Ji-Bok adjusted the camera and motioned for Eun-Woo to pose. "Stand there. Not like that—chin up. You look… too stiff."
Eun-Woo narrowed his eyes. "Too stiff? I'm trying to look professional."
Ji-Bok nodded slowly, clicking a shot. "Professional… if professional means bored out of your mind."
Eun-Woo's jaw tightened, and he straightened anyway.
Ji-Bok lowered the camera, squinting at the screen. "Hmm. No, no. That's… actually not bad."
Eun-Woo blinked. "Not bad?"
Ji-Bok tilted his head, silent for a beat, as if weighing his words carefully. Then, without looking at him directly, he said, almost casually "Your eyes… they catch the light well. Very… precise."
Eun-Woo blinked again, caught off guard. "That's it?"
Ji-Bok shrugged, clicking another shot. "Yeah. Don't get used to it."
Eun-Woo muttered, "I think I hate you."
Ji-Bok didn't respond immediately, adjusting the lens. Then, with a faint smirk "Maybe. But you're… good at this. Surprisingly."
The silence stretched again, broken only by the soft click of the shutter as Eun-Woo reluctantly shifted his stance.
--
Ji-Woo slowed as she reached the address again.
Seoul, Seongdong-gu, Seongsu-dong 2-ga, Alley 17, Warehouse C.
The warehouse loomed ahead—quiet, industrial, forgotten. Rust crawled along the metal doors.
A single light buzzed overhead, flickering just enough to make the shadows shift in and out of shape.
Someone stepped out from beside the door.
A girl.
She looked calm. Too calm.
Her posture was relaxed, hands tucked into her coat pockets, but her eyes were sharp—fixed on Ji-Woo, measuring every step.
"So," the girl said. "You really came."
Ji-Woo stopped a few meters away, breath clouding faintly in the cold air.
"You texted me."
"I know." Silence stretched, thin and tight.
''How did you have my number?''
The girl's gaze traveled slowly over Ji-Woo's face.
Not with anger at first—more like she was checking a detail against a memory.
"…You're not her," the girl said quietly.
Ji-Woo's shoulders tensed.
"What?"
"The real Ji-Woo," the girl continued. "She wouldn't be looking at me like that."
Ji-Woo frowned.
"Then why did you call me out here?" The girl took a step closer, shoes scraping against the damp concrete.
"Because Mi-Sook told me you still have it."
Ji-Woo's heartbeat stumbled. "Have what?"
The girl exhaled sharply, a trace of irritation slipping through her composure, fogging in the cold.
"The jewelry," she said. "The one my mother owned."
She reached into her coat and pulled out a photo—creased, edges softened from being handled too often. In the dim light, Ji-Woo could still make it out: a delicate piece of jewelry, small but striking.
Loved.
"That went missing," the girl said. "And when it did, everything went with it. Accusations. Debt. People asking questions my mother couldn't answer."
A dull ache pressed under Ji-Woo's ribs. "I don't know anything about that."
"I know," the girl said flatly.
That made Ji-Woo look up at her.
The girl's eyes hardened. "I asked Mi-Sook where it was. She told me—" her voice dipped, mocking,
''It's still with you. Get it back.'"
Ji-Woo took an involuntary step back. "She lied."
"Yes," the girl answered without hesitation. "She always does."
Ji-Woo's fingers curled into fists. "Then why am I here?"
The girl studied her for a long, quiet moment, as if deciding how much of the answer Ji-Woo deserved.
"Because you're the one standing in her place," she said at last. "And because Mi-Sook made you convenient."
Something in Ji-Woo snapped at the word.
"I'm not her," Ji-Woo said, voice rising. "I'm not Mi-Sook's stand-in, or shield, or—"
"I know," the girl cut in, but there was no softness in it. Just exhausted certainty.
It only made Ji-Woo angrier.
She closed the distance in two quick steps and shoved the girl, hard enough to break the careful, cold distance between them.
The girl stumbled back, eyes flashing in surprise, boots squealing against the concrete.
She caught herself on the metal door, the impact rattling the rusted hinges.
"Then stop treating me," Ji-Woo shouted, "like I stole something I don't even remember!"
The girl's jaw clenched.
She pushed off the door and stepped forward, fingers closing around Ji-Woo's wrist—too tight—before shoving her back on reflex.
Not a light push. Ji-Woo's heel caught on a crack in the ground.
She went down hard, her shoulder slamming into a stack of plastic crates. One edge caught her just above the brow.
White pain burst across her vision. Her head snapped back; she hit the concrete next, palms scraping raw as her hands tried to break the fall.
For a second, the buzzing light overhead smeared into a bright halo, then doubled.
"Shit," the girl hissed under her breath.
Ji-Woo lay there, stunned, hearing the slow drip of something beside her.
When she lifted her hand to her face, her fingers came away warm and slick. Blood.
A thin line ran down from her eyebrow, slipping toward her eye.
She blinked rapidly, breath shaky. "You… call me out here and then throw me into a wall?"
The girl stood over her, expression tight—not satisfied, not triumphant. Just wound-up and furious with nowhere to put it.
"…She asked me to trust her," the girl said quietly, voice flattening as if reciting something she'd gone over a hundred times alone.
"And now she's gone. And Mi-Sook tells me to collect from a stranger."
Ji-Woo pushed herself up onto one elbow, head pounding, world tilting for a moment before it settled.
"Then go after Mi-Sook," she said through clenched teeth. "Stop pretending I'm her receipt."
The girl's eyes flickered, something raw passing through them. She looked away toward the dark stretch of alley.
"I am," she said.
She turned, taking a few steps toward the street, then stopped. Her shoulders rose and fell once.
"If you see her," she said without looking back, "tell her I want what she took returned." She hesitated, then added, voice low
"And tell her she ruined more than just memories." She started walking again, her footsteps fading toward the mouth of the alley.
Ji-Woo pressed her palm to the cut on her forehead, feeling the sting, the stickiness, the faint throb of a bruise beginning along her shoulder.
"Wait," Ji-Woo called out, breathless. "At least tell me your name."
The girl stopped.
For a moment, Ji-Woo wasn't sure if she would answer.
Then, without turning around, she said,
"Ha-Rin."
A beat.
"That's all you need." And then she kept walking, leaving Ji-Woo alone by the warehouse door—heart pounding, head aching, and with the cold certainty that Mi-Sook's past wasn't buried at all.
It was circling back, and now it had names.