The pain didn't hit him right away.
Lee Rang had woken up on the living room floor, cheek pressed to cracked tiles, breath shallow.For a moment, he didn't know where he was — only that everything ached.
Then came the sharp pull in his ribs.
His hand shot to his side. The bandage was fresh, tight — not his work.He groaned as he sat up. The apartment was dim. Curtains drawn. The air smelled like antiseptic and blood.
Seo-rin sat silently across from him, watching from the edge of a chair. Her hair was tied back now, face pale, almost unreadable.
"You patched me up?" he asked, voice dry.
She didn't answer. Instead, she handed him a glass of water.
He drank half before his body reminded him it was too much. The glass slipped from his fingers and cracked on the floor.Seo-rin flinched. He leaned back, exhaling through clenched teeth.
A murmur escaped his lips.
"Wan…"
She looked up sharply.
"What did you say?"
He blinked, still halfway between dream and consciousness.
"Nothing," he muttered.
But her eyes lingered too long. As if the name scratched at a door in her mind.
Later, when Seo-rin fell asleep on the couch — exhaustion pulling her under — Rang stood.He moved slowly, ignoring the pain.
There was a wooden cabinet near the kitchen, sealed tight.Something about its lock felt… newer than everything else around it.
He grabbed a small knife from the drawer and wedged it in.
Click.
The lock popped.Inside — stacks of junk papers, ink-stained receipts, a broken photo frame, and a heavy black envelope.
No name. No seal.
Just three letters scratched across it in red pen:"A-3"
He opened it slowly.
Inside was a file — part medical, part psychological.Water-stained, burned along the edges. It looked government-grade, or worse — chaebol-grade.
COMPATIBILITY PROTOCOL — PHASE IISubject: A-3 (Unaware)Observer Tag: 404-2
Condition Required: Subject must be saved under high-stress attack.Rescue will activate tethering.
Subject will bond naturally within 12–48 hours.
Warning: Revealing Subject R's past too early may cause regression.Emotional alignment must occur before Phase III.
If tethering fails, initiate trauma re-sequence.
At the bottom, handwritten in red ink:
"Let her live this time."
His hand tightened on the page. Something cold twisted in his gut.
This wasn't about coincidence.This wasn't about fate.
This had been designed.
He placed the envelope back exactly where he found it.
When he turned around, he saw her — standing in the hallway.
Seo-rin didn't speak. She didn't ask what he'd been doing.
Instead, she simply stepped past him, walked to the nearby shelf, and picked up something small.
A pen.
The pen.
The same one he had seen last night — gold trim, black body, strangely pristine.
But now she tucked it away in a drawer like it was poison.
He watched her.
"That pen," he said, quietly."I think I saw it before. My father used to sign with one like it."
She froze.
The silence was long.
Then she whispered, without turning:
"Some things… should've burned."
She walked off without another word.
Much later, long after the city fell quiet, Seo-rin stood on the apartment's narrow balcony, arms wrapped around herself.
The wind played with her hair.Below, neon lights flickered in puddles.
She lit a cigarette. The first in years.
Rang had fallen asleep again. His breathing was heavy. Fever setting in.
She looked back at him through the cracked glass door, her gaze soft — filled with something fragile.
Regret. Maybe something older.
Then she whispered to no one:
"You saved me… but I let him die."