The transition from the cold, clinical facility to the raw pulse of the city felt like waking up from a fever dream into a neon-lit nightmare. We didn't just walk away from the building; we escaped it, the heavy reinforced doors hissing shut behind us like a sigh of relief.
The air outside was a physical blow—sharp, biting Russian winter that tasted of coal smoke and wet asphalt.
Orina had split off early. She muttered something about an arcade she'd spotted and a quiet place to eat that didn't serve gray mash. I watched her disappear into the gloom, her eyes already scanning the street for a different kind of distraction. That left just the two of us, standing on a cracked sidewalk under a sky the color of a bruised plum.
"Tonight," Junseo said, his breath hitching in the cold, his eyes reflecting the messy, flickering glow of distant city lights. "We don't think. We don't plan. We just exist. No targets, no biometrics, no white-haired monsters."
"I'm in," I muttered, my coat collar turned up against the wind.
We found the spot three blocks in. It wasn't a place for quiet conversations or subtle movements; it was a sanctuary for the loud, the restless, and the broken. The moment we pushed through the heavy iron-bound doors, a wall of humid heat and rhythmic noise slammed into us. It was a proper dive bar, packed to the rafters with locals who looked like they'd been carved out of the same granite as the buildings. The air was thick—a heavy, intoxicating fog of cheap vodka, damp wool, and the stinging, medicinal scent of strong grain liquor that made your eyes water if you breathed too deep.
People were cheering over a game I didn't recognize, slamming heavy glass mugs onto sticky wooden tables. The roar of the crowd was a beautiful thing; it drowned out the possibility of a serious thought.
Junseo didn't waste a single second. The moment his boots hit the sawdust on the floor, the "thief" was gone, replaced by the "charmer." He wove through the crowd with effortless grace, and within minutes, I watched him hovering around a group of girls at the far end of the bar. His hands were moving animatedly as he spun some exaggerated story, already making them laugh.
He was home in the chaos. I, however, felt like a ghost.
I turned toward the bar, my chest still tight with that lingering, jagged irritation from the hunt. I didn't want to charm anyone. I didn't want to talk. I wanted to disappear into the amber depths of a glass until the world stopped feeling so sharp, until the memory of the "Atrium Butcher" faded.
"The strongest thing you have," I told the bartender, sliding a crumpled bill across the damp, scarred wood. "And keep them coming until I tell you to stop."
I took the first shot. It burned like liquid fire, tearing a jagged path down my throat and settling in my stomach with a heavy, grounding heat. I closed my eyes, letting the pulse of the Russian bass wash over me. For the first time in weeks, I wasn't Seol-wol the thief, or Seol-wol the candidate. I was just a man getting drunk in a room full of strangers.
The liquor was doing its job, but it couldn't quite numb the instinct I'd honed over a lifetime of looking over my shoulder. Every shot of that grain alcohol was a hammer blow to my senses, making the world tilt on its axis. The neon lights outside the window bled into long, jagged streaks of red and gold. I was deep in it—heavy, drifting, and finally starting to feel the edges of the facility blur into nothingness.
But then, the air changed. It didn't get colder; it got heavier.
Through a gap in the wooden room dividers—thick, decorative strings that swayed with the vibration of the music—a figure stood motionless.
I squinted, my vision swimming in a sea of amber. I was intoxicated, yes, but I was a heavy drinker; I knew the difference between a drunken hallucination and a genuine threat. The man was leaning against the back wall, his silhouette cutting a sharp, dark line against the hazy smoke of the pub. A single, glowing ember of a cigarette moved as he took a drag, the smoke curling around his head like a silver shroud.
He wasn't part of the crowd. He was a predator watching a watering hole.
I focused, forcing my wandering eyes to lock onto the pale hair and the unmistakable, cold architecture of his face.
Miran.
Why? Why here? This was supposed to be my twenty-four hours of breathing room. My escape. But he was there, draped in the shadows of the corner, watching me with an intensity that made the alcohol in my blood turn to liquid lead. He didn't move. He just stared, his gaze tracking the way I gripped my glass, the way my chest rose and fell. It wasn't the look of a teammate or even a rival. It was the look of someone claiming a territory, watching a mark.
I felt a surge of heat that had nothing to do with the vodka. It was a dangerous, jagged friction—an irritation that felt like a spark in a room full of gasoline. I hated those eyes. I hated the way they pinned me to the spot, making the loud, crowded bar feel suddenly, terrifyingly private.
I slammed my empty glass onto the wood, the sound lost in the music, and didn't look away. If he wanted to watch, let him. But the air between us, even through the smoke and the wooden strings, was starting to burn.
The night wasn't just falling anymore. It was crashing.
Something in me got desperate—a feeling I hated more than anything. I wasn't quite feeling like myself; the alcohol had stripped away the "classic" caution, leaving only the raw, wounded pride of a man who'd been pushed too far. I stood up, the floor swaying beneath me like the deck of a ship, and stumbled toward him.
"It's you," I snarled as I crashed into his space. "Miran Konstantinov."
He didn't move. He didn't even flinch as I breached his personal circle, the scent of his expensive tobacco mixing with the sharp sting of the vodka on my breath. He just stood there, tall and silent, looking down at me like I was an interesting insect.
"Why do I feel like your fucking shadow is always following me?" I demanded, my voice rising. I was leaning in too close, my vision blurring, but the anger felt good. It felt solid. "If you've got something to say... say it to my face. Stop lurking. Stop watching me."
I let out a harsh, jagged laugh, the irritation boiling over into something reckless and stupid. "What is it? Are you... what, interested in me? Is that it? Looking for a bit of company in the dark?" I poked a finger toward his chest, though my aim was off, my hand brushing the cold fabric of his coat. "Stay away from me. I'm telling you clearly.
Get out of my sight."
The air went dead. The music seemed to fade into the background.
Miran dropped his cigarette, the glowing ember dying as he crushed it slowly, deliberately beneath the heel of his boot. In one blurred, explosive movement, his hand shot out.
His fingers clamped around the back of my neck—a grip of pure iron—and he slammed me back against the stone wall. The impact rattled my teeth, knocking the breath straight out of my lungs. He leaned in, his face inches from mine. Up close, his eyes weren't just blue; they were a freezing void, devoid of any warmth or mercy.
"Keep your imagination to yourself, thief," he rasped, his voice a low, lethal vibration that traveled straight down my spine. "I am not into guys."
He tightened his grip on my neck, his thumb pressing into the sensitive skin just below my ear, forcing me to look at him. "Your ignorance is going to be your destruction. You think this is a game? You think I'm watching you because I want to? You're a liability, Seol-wol. You're the weak link in a very expensive chain. Start acting like a professional, or I'll be the last thing you ever see."
The world began to spin—not from the alcohol, but from the sheer, suffocating pressure of his presence. My head throbbed, the red neon lights of the bar bleeding into a final, heavy black as my knees finally gave out.
I woke up with a groan that felt like it was tearing my throat open.
The light hitting the room was flat, gray, and unapologetic—the morning after the twenty-four-hour reprieve. I stayed face-down for a long minute, my cheek pressed against the cool pillow, waiting for the jackhammer in my skull to stop its rhythmic pounding. Then, the memory hit me like a bucket of ice water.
"Are you interested in me?"
I let out a strangled, pathetic sound into my pillow, dragging my hand down to massage the back of my neck. It was stiff, a dull ache lingering where Miran's fingers had dug into my skin. The bruise hadn't formed yet, but the memory of the pressure was vivid.
I sat up slowly, my stomach churning with a mix of a lethal hangover and pure, unadulterated shame. I had actually said that to him. I had stood in a crowded bar and accused a professional killer of having a crush on me just because I was too drunk to handle his stare.
"What a fool," I whispered to the empty room, burying my face in my shaking hands.
I was a "classic" thief. I was supposed to be invisible, calculated, and cool. Instead, I'd handed Miran Konstantinov the perfect weapon to use against me: my own humiliation. And now, I had to walk into a briefing room and look him in the eye.