My mystical boy Hyunjin~

Felix didn’t go back to the station.

He drove until the city thinned, streetlights stretching farther apart, rain streaking the windshield like veins of light. The silver drive felt heavier than it should have in his pocket, like it was pressing straight into his pulse.

Project Meridian.

The name scratched at something buried deep in his memory—half-remembered briefings, redacted files, a case shut down before it ever officially existed. He pulled over under an overpass and finally let himself breathe.

His laptop hummed to life on the passenger seat.

The drive was encrypted. Of course it was. Hyunjin never did anything halfway.

Felix cracked it anyway.

It took longer than he wanted to admit. He cursed, drank lukewarm coffee from a gas station cup, wiped rain from his hands before they slipped on the keys. And then—

The screen filled with files.

Audio logs. Surveillance stills. Psychological profiles.

And names.

Felix’s stomach dropped.

They weren’t criminals. Not officially. They were contractors, analysts, handlers—people who existed in the gray spaces between law enforcement and something much darker. The kind of people who didn’t leave paper trails because they were the paper trail.

At the center of it all: MERIDIAN INITIATIVE
Status: Terminated
Assets: Decommissioned

Asset HJ-07.

Hyunjin.

Felix leaned back hard, the air leaving his lungs. “Jesus Christ…”

He opened one of the audio files.

Hyunjin’s voice filled the car—younger, sharper, stripped of the quiet control Felix had come to recognize.

> “If I refuse?”
“Then we activate compliance.”
“…And if I break?”
“Then you’ll still be useful.”

Felix shut his eyes.

They hadn’t trained a killer.

They had manufactured one.

The killings from years ago—the ones pinned on Hyunjin—suddenly aligned into something colder, more deliberate. Targets chosen not for chaos, but for containment. People who knew too much. People who could expose Meridian before it was buried.

And now someone was recreating it.

Finishing it.

Felix’s phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

He stared at it for a long second before answering. “Felix.”

“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Hyunjin.

Felix’s grip tightened. “You’re tracking me.”

“I stopped,” Hyunjin said softly. “An hour ago.”

“Then how—”

“You always pull off the road when you’re thinking too hard.”

Felix swallowed. “You left me evidence.”

“I left you the truth.”

“You left me a war.”

A pause. Then, quieter, “I didn’t want you walking into it blind.”

Felix laughed once, sharp and humorless. “You don’t get to protect me.”

“I know.” Hyunjin exhaled. “I still did it.”

Felix looked back at the files glowing on the screen. “They’re using you as a ghost.”

“Yes.”

“And you think if I chase you, I’ll find them.”

“I think,” Hyunjin said, “that if you don’t, they’ll find you first.”

Silence pressed in around them, thick and electric.

“Where are you?” Felix asked.

“Somewhere I can see the city burn without being in the fire.”

“Hyunjin—”

“They’re watching the department,” he interrupted. “Not you. Not yet. But they will.”

Felix’s jaw set. “Then stop running.”

A soft sound on the line. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.

“If I stop,” Hyunjin said, “they’ll use you to get to me.”

Felix didn’t hesitate. “Then let them try.”

Another pause—longer this time.

“…You really don’t know when to quit.”

“Funny,” Felix said. “I was thinking the same about you.”

Rain drummed harder against the car roof. The city waited, unaware of the fault line opening beneath it.

“I’ll send you coordinates,” Hyunjin said finally. “Not where I am. Where they started.”

“Why trust me now?”

“Because you still believe I can be more than what they made.”

Felix closed his eyes, the weight of it settling in his chest. “And if you’re wrong?”

“Then,” Hyunjin said softly, “you’ll be the one to put me down.”

The line went dead.

Felix stared at the dark screen, heart pounding, rain soaking the world outside.

He started the engine.

Whatever Meridian was, whatever Hyunjin had been turned into—

Felix wasn’t hunting him anymore.

He was choosing him.

And that choice might cost him everything.