PTT - 1

Sometimes, Yoo Raon thought that the night was more beautiful than the day. The city was dazzling, so much so that it was hard to believe it was already past midnight.

The high-rise buildings sparkled, and the flashy neon signs shouted silently as if begging to be seen. The dry wind seeped deep into her bones.

And there, he was.

The man standing with the night view as a backdrop looked like a painting, though it might sound cliché. Wearing a long black coat that reached his calves, he had hair darker than the night sky.

His dark, deep black hair, which seemed to allow no hint of impurity, suited him perfectly.

Time was running out.

Breathing heavily, Raon gripped the pistol hidden in her jacket. The cold metal felt too chilling in her hand.

She had to fire immediately.

Instinct and reason were both giving the same answer. However, the biggest problem was her heart. It felt like a heavy stone was pressing down on her chest.

“Sometimes, I think...”

The man, who had been looking down silently for a while, finally spoke. They were on the rooftop of the most famous hotel in Seoul, the Lettucia Hotel.

If he took just a few more steps, he would fall straight down from over thirty floors.

How long would it take to hit the cement floor? At most, ten seconds. Life was so fragile.

“Our love feels like bungee jumping without a rope.”

“Team Leader.”

“When you fall, you’re engulfed by an extreme euphoria. A rush of adrenaline stronger than anything you’ve ever felt in life. But the end...”

“Baek Siheon.”

Her voice, lowered from suppressing her emotions, broke off the sentence. Baek Siheon turned his body and looked at Raon. Their unstable gazes collided in midair.

In this moment, she couldn’t understand the purpose behind his words.

Was he saying that their love, knowing the end, would be like a moth jumping into a flame—tragic, and both would fall apart together?

Raon unconsciously narrowed her brows. As if reading her mind, Siheon curved his lips into a crescent smile.

“What about you? Do you think the ending is already decided?”

“Cut the crap. Let’s get to the point. We don’t have time.”

“You remember the plan, right, Yoo Raon?”

“...”

Raon bit her lower lip tightly and tightened her grip on the gun. How could she forget? She remembered it all too well.

With her arm extended straight, she aimed the gun at the target. Through the sight, she saw Siheon’s chest, blurry in the crosshairs.

For the past twenty-seven years, Yoo Raon had pulled the trigger thousands, even tens of thousands, of times. Yet, her right hand, holding the gun, trembled slightly, a thing she couldn’t control.

“Right here. One shot to the heart.”

“Can I ask you one last thing?”

“You don’t have time for that.”

Siheon repeated Raon’s words. At the same time, the sound of a helicopter echoed from afar.

In exactly thirty seconds, the helicopter would land on the helipad here. Unless something unexpected happened, the mission would be completed perfectly.

As the night wind brushed against her cheek, her short hair fluttered lightly, almost touching her shoulder. The emotions she had tightly suppressed began to make their presence known. Her lips moved, but regret lingered.

“Do you trust me?”

It was a question she hadn’t been able to voice for a long time. Siheon spread his arms.

The faint smile on his lips was an unspoken answer. It was, in fact, a meaningless question. The mission itself was impossible without absolute trust from the beginning.

“...”

Raon slowly lowered her eyelids. The moment her finger fully curled on the trigger...

Bang! The loud gunshot struck her ears. Baek Siheon, who had been tilting his head with a smile at the corner of his mouth, staggered backward. His fall was completely silent.

Raon, breathing out in white clouds, tilted her head back. Tonight, the pitch-black sky seemed unusually bright. The night, even when she had reunited with Siheon, had been as bright as day.

A memory less than half a year old filled her mind like fog.

Pull the Trigger

“Target confirmed. Maintaining a 50m radius while tracking.”

January 20, 2022, 7:30 PM. Seoul Riverside Hotel. The ‘World IT Business Night’ event was a gathering of hundreds of business leaders from both domestic and international companies, discussing visions for the future.

While it was framed as an event to dream of a shared future, beneath the surface, unspoken deals were being made.

Most of the discussions involved actions that crossed the line between legal and illegal. Among them, the most notorious was the act of selling domestic semiconductor technology to foreign companies.

It was the National Intelligence Service’s job to uncover these industrial spies. And right now, second-year agent Yoo Raon was on the verge of a successful operation.

“…Huff.”

Wearing a waiter’s uniform, she adjusted her microphone. The commands that had been relayed through her earpiece no longer echoed in her ears. All that was left was to gather solid evidence on-site and identify the culprit.

Her small taser, hidden under her vest for emergencies, felt unusually heavy.

With her lips firmly pressed together, Raon followed a middle-aged man in his 50s. She moved silently, without a sound, like a shadow. The man, who couldn’t hide his nervousness and kept glancing around, was Manager Choi from the leading domestic semiconductor company, ‘Doban.’

According to her informants, Choi had become noticeably despondent a year before his retirement. Then, an unidentified foreign company reached out to him, making a timely move.

Raon already knew which hotel room he would meet his contact in. She had hacked his phone’s text message records.

To ensure she collected undeniable evidence, Raon had placed a tiny camera and recorder in that room a few hours earlier. Given that semiconductors made up a large portion of exports, preventing any technological leakage was crucial.

Tap, tap.

Finally, Manager Choi stopped in front of room 7124. A cautious knock echoed twice. Once he entered the room and closed the door, Raon stepped out from behind the wall.

The target was almost in sight. She quickly moved, scanning both sides.

At that moment, a low voice called out from behind her.

“Hey.”

Raon froze. It was the voice of a man, likely in his 20s or 30s. Had one of Choi’s people spotted her?

A sharp silence cut through the air. Her mouth went dry, and her throat felt tight.

In an instant, Raon’s mind raced. She lowered her hand toward her vest. Strictly speaking, she was reaching for the taser hidden underneath.

“Mind if I take a look at you? I think we need to talk.”

When no answer came, the unidentified man lightly tapped her shoulder with his index finger. At that moment, Raon instinctively realized that he was not an ordinary person.

It was a sixth sense she had honed from years of practicing shooting. Her instincts had been sharpened to their highest point through the intense training she underwent at the National Intelligence Service.

Click. It was as if a red switch had been flipped in her mind.

Raon silently processed the possible scenarios. Based on the sound of the voice, the man was likely taller than her by a head or two.

If he wasn’t an ordinary person, the chances of winning in a hand-to-hand fight were slim. Her earpiece remained silent.

‘In that case...’

She had to handle this flawlessly, with no margin for error. Raon held her breath, and her eyes briefly lost their light.

In one swift motion, she pulled out the taser from her vest and quickly spun around. The movement took less than a second.

However, the man’s reflexes were beyond that of an ordinary person. As if he had already sensed that she was going to aim the taser, he twisted her left wrist and snatched the weapon from her hand.

“Ugh...!”

“Seems like you’re not ready for the field just yet, Agent Yoo Raon.”

Her wrist throbbed from the unexpected twist, but it wasn’t enough to immobilize her. As pain coursed up her forearm, Raon lowered her head, feeling a chill run down her spine.

The man knew who she was.

As she instinctively lifted her gaze, a deep confusion spread across her face. Her eyes, once dull and devoid of light, flickered like a candle flame in the wind.

“......”

It had been exactly five years since she last felt such an unreal sensation.

Without even thinking of composing her expression, Raon parted her lips slightly. It felt as if her heart was plummeting into an endless abyss.

After what felt like ten hours, but was only a few seconds, she finally spoke.

“Senior... Baek Siheon?”

“Would it be too clichéd to say I missed you?”

Only then did the man’s appearance come into focus. Standing at 190 cm, his features were as if carved by the gods themselves. His hair, neatly combed without a strand out of place, was still as jet black as it had been back then.

His straight forehead, the nose that followed it, and the deep-set eyes were all imbued with the maturity that came with time. His lips, shaped like a crescent moon, were exactly as she remembered.

Even after five long years, Baek Siheon was still Baek Siheon.

“......”

She couldn’t stop the heat that rose in her eyes. Why was he here? Why was he bringing up a past she had struggled so hard to forget?

He had disappeared from her life without a word, and yet, damn it, he still looked so good.

“You bastard.”

Raon clenched her fist, holding back tears as she gritted her teeth.