Day 58 Post-Impact - Late Afternoon
Two days.
Jiyeon had spent two days avoiding him.
Not obviously, not in any way that could be called deliberate. She'd simply found reasons to be elsewhere. Helping Sana in the medical bay, learning basic triage techniques that might prove useful. Observing training sessions with Ishani, pretending interest in combat forms she had no intention of mastering. Letting Minji teach her about the Safe Zone's communication setup, nodding along to technical explanations she barely followed. Always busy, always engaged, always with a perfectly reasonable excuse for why she couldn't join Sarnav for meals or meetings.
She'd even spent an awkward hour with Jade, who had simply looked at her with knowing eyes and said, "Running from feelings is inefficient. They catch up eventually."
She'd noticed Mythili watching her too. Sarnav's mother had a way of appearing at the edges of conversations, observing with an expression that Jiyeon couldn't quite read. Protective? Suspicious? Or something more complicated? Jiyeon recognized a fellow strategist when she saw one.
But she knew what she was doing. And worse, she suspected he knew too.
The problem was the feelings.
Strategy, she understood. Calculation, she excelled at. For seven years, every relationship in her life had been transactional. Smile at this producer, he might give you a better position in the formation. Befriend that trainee, she has connections to the CEO. Date that actor, the publicity will boost your profile. Even kindness had been currency, spent carefully for maximum return.
The idol industry had taught her that love was a liability. That attachment was weakness. That the moment you cared about something, someone would use it against you.
But what she felt when she looked at Sarnav wasn't strategic. It wasn't calculated. It was just... there. Inconvenient and confusing and utterly unlike anything she'd experienced before.
She'd watched him risk his life for strangers. She'd seen him show mercy to enemies who would have killed him without hesitation. She'd observed him comfort a terrified child with genuine tenderness, then coordinate refugee logistics with equal attention and care. She'd seen his wives look at him with love that couldn't be faked, had heard them speak of him with warmth that defied everything she knew about how powerful men treated the women around them.
And something in her chest had cracked open.
She didn't know how to close it back up.
Worse, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
The garden was supposed to be empty.
Jiyeon had chosen the evening hour specifically because she'd observed the patterns. Nisha tended the plants in the morning. Ananya practiced dance at midday. By late afternoon, this corner of the compound was usually deserted.
She should have known better than to trust patterns.
Sarnav was sitting on a stone bench near the fountain, staring at nothing. He looked tired in a way she hadn't seen before. Not physically exhausted, but something deeper. The weight of leadership visible in the set of his shoulders.
She could leave. Turn around, walk away, maintain the careful distance she'd been cultivating. The strategic choice was obvious.
She sat down beside him instead.
"You've been avoiding me," he said without looking up.
"I've been busy."
"Jade monitors movement patterns. She mentioned you've rerouted around my location seventeen times in the past two days."
"That's..." Jiyeon felt heat rise to her cheeks. "That's a very specific number."
"Jade is a very specific person." Now he did look at her, and there was no accusation in his eyes. Just curiosity, and something that might have been understanding. "Want to tell me why?"
"No."
"Okay."
They sat in silence. The fountain burbled softly. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the sounds of the Safe Zone going about its evening routines. Normal life, or what passed for it after the world ended.
"The scouts we captured," Sarnav said eventually. "I've been studying them. Trying to understand what the Ascendancy does to people."
"Any progress?"
"Some. The conversion process overwrites personality, suppresses individual will. But there are traces. Fragments of who they were before." His jaw tightened. "I found a wedding ring on one of them. He had a family, once. Someone loved him."
"Can you save them?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe. If I can understand the process well enough to reverse it." He turned to face her fully. "That's what I've been doing for two days. Sitting with converted enemies, looking for the people they used to be. It's not exactly inspiring leadership."
"It's exactly inspiring leadership." The words came out before she could filter them. "Everyone else would have just killed them."
"You keep saying that. Like mercy is remarkable instead of basic."
"In my experience, it is." Jiyeon looked down at her hands. "The entertainment industry doesn't reward kindness. Neither does government. Neither does..." She gestured vaguely at the ruins visible beyond the garden walls. "Any of this. Mercy is weakness. Weakness gets exploited."
"Is that what they taught you?"
"It's what I learned." She took a breath, forcing herself to continue. This was more than she'd shared with anyone since the impact. "When I was seventeen, another trainee and I became friends. Real friends, not strategic allies. Her name was Yuna. We looked out for each other, shared food when rations were short, covered for each other when we made mistakes during practice."
"What happened?"
"She got cut from the program. Failed a weigh-in by half a kilogram." The old anger surfaced, familiar and bitter. "Half a kilogram. Less than the weight of a bottle of water. And they destroyed her dreams over it."
"That's brutal."
"That's the industry." Jiyeon stared at the fountain, watching the water catch the fading light. "But that's not the worst part. The company offered me her spot in a debut group if I confirmed that she'd been sneaking food. They wanted me to say I'd seen her breaking diet rules. Said it would prove my loyalty to the company."
"Did you?"
"No." Jiyeon's laugh was hollow. "I told them I wouldn't lie about my friend. That if they wanted to cut me too, they could go ahead. I was eighteen and stupid and still believed that doing the right thing would be rewarded."
"What happened?"
"They gave me the spot anyway." She shook her head at the memory. "Told me my refusal was a test, and I'd passed. That they needed trainees with genuine bonds to other people because it made us easier to manipulate. They actually said that. To my face. Like it was a compliment."
Sarnav was quiet for a moment, processing the implications. "They wanted loyalty they could weaponize."
"Exactly. If you'll betray a friend for career advancement, you're useful but unpredictable. But if you have real attachments, real things you care about..." She smiled bitterly. "Then they can threaten those things. Control you through them. I learned later that they'd been watching us since day one. Yuna and me. Cultivating our friendship specifically so they'd have leverage."
Sarnav was quiet for a moment. "What happened to your friend?"
"She went home. Last I heard before the impact, she was teaching piano lessons in Busan. Happy, I think. Happier than she would have been as an idol." Jiyeon shrugged. "I tell myself I did the right thing. But sometimes I wonder if I just got lucky. If I would have broken, given enough pressure."
"You wouldn't have."
"You don't know that."
"I know what I've seen." His voice was gentle. "A woman who spent seven years in an industry designed to break people, and came out the other side with her principles intact. A woman who could have used her ability to manipulate her way to power after the impact, but instead let the government control her because she was afraid of becoming like them."
Jiyeon felt tears prick her eyes. She blinked them back viciously.
"You don't know me."
"I'd like to."
The simple statement hung in the air between them. Not a demand or a proposition. Just an offer, open and honest.
"Why?" She turned to face him. "What do you see when you look at me? Really?"
"Someone who's been told her whole life that she's valuable for what she can do, not who she is." Sarnav met her gaze steadily. "Someone who's built walls so high she's forgotten there's a person behind them. Someone who wants to believe that people can be good, but is terrified of being wrong again."
"That's very perceptive."
"My mother was a judge. She taught me to read people." A shadow crossed his face. "Among other things."
"Your mother. She's here, isn't she? I've seen her at the council meetings."
"She runs civilian affairs. She's good at it." His expression was carefully neutral. "Our relationship is... complicated."
"Complicated how?"
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough. "My father had affairs. Multiple, over years. My mother knew but couldn't prove it. Couldn't leave because of her position, her career, her family's expectations. She stayed in a marriage that was destroying her, and I watched it happen, and I couldn't do anything."
"Sarnav..."
"When the world ended, I found out he'd died with his mistress. In a hotel in Bangsar. My mother found out too." He laughed bitterly. "I don't know if she was relieved or devastated. Maybe both. But since then, she's been... different. Around me. And I don't know how to fix it."
Jiyeon understood. Not the specific circumstances, but the feeling. Parents who were supposed to love unconditionally, but whose love came with invisible strings. Families that looked perfect from the outside and rotted from within.
"You can't fix other people," she said softly. "You can only be there when they're ready to fix themselves."
"Spoken like someone who knows."
"My parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Like them. When I chose entertainment instead, they stopped speaking to me for two years." She smiled sadly. "We reconciled eventually. But it was never the same. They looked at me like a stranger wearing their daughter's face."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It taught me something valuable." She met his eyes. "That you can't live your life for other people's expectations. That at some point, you have to choose who you want to be, even if it means disappointing the people who are supposed to love you."
"And who do you want to be?"
The question cut to the heart of everything she'd been avoiding.
"I don't know anymore." Her voice cracked slightly. "I spent so long being what others wanted. The perfect trainee. The grateful idol. The cooperative asset. I don't know what's left underneath all of that."
"Then find out." He reached out, and his hand covered hers. The contact sent electricity through her skin. "Take your time. Ask questions. Try things. There's no deadline, no evaluation, no one waiting to judge whether you pass or fail."
She should pull away. Every instinct screamed that this was dangerous, that she was exposing herself, that she needed to retreat behind her walls before it was too late.
She didn't pull away.
"What if I find out I'm nothing?" she whispered. "What if there's no real person under the performance?"
"Then we'll build one together." His thumb traced circles on the back of her hand. "You're not alone, Jiyeon. Not anymore. Whatever you find, whatever you become, you don't have to face it by yourself."
She looked at him. At his eyes, warm and sincere, without a trace of the calculation she'd learned to expect from powerful men. At his mouth, curved in a gentle smile that made her stomach flutter. At the face of a man who had somehow, impossibly, made her believe that goodness could be real.
The distance between them had shrunk. She didn't remember moving, but they were close now. Close enough to feel his breath. Close enough to count his eyelashes. Close enough that if she leaned forward just slightly...
"This isn't strategic," she said, and she wasn't sure if she was warning him or herself. "I don't have an angle here. I'm not trying to manipulate you or position myself or gain an advantage. I just..."
"I know." His voice was low, almost a whisper.
"I don't do this. I don't feel things for people. I learned not to."
"I know that too."
"So why..." She swallowed hard. "Why can't I stop thinking about you?"
His hand came up to cup her face. His touch was gentle, questioning. Giving her every chance to pull away. His palm was warm against her cheek, calloused from combat but tender in its pressure.
She leaned into it instead.
Their foreheads touched. Their breath mingled. The moment stretched, crystalline and fragile and terrifying in its intensity. She could feel his heartbeat through the points where their bodies almost touched, could sense the tension in him that matched her own.
"Jiyeon..."
"I know." Her heart was pounding so hard she was certain he could hear it. "I know this is complicated. I know you have six women who've already chosen you. I know I'm scared of wanting things I can't have. I know I'm probably going to regret this. I know—"
"They'd welcome you." His thumb traced her cheekbone, feather-light. "All of them. I've felt it. Nisha asked about you yesterday. Sana keeps finding excuses to check on you. Even Jade has stopped calling you 'the idol' and started using your name."
"How can you be sure it would work?"
"Because they've seen what I see." His lips were so close. Close enough that she could almost taste them. "Because they know that family isn't about numbers. It's about connection. About choosing each other, every day, even when it's hard. And what I feel when I'm with you..."
"What do you feel?"
"Like something that was missing has finally clicked into place."
A throat cleared loudly.
They sprang apart. Minji stood at the garden entrance, expression caught somewhere between amused and apologetic.
"Sorry to interrupt." Her grin suggested she wasn't sorry at all. "But there's a situation. Hafiz picked up radio chatter. The Ascendancy is moving."
The moment shattered. Sarnav was on his feet instantly, commander mode activating.
"How many? Where?"
"Unknown numbers, heading north from Johor. Could be a probe, could be something bigger. Chen Wei wants you at the command center."
He nodded, already moving. Then he paused, looking back at Jiyeon.
"We'll continue this conversation."
"I know." She managed a smile despite the chaos of emotions churning through her. "Go. Save the world. I'll still be here when you're done."
He held her gaze for one more moment, and in that moment she saw everything. The regret at leaving. The promise that this wasn't over. The connection between them, undeniable now, impossible to dismiss as mere strategy or convenience.
Then he was gone, Minji trailing behind him with a knowing look thrown over her shoulder, leaving Jiyeon alone in the garden with a racing heart and the taste of almost on her lips.
She sat there for a long time after he left.
The fountain continued its quiet burbling. The evening light faded toward dusk, painting the garden in shades of gold and purple. Somewhere in the compound, alarms were probably sounding, people mobilizing, the machinery of war grinding into motion. Another crisis demanding attention. Another threat requiring response.
But here, in this small corner of peace, Jiyeon allowed herself to feel.
Fear. Hope. Desire. Confusion. The terrifying vulnerability of wanting something real after a lifetime of performance. The strange, unfamiliar sensation of having let someone see behind her masks.
She'd almost kissed him. Would have, if Minji hadn't interrupted. And the truly frightening part wasn't that she'd wanted to.
It was that she still did.
It was that she could still feel his hand on her face, could still smell his scent, could still hear his voice saying "like something that was missing has finally clicked into place." And instead of analyzing those words for hidden meaning, instead of calculating what advantage he might be seeking, she'd just... believed him.
Kim Jiyeon, who hadn't believed anyone in seven years, had looked into Sarnav Kish's eyes and seen truth.
That was terrifying.
That was wonderful.
That was, she realized with a kind of desperate clarity, exactly what she'd been searching for since the world ended. Not safety or power or strategic positioning. Just someone who saw her. Actually saw her. And wanted her anyway.
She touched her cheek where his hand had been, and made a decision.
Tomorrow, when this crisis was over, she would stop running.
[DAY 58 COMPLETE]
[JIYEON STATUS: FALLING]
[ASCENDANCY MOVEMENT: DETECTED]
[HARMONY SAFE ZONE STATUS][POPULATION: 680][WESTERN EXPANSION: 65% COMPLETE][NOTE: MYTHILI COORDINATING REFUGEE INTAKE]
[NEXT: CRISIS AND CHOICE]