Darkness.

Silence.

As we panted, barely managing to catch our breaths in between kisses, Im Nayeon opened her doors to the massive mansion, which I would call home for the next two years.

In a struggle to choose between Yoo Jeongyeon and Bang Eunkyung; take note of every single thing inside her interior's house, as a detective, or let myself go, and melt into Nayeon's embrace, as her lover, I moaned out the loudest I ever had in my forty years of living. Soon enough, I would be thrown onto her bed, where I would spend the whole night on, unable to get enough of the killer I was supposed to be investigating. We would be sweating, and mumbling, keeping each other close until we could no longer keep our eyes open, and as the sun slowly arose. And I would sleep until the next evening, completely disregarding the fact that Bang Eunkyung didn't exist, and that I was Yoo Jeongyeon. A detective on a mission, who had too much to do, especially after being granted access to Nayeon's home so easily.

"I'm sick." it was around four in the evening the next day, when I opened my eyes to meet Im Nayeon laying next to me, a mere white sheet covering her bare body. "I won't make it in today. Let everybody know."

Her voice was raspy as she spoke into her phone, and her eyes remained closed. Clearly, from her puffy face and messy hair, she had just woken up as well. Even for a dedicated businesswoman like her, a long night of passion was enough to make her sleep in, and miss work.

"Morning." she rasped, the phone she held was now on the nightstand, and her eyes stared right into mine. "Do you want breakfast? I can cook something for us."

I blinked, as in a trance, without being able to utter a word. Im Nayeon's presence left me completely baffled, even after having just woken up. For a moment, I resented myself for not having thought the previous night through. Getting too emotionally invested in this case, would only make things harder. But, realistically, I couldn't blame myself too much, since I had in fact not regretted sleeping with Im Nayeon. Even if it was Bang Eunkyung who did so.

"Eunkyung?" Nayeon called out, already out of her bed, and lingering by the door with just an over-sized t-shirt on. "Are you not getting up?"

And I blinked again, rapidly this time. In an instant, I was stumbling out of the bed, and accompanying her downstairs, where we would spend the rest of the day. Inside my head, the switch between detective Yoo Jeongyeon and Bang Eunkyung kept flipping, in an attempt to gather as much evidence as possible.

Just like that, the day would go by, and the night would roll in, so fast that we had yet to clean the kitchen, dress up, and prepare to bid goodbyes. Typically, that's how a hook-up would go about; eventually, I would be walking out of her home, with her scent all over me, trying to snap out of the daze she had lured me into and back to my usual sharpness.

That's how *typically* things would go.

And our case was not typical at all. Nothing is typical with falling in love with a murderer.

"Do you want to stay here?" she would ask as we laid on her couch, two tall glasses of white wine left untouched by the side table. "I mean, like, stay as long as you want. You can bring some stuff over too."

My eyes flashed at that, though I wasn't entirely sure if they were Yoo Jeongyeon's or Bang Eunkyung's. I couldn't surely decide whether I was excited about getting the place all to myself, or because I was getting Im Nayeon all to myself. And for a moment, I hesitated. It was the first time in my life that I had ever felt something as strong as this, that desire for Nayeon. And it was so strong that it nearly overshadowed the only thing I had truly loved up until this point in my life; my job. How could my instincts, morals, and ethics as a detective be lesser than the rapid beating of my heart over a suspected criminal?

"Sure." I replied and she squealed, kissing me.

"You're going to have all day to write your novels, since I, too, work a lot," her smile felt so genuine, it made my heart melt. "I'll provide you with anything, so you can just publish your first work already. Just like you dreamt of!"

That's how I ended up spending two years in Im Nayeon's large mansion. And soon, as each day succeeded the other, and as the seasons changed, Nayeon's large mansion became our place. Our home. It became Im Nayeon and Bang Eunkyung's love nest, the place only the two of us were allowed in, and where our love grew and blossomed from a mere seed to a beautiful flower.

Truth be told, at the span of those years, I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be Yoo Jeongyeon. Existing as Bang Eunkyung and spending the mornings all by myself in a luxurious mansion, while holding the person I loved close throughout the night, was much easier than living paycheck to paycheck, in a small apartment I could barely afford, killing the hundreds of cockroaches that infected it. Nayeon's lifestyle and love had me in, and I was loosing every sense of reality, the real reality, not the one Nayeon was aware of. 

Not only was I losing the sense of reality, but reality was losing the sense and sight of me. As the days passed, and as the reality of Bang Eunkyung blended into Yoo Jeongyeon's, I began to lose everything. My inability to work on cases, got me demoted, and nearly fired, despite technically still being in mission and undercover, while my active clients — Nayeon's parents— were getting seemingly upset, and impatient. The reason I had only attempted to enter this mansion, had been completely evacuated from my brain the moment I stepped a foot into it, and my true identity, had been discarded like a bad batch of kimchi. Everyone around me, including my family, co-workers, and the few couples of friends that had yet to hate me, had been knowingly pushed away by me. At that moment, living as Bang Eunkyung felt like living as Yoo Jeongyeon.  Being with Nayeon and living out our romance, while having zero to none financial worries, like I had been all forty years of my life, had outplaced me from my path.

I was an experienced detective, who had gone undercover multiple times, and deep down I was well aware of my mistake. Getting too emotionally invested in cases, and especially with their suspects, only compromised my hard work and put the whole investigation on the line. And still, after so many years of intensive training and experience, I let myself fall into this trap, thinking I would be the exception. Foolishly, I thought that I'm not like other people, that emotions won't ever get in the way of my true passion for my job.

But, I failed to realize, that emotions awake new passions, and that one of those new passions of mine was Im Nayeon.

And I fell into a circle of incompetence that lasted too long, and only broke because of a phone call. A phone call that reminded me, once again, that I was just like every other human being; I felt emotions deeply, reminisced the olden days, and loved the people around me. I wasn't just a body, a pair of limbs and a head, but a person with a brain, and a heart. A heart ready to break, and piece itself back together like everyone else's. A brain that overthought.

"You need to hurry home," my oldest sister sobbed through the phone. It was so deep into the night, I could barely see my own nose. "Something's wrong with dad!"

I wasn't just a thing. I wasn't just an incompetent detective, but a fragile, weak, stupid human-being. I was human. Who felt. A human filled with desires, unfulfilled dreams, and mostly, pain.