Rain did not fall, yet the air felt heavy, as if the sky itself was holding its breath.
I stood still, black fabric clinging to my skin, the scent of incense and damp soil mixing in my lungs. Jao's photograph rested at the center-too calm, too gentle for someone who had died so violently. His smile looked almost foolish now, like he believed the world had been kinder than it ever was.
People whispered.
Reporters lingered at the edge like vultures denied a feast.
Junseo stood beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him-but not close enough to touch. He hadn't said a word since we arrived. His eyes never left the coffin.
Then I felt it.
A shift.
A presence that didn't belong.
I looked up.
Seonghee had arrived.
She wore white-not mourning black. White, like she was innocent. Like she was reborn. Her hair was tied neatly, her posture demure, almost fragile.
But my eyes went straight to her face.
The scar.
A jagged, raw line carved from the bridge of her nose down toward her cheekbone. Still pink. Still angry. Still mine.
My fingers curled inside my sleeves.
She noticed me staring.
And smiled.
It wasn't wide. It wasn't dramatic.
It was victorious.
---
The Scar Wasn't Just a Scar
She walked closer, each step deliberate, her heels clicking against stone like a countdown. Mourners parted for her without knowing why-people always moved for predators without realizing it.
She stopped beside me.
"So," she whispered, voice sweet enough to rot teeth, "you came after all."
I didn't turn to her.
"I always attend funerals," I said quietly. "Especially the ones I helped create."
Junseo stiffened.
Her smile widened just enough to show teeth.
"You really don't know when to stop, do you?"
I finally looked at her.
Up close, the scar was uglier. Not disfiguring-but honest. A mark that told the truth no one else could see.
"You look better with it," I said. "It suits what's inside."
Her eyes flickered.
Just for a second.
That was how I knew the wound went deeper than skin.
---
The Twist Came From Her Mouth
"I visited him," Seonghee said suddenly.
Junseo's head snapped toward her.
"Who?" he asked sharply.
She tilted her head, feigning confusion.
"Jao."
The air froze.
I felt my chest tighten-not from grief, but from something colder.
"When?" I asked.
"Two days before he died," she replied calmly. "We talked for a long time."
Junseo stepped forward.
"You're lying."
She laughed softly.
"Oh? Then why did he leave me this?"
She reached into her bag and pulled out a folded paper.
Jao's handwriting.
My vision blurred for half a second.
She didn't hand it to me. She held it up-just enough for me to recognize the slant, the pressure of his pen.
"He knew," Seonghee continued. "About Myun-hyuk. About you. About everything."
My throat went dry.
"He said," she leaned closer, her breath brushing my ear, "that if anything happened to him... the truth would surface."
---
The Coffin Felt Too Small
Junseo grabbed her wrist.
"What did you do to him?"
Mourners turned. Cameras lifted.
Seonghee gasped dramatically, tears pooling instantly.
"Why would you say that? I came to mourn."
I pulled Junseo back before he could ruin everything.
This wasn't the place.
Not yet.
Seonghee leaned in one last time, voice low and venomous.
"You think you're the only one who knows how to survive by destroying others?" she whispered.
"I learned from watching you."
Then she stepped away, dissolving into the crowd-scar visible, back straight, undefeated.
---
After the Funeral
The coffin was lowered.
Soil hit wood.
Each sound felt final.
Junseo exhaled shakily.
"She's hiding something," he said.
I stared at the ground where Jao rested.
"So was he," I replied.
Junseo turned to me.
"Did you know she would come?"
"No," I said honestly.
Then, after a pause:
"But I knew this wouldn't end with his death."
Because Jao wasn't the end.
He was the message.
And somewhere-between scars, secrets, and smiles too calm for grief-the real war had just begun.
---
The rain thinned to a mist as the funeral progressed, a dull gray veil settling over everything like an apology no one believed. I stood a little apart, black sleeves damp at the cuffs, my eyes fixed on the casket as if staring long enough might force it to deny the truth. Jao's name echoed from murmurs behind me-pity, speculation, accusation braided together. I didn't bow. I didn't cry. Grief, for me, had always been a discipline, something sharpened and hidden, not spilled. When Seonghee arrived, the air shifted. I saw it first-the way people leaned back instinctively, how whispers thinned to a nervous hush. The cut on her face was unmistakable, a raw red line splitting skin that once had nothing to prove. She didn't cover it. She wore it like a verdict. Our eyes met across the wet stone, and something old and feral stirred in my chest-not fear, not guilt, but recognition. The scar was my handwriting, and she knew it.
Junseo stood close without touching me, his presence steady and unbearable in equal measure. He followed my gaze and stiffened when he saw Seonghee, a flicker of something like understanding crossing his face too late to help either of us. The service continued, words about memory and mercy dissolving into the rain. When the priest finished, Seonghee moved-not toward the casket, but toward me. Each step was deliberate, as if she were counting them, as if this walk had been rehearsed in a smaller, darker room. People watched. Cameras clicked. I didn't move. If she wanted a scene, I would not deny her the stage.
She stopped an arm's length away. Up close, the cut looked angrier, the skin swollen, the pain recent. Her eyes were glassy but sharp, reflecting me back in fragments. "You look untouched," she said softly, the words barely lifting over the rain. "Like nothing ever reaches you." I smiled then-not because it was funny, but because it was true. "You should know," I replied just as quietly. "You tried." Her breath hitched, and for a second I thought she might laugh. Instead, she leaned in, close enough that I smelled antiseptic and rain. "He didn't die the way you think," she whispered. "Jao didn't." The sentence slid under my ribs and lodged there, cold and precise.
Before I could answer, before Junseo could intervene, Seonghee straightened and turned to the crowd, her voice rising just enough to be caught. "He loved her," she said, gesturing vaguely-toward me, toward the past, toward the wreckage. "That's why he's dead." Gasps rippled. Reporters surged. Junseo stepped forward at last, placing himself between us, his jaw tight. Seonghee smiled at him then, a small, victorious curve. "Ask her what she promised him," she added, and walked away, leaving the sentence to detonate on its own.
The funeral dissolved into chaos. Questions rained harder than the water. I felt Junseo's hand brush my sleeve-hesitant, grounding. "Is it true?" he asked, not accusing, not defending. Just asking. I looked back at the casket, at the earth waiting to close, and realized the twist Seonghee had left behind wasn't about Jao's death. It was about survival. If Jao wasn't dead the way we believed-if his end had been staged, delayed, rerouted-then every move I'd made since had been anticipated by someone who knew me too well. Someone who understood that I never stopped. I never surrendered. I only changed directions.
Later, when the crowd thinned and the rain finally stopped, I stood alone by the grave. The silence felt staged too. My phone vibrated once in my palm-a number I didn't recognize, a message without words. Just a location pin. Somewhere near the water. Somewhere unfinished. I closed my eyes and let the smallest crack of emotion slip through-not sorrow, not relief, but a dark, electric certainty. If Jao was alive, then the game hadn't ended in blood after all. It had only learned how to breathe underwater.
The moment I noticed the scar, my breath faltered-not outwardly, not where anyone could see, but somewhere deep inside my ribs, where even grief hesitates to enter.
Seonghee stood a few steps away from the mourners, dressed in black that was a shade too tight, too deliberate, as if even mourning had become something she wanted to wear. The cut on her face had healed badly. It ran from the bridge of her nose toward her cheek, jagged and unmistakable, a thin red line that refused to disappear no matter how much powder she had pressed over it. It was my work. My violence. My survival. And the way her fingers trembled as she held the funeral flowers told me she remembered every second of that day by the pool.
Our eyes met.
She smiled.
It wasn't wide. It wasn't warm. It was the kind of smile that lives only to remind you that the past never stays buried.
Around us, people whispered-reporters murmuring theories, mourners exchanging pity that tasted more like curiosity. Jao's photograph stood at the front, garlanded and framed, his smile frozen in a time before loyalty had cost him his life. I wondered, distantly, whether he would hate me for standing here so calmly, dressed perfectly, beside the man who had once loved me and now watched me like I was something he could still lose.
Junseo leaned closer, his voice low. "You don't have to stay long."
I nodded, but I didn't move. Funerals are strange like that-they trap you between guilt and relief, between what you owe the dead and what you still want from the living. And I wanted something. I always did.
Seonghee stepped forward.
Each of her footsteps felt deliberate, almost rehearsed. When she reached me, she bowed slightly, polite enough to fool the cameras, close enough that only I could hear her breathing.
"You look thinner," she said softly. "Jail does that to people."
I tilted my head, studying her face the way an artist studies a cracked mirror. "You look different too," I replied. "Pain suits you. It stays."
Her jaw tightened. For a second, the smile slipped-and in that instant, I saw it: not hatred, not grief, but anticipation.
"You know," she whispered, eyes flicking briefly toward Junseo before returning to me, "the dead talk more than you think."
A chill crawled up my spine.
Before I could respond, she straightened and turned to the mourners, pressing her hand dramatically over her heart. "Jao was kind," she said aloud, voice trembling just enough to sound convincing. "Too kind for people like us."
People nodded. Cameras clicked.
And then-she did it.
She stepped aside, clearing the line of sight between me and the crowd, and spoke again, louder this time.
"I only wish," she continued, "that those who used him would finally tell the truth."
The air changed. I felt it-the way predators feel silence before the strike.
Reporters turned. Questions rose like sparks. Junseo stiffened beside me, his hand hovering as if unsure whether to protect me or pull away. I smiled, slowly, because panic had never suited me.
Seonghee met my gaze one last time, her eyes shining-not with tears, but with victory.
And that was when I understood the twist I hadn't seen coming.
She didn't come to mourn Jao.
She came to inherit his story.
Whatever he had known-whatever he had said, written, recorded-it wasn't buried with him. It was alive, moving, and walking away from me in borrowed grief and black lace.
As the funeral rites continued and incense curled into the sky, I stood perfectly still, my face calm, my heart calculating.
This wasn't the end.
This was the moment the dead stopped protecting the living.
And I knew-absolutely, terrifyingly-that the next truth to surface would not destroy Seonghee.
It would come for me.
The moment I noticed Seonghee, the air around the funeral shifted-subtle, but unmistakable, like the pressure change before a storm. She stood a little apart from the others, dressed in black that was too carefully chosen, too intentional. The scar on her face was impossible to miss. It cut through her features like a cruel signature, running from the bridge of her nose toward her cheek. My scar. My doing. And yet, the way she held herself-chin lifted, eyes sharp-made it clear she didn't see herself as a victim anymore. She saw herself as someone unfinished.
The incense smoke curled lazily into the grey sky as mourners whispered behind their hands. I could feel their eyes on me, weighing me, measuring how a woman like me could stand so still at the funeral of a man who had died because of the world I dragged him into. Junseo stood beside me, silent, his presence steady but distant, like a wall I wasn't sure I deserved to lean on. I didn't cry. I had already done that somewhere far deeper, where tears no longer surfaced.
Seonghee's gaze met mine. For a brief second, the noise disappeared. No reporters. No prayers. No murmurs. Just the two of us, bound by bloodshed and resentment. Her lips curved-not into a smile, but into something colder. Something knowing.
So she survived, I thought. And not just physically.
She walked closer, each step deliberate, as if she were reclaiming ground she believed was once hers. People parted instinctively, sensing the tension without understanding it. When she stopped a few feet away, I could smell the faint antiseptic clinging to her skin, the kind hospitals never quite wash off. Her eyes flicked briefly to Junseo, then back to me.
"You look... free," she said softly, her voice barely carrying over the wind.
I almost laughed. Instead, I answered calmly, "And you look alive. That's impressive, considering everything."
Her fingers twitched at her side, instinctively moving as if remembering the knife, the pain, the humiliation. "You took everything from me," she whispered. "My face. My name. My future."
I met her stare without flinching. "No," I replied. "I just stopped letting you take mine."
Junseo shifted beside me, tension tightening his shoulders, but I lifted a hand slightly-just enough to stop him. This was not his battle. This was the echo of mine.
Before Seonghee could respond, cameras suddenly surged forward. Reporters shouted questions, their voices overlapping, sharp and invasive.
"Miss Ajin! Is it true you were the last person Jao spoke to?"
"Do you believe this murder is connected to Myun Hyuk?"
"Is Seonghee involved?"
I turned slowly, my expression settling into something unreadable. I had worn this face before-on stages, on screens, in courtrooms. A face that gave nothing away. "Today," I said clearly, "is about the dead. Not the living who want attention."
The words landed heavier than I expected. Even the reporters hesitated.
Behind me, I felt Seonghee stiffen. When I glanced back, her eyes were burning-not with grief, but with resolve. And that was when I understood the twist fate was quietly preparing: Seonghee hadn't come here to mourn. She had come to declare herself. Not as a victim. Not as a survivor. But as someone who still wanted a place in my story-whether I allowed it or not.
As the coffin was lowered into the ground, soil striking wood with dull finality, I realized something unsettling. Jao's death wasn't an ending. It was a signal.
The board had been reset.
And every piece that remained-Seonghee, Junseo, Myun Hyuk, and me-was still very much in play.