There was a brief moment of silence.

With only the gentle vibration of the car, with just a slight gap between them, Kim Tae Rin stared intently at Choi Yoon.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an empty small room on the second floor. You said it was a guest room.”

“Not that. The government.”

“Ah.”

Choi Yoon somehow looked disappointed.

He pulled back his upper body that had been pressed close to Kim Tae Rin and straightened his posture. The body heat that had enveloped her receded. Only then could she breathe freely.

“Given the times, they probably won’t send soldiers to beat people with clubs. They’ll use other methods. Ways that don’t look bad and allow them to escape if needed.”

She had no idea what he meant.

“But there haven’t been any signs of that so far. When things got noisy, the police just gave warnings…”

Even as she spoke, she lacked confidence.

Perhaps she had anticipated this would happen all along.

Choi Yoon was silent. With his left hand on the steering wheel, he seemed to be gathering his thoughts.

Kim Tae Rin spoke as if reassuring herself.

“It’s not just yokai at the protests. Humans come too. In significant numbers. They can’t treat us that way. There are humans too.”

The hand gently tapping the steering wheel suddenly stopped.

Choi Yoon looked at her. His expression was strange.

“I know. You go too. As a human.”

Cold sweat suddenly broke out.

Did I just misspeak?

Did I look like a yokai?

She pretended to be nonchalant and averted her gaze, but her heart was pounding.

She could feel Choi Yoon’s steady gaze on her left cheek.

After lingering there for a moment, Choi Yoon turned his head back to look ahead.

He muttered softly.

“You said we should turn the car around.”

He started the car. He made a U-turn in the nearby empty lot.

Just from that short movement, Kim Tae Rin realized that Choi Yoon’s driving was quite clumsy.

Sure enough, when the car had fully turned around, there was a harsh scraping sound from behind.

“I don’t get many chances to drive.”

Choi Yoon added calmly.

“But I’m trying to be careful. It’s my first time with a woman in the passenger seat.”

Is this careful? Kim Tae Rin silently pointed to the left.

“Keep going straight this way.”

Choi Yoon turned the steering wheel carelessly, really carelessly. The car tilted sharply.

Kim Tae Rin threw the blanket from her lap into the back seat. She grabbed the safety bar first.

“Um, should I drive instead?”

“Be careful.”

Choi Yoon reached out his right hand. He gripped her shoulder. Choi Yoon pressed his hand firmly, as if pushing Kim Tae Rin into the seat.

Just as she wondered what this was about, the car jolted violently.

Kim Tae Rin bounced up in her seat and fell back down. If Choi Yoon hadn’t held her, her back might have been crushed.

“Speed bumps are there to slow you down. Not to jump over.”

As he withdrew his hand from holding Kim Tae Rin, Choi Yoon suddenly asked.

“How is it?”

“What? The speed bump?”

“I mean the protests. What’s the atmosphere like?”

“…The atmosphere?”

But Choi Yoon was silent again.

He looked as if his mind was completely elsewhere. His eyes were looking ahead, but his gaze was unfocused, as if he was thinking of something entirely different.

He muttered.

“Has it gotten so heated that police have set up barricades nearby? Has there been any physical confrontation where someone got hurt?”

At the end of his words, Choi Yoon turned his head to stare at her. The car tilted along with him, and Kim Tae Rin shouted angrily.

“Please! Look! Look ahead!”

Choi Yoon turned back to face forward.

Ready to smack Choi Yoon on the back of the head and drag him out of the driver’s seat if necessary, Kim Tae Rin quickly answered.

“It’s orderly. We chant slogans loudly and sing songs, but there’s no rushing in mobs or storming the town hall…”

Suddenly remembering something, Kim Tae Rin paused. Then she continued.

“Recently there was some commotion when a few people pushed the police. Other people actively intervened to stop it from spreading, but…”

“Were they residents of Soseulli? The ones who caused the disturbance.”

“No. People we didn’t know.”

“Did you check their ID?”

Kim Tae Rin was bewildered.

“ID? No? We just told them not to do that. We aim for peaceful protests, so we asked them to refrain from aggressive actions.”

Choi Yoon put on a serious face.

“It would be better to check next time. It would be good to set such a rule for the entire protest group. Like immediately verifying the identity of those who use violence under the guise of participating in the protest.”

“Why?”

“They could be instigating violence.”

Kim Tae Rin blinked. It was a possibility she had never considered before.

As the number of protest participants rapidly increased, such disturbances naturally followed. She hadn’t given it much thought.

She had dismissed it as mistakes that could happen when people get excited, and even if such incidents occurred, she believed that brave citizens around would roll up their sleeves and step in to stop it.

Kim Tae Rin herself had once directly intervened to stop a nearby yokai from grabbing a police officer by the collar. Even then, she hadn’t thought to demand identification. She hadn’t sensed anything suspicious.

To the stunned Kim Tae Rin, Choi Yoon asked.

“Does this happen often?”

“Every other day or so…”

“They don’t touch the yokai, right? I imagine the targets are always human.”

“Come to think of it, never with yokai. It’s mostly conflicts with police or government officials.”

“And there haven’t been any major incidents yet because citizens actively intervened. For example, a police officer getting injured.”

A chill ran through her.

She finally realized what Choi Yoon was getting at.

“Are you saying the police have planted people on our side? Pretending to be on our side while trying to incite violent protests?”

Screech, the car came to a sudden stop.

Kim Tae Rin lurched forward. She quickly braced herself with her hands, barely avoiding slamming her head into the dashboard.

“Sorry. Red light.”

Choi Yoon turned his body completely to face her. His expression was hard, without a trace of a smile.

“Ms. Kim Tae Rin. It’s not uncommon for protests to arise against certain policies. I didn’t come all the way down here to stop or interfere with this protest because I think it’s wrong.”

Kim Tae Rin felt as if Choi Yoon’s voice was absorbing all the surrounding noise.

“What I take issue with is the government’s attitude.”

Choi Yoon tapped his fingertips nervously on the steering wheel.

“Congressman Jeon Min Seok and Minister Ki Jae Hyun of the Yokai Management Department made a request of me. They wanted me to mention the past in public to suppress the protests.”

Choi Yoon’s past. He was referring to the gumiho mass murder case.

“They wanted me to bring up old stories to emotionally incite vigilance against shapeshifters, and then have the media mention the anti-full inspection protests. This place would then be subjected to public criticism. They wanted to quietly quell the protests without direct intervention.”

Kim Tae Rin was shocked.

So the government side is keeping an eye on this place. They tried to change the atmosphere through Choi Yoon to respond to our side.

Above all, what was unfamiliar was Choi Yoon’s stance towards such a government.

“If the protests couldn’t be contained, the government seemed willing to use unethical means to suppress them. That was the nuance.”

“By unethical means…”

“In the worst case, deploying special police forces, or something that wouldn’t be good for the residents here anyway.”

Kim Tae Rin couldn’t argue.

It was entirely possible. Humans and yokai had a history of pointing guns at each other.

The human-centric government had no intention of ever handing over control to yokai again, and had expressed this stance by controlling yokai through various laws.

If the government deemed violence necessary to suppress this protest, they would do so.

Moreover, they had justification. If they incited that the protests in Jangcheon were threatening humans and claimed they needed to take action to prevent history from repeating itself, it would sound plausible.

Kim Tae Rin murmured.

“So that’s why you said you came down here out of concern.”

Then something hot welled up inside her. Kim Tae Rin clenched her hands tightly on her knees and took a deep breath. She could feel Choi Yoon’s quiet gaze on her tilted left cheek.

Kim Tae Rin finally opened her mouth. Her voice came out hoarse.

“But why don’t they talk to us? Anyone could come down to clear up misunderstandings or try to persuade us. We don’t want things to escalate either. But abolishing or reconsidering the full inspection isn’t an option for the government, is it?”

Suddenly Choi Yoon reached out his hand. For a moment, Kim Tae Rin thought he might cover her hand.

But his neat hand approached Kim Tae Rin’s waist, carefully untwisted the tangled seatbelt, and then returned to the steering wheel.

“The government has no intention of withdrawing the full inspection. Because what you and the villagers are worried about is true. They want to use the full inspection to digitize and control yokai. For now, it seems they want to block the opposition party that’s moving to give yokai voting rights.”

It was as she had suspected. Kim Tae Rin suppressed a sigh.

“In this situation, if someone representing the government came down here and stated that there was no other purpose for the full inspection, it would mean they changed their words when the government later started using the full inspection. The government side probably wants the protests to dissolve on their own without needing to make any official statement.”

It felt strange.

It was strange to hear the story she had so wanted to hear in this way, strange that it was coming from Choi Yoon, and strange that he had such a serious expression.

Choi Yoon started the car again. He said.

“I rejected the government’s proposal.”

The car jolted violently, and Kim Tae Rin gripped the safety bar.

“But just because I refused doesn’t mean the government will sit idle. At this rate, they’ll move soon. So it’s not an exaggeration to think there might be police people hiding among the protesters right now.”

The faces of those who had participated in the protests together flashed quickly through her mind. It was hard to single out anyone. There were too many people to begin with. There was no way to filter them out.

Choi Yoon said in a low voice.

“We’ll find out who it is by the end of today. They’ll surface.”

Kim Tae Rin turned her head to stare at Choi Yoon. He spoke while looking ahead.

“I didn’t come here just to observe. I came prepared to stand on the podium and support the protest.”

Kim Tae Rin couldn’t believe her ears.

She could understand Choi Yoon coming to survey the situation, but she hadn’t expected him to intervene so actively.

“You saw the news article, right? Your guess is correct. I’ve already faced retaliation. I’ve been disadvantaged. I won’t just take it lying down. Since the government is trying to suppress me, I intend to stand on the opposite side of the government. I want to lend strength to the protest. I’ll do everything I can to prevent the government from daring to touch us, including myself.”