That night, Detective Kim couldn't sleep. No matter how hard he tried, he kept pacing back and forth across his room, as he always did when the threads of a complicated case tangled in his mind.
His footsteps were steady, but his thoughts were chaos.
He kept repeating the witnesses' words in his head… all of them… as if they were speaking at once, their voices overlapping endlessly inside his mind.
All the witnesses inside the filming studio agreed on one thing:
there was a suspicious woman there.
The director said he heard Woo Jin arguing with a woman.
A woman who was threatening him… in a loud, sharp voice, filled with defiance:
"If you think you'll get rid of me like the others… you're wrong."
But… he never saw her face.
Who was that woman?
Very slim… tall, around 1.80 meters…
pink hair.
Everyone agreed on her appearance:
a black hat… a black mask.
So… she was trying to hide her identity.
But… why?
Only two possibilities…
Either she feared Woo Jin's fame might affect her reputation…
Or… she was famous herself, hiding who she was.
Detective Kim let out a slow sigh, then sat on the couch.
He closed his eyes and began replaying the case… step by step… as if watching a film inside his head.
The criminal…
had dismembered the body into equal pieces.
This wasn't just murder…
this was revenge.
All of Woo Jin's acquaintances had said something strange:
he was obsessed with the "perfect weight."
He dated women in their early twenties…
and what they all had in common…
was that they were extremely thin.
And he kept their identities hidden.
All his former girlfriends agreed on one thing:
staying with him… was impossible.
He monitored what they ate… what they drank… what they wore…
He wanted them… like living plastic dolls.
One of them said he asked her to eat half an apple a day.
Another said he exploited her desire for success, telling her to survive on vitamins and very little food every few days.
Another… weighed 37 kilograms… and he was still not satisfied.
He kept demanding that she lose more weight.
Another…
suffered from severe iron deficiency… and was hospitalized.
And in the end…
he was always the one who left them…
because they failed to reach his ideal image.
Detective Kim slowly opened his eyes.
Was the pink-haired woman… the killer?
Did she carry out her threat… and kill him?
Or…
As soon as dawn broke, Detective Kim rushed toward the investigation unit.
There were only three days left…
to save an unknown woman… fighting to stay alive… in the grip of a merciless criminal.
A butcher… if nothing else.
Inside the investigation unit, he gathered his team:
Assistant Lee…
the forensic expert…
the data and surveillance analyst.
Without preamble, he said:
"We need to identify the pink-haired woman."
Then he scratched his head in thought.
"There's a fifty percent chance… she's the killer."
Assistant Lee asked:
"And the other fifty?"
Detective Kim raised his gaze and replied in a chillingly calm tone:
"She's the owner of the strange nail…
She's… the next victim."
A heavy silence fell over the room.
"It seems she was different…
She threatened him.
That means… she had something on him."
He continued, recalling the statements of the former girlfriends:
"He required complete secrecy in the relationship…
extreme caution… even from the closest people.
Meetings… only at his house."
He lifted his head toward the ceiling… as if connecting invisible threads, then suddenly said:
"The back door of the victim's house… Woo Jin."
The surveillance analyst replied:
"The cameras…
As I mentioned before, there are no nearby cameras covering the back door except one…
belonging to Woo Jin's neighbor…
who has been out of the country for two years."
The lights dimmed slightly, and the large screen in the room lit up.
Surveillance footage appeared… three kilometers away from the victim's house.
The analyst began explaining:
"As the former girlfriends stated…
they never went to Woo Jin's house using their own cars.
The meeting was once a week.
Their faces… always covered.
They used public transportation.
Entry… through the back door."
Then he pointed at a spot on the screen.
"After careful tracking…
the pink-haired woman visited Woo Jin's house weekly… for nearly a year.
She stayed for two hours… then left."
The footage changed.
"In the last month… before the body was discovered…
her visits became irregular…
and she started leaving early."
The images moved quickly:
a taxi…
a dark street…
a subway entrance…
an exterior camera…
stairs…
inside the carriage…
then the street…
then… disappearance.
Detective Kim said in a low voice:
"The only remaining lead…
the neighbor's cameras."
He added with cold confidence:
"We'll find a solution soon."
The forensic expert stepped forward and said:
"We lifted thousands of fingerprints from the studio…
it's impossible to identify the girl."
She paused, then added:
"We were hoping to find a strange print in the victim's house…
but… I regret to inform you…
we didn't find a single fingerprint.
Even Woo Jin's own prints… are gone."
A heavy silence filled the room.
Then…
Detective Kim laughed.
But it wasn't a mocking laugh…
it was admiration.
He said, looking at everyone:
"We are not dealing with an ordinary criminal…
but with a sadistic one… different."
Then he added slowly, as if weighing every word:
"And to catch him…
we must… think like him."