Later that night, Min couldn't sleep.
The room was too hot.
The fan pushed warm air in slow circles.
The hum of the computers left running burrowed into his skull.
When he did drift off, it lasted seconds.
The building.
His brother on the floor.
Faces.
Donghae's smirk.
Soo-Yeon's calm betrayal.
The warehouse girl's flat, clinical voice:
You weren't supposed to last that long.
Min opened his eyes.
He was on the training house floor, staring at the ceiling fan spin like a countdown clock.
And behind everything
The building.
The cracked stairwell.
The flickering fluorescent lights.
The narrow LAN room.
The same place Jae-wan collapsed.
The Bo7 was scheduled there.
Red Pulse chose it deliberately.
A message.
Min turned onto his side and squeezed his eyes shut.
He finally slipped into sleep.
Only for a second.
He got up before sunrise.
No lights.
Just the click of the power button.
The monitor flared to life, washing his face in cold blue.
He didn't ladder.
He didn't scrim.
He opened the replay.
The last match Jae-wan ever played.
Chan-Sik had tried to delete it once. Sat there for ten minutes. Couldn't press the key.
Min had never watched it all the way through.
Until now.
The game began.
Jae-wan's camera movement was sharp. Confident. Fast.
He expanded aggressively.
Pressed when others would turtle.
Moved without hesitation.
Not reckless.
Fearless.
Min leaned closer.
There were flaws, small inefficiencies. Slight macro delays. Minor pathing errors.
Human.
But the decision-making?
Unshakable.
Min paused the replay.
He mirrored the build.
Again.
Again.
Again.
He drilled the opener until his fingers stopped hesitating.
Cut supply blocks earlier.
Adjusted worker timings.
Smoothed production cycles.
He dissected both sides, Jae-wan and his Terran opponent, memorizing timings, supply counts, pressure windows.
By noon, he wasn't copying his brother anymore.
He was refining him.
He understood Terran better now.
Its tempo.
Its punish windows.
Its arrogance.
He had already taken down the Wolf.
Donghae didn't scare him.
Han-Reyeong didn't scare him.
But he would be ready.
Chan-Sik stood in the doorway, watching.
"You're playing angry," he said quietly.
Min didn't turn around.
"I'm playing prepared."
"Those aren't the same thing."
The keyboard stopped.
"If I lose in that building…" Min said, voice low, "…then it's like he died for nothing."
Chan-Sik stepped inside.
"That building didn't kill your brother."
Min's jaw tightened.
"The people inside it did."
Silence stretched between them.
"And you're about to walk back in there," Chan-Sik continued, "not as the kid who lost everything."
He stepped closer.
"But as the one they're afraid of."
That afternoon, Min went alone.
He told no one.
The building hadn't changed.
Same cracked tile outside.
Same rusted railing.
Same buzzing hallway lights.
The landlord still hadn't fixed them.
Each step up the stairwell echoed.
Second floor.
The LAN room door was closed.
For a moment, he couldn't move.
He saw it.
Not physically.
But vividly.
Jae-wan laughing.
Donghae leaning back in his chair.
Chan-Sik arguing about build orders.
MC ORCA hyping everyone up.
Then…
The crash.
The shouting.
The sirens.
Min's breathing grew shallow.
He stepped forward.
The doorknob was cold.
He opened it.
Empty.
Dust-coated monitors.
Chairs stacked against walls.
The faint smell of old plastic.
He walked to the exact spot.
Third row.
Second PC from the left.
He placed his hand on the desk.
There was a faint scratch near the mousepad.
Jae-wan used to tap it when he was thinking.
Min swallowed.
"They chose this place," he whispered.
A tear slipped down before he noticed it.
"They want me to break."
The silence pressed in.
Heavy.
Then something shifted.
Not comfort.
Not closure.
Clarity.
If he avoided this place, it would own him.
If he feared it, they would smell it.
If he let grief steer his hands
Donghae would win before Game 1 even loaded.
Min pulled a cloth from his pocket.
He wiped the dust from the desk.
Then he sat down.
Closed his eyes.
Visualized.
Game 1.
Game 2.
Reverse sweep scenario.
Match point.
Crowd noise.
Donghae across from him.
He slowed his breathing.
Inhale four.
Hold four.
Exhale four.
Again.
Again.
Again.
He opened his eyes.
The building didn't feel smaller.
But the fear did.
"This is just another map," he said.
That night, back at the training house, Sung-Woo noticed first.
Min wasn't frantic.
He wasn't grinding mindlessly.
He was structured.
Deliberate.
He wrote match notes.
Prepared counters for Red Pulse tendencies.
Asked Hye-Jin to replicate Donghae's aggression patterns.
He wasn't just training.
He was dissecting.
Chan-Sik nodded toward MC ORCA.
"He went back there, didn't he?"
ORCA exhaled slowly.
"Yeah."
Chan-Sik lit a cigarette.
"Good."
Min lay down again that night.
The faces still appeared.
Donghae's voice echoed:
I hope you're ready to see your brother.
Min stared into the dark.
"You're wrong," he whispered.
A pause.
"I'm not going there to see him."
His eyes didn't blink.
"I'm going there to finish what he started."
Silence filled the room.
And for the first time since that day
The building didn't feel like a grave.
It felt like a battlefield.
And this time
He wouldn't be the one haunted.
He would be the nightmare.