A man’s word is worth a thousand pieces of gold.
It means that the words of a real man should carry the weight of gold, and every word must be chosen with care.
To Siron, who normally treated words as light as feathers, it was an old saying he could never agree with—but today was different.
He was gritting his teeth, suppressing the urge to flee, just to uphold the golden promise he had made as a man—Yoon Siron.
“Stop now, while you still can. It’s too dangerous.”
Siron, who had been laying out a blue tarpaulin—worn and full of holes—on the ground, glanced up at Lewis towering above him.
He was already feeling anxious, wondering if he could pull this off. With Lewis hovering nearby, voicing every imaginable concern, the turmoil inside him only worsened.
After piling up a heap of threadbare blankets on top of the tarp, Siron dusted off his hands and stood.
“If it gets too dangerous, I’ll just run. I’m a black belt in taekwondo—think I can’t handle something like this?
Besides, you’re going to be tailing me on your motorcycle the whole time, so what’s there to worry about?”
Wednesday, 3:10 PM. The heat was searing.
Lewis and Siron stood in a secluded clearing near an art gallery in the Linhart district, shielded by surrounding structures.
The lot, cluttered with construction materials, was marked by a large sign announcing an upcoming development.
It was just one block from where they had found Joan Welch and loaded her into a police cruiser.
“And what if, by some chance, I lose you?”
Lewis’s voice brimmed with worry. Siron answered him with deliberate nonchalance.
“There’s a Korean proverb: even if you get dragged off by a tiger, you’ll survive if you keep your wits about you.
I’ll find a way to survive. You just keep doing what you’ve always done—survive on your own.”
“No. I can’t go back to how things were without you.”
“Didn’t you once say you wouldn’t have met me at all if it weren’t for my pheromones?”
“When did I ever—! ...I never said that. I just said I wasn’t sure.”
“Same thing!”
Siron clung to Lewis’s slip of the tongue, teasing him relentlessly. He watched him with a mischievous glint in his eye, then reached out.
“Enough. What are you so worried about?
If I get kidnapped again—God forbid—you’ll just have to come find me again.”
His hand reached for the visor on Lewis’s helmet.
When he pulled it down, Lewis’s face disappeared behind the shield, and Siron’s own calm face reflected in the glass pane across from him.
He was dressed in a gray T-shirt with the collar stretched out, and a pair of basketball pants with the hem torn and dragging—clothes he had deliberately ruined.
They were clothes Lewis had worn until recently, still faintly scented with his pheromones.
His hair was matted and greasy, deliberately messed up with hair wax.
“Wow. I really look like a homeless guy.
...But like, the kind of homeless guy who becomes a viral sensation on social media because he’s too handsome, and then his life totally changes.
Wait—what time is it?”
Siron suddenly panicked and pulled out his phone to check the screen.
The meeting time with Anna was fast approaching. His eyes widened as he opened the tracking app and saw her current location.
“Quick, make the call. Anna’s not far from here.”
“Got it.”
Siron curled up on top of the tarp and blankets, folding his body like a shrimp.
Listening to Lewis make the report call, he genuinely felt like a homeless man worn down by the streets.
And then, unease crept in. A doubt—could their plan really work?
After finishing the call, Lewis took off on his motorcycle before Anna’s patrol car could appear.
Roughly ten minutes later, sirens wailed from a nearby street.
As Siron’s mind raced with anxious thoughts, a car door opened, then shut, and footsteps approached.
They drew closer and closer until they stopped right at his feet.
Fearing the worst—that someone unexpected had shown up—Siron cracked his eyes open just a sliver to see who it was.
Thankfully, it was Anna McCarthy, standing over him with her hands on her hips.
“Hey. In this weather, at this time of day, you’re gonna die of heatstroke lying around like this.”
Anna let out a small, teasing laugh as she spoke.
Siron pretended not to hear, smacking his lips in fake sleep.
Eventually, Anna crouched beside him and gave his body a little shake.
“Hey. Wake up.”
“...Mmm?”
“I’m Officer Anna McCarthy from the Linhart Police Department.
We received a report from a local resident.
Please come with me—we’ll move to a different location.”
Siron slowly opened his eyes and looked around.
Anna stood at his feet, the sun behind her. In the patrol car parked on the curb, a man he’d never seen before sat in the passenger seat. Probably her partner.
Playing the part of a polite homeless man complying with police authority, Siron got to his feet, gathered up the tarp and blankets, and stuffed them into his bag.
Then he followed Anna toward the police car. As they approached, he met eyes with the man in the front seat.
The man, who had been slouched lazily in his chair, suddenly tensed.
He sat upright, rolled down the window, and studied Siron closely.
Siron was used to being watched by strangers, but being scrutinized by a police officer made him nervous.
“Huh. Don’t see many Asian homeless people around here... Ni hao? Xie xie?”
Siron just stared blankly at the man, too stunned to respond—so Anna spoke for him.
“Doug, you know that’s offensive, right?
I heard him speak English earlier, by the way.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Even after Siron got into the backseat, Doug couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Strange. For a homeless guy, he doesn’t smell bad at all.”
“...Maybe he only just started living on the street?”
In focusing so much on appearance, they had overlooked the scent.
Siron and Anna’s embarrassed eyes met in the rearview mirror, then quickly darted away.
“Well, that means he hasn’t gotten too used to the streets.
Should be easier to get him re-adapted and reintegrated into society.
Hey, you.”
“...Y-Yeah?”
“Once you’re back on your feet, adjust well—and don’t come back to the streets, alright?”
“...Sorry? Oh—yes.”
Doug’s unexpectedly formal tone, which didn’t match Anna’s earlier explanation, left Siron bewildered.
“You’re being awfully nice today, Doug.”
“Me? I’m not doing anything different.”
“...Never mind.”
Anna quickly changed the subject, suppressing her displeasure.
“Hopefully the assigned officer will take good care of him.”
“Assigned officer?”
“Joseph Miller.”
“Ah, that sleazy bastard?”
Doug grimaced and slowly shook his head, as if the very name brought out a deep disgust.
“Sleazy? Why?”
Doug glanced at the back seat, then leaned in toward Anna at the wheel.
He whispered into her ear, low enough that the ‘homeless man’ wouldn’t hear.
“I’ve seen that bastard hit on pretty boys more than once.
And my sister-in-law said she actually saw him fooling around with a guy at a hotel.
You dig into that guy’s background, and something rotten’s bound to come up.”
“Oh come on. Miller has a solid reputation.”
“Ha! You think he earned that himself?
It’s all thanks to his wife’s family.”
“His wife’s family?”
“Hellsota Organic Produce Market. His mother-in-law runs the company.”
The Hellsota Organic Produce Market had several massive distribution centers across the state.
They sold fresh produce at low prices and used eco-friendly packaging—Anna was even a frequent customer herself.
“I had no idea.”
If she had known, she never would’ve shopped there.
“That bastard Miller used that connection to buy a whole farm—dumped all his money into it and even took out loans.
Says he’s growing vegetables in a smart farm setup and distributing them through the market.
Seems like he’s getting ready to retire and start his ‘second life.’”
Anna had seen Doug chatting with Miller on multiple occasions.
She had assumed they got along well because they were the same kind of guy.
But it seemed Doug was actually quite envious.
Still, it was an unexpected windfall.
They didn’t have enough evidence to pin the homeless disappearances on Miller.
But now, using his family might be the leverage they needed.
Anna had hidden a voice recorder—capable of up to forty hours of recording—inside a pocket she had sewn into the lining of Siron’s pants.
She drove calmly to the Homeless Support Center, hoping it would catch something incriminating.
After parking, Anna grabbed all of Siron’s belongings and led him toward the building.
Once inside the lobby, she glanced around and pulled him into a deserted emergency stairwell.
“You didn’t tell me the assigned officer was some creepy John Wayne Gacy-type.”
Siron’s dry remark rendered Anna momentarily speechless.
Apparently, Doug hadn’t whispered quietly enough—Siron had caught every word.
“Are you sure Joseph Miller is actually connected to Hybris?
What if he’s some serial killer who rapes and murders young homeless men?
What if that’s what happened to Joan Welch?”
“Serial killer? That’s pushing it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Joseph Miller’s a nasty bastard, but he’s not the kind to kill someone.
I don’t think he even has the guts for it.
And besides, you’re a black belt in taekwondo.
Not that it’ll come to that—but if he tries anything, just spin kick his head off.”
“...I got that black belt when I was nine.”
“Your body’ll remember.
Anyway, when you’re alone with Joseph, make sure the recorder is on.”
Anna gripped Siron’s shoulder firmly.
Her desperate expression made him sigh and look up at the ceiling before finally nodding, reluctantly.
It felt like being shoved into the mouth of a crocodile-infested swamp—but it was too late to back out now.
Siron clenched his fists in determination.
“Got it, Anna. Let’s finish this fast.”
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