CHAPTER 51: CHAPTER 51 - GHOST-6: FIRST CONTACT

But she got bored fast and her eyes landed on Kim Tae-sung.

He was at a workstation in the corner, hoodie up, typing like he wished no one would ever speak to him.

Ha-rin walked straight toward him anyway.

"Hey," she said.

Kim froze mid-keystroke.

"...What," he replied without turning his head.

She leaned her elbows on the desk, looking at his screen.

"You hacking stuff?"

"No." His tone was flat. Cold.

She kept chewing her gum.

"I heard you’re the Cyber guy."

Kim sighed through his nose. "That’s great. Please stand somewhere else."

Ha-rin ignored that completely.

Instead, she crouched a little to peek under the desk.

"...You got snacks down there?"

Kim’s eye twitched. "No."

"Really? You look like the type."

He closed his eyes slowly and inhaled.

"Can you... go wait somewhere else?"

"Why? We’re teammates now."

"I didn’t agree to that."

Ha-rin straightened up, clicking her tongue.

"Man, you’re funny. I kinda like you."

Kim gave her the slowest, most tired side-eye she’d ever seen.

"That’s unfortunate," he muttered.

Ha-rin grinned, then hopped onto the long table nearby and sat casually, swinging one foot.

"Alright. I’ll stop bugging you."

She didn’t stop.

She just kept tapping her heel against the metal, making a dull thunk... thunk... thunk that Kim could clearly hear.

He dragged a hand down his face.

’Please,’ he whispered, ’let the next person who walks in be normal.’

Ha-rin smiled wider. "Hope not."

The elevator doors slid open again.

And the first thing that came out was—

"HICCUP—"

Lee Dong-wook almost fell face-first the moment he walked in.

He looked half-awake, half-drunk, and mostly confused.

His hair was sticking in five different directions.

His shirt was only half tucked.

And the alcohol smell reached everyone before he did.

One of the guards behind him looked tired already.

Dong-wook shielded his eyes with one hand. "Damn... who turned on the sun down here..."

Yoon Ha-rin stared openly. Kim Tae-sung didn’t.

Kim just paused mid-type, let out the softest inhale of disappointment, and kept typing.

Dong-wook staggered forward, pointing at the guard. "Tell your boss—hic—I didn’t run. I got carried. Heroically."

The guard rubbed his face.

"Sir... you knocked out five of our security staff on the way in."

Dong-wook blinked very slowly. "...Oh yeah. Forgot."

He shuffled toward the table, using it to keep himself upright.

Ha-rin squinted at him.

"So you’re also Ghost-6? Great. We’re collecting weirdos."

Dong-wook looked at her, eyes half-closed.

"Lady... I didn’t plan to get hired today. I was drinking."

He dropped into the chair across from Kim — actually fell into it — arms hanging like dead weight.

’Wake me up when someone important comes,’ he mumbled.

His head tilted back. His foot slid off the floor. He was 90% asleep in five seconds.

Kim finally stopped typing and whispered to himself:

"...Another idiot..."

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I swear... when I meet Choi... I’m kicking him. He did this. I know he did."

Ha-rin burst out laughing.

Kim regretted speaking immediately.

Dong-wook snored once — loudly.

"...Great," he muttered. "This team is going to get me killed."

The elevator doors slid open again, and Ryu Min-seo stepped out with her hands full — a half-eaten kimbap clutched in one hand, a coffee-stained folder pressed to her chest, and a single surgical glove hanging loosely off her left hand like she forgot halfway through putting it on.

Her lab coat wasn’t buttoned right, one sleeve rolled up, the other drooping. And there was a purple marker stain on her cheek that she clearly hadn’t noticed.

She stopped in the doorway and stared at the room for a slow two seconds.

"...This isn’t the autopsy room," she said.

A guard stepped forward quickly.

"Dr. Ryu Min-seo, please enter."

Min-seo didn’t look at him.

She was squinting at the ceiling light.

"...Too bright. People don’t stay dead in bright rooms," she said.

Kim Tae-sung froze mid-typing.

Lee Dong-wook blinked, confused. "What does that even mean...?"

Yoon Ha-rin leaned closer to Kim and whispered, "She feels like a serial-killer intern."

Min-seo walked in slowly, balancing her food and folder with the focus of someone who cared more about her lunch than the living humans around her.

She passed Kim’s desk and dropped her half-eaten kimbap onto the metal surface with a thump.

She stared at the kimbap for a long second.

"...Don’t touch that. It’s mine."

Kim looked at the kimbap.

Then at her.

Then he faced his monitor like he decided life was too short to question her existence.

Min-seo took a seat, placed her coffee-stained file on her lap, and tucked her knees slightly like she was back in a cramped morgue.

She finally lifted her eyes to the rest of the team.

"I got dragged out in the middle of an autopsy," she said quietly. "The corpse was talkative today. Brains like his are rare."

Dong-wook opened one eye. "The... corpse was talkative?"

Min-seo nodded.

"I was going to check his hippocampus next. It looked interesting. I wonder if any of your brains look like that..." She looked at them one by one.

Too long.

Too curious.

Like she was already mentally dissecting them.

Even Ha-rin stopped chewing her gum.

"...No," Kim whispered to himself. "Nope. Absolutely not. Don’t come near me with a knife."

Min-seo blinked, confused.

"I didn’t bring a knife. I left it inside the chest cavity. ...Probably."

Silence spread across the room like fog.

Then she frowned slightly.

"...Where’s the autopsy room?" she asked, as if she’d walked into the wrong building. "They dragged me out before I could finish. I need the body back. Where do I work here?"

The guard standing nearest stiffened immediately.

He swallowed hard enough for everyone to hear.

"P-Please wait, Dr. Ryu," he said, voice cracking. "The autopsy room is... uh... next door. You’ll be briefed first. The team leader will arrive soon, so... p-please... just wait."

Min-seo stared at him for a long, uncomfortable second.

Then she nodded once.

"Good. The body I left on the table won’t stay patient. I asked it to, but bodies lie sometimes. People lie more."