"Should we just kill him?"
The question came casually, like someone asking about the weather.
Kangwoo tilted his head down again and closed his eyes.
" No," Taeyang said almost in an instant.
A chair creaked.
"Why not?" another voice asked.
Taeyang didn't answer right away.
"Oryong wouldn't want us to," he said finally.
A quiet scoff followed.
"He wiped out a pack of wolves," the blond man said. "That alone should be punishable by dea–"
"You know, Jaemin," Taeyang cut in.
"I've always wondered."
Kangwoo felt the shift before he heard it. A subtle change in the room's weight.
Taeyang turned in his chair.
"Do you ever pause to reflect," he asked mildly, "or is consideration simply absent from your decision-making?"
Kangwoo opened his eyes just enough to see Jaemin's jaw tighten.
Jaemin exhaled through his nose and looked forward again, gaze fixed on nothing.
Taeyang leaned back.
"Think about it," he continued, voice unhurried. "He killed a pack of wolves. Yes. But we still don't know why."
Kangwoo listened in stillness.
"What if he and his sister were just passersby?" Taeyang said. "What if killing the wolves was self-defense?"
The word lingered.
Kangwoo's eyes opened fully.
Taeyang's gaze flicked to him briefly, acknowledging it without breaking stride.
Taeyang's gaze returned to Kangwoo.
"He shouldn't be executed," he said. "He should be recruited."
Recruitment.
The word didn't sound like mercy, it never had.
Kangwoo kept his eyes opened, gaze unfocused, fixed somewhere between the concrete floor and the shoes in front of him.
Recruitment meant survival without freedom.
It meant his chains might come off, but only to be replaced by something tighter.
He understood the structure without anyone explaining it. Men like these didn't offer second chances. They reassigned usefulness. They turned anomalies into tools.
If he accepted, he would live.
If he refused, this room would stop holding back.
Recruitment meant they would test him again, against things designed to see where he broke.
It meant they would take him apart, catalog what made him different, and put him back together only if it benefited them.
And Darin…
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Recruitment meant leverage.
It meant she would never truly be out of reach. Not safe, neither free. Just… accounted for.
…
"In that case," Dohyun said evenly, "he's mine."
Taeyang didn't respond immediately.
"That requires a negotiation," he said.
Dohyun's mouth curved faintly. "You already hustled the best past candidates for yourself. Do you really need more?"
A quiet chuckle left Taeyang.
"I only have five under my authorization," he replied. "Yours is hundredfold."
The room stilled.
From where Kangwoo sat, chained, catalogued, the discussion no longer sounded like strategy.
It sounded like a transaction.
And he waited to see which hand finalized the purchase.