I thought I’d never return to this place of my own free will, but I finally did.

I looked up at the Songun Art Hall bathed in the damp shadows of the night.

The bus ride back to the city was usually spent in a half-asleep daze.

Not only for me, but also for all my colleagues. Exhausted from the weekend’s performances, people would fall asleep as soon as the bus left and wake up just before arriving in Seoul.

But this time I couldn’t sleep a wink.

With my eyes wide open, I drifted endlessly through memories of the past.

It felt just like that day – the day Eun-sae left.

It felt just like that day—the day I boarded the plane home after sending Eun-sae go.

I tried to force myself to sleep, hoping to give my mind a rest, but the more I tried, the clearer my head became.

How long had he known I was Hyun Seo-hae?

Why did he go along with my lies when he could see through them?

What was his intention?

Questions I couldn’t answer spun around in my head like a wheel.

I was also confused as to what I had been doing all this time.

How ridiculous I must have looked. How stupid I must have looked.

If only he had laughed in my face from the beginning, asked me what kind of show this was – told me that he knew all along that I was Eun-sae’s twin sister.

But instead, he pretended to be fooled by my clumsy act and called me by Eun-sae’s name.

What was he hiding behind that calm face?

The more I revisited the past, the more ashamed I felt.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to thrash and writhe.

And I was afraid.

What if there was something missing?

If that was the case, wouldn’t that make Lee Seol-won, who seemed to know my every move, the one I really couldn’t trust?

If he knew who I was from the beginning, it wouldn’t have been hard to fool me… It wasn’t that I had successfully deceived anyone, I was the one being deceived.

By now it felt like I was being punished.

For letting my guard down, for overestimating myself, and finally for trusting the wrong person.

By the time we arrived in Seoul, my head was pounding from all the suspicion and doubt I had been wrestling with.

“You all worked hard.”

“Wednesday’s schedule is the same as last week’s, so don’t come to practice tomorrow – get some rest.”

“Get home safe, everyone!”

We had an extra day off to really rest, but I didn’t feel happy.

No, I was the only one who wasn’t happy.

Surrounded by colleagues cheering with excitement, I tried not to let my face betray how heavy I felt.

Tired from the long journey, my teammates – with sleep still clinging to their faces – said their goodbyes and drifted off one by one.

I left my gayageum in the training room and stopped at a pharmacy to buy some painkillers.

On the spot, I opened the bottle and took some, then got on the subway out of habit – only to catch myself.

“Oh, right. I found a goshiwon.”

I almost went back to the mansion without thinking.

Come to think of it, that SUV… It’s not here today.

With the surveillance vehicle also gone, I was briefly tempted to return to the villa – a place far more familiar and comfortable than the cramped, uncomfortable Goshiwon.

But there was no guarantee that even the area near the villa complex was safe, so in the end I changed course.

The moment I entered the room of the barely two-pyeong goshiwon, a wave of suffocating discomfort hit me.

My chest already felt tight, and now that my vision was blocked, I couldn’t bear to sit still.

I sat on the bed, lay down, got up, walked in circles around the tiny room – and when that wasn’t enough, I rushed out and climbed up and down the stairs countless times.

Even then, the fear that clung to me as if I were being hunted refused to go away.

Unable to bear it any longer, I grabbed my bag, left the goshiwon, and got on public transportation.

I didn’t know where I was going, but somehow my steps would lead me to a destination – even one I didn’t know myself.

And so I ended up at the Songun Art Hall.

But when I got there, I realized that I still had no idea what to do.

I was wandering aimlessly, no less lost than before.

The person who held the answers to all my questions was here, but even when I faced Lee Seol-won, I had nothing to say.

After all, I was the one who started it all, the one who pretended to be Eun-sae and deceived him first.

Since I was the one who made the first mistake, what right did I have to ask him why he was playing along with my charade?

Besides, I had already said goodbye to Lee Seol-won.

—”No, let’s never see each other again.”

That was a very shortsighted thing to say.

After turning my back on him so resolutely, it was more than embarrassing to hover around him again. I felt completely ashamed.

‘This isn’t right.’

I walked up and down the path by the art hall, but the weight of my self-reproach became unbearable, so I decided to just go back to the goshiwon.

That’s when it happened.

A man with a hat pulled down low over his face approached me and casually threw an arm over my shoulder as if we were close.

“Who are you?”

I asked in a low voice because of the cold blade the stranger had silently pressed against my side.

There was a fleeting glimmer of bluish light – then the taut surface of my padded jacket ripped like paper, and the stuffing spilled out in a soft swirl.

The attacker slipped the tip of the knife under my coat and began tapping the sharp point against my ribs.

There wasn’t much time or space to carry many belongings, so I had brought only a few changes of clothes to the goshiwon.

Under the padded jacket, I wore only a single, not too thick sweatshirt.

With only this thin fabric between us, the sharp edge of the blade scraped ominously along my waist.

The fine hairs on the back of my neck were damp with sweat.

The way he handled the knife was no amateur’s touch.

I didn’t have to ask what kind of world he came from.

If Lee Jae-kwang was a man who lived recklessly and shamelessly immorally in private, but pretended to be a good-natured, hard-working heir in public, faithfully performing his corporate duties under the mask of a respectable citizen, then this man was someone who didn’t even need a mask.

He was a danger to himself.

The attacker brought his lips close to my cheek.

“Let’s go quietly. As long as you behave, there’s no reason for you to get hurt.”

His whisper was sticky and low, but the grip on my shoulder was anything but gentle – it was forceful and firm.

I shifted my eyes, scanning the area for anyone who might be able to help.

But as luck would have it, an impromptu busking performance had just begun on the outdoor stage, and most of the nearby patrons had flocked over to watch.

Of course, there were probably still people out for an evening stroll who weren’t interested in the performance.

But none of them were close enough to notice what was happening – or to recognize it as a danger.

To anyone watching from a distance, the attacker and I probably looked no different than an ordinary couple walking closely together.

I couldn’t shake the suspicion that he was hiding somewhere in the art hall, watching me all the time, deliberately waiting for the crowd to thin out before approaching.

No, at this point it was almost a certainty.

I clutched my bag tightly to my chest.

Ever since the SUV started following me and monitoring my movements, I had gotten into the habit of recording my surroundings with the camera in my bag every time I went out.

I hugged the bag tighter so that the conversation would be recorded more clearly, steadying my voice to keep it from shaking.

The weight of the bag pressing against my chest helped slow my racing heartbeat, if only a little.

“Did he send you?”

“You catch on quick.”

The attacker didn’t deny it.

It seemed that Lee Jae-kwang, who had grown impatient with me avoiding him and refusing to come home, had finally sent someone to do his bidding.

If that was the case, then this knife was less about immediate damage and more about intimidation.

At least I wouldn’t be stabbed here and now.

Even in the haze of fear, I clung to that small shred of reassurance.

“It hurts. Let go. I’ll walk on my own.”

Escape was impossible anyway.

It wasn’t the time I would have chosen, but Lee Jae-kwang was someone I would have to face sooner or later.

Besides, now that Lee Seol-won knew my secret, I had to find out how much Lee Jae-kwang had found out as well.

The two of them didn’t seem close enough to share secrets, even as cousins, but if Seol-won had realized who I really was, then Jae-kwang, who had been deeply involved with Eun-sae, might have his suspicions, too.

Even though I had clearly expressed my willingness to cooperate, the attacker didn’t loosen his grip on my shoulder.

As I twisted my shoulder from the pain of his digging fingers, the knife stabbed sharply into my side.

The attacker dragged me, almost as if holding me, toward a vehicle parked at the entrance to the art hall.

It was a car I had never seen before.

At this point, I had no idea how many different vehicles they’d used to keep an eye on me.

As soon as we got there, the back door was thrown open and an arm shot out from inside, grabbing my forearm roughly and pulling me inside.

The man holding the knife shoved me from behind and I was dragged into the back seat like a piece of luggage.