Morning sunlight slipped between gray clouds. I sipped from a convenience store coffee cup that tasted faintly like regret and plastic, staring out the window of the bus as Seoul rolled past in slow motion. The world looked normal a bit.
Work started like it always did. The detective office smelled like instant noodles and cheap air freshener. Kang was already there, his hair as messy as the paperwork on his desk.
"Yo," he greeted without looking up. "You look alive."
"I try my best."
"Coffee?"
I raised my cup. "Got one already."
He sniffed. "That's not coffee. That's an insult."
I laughed, dropping into my chair. "Then you drink it."
He waved me off and went back to his files. Ordinary morning banter. Ordinary world. Ordinary me.
I went to the bathroom around ten. The mirror above the sink had a crack running through the corner, showing and spreading my reflection. I splashed my face with water, leaned in, and looked at myself—hair messy, dark circles, tie slightly crooked.
Typical.
Then the lights flickered.
I blinked. The air went still. No hum of the vent, no sound of running water—just silence, thick and wrong.
I looked up again.
A skeletal hand was reaching out from the mirror.
No shimmer, no ghostly warning—just bone fingers coming out through the glass like it was water. A folded piece of paper rested in its grip.
Every muscle in my body froze.
The hand didn't move. Didn't shake. It just… waited.
For reasons I can't explain, I reached forward and took the paper.
The moment I did, the hand retracted, vanishing without sound. The mirror was whole again—just me, dripping water onto the sink, staring at nothing.
My breath came back in a rush.
I unfolded the paper with trembling fingers.
Meet me at Seoryang Park. 6 p.m.
No name. No explanation.
I stared at the handwriting—it wasn't humanly neat, but it was familiar. Something about the curve of the letters tugged at my memory.
And then I knew.
The knight.
By dusk, the park was half-empty. Couples strolled by, kids kicked soccer balls, an old man fed pigeons that didn't want to be fed.
I stood near the pond, the note in my pocket, the wind tugging gently at my coat.
He appeared without sound—walking down the path like he belonged there. No armor, no mirror, just a man in his late thirties with calm eyes and an air of quiet melancholy.
"Detective," he greeted softly.
"You're alive," I said.
He smiled faintly. "I think so."
We stared at each other for a moment. He looked… ordinary. But there was something behind his eyes—something ancient, worn, like a soul that had seen too much of everything.
"I remember you," he said. "You pulled me out of the dark."
"You were trapped," I replied. "That mirror—"
"—was my prison." His gaze drifted to the pond's surface. "And my punishment."
I hesitated. "What's your name?"
"Min Jae-hyun," he said after a pause, as if remembering. "At least, it used to be."
"You wrote the note?"
He nodded. "I needed to see you. I needed to know if the world outside still existed."
"What do you mean?"
He looked up at the sky, watching the last light fade. "When I was inside that mirror, I saw everything in reverse. Lives replayed, deaths undone, truth twisted. When I awoke, I expected nothing to be real. But you…" He glanced at me. "You were real."
I didn't know how to respond.
We stood there for a long time, talking—about memory, guilt, and the strange weight of surviving. Jae-hyun's voice was soft, almost careful, like each word might shatter if spoken too loud.
When he laughed once, it sounded human again.
Eventually, the park lamps flickered on. He turned toward the light. "Thank you, Mr. Mystery."
I blinked. "What did you call me?"
He smiled, almost knowingly. " The name suits you."
Before I could ask what he meant, he was already walking away, vanishing into the fog curling along the paths.
When I looked again, he was gone.
Later that evening, I met Ha-eun at a small café near Hongdae. The warm air smelled like caramel and roasted beans. She waved when she saw me, her smile bright enough to erase the weirdness of the day.
"You look like you wrestled a ghost again," she teased.
"I've had worse coffee than ghosts."
"That bad, huh?"
We sat by the window, watching people go by. She talked about work, her coworkers, a new show she was watching. I just listened—grateful for her voice grounding me back in something normal.
Halfway through dessert, she looked at me seriously. "You know, sometimes I worry about you."
I tried to joke it off. "Because of my stunning good looks?"
"Because you keep everything inside."
Her tone was soft but firm. I met her eyes and saw the same thing I always did—someone who refused to let me disappear into my own shadows.
"I'm fine," I said quietly.
She smiled faintly. "You always say that."
We left the café hand in hand. For a few minutes, it felt like life was exactly what it was supposed to be.
The next morning, Kang was already chewing a rice ball at his desk when I came in.
"Yo, Jihoon," he said between bites. "You hear the news?"
"Unless it's about budget cuts, no."
He tossed a file across the table. "People have been disappearing again. Different districts, same pattern. No ransom, no bodies, no leads."
I flipped through the reports—blurry CCTV stills, timestamps, missing person forms. The victims had nothing in common. But the dates, the timing… it was almost patterned.
"What's the connection?" I asked.
Kang shrugged. "That's what we're finding out."
We spent hours digging—cross-referencing sightings, maps, last phone signals. The pattern started forming around an unfinished subway line on the outskirts of the city, a construction project halted years ago.
"Abandoned tunnel," Kang said. "Locals say it's haunted."
"Of course they do," I muttered. "Everything's haunted if you look hard enough."
But even as I said it, something about the word tunnel made the back of my neck itch.
By nightfall, the office was empty except for us. Kang leaned back in his chair, stretching. "So tomorrow, we check it out?"
"Yeah," I said absently, staring at the reports. "Tomorrow."
My phone buzzed—Ha-eun again. Get home safe, detective.
I smiled, typing back Always.