Chapter 58

—“Geum Seoul. Within thirty seconds, that front door is opening, and they’re going to drag you out,” Gye Do-hyeop commanded through the monitor. “So from this second on, listen to my words very fucking carefully,”

Geum Seoul turned his eyes toward Gye Do-hyeop on the screen. Anxiety filled his entire frame, blood failing to reach his extremities and turning his hands and feet ice-cold. Yet Do-hyeop had no intention of letting him freeze in fear.

Do-hyeop gave rapid directions. —“Open the bottommost drawer under the monitor, grab the lighter, and feel around the top underside. There’s a white sticker there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Letting out a long breath, Geum Seoul crouched down on his knees and yanked the drawer open. Taking out the lighter just as instructed, he felt along the upper recess until his fingertips brushed against a thin piece of paper. He pulled and tore it free. It was a round white sticker no larger than the tip of his index finger, slightly textured as if something minute was embedded in its center.

—“Did you find it?” Gye Do-hyeop demanded from the screen.

“Yes. But, Deputy Director—”

The man cut in sharply. —“Stand up. Let me see your face.”

His knees wobbled uncontrollably. Though his attempt to speak was ignored, the voice from beyond the monitor was the only lifeline he had to hold onto, so Seoul summoned every ounce of strength into his trembling legs and stood.

—“Peel it off and stick it onto your very back upper molar,” Gye Do-hyeop instructed curtly. “Careful not to bite down or crush it.”

Skrrreeech—!

The shrieking grinding of the saw blade against steel was deafening. There was no time to delay. Putting strength into his fingers, Geum Seoul peeled away the backing film and parted his lips.

Srrrt.

Made of a somewhat pliable material, the film adhered smoothly to his molar. Guiding it with the trembling tip of his index finger, he smoothed it down firmly. The next instruction immediately followed.

—“There’s a piece of paper under the tissue box. Read it until I count to five, then burn it with the lighter.”

“To… to five?” Seoul stammered in shock.

The voice snapped back, —“Listen while doing it.”

Clack.

The tissue box resting beside the sofa was solid wood. Chh-k. ‘Code Tempest. Repeat. Code Temp—’ The burst of radio static blaring from Gye Do-hyeop’s end was raucous, but it cut off abruptly a second later. Sniffing back a breath, Seoul pried his fingernail into the slender seam along the wooden base and lifted the bottom panel away. The folded slip of paper rustled as it opened.

Seoul held his breath in silence. “…”

—“What you need to look at is the back,” Do-hyeop ordered. “Find the location list.”

Seoul could only swallow a harsh breath. The slip, barely the size of his palm, was an encrypted codebook. Flustered by the dense columns of text, he raised his head, but Gye Do-hyeop’s pitch-black eyes were still boring into him through the display.

111 Abduction

112 Infiltration

113 Trap

114 Under Fire

115 Disguise

…

Excluding zero, the cipher system utilized only digits from one to five. From 111 to 332 were entries designating tactical situations. Quickly scanning the filled roster, Geum Seoul flipped the paper over. Just as the man had said, the reverse side beginning with 333 comprised codes for designated locations.

“W-Wait. Three hundred… and…”

Gye Do-hyeop began counting down impassively. “One. Two. Three—”

Thud, thud, thud. In his frantic panic, the letters barely registered in his eyes, yet he knew this was his only chance of surviving. Four. Five. Six—

333 Daeheon Hall

334 Headquarters

335 Checkpoint

341 Hangar

342 Isolation Ward

…

While Geum Seoul frantically skimmed down the list, Gye Do-hyeop counted all the way to ten. He had granted twice the time initially promised, but it was still far too fleeting; Seoul hastily jerked his head up. Having removed his glasses in the meantime, Do-hyeop merely issued a clipped order.

—“Burn it.”

Seoul’s heart pounded so violently that it felt ready to burst to ash. From his skull down to his toes, every bone felt on the verge of fracturing, and his sweat-slicked fingers trembled furiously as they clutched the paper.

“Deputy Director, but—” Seoul stammered.

Do-hyeop cut him off with a low rumble. —“Geum Seoul.”

His name, spoken in that low, measured cadence. Only then could Seoul truly take in Gye Do-hyeop’s face. Not a single trace of composure had cracked. While he himself was like a candle flame guttering wildly in a gale, Do-hyeop remained utterly unyielding. His breathing, his piercing gaze, his motionless posture. That solidity was so terrifyingly surreal that—

“Phew.”

And so, dragging in a ragged breath, Geum Seoul finally flicked the lighter. 352 Construction Site, 445 Pier, 555 Unknown…. In his head, he mentally repeated the few prominent locations he had managed to memorize while the man counted.

Chik, click.

Sparking on the second try after an initial fumble, the lighter’s flame consumed the slip in a flash. Clearly made of no ordinary paper, every trace vanished in a heartbeat without leaving so much as a pinch of ash behind. ‘They say playing with fire makes you wet the bed; want me to stuff an extra pair of underwear in your pocket?’ the man teased. He seemed entirely like his everyday self.

“Deputy… Director,” Seoul whispered.

Do-hyeop ignored the hesitation. —“That device can transmit encrypted pulses even through electronic jamming. A GPS would get neutralized anyway, so it’s useless.”

Once again, his soft plea was brushed aside. Hearing there was no tracking beacon, Seoul lifted his head with glistening eyes. Though dread remained painted across his features, a faint flicker of resolve had settled into his expression.

—“Biting down with your molar for three seconds will power it on,” Do-hyeop commanded. “Don’t turn it on now; do it only once you arrive at the destination. That’s the only way I can calculate transit distance by elapsed time. If you understand, answer me.”

“Yes, sir.”

At the clipped response, Gye Do-hyeop gave a curt nod. —“Once it’s active, bite to transmit the digits. You can handle this much. Even a brain-dead pigeon could pull this off.”

Taking a steadying breath, Seoul murmured, “…Yes. I can do it.”

—“If you forget, convert Korean vowels and consonants into numbers by alphabet order,” Gye Do-hyeop commanded. “Understand?”

Seoul nodded frantically. “Yes, sir. Vowels and consonants, in alphabetical order.”

—“I’ll decipher it on my end,” Gye Do-hyeop said. “All you have to do is bite down in clear, steady pauses. It’s dead fucking easy.”

Clear, steady pauses. Having only skimmed the code for ten seconds, there was no way he could memorize it flawlessly. Managing to construct words by stringing consonants and vowels together would be a miracle in itself, and even that assumed he could deduce his location or keep his eyes open. If he were killed on the spot, every shred of this effort would vanish into useless nothingness.

Whirrr, whirrr.

Beyond the front entrance, the frantic screeching dragged on unabated, and as Geum Seoul turned his head for a fleeting second, a hairline fracture of light began peeling through the doorframe.

—“Hey. Look at me,” Gye Do-hyeop commanded.

“……” Seoul froze, his gaze snapping back.

The moment they breach, the feed cuts out. His neck swiveled back toward the screen in slow, fumbling increments, his amber-brown eyes brimming with wet panic. The breathing he had barely managed to settle began to raggedly expand once more. A dense mass of air clogged his windpipe, the sensation creeping down until his lungs felt scorched black.

Snap, snap.

Through the monitor, the man clicked his fingers together to draw his focus.

—“Don’t pussy out against some two-bit scumbag,” Gye Do-hyeop ordered.

A faint smile crossed his lips—a light, effortless smirk that seemed ready to let out an airy chuckle at any second, just like always. The gesture of his hand was equally casual as he curled his thumb and forefinger into a circle, spreading the remaining three fingers wide.

He gave a confident smirk. —“I’m finding you within thirty minutes.”

Flick.

Snapping his curled index finger off his thumb, he mimed a sharp forehead flick right through the screen. Blinking through his terror, Geum Seoul’s gaze locked onto the handsome curve of the man’s mouth. Even in the jaws of this nightmare, that smiling face was magnificent.

—“Turn on that signal and hold out for thirty minutes,” Gye Do-hyeop drawled. “Do that, and I’ll make sure you live another eighty fucking years.”

Gathering whatever moisture remained in his throat, Seoul parted his dry lips.

“Deputy Director,” Seoul called out softly.

On the screen, Gye Do-hyeop finally answered with a flat growl. —“What.”

Screeech—crack! Thud, thud!

The frantic grinding of circular sawblades halted all at once. The next step was tearing the door right off its hinges. On the monitor, Geum Seoul’s eyes darted frantically across every sharp angle of the man’s face. It reached the point where even Gye Do-hyeop took note of the bizarre expression settling over the boy.

“I won’t say a word,” Seoul promised, his gaze leveling.

Though night had fallen, not a single thread of natural moonlight pierced the sealed safe house. His glistening amber eyes had stopped trembling entirely, artificial ceiling lights casting a stark, even glow over his pale skin.

Looking straight at the camera, he added, “So please don’t worry.”

You don’t need to come find me. Though the words remained unspoken, Gye Do-hyeop was hardly blind to the boy’s blatant subtext. The decisive set of the man’s facial muscles hardened into rigid stone, his brow pinching in sharp displeasure.

“And if… if something happens—” Seoul stammered, clutching the desk edge.

—“Hey.”

The man cut him off without hesitation. Seoul fully expected a venomous barrage of profanity; Gye Do-hyeop was a predator fluent in slurs, humiliation, and casual cruelty, his gaze flashing with predatory ferocity. But what came next was entirely different.

Gye Do-hyeop commanded, —“Get in the ring.” With no insulting rhetoric whatsoever, he declared with utter certainty, “I’ll make sure you win.”

Don’t you dare step down without even putting up a fight. This time, it was Geum Seoul who read the man’s subtext.

In a lifetime paved with abandonment, failure, and resigned despair, Geum Seoul had never once stepped onto the canvas inside a square set of ropes. The desperate struggles he had put up against Lim Gyun-il and Park Gil-pyeong were purely defensive scrambles to survive, never an offense. Every time he was kicked to the dirt, rolling into a helpless ball and pretending to be half-dead had merely been a learned reflex—waving the white flag faster than anyone else.

Crash!

“Door breached. Commencing signal jamming,” an assailant shouted.

In a split second, the monitor blinked out into pitch-black void, and the heavy thud of unauthorized combat boots echoed down the corridor, drawing steadily nearer.

Yet in the final fraction of a second before the screen went dark, Geum Seoul caught sight of shattered plastic clutched in Gye Do-hyeop’s fist. It was the black e-cigarette the man occasionally puffed on in front of him, ground and crushed to jagged shards. Only then did Seoul realize that Gye Do-hyeop had not been composed in the slightest.

For a boy who had never known what it felt like to fight back, his very first ember of combative will flickered to life. At the very least, he could ball his fists and raise his guard.

Because a man who looked like he didn’t even know how to lose had just promised him victory. A resolute, razor-sharp light flared to life in Geum Seoul’s eyes.