Black and white have too many shades in between. Shades of vivid gray that bleed on the screen before her and Mun Seong clutches the edge of the table with a white knuckled hand as she watches the unfolding scene. Her eyes are not on the back profile of the unknown man, but on the enhanced frames of the opposite building where another figure blinks in an out of focus.

The shades of gray washes away years worth hard work she had put on to move on and Mun Seong blinks rapidly, trying to catch her breath turning away from the screen. It is then, she catches his eye, prosecutor Hwang leaning against his desk watches her rather placidly like she is a bug under his microscope, awaiting dissection. And suddenly, it all starts to make sense. Her failures as well as her sudden successes.

“You knew?” She tries to sound calm, but her voice comes out strangled.

“I had a hunch,” he bows, in the silvery light of the screen he looks as young as he actually is, but similarities that he shares with his father are also eerily highlighted. “I went to check the vintage point didn’t I?”

“That was not when you found out,” the conviction in her voice frightens her.

“You knew from the moment you picked me as your investigator.”

“Manager Park - it’s all in your file.” He tells her as if its the most simple thing in the world. “Your entire career up until the last assignment.”

“First and last assignment,” she corrects him automatically. “But you took me in because you knew it was your father who set the balls rolling. You took me in as some kind of a twisted redemption.”

“Mun Seong -” He says abruptly. “I had no idea what my father was hiding, I just knew it had something to do with this. Something to do with Haes and Tae.”

“Was it pity?” She barely registers his words. For it no longer matters to her. Instead, Mun Seong tries to come in terms with the fact that the new life she had rebuilt for herself instead of her own creation had been given in charity. “Did you pity the detective your father was set out to ruin - prosecutor nim?” She dashes away a tear cringing at the weakness it represented.

And finally Yo comes to the same page. She doesn’t look up when he claps her shoulders, his grip warm and reassuring.

“Mun Seong I wanted to give you a chance to finish your last case, to finish it properly because I know you are capable of that. Would you call it pity?”

“Why would you do that?”

Suddenly Yo wishes he had not spoken at all.

“I don’t approve everything my father does - manager Park.” He lets her go as abruptly as he had held her and turns away, flipping through a file absentmindedly. The ends of his ears tinted pink. Mun Seong watches him for another moment before turning back to the screen.

“So Haes did it?” She muses aloud. “Her own family?”

“Hae Myung Hee was an adopted daughter just like her new replacement Hae Soo, all daughters of distant relations. Hae Hong Ha Jin doesn’t have children.” Yo tells her, now that the sensitive topic was firmly shut he comes back to stand beside her and observe the screen. “I thought you knew that?”

“I did. That’s not what I meant. Anyway - this is why they did it? Because her photographs might have caught the man’s face?”

Yo frowns, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“This is not an accident.” He says in the end. His finger follows the figure of the photographer as he speaks. “She means to capture him.”

“Why?” Mun Seong asks, moving closer that her nose almost touches the screen.

“Hae heiress a rebel? What would be the catch?”

“Freedom…” Yo whispers. “She was in love with someone else - I’m sure the silly girl wanted some bargaining chip against her adoptive father.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Manager Park,” when he addresses her again, his tone is brisk. By the time Mun Seong straightens up and looks up at him, he is reaching for his coat. “Look into Hae family for me.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see my mom.” He looks determined enough to make her frown.

“Now why is that…?” Mun Seong folds her arms and watches him with daring curiosity. Yo watches her for a moment weighing pros and cons of disclosure. “I need to ask her where she stands in all this.” He hurries on noticing Mun Seong does not look convinced. “Please manager Park - we are pressed on time here.”

Mun Seong turns to her PC, eyebrows still knotted and asks,

“Anything specific I should look into?”

“Inheritance -” Yo tells over his shoulder. “I want to know why Hong Ha Jin adopts only daughters into his family.”

**

The details escape her as to when he stepped up from standing behind her, when their shoulders brushed or when the backs of their palms touched and his hand slipped into hers. Fingers entwined they watch Wook walk away and somehow it feel like a turning point - she can only wish fervently that it is. Please - she prays - let me change it, let this be the moment that breaks the circle. The breath that she inhales is filled with hope and Ha Jin turns to look at So. His eyes are already on her, filled with something akin to wonder, raw and vulnerable.

“I thought for a moment you’d leave.” he says. “ And I’d have begged you to stay. I’d have done everything in my power to keep you.” Says his silence.

She skims her fingertips over his jaw, feeling the stubble he did not waste time to shave and looks into his red rimmed eyes.

“I’d hate to be predictable,” she chuckles lightly, but his hold on her hand tightens and he bows, eyes closed, his forehead touching hers. She lets him breathe her in, until his heart calms down matches with hers, until his eyes open again. “I choose you - perhaps it took me hundred lives - hundred worlds - hundred times - but I choose you. Maybe I loved you in another time and promised to find you on the other side - maybe I’ve never left you behind. It doesn’t matter anymore - now that I choose you…”

He kisses her then hard, hungry, victorious - like a wave crashing ashore, a man who has won a war. His fingers thread through her hair, grip at her arms, drawing and holding her closer - tighter - as if he fears it is but a fleeting thing, a flicker of a light something his demons could snatch, his shadows could drown. He kisses her and keeps his monsters away, where they whisper dark things - of his weaknesses - of his failures - of the brother he couldn’t protect - of how he couldn’t save her once. And he fears she will abandon him again - like his mother - like his brothers - like her of his memories. In that moment he is Gwangjong and he is breathless, for he had been fighting a battle worth thousand years standing between them, without pausing to breathe.

He is also the scarred boy -the broken teenager - the man who wears sins of others, who flinches at raised voices, shudders at creeping shadows, and she kisses him back with equal fervor - cupping his face - brushing a thumb under his eye where she traces a scar that exists only in their memory. It lasts only a moment - though it is worth thousand years of waiting. Raindrops start to pelt them, heavy, random and cold. He catches her hand and brings it to his mouth - kissing the back of her palm reverently before they break apart.

The loss of warmth disorients her for a moment but then it all comes back - the shadows held at bay come to haunt them anew. Ha Jin catches the moment his shoulders fall and reaches out to take his hand. Mu is still alive - all is not lost.

“Let’s go inside,” she murmurs pulling him with her towards where they are supposed to wait.

“He asked me to save him…” He says as they sit down. She squeezes his hand at loss of words. “Omoni -” he swallows thinking if he was still allowed to call her that. But darker thoughts grip his conscience and he continues. “He asked me to come home. And I - I was afraid.” He flinches at the mere thought of his childhood home - of the ghosts that haunted its corners and the bitter memories. She strokes his hair and when she speaks her voice is soft.

“But you are here now - we still have time.”

She thinks of Eun who has taken over the surgery and convinces herself that he would cover any of Wook’s possible omissions. But she knows the fear that claws at him - that Eun would somehow end up tangled in the mess and suffering like before.

“And -” she continues as brightly as she could. “They would do anything they could - he is their chairman isn’t he?”

“Wook has this place under his thumb…” his voice is muffled against his palms, his face buried in his hands. “I need to move him as soon as I can.”

“Do you think he collapsed because of a poison?” She asks slowly, thinking over everything he had told her on their way. Her thoughts turn uncomfortably towards her uncle, the slow poison he had made So drink - the one that could have ended up in a complete kidney failure.

“Hyung it’s not poison -” Eun is still in his scrub pale with dark circles under his eyes. They hadn’t met him since the surgery had started before they arrived, following his phone call. “Somebody has pushed him off.”

There are footsteps at the end of the hallway thundering and disturbing, they do not get the time to digest that piece of information.

“Hwang So Ssi?” The detective brandishes his badge. “We need you to come with us.”