Chapter Text
The movie kept playing long after Lee Do had stopped watching it—some cheap, pulpy thriller with loud screaming and even louder gunfires that he'd hoped would drown out his thoughts. It didn't. It reminded him too much of his own line of work, and at some point, the images started slipping past him, leaving him alone with the weight he carried in his chest.
The shootings and gun distribution in Korea had taken a toll on the city, and on him. In just a matter of weeks, the situation had spiraled into something unrecognizable, a labyrinth of violence that he had been navigating with a heavy heart and a focused mind, determined to find the Minotaur at its center. He was suspended, but it didn't matter—he wasn't going to stop investigating on his own, sharing his findings with his colleagues and the superiors who believed in him, backing him up. He had to find the source before the world as they knew it was torn apart.
Dinner sat heavy in his stomach, the kind of meal you swallow without tasting because your mind is somewhere else entirely. He switched off the television and let the silence swell. It was worse, somehow, more unsettling than the noise had been.
He stepped outside onto the narrow balcony, drawn to the cold like a punishment, and the night air hit him sharp and chemical, tightening his skin, stinging his lungs in a way that almost felt good. He gripped the railing and tried, again, to force the facts into order.
But the question always ended up circling back like a wasp: who could do this? Who had decided to turn the country into an open-air firing range? Who had reached down into the cracks of society, plucked out the weak, the unstable, the desperate, and handed them weapons like gifts? And why now, of all times—why pour gasoline on the world when it was already burning?
There was no clean thread connecting the shooters. Not really—not on the surface. Only that they had all been brittle people, the ones you could hear cracking if you leaned close enough. Like Jeon Won-Seong, who had nearly painted all the walls of the station red. Like Yu Jeong-Tae, who had carried around his resentment like a stone in his gut until the weight of it tipped him into violence. They were different men, but the same kind of ruin.
And whoever was behind this knew it, knew exactly where to press. They weren’t just handing out guns—they were burrowing into people's phones, worming through private files and histories, testing weaknesses, watching for the fissures. Collecting just enough dirt to make sure these individuals didn’t falter when the moment came. Maybe even nudging them if they hesitated. Like winding a toy soldier and setting it loose.
Lee Do closed his eyes against the thought, but the images pressed in anyway: shaky hands tightening on a trigger, eyes wide and keen, the split-second where choice turned into catastrophe. He knew the temptation too well. He pressed his palms against the railing, felt the cold metal bite into his skin. There was no clear face behind it yet—no culprit to shove all this onto. Just the hollow certainty that someone had built this chaos on purpose.
His phone buzzed against the table inside. The sound was small, muffled through the glass, but in the silence it cut straight through him. For one sharp second he thought it would be another message from his colleagues, another report to grind his teeth over. He almost didn’t check, despite himself—he wanted to stay out here, let the cold gnaw at him until his head cleared. But then, a second buzz, and he knew he had to. It could be someone from the hospital, with news about Mrs. Oh, although the hospital would probably call rather than text.
Either way, he couldn't afford to ignore it. He went back inside and picked up the phone, his thumb swiping across the screen. The name lit him up from the inside out, even before he read the words.
Are you working? the first message read. Then the second, simple, almost careless: Can we meet?
Lee Do stared at Moon Baek's name as he let the phone rest heavy in his hand, his pulse marking time in his throat. Outside, the night pressed against the window, oblivious.
He couldn't deny it—the idea of meeting Moon Baek again was something he didn't really want to reject. It wasn't about being considerate of a dying man, or about returning the favor for the unconditional help he had received from him. Lee Do had liked him from the start, if he was honest. Even that first night at Jeon Won-seong’s house, when Baek had seemed like one more complication, one more thread to untangle—there had been something in the way the young man stood, half-defiant, half-vulnerable, that had hooked Do against his will.
He’d brushed it off as curiosity, the kind that came with tracking a suspect. Then, also, as reluctant gratitude toward a man who had genuinely wanted to help despite not having anything to gain from it. But that wasn’t the whole truth. The truth was that, without Baek, maybe he wouldn't have been able to reach the station in time to save his colleagues. Without him, he would've spent an entire night alone in an unnerving waiting room, listening to the echoes of his own guilt. Moon Baek had been with him through it all, and Lee Do couldn’t stop thinking of the strange sweetness of that. Most people fled from mess. Baek seemed to lean into it, as if the wreckage of other people’s lives gave him somewhere to set down his own.
The officer had thought he was suspicious at first—too clingy, too convenient, too quick to appear when things turned ugly. And maybe that was still true. But the suspicion had become insignificant, eroded by hours spent together, by the sight of him slouched in that hospital chair with no reason to stay except maybe kindness, or loyalty, as Baek had called it.
There was something about him that wouldn’t let Lee Do go. Not the story, tragic as it was—the shocking past, the cancer eating Baek alive by the day—but the person himself. That ridiculous grin, childish and clever all at once. That maddening way of turning solemnity into play, as if mocking death by refusing to take life seriously.
Lee Do knew it wasn’t ordinary, this pull he felt. Maybe it was pity after all, or maybe fascination. Maybe something lonelier and needier. But the fact remained: Baek was the first face that had lingered in his mind when he’d tried to close his eyes these past nights.
He typed slowly, thumb hesitating over each word.
I'm at home
It's late, he added. Are you alright?
For a minute there was nothing, just the faint static hush of the city through the balcony door. Then the phone buzzed and the screen lit again.
I will be, if you say yes
A silence filled the room, but not the same kind as before. This one seemed to press closer, more intimate, like Moon Baek was already there and it had just settled between them.
Lee Do set the phone down, rubbed his face, tried to convince himself that this was a terrible idea. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was already in too deep. Suddenly, with Moon Baek on the other side of the screen, all he could think of was the image of his face, the way he carried his illness like a secret only sometimes allowed to slip through. He had told Lee Do not to pity him. He had said it with that smile of his, bright enough to cut pity down to the bone. But it wasn't pity that was now scraping at Lee Do’s chest. It was something heavier, yet softer somehow. Harder to name.
The clock ticked on the wall, each second a silent accusation, and the phone lit again, impatient.
You can even pick the place, I'll come anywhere
The text hung in the digital void like a question with no correct answer. Lee Do's thumb hovered, the screen a silent witness to his indecision. You shouldn't be out this late, he typed.
Moon Baek's response was swift, as if he had been waiting for that exact line. What are you, my parole officer?
There was a smiling emoji at the end, and Lee Do found himself smiling back. You're very stubborn, I noticed, he wrote, and waited.
The dots danced, then: Only when I want something.
Do leaned against the wall, watching the words like they might rearrange themselves into something safer. His fingers moved before he could second-guess himself. And what is it you want?
A longer pause this time. Long enough that he thought the conversation might have died there, folded under its own weight. Then the screen lit again. Company. Yours.
His chest tightened. He typed, deleted, typed again. Finally, he sent the only words that felt right. Come here then.
Your place? Moon Baek replied, followed by a thinking face. Are you sure?
Lee Do took a deep breath, his heart hammering a strange rhythm in his chest. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have said it.
The response came with a small, electric delay, as cheeky as Moon Baek himself. As if it hadn't been him who had requested the meeting. Alright. Text me your address before I change my mind.