“Hah... hah!”

His rigid limbs trembled; he couldn’t breathe right. A familiar voice, on the verge of tears, mashed the nurse call button in a panic.

The noisy alarm rattled his skull. Hic, hic...! Air wouldn’t pass his lips; thick veins stood taut.

“Team Leader, can you hear me? Do you hear my voice?”

“――”

Don’t touch me. I have to go back. The kid is still in Winter Castle...!

His eyes took in an unfamiliar ceiling, but explosions were still going off in his ears. His pupils, flung wide, quivered like they were lost in the past.

“Get a sedative over here!”

“Team Leader, please—Team Leader!”

“His muscles are in spasm—the pain will be significant...! Family, please wait outside!”

Doctors rushed in, pried open Lee Wooshin’s eyelids, and shone a penlight.

Don’t touch me, fuck...! He fought like hell, flinging off the hands trying to pin him down. More people piled on, crushing his thrashing limbs.

“Can you hear my voice, sir?”

“――”

After minutes of explosions, only a skin-crawling silence remained. When he clawed his way back to the surface, a cloudless blue sky washed over his eyes. Nothing snagged in his vision.

Black smoke reared, the fire never dying down. There, Lee Wooshin stood alone on hundreds of bodies. He dug bare-handed through Winter Castle’s ashes until the rescue team dragged him away.

I didn’t even save that kid yet. I didn’t do anything, nothing...

“Two months ago you were transported here with a gunshot wound and operated on. Do you remember? How far back do your memories go? Please tell me your name and age.”

The doctor checked his pupils with the penlight and kept asking questions.

“Your name. What’s your name?”

The sole survivor of the Winter Castle terror. His dry lips moved emptily.

But after he miraculously lived, Lee Wooshin’s life became nothing short of a war zone.

That year, Russia went mad.

The Kremlin, having lost all its ministers, failed to calm the public panic; in the end a new faction took power.

Meanwhile, funerals and vigils never stopped; the Solzhenitsyn tragedy was everywhere—papers, TV, on everyone’s lips.

Young, rich, and unfortunate—Yuri Solzhenitsyn.

Every base, greedy gaze clung to him; there was no living quietly.

New political forces approached, hungry for the halo around the boy; as the only survivor, he was hauled to police stations again and again. Home, school, hospital—cameras followed wherever he went.

Around that time, as more people coveted the Solzhenitsyn estate, honey-tongued politicians and knife-mouthed swindlers came by turns.

Soon enough, hired killers moved in next door. In the dead of night, a pitch-black shadow looking down on him—that fear—

Fuck...

Why was I the only one who lived? Why did only I survive? The question repeated until it choked him.

Kidnapping attempts he’d lost count of, death threats, attempted murders. By day they praised the young heir; by night, those same people hunted him.

“What is this?”

“A private military company (PMC).”

While reviewing the Solzhenitsyn asset list through his lawyer, one company caught his eye. A South Africa–based military firm.

The deliberation wasn’t long. It was time to abandon Russia—and Solzhenitsyn.

“The safest way is to keep moving with us around the world.”

“For how long?”

“At least until you’re of age, yeah? Once you’re legally an adult, the bugs will fall off on their own.”

“......”

“Then let’s charge a premium for the young master’s guardianship, shall we?”

To keep that wretched life going at all, he threw everything away.

The aristocratic bearing, the ingrained polish, the standards of hygiene. He started from the ground—literally.

“Sir, stay with me. Your name—! How old are you?”

“...Owl. Twenty-seven—no, twenty-eight.”

Without a backward glance, he discarded his name and family name.

He drifted from civil war to civil war with South African mercenaries. At first he was the “prissy young master,” easy to dismiss—but it took less than half a year to grow adept with anything from an assault rifle to a flamethrower.

His clumsy hunting became unnaturally skilled, and in a world of nothing but orders and obedience, he saw every filthy thing.

Each day was a fork in the road of survival.

Shrapnel from a grenade; gunfire raining while the ammo ran dry; carrying a comrade with both legs blown off over a mountain. War after war waged at the cost of death taught his body survival on its own.

Tracking, reconnaissance, camouflage, surveillance—all sharpened. The meaner his personality grew, the more competent he became.

He snored with a corpse beside him, and when a tooth wobbled, he smashed it out with a gun muzzle.

“Sir, is your memory hazy? Look into the light, please...!”

Sometimes, when he washed his face in filthy lake water, the kid would float up in his mind. But that had been a daydream of a vacation, short-lived. Even so, the helpless, miserable feeling made him punch the muddy water.

“Young master, you’re finally an adult—happy birthday.”

“Fuck you, you late-born brat. Happy birthday!”

Still, they’d shared the field for years.

His grandfather had been right. Never trust people—or emotions. The moment you lean on emotion, you become pathetically weak.

The cheap cake smeared; a firecracker poked his eye. In the end, it was money. He’d run through war zones to escape those bastards, only to find the same damn loop waiting.

Why is everything so fucked.

Bodies lay everywhere in the conflict zones; it was a lawless land no one cared about.

Lee Wooshin shot every colleague °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° who lunged at him, greedy. Blood spattered his face; a party hat rolled across the ground.

Alone again, he stomped the white cake and blew out the still-flickering candles.

Yeah. Happy birthday, Lee Wooshin. Hell of a birth. He didn’t even cry anymore.

The moment he became an adult, he fled into the Korean military. No matter who was after “Yuri Solzhenitsyn,” surely they wouldn’t chase him into the Korean army.

“Shall we start with a handshake? I’m Ju Seolheon. Nice to finally meet you in person.”

“...The NIS?”

“You’re fairly well known in special forces. Isn’t army life a bit stifling?”

“......”

“How about working with me?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I can grant you one big thing, at least. Let me ask you instead—what do you want?”

After being scouted to the NIS, he lived freely behind a dozen masks. He approached targets with kindness, goodwill, and murderous intent all mixed together, switching faces like breathing. Acting was easy. People were easier.

He hid “Yuri” as deep as possible and donned every face he could. That was what Yuri Solzhenitsyn—no, Lee Wooshin—did best. Whether by nature or nurture, he didn’t feel guilt.

So he lived brazen and shameless for ten years. He was bored, jaded; one day he went to therapy. It was around the time sunrises made him want to die.

“Hyun.”

Suddenly, he slept well.

Had white rice always been this fragrant and good?

Trivial chatter felt pleasant; his nerves pricked at the sound of her laugh. The bathtub was the greatest invention; surprisingly, housekeeping suited him.

Later, even a walk made his heart pump. He wasn’t a dog, but he caught himself staring at the clock, waiting for that shy voice: “Hyun—shall we go out?”

After a lap around the neighborhood, he’d nap with his face buried in his wife’s nape in the sunlit living room. Somehow, there was a beloved scent.

The longer the fake marriage lasted, the more his fake skin itched and stung like a rash.

He felt the pressure point where he’d been tamping everything down begin to crack. The strangeness of it—accepting that change—was repulsive and frightening; he left without looking back. If he surrendered to the comfort she offered, he knew exactly what would happen.

Get a grip. The moment you trust, you break again.

“Do you remember the circumstances of the accident? Please tell me slowly, in order.”

“I got married.”

Through the haze, a sharp line flowed like water. An oval head, a long, lush mane, a slender neck, straight shoulders...

A woman’s silhouette he could draw a thousand times over leapt into focus.

“Twice, to be exact. Once, I dumped her; then on our honeymoon to Azerbaijan, I got dumped.”

“And then?”

“......”

He burst out laughing. Lee Wooshin shoved the doctor aside with one arm and beckoned with his eyes to Na Wonchang, hunched in the corner. He’d woken from a very long dream. When he crooked a finger, Na Wonchang startled and hurried over.

“T-Team Leader...! Are you okay? Is it really—”

“Report.”

“...Sir?”

“Current situation. Report.”

Through the sway in his skull, one woman stood like a mast. The last parting, soaked in blood and hatred, stabbed through him.

Right. Get your head on straight, bastard. She didn’t break you—you were already broken. She restored you.

I have a family now.

I have a love that makes me stronger.

“Where is my Owl right now?”