Episode 2
The piano teacher who had brought Yeong-in this far stood beside her.
“Come on, let’s go receive your award.”
The teacher beamed and urged her forward. In her clammy palm, her phone slipped.
Led onto the stage, Yeong-in was met with a blinding spill of spotlights. All eyes turned to her. The shrill metallic screech she’d heard over the phone still rang in her ears, and the glare made her eyes ache. She needed to get to her father. Something had definitely happened. Yet she was dragged forward, step by reluctant step.
That day, Yeong-in won the grand prize.
Her father never called.
The taxi jolted along the road as Yeong-in stared out the window. Buildings fell away, replaced by barren ground and scraggly grass.
The moment the competition had ended, she had hailed a cab, intent on going straight to her father. It had been a long time holding back her motion sickness before the scenery finally began to change.
<He is still missing. Anyone who knows his whereabouts is urged to contact the number below…>
The driver’s radio was broadcasting the news. Missing. Yeong-in’s grip tightened around her phone. There was still no reply from her father.
“You sure this is where you want to get off, kid?” the driver asked, slowing the car.
She looked out the window. Set back from the road stood a shabby building ringed by a rust-eaten fence—her father’s dog farm.
“Yes. This is it.”
She pulled some bills from the pocket of her school skirt and handed them over. While the driver counted the fare, she pushed the door open and bolted.
“Hey, kid! Your change—!”
She ignored his shout. It felt as though an invisible hand was shoving her from behind. The overgrown grass sliced at her calves as she ran.
The moment she vaulted the fence, the sight that greeted her stopped her cold. Under makeshift boards that barely blocked the sun, dogs were crammed into cages of iron bars.
They erupted into furious barking at the sight of her, their ribs showing stark beneath matted fur, their tongues lolling in exhaustion and hunger. Yeong-in’s face twisted at the sight. The place was nothing like she remembered.
When her father had first taken over the farm, she had felt uneasy stepping inside. She hated the thought of confining dogs to breed and sell them. But her father had talked about money—how much profit one puppy could fetch.
The way his bloodshot eyes gleamed as he spoke had seemed unfamiliar, almost frightening. He had looked like a man cornered, taking on one desperate scheme after another. The dog farm had been just one of them.
Can’t you just… not sell them? They’re pitiful. She had asked gently, and he had exploded. Did she know who he was doing this for?
After that, she stopped saying anything about his work. She avoided the farm entirely. Eventually, even the sight of a stray dog on the street made her lower her head. These dogs, she thought, were trapped because of her.
Shaking, she wrenched open the gate. The dogs scattered into the open, their barking fading behind her as she ran toward the container in the center of the lot. She dialed her father’s number again. Only the call tone answered her.
Then—she heard a ringtone.
Faint under the barking, but her ear caught it as surely as if it had been a piano key. It was the song she had set for him herself—Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
“Dad?”
No answer.
She forced her heavy legs to move. The container door was already open by half a handspan. Her palm wrapped around the handle, sticky with some reddish-brown substance she couldn’t name, and she stepped inside.
The metallic stench hit her instantly.
The cramped space was stacked with rusted cages, some empty, some occupied by filthy, half-starved dogs. The scene made her gag.
Eyes wild, some of the dogs barked furiously, others lunged, rattling the bars. The clang of metal rang in her skull.
Through the noise came the faint thread of piano music. She followed it deeper inside.
Her breathing turned harsher than when she’d been running. Clanging, barking, her own breath—and gradually, the music grew louder.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
There it was.
Curled in the largest cage was a boy she had never seen before.
A phone lay slack in his hand—her father’s phone, its case holding a photo of her. She bit down hard on her lip, the pain failing to register.
She crouched by the bars. The boy was filthy, and the dark, crusted stains on him could only be blood. Wet patches surrounded him, and his grimy T-shirt was mottled with dried, dark red.
Was he… dead?
Your father made a mistake.
Her father’s voice from their phone call thudded through her head.
Was this the mistake he had meant?
Cold saliva scraped down her throat. She leaned closer. The boy’s chest might have moved—just slightly. From here, she couldn’t be sure. She pushed the cage door open with a screech.
The boy’s eyes snapped open.
They pinned her in place—pupils black as pitch, drawing in every sound around them.
“…”
She mouthed a word, but before it left her lips, the boy’s shoulders twitched.
He lunged.
Like lightning, he shot through the gap and slammed into her. A strangled cry escaped her as her back hit the floor.
Her ears rang, her skull vibrating as though she’d been thrown underwater. The boy loomed over her like a wild creature freshly freed from its trap.
Those sharp eyes bored into hers. His shadowed, blood-smeared face descended slowly toward her.
Gooseflesh rippled across her skin. It felt as though she were about to be torn apart.
Their faces drew closer—close enough for their lips to almost touch—when he spoke.
“Baek Yeong-in.”
The sound was rough, broken, as if he hadn’t spoken in days. Like a beast’s growl, it scraped into her ears.
“How… do you know my—”
Before she could finish, the boy collapsed. His weight crushed the breath from her chest.
Their hearts beat in unison, pounding against one another. She squirmed, but couldn’t free herself. The ceiling spun above her. Blood rushed to her head until she thought she might faint. Every breath carried the metallic tang of blood into her lungs.
With effort, she pulled her phone from her pocket. The battery icon glowed red. Pressing the numbers 1-1-2 took all her strength.
“Hello? I… I’m at my dad’s farm, and there’s this boy—he was locked up—”
The words sounded foreign, like she was reciting a recording, not speaking for herself.
—What did you say? Please repeat that, caller.
The officer’s voice barely registered.
“And… he’s covered in blood. He had my dad’s phone.”
Piano notes trickled through the air. On the shadow-stained floor, her father’s phone gleamed. She stretched for it, but it slid out of reach.
Her back scraped against the ground. The boy’s weight still pinned her. The phone soon went silent again.
Its blood-smeared surface bore a clear handprint. She stared at it, catching her breath.
“…I think… it might be my dad’s blood.”
Tears welled and spilled from her eyes.
The boy’s name was Choi Hyun-ha.
He was the victim in a recent, highly publicized kidnapping case.
When it became known that the filthy, battered boy was Choi Hyun-ha, the police station was thrown into turmoil.
The legitimate heir to the Seong-ra Group, doted on by its patriarch—Hyun-ha was the golden prince of the corporate world. And Baek Yeong-in had found him in a ramshackle dog farm.
He had been missing for over two weeks despite an intensive manhunt.
“You’re telling me you really don’t know him?”
The sharp-eyed detective glared down at her.
“If you know something, you’d better be honest. Keeping quiet won’t do you any favors.”
He smacked the table, leaning forward with his bulk in a way that felt like a threat. Yeong-in, still in her dirt- and blood-stained clothes, met his gaze wearily.
“This was the first time I’ve seen him.”
“Not even from your father?”
“…No. If I had, I’d have told you.”
The detective studied her, as though trying to peel back her thoughts. At last, with nothing to show for the staring contest, he turned away.
“The blood at the scene wasn’t Hyun-ha’s,” he said.
What she had assumed was her father’s blood turned out to be from a dog.
“The question is, what the hell happened out there to leave things in that state?”
Yet the police had found no dead animal that could have bled so much, nor could they determine why Choi Hyun-ha had been drenched in it. The detective sighed heavily.
“And the only person who could tell us is playing dumb.”
“Detective.”
A man who had been leaning against the wall stepped forward.
