Chapter 15
Dec 29, 2025
The smile on his face was so wide he could feel it. He tried to relax, consciously loosening the muscles in his cheeks, but it made little difference, all he could do was reduce it to a grin.
His work was everywhere.
Not just in newspapers and on the rolling news, but in murmured conversations on subway platforms, in the favoured arguments of friends hunched over plastic tables in soju tents. He was the discussion topic of choice for salarymen before their Monday morning meetings, and bored housewives alike. University students were trawling every article, blog post, and video they could find. Nerdy teenagers in bedrooms thousands of miles away stitched together ridiculous conspiracy theories on forum noticeboards.
Everyone had a theory as to his motivation.
The newspapers’ current favourite was *political statement*.
“He must have taken something,” the chatter went on buses and subway trains. “They’re just not telling us what. Probably something really embarrassing. Something the gallery doesn’t want out. All these Apgujeong types are corrupt.”
But no one had made the right connection.
No one whispered, talked, or shouted about the first work. It had passed unnoticed.
That saddened him.
Were all artists more attached to their first great work? Was it sentiment, or simply the effort it had required? He had punched a hole in the side of a skyscraper, in the middle of one of the largest cities on earth, and it had vanished as if he had never existed.
No recognition.
He cut a few holes in some photographs and suddenly the world woke up.
His next work would have to come soon — before he became nothing more than last month’s most shared link. And this time, there would be no ambiguity. This time they would find the connection. They might never see the first act for what it was, but they would see the line running from the second to the third.
They would join his dots.
And when they did, she would see what he was capable of. She would see how she had crossed him. She would start to sense how she would pay for what she had done.