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Side Story 6

5. Your daily routine (1)

Every once in a while, Woo Jin-Cheol felt this inexplicable sense of loss in his heart. One heck of a weird thing this was, as if he had forgotten something really important to him.

However, no matter how hard he combed through his memories, he knew that he had definitely not forgotten anything. Only, the emptiness in his heart would grow larger and larger the more he thought about it, that was all.

"Hey, senior. What are you thinking about so deeply like that?"

The youngest detective in the unit asked him while handing over a cup of warm coffee taken from a vending machine. Woo Jin-Cheol shrugged his shoulders to say that it was nothing important and received the coffee.

"Thank you."

Once this aromatic smell of coffee entered his nostrils, it felt as if the emptiness in his heart was filling up just a little bit.

His name was Woo Jin-Cheol, a fourth-year detective in the National Police Agency's Violent Crimes Investigation Unit.

It wasn't as if he lived a soft life where his mind would sway gently from the warm breezes of the incoming spring, but still, this sense of loss started chasing after him out of the blue, about three years ago.

When he mentioned this to his acquaintances, they all promptly reminded him with the cruel fact that he had no family to call his own, even though he was already at a ripe old age, and that must've been the reason for his restlessness.

Just like the bitter aftertaste of the coffee, Woo Jin-Cheol formed a bitter smile, too, and emptied out the paper cup in no time at all.

'....That's right.'

Didn't someone say that a busy bee had no time to feel sad, or something like that? The best medicine to heal this trivial depression of his was, traditionally speaking, more work.

With excellent timing, Woo Jin-Cheol's sharp gaze landed on the backs of some men sitting in a line as soon as he stepped into the offices of the Violent Crimes Unit.

He crushed the empty paper cup with his hand and pointed at these three men with his chin.

"What's their story?"

"Ah... those b*stards? Well, uh...."

Woo Jin-Cheol heard the youngest detective's somewhat hesitant voice and walked over quickly to stand before them.

Sure enough....

These men's facial complexions were whiter than snow as if they had seen something they shouldn't have. They couldn't even meet his gaze and continued to shiver like a lone leaf in the wind.

Seeing their faces, Woo Jin-Cheol began muttering to himself.

"It's the Shadow Monster again...?"

***

It wasn't all that rare to see criminals turning themselves in and confessing to their wrongdoings out of the sheer weight of guilt, or out of fear of getting caught.

However, it was a completely different story to see a bunch of hardened career criminals, scared sh*tless, begging the cops to throw them into jail cells as quickly as possible.

And for the last several months, the so-called 'not rare at all' spectacle repeated itself over and over again.

"S-Shadows.... The... the, the shadow stood up from the ground... and spoke to me. If, if I don't turn myself in during the next 24 hours, I'll end up regretting that I'm even alive.... D-detective, I'm a bad guy, so please, please! Throw me inside the slammer! I beg you!!"