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  Min-su scratched his head in frustration.

  "Just? If you 'just' stay as you are, you get caught."

  Those words pressed heavily on the atmosphere of the hideout.

  Tae-yoon quietly stood up. He placed a hand on Ha-jun’s shoulder. He didn't apply pressure, but Ha-jun flinched. From that reaction, Tae-yoon felt the terror Ha-jun had already accumulated.

  "Ha-jun."

  "Yes..."

  "They target you first because you look like the easiest link."

  Tae-yoon’s words weren't kind, but they held no lies.

  "So, starting today, Rule Number One: Do not move alone."

  "..."

  "If you feel even a sliver of that anxiety again, speak up immediately. The moment you think 'it'll be okay' is the moment you die."

  Ha-jun nodded. His fingertips were shaking. Tae-yoon swallowed a curse as he watched him.

  ‘This isn't a hacking battle anymore.’

  ‘This is a battle where they play with human lives.’

  The Disappearance.

  Late that night, Ha-jun forced a smile and left the hideout.

  "I'll go home, take a shower, and come right back," he said.

  Min-su offered to go with him, but Ha-jun waved his hands. "Hyung, I'm an adult too. I can handle a taxi ride."

  Seo-hui looked at Tae-yoon as the door closed.

  "Did you let him go?"

  Tae-yoon’s eyes turned cold for a moment.

  "I put a tail on him."

  Min-su spoke up, grabbing his jacket.

  "I'll watch from behind. From a distance."

  Seo-hui added one more comment.

  "Distance is meaningless tonight. You need to 'stick' to him."

  Min-su grinned, though his eyes were serious.

  "That's why I'm going. I'm an expert at this."

  Tae-yoon didn't answer. Promises made in words were weak. Only actions of verification held meaning.

  It didn't take long for Ha-jun to go silent.

  The words "Connecting..." appeared on the phone screen a few times, then the call dropped. Messages went unread.

  The last thing remaining was a short sentence stuck on 'Sending...'.

  [ Hyung... someone is... knocking on my door. ]

  The moment Tae-yoon saw that sentence, his fingertips turned ice cold.

  Min-su called.

  "Hey, I'm near Ha-jun's place. But... it's strange."

  "What is."

  "The alley is too quiet. Usually, you hear people here. TV sounds, footsteps. It's dead silent."

  "Go in."

  "Going in."

  The call cut off.

  Tae-yoon looked at Seo-hui. She was already ready. Her bag, her coat, her expression. Preparation didn't mean packing luggage; it meant folding one's heart. Seo-hui had already folded her heart away, just as she always did.

  When the second call came from Min-su, his voice was low.

  "The door is open."

  "Ha-jun?"

  "Gone."

  Tae-yoon moved immediately. The stale air of the hideout was pushed behind him as the cold night air filled his lungs. It was freezing. But Tae-yoon was used to the cold. What he was more used to was the sensation of being too late.

  When he arrived, Min-su was standing on the steps in front of the house. He wasn't even smoking. The fact that Min-su didn't have a cigarette meant this wasn't a joke.

  Min-su spoke briefly as soon as he saw Tae-yoon.

  "Go inside and look."

  The inside of the house was strangely tidy.

  There were no signs of a struggle. No overturned drawers. No broken items.

  The fact that it was too clean was the scream.

  Hwang Seo-hui walked around the room once. She stopped at a specific point. The floor. Between the threshold and the living room. A very thin line.

  "This."

  Seo-hui pointed at the floor.

  "They wiped it."

  Min-su clenched his jaw.

  "A kidnapping... and they cleaned up?"

  Seo-hui was calm.

  "It's a warning. There are ways to make people scared with chaos, and there are ways to show off power by saying, 'We can take him this cleanly.'"

  Tae-yoon stood in the middle of the living room and inhaled. The air felt different. It didn't feel like Ha-jun's home; it felt like a stage someone had briefly used and left.

  And on that stage, something had been deliberately left behind.

  On the table. A single sheet of paper.

  The writing wasn't printed. It was handwritten. But it didn't look like handwriting. Perfectly beautiful, perfectly cold, perfectly calculated angles.

  [ Phantom. Is your brother as light as your skill? ]

  Min-su crumpled the paper in his fist and cursed.

  "Crazy bastards..."

  Tae-yoon stared at the paper, then slowly smiled.

  It wasn't a smile.

  It was a laugh that shattered only inside his mind, never showing his teeth.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "It's an invitation."

  Tae-yoon said.

  "Not a kidnapping... an invitation to drag us out."

  Seo-hui looked at Tae-yoon and spoke low.

  "If you follow, you die."

  Tae-yoon didn't avert his gaze.

  "If I don't follow, more die."

  Seo-hui’s eyes narrowed.

  "Then there is only one way."

  "I know."

  Tae-yoon said.

  "We don't get dragged. We drag them."

  Min-su clenched his fist tightly next to Tae-yoon.

  "Hey, but... Ha-jun is alive, right?"

  Tae-yoon didn't answer. He didn't speak words he couldn't be sure of.

  instead, Tae-yoon spoke very briefly, very solidly.

  "They kept him alive."

  "...Why?"

  "Because killing him now wouldn't be fun for them."

  That statement was more terrifying than any confirmation of death.

  The Return.

  Ha-jun returned.

  He returned too 'luckily'.

  There was a knock. Not on his house door, but on the heavy iron door of the hideout.

  Ha-jun was standing there.

  Dark circles hung under his eyes, his fingers trembled, and his lips were parched. But his body was intact. No blood, no bruises, no torn clothes.

  Min-su ran over and grabbed Ha-jun’s shoulders.

  "Hey! Where have you been!"

  Ha-jun didn't pull away. instead, he took a deep breath and collapsed right there.

  "Hyung... I really... thought I was going to die..."

  Ha-jun’s voice sounded like a cough, not a cry. Like someone afraid to let air into his lungs.

  Tae-yoon crouched in front of Ha-jun.

  "Did they touch you?"

  Ha-jun shook his head.

  "They didn't hit me. But..."

  "..."

  "They killed me... with words."

  Seo-hui approached silently and grabbed Ha-jun’s wrist. Pulse. Tremor. Pupil movement. Her check was fast and precise.

  "They didn't drug him."

  Seo-hui said.

  Min-su frowned.

  "Isn't that worse? If they made him like this without drugs?"

  Seo-hui looked at Tae-yoon.

  "They are people who know how to plant terror."

  Ha-jun rubbed his face with his hands.

  "Hyung... do you know what they asked me?"

  Tae-yoon’s eyes changed.

  "What."

  Ha-jun’s lips trembled.

  "Choi Seo-hyun... They asked about that name."

  "..."

  "They asked, 'What is your relationship with that woman?' and 'Why is the Phantom moving near her?'..."

  Min-su ground his teeth.

  "Those bastards, they're drawing a map of our heads."

  Tae-yoon exhaled once.

  "Right."

  Then he spoke very slowly.

  "They are trying to divide us."

  Seo-hui closed her eyes and opened them.

  "We can't delay anymore."

  Tae-yoon nodded.

  "Yeah. We are short on personnel."

  Ha-jun asked with a shocked face.

  "Hyung... do we... need more people?"

  Tae-yoon answered.

  "Technique alone isn't enough."

  Min-su took over.

  "We need someone who can handle the field, the paperwork, and people. And..."

  Min-su’s eyes briefly went to Seo-hui.

  "Someone with a mental fortitude that can survive without sleep, like us."

  Seo-hui scoffed.

  "People who can endure more than me are rare."

  Tae-yoon spoke low.

  "There are."

  When Min-su made a face that said "Who?", Tae-yoon recalled the printouts quietly placed in a corner of the hideout instead of answering.

  ‘Someone who can look at documents and say 'this is strange'.’

  ‘Someone who is scared but looks until the end.’

  A face flashed through Tae-yoon’s mind.

  Oh Se-na.

  And two others.

  The eyes inside the company that looked at Tae-yoon as a 'person'.

  Lee Hyun-ah.

  Han So-hee.

  Tae-yoon said.

  "Let's gather people."

  Ha-jun asked with a blank face.

  "Hyung... are we... making a team?"

  Tae-yoon answered firmly.

  "Yes."

  "How many?"

  Tae-yoon thought for a moment and said.

  "For now... the number of people who are properly breathing."

  Min-su grinned.

  "Ah, that's abstract as hell."

  Tae-yoon laughed low.

  "So you have to survive too. You are a number."

  Min-su paused for a moment, then nodded as if he had no choice.

  The Office. The Confrontation.

  In the Daon Solution office, the cracks had already begun.

  Assistant Manager Lee Hyun-ah had watched Tae-yoon play the fool for a long time. But his recent 'stupidity' was different. It was excessive. It was intentional. It looked like a mistake, but the direction of the mistake was always 'just right' for others to see.

  Assistant Han So-hee watched Tae-yoon even more quietly.

  The hand that made coffee.

  The hand that typed on the keyboard.

  The hand that turned the pages of a report.

  And very occasionally, the gaze in Tae-yoon’s eyes when he looked not at a 'person' but at a 'battlefield'.

  That day, when Team Leader Park brought up the company dinner, Hyun-ah was watching Tae-yoon.

  "Manager Kang, smile a little today. Your expression lately is too..."

  When Team Leader Park trailed off, Hyun-ah threw in a comment.

  "The Manager doesn't have an expression originally. He just has strange timing."

  Tae-yoon laughed it off.

  "Assistant Manager Lee, are you complimenting me?"

  "No."

  Hyun-ah said firmly.

  "I'm warning you."

  Those words hung very thinly in Tae-yoon’s ears.

  After the incident in the alleyway following the dinner, Hyun-ah and So-hee had reached near-certainty.

  Manager Kang is not 'just' a manager.

  And what he is hiding is not just company business.

  Eventually, Hyun-ah brought it up first.

  It was a relatively quiet time in the office. When the sound of typing became rhythmic, Hyun-ah spun her chair around to face Tae-yoon directly.

  "Manager Kang."

  "Yes? Assistant Manager Lee?"

  "I'm not an idiot."

  Tae-yoon pretended to smile, but his eyes dimmed minutely.

  "What do you mean all of a sudden? You are... far from an idiot. An idiot is someone like me."

  "Don't make me laugh."

  Hyun-ah said.

  "Who are you?"

  The question was as direct as a knife.

  Beside her, Han So-hee intervened quietly.

  "Manager... me too."

  When Tae-yoon turned his head, So-hee continued, looking down but speaking clearly.

  "I... want to know too. I'm scared... but pretending not to know is scarier."

  Tae-yoon remained silent for a long time.

  If he pulled these two in, they would be in danger.

  But if he kept them out, they would be in greater danger.

  Because the 'watching eyes' had already entered the company.

  Tae-yoon spoke quietly.

  "It's not company work."

  Hyun-ah’s eyes sharpened.

  "Then what is it."

  Tae-yoon pressed his lips together.

  "Work that saves people."

  The moment those words fell, Han So-hee’s shoulders slumped slightly. It wasn't relief; it was acceptance that her intuition was right.

  Hyun-ah sighed.

  "Ha... so it's true."

  "What is."

  "That you are playing a 'Salaryman Game'."

  Tae-yoon smiled briefly.

  "For a game... the penalty is too harsh."

  Hyun-ah crossed her arms.

  "Fine. But let me ask you one thing."

  "Anything."

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