There were two kinds of smells Han Sihun never forgot.

  The scent of formaldehyde, a chemical bite that clung to everything in the autopsy room.

  And the scent of blood. Not the fresh kind. The type that had lingered. Festered.

  Rotting beneath skin that still looked alive.

  And today, in a bright university café filled with sunlight and coffee beans, he smelled both.

  He looked across the table at the girl smiling at him like she hadn’t murdered someone with her bare hands.

  Yoon Serin.

  She was beautiful.

  Not just in the obvious way... fwless skin, dark eyes, perfect teeth but in a way that made his spine itch.

  She had the face of a saint and the energy of a ticking bomb.

  And she didn’t try to hide it.

  That intrigued him.

  Most murderers tried to py innocent.

  She pyed pyful.

  Like a cat asking, "Do you think I’ll kill you or kiss you?"

  ***

  “You have the strangest aura,” he had told her.

  He meant it.

  It wasn’t just a feeling. It was data.

  He had reviewed the autopsy report for Lee Ahrin st night.

  Cause of death: impact trauma from a fall.

  But there were details others ignored.

  The scrape on the victim’s shoulder didn’t match a fall. It matched being pushed.

  And there were tiny crescent marks on her neck like fingers that dug in just long enough before release.

  Ahrin didn’t fall by accident.

  She was shoved.

  By someone strong, Calm, and Unhurried.

  Someone who looked her in the eyes and smiled before they let go.

  Sihun took a sip of his coffee, watching Serin ugh at something she herself had said.

  “She’s either insane or the best actress I’ve ever met.”

  But her eyes weren’t empty.

  They were full of something deep and pulsing and unfiltered.

  He didn’t know what it was yet.

  But it called to him.

  Not in fear.

  Not in suspicion.

  But curiosity.

  Like a surgeon seeing a new kind of wound.

  Or a pathologist wanting to open a chest and see what’s inside.

  She leaned forward.

  “Do you think I’m interesting?” she asked.

  He looked her in the eye and said truthfully...

  “Yes.”

  She smiled wider. “Then I’ll make sure you never get bored.”

  He didn’t flinch.

  But inside, a voice whispered something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Danger.

  And yet, he didn’t move.

  Because another voice whispered louder.

  Stay.