Chapter 9: The Birthday Song
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
The police station continued moving around them. Phones rang. Footsteps echoed against tiled floors. Somewhere, an officer laughed at something his colleague had said.
The world hadn't stopped.
Only theirs had.
Hana stared at the photograph on the counter.
Detective Kang.
Dead for twenty-eight days.
"No," Seojun whispered.
It was the first word anyone had managed to say since the officer revealed the truth.
"He was alive," Seojun continued, shaking his head. "I spoke to him. I sat across from him. He—"
His voice broke.
"He remembered things I told him about my childhood."
The older officer's expression softened. "I'm sorry. But the records are clear."
Jungho crouched to gather the papers he'd dropped. His movements were slow, almost mechanical, but his eyes had changed.
He wasn't shocked anymore.
He was thinking.
"When did he die?" Jungho asked.
"Twenty-eight days ago. During an investigation."
"What investigation?"
"That's confidential."
"Was it related to Joonseo Lim?"
The officer's expression hardened slightly.
"Where did you hear that name?"
Jungho went silent.
Hana felt a cold sensation creep up her spine.
They had spent weeks believing they were uncovering K's secrets.
Instead, someone had been standing beside them, watching them uncover exactly what he wanted them to see.
And Seojun—
Hana glanced at him.
Seojun was staring at the photograph as if he were trying to memorize every detail of a man who had never truly existed in his life.
"Let's go," Jungho said quietly.
Seojun didn't move.
"Seojun."
"He said…" Seojun swallowed. "He said I didn't have to do everything alone."
Nobody answered.
"He said I deserved to have someone who cared."
His hands curled into fists.
"Was that all a lie?"
Hana wanted to tell him no.
She wanted to promise him that somewhere, beneath the lies, there had been something genuine.
But she couldn't.
Because she didn't know.
And for once, pretending would have been crueler than the truth.
---
The Office
They returned to the detective's office after sunset.
The corridor seemed narrower than Hana remembered. The flickering light above the door buzzed faintly, casting long shadows across the floor.
Jungho tried the handle.
Unlocked.
They exchanged glances.
"Stay behind me," he muttered.
"I'm not helpless," Hana replied.
"I know. That's why I'm asking you to think before doing something reckless."
"Now isn't the time."
"It's exactly the time."
Seojun pushed past them and entered first.
The office looked untouched.
Three chairs. A wooden desk. A half-empty cup beside a stack of files. The curtains were drawn, and the room smelled faintly of dust and old coffee.
It was almost insulting.
How could a place belonging to someone who never existed feel so ordinary?
Hana approached the desk.
There was a photograph turned facedown beside the telephone.
She lifted it.
The image showed a younger man standing outside a building, his face partially obscured by sunlight.
It wasn't Detective Kang.
At least, she didn't think it was.
"Jungho?"
He crossed the room.
She showed him the photograph.
He studied it for several seconds before setting it down.
"Don't touch anything else."
"Why?"
"Because if this office is connected to K, we don't know what evidence is real."
Seojun opened a drawer.
Inside lay a notebook, several receipts, and an old envelope.
Nothing unusual.
Until he noticed the envelope had his name written on it.
SEOJUN.
His breathing stopped.
Hana turned toward him.
"What is it?"
He stared at the handwriting.
It was the detective's.
Or the handwriting of the man he had believed was the detective.
Seojun opened the envelope.
Inside was a single blank sheet of paper.
Nothing else.
No message. No explanation.
Just his name on the outside.
"He knew we'd come here," Jungho said.
Hana looked at the empty paper.
"Maybe he wanted us to find it."
"Or maybe he wanted us to waste time looking for something that isn't there."
Seojun crumpled the paper in his fist.
"Stop."
Both of them turned.
"Just stop talking about him like he was some puzzle to solve."
His voice was quiet, but the anger beneath it was unmistakable.
"You don't know what he meant to me."
Jungho didn't argue.
Hana stepped closer to Seojun, but he moved away before she could touch his shoulder.
For the first time since they had met, he looked at them not as allies, but as strangers.
Then something rustled beneath the desk.
A faint sound.
Paper scraping against wood.
Hana crouched.
A second envelope had been taped to the underside of the desk.
Unlike the first, this one had no name.
Only a single black letter.
K.
---
A Message from the Dead
Hana carefully removed the envelope.
"Don't open it yet," Jungho warned.
She looked at him.
"Seriously?"
"Think about it. We find out our trusted detective was an impostor, return to his office, and discover a letter conveniently waiting for us."
He paused.
"It's practically an invitation."
"To what?" Seojun asked bitterly. "Another trap?"
"Probably."
Hana turned the envelope over.
There was no seal, no fingerprint she could identify, no address.
Only four words written across the back.
YOU WERE NEVER ALONE.
For a moment, the room felt colder.
Hana opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
She unfolded it.
And read.
You were looking for a victim.
We were watching you.
You searched where we pointed.
You protected who we chose.
And now...
the birthday song will become a farewell.
We'll see you there.
— K
Hana read it again.
Then a third time.
The words didn't change.
Jungho took the letter from her hand.
His expression darkened with every line.
Seojun stood perfectly still.
"They knew," Hana whispered.
Jungho nodded.
"They knew everything."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "They didn't just know. They guided us. Every time we suspected Minji, every time we found another piece of evidence…"
"We were following their instructions," Jungho finished.
Hana pressed her palms against the desk.
Minji's frightened expression flashed through her mind.
The rumors. The isolation. The anonymous accounts.
Had K created all of it?
Was Minji a victim at all, or had they dragged an innocent girl into a nightmare that wasn't hers?
"Then who's the real target?" she whispered.
Nobody answered.
Then she looked at the final lines again.
The birthday song will become a farewell.
Her eyes widened.
"Wait."
Jungho looked up.
"The birthday."
"What about it?"
"They said the next victim would be taken sooner than expected. If the birthday is connected to the warning, we have a deadline."
Seojun's expression sharpened.
"You think someone's birthday is coming up?"
"Not just someone's. A student in Class B. If K follows the same pattern, we need to find out whose birthday is approaching."
Jungho was already reaching for his phone.
"School records. Class lists. Birth dates. We check everything."
For the first time that evening, Hana felt something other than dread.
A lead.
Small, fragile, but real.
They could still do something.
They could still save someone.
And this time, she wouldn't look away.
---
The Missing Date
The following morning, Jungho arrived with a printed list of every student in Third-Year Class B.
Names. Birth dates. Student numbers.
Hana scanned the pages rapidly.
"Next week. Three birthdays."
"Two," Jungho corrected. "One student's date was entered incorrectly in the school system."
She frowned.
"How do you know?"
"I checked the original registration records."
He placed another sheet on the table.
"According to these, nobody has a birthday tomorrow."
Hana stared at the list.
"Then what did K mean?"
Jungho didn't answer immediately.
He was looking at a name near the bottom of the page.
A student whose attendance had been irregular.
A student whose teachers had described him as quiet, distracted, and difficult to reach.
A student whose records contained a discrepancy that nobody had bothered to investigate.
"That's strange," Jungho murmured.
"What?"
He pointed at the page.
"There's a note here. His birth date was amended when he transferred schools."
"Why?"
"It doesn't say."
Hana leaned closer.
"Can we find the original record?"
"Not without asking the administration."
She looked toward the classroom building.
Students were gathering in the corridors, laughing and talking about homework, weekend plans, and an upcoming school event.
Somewhere among them was a person K had already chosen.
Somewhere among them was someone whose life had been reduced to a date on a calendar.
And somewhere, someone was counting down.
Hana folded the paper.
"We check every record. Every student. Every birthday."
Jungho nodded.
Seojun said nothing.
His eyes remained fixed on the office building across the road.
For the first time, he wasn't looking for the man who had comforted him.
He was looking for the man who had used him.
---
That evening, in a small apartment on the other side of the city, a calendar hung crookedly beside a refrigerator.
Several dates had been crossed out.
One remained untouched.
A hand reached for a pencil.
Then stopped.
From the next room came the sound of a television playing to an empty audience.
A school uniform lay folded over the back of a chair.
On the table sat a small, unopened box of candles.
Someone had forgotten to put them away.
Or perhaps someone had been waiting for the right day.
A phone vibrated.
One message appeared on the screen.
Don't forget what day it is.
The message was read.
No reply came.
Outside, the evening bells began to ring.
And in a school full of students, three people searched through hundreds of dates, believing that somewhere in those records lay the answer.
They didn't know that the date they needed wasn't there.
They didn't know that the birthday K was waiting for had never been written down.
And they certainly didn't know that the person they were trying to save had already learned to expect nothing from anyone.
Hana stared at the list one last time.
"Whose birthday?" she whispered.
Across the city, a calendar page trembled in the wind.
And the countdown continued.