Chapter 65

The dim lighting in the hospital’s security room made the glow from the monitors feel even harsher.

Beomjin stood with his arms crossed, staring at the screen.

The CCTV footage from the hallway outside the patient rooms was playing—and soon, a familiar figure appeared on the monitor.

It was Beomjin himself, from his visit that morning. The footage showed him entering the room, then leaving a short while later, heading toward the elevator.

Doctors, patients, and caretakers moved back and forth through the hallway. Then, suddenly, the footage froze.

“What’s going on?”

Woo-seong’s voice came out low.

“The footage ends here,” the security staff said awkwardly. “All the recordings from this wing during that timeframe were deleted. The backups are gone too, and even the system logs were erased.”

Beomjin’s expression hardened. He stared at the monitor for a long time before quietly asking, “Any signs of external intrusion?”

“None. No access logs, no evidence of tampering. Honestly… this looks like someone inside did it.”

Beomjin’s eyes shifted toward the power cables beside the monitor. The footage had disappeared only minutes before the man’s death—too precise to be coincidence.

In that moment, two names flashed through his mind.

Taeryeon and Woo-seong.

He couldn’t explain why they came to mind first, but right now, they were the only ones who seemed even remotely suspicious.

He took a quiet breath. Accusing anyone without proof would shatter what little trust remained—but one thing was certain.

Someone had planned that man’s death. And whoever it was had access to the inside of this hospital.

“You’re saying there’s no raw footage, no backups?”

“None, sir… I’m sorry.”

The staff member bowed apologetically. Beomjin didn’t blame him.

He clasped his hands behind his back in silence. The frozen image on the monitor stared back at him, mute—like a corpse that could no longer speak.

The white mask.

Beomjin turned away. There was nothing more to gain here.

“The man’s home address—it’s on record, right?”

“Yeah. His identity’s confirmed.”

Woo-seong replied, his tone already indifferent, as if he’d lost interest in the footage.

“Good. Then let’s head there next.”

Cutting through the heavy air, the two men walked out once more.

The man’s address led them to an old one-room apartment complex in Seoul.

Maybe it was the cloudy weather, but even in daylight, the narrow alley felt damp and gloomy.

The exterior walls were stained with age, air conditioner units clinging together in clusters along the surface.

“Here,” Woo-seong said, pointing toward a dark red building. It was three stories high, and the room they wanted was the first one up the stairs on the second floor.

Beomjin silently nodded and turned the doorknob.

As the door opened, a suffocating mix of mold and stale cigarette smoke hit his nose.

The tiny one-room apartment barely caught any light. A faint shaft of sunlight slipped in through a window no bigger than a palm, swallowed almost entirely by the surrounding gloom.

The floor was littered with trash—empty beer cans, convenience store meal boxes, greasy delivery containers. Each step crunched faintly underfoot.

“Someone actually lived here?” Woo-seong muttered, wrinkling his face as he covered his nose. He hesitated before stepping further inside.

A high school diploma was taped crookedly to one wall, and on the dusty desk beneath it lay a worn notebook and a stack of papers.

A small photo stood propped up by the desk.

A young man in a school uniform smiled brightly among his friends.

Before he became a murderer, he’d been someone who could smile like that.

Beomjin recalled the man’s twisted, screaming face—the one that had called him a monster. The two faces belonged to the same person, yet they felt like entirely different beings.

When had he started to fall apart?

Beomjin slowly examined the pile of papers on the desk. The handwriting matched that of the notebook—filled with bizarre drawings and incomprehensible words tangled together.

“Hey, look at this. Something’s hidden down here.”

Woo-seong crouched and pointed under the desk. A cardboard box stuffed with paper was wedged deep in the corner.

He pulled out a bundle and flipped through it.

“…This is… seriously creepy.”

Beomjin’s eyes froze on the repetitive pattern spread across the pages.

Sheet after sheet, all covered in the same drawing—an oval scrawled in rough, heavy lines, with a red circle painted inside it. The red was bright and raw, like blood, as if someone had poured their madness directly onto the page.

They were eyes.

Hundreds of sheets, thousands of eyes staring back at him.

“What is this…? How many of these did he even draw?”

Beomjin muttered as he flipped through the pile of papers. The painted eyes seemed to stare straight at him—meeting his gaze, again and again. A chill ran down his spine.

Then suddenly, a thought hit him. Those red eyes—maybe they were connected to the white mask.

“…What was he trying to say? If he hid it like this, no one would ever understand him anyway.”

Woo-seong gave a crooked smirk, almost mocking the dead man. Then his gaze caught something—tiny handwriting scribbled in the corner of one sheet.

[It’s always behind you. If you show your back, it’ll take you.]

“Sounds like he thought someone was watching him,” Woo-seong said. “Was there someone else living here? Or maybe… he was being hunted?”

He spoke like he was tossing out theories for his own amusement, but Beomjin didn’t look particularly interested.

“I’m not sure. Depending on how you interpret it, it could mean a lot of things.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Just then, a vibration broke the silence of the room. Woo-seong checked his phone, and a moment later, Beomjin’s started ringing too. They both glanced at their screens.

A message from Taeryeon.

[One Special Beast Investigation Unit officer, report back to HQ immediately.]

“So, one of us has to go back. Looks like another case came in,” Woo-seong said, frowning.

The message was cold, mechanical—cut clean of any emotion. Beomjin looked down at his phone, then lifted his gaze to Woo-seong.

“Yeah. So… who’s going?”

Silence settled between them. Woo-seong’s heartbeat was quick and uneven. From the way his eyes kept darting toward the window ever since the message came in, Beomjin could tell what he wanted.

“I’ll stay. You should go.”

At that, Woo-seong’s expression brightened immediately.

“You sure you’ll be fine alone? We haven’t really figured anything out yet.”

Despite his words, his tone had grown lighter—relieved, almost.

“There might still be something worth finding here. And besides… I think I’m starting to get a sense of it.”

“Alright, then. I’ll head back.”

After a brief hesitation, Woo-seong nodded. He straightened his clothes, turned toward the door, then added, “If you need backup, call me.”

“I will.”

Beomjin nodded as Woo-seong stepped out. The door clicked shut, and silence returned once more. Outside, a car passed by. The faint hum of the refrigerator and the steady tick of the wall clock filled the space, sounds that seemed almost desperate to escape the quiet.

Left alone, Beomjin looked again at the crimson eyes drawn across the paper. Then he picked up the man’s notebook. He flipped through the pages, searching for a similar image—until his hand froze.

On the page where the white mask was mentioned, a faint doodle was drawn underneath.

A vague silhouette—hard to tell if it was meant to be clouds, brush, or just a circle. Too abstract to identify… but something about it clicked in his mind.

Beomjin grabbed a pen and traced the rough circle in the notebook’s margin. Below it, he drew another horizontal oval, then connected the two with a simple line. In the empty space above, he added the red eyes—one on each side.

When the two images came together, the shape of the white mask emerged.

The uneven oval became its mane—or fur. The lower oval and line formed the uncovered mouth.

Beomjin put the pen down. The drawing he’d completed now seemed to be staring back at him.

He had never seen that face before, yet there was something disturbingly familiar about it.

An unease he couldn’t explain.

So this was it. This was the thing.

Beomjin was now certain—this was the thing that had driven the man into madness.

He folded the paper with the white mask and slipped it into his pocket. Now he had to find out whose face this was… or what it was.

Just before stepping out of the studio, he turned for one last look around the room. The wreckage of the man’s life seemed to press against his back, urging him forward.

He blinked once, almost like a quiet farewell, and closed the door behind him.

Without hesitation, Beomjin made his way to Seongwondang. There was no better place to consult when it came to things beyond ordinary understanding.

His steps felt natural, as if following a path already decided.

When he arrived, however, the old wooden doors of Seongwondang were firmly shut. A small note was pinned askew on the surface.

[Closed due to personal reasons.]

The dim interior beyond the glass was still. The edge of the note fluttered faintly in the breeze. Beomjin froze on the spot. The moment something he relied on vanished, his mind began to race for an alternative.

Then a place came to him. Not far from Seongwondang, there was Duru Art Gallery. If anyone could help, it would be Yewon.

It was worth a try. Having come this far, Beomjin decided to visit Duru Art.

He walked through a narrow alley until he reached the shop. It was as quiet as ever—time itself seemed to move slower here. When he opened the door, a soft chime rang, accompanied by gentle background music. Warm sunlight filtered through the window, lighting up a hanging scroll in the corner.

The little bell tinkled again as Yewon looked up from behind the counter.

“Oh my, it’s been a while. Come on in.”

Her bright smile greeted him. She wore a neatly pressed hanbok and spoke with a calm, pleasant tone—yet her smiling eyes held a trace of playful mischief.

“Hello,” Beomjin said, bowing slightly.

“Please, have a seat. What brings you here today?”

“I went to Seongwondang to ask about something, but it was closed.”

“Ah, they’re traveling. Didn’t they leave a note?”

Traveling? He could almost picture the old couple bickering somewhere far from the city.

“What is it you wanted to ask?” Yewon inquired.

Without hesitation, Beomjin took out the folded paper and spread it open.

“I’m investigating a case, and I’m looking for this mask. I don’t know if it’s a person, a symbol, or an actual mask—but I thought you might know something.”

Yewon tilted her head, examining the drawing with interest.

“Did you draw this yourself? …It looks familiar somehow.”

She bit her lip lightly, raising an eyebrow. Then, after a few moments of silent study, her expression shifted.

“Wait here. I think I know something.”

With that, she disappeared into the back room. A short while later, she returned carrying an old, worn book.

Its leather cover was cracked, the edges darkened to the color of aged honey. One title was stamped in black ink on the front:

[Mask Chronicles]

“It’s a collection of records and stories about masks,” Yewon explained softly.

“Not just the ordinary kind used in festivals or plays—some of these are ritual or shamanic masks, the… extraordinary ones.”

She carefully turned the pages. The old parchment was yellowed, the ink faded but still legible. Her fingers stopped midway through the book.

“Here.”

In the center of the page, drawn in faded ink, was a mask.

It matched Beomjin’s sketch almost perfectly—only more detailed.

A pale white face, smiling faintly. The eyes were stretched unnaturally long, and the pupils were painted a deep, bloody red.

Yewon’s lips parted slowly, her voice low but steady.

“This is the Jangsanbeom Mask.”¹