Deception is the instrument of the oblivious.

Ae Sook stands in front of a bathroom counter, an arsenal of beauty supplies and jewelry spread out before her with her outfit for the day laid out on the toilet behind her.

In a room bathed in pale tile and blinding whiteness, the dark colors of the small containers litter the counter in a relief of the monotonous shade. But in all honesty, they look like bruises on pale skin to Ae Sook.

Numbly lifting her eyes from the counter, Ae Sook’s gaze settles onto her reflection in the large mirror before her. She stares blankly into the reflective surface, her eyes unfocused and empty. With an numb realization at the time, Ae Sook begins her routine.

Her pale fingers flit over the supplies until she randomly picks a tube. It feels big in her hand as it completely fills her palm. She casts her eyes down on the product to find that it's a basic foundation. She pops the top off and pumps a few squirts onto the back of her hand. Picking up a brush, Ae Sook dabs the bristles into the firm liquid and begins to smear a light layer over her face.

Foundation is a material that smooths out your skin and covers all your imperfections. It's the first step to becoming flawless.

Plucking a tissue from the box on the sink, Ae Sook wipes the remains of the foundation in a smooth swipe. After disposing of it, she picks up the concealer this time. Once she opens the lid of it, Ae Sook chooses another brush and dashes it across the surface of the substance.

Apply it to all the areas where you see imperfection. Concealer goes back to fix all the blemishes and imperfections you missed the first time. It works wonders.

Ae Sook reaches for two more containers and opens them up before setting them in front of her.

Now you want to contour and highlight. It depends on what look you're going for, so everyone is going to use different amounts of both. You have to find your groove eventually and see what you're comfortable with. After all, makeup is an art, but just like any painting, you don't want to be a blank canvas so you have to apply contour to give you definition and then highlights to contrast the color on your skin so that it's more noticeable and stands out. You can either go subtle or stun people with your super sharp, cutting cheekbones and angular face planes.

Ae Sook pauses after she finishes this step and turns around to face the toilet where her clothes lay. Slipping off her sweats in exchange for the dark material, the smooth silk flows over her warm body in cold waves as she pulls it over her head. Once the full skirt settles around her on the floor, she takes the larger of the two bands that lay on top part of the toilet to wrap it around her waist. Ae Sook winds the smaller one around the upper part of her left bicep.

She turns to face the mirror and is left to stare at her reflection.

Colorful hanboks for brides, to celebrate the upcoming happy events, and a black hanbok to mourn the darkness of death.

She walks over to the counter once again, transformed from the easy-going college student to the woman marred by death. At the image of her outfit, Ae Sook bites her lip to keep them from trembling.

Quickly, she pulls her hair back tightly so that it makes her wince and causes all the chances of tears to evaporate.

Twisting the strands up against the gradient of the back of her head, she takes the decorated hair pin and threads it back through to keep the updo in place.

With her hair, outfit, and all of the other basic makeup complete, Ae Sook hesitantly eyes the two remaining unused tubes. Not wanting to use the other one just yet, she picks up the mascara and begins combing her eyelashes with it.

I can't cry. If I cry, it runs. I don't want to ruin my makeup.

Ae Sook sets the mascara down. As she stares at the last product, begins to close up. Suddenly, the remains of her voice that she thought she could use later in the day begins to shrink and shrink until it becomes nonexistent. Her hand trembles as she forces herself to pick up the pencil. With unsteady hands, Ae Sook raises the eyeliner to her closed eyelid. Just as she sets the tip to her lid, it skids over her pale skin, marking her skin with what looks like a black scar.

While fluttering her eyelids rapidly, either to recover from the shock or to prevent tears from flowing, Ae Sook snatches a couple of makeup wipes from their bag and attacks the black line with them, rubbing it furiously.

Her hand comes to a stop as she gets to the part near the corner of her eyes. With one eye covered by the moist napkin and the other free, she stares into the mirror. When Ae Sook draws in a deep breath, her whole body shudders with sadness, anger, and regret.

You lied, Mom. You lied to me. You told me you would teach me how to do this, but instead, I have to learn it from a stupid Youtube video? How could you lie when you promised me? HOW COULD YOU?

With another rippling breath, Ae Sook applies more pressure to her eyelid so that she can rub the strayed eyeliner more forcefully. With the final wipe, Ae Sook tries to let the memories go with it.

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In the precinct, Hwan sits in his chair, fingers endlessly scrolling through numerous reports that have piled high on his desk after a few days of being out in the field. His eyes constantly flick from the screen to the paper stuffed Manila folders while he fingers through the documents. It's quite a change from two days ago.

After moving Ae Sook and her family into his apartment Wednesday night, Hwan was fully appointed charge of the case on Thursday morning. Immediately, the stacks of evidence, photos of the murder scene, and observations were all dumped on his desk. He had protection papers to fill out, reports to send to the main branch, and surveillance tabs on Ae Sook to constantly monitor. Going from rookie to detective in less than 48 hours left Hwan surrounded in an island of paperwork.

Sighing, he leans back in chair for a moment. And he thought having nothing to do was tough. The world of investigation was something completely different. If you calculated one step wrong, interpreted one movement incorrectly, all that you worked for could go down the drain.

Hwan temporarily closes his eyes just as his cell phone rings. Rubbing a hand across his face, he leans forward in his chair to pick it up.

“Hello?”

“I just sent the hospital CCTV recordings to you. They should be in your inbox,” the surveillance director gruffs.

With the phone pressed to his ear and held by his shoulder, Hwan rolls his chair over to the other side of his desk where his computer is hooked up.

“Give me a second,” Hwan says while his eyes roam over the myriad of tabs open before he locates his email. A little blank message line sits at the top of the others; Hwan double clicks on it. In order to make sure that the link works, he activates the IP address and sure enough, a small black box with 12 different perspectives pops up onto the screen.

“It's all clear, director. If you wouldn't mind, I might have a need to contact you for further surveillance in other parts of town.”

“Just call me. I'm always here.”

“Then,” Hwan says in parting as he begins to pull the phone away from his ear.

“Wait,” the director speaks up. Not bothering to move the phone anymore, Hwan presses the speaker button and place it on his desk as he begins to scan paperwork again.

“I don't know if this information would be relevant to your case or not, but it did happen when your ward was in the hospital.”

Hwan mumbles an affirmation.

“It was in the 7-8 AM interval on the surveillance when a sort of event at the hospital occurred. A nurse went through the hospital and destroyed a few trays of medical supplies and it seems like he was on a rampage of sorts. We tried to investigate to see if he's had any mental illnesses that could cause this outbreak.”

“Did he?” Hwan asks absently, not really paying attention.

“Well, the thing is, he wasn't a registered nurse.”

Hwan’s typing falters. “What?”

“Exactly. He was on the same floor that you were on, and he was even seen going into a room with a tray of injections.”

. Hwan’s hand darts out to pick up the phone.

“After he left the room, his psychotic streak appeared and he went down the hallway, tipping those trays like crazy. We tracked him down to the ER floor, and then, we don't know if he meant to or not, but he unplugged a patient’s life support. We tried to find him in the hospital staff system by face identification detectors, but there were no matches.”

“What about face recognition in the previous history of criminals? Current suspects? Even the general population?” Hwan fires back. This scene doesn't look good to him. If that man wasn't a nurse, if he wasn’t certified in anesthesiology, not only would that mean he was committing a crime, but he would be suspect to attempted murder.

“Nothing. It's like the man doesn't even exist.”

“Wait, what happened to the patient? Is his condition stable now?”

There's a pause on the phone. “He passed away not even 5 minutes later. Because we can't find him in any database and can't confirm his mental condition, he's now the designated suspect of second degree murder.”

Hwan can only gape. He's silent for a few moments, trying to piece together the information that he hopes is connected in a puzzle. 

“What cams were these?”

“Four and twelve. Security saw it, but as soon as they were called, he was gone. They even searched the perimeter.”

Hwan opens up those respective cameras and begins to rewind through the time frames. At 7:32:16, Hwan finds the life support scene on camera number 4.

“Director, I’ll call you back. Thanks for the information.” Hanging up the phone, Hwan throws it into the piles of paper without a further glance.

He continues to readjust the perspective of the camera and zoom in until finally, Hwan catches the man at a full frontal view headed towards the door. Pressing the rewind button, mHwan watches the lean man come into the ER, unplug the life support casually, and progress his way down the hallway towards the exit. Just as the man crosses the threshold, Hwan sees something that he's sure is a figment of his imagination. Just to make sure, he rewinds and replays.

Right underneath the front view of the camera, the man pauses for a fragment of a second and grins widely at the lens. Someone could even pin his emotion as blissful. Then, his eyes flush a deep scarlet red, the brown of his eyes being taken over by the unnatural color. They glow like two ruby beams under the camera recording. With one last smile, he leaves, his eyes not turning back.

Hwan pauses the recording again, stunned at the scene before him.

What the am I dealing with?

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