Morning in Seoul always smells like coffee and car exhaust. I've learned that the earlier you wake up, the stronger the coffee part is. By nine a.m., the exhaust wins.
I stepped out of my apartment building, umbrella half-open against a lazy drizzle. The street outside was its usual blur of people heading somewhere they didn't really want to be. I fit right in.
"Another glorious day in paradise," I muttered, sidestepping a puddle that tried to baptize my sneakers. My reflection wobbled in it messy black hair, sleep-starved eyes, a face that looked too young to be carrying a detective's ID.
Twenty six years old, private investigator. Sounds cool on paper until you realize it mostly means chasing cheating spouses and locating missing cats. But hey, bills don't pay themselves.
My phone buzzed.
Mom: Don't skip breakfast again, Jihoon. You'll shrink.
I grinned. "Too late for that." I thumb-typed back a quick Love you, Ma. I'll grab something later, and stuffed the phone away.
Truth was, I didn't mind her nagging. Being adopted meant I never had to deal with genetic guilt trips, but I still got the loving-mother package warm meals, scoldings, and all. Not a bad deal for a kid who started life crying on the side of a rural road nineteen years ago.
People sometimes ask if I ever wondered who left me there. I used to. These days, I just figure whoever did probably had their reasons. I got lucky instead of dead, so I call it even.
My office sat above a fried-chicken restaurant whose ventilation system doubled as my personal perfume. The sign outside read "Kang & Ji Investigations." Kang was my boss middle-aged, chain-smoking, perpetually broke. The "& Ji" part was me, mostly for tax reasons.
When I pushed the glass door open, the familiar smell of stale cigarettes and instant coffee greeted me like an old relative.
Kang Hyun-soo sat behind the desk, sleeves rolled up, frowning at a mountain of paperwork. "You're late."
"It's eight-thirty," I said.
"Exactly." He jabbed his pen toward the wall clock that ticked like it hated us. "Clients like punctual detectives."
"Clients like results," I countered, dropping my wet umbrella into the stand. "And coffee."
He snorted but handed me a cup anyway. Kang might bark a lot, but he fed his pups.
We spent the morning buried in minor cases background checks, a lost USB drive, the usual nonsense. Between calls, I stared out the window at the wet city below. I had this weird habit of watching reflections instead of people themselves. Glass told you more truth than faces did.
By noon the drizzle had turned to steady rain. Kang disappeared to meet a client, leaving me alone with the sound of water tapping against the window.
I leaned back in my chair and scrolled through our inbox. Nothing interesting just another husband suspicious about his wife's "business trips." I sighed. "Maybe I should've been a barista."
My stomach rumbled. Right breakfast. I grabbed my wallet and headed downstairs. The fried-chicken ajumma waved from behind the counter. "Lunch already, Jihoon-ah?"
"Yeah, no customers upstairs. Mind if I grab some gimbap?"
"Take it, take it. You look like you need meat on those bones."
Her teasing made me smile. People here treated me like a local kid even though I'd moved to Seoul barely two years ago. I'd been a small-town orphan turned city detective; not exactly the average résumé.
I ate by the window, watching umbrellas bob like jellyfish. A couple argued quietly under a shared one, voices drowned by the rain. Somewhere a siren wailed and faded. Seoul breathed and pulsed, utterly ordinary.
And yet sometimes, when I caught my own reflection, I couldn't shake the feeling I didn't quite belong in the frame. Like the world had drawn me in with the wrong pencil.
I shook the thought away and finished my gimbap.
Back upstairs, I spent the afternoon running errands a quick background check at a public records office, a visit to a tiny coffee shop where one of our informants worked. Every place had the same rhythm: tired people, polite smiles, an undercurrent of hurry.
Detective work was mostly observation. You watched enough people and patterns started forming: who lied easily, who avoided eye contact, who had secrets simmering behind a smile. I liked that part. It made me feel like life was a puzzle, even if most of the pieces were boring.
Around five p.m., the rain stopped. The city looked freshly washed, neon signs flickering to life one by one. Kang called to say he'd be late again. "Lock up before you leave," he said.
"Got it, boss. Don't drink too much soju with the client."
He hung up before answering. Typical.
I cleaned the desk, turned off the lights, and stepped outside. The sky was a bruised purple, clouds stretched thin. I popped in my earbuds, music filling the quiet as I walked toward the bus stop. The day felt complete in its dullness no mysteries, no cosmic revelations, just tired legs and cheap coffee. I could live with that.
Our apartment sat in a modest neighborhood on the east side. Mom had dinner ready by the time I walked in kimchi stew bubbling, TV humming with some variety show laughter.
"You're late," she said, ladling soup into my bowl.
"Work stuff. Kang's allergic to free time."
She rolled her eyes but smiled. Dad sat across from me, reading the newspaper even though everything was digital now. "Catch any criminals today, detective?"
"Just a runaway cat named Princess," I said between spoonfuls. "She was hiding under a convenience-store fridge. Fierce suspect."
Mom laughed. "Good thing the city has you, huh?"
"Absolutely. I'm saving Seoul one pet at a time."
Dinner was comfortable small jokes, the smell of stew, the kind of normality that makes you forget how weird the world can be. Afterward, I showered and flopped onto my bed, scrolling through messages.
My best friend, Min-jae, had sent a meme earlier a picture of two detectives arguing over donuts.
Min-jae: Us tomorrow, guaranteed.
We'd met during training at a small private-investigation seminar. He was a year older, louder, and better at making people talk. We'd teamed up on a few cases, splitting fees and instant noodles. He was the kind of guy who made life less heavy.
I typed a reply Only if you buy the donuts this time but didn't hit send. My eyelids felt heavy, the day finally catching up to me. The phone slipped from my hand as I dozed off.
The ringtone sliced through my half-dream. I blinked at the screen: Kang Hyun-soo.
I groaned and answered, voice thick with sleep. "Boss? It's barely eleven."
There was silence on the other end, just rain again the faint patter against someone else's window.
"Jihoon," Kang said finally. His tone was wrong. No sarcasm, no irritation. Just… flat. "You need to sit down."
My chest tightened. "What happened?"
"It's about Min-jae."
My mind snapped fully awake. "What about him?"
Kang took a slow breath. I could hear the sound of his lighter flicking, the tiny inhale of smoke. "Police found him an hour ago. Near the Han River."
I waited for the rest, but he didn't say it. I had to.
"He's dead, isn't he?"
The word hung there, heavier than the silence that followed. Kang exhaled. "Yeah. They're saying… suicide. But they're not sure yet."
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing. The room suddenly felt too small, the air too thick. My brain scrambled for reasons car accident, mistaken identity, bad joke but Kang's voice left no space for denial.
"I'm heading to the station," he said. "They'll want someone who knows him."
"Yeah… yeah, I'll be there."
When the call ended, I realized my hands were shaking. The phone screen reflected my face again, eyes wide, unfocused.
Min-jae. The guy who laughed at everything, who said life was a bad drama but worth watching till the end. The one who texted me memes every morning.
Gone.
Just like that.
Outside, the rain started again, soft at first, then harder, until it drowned the city in white noise. Somewhere beyond the window, a siren wailed a familiar, indifferent sound.
I didn't cry. Couldn't. The world felt like it had skipped a beat and then pretended nothing happened.
I stared at the ceiling, words echoing in my head.
Found him near the river.
They're saying suicide.
Not sure yet.
Something inside me whispered that it wasn't over. That this was just the start of a case I never asked for.
But for now, all I could do was sit there, listening to the rain.