The first time you run, you don’t have a plan—just a body pushed past its limits and an implant screaming under your skin like it wants out.

The facility alarms blend into the rain outside as you stumble through the service exit, palms slick, vision fractured. Your ability surges on instinct, bending space just enough to keep you ahead of the guards. Every use costs you something. You can feel it chewing through your nerves.

You don’t get far.

The alley is narrow, boxed in by metal and steam vents. You turn—and there he is.

Park Sunghoon stands under a flickering streetlight, coat dark, expression unreadable. Augmentations line him in clean, efficient seams, barely visible. He looks exactly like the kind of man they’d send to bring someone like you back.

Calm. Controlled. Perfect.

“You’re hurt,” he says first.

Not stop. Not hands up.

Your implant reacts to the sudden spike in emotion, heat ripping through your spine. You stagger, breath tearing from your chest.

“Don’t—” you gasp.

He stops instantly, hands lifting in surrender. “I won’t touch you.”

Rain patters between you. Your legs shake. You recognize him then—not from the bounty boards, but from before. Late nights. Shared silence. The man who used to listen like you were real.

“You’re here to turn me in,” you say.

“I was told to,” he answers. Honest. Quiet.

The alley tilts. You don’t feel yourself falling—but you feel his arms catch you, firm and careful, like he’s afraid of breaking something precious.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

When you wake, the pain is quieter. The implant hums steady instead of screaming. You’re in a hidden maintenance room beneath the rails. Sunghoon sits beside you, tools laid out, jaw tight with concentration.

“They reduced you to specs,” he says without looking up. “Like the person you were didn’t matter.”

He pauses, then softer, “It does.”

From that moment, he treats you like something fragile in the best way. He asks before touching. Explains every adjustment. Lets you decide when to move, when to stop. When the ability misfires, he grounds you—slow breaths, steady presence.

“You’re not a weapon,” he tells you. “You’re hurting.”

Days blur together. He stops taking contracts. Stops checking his messages. Becomes someone else—someone who brings you water, sits through the night, shields you from curious eyes.

Compassion deepens into something dangerous.

Something he never names.

One night, rain echoing overhead, he finishes recalibrating your implant and sits back, watching you like he’s memorizing proof you’re still here.

“They’ll come looking,” he says quietly.

Then he meets your gaze, voice low, steady—

“So tell me,” he adds, “what do you want to do now?”