It was when I went down to the lobby on the first floor of the hospital to borrow a phone in response to Daniel's request to contact Gia.
"You look familiar? It's been a long time. Why."
Aside from Daniel, this was the first time I'd heard a voice actor's code name called. Unable to hide my anxiety, I turned around, my whole body tense.
"....you..?"
Meanwhile, Daniel, who was lying alone in the hospital room and watching the clock on the wall pass by, smiled with joy at the thought that everything was over and that now all that was left was to be happy with Jia, without even knowing who Seong-wu had met.
I thought I'd die one day, without anyone noticing, or if I were still alive, I'd just fight endlessly. Lying in the hospital like this felt lowly and unreal.
The world doesn't know me anymore, yet I'm still alive.
It was more liberating than I thought to disappear from everyone's lives.
To go to you, Zia. To exist only in your life, not in anyone else's, I died from everyone's memory.
At that moment, a loud noise was heard outside, and someone was running towards the hospital room where Daniel was.
bang--!
The door opened with a loud noise, and as if to prove that the owner of the running footsteps was Seongwu, beads of sweat formed on his forehead and he spoke urgently, breathing heavily.
"Change your clothes quickly..! We have to get out of here right now.!!"
I don't know what happened, but I think I know what's going on. Perhaps someone who knows us has found us.
I removed the IV drip from my arm and began changing into the clothes Seongwu had brought me earlier. Seongwu was still standing at the door, observing the situation outside, and the bed sheets were soaking wet from the removed IV drip.
"Are we there yet?! Hurry up and do it!"
"I'm all dressed up. Where should I go?"
"..through the window?"
"If I jump down from here, I don't think I'll be able to escape..?"
"Miss... Then what should I do...! He's coming right now!"
Daniel chuckles as if he doesn't understand the voice actor who is stamping his feet and sighing, asking what to do.
"Hey. You're in Group A, I'm in Group B. What's the problem? Head-on. That's our specialty, isn't it?"
In fact, the voice actor knew that was the only way, but today, for some reason, he felt like he wanted to avoid that method.
"You didn't even untie the thread. What if it goes wrong?"
"There's no other way. We can't be late. We have to get out before they find us."
Knowing there was nothing they could do, the two men rolled up their sleeves and confidently opened the door.
"There's a mask in your pocket. Cover it."
"You want me to fight while wearing a mask?"
"Stop talking and just say it."
Daniel snorted at the voice actor's words and took his mask out of his pocket.
People dressed in familiar black clothes were scattered around, searching through the hospital.
"Walk naturally, avoiding bumping into things as much as possible."
"I'm sorry, but that won't work. I ran into you earlier. I recognized you."
It was a small whisper, but the men in black uniforms must have heard it and their gazes fell on Seongwoo and Daniel.
"Take off that mask."
"Me? You don't like it?"
A large man, his brow furrowed, slowly walked toward the two. He put his hand to his ear and seemed to be contacting someone else. "That won't do. I want to get out as quickly and quietly as possible."
Daniel, who lightly released his fingers, was the first to strike the large man in the face.
"100 million..!"
As the agents swarmed in, Seo-woo and Daniel checked the exit, shook their hands, and prepared to fight.
"Do it gently so the thread doesn't break."
Yoon-ha came running at the news of Daniel's return. She came in out of breath, joining us in the kitchen making tarts. The first thing she asked was about Sung-woo.
"The voice actor...? Where is the voice actor...?"
"I'll explain everything."
Seeing Daniel's expression darken suddenly, Jia and Yoon-ha's hearts began to pound. They were afraid he might bring them bad news.
"In the mission the chairman sent, we were short on manpower and ran out of weapons. All I had in my hands was a gun with no bullets and a short dagger. That was all. I'd already lost too many team members, and yet, with the constant sound of gunfire and screams, I had no choice but to fight with my dagger. That's when Seong-woo arrived. With the weapons we needed most... Seong-woo came to help me..."
Ji-ah and Yoon-ha had suspected that Sung-woo would come to Daniel's aid after he visited the cafe and ate a tart. And with both of them gone, it was only natural to know. But the situation was far more dire, with Daniel fighting a gun with a dagger, and Sung-woo voluntarily entering that battlefield. They couldn't have imagined this, so Daniel's words left them heartbroken.
"In the end, only a very small number of our team members survived. And I was going to load them into the car that Seong-wu brought and return. Actually, I wanted to finish off the secret agents' boss after this operation. I didn't want to do this anymore. So we had to talk before getting into the car that the team members were in. I had to make sure the chairman knew that I died in this war. It was because of that operation where I tried to fake my death without anyone knowing that Seong-wu and I were able to survive. Soon after, the car that the team members were in exploded..."
In the dire situation, Yun-ha lowered her head, and tears flowed from Ji-ah's eyes.
"I survived, but I was shot in the arm and there was absolutely nothing around me.
Then, the chairman parked a car just in case I needed to get out, so we went to a nearby hospital. I lay in the hospital for almost a week, and Sungwoo went around, getting me clothes and getting me acquainted with the area. A month. I thought I'd be back here, here, in a month. But what I really didn't know was that the car the chairman gave me had a tracking device attached. I had to run away again before my surgery had even fully healed. A year had passed like that... and now I'm finally able to come back.
Zia believed that Daniel would do his best to come back for her. But this wasn't the case. She was trying hard, but things kept going wrong.
So, couldn't you just give them a call? No matter how urgent, no matter how dire the situation. Is a phone call, a text message really that difficult? Couldn't you just say, "I'm fine," "Please wait a little longer," "I'll be there soon?"
I hated myself for even thinking that. It wasn't just a bad situation, it wasn't just that things had gone wrong. Daniel was fighting for his life to come back to me.
No matter how many times I almost died, I overcame every near-death experience to come back like this.
"I... I didn't even know that..."
I couldn't bring myself to say anything to Daniel. Just a single word to tell him I was alive. Was that really that hard? That I was so exhausted. Did he know the frustration of waiting, unable to do anything, not knowing if you were alive or dead?
It was Zia herself who truly knew nothing. She had always thought she was doing everything she could for Daniel, but she felt infinitely small, sorry, and ashamed of Daniel, who had supported her life for a long year.
Ji-ah covered her face with her hands and began to sob. Yoon-ha sat there, shocked, unable to say anything.
Daniel placed his hand on Zia's shoulder and patted her as she cried and trembled next to him.
"While I was running from the chairman, Seong-wu helped me a lot. But the two of us weren't enough. I mean, to completely escape. We had to make a choice. Either we both die, or we both go back to being company agents. Even if we went back, it wouldn't be the same. I tried to find a way for both of us to escape. And that's how so much time passed. But Seong-wu made a choice. It's thanks to Seong-wu that I'm here."
Seong-woo and Daniel, who escaped from the hospital, felt suspicious of the agents who came to the hospital before getting into the car.
"I think it's because of this car..?"
The thought occurred to both of them simultaneously, and they threw the car keys to the ground and started running. As fast and as far as they could before the agents arrived.
Thanks to the voice actor who had familiarized himself with the route in advance, he was able to change his route here and there and escape the agents' sight.
"You just gave me a car with a location tracker installed? Wow, this is driving me crazy..."
"But what do I do now..?"
"Now that I've been caught alive... I can't go back... I have to die again. So they'll believe me."
It wasn't easy to pretend to be dead in front of people. We were wearing regular clothes and had no equipment. That meant, if we were acting dead, we could easily end up dead.
"Ha... This is starting to give me a headache..."
"It's impossible to escape the Chairman's grasp in our country. We need to figure out a way quickly..."
No matter how hard I racked my brain, the "method" just wouldn't come to mind. Perhaps both the voice actor and Daniel knew. To not be able to think of it at this level was impossible.
"Front-on...again?"
"No... this isn't it. This is impossible."
No one could have predicted that Daniel would utter the word "impossible." But once it came out of his mouth, he was left helpless, unable to do anything, no matter how hard he tried or how hard he tried to think of something else.
So I just ran away without any plan.
I ran away all day.
I couldn't even eat as I pleased, and if there was any noise outside while I was eating, I had to pack my bags and run away.
We had to take turns sleeping. If both of us fell asleep, something might happen. We'd been running around like this, so we couldn't be easily attacked when we were defenseless.
In fact, there were many ways to contact Jiana Younha. There were payphones, and there was always time to make a phone call.
But, just in case these agents who are hovering around us because they contacted us, they might come to you. We might put you in danger again.
I was more scared and afraid of those two being put in danger because of us than of dying right here and now.
So I couldn't make any contact.
Even though I knew I'd have to wait a long time...
We knew very well that we were both tired, and we also knew very well that there was no answer to just running away like this.
At that time, I ran into the agent that the voice actor had met at the hospital.
"You were here? Ha... You looked for a lot. Then why would someone who knows all the company's secret information betray you?"
"..."
"So, you're suddenly falling from being a boss to a traitor. The boss is a high-ranking person, so why on earth would he do something like this?"
He was one of the agents who had been Daniel's disciples in the secret organization that Daniel had previously taught.
He took out a gun and waved his hands in front of two unarmed men and said.
"It's a bit humiliating to fight someone with a gun, but I'm the boss. I have to do this much, don't you think?"
A suffocating tension hung between the three of them. Soon the nearby agents would gather, and if that happened, there was truly no hope.
The voice actor, who had been thinking hard, quickly snatched the gun.
"evil..!"
The man, who had been hit hard in the forehead by the voice actor's elbow, collapsed on the street.
"Is this crazy..?!"
The voice actor, who had loaded the gun, pointed it at the man, and he raised both hands and shut his mouth.
And the voice actor's gun moved from the man to Daniel.
The man's eyes were wide as he surveyed the situation, while Daniel just stared at the voice actor in surprise.
"I had already left the company a while ago, and I wasn't even involved in this operation.
But Da-K, it's because of you that I'm going through all this trouble right now."
After hearing the voice actor's words, Daniel's expression became more calm, and the man who had been sitting down dusted himself off and stood up, starting to laugh as if he found it amusing.
"Oh, right! You two weren't on good terms, were you? You were rivals, over that one girl. Phew."
The man started laughing hysterically again.
The voice actor's eyebrows narrowed slightly at the man's words, "That woman," but the gun was still aimed at Daniel, and Daniel slowly raised both hands above his head.
The voice actor, unable to stand seeing the man laughing loudly, hit the man's head hard with a gun, and the man passed out and rolled on the floor.
"Hey, stop it now. We need to run away quickly."
But the voice actor's gun did not come down.
"We have to make a choice. Either we both go to work, or one of us goes to work."
"No, there's a way for both of us to get back. Just calm down and put down the gun first."
"No. There's no way. They weren't people we could handle in the first place. The best we can do here is kill you and return to the company."