Chapter 4

Looking down at Jei lying on the island table, Iheon suddenly recalled a memory from a lecture hall long ago.

He did not much trust first impressions.

A first impression was usually closer to a visual feeling, separate from rational judgment.

People are fooled by gentle faces, friendly tones, neat clothing, and only later realize that what they saw was not personality but a plausible wrapping.

Iheon sometimes scoffed at such hasty misreadings.

When looking at a person, the first thing to check was not appearance.

Where the eyes turned when a question was asked, how the lips moved when speech was blocked, where the hands were placed when an uncomfortable topic arose, which way the body leaned when conversation dragged on—things like that.

Such small reactions were far more accurate than a deliberately composed attitude.

It was ten years ago from now that Jei first entered Iheon’s field of vision.

, one of the major courses in the Department of Psychology at Hankuk University.

Iheon was the teaching assistant for that class, and Jei was a student from another department who had suddenly been added to the roster on the last day of course registration. The department listed beside her name in the attendance book was Media and Information Studies.

Unless one was a double major, taking another department’s major course was not common, but it was not entirely unheard of either, so at first he did not think much of it.

Since it was a required major course for psychology students, most of them wore faces that said they had no choice.

Students with blank expressions listened to the professor with one ear and let it out the other, barely scribbling into their notes only what seemed likely to appear on exams.

Having expected that the first day would end after attendance was taken, the students were openly deflated by a lecture that filled three full hours.

But Jei was different.

Not only did she focus on the class from beginning to end, but as the long, tedious lecture was nearing its end, she boldly raised her hand and said she had a question.

“If understanding the criminal’s environment is important, to what extent is the victim’s suffering taken into consideration?”

The question itself was not rude. Her voice was not loud either.

It was simply a cheeky tone that did not match her demure appearance at all.

It was then that the corners of Iheon’s mouth tilted up as he sat at the very back of the tiered lecture hall by the door, observing the class.

Her pretty appearance played a part, but the boldness that could not be detected from the outside was quite fresh.

She might look like that and be the most stubborn of the stubborn.

After that day, Jei caught Iheon’s eye often.

For a man who by nature paid little attention to others, it was quite an unfamiliar thing.

Of course, he was not trying to be conscious of her.

She simply kept catching his eye.

Thanks to his brilliant mind and striking looks, Iheon was notorious in many ways, but because of his utterly stiff way of speaking and indifferent personality, few students approached him easily.

The interest of a man who was Hankuk University’s valedictorian and regarded among professors as a rising star in criminal psychological analysis was limited solely to heinous criminals.

A man who personally proved the old saying wrong—that good-looking rice cakes are good to eat.

That day was the third time Iheon observed the class.

As soon as the lecture ended, the exhausted students poured out of the lecture hall in a rush.

Iheon was on the podium organizing the remaining materials. Then someone quietly approached.

“Assistant.”

At the voice calling him, Iheon raised his head. The female student who kept catching his eye in one way or another stood holding a thick major textbook and a laptop in her arms.

Her face, seen up close, was prettier and gentler than it had looked from the back of the lecture hall. But if there was one place a human could never hide at will, it was the eyes.

“I have a question.”

Her brown eyes, carrying a strange luster that could not quite be defined, captured Iheon’s gaze. As he stared directly into her eyes, he jerked his chin.

A silent permission to speak if she had something to say.

“The professor said the causes of crime are found in individual pathology or the environment in which one grew up. Then within the same case, are the victim’s experiences or reactions completely excluded from analysis?”

Students came to the assistant to ask about attendance, assignment length, and exam scope, but this was the first student to ask such a question.

She was certainly different from the other students.

At Jei’s question, Iheon stopped organizing the materials and leaned loosely against the edge of the desk. Scratching the head of his eyebrow with his middle finger, he opened his mouth.

“It’s not that they’re excluded. The concepts are different.”

“How are they different?”

“Criminal psychology analyzes the offender’s motives, cognition, impulse control, and behavioral patterns. It is closer to grasping the cause—why the crime occurred, and under what conditions it is likely to repeat.”

“If I were curious not only about the criminal’s psychology but also about matters related to the victim, what lecture would be good to take?”

Psychology, which looked plausible on the surface, was not a romantic discipline as its name suggested.

It was closer to statistics: accumulating data through research and analyzing that data.

The number of people existing on Earth is roughly 8.3 billion.

With countless races, cultures, tendencies, and personalities, how much more there was to learn.

And this was not even her major; it was a field far too exhausting to study out of mere interest.

“I thought your major was Media and Information Studies……”

“Ah. I thought anything I learned might be useful someday.”

Why bother? Unless she planned to become a masterful swindler, was there any need to study even the victim’s psychology?

But instead of unwanted advice, Iheon obediently answered her question.

“Taking would help. Though the course registration period is over, so you won’t be able to take it this semester.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

Iheon straightened from where he had been leaning to finish what he was doing.

“Um…… I have one more question.”

When Iheon simply looked at her, Jei brushed the corner of the laptop in her arms once with her thumb.

“Ah…… well.”

Compared to how she had been firing off questions without hesitation moments ago, her attitude was strangely hesitant.

He guessed then.

The first question had simply been to open the conversation, and the question she truly wanted to ask was probably this one.

Iheon waited for Jei’s lips to open, hiding any sign of interest.

After a brief hesitation, her lips stirred.

“The saying that we understand the offender through criminal psychological analysis…… What do you think of that, Assistant?”

“…….”

“If you learn about the offender’s unfortunate narrative, does the crime sometimes come to look like something unavoidable?”

It was a question that could be a dilemma for some. But to Iheon, it was trivial nonsense.

“I don’t know what kind of answer you’re hoping for from me.”

Not everyone with an unlucky narrative becomes a criminal, and even if such a narrative is impressive, how impressive can it be that one must defend a criminal over it?

“Understanding is not absolution, and sympathy is not analysis. My view is that the two must not be confused, and must not become an excuse.”

Jei, silent for a moment, adjusted the things held to her chest and bowed at the waist.

“Thank you for the answer.”

He thought the conversation had ended there. But when she reached the lecture hall door, Jei suddenly turned around.

“That’s a relief.”

Iheon looked puzzled.

What was a relief?

But before he could ask what she meant, Jei smiled first.

It was not the quiet face she had worn throughout class, nor the persistent face she had worn when asking questions.

It was a girlish face whose eyes folded like crescent moons the moment she smiled and whose lip corners curved prettily, even refreshingly.

It was a clear smile that suited her pretty face very well.

But Iheon stared at her with narrowed eyes, chewing over her words that seemed readable yet unreadable.

Meanwhile, the sound of black sneakers tapped away through the cluttered corridor.

* * *

Iheon’s parents were socially very admirable people, but they were not very good parents to their child.

They were both so busy that they often left the house empty, and what filled the parents’ absence were sitters who changed every year.

Perhaps that was why. Having experienced a wide variety of people from a young age, Iheon liked to observe and analyze others. He had a fair amount of talent for it, too.

People who lied, people who made excuses, people who feigned guilt.

The more people tried to hide their emotions, the more they inevitably left traces somewhere.

Whether in the eyes, the breath, the fingertips, or the toes.

No matter how plausible a face one wore, there was always a gap that could not be hidden to the end.

But Jei was always off.

To Iheon, Jei was an unsolvable problem he could never find an answer to.

She was like smoke that seemed catchable but slipped out of his grasp, like a spark that could not be predicted.

At one time, that quality stimulated his curiosity, made his heart flutter, and drove him mad with impatience.

But not today.

Today, that damned answer he had never found was unbearably irritating.

Disgust and self-loathing, anger and anxiety, emptiness and resignation tangled together and clawed recklessly beneath his ribs, and his throat felt blocked.

What on earth was he supposed to call this state? How many times in a lifetime would he feel this fucking way?

If it were not for Jei, he would have lived without knowing emotions that could not even be named.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Again, nothing came out but curses.

He hated this woman who was trying to ruin him.

You abandoned me too, so I could just abandon you as if I had waited for it.

Why can’t I abandon you first?

Why is everything so easy for you?

How many times has this been now?

Blinding my eyes with a clear smile.

Turning me inside out with those red lips.

Veins rose on the smooth forehead hidden by disheveled hair.

Iheon slowly lowered his head.

The woman beneath him was a mess.

But the moment he faced that sight, something inside Iheon snapped. Even the wretched reason he had barely held onto shattered to pieces.

The memories after that were scattered and fragmented.