Chapter 18 – “The Letter”
The message glowed on her phone screen like a wound.
Don't open it.
No number. No name. Just those three words, delivered into the air like a whispered command. Like someone had been waiting. Watching. The moment her fingers brushed the edge of the envelope, the warning arrived.
Se-ri stared at it. Her thumb hovered near the reply button.
"What is it?" Joon-ho asked, his voice low, careful.
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she slowly turned the phone toward him.
He read the message. Said nothing.
The silence in the room thickened.
The envelope in her other hand was heavier now—not in weight, but in meaning. The kind of heaviness that made her fingers sweat and her throat dry. The paper inside could break something. Or build something. She had no idea which.
She looked at the handwriting again.
To my daughter, Se-ri.
Clean, slanted Hangul. Ink that hadn't faded. Her mother's penmanship hadn't changed in all the years Se-ri had watched her scribble grocery lists or leave notes on the fridge.
Joon-ho stepped beside her. "It's her. That's real."
"I know," Se-ri said. Her voice barely carried.
"She wrote it for you."
She nodded.
He didn't say what they were both thinking: someone else knows it exists.
She turned her phone screen off, the message vanishing with a tap.
"I should open it."
"You don't have to."
"But I should."
Joon-ho looked at her. "You're not doing it for her. You're doing it for you."
That gave her pause.
She swallowed.
Then sat down slowly in the chair at the corner of the surveillance desk. Her legs felt unsteady, like the emotional ground had shifted beneath her without warning.
The envelope sat in her lap like a sealed truth.
For a moment, she just stared at it.
And then, very carefully, she slid her finger under the flap and broke the seal.
The paper inside unfolded in three slow creases.
Her mother's voice appeared in ink.
---
Se-ri,
If you're reading this, then I couldn't find the courage to tell you myself. Or I ran out of time. Maybe both. I'm sorry.
There's so much you don't know—not because I didn't want you to, but because I didn't know how to tell you. I raised you to be honest, to be brave, to chase the truth. But I didn't tell you the truth about myself.
You know about the fire. Maybe not everything, but enough. What you don't know is how close I was to it. I was there, yes. I worked payroll. I handled numbers. But I also handled people. Money. Names. Transfers that weren't supposed to exist. I told myself it was just part of the job. That I didn't ask questions. That I wasn't guilty.
But I was.
Not of starting the fire—but of knowing it was coming. Of knowing something was wrong and staying silent.
And I saw something, Se-ri. I saw someone die.
---
Se-ri's breath caught.
Her eyes skimmed down the page.
---
Your father never knew. I didn't tell him. He thought I'd left that life behind. I thought I had too. But when I heard the name Kang Joon-ho again—years later—I couldn't sleep. I followed his story. I kept the articles. I even went to the old court archive and read his last written statement.
He was telling the truth. All along.
And that makes me a coward. Because I knew, and I still didn't come forward.
---
Se-ri's hands tightened around the paper.
Tears welled up in her eyes again, but this time she didn't wipe them away.
This time she let them fall.
Joon-ho stood still, his face unreadable. But the silence around him buzzed like electricity.
He didn't need to read the letter to know what was in it.
He could see it on her face.
---
I think they knew I knew. After you were born, things started happening. I would come home and the window would be open. I would find old photos missing from our boxes. One day, I found a Polaroid in my mailbox—with your picture on it. You were five. Holding your father's hand. Walking from school.
No message. Just the picture.
That's when I stopped digging. That's when I decided to stay quiet. Not for me. But for you.
I thought I was protecting you. Maybe I was just protecting myself.
But you deserve the truth now. All of it.
Even if it costs everything.
I'm sorry I couldn't be brave sooner.
– Eomma
---
Se-ri lowered the letter slowly.
Her chest felt like it was closing in.
A hundred thoughts swirled behind her eyes—but none of them made it to her lips.
It was all too much.
Too late.
Too heavy.
Joon-ho moved forward. Slowly. Like approaching a wound.
"You okay?"
She laughed—dry and cracked.
"Do I look okay?"
"No."
She didn't look up.
He knelt beside her chair. He couldn't touch her—but somehow, his presence reached her anyway.
"I think she loved you," he said softly.
Se-ri closed her eyes.
"That's the worst part."
A long silence followed.
Only the sound of her breathing, uneven and raw.
When she opened her eyes again, they landed on something still inside the envelope.
A second photo.
Folded between the pages.
She reached for it slowly, with trembling fingers.
Unfolded it.
Her brows furrowed.
It wasn't like the others.
It wasn't of her.
It was her mother.
Taken years ago—maybe the mid-90s. She was standing in front of a gate. Tall, black metal bars. A government building in the background.
A child held her hand.
Not Se-ri.
A boy.
And behind them—
A man.
Back turned. Only partially in frame.
But familiar.
Unmistakably familiar.
"Wait," she murmured.
Joon-ho leaned closer. "What is it?"
She held the photo up. "That's not my dad."
His brows furrowed. "Then who—"
She turned the photo over.
One line was scrawled on the back.
He watched us then. He's still watching now.
And beside the sentence—
A name.
Not signed.
Han Myung-seok.
Se-ri's heart dropped.
She looked at Joon-ho.
His face had gone pale.
"I know that name," he said slowly.
"That's…"
He stepped back.
Staring at the photo.
"That's the judge who oversaw Choi's appeal. The one who sealed the last file."
Se-ri's grip on the photo tightened.
The man in the background—half-obscured, unrecognizable except for his posture—was her mother's connection to the court.
He wasn't watching from afar.
He had been with them.
And now he had a name.