“What was that call about?” Gaeul asked as she looked at Maru who sat down.

Maru was cautiously on a long phone call ever since he asked Yoojin about Hong Janghae. There was no way he randomly mentioned someone completely unrelated to this topic. She wondered what Maru said to whoever it was over the phone.

“Someone I know is investigating something, and he ran into a similar situation as this one so I asked just in case.”

“Something similar?”

“It’s a little complicated to explain. But it’s not a big deal.”

Gaeul felt a sense of disparity while looking at Maru smiling. He seemed to be hiding something important. Whether it was his expression, action, or the tone of his words, they were all calm and made it seem like nothing big was going on, but she was strangely concerned about them. Yoojin and Jiseok both nodded and took their attention away from him, but Gaeul narrowed her eyes and observed him. She locked eyes with him just as she was drinking. He was smiling nonchalantly. Seeing Maru ask her if there was anything she wanted to know, Gaeul intuitively realized that he was hiding something. Something that he could not say out...