Close Friendship (Part 2)
The classified mission file told me about the last task Buddha's Hand had undertaken before vanishing.
It was the story of two best friends.
There was a young woman named Yvonne Kane. She'd been an outstanding student who landed a position at a major corporation right out of college—bright, capable, and kind to a fault.
Yvonne was the kind of person who gave everything for her friends. When her best friend Nora Hale struggled to find work, Yvonne spent her own free time tutoring her, conducting mock interviews, and walking her through every step of the hiring process. Thanks to Yvonne's tireless help, Nora Hale landed the same job at the same company.
The two of them were inseparable. They worked together, commuted together, even rented a small apartment so they could share living expenses. That was how close they were—more like sisters than friends.
Across the street from their office building was a supermarket where a young man named Derek Garrett worked. He spotted Nora Hale one day and became instantly smitten, pursuing her with relentless intensity. Nora Hale eventually gave in, and the two started dating.
But what couple doesn't fight?
After the honeymoon phase faded, arguments became routine. Every time they fought, Nora Hale would storm over to Yvonne, venting furiously, painting Derek Garrett as the worst boyfriend alive. And Yvonne, being the loyal best friend she was, would always side with her—echoing her anger, agreeing he was terrible, urging her to break up with him.
The problem was, every time Nora Hale and Derek Garrett fought, they also made up. And every time they reconciled, Nora Hale would show Derek Garrett the text messages between Yvonne and herself—the ones where Yvonne had called him every name in the book.
Derek Garrett grew to despise Yvonne. He was convinced she was deliberately trying to destroy his relationship. He confronted her more than once, hurling insults, even threatening violence. Each time, Nora Hale would placate him and then reassure Yvonne: "Don't worry. If he tries anything, I'll stop him."
Then Nora Hale grew bored of the relationship. She found someone new—and cheated on Derek Garrett behind his back.
When he found out, the betrayal sent him spiraling.
That night, Derek Garrett got drunk—falling-down, blind-with-rage drunk. He packed a knife and a set of tools, grabbed the spare key Nora Hale had given him months ago, and let himself into their shared apartment, hell-bent on confronting her.
But when the door burst open, Nora Hale panicked. She locked herself inside her bedroom, leaving Yvonne alone in the living room.
Yvonne had just stepped out of the shower. She was standing there wrapped in nothing but a towel.
Derek Garrett saw her, and all the fury he'd been nursing—the texts, the interfering, the months of resentment—converged into something monstrous. The desire for revenge twisted into something else entirely.
He violated Yvonne Kane that night.
She screamed and begged, crying out for her best friend to save her. But Nora Hale stayed locked behind her bedroom door. She didn't open it. She didn't call for help. She didn't even reach for her phone sitting on the nightstand. She cowered in silence while Yvonne was assaulted in their own living room—a living room they'd picked out together, decorated together, felt safe in together.
The assault lasted the entire night. And Nora Hale never once came out.
In the aftermath, Yvonne's world collapsed.
Nora Hale urged her not to go to the police. "It'll only ruin your life more," she said. "Everyone will know. You'll never escape it."
But Yvonne refused to stay silent. She reported it.
This was a different era—one where victims were scrutinized far more harshly than perpetrators. Whispers followed her everywhere. People called her damaged goods. The company, unable to withstand the social pressure, "suggested" she resign. She lost her job, her reputation, and the future she'd worked so hard to build.
Derek Garrett was eventually convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. But for Yvonne, justice felt hollow. Her attacker was punished, yet the damage he'd inflicted remained—carved into every waking moment of her life.
She couldn't move past it. The trauma was a living thing that refused to die.
So she went up to the roof of her building and she jumped.
She landed face-first on the concrete below.
God, in His infinite ambiguity, let her live.
Her face was destroyed—reconstructed but unrecognizable. Every mirror became an enemy. Every reflection, a stranger.
Many people have the courage to attempt suicide once. Very few can bring themselves to try again. Yvonne was one of those people. Looking at her weeping parents, she decided she had to keep living—not for herself, but for them.
She found factory work as an instrument technician. A university graduate, reduced to operating dials on an assembly line—because no employer would hire a woman with a disfigured face for a professional position.
Meanwhile, Nora Hale—the woman who'd risen thanks to Yvonne's help—became known as a powerhouse professional. She drove a Porsche Macan, wore Armani suits, sipped Starbucks between meetings, and was the pride of her parents and the envy of her peers. She'd climbed the corporate ladder, earned promotions, built a reputation.
No one knew that behind Nora Hale's success stood Yvonne—the woman whose careful guidance had gotten her the job in the first place, and who now, in the shadows, did a significant portion of Nora Hale's actual work.
Because when Nora Hale's own incompetence caught up with her, who did she turn to? The same person she'd always turned to. Yvonne, finishing her shifts at the factory, would stay up nights writing proposals, reviewing contracts, and preparing presentations that Nora Hale then presented as her own.
That was Nora Hale's secret. Behind every "self-made" success story, there was someone else doing the heavy lifting.
But the story didn't end there.
Years after the assault, Yvonne met a man who was genuinely kind to her. Someone who looked past her scars—both physical and emotional—and loved her for who she was. For the first time in years, she dared to hope that happiness might still be possible.
Wanting to start clean with him, she didn't tell him about her past. She kept the secret buried, afraid that the truth would drive him away.
They fell in love. They decided to marry. But there was a problem—her fiancé was poor, and to afford even a modest home, Yvonne needed money. So she reached out, once again, to Nora Hale.
Yvonne was, after all, the more capable one. She'd always been. And so she became Nora Hale's ghostwriter—doing the work, taking the pay, never receiving credit, never demanding it. She saved diligently, month after month, until she finally had enough.
She bought a small apartment. She set a wedding date. And she invited Nora Hale—her oldest friend, her employer, her partner in this strange unequal arrangement.
By then, Nora Hale had grown ambitious. Unwilling to remain anyone's employee, she'd poached a team of talent and launched her own company. Yvonne, naturally, came along as the invisible backbone of the operation.
They agreed on a revenue-sharing arrangement—a percentage of total revenue, not profit. That detail would prove to be a landmine.
Then the pandemic hit.
Nora Hale had mortgaged her home and her beloved Porsche Macan to fund the startup. When the economy tanked, the business collapsed. She repaid what loans she could, but she was still in the red. She tried to return to her old company—only to find her former position already filled. Other firms weren't hiring either. The market had turned cold, and Nora Hale, once the golden girl of the corporate world, couldn't find her footing again.
She was miserable. Meanwhile, Yvonne was still counting on her share of the revenue to pay for the wedding—even though the hotel deposit was due, even though the catering was unpaid for.
Yvonne went to Nora Hale and asked for what she was owed. They'd agreed on revenue sharing, not profit sharing. Even if Nora Hale had lost money, Yvonne's share was still Yvonne's share.
But Nora Hale wouldn't pay. She stalled. She procrastinated. She drowned her frustrations in alcohol night after night, brooding over her own misfortune. She'd always been someone who sailed through life—how dare the world treat her this way?
The wedding date drew closer. With no other options, Yvonne borrowed money just to make ends meet, hoping against hope that Nora Hale would come through.
On the wedding day, Nora Hale showed up—gloomy, drinking heavily, consumed by her own spiral of self-pity.
Yvonne, considerate even now, waited until every guest had left before gently raising the subject of the money she was owed.
Nora Hale exploded.
Her face twisted with ugly, drunken rage. She jabbed her finger at Yvonne and screamed: "Push, push, push! That's all you do! If it weren't for me supporting you, you raped, disfigured freak—do you think you'd have anything? If I hadn't helped you, you couldn't have afforded that apartment! I've already paid you back ten times over! You're the ungrateful one!"
The groom heard every word.
He'd known Yvonne had a past—she'd told him she wasn't a virgin, nothing more. He'd assumed she meant a past relationship. But being raped? That was different. In his eyes, in the eyes of the world, she was damaged goods. He wasn't going to marry someone like that.
Yvonne tried to reason with him. "I told you before we got married—I said I wasn't a virgin."
"Not a virgin from a relationship is different from being raped," he shot back. "In everyone's eyes, I'm the one marrying someone's leftovers."
The wedding was called off.
Yvonne had glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel after years of darkness—only to be shoved right back into the abyss.
She climbed to the roof again.
This time, she didn't survive.
After Yvonne's death, Nora Hale offered yet another hollow apology: "I'm sorry. I didn't realize their relationship was so fragile. I was drunk—I didn't mean it... That man was no good anyway. I always said he was unreliable."
This was Nora Hale's pattern. Destroy someone's life, then apologize as though an apology could rebuild what she'd torn down.
I checked the intelligence provided by Judgment Tower. Derek Garrett, after serving his eight-year sentence, had been released—only to attempt assaulting another woman. He was dealt with by another Sin Hunter and permanently erased from this world.
But Nora Hale had never paid for what she'd done.
Her target was Nora Hale—birth name Liu Yuan—the woman Yvonne Kane had once called her best friend.
This was Buddha's Hand's final assignment.
And it was on this mission that she had vanished without a trace.
Something about this gnawed at me. The target was a civilian woman—barely more than a coward and a opportunist. The lowest-ranking Sin Hunter could have handled this.
Why would Buddha's Hand—a skilled operative—disappear on such a straightforward assignment?
What was hiding behind Nora Hale's door?