– Now, tell me. Where is Tae Rin right now?

“Here at the hospital. Han Seo Jung…”

– I know. That neighborhood student. Don’t tell me there was an accident?

Choi Yoon felt that Park Jae Sun was judging Kim Tae Rin very accurately. Much more than himself, who had only met her recently. Perhaps to an extent he could never catch up to.

“Yes, she’s injured. Kim Tae Rin accompanied as a guardian.”

– I knew it! How many times did I tell her not to give her heart to anyone when she’s about to leave…!

Park Jae Sun started spewing profanities.

Choi Yoon moved the phone away from his ear. He soon put it down on his knee.

It felt strange.

The other party was the one who committed the crime, but somehow he was the one feeling uneasy.

Choi Yoon tried to think rationally.

Some aspects of Kim Tae Rin are clearly good. He thinks she’s a good person.

However, objectively, she was a criminal, and if left alone, she would become a massive disaster.

He disagreed with Park Jae Sun’s argument focusing on society rather than the individual impostor. Choi Yoon chose to disagree. He believed that was common sense and universal.

Only the final confirmation remained.

“She’s a gumiho, right?”

– Can’t you tell by looking at that face? Of course she is.

His mouth felt dry. Blood was seeping from the inside of his lip where he had been biting it.

His father with empty eyes. The giant fox straddling him, mouth wide open. Those eyes turning towards him. Pupils split into bright blue.

It’s the same blood.

His vision went white. It returned when he blinked. Choi Yoon tried hard to breathe properly. He shook his head roughly.

Fortunately, nothing major has happened yet. All he has to do is report it. Report it, and start the filming over from scratch.

The chef doesn’t necessarily have to be Kim Tae Rin. Hiring a suitable cook living in Jangcheon would work well enough. In any case, with me there, we can still generate buzz.

“Now that I’ve confirmed, I’ll hang up.”

– So you’re going to let it slide?

Park Jae Sun blurted out. But he couldn’t completely hide his anxious tone. Now he finally sounded a bit like a criminal.

“Why would I let it slide? I only called to confirm. There’s no reason to delay any further.”

– Then how will you handle the filming? You’ve already sold Tae Rin’s face. You paid money to use her.

He’s referring to the village group photo. The one used to hold onto the public’s attention that was about to evaporate as the protest was halted.

“You’re saying strange things. When money changes hands, it’s usually called an agreement. Not exploitation. I paid…”

He swallowed the end of his sentence. The money had been returned. Just a few hours ago, Kim Tae Rin had deposited it right back into Choi Yoon’s account.

– With that face and that voice of yours proposing, most people would want to agree, wouldn’t they?

He let out a hollow laugh.

It was he himself who had his heart stirred dozens of times a day because of the other’s appearance. That face, those eyes, that voice, that attitude.

It was Choi Yoon himself who had to endure the urge to throw away everything about impostors and full investigations and get intoxicated by reason every few seconds.

Whether in the same space or not. Even at this very moment.

“It’s just one photo. It’s an issue that can be ended as a one-time thing.”

Choi Yoon slowly rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Fatigue washed over him.

How much mental energy had he spent on Kim Tae Rin’s issue so far? How weak.

It was time to clean things up neatly.

– But you uploaded a preview, didn’t you? What was it that I saw?

Choi Yoon froze with his hand still rubbing his eyes.

Ah, now he realized. This strange direction of power.

Park Jae Sun had seen something. That’s why he was confident Choi Yoon couldn’t report Kim Tae Rin, and had been leading the conversation all this time.

His heart beat violently.

He had clearly said it. To Yoo Ji Ho. He had asked several times not to leak the video until he gave the word.

“What preview…?”

– You don’t know what you filmed? It’s on YouTube.

Choi Yoon took the phone away from his ear. He opened YouTube. He went to his official channel.

There was nothing special. Perhaps it was obvious. It was managed by Sun Entertainment, and was a space under Lee Kang Woo’s influence.

Yoo Ji Ho had the recording.

– What will you do? If it had never existed, that’d be one thing, but if Kim Tae Rin drops out now, the attention will plummet.

Damn it. He barely managed to grip the phone that was about to slip.

– You asked me what kind of relationship I have with Tae Rin, but the world is curious about what kind of relationship you have with Tae Rin.

He found and clicked on the channel Yoo Ji Ho manages. It was a space where Yoo Ji Ho directly filmed and edited his daily life with Choi Yoon.

– In this situation, reporting, huh? Go ahead and try it. Just remember one thing.

As soon as he entered, he saw a familiar thumbnail. It was the exterior view of Hanbakkkot Restaurant.

– Even if you don’t bother her, Tae Rin will die anyway. That’s the fate of an impostor.

Park Jae Sun spoke slowly. The relaxed atmosphere from before had vanished, replaced by a sharp edge.

– If you report her, Tae Rin is bound to die anyway, it’ll just be shortened by a few days, but you’ll suffer massive losses.

Choi Yoon checked YouTube again. The view count was enormous. Even considering it was his own video.

It had been uploaded less than an hour ago.

– Besides, wouldn’t you be giving them a justification for the state of emergency? They’re already in an uproar trying to find the escaped impostor, and if they find out another impostor has been living among the few residents for years, who would look at Sosul-ri, Jangcheon-gun, and the protests happening there normally?

He’s right. Damn it.

– From my point of view, it seems you’re the one without options?

No, there must be a way. A way to overcome this situation.

His brain felt like it was about to explode.

To turn this whole situation to his advantage, stop Jeon Min Seok, reclaim control from Lee Kang Woo, and at the same time…

Choi Yoon brought the phone back to his ear.

…a way to make the most use of Kim Tae Rin, who he’s already in the same boat with.

“Even if I can’t report Kim Tae Rin right away, I can report you, Director. I propose a negotiation on the condition that I don’t turn you in to the Center.”

He won’t be able to refuse.

“Hand over the complete list of impostors you’ve operated on to me.”

Sitting on a lobby chair, Kim Tae Rin turned on Choi Yoon’s phone. It was locked. Unlike when she first received it at the protest site.

When face recognition failed, a screen popped up asking for a four-digit passcode. She stared at it blankly.

Four digits.

Choi Yoon’s birthday?

She didn’t think so, but wanted to try. She reached into her cardigan pocket to search on her own phone. There was nothing. The other pocket was the same.

She clicked her tongue. It seemed she had left her phone and car keys in the hospital room.

Just as she was about to get up to go back to the room, something flashed through her mind. She sat back down.

What would be the most important date for Choi Yoon?

It seemed to be vaguely within reach. A moment that Choi Yoon tried to forget but simultaneously couldn’t let go of, as if digging into his own wound.

Every year when that date came around, the villagers all held memorial services at once. That one day burned black in the spring sun as if it had just happened yesterday. That’s why she remembered.

It was around this time.

The gumiho mass murder incident.

Kim Tae Rin slowly pressed the numbers.

0516.

With a weak vibration, the lock screen cleanly unlocked.

She got the home screen she wanted, but Kim Tae Rin couldn’t go further. She just stared at the few apps neatly arranged on the plain default background, as if it had just been activated.

Is this something to remember so deeply?

Does Choi Yoon press this date several times a day out of habit, trying to become numb to it, or struggling to remember it? That upright attitude of embedding the password of his most frequently used phone with a past wound that’s hard to forget was both creepy and pitiful.

She tapped on the call log.

Most were incoming calls. It seemed Choi Yoon didn’t answer often, as many were marked as missed.

The rare instances of exchanged calls were only with Yoo Ji Ho. It was a name Choi Yoon had mentioned a few times. His manager, was it?

When she tapped on Yoo Ji Ho’s name, their call history was sorted out. Each call had an active voice recording playback button.

She couldn’t listen to all of these one by one. Which of these…

She tapped the back of the phone with her fingertips. Her eyes glared at the screen.

…would be Choi Yoon’s weakness?

It was now impossible to escape this country. But she had no intention of sitting idly by and dying. If she was going to die anyway, she intended to burn without reservation.

The goal was singular. A world where Han Seo Jung could breathe and live.

And in her final moments, she was determined not to harm anyone.

No matter how unfair, no matter how much she wanted to overturn everything, even if a chance to live arose by killing someone, she steeled her resolve to perish alone without resentment.

She wanted to die so cleanly as to personally question Choi Yoon about the definition of an impostor.

Then she must survive for now. Being caught and restrained by the Yokai Management Center would make everything impossible.

She needed to grasp Choi Yoon’s weakness. A secret at least equal to, if not surpassing, the information about her that he held.

She had no idea why he was delaying reporting her even though he seemed to know enough about Kim Tae Rin, but in any case, time was running out.

Perhaps he was toying with her in the palm of his hand, knowing that Kim Tae Rin couldn’t go anywhere because Han Seo Jung was injured.

Kim Tae Rin’s hand, which had been quickly scrolling up and down the call history with Yoo Ji Ho, suddenly stopped.

If the two had their most important conversation, when would it have been?

Kim Tae Rin remembered Yoo Ji Ho’s text message. The message he left when Choi Yoon took the microphone on the podium. Almost pouring out like tears.

She found that date. There was indeed a call log. The time was also after Choi Yoon had come down from the podium.

She pressed the play button.

– Are you really crazy, hyung?

– That’s how it turned out.

There was noise as if starting an engine.

– It didn’t just turn out that way, you went there prepared for this from the start!

Kim Tae Rin took the phone away from her ear. She skipped the playback bar to near the end. She brought it back to her ear.

– She seems like a gumiho.

Choi Yoon said again.

– She seems like a gumiho. In my opinion.

– Hyung. Gumihos died out ages ago. Do you think people would just leave such a beautiful creature alone?

– Looks like one Kim Tae Rin remains.

– That’s nonsense.

– It makes sense. Because she’s unbelievably beautiful.

– By that logic, half the celebrities would be gumihos.

– You think I can’t tell the difference? Kim Tae Rin is different. She drives people crazy.

It was hard to breathe. Sitting on the lobby chair, Kim Tae Rin curled her body into a ball.

– I’m going to find out. Find out and…

Choi Yoon’s voice turned sharp in her ear.

– Kill her.