They didn't rush him.
That was the first thing Tae-Yang noticed when he came back to himself. No frantic voices. No hands shaking him awake. No one was shouting his name like he was something precious that might slip away.
Instead, there was pressure.
Even before he opened his eyes, he felt it—measured, deliberate, applied with professional certainty. Straps around his forearms. A band across his chest. Something cool and firm was circling his wrist, humming faintly against his pulse.
Containment.
The air smelled sterile. Sharp. Clean enough to sting the back of his throat. His eyelids fluttered open.
White ceiling. Not hospital white—too matte, too intentionally neutral. Narrow light panels embedded in the surface instead of hanging fixtures. No windows. No sense of time.
He tried to lift his head. A hand pressed gently—but firmly—against his shoulder. "Don't." The voice was calm. Not unkind. Not comforting either.
"Remain still. You experienced an acute output event."
Tae-Yang swallowed. His throat felt raw, like he'd been screaming for hours. He turned his head instead, eyes tracking slowly. Three people stood around him. All in clinic gray.
Not uniforms—coats. Long, layered, reinforced at the shoulders and spine. No insignia that meant anything to civilians. No names visible. Only subtle color coding at the cuffs and collars, muted enough that you had to know what to look for.
Clinicians.
One stood at his right, tablet in hand, eyes moving faster than her fingers as data scrolled. Another hovered near his feet, adjusting something on a low-profile restraint frame that held the gurney steady. The third—older, sharper-eyed—stood a step back, hands folded behind his back like a man observing equipment.
No one smiled. No one looked impressed.
"How many fingers?" The woman with the tablet asked, holding up her hand in his line of sight. He focused. Counted. "Three."
"Cognitive function intact." She murmured—not to him, but to the air.
I saved people, he thought. The memory surged up unbidden: the beam flying, the shockwave, the screaming stopping—at least for a moment. No one mentioned it. "Do you remember the moment of onset?" The older man asked.
Tae-Yang hesitated. His jaw tightened.
"Yes."
"What triggered it?" Pressure built behind his ribs again, phantom heat crawling up his arms. "A man was trapped. The ceiling was coming down." He said. "That is the situational context. I'm asking about your internal state." The clinician replied smoothly.
Internal state.
"I couldn't leave him." He exhaled slowly.
A pause.
The woman's fingers slowed.
"Compulsion-driven response. No hesitation once the threshold was crossed." She said. The man nodded once. "Consistent."
Consistent with what?
They spoke like he wasn't there. Like his words were samples being cataloged. A faint hum vibrated through the restraints, and he realized the bands weren't just holding him down—they were monitoring him. Pressure. Heart rate. Stress markers crawling across invisible graphs.
"Any auditory distortion?" The woman asked. "Yes." He said. "After the first—" He stopped himself. After the punch. She glanced at him. "After the discharge?"
"…Yes."
"Visual narrowing?"
"Yes."
"Pain?"
Tae-Yang swallowed again. His arms still felt like they'd been hollowed out and filled with static. "After."
"Delayed somatic feedback. High-output projection signature." She said. The older man finally stepped closer. He leaned over Tae-Yang just enough that their eyes met. Not curiosity.
Evaluation.
"Do you understand where you are?" He asked. "Yes. A mobile clinic unit." Tae-Yang said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt.
"Correct."
"Am I under arrest?"
The man's lips twitched—not a smile. Something closer to acknowledgment. "No. You are under assessment." He said.
That was somehow worse.
—
They moved him an hour later.
Time passed in pieces—measured by the soft chime of equipment checks, the distant thud of doors opening and closing, the murmur of voices carefully kept out of emotional range. When they finally wheeled him out, the restraint bands loosened but didn't come off.
A corridor stretched ahead, wide and dimly lit. The floor absorbed sound. The walls were a layered gray that refused to reflect light properly.
This wasn't a hospital. Hospitals tried to reassure. This place tried to control. Through a narrow observation window, he caught a glimpse of the outside as they passed an access junction.
Byunha Station, sealed and crawling with response teams. Emergency lights painted the concrete in harsh reds and blues. Civilians stood behind barricades, phones raised, faces lit with fear and something dangerously close to awe.
He looked away.
They rolled him into a room that felt intentionally too small. One table. Three chairs. No windows. A single light overhead, adjusted to a brightness that made shadows unavoidable. They helped him sit.
Not gently.
Not roughly.
Efficiently.
The restraints on his wrists clicked into the chair instead of the gurney. Across from him, the clinicians took their seats. The older man sat in the center. The woman with the tablet to his right. A younger handler—barely older than Tae-Yang himself, but with the eyes of someone who'd learned to stop reacting—sat to the left.
"Subject Kwon Tae-Yang." The older man began.
Subject.
Tae-Yang's fingers curled reflexively against the restraint cuffs. "You experienced a spontaneous pressure manifestation event resulting in a Projection-dominant ability. Initial output exceeded civilian-grade tolerance parameters." He continued. "People lived." Tae-Yang said.
The younger handler's jaw tightened.
The older man didn't react.
"Collateral damage occurred. Two storefronts were destroyed. Structural compromise to public transit infrastructure. Twelve civilians treated for secondary injuries." He said evenly. "And the man under the beam?" Tae-Yang asked.
A beat.
"Alive. Critical but stable." The woman said, eyes still on her tablet. Tae-Yang exhaled, relief punching through his chest before he could stop it. No one acknowledged it.
"Your ability presents as concussive kinetic projection. Localized shockwave generation through physical contact. Emotional amplification observed." The older man went on. "Emotional—?" Tae-Yang frowned.
"Your output spike correlated directly with stress escalation. Rage, urgency, compulsion. We'll need to isolate which factor is dominant." The woman said.
"I wasn't angry." He said sharply.
The older man finally raised a hand. "Intent is not a prerequisite for emotional influence. This is not a judgment." He said.
It felt like one.
"Your Pressure Tolerance Index is currently estimated at mid-to-high for first manifestation. That places you outside baseline civilian classification." The woman continued. She turned the tablet so he could see. He hadn't expected that.
Lines and numbers filled the screen. Graphs tracking something he'd never known could be measured. A vertical bar marked PTI pulsed faintly, hovering just below a threshold line.
Amber.
The color glowed softly, clinical and cold. "What does that mean?" Tae-Yang asked. The older man answered. "It means you are operationally viable. And statistically unstable." He said. Tae-Yang stared at the screen.
Amber.
Not green.
Not red.
Suspended in between. "Your status is provisional. 🟧 AMBER. Watchlisted." The man continued. The word settled into Tae-Yang's chest like a weight.
Amber.
A warning color. "Watchlisted for what?" He asked. The younger handler spoke this time. "Burnout risk. Escalation tendency. Psychological volatility under stress."
"I didn't lose control." Tae-Yang said. "You collapsed." The handler replied. "I stopped."
"After exceeding safe output." The woman added. The older man folded his hands on the table. "You are not being punished. You are being categorized." He said. That was worse.
"Under current regulations, you will be remanded to Seonghwa Pressure Clinic for Tier 2 evaluation and containment." He continued. Containment. Not education. Not support.
Containment.
"I didn't sign up for this." Tae-Yang said. The man nodded once. "No one does." Silence stretched. The hum of the lights filled the gap. "What happens if I refuse?" Tae-Yang asked quietly. The older man's gaze sharpened—not threatening, but absolute.
"Then you will be classified as an unlicensed high-risk Operator. And your freedom will be curtailed accordingly." He said.
The word freedom echoed unpleasantly in Tae-Yang's mind. "So I don't have a choice."
"You have compliance. Or restriction." The woman said. The younger handler shifted in his seat, discomfort flickering across his face. "You should understand, now, Amber status is not a condemnation. It's—" He said, voice lower.
"A resource designation." The older man finished.
There it was. Resource. The word slid under Tae-Yang's skin and lodged there, sharp and unwelcome. "Asset. High-output projection assets are in demand." The woman said without looking up.
Asset.
His stomach twisted. "I'm not—" He stopped himself, breath hitching. The pressure was back, subtle but insistent. Not enough to trigger anything. Enough to remind him it was there.
They don't see what I felt, he thought. They see what I can produce.
"You will be assigned handlers. You will undergo stabilization assessment, ethics review, and output regulation training." The older man continued, unperturbed. "And if I don't perform?" Tae-Yang asked. The man regarded him for a long moment. "Then your status will change."
Amber could become red. The room seemed smaller now. They stood a few minutes later. The restraints released his wrists with soft clicks. No congratulations. No reassurance.
Just process.
As they escorted him out, Tae-Yang caught his reflection in the darkened glass of a corridor panel.
Pale. Eyes too sharp. Something coiled behind his ribs that hadn't been there before. An orange indicator light pulsed faintly on the cuff of his temporary clinic jacket.
🟧
Amber.
A warning.
A label.
An asset tag.
He clenched his fists as he walked, jaw set, and made himself one promise as the doors slid open ahead of him.
If they're going to call me a weapon—They don't get to decide how I'm used.