The Seoul Station platform was a river of gray coats and tired faces.
Yoo-jin blended in perfectly. He wore a cheap black mask and a cap pulled low. He carried a backpack with two changes of clothes and a burner phone he hadn't turned on yet.
He wasn't Han Yoo-jin anymore. He was just another face in the crowd, a ghost waiting for the southbound train to Busan. From there, a ferry to Japan. Then... nowhere.
Bing-bong. "Train 404 to Busan. Departing in five minutes."
He looked at the digital clock. 05:55 AM.
Back in Mullae-dong, they would be waking up. Min-ji would be complaining about the cold. David would be checking the stocks. Sae-ri... Sae-ri would find the note.
His chest tightened. A physical ache.
"Ticket, sir?" The conductor blocked his path.
Yoo-jin handed over the cash ticket he'd bought from a scalper. No digital trail.
"Seat 14A. Window."
Yoo-jin walked onto the train. The air smelled of sanitizer. He found his seat and sat down, resting his forehead against the cold glass.
He watched the platform. He half-expected to see someone running. Sae-ri, breathless, chasing him like in a drama.
But life wasn't a drama. It was a thriller. And in thrillers, the monster leaves so the hero can live.
The train hissed. The doors began to slide shut.
THUD.
A heavy boot jammed into the gap between the doors.
The doors recoiled.
A figure stepped onto the train. She wore a hooded parka that was too big for her. She carried a guitar case covered in stickers.
It wasn't Sae-ri.
It was Min-ji.
She scanned the car. Her eyes—sharp, angry, tired—locked onto Yoo-jin in seat 14A.
She didn't run to him. She walked slowly, dragging the guitar case like a weapon. The other passengers shrank away from her aura.
She stopped at his row.
"Move," she said to the businessman sitting in the aisle seat next to Yoo-jin.
The businessman blinked. "Excuse me?"
Min-ji didn't speak. She just stared at him with the intensity of a Category 5 hurricane.
The man scrambled up, grabbing his briefcase, and fled to another car.
Min-ji sat down. She put the guitar case between her legs. She didn't look at Yoo-jin. She looked straight ahead at the seat back advertisement for dental implants.
"You're an idiot," she said.
Yoo-jin sighed. "How did you find me?"
"David tracked your burner phone before you turned it off. He put a tracker in it weeks ago. He's paranoid."
"Go back, Min-ji. The train is leaving."
"Let it leave."
"I'm serious. If you come with me, you ruin your career. You become an accomplice to a fugitive."
Min-ji finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She had been crying, though she would kill anyone who mentioned it.
"My career?" she scoffed. "My career was playing acoustic covers in a subway station until you found me. You think I care about being a 'star'? I care about being loud."
"I'm toxic, Min-ji. Mason was right. I'm a stain on everyone I touch."
"Mason is a liar," Min-ji reached into her pocket. She pulled out Yoo-jin's note. The one he left for Sae-ri.
She crumbled it up and threw it at his face.
"This is garbage," she said. "'I'm sorry'? That's your exit line? That's weak."
"It's the truth. Sae-ri needs to be free of me."
"Sae-ri is in the hospital," Min-ji said flatly.
Yoo-jin froze. The blood drained from his face.
"What?"
"She collapsed after you left. Stress cardiomyopathy. Broken heart syndrome. It's a real thing, apparently."
Yoo-jin stood up. "I have to get off."
Min-ji grabbed his wrist. Her grip was iron.
"Sit down," she ordered.
"She's in the hospital!"
"And if you go back there, the press will swarm the ICU. They'll take photos of you holding her hand and write headlines about 'The Monster and his Victim'. Is that what you want?"
Yoo-jin sank back into the seat. He covered his face with his hands.
"What do I do?" he whispered.
"You stop running," Min-ji said. "And you start fighting. Not for her reputation. But for her life."
The train began to move. The platform slid away.
"We're going to Busan," Min-ji said, opening her guitar case. It wasn't just a guitar inside. It was stuffed with hard drives. The backups of the backups.
"Why Busan?"
"Because David has a boat there," Min-ji said. "And because we're not fleeing the country. We're going to the only place Mason can't track us."
"Where?"
"The Blind Spot," Min-ji said. "You know it?"
Yoo-jin nodded slowly. The Blind Spot was a dead zone in the Korea Strait. A patch of ocean where GPS signals failed due to magnetic anomalies. Smugglers used it.
"We're going to set up a server there?" Yoo-jin asked.
"No," Min-ji grinned. It was a feral, dangerous grin. "We're going to set up a stage."
Six hours later. Busan Harbor.
The rain had turned into a storm. The waves were crashing against the concrete piers, gray and angry.
David Kim was waiting for them on a rusted fishing trawler named The Lucky Coin. He was wearing a yellow slicker and looking seasick already.
"You actually brought him back," David shouted over the wind as they boarded.
"I kidnapped him," Min-ji corrected, tossing her guitar to David. "He came willingly-ish."
Yoo-jin looked at the boat. It was small. It smelled of diesel and dead fish.
"Where are Sol, Luna, and Eden?" Yoo-jin asked.
"They stayed in Seoul," David said, untying the ropes. "To distract the press. They're holding a vigil outside the hospital for Sae-ri. It's a media circus. Perfect cover for our exit."
Yoo-jin felt a pang of guilt. He was leaving them to face the lions.
"They can handle it," Min-ji pushed him into the cabin. "Sol is tougher than she looks. And Eden... well, Eden scares people now."
The engine sputtered to life. The Lucky Coin lurched away from the dock, heading into the dark, choppy water.
Inside the cabin, it was warm. A small heater buzzed in the corner.
David laid a map on the table.
"Here's the plan," David pointed to a spot in the middle of the ocean. "The Blind Spot. We anchor here. We deploy the Pirate Server."
"And then?"
"And then we broadcast the Truth," Min-ji said. "Not just the videos. But the Show."
"What show?"
"The one we were filming on the Leviathan," Min-ji said. "The unscripted drama. Sae-ri's footage. The fight. The investors running away. We didn't upload it yet, remember? We were waiting for the edit."
"We can't edit it," Yoo-jin shook his head. "Sae-ri is the editor."
"She finished it," David said quietly.
He pulled a USB drive from his pocket. It had a sticker on it. Sae-ri's handwriting.
FINAL CUT.
"She finished it before she collapsed," David said. "She knew you might run. She told me to give this to you if you tried to leave."
Yoo-jin took the drive. His hands shook.
"She knew?"
"She knows you better than you know yourself," Min-ji said, opening a bag of chips. "She knew you'd try to be the noble idiot."
Yoo-jin plugged the drive into the boat's laptop.
He clicked play.
It wasn't just raw footage. It was a masterpiece.
Sae-ri had woven the chaos of the dock fight with the clips of the "perfect" AI drama. She contrasted the glossy, fake tears of the actors with the real, ugly sweat of the resistance.
She cut from Mason Gold's smug face to the terrified investors. From the perfect violet lights to the dirty gray dawn.
And she added a voiceover. Her own voice. recorded in the basement.
"They told us perfection was the only way to be loved," Sae-ri's voice was raspy, intimate. "They stripped our DNA to build better dolls. They tried to delete our flaws."
On screen, the video showed Yoo-jin. Not the polished CEO, but the tired man in coveralls, holding a mop.
"But the flaws are where the soul lives," Sae-ri narrated. "This isn't a story about heroes. It's a story about the glitches."
The video ended with a shot of Sol hitting the high note—the real, cracking scream.
Yoo-jin stared at the black screen.
She hadn't edited him out. She had made him the center. She had framed his "monster" origin not as a sin, but as a tragedy.
"She saved you," Min-ji said softly. "With this video. If we release this... the narrative changes. You're not the predator. You're the glitch."
Yoo-jin closed the laptop.
"We release it," Yoo-jin said. "Tonight."
"From the Blind Spot?" David asked.
"Yes. But not just the video."
Yoo-jin looked at the map.
"We're going to stream a live commentary," Yoo-jin said. "Me. Min-ji. And David."
"A reaction video?" Min-ji raised an eyebrow.
"A trial," Yoo-jin corrected. "I'm going to put myself on trial. I'm going to tell them everything. The Incubator. The cloning. The deal with Mason. I'm going to strip myself naked in front of the world."
"That's suicide," David warned.
"No," Yoo-jin looked at the stormy ocean outside. "It's honesty. Mason deals in secrets. We deal in confession."
He stood up. The boat rocked violently, but he found his balance.
"Get us to the Blind Spot," Yoo-jin ordered. "And Min-ji... tune your guitar."
"Why?"
"Because every trial needs a soundtrack."
Seoul. The Hospital VIP Wing.
Sae-ri lay in the bed, hooked up to monitors. She was pale, but awake.
Prosecutor Cha sat in the chair next to her, peeling an apple.
"He's gone," Cha said quietly. "My sources say he boarded a boat in Busan."
Sae-ri stared at the ceiling. "He didn't run. He's repositioning."
"You have a lot of faith in a man who left a breakup note."
"It wasn't a breakup note," Sae-ri smiled weakly. "It was a plot point. The 'Dark Night of the Soul'. Every hero has one before the third act."
Suddenly, the TV in the room flickered.
The news broadcast cut out. The screen turned static gray.
Then, a signal broke through. It was shaky, buffering.
A dark cabin. The sound of waves.
And Yoo-jin's face. Wet with rain, exhausted, but alive.
"My name is Han Yoo-jin," the Yoo-jin on the screen said. "And I want to tell you a story about a ghost."
Sae-ri watched. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
"He's live," she whispered.
Cha looked at the screen. She stopped peeling the apple.
"He's broadcasting from the Blind Spot," Cha realized. "He's untouchable."
On the screen, Yoo-jin looked directly into the lens. It felt like he was looking right at her.
"This story isn't perfect," Yoo-jin said. "But it's ours."
Min-ji appeared in the frame, strumming a slow, melancholic chord.
The final act had begun.