The silence of the dormitory was heavier than the noise of the training hall. After the adrenaline of the fight and the suffocating heat of the "Sync," the emptiness of Seol-wol's small room felt like a vacuum. He had sent Junseo back to his own quarters, needing a moment where no one was looking at him, no one was judging him, and no one was "linked" to him.
Seol-wol collapsed onto his cot, not even bothering to take off his boots. He stared up at the ceiling, where the faint hum of the facility's power grid vibrated through the concrete.
What am I doing here?
The question echoed in his mind, persistent and biting. He looked at his hands—the knuckles were bruised, the skin split. These weren't the hands of the boy who used to sit on the rusted fire escapes back home, watching the sunset and dreaming of a life where he didn't have to keep one eye on the shadows. He had always been the one to avoid the fight. He was the ghost, the shadow, the one who slipped through the cracks. Now, he was a weapon being forged by Borislav, and the person holding the hilt was a man he barely knew.
The memory of the fight—the way he had slammed Marek against the rack—felt like a movie he had watched rather than something he had done. It was a borrowed rage, a cold, sharp aggression that tasted like Miran.
Hours bled into the evening. The light in the room dimmed to a harsh, red emergency glow as the facility shifted into "low-power" mode.
A soft, rhythmic knock tapped against the door. It wasn't the aggressive pulse of a guard. It was familiar.
"Hyung?"
Seol-wol sat up, rubbing his face. "Come in, Junseo."
The door creaked open. Junseo stood there, looking less like a lethal thief and more like the younger brother Seol-wol had raised in the dark. In his hand, he held a small, dented plastic bottle and a roll of graying gauze.
"I managed to... find some antiseptic,"
Junseo said, stepping inside. He didn't wait for an invitation; he just leaned against the doorframe, watching Seol-wol. "You should put some on your hand before it gets infected. Borislav won't let you sit out the next drill just because you have a fever."
Seol-wol took the bottle, the plastic cold against his palm. The smell of the room changed instantly—the sharp, medicinal sting of the alcohol cutting through the scent of old dust and sweat. He began to dab the liquid onto his torn knuckles, hisses of pain escaping through his teeth.
Junseo stayed by the door, his silhouette framed by the dim hallway light. He looked down at his own boots, shifting his weight.
"I'm sorry, Wol-wol hyung."
Seol-wol stopped, the damp cloth hovering over a cut. He looked up, surprised. "What? What are you talking about?"
"The way I spoke to you in the hall. Pushing you against the wall," Junseo said, his voice dropping. He looked up, and for the first time that day, there was a small, self-deprecating smile on his face. "I think the 'Sync' is making me as jumpy as a cat on a hot roof. I shouldn't have gone after you like that."
Seol-wol felt a weight lift off his chest. He managed a tired smile back. "Since when do you apologize for being a brat, Junseo? I thought that was part of your job description."
Junseo chuckled, a soft sound that felt out of place in the cold concrete room. He walked over and sat on the edge of the small metal desk beside the cot. "I was just worried. This place... it's not the alleyways, hyung."
He gestured around the room at the high-tech sensors and the reinforced walls.
"Before we came here, when you told me about Borislav's offer, I wasn't ready. I was happy just picking pockets and dodging the local cops. But you said we should try something new. You said we needed a way out for good."
Junseo picked up a small metal bolt from the desk, tossing it idly in the air and catching it—a nervous habit from their childhood. "So I followed you. I always follow you. But every day here feels like a year. It's all training, gears, and cold eyes. It's like we're in a world where everyone is a ghost, but no one is allowed to haunt the same house."
He stopped tossing the bolt and looked directly at Seol-wol. The humor faded, replaced by a quiet, observant sadness.
"I'm seeing a different you, hyung. Back home, you hated the rough stuff. You'd rather spend three hours finding a way around a guard than thirty seconds fighting him. But today... when you hit that guy... I saw something else. You're becoming the thing you always hated. You're becoming the violence."
Seol-wol looked down at his bandaged hand. The antiseptic was drying, leaving a tight, stinging sensation. "I'm just trying to survive the drill, Junseo."
"I know," Junseo said softly, standing up and heading back toward the door. "Just... don't let the training sharpen you so much that you forget how to be human. I need my brother back when this heist is over, not a soldier."
The cafeteria wasn't a place for fine dining; it was a sterile, echoing hall that smelled of industrial floor cleaner and the metallic steam of synthetic broth. Long, stainless steel tables stretched across the room under flickering fluorescent lights. For the "Remnants," this was the only place where the tension of the training was allowed to settle, if only for an hour.
Seol-wol walked in, his bandaged hand tucked into his pocket. He was trying to focus on his own breathing, trying to push the "Sync" to the back of his mind. Behind him, Junseo trailed along, his hands behind his head in a relaxed posture that belied the way his eyes constantly scanned the room for exits.
At the far end, the rest of their makeshift crew was already gathered. Orina, the sharp-tongued scout from the Eastern blocks; Peter, teh always looking tired guy, Kyla, still looking a bit frazzled from the drill; and Gu Wan, who was, as usual, illuminated by the pale blue glow of his tablet.
"Well, if it isn't the stars of the show," Orina called out as they approached. She leaned back, a smirk playing on her lips. "Careful, seol-wol. If you keep doing the drills that well, the rest of us won't be able to see you through all the gold stars Borislav is going to give you. It's getting hard to look at you guys."
Junseo chuckled, sliding into the seat next to her with an easy grace. "Can't help it if we're naturally gifted, Orina. But maybe you should focus more on your footwork and less on our 'fame.' Otherwise, Borislav might decide your dinner and your bunk look better in someone else's hands."
Orina rolled her eyes, but there was no real heat in it. "Please. I could outrun a thermal sensor in my sleep."
Seol-wol sat down next to Kyla. She looked up, giving him a small, shy smile. She reached out, her fingers glancing over the edge of his bandaged hand.
"Is it still stinging?" she asked softly. "I felt terrible when you got hit by the feedback. It was my fault for the distraction."
Seol-wol shook his head, offering her a genuine, soft look. For a moment, he felt like himself again—just Seol-wol, the boy who looked out for people. "It's fine, Kyla. Really.
I've had worse scrapes just climbing over a backyard fence."
Kyla laughed, the sound light and human. "A backyard fence? Is that the most dangerous thing the legendary Twin Brothers have faced?"
"Hey, those fences have jagged tops!"
Junseo interjected, grabbing a piece of dry bread from the communal tray. He pointed his bread at Gu Wan, who hadn't looked up once. "And at least we go outside. Look at Gu Wan. I'm convinced if that iPad ran out of battery, he'd actually stop breathing. Hey, Einstein! What are you doing? Calculating the trajectory of your soup?"
Gu Wan didn't look up. His fingers blurred across the screen, his face a mask of absolute focus. "I am recalibrating the internal security cycle for the East Wing, Junseo. And for your information, the soup is 84% water and 16% disappointment. It requires no calculation."
The table erupted in quiet snorts of laughter.
"See?" Junseo grinned, nudging Orina. "A straight reply for everything. I bet he has his whole life planned out in spreadsheets. 'At 22:00, I shall blink twice. At 22:01, I shall ponder the meaning of Pi.'"
Seol-wol smiled, feeling a genuine warmth in his chest. This was what he needed. The banter, the insults, the feeling of being part of a pack. He leaned closer to Kyla, listening to her talk about a mechanical modification she wanted to try on the thermal vests. He felt grounded. He felt like the "Neural Residue" was finally fading into the background.
And then, the air changed.
It wasn't a sound, but a shift in the pressure of the room. Seol-wol's smile froze. The back of his neck began to prickle, and that familiar, jagged vibration started to hum in his ears.
Miran Konstantinov had entered the cafeteria.
He didn't go to the food line. He didn't sit with the other high-status cadets. He stood at the entrance, his dark eyes sweeping the room until they landed—with the precision of a laser—on Seol-wol.
Miran didn't move toward them, but the irritation flared in Seol-wol's chest like a sudden fever. The "Sync" was back, dragging him out of the light and back into the shadow. Miran's presence was like a stain on the simple, happy moment they were having. He looked at the table of "Remnants" as if they were nothing more than insects, but his gaze stayed on Seol-wol, possessive and silent.
"Ugh, the Prince is here," Orina whispered, her voice losing its humor. "Why does he always look like he's judging the very air we breathe?"
Seol-wol gritted his teeth, his hand clenching under the table. He was so tired of being watched. He turned back to Kyla, trying desperately to listen to her story, but Miran's pulse was thumping in his own wrist, loud and demanding, drowning out the sound of his friends' laughter.