[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
The morning sun was a lie. It filtered through the luxurious villa's windows, promising a new day, a fresh start, but for Jo Yu-ri, the previous night hadn't ended. She remained trapped in the darkness, in the cold of the Han River.
She had spent the night in a state of semi-sleep, curled up on a sofa that cost more than her father's first car, wearing a dead man's black hoodie. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his fall. Every time she opened them, she saw her friends' faces, filled with a concern that felt distant, as if they were speaking to her through thick glass.
On television, the media circus was in full swing, but it was a domesticated circus. The official narrative had solidified: a "serious malfunction during an anti-terrorism security drill" had led to a chase and the "tragic disappearance of a foreign specialist." There was no mention of unmarked war helicopters, nor armed men chasing anyone. The truth had been buried under a mountain of press releases and "anonymous sources."
Yu-ri felt a strange, bitter possessiveness over the truth. The world mourned the loss of an anonymous "specialist." But she mourned the loss of a man she didn't know, who had sacrificed himself for her. The world saw a tragic accident. She saw the end of a heroic, desperate act. She was the guardian of his true ending, and that knowledge was a lonely, heavy burden.
Mr. Choi moved in and out of the room, talking on the phone in frantic whispers, managing the tsunami of the crisis. Min-jun tried to make her eat something, but the food tasted like ash. Ho-yeon sat beside her in silence for an hour, a comforting presence that demanded nothing. They were her family, her anchor, but she felt a part of herself had detached and now floated in a distant orbit they couldn't reach. She was connected to a ghost, and that isolated her from the world of the living.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEE JUNG-JAE - THIRD PERSON]
Lee Jung-jae watched the group with the weary gaze of a general after a lost battle. They had survived, yes, but everyone had wounds. Yu-ri's were the most visible, a layer of shock enveloping her like a shroud. But the others were also affected. Min-jun's youthful carefree attitude had evaporated, replaced by a grim seriousness. Ho-yeon's elegance was tinged with a new caution. Even Mr. Choi, beneath his professional frenzy, seemed to have aged ten years.
Jung-jae felt responsible. He was the "sunbae," the elder, the de facto leader of this group of stars. And they had been dragged into something that no amount of fame or money could prepare them for. The lie they had agreed to tell the police weighed on his conscience. It felt like a betrayal of the man who had bought their safety with his own life. But Choi's logic was undeniable. The truth was a poison that would consume them. Their silence was a shield.
He was pouring a cup of tea for Yu-ri when Inspector Park was announced by one of the company's security guards. He didn't come alone.
[POINT OF VIEW: WI HA-JOON - THIRD PERSON]
Wi Ha-joon was the first to notice something was different. Inspector Park entered the room with his usual air of tired authority, but behind him came a second figure that instantly changed the room's atmosphere.
Her face was not visible.
She was a person of medium height, draped in a long, charcoal cashmere coat, despite the morning warmth. A wide-brimmed felt hat cast an impenetrable shadow over her face, completely concealing her features. Her hands, encased in black leather gloves, held a thin, expensive-looking aluminum briefcase. She moved with silent, confident fluidity, an economy of motion that screamed discipline and danger. She wasn't police. She wasn't a government agent in the traditional sense. She was... something else.
Ha-joon, whose instinct for analyzing people was as sharp as his detective character's, noticed the subtle deference in Inspector Park's posture. The police officer, a man clearly in charge, stayed half a step behind this figure. It wasn't a superior-to-subordinate relationship, but rather that of a local guide showing respect to a powerful visitor from a completely different world.
The group fell silent. All eyes were on the newcomer, whose presence was like a black hole, absorbing all the light and sound from the room.
"Good morning," Inspector Park said, his voice sounding unnaturally normal. "There are a few things we need to discuss. I appreciate your cooperation." He gestured towards the shadowed figure. "This person is here to provide some context. I ask you to listen carefully."
[POINT OF VIEW: GROUP - THIRD PERSON]
The figure in the hat said nothing. She approached the marble coffee table and, with a precise movement, placed the aluminum briefcase on it. She opened it with a soft click. Inside were no documents, but a state-of-the-art tablet, thin and without any visible logo. She turned it on and laid it on the table, the screen facing the group.
"Last night, you were caught in the final phase of a long-term operation," Inspector Park began, choosing his words with utmost care. "The information I am about to share with you is highly classified. It does not officially exist. What is said in this room, dies in this room. Understood?"
Everyone nodded slowly, their eyes moving from the inspector to the silent figure and back.
"The man you met last night," Park continued, "the man who... jumped. He was not a terrorist. He was not a spy for a government agency. He was something far rarer and, in many ways, more problematic."
He paused, letting the tension build.
"He was a treasure hunter."
The statement hung in the air, so strange and out of place that Min-jun let out a nervous laugh that died instantly.
"His name... well, he used many," Park said. "But the alias by which he was best known in certain circles, by both those who admired him and those who hated him, was Leo."
The name struck Jo Yu-ri with the force of a physical impact. Leo. The ghost had a name. It gave him a form, a reality that made him even more tragic.
The figure in the hat slid a gloved finger across the tablet's screen. An image appeared, bright and vivid.
The photo showed a younger Leo, perhaps in his early twenties. He was covered in mud from head to toe, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, but on his face was a dazzling, genuine smile, full of life. He was in some kind of jungle ruin, and in his hands, he held a golden sun-shaped idol that seemed to glow with its own light.
"Peru, five years ago," Inspector Park said. "The Inca Sun Idol. Believed lost since the 16th century. A local drug cartel was using it as an offering in their private shrines. Leo infiltrated their jungle compound, snatched it right under their noses, and escaped down the Amazon River while being pursued by speedboats. The idol mysteriously appeared on the doorstep of the National Museum of Archaeology in Lima a week later."
Yu-ri stared at the smile in the photo. It was a smile she had never seen on him. It was the smile of a man who loved what he did, who lived for the thrill.
The figure changed the image.
The new photo was a brutal contrast. An endless desert under a scorching sun. Leo, dressed in sand-colored tactical gear, rappelled down a dark crevice in the rocky ground, the invisible entrance to a tomb.
"Egypt, three years ago," Park continued. "The lost tomb of Neferkare. He was competing against the Helix Corporation." Hearing the name, everyone tensed. "They wanted the Scepter of Osiris, an artifact rumored to contain ancient alchemical texts. Helix arrived with a private army. Leo arrived with a rope and a pickaxe. He found thecepter first. He blew up the tomb entrance so they couldn't follow him, leaving them trapped in a sandstorm."
The next image was even more extreme. An arctic landscape, white and infinite. Leo sped across on a snowmobile, a dark figure against the blinding whiteness. Behind him, two armored military vehicles, bearing the red star of Russian forces, pursued him, kicking up clouds of snow.
"Arctic Circle, last year. The Midnight Sun Brooch, a Viking artifact that sank with a longship a thousand years ago. It was perfectly preserved under the ice. The Russian government wanted to claim it as a national treasure and cover up the discovery. Leo extracted it using thermite charges to melt the ice. The chase lasted two days."
Wi Ha-joon was fascinated. The skill, the audacity, the sheer madness of it all... He was beginning to understand the man. He wasn't just a thief; he was an artist of the impossible.
The figure in the hat showed one last photo. This one impacted Yu-ri the most. It was in Monaco, in what looked like the storeroom of a luxurious auction house. Leo wore an impeccable tuxedo, though it was now wrinkled and stained. His lip was split, and his bow tie was askew, and he was locked in a brutal fight with a massive, bald-headed man. In the background, a shattered display case was visible.
"Six months ago," the figure in the hat said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was that of an older woman, a low, smoky whisper, filled with absolute authority. "The Verdian Codex. A manuscript believed burned. It was going to be sold at a private auction to an arms dealer who thought it contained cryptographic keys. Leo thought that was a bad idea."
The room was silent, everyone processing the incredible, movie-like life they had just witnessed in four photographs.
"Why?" Yu-ri finally whispered, her voice barely audible. "Why did he do all this? Was it for money?"
The figure in the hat stared at her, or at least Yu-ri felt her attention fixed on her from the darkness beneath the hat's brim.
"Sometimes for money, yes. Living like that is expensive," the woman said in her low voice. "Other times, for the pure, unadulterated thrill of the chase. He loved to win." She paused, and her voice softened a fraction. "But most of the time, he did it because he believed, in his strange, twisted way, that these things did not belong in the hands of the men who sought them. He hated bullies. He hated people who used power and wealth to steal history and hoard it in their private basements. He had... a code. Flawed and often contradictory, but a code nonetheless."
She stood, her movement fluid and silent. "He thought history belongs to all of us, not to those who can pay for it or kill for it."
She turned towards the door, Inspector Park following her like a shadow. She stopped at the threshold and turned back to them one last time.
"Last night, Leo encountered something he could not steal and an enemy he could not outmaneuver. And instead of dragging you into his world, he chose to pay the price himself."
Her voice was a final warning. "Now you know. You know the kind of world you peered into. My advice, the same as Inspector Park's, is to forget you ever looked through that window. Leo paid a very, very high price to close it for you. Do not let his sacrifice be in vain."
And with that, she left, disappearing down the hallway and leaving behind a silence filled with unanswered questions and a truth too big to be contained in that room.
They stared at the now-blank tablet screen. The ghost had a name. He had a story. He had a smiling, mud-covered face, and a bruised face in a tuxedo. Jo Yu-ri closed her eyes, and for the first time, she didn't see his fall. She saw his smile in the jungle. And the weight of her debt became, if possible, even heavier.