The hospital's fluorescent lights buzzed like a cheap horror flick, casting shadows on Sun-hee's pale face as she fiddled with a puzzle book. Her hospital gown was too big, making her look even smaller, and every cough she let out was a punch to my gut. I'd ruled Seoul's underworld as Kang Min-jae, the White Dragon, but here I was, a 13-year-old kid named Lee Do-hyun, powerless to fix her. Not yet. The latest text—Good dodge last night, Dragon. Next time, we won't miss—sat heavy in my pocket. Someone knew I was alive, knew I was me, and they were watching close enough to threaten Sun-hee. That made this personal, and I didn't play nice when it was personal.
"Stop staring, oppa," Sun-hee said, not looking up. "You're creepier than the nurse with the bad breath."
I snorted, leaning back in the plastic chair. "Just making sure you're not sneaking candy again. Eomma'll have my head." Truth was, I was scanning the room. A guy in a hoodie lingered by the vending machine, his face half-hidden. He'd been there too long, checking his phone too often. Mapo was crawling with eyes, and I was starting to think the "new player" Bulldog mentioned wasn't just some upstart gang. They had tech, reach, and a creepy knack for knowing my every move.
"Stay put," I told Sun-hee, slipping out to the hallway. I dialed Bulldog on my burner phone, keeping my voice low. "Ki-bum, that phone you got me—check if it's compromised. Someone's tracking me, and I'm not in the mood for surprises."
Bulldog's voice boomed through, oblivious to stealth. "Boss, you think it's bugged? I got it from a guy in Hongdae, swore it was clean!"
"Great, so you bought it from a street vendor with a side hustle in betrayal. Take it to a tech shop, now. And don't break anything." I hung up, already regretting the choice. Bulldog was loyal, but his idea of "subtle" was like asking a tank to tiptoe.
Back at school, Hong Middle School was a zoo of festival prep. Banners fluttered, kids argued over who got to run the dunk tank, and the air smelled of spray paint and teenage desperation. Kim Hae-rin, my personal nemesis in a school uniform, was barking orders at the festival committee like she was running a cartel. I had to test her. If she or her shady family were feeding info to whoever was texting me, I'd know soon enough.
I slid into the meeting, clutching a clipboard like it was a lifeline. "Do-hyun," Hae-rin said, tossing me a stack of budget sheets, "you're on tteokbokki stall duty. Don't mess it up."
"Tteokbokki? What's next, I'm selling ramyeon in Itaewon?" I shot back, earning a few laughs. Her eyes narrowed, that same calculating glint. Time to bait the hook. I leaned in, lowering my voice so only she could hear. "Heard there's a big meeting in Mapo tonight. Something about a 'crane.' You in on that?"
Her face didn't change, but her fingers twitched on her pen. "What are you talking about, Lee Do-hyun? Stop being weird." She turned away, but I caught her glancing at her phone. Bingo. If a new text came after this, I'd know she was involved—or at least connected to someone who was.
The rest of the meeting was a blur of snack budgets and bad ideas. I crunched numbers like I used to crunch rival gangs, shaving costs on sauce while slipping in a plan to use the stall as a drop point. An old contact, a fence named Choi, owed me a favor. If I could get him to the festival, I'd have a shot at moving some cash without Jin-woo's hackers sniffing it out. The trick was doing it under Hae-rin's nose.
After school, I met Bulldog at a dingy Hongdae electronics shop, the kind that sold knockoff earbuds and probably moonlighted as a front. He was arguing with a clerk, holding my burner phone like it was a live grenade. "This kid says it's clean, Boss!" he bellowed, loud enough to make the clerk flinch. "But he's got shifty eyes!"
I groaned, snatching the phone. "Ki-bum, you're scaring the poor guy. Did you even ask about tracking?"
The clerk, a skinny guy with glasses, stammered, "N-no tracker, I swear! But… this model's got a weird signal. Like it's pinging a server it shouldn't." He showed me a laptop screen with some code I vaguely recognized from my old life. Someone had piggybacked a tracking app onto the phone's firmware. Sloppy, but effective. That explained the texts' timing.
"Fix it," I told the clerk, sliding him a wad of won from my lunch money. "And if you talk, my friend here will use you as a punching bag." Bulldog cracked his knuckles, grinning like a kid at a candy store. The clerk nodded so fast I thought his glasses would fly off.
Back home, Sun-hee was sprawled on the couch, sketching festival posters. "Oppa, you're late. Eomma's gonna make you scrub the floor." Her voice was light, but her cough wasn't. I sat beside her, hiding the bandage on my arm from last night's ambush.
"You okay?" I asked, softer than I meant.
She rolled her eyes. "Stop worrying. I'm tougher than you, Mr. Math Genius." But she leaned against me, and for a second, I wasn't the White Dragon. I was just her brother.
My phone buzzed. New text, unknown number: Cute trick with the crane, Dragon. Festival won't save you. My blood went cold. Hae-rin. She'd taken the bait, and someone was listening. I smirked, though. They thought they had me cornered. They didn't know I was already rewriting the game.