My mystical boy Hyunjin~

Felix drove.

The coordinates came through thirty seconds later—an industrial block near the river, old infrastructure strangled by new development. The kind of place the city pretended not to see. He didn’t route it through the station system. Didn’t log the movement. He turned his phone facedown and let instinct take the wheel.

That scared him more than anything else.

The river smelled like metal and rot when he arrived. Warehouses loomed like blind giants, windows blacked out or boarded over, security lights long dead. Felix parked two streets away and finished the rest on foot, jacket pulled tight, gun a familiar weight at his side.

He kept thinking about the word asset.

Not suspect. Not operative.

Asset.

Something owned. Something spent.

The building at the coordinates was smaller than he expected—three stories, concrete and glass, once a data processing hub before outsourcing and “restructuring” gutted it. Felix circled once, twice. No cameras. No visible alarms. That alone felt wrong.

Inside, dust coated the floors in undisturbed sheets. Power was still live, low hum in the walls like a sleeping animal. Someone had been careful. Someone had wanted this place forgotten, not destroyed.

Felix moved room to room, flashlight cutting clean lines through the dark. Offices stripped bare. Server racks gone. But the walls—

The walls still remembered.

He stopped in what used to be a conference room. A whiteboard spanned one side, wiped clean but not well enough. Indentations remained, faint ghosts of marker strokes pressed too hard.

Felix traced them with his eyes.

Behavioral conditioning.
Redundancy protocols.
Failure thresholds.

His chest tightened.

On the far wall, half-hidden behind a collapsed cabinet, was a door that didn’t match the rest—thicker, reinforced. He forced it open.

The room beyond was smaller. Windowless. Observation glass on one side, cracked but intact.

A training room.

Restraints bolted to a chair in the center. Electrodes. A drain in the floor.

Felix swallowed bile.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not now. Not ever.

His phone vibrated once.

A text. Unknown number.

> You’re standing where they broke me.

Felix didn’t type. He pressed call.

“You didn’t tell me it was this,” he said the second the line connected.

“I didn’t want to,” Hyunjin replied.

Felix turned slowly, scanning the observation window. “You were alone in here.”

“No,” Hyunjin said. “I was isolated. That’s different.”

Felix closed his eyes. The distinction hurt more than he expected.

“They taught you how to kill,” Felix said. “But this—this is how they taught you not to stop.”

“Yes.”

“Why show me this?”

“So you’ll understand what they’ll try to do to you,” Hyunjin answered quietly. “Not with pain. With pressure. With guilt. With time.”

Felix leaned a hand against the wall, steadying himself. “You think they can turn me.”

“I think,” Hyunjin said, “they already tried. Meridian didn’t just make assets. They made leverage. They mapped everyone around us. Weak points. Patterns. You’ve been on a list longer than you know.”

Felix opened his eyes. “Because of you.”

“Because you don’t look away.”

That landed deep.

A sound echoed through the building—soft, mechanical. Felix stiffened.

Footsteps.

He lifted the phone. “We’re not alone.”

“I know,” Hyunjin said. “That’s why I sent you there.”

Felix’s pulse spiked. “You said they weren’t watching me yet.”

“They weren’t,” Hyunjin replied. “Now they are.”

“Hyunjin—”

“Listen to me,” he cut in, urgency sharpening his voice. “They want to see what you do when you’re cornered. Whether you call it in. Whether you run. Whether you choose the rules.”

Felix moved to the doorway, gun raised. Shadows shifted at the far end of the hall. Two, maybe three people. Controlled. Not rushing.

Hunters.

“And if I don’t?” Felix asked.

“Then they’ll escalate.”

Felix exhaled slowly. “You used me as bait.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still asking me to trust you.”

Another pause. Softer this time. Almost fragile.

“I’m asking you to survive.”

The footsteps drew closer.

Felix made his choice.

He stepped out into the hallway, weapon lowered but visible, badge still clipped to his belt where it could be seen.

“Police,” he called. “You’re trespassing on a restricted property.”

A man stepped into the light. Mid-forties. No insignia. Calm eyes.

“Detective Lee,” the man said pleasantly. “You’re off-book.”

Felix’s jaw tightened. “So are you.”

The man smiled. “We prefer ‘external consultants.’”

Felix laughed once. “Figures.”

Behind him, the line was still open. Felix didn’t look back, but he knew Hyunjin was listening. Measuring. Remembering.

“You can walk away,” the man continued. “Forget Meridian. Forget him. Go back to your cases. Your life.”

Felix thought of rain-streaked windows. Of a voice asking If I break? and being told it didn’t matter.

“No,” Felix said.

The man’s smile faded. Just a fraction.

“Pity.”

Felix raised his gun.

In his ear, Hyunjin whispered, barely audible, “Whatever happens next—I’m with you.”

For the first time since this began, Felix believed him.

And when the lights went out, plunging the corridor into darkness—

Felix didn’t feel alone.