“Uh, your face is…”
“…There’s no way it’s red!”
“I didn’t say it turned red? I just said you looked flustered….”
At my words, Pi So-won’s face turned just a little—the tiniest bit—red.
Watching her, I turned my head away.
And then pressed down my laughter.
“Don’t cry if I leave.”
Pi Sowon huffed and let out a sigh as if she were annoyed.
“…I’m not crying.”
Thinking I might actually get hit at this rate, I told her the truth.
“I told them I’m not going.”
“What?”
Pi Sowon’s face contorted.
“Why on earth?”
“Just… it felt a bit burdensome?”
I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Because I saw how the special team gets disbanded in the original work.’
I mumbled, trying to brush it off vaguely.
“The Hunter Administration Bureau… seems like suuuch a huge place, and it feels like there’d be so much work, and it’d hurt if I got injured while working with such amazing Hunters…”
But somehow, the longer my excuses went on, the more subtle Pi Sowon’s expression became.
“……You decided to stay for a pathetic reason like that?”
“Yes. Well… and…”
Were my excuses too one-dimensional?
As I tried to come up with a more plausible excuse, one thought popped into my head.
The words I had said to the Commissioner earlier.
“I like the Hunter Investigation Bureau.”
I don’t know why those words suddenly popped out.
To be honest, the Hunter Investigation Bureau wasn’t exactly a place I desperately wanted to join.
Watching my parents, who were former police officers, I did have passing thoughts like, ‘Maybe I should apply to the police force when I retire from sports?’ But the Investigation Bureau isn’t exactly the regular police force, is it?
For me, the HIB was merely the best option available for an F-rank Hunter who had finished a mediocre sports career.
But now that I said it—
‘Maybe I really did want to join the Hunter Investigation Bureau.’
Catching bad guys, handcuffing them, doing car chases, looking cool—
I suppose I did have some vague fantasy about being a police officer.
Hearing my words, Pi Sowon remained silent for a moment before asking,
“Are you… not going to regret it?”
“Regret it? What’s there to regret…”
I made this decision because I didn’t want to go to jail in the first place, you know?
Then, Pi Sowon nodded her head like someone who had made a resolution.
“Fine. I get it.”
It was then.
A loud ringtone suddenly rang from the backseat.
[To the unknown world beyond the glass window~]
Isn’t this a Melodians song?
The moment I thought that, the ringtone cut off, and Byeon Gudo’s voice could be heard.
“Ah, yes. Yes. Yes.”
…?
“Ah… is that so? Ah, okay. Please send me the address. Yep.”
When I looked back, Byeon Gudo, having hung up the phone, looked back and forth between Pi Sowon and me with a mysterious expression.
“Oh. I just got a call.”
“Weren’t you sleeping?”
When I asked, Byeon Gudo tilted his head.
“I was… but I woke up when you guys started eating red ginseng.”
‘This ghost-like human.’
My face stiffened.
He must have heard everything.
“I turned off my music starting from when you said you received a special team offer from the Commissioner, too.”
Then, Ma Deokho’s voice could be heard from behind as well.
You weren’t sleeping but listening to music? I should break those damn headsets of yours. They’re so confusing!
‘Why is my entire team finding out about my scouting news…!’
I felt sweat running down my back.
“That’s cheap, Team Leader. Are you only taking care of your partner and not giving me any red ginseng?”
Then, Byeon Gudo directed his arrow at Pi Sowon.
I don’t think that’s the important part here…
‘He’s just slyly brushing over it?’
It was when I was wondering.
“Of course.”
Pi Sowon opened the sunglasses holder again, took out a squeeze-tube red ginseng, put it in her mouth, and said,
“This is only for my partner and me to eat.”
Hah. Wow.
The moment I heard those words, my heart tickled strangely.
I was recognized as a true partner.
I don’t want to be moved by a mere red ginseng from that psychopath, but…
‘It’s touching!’
Hmph.
It was when I was having such thoughts.
Byeon Gudo’s phone rang loudly once again.
[To the unknown world beyond the glass~]
“Yes. Chief. Yes? Already? No, but why are you giving that to me and not the Team Leader… Yes? Even the Team Leader?”
Byeon Gudo’s face stiffened in an instant as he talked on the phone.
At the same time, Chief Hong’s troubled voice leaked slightly through the receiver.
[Yeah! I at least managed to block it for you and Deokho, so… Phew, I don’t know anymore either.]
I got an ominous feeling.
And soon, that ominous feeling became reality.
* * *
“I know Team Leader Pi is being investigated by officials directly under the Hunter Administration Bureau, but why was I excluded?”
Inside the interrogation room of Team 1.
I sat there with bandages all over my body and white tissues still rolled up in my nostrils where I’d had the nosebleed.
Right across from Kwon Ikseong.
“Because this isn’t an official investigation.”
Looking somewhat tired, as if he had just taken a shower, his usually neat hair was slightly messy, and he was wearing a tight-fitting athletic short-sleeved T-shirt.
And that T-shirt was stretched so thin it seemed to be screaming against Ikseong’s chest muscles, making him look so….
‘Captivating.’
Thinking of the imaginary Ikseong who had stroked my chin, I clenched my fists resting on the desk.
‘To think I’d see my bias looking so disheveled! The stimulation is too strong!’
However, interpreting my reaction differently, Kwon Ikseong let out a sigh.
“It is natural to feel it’s unfair. I apologize.”
“No… well… I don’t think this is something Team Leader Kwon should be apologizing for…”
Between yesterday and today, the HIB had been turned into a wasteland.
It was a natural course of events.
The Bus 316 hijacking incident had become a massive topic not just on legacy media but also on social media and YourTube since yesterday.
The Hunter Investigation Bureau had directly apprehended a terrorist who hijacked a bus full of civilians.
During that process, the car chase scene was entirely captured on civilians’ cell phones, as well as the sight of Pi Sowon shooting at a police car with a rifle and speeding through a police blockade.
Actual Police Sighting
Real situation, not a movie
They say she drove like she’d lost her mind to save people
As these videos began to circulate, a strangely different public opinion began to rear its head.
Comments
-But isn’t this incident because the Investigation Bureau lost the Funny Powder criminal in the first place?
-Apparently, a rookie failed to handcuff the Funny Powder criminal properly. They say they couldn’t pursue early on because that rookie got taken hostage.
-So the Investigation Bureau just solved a problem they created.
It was understandable.
Public opinion turning favorable towards the Hunter Investigation Bureau again because of this incident is what the Hunter Association, who orchestrated all this, fears the most.
And especially Choi Jungu, the greatest villain of the original work, would hate it.
So, they’re slowly starting to manipulate public opinion.
Just like they did in the original work.
And as if keeping pace with that public opinion manipulation, the Hunter Administration Bureau made their move.
Team 1 was the first to take a direct hit.
Among them, Ham Ina, who was known to have directly handcuffed Seo Gilsoo, became the biggest target.
This morning, she walked out of the Investigation Bureau lobby with her arms held by Administration Bureau officials, publicly, in front of everyone.
Her face was devastated.
She even said to me when we briefly crossed paths—
‘I’m sorry. Because of me, you almost died…’
She said this with a truly apologetic face.
Actually, Ham Ina is innocent.
It’s not even clear if Ham Ina was really in charge of Seo Gilsoo’s arrest, and she was simply threatened by the gun Seo Gilsoo had.
And she only committed the ‘crime’ of valuing her own life, according to the first principle of an investigator.
Yet now, Ham Ina is undergoing an intensive investigation directly by Administration Bureau officials.
“I am Investigator Lee Yuji’s colleague, but I am also her superior. Therefore, if a problem occurs within the organization, it is right for me to take responsibility. However, I let an innocent person… bear that responsibility.”
So it was understandable how Ikseong, who always had a strong sense of responsibility, must feel.
Right now, Team Leader Pi Sowon is also being investigated at the Hunter Administration Bureau for insubordination.
Actually, Team 5 isn’t directly involved in this, so it probably won’t be a big problem, but—
‘The Hunter Administration Bureau is coming down harder than in the original work.’
Probably because I, a variable, entered their plans.
In such a situation, I, the root cause of all this, was called to the interrogation room by Kwon Ikseong, not the Hunter Administration Bureau.
If so, the reason is probably—
“Are you trying to sort out any potential issues on your end, Team Leader Kwon?”
It meant he was going to thoroughly question me to either quiet me down before the Administration Bureau gets involved, or take the fall for whatever can’t be quieted down.
When I looked at Kwon Ikseong and asked, Kwon Ikseong said with a calm face.
“I am simply verifying once more on my end. Let’s just say it is for the sake of the organization.”
It sounded like the same thing to me.
Just as I was thinking that and preparing to answer Kwon Ikseong’s question.
My phone started ringing.
Lee Yugyeom
I frowned at the name on the screen.
Why is this guy calling me, someone who wouldn’t even call if I was rushed to the emergency room?
When I looked at Kwon Ikseong with an awkward face, he gestured for me to answer the phone.
So I answered it, and—
[Are you really the one who saved Han Suah?]
An unexpected question popped out.
Han Suah?
It’s a name I’ve heard somewhere—
[Who’s Han Suah?]
At my dumbfounded response, Lee Yugyeom sighed and said.
[Do you live under a rock or something?]
Look who’s talking.
[First… watch YourTube.]
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