jung-jae murmured, recalling the artifact names. "It sounds like fantasy. But we saw the photos. We saw the chase. It's incredible to think that such a world exists right beneath ours."
"And he lived in it every day," Ha-joon added. "Imagine the stress, the paranoia, the loneliness. Homeless, rootless, always looking over his shoulder. Helix Corporation, the Russians, the cartels... He made enemies on every continent."
"And yet, he stopped for us," Jung-jae said, his gaze fixed on the horizon. "He stopped for Yu-ri. He could have used her as a shield. He could have left us behind. But he didn't." He turned to look at Ha-joon. "His code, as that woman said. Flawed, but a code nonetheless. I'm worried about Yu-ri. She carries this burden as if it's hers alone."
"We all carry it," Ha-joon replied grimly. "We're the only ones who know the truth about how the 'missing specialist' died. And it's a secret we'll have to keep forever."
The conversation faded. Both men stood looking at the city, each lost in their own thoughts about the imperfect hero to whom they owed their lives. They were safe, but the ignorance they had lost would never return. The world had become bigger, darker, and much more complicated.
[POINT OF VIEW: GROUP - THIRD PERSON]
Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, they returned. Inspector Park and the mysterious woman in the hat entered the villa with the same silent discretion as before.
The group, who had been gathered in the living room in an awkward silence, instantly tensed. What else could there be? What new, terrible revelation were they going to drop on their already traumatized minds?
"Good evening," Inspector Park said, his face as impassive as ever. "Excuse the intrusion. There's one last loose end we need to... address."
The woman in the hat said nothing. She walked to the coffee table, and this time she wasn't carrying an aluminum briefcase. From one of the inner pockets of her cashmere coat, she pulled out a single object: a satellite phone. It was a rugged, matte black device, unmarked, with a thick antenna. She placed it on the marble table. The object looked out of place, a piece of military field equipment in the middle of a designer living room.
"What is that?" Mr. Choi asked, his control instinct fearing anything new and inexplicable.
It was the woman who answered, her low voice filling the room. "A secure channel. Sometimes, ghosts need a way to speak."
The cryptic statement only added to the confusion and unease. A final report? One last piece of information about Leo? Yu-ri felt her heart clench. She wasn't sure she could bear any more details about his tragic end.
And then, the phone rang.
It wasn't a normal ringtone. It was a sharp, piercing electronic beep, a sound designed to be heard over a helicopter engine or the din of battle. The sound was so jarring, so unexpected, that everyone flinched. Min-jun gasped.
All eyes locked on the beeping device in the center of the room. The woman in the hat watched it for a long second. Beneath the shadow of her hat, no one could be sure, but Wi Ha-joon thought he saw the slightest, almost imperceptible, curve of a smile on her lips.
With a slow, deliberate movement, she extended her gloved hand and pressed the answer button. And then, speakerphone.
Silence fell over the room. And from the silence, a voice emerged.
"Old hag! Miss me already?"
The voice was unmistakable. It was Leo's voice. But it wasn't weak or distant. It wasn't the voice of a dying man. It was vibrant, full of energy, with a teasing familiarity, and most of all, it was undeniably, impossibly, absolutely alive.
[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
Time stopped. The air solidified in Jo Yu-ri's lungs. She sprang to her feet, her heart stopping then restarting with such violent force that her chest hurt. It was him. The same inflection, the same irreverent tone he had used in the alley. It was him. He was alive.
A wave of pure, incomprehensible shock swept over her, followed by a tsunami of relief so overwhelming that her knees buckled. The tears she had been holding back for twenty-four hours burst from her eyes, but they were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of a miracle. The ghost was not dead. The weight that had been crushing her soul evaporated in an instant, leaving her light, trembling, and incredibly, wonderfully alive.
Around her, the reactions were a mosaic of disbelief. Wi Ha-joon's jaw literally hung open. Lee Jung-jae stared at the phone as if it were an alien artifact. Mr. Choi's face went through fifty shades of panic and confusion.
The woman in the hat was the only one who remained composed. She leaned towards the phone. "I thought you were feeding the fish in the Han River, brat," she replied, her voice a dry murmur. "You disappoint me."
A chuckle echoed from the speaker, a genuine, life-filled laugh. "Almost! The water was freezing! But the current dragged me a couple of kilometers downstream. Some clam fishermen found me. Really nice guys, by the way. I told them I was an actor who'd walked out of a costume party and had too much to drink. I think they bought it."
There was a pause, and then Leo's voice continued, now charged with a youthful excitement that was utterly surreal.
"Helena, you won't believe what happened! Helix found me, as always, but this time it was insane! I accidentally ended up in the middle of the Squid Game premiere. The real one! With all the famous actors! It was incredible!"
The group listened, stunned, as a man they presumed dead recounted the most traumatic night of their lives as if it were the most thrilling anecdote from his latest trip.
"I met the new girl, player 222, Jo Yu-ri," he said, and Yu-ri felt her heart leap. "She's tougher than she looks! She's got spunk. And the main guy, Lee Jong-soo! Player 456. He has a really authentic worried face, even in real life! And the detective... that guy looked at me like he knew I skipped breakfast! It was a very meta experience."
Lee Jung-jae blinked. "Did he say Lee Jong-soo?"
The woman in the hat, whom Leo apparently called Helena, finally cut him off. Her voice was sharp. "Leo, stop. You have an audience. They're not alone."
There was a sudden silence on the line. A silence that lasted three long seconds.
"Oh," Leo's voice finally said. And the tone had changed. It was no longer carefree. It was the tone of someone who had just seriously messed up. "Oops. This is... awkward."
Just then, a new sound filtered through the speaker, a sound everyone recognized with a chill. The unmistakable crack-crack-crack of automatic gunfire. These weren't distant shots like the night before. They were close. Dangerously close.
Leo's voice returned, but now it was mixed with a laugh, a genuine, breathless, adrenaline-fueled laugh. It wasn't the laugh of a scared man. It was the laugh of a man who felt more alive than ever in the midst of chaos.
"Well, looks like I gotta go! My new hosts don't like me making international calls without permission!"
"Leo!" Inspector Park shouted, his professionalism finally broken by the sheer madness of the situation. "Where on earth are you!?"
Another burst of gunfire was heard on the line, even closer, followed by Leo's louder, most carefree laugh.
"North Korea!" he exclaimed, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. "Greetings from Pyongyang, you idiots! Hahahah..."
The call cut off.
A deathly silence fell over the room, broken only by the soft hum of the satellite phone's electronics.
They were all standing, staring at the device as if it might explode. He was alive. And somehow, after jumping into a river in Seoul, he had ended up in North Korea, in the middle of another shootout.
Jo Yu-ri covered her face with her hands, but she couldn't suppress the sound that escaped her lips. It wasn't a sob. It wasn't a cry. It was a laugh. A trembling, hysterical, utterly disbelieving laugh. The ghost was alive. And he was much, much more incredible and stupidly insane than she could ever have imagined. The nightmare wasn't over. It had just become utterly absurd.