Agent 707 no longer looked at his screen the way he used to.
The data was no longer just numbers.
The photos weren't just passing faces.
And the girl… she was no longer a target.
She had become an obsession.
On the seventh day of surveillance, nothing changed. No strange behavior. No suspicious meetings. No device use.
Yet despite all this, 707 felt uneasy.
Normally, silence reassures him.
This time, silence unsettled him.
He wrote in his notebook:
"What frightens me the most about this girl… is that she does nothing at all."
He began to doubt himself.
Was he overthinking?
Was he searching for secrets that weren't there?
But each time he considered closing the case, something inside him refused.
As if the girl was silently telling him: "Stop now, and you'll miss something important."
One evening, he saw her walking near an old train station.
She was holding a book, moving slowly, casting occasional glances around.
At one moment, she stopped and stared at a graffiti-covered wall.
Then she took out a black pen and wrote a single sentence:
"Not everyone who watches… sees."
707 stood at a distance, staring at the words.
Was it coincidence?
Was it meant for whoever came before her?
Or… was it meant for him?
After she left, he walked up to the wall and read the sentence twice.
Then he smirked.
"She's playing with me," he murmured.
Then added under his breath, "But why does it feel… like I'm the one being watched now?"
Back at his base, he replayed all the recordings.
He wasn't looking for proof that she was a traitor or a threat.
He was looking for one thing only:
"Who is she?"
The answer didn't come from reports.
Nor from pictures.
Nor from old conversations.
It came from her silence.
In that moment, 707 realized this mission wouldn't end easily.
The issue wasn't the girl.
The issue had begun within him.
---
Early in the morning, the girl sat at her usual café, flipping through the pages of a novel she hadn't finished in days.