SEOUL – ELITE FITNESS SANCTUARY, GANGNAM:
5:47 AM
The gym didn't officially open until six, which made it perfect. Jae Kang moved smoothly through the darkness silently, efficiently and lethal.
The sheer brown mesh top clung to his frame, practically transparent under the emergency exit lights. Most people would call the outfit insane for a breaking-and-entering job.
But Jae called it strategic. And as a spy for more than seven years and counting, he knew what he was talking about. The new fabric scanners at corporate facilities flagged tactical gear instantly.
But this — a stage costume material, embedded with metallic threads that scrambled the sensors into thinking he was just some lost K-pop idol who had wandered into the wrong building.
His pink hair helped sell it too. Facial recognition software saw the color and immediately downgraded threat assessment. Low-priority celebrity. Probable an influencer. Ignore.
(It didn't typically say that, but Jae thought it and it was funny.)
"Idiots." He thought.
He crouched behind the mirrored wall of Studio 4, his fingers already working on the hidden panel. He had just thirty seconds; to crack the biometric lock, download the AURORA key fragment and vanish before the alarm turned on.
This was going to be easy.
The device in his hand pulsed once with a great light. The green light signifies that download was initialized.
"No we wait." Jae allowed himself the smallest exhale. One key down, six more to go. After this, he'd have to ghost to Osaka, let the heat die down little, and figure out how to complete his mission to take down the six keys.
While he was still thinking to himself about the future relaxation he'd enjoy once his mission was successful, the studio door suddenly exploded inward.
"Goooood Morning, Beautiful People!" A loud voice said. Jae's head snapped up so fast he nearly dislocated something. He stared and gasped.
A literal human wrecking ball in neon-orange shorts burst through the entrance. His phone held high, a ring light blazing like a small white sun and this dude was shirtless not that Jae cared for it but he was built like someone had taken a Greek statue and fed it nothing but protein shakes — alot of it because this man's smile could probably be seen from space.
"It's your boy Leo," the man continued, "...coming right at ya, LIVE! in Seoul, Korea, oh my God. It's so good to be here guys. Everything is amazing. But nothing is going to distract us from our what?.....thats right, the Sunrise Glute Workout!l everybody! What! what! We're talking fire today, fam. We're talking—"
He stopped mid-sentence. He noticed someone moving. He turned and stared — directly at Jae.
Jae stared back, frozen in a crouch, one hand still inside the wall panel. For exactly five seconds, he held his breath calculating his next move before things get out of hand. But suddenly the black dude, Leo was grinning.
"YO! We've got a K-pop Idol in the building!"
He swung the phone around. The frame perfectly catching Jae's face in crystal-clear 4K.
"Bro, that outfit is fire! And I love your pink hair! Who's your stylist?" Then he turned back to the phone, "Chat, what do we think, get the K-pop Idol on camera or—"
Before he could finish, Jae moved swiftly. One second he was across the room. The next, his hand was around Leo's phone, yanking it downward. But Leo's grip was firm and he was still talking.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Someone's very serious about their pre-workout privacy or whatever's going on here. Is that a k-pop thing or are you—"
"Delete it!" Jae's barked. The sound of his voice cut through Leo's sentence like glass. "Delete it right now!"
Leo blinked, then chuckled. "What are you talking about, it's already live." He said rasing the phone higher to capture the moment, again.
"Look. We've got like four hundred thousand plus people watching right now. Oh nice, the chat is blowing. Awn...guys, I love you too. Hey, you wanna say hi to my—"
Jae's knee slammed into Leo's stomach.
Not hard enough to seriously injure him because he still needed the phone intact. But the kick was hard enough that it doubled Leo over.
The phone clattered to the floor. Jae snatched it up quickly. His thumbs flying across the screen as he tried to end the stream, but the damage was already catastrophic.
"427,000 viewers?" He thought. "Fuck!"
And the crazy part is that the chat was a complete chaos.
```
— Guys! Did you see how he held his neck, OMG! it was so hot, I'm gonna die...ahhhh
— yasss! The vibe is giving 'strangle me daddy.' I love it.
— Leo, you said you would remain single for ever and now you have a boyfriend? Hmm, I'm sad.
— get out, loser! Leo you have a good eye, you k-pop idol is so cute. Can we share?
— The k-pop idol is so cute though. Do an agyeo for us, pwees!!
```
"Agyeo!" He yelled. "Are you kidding me?!" Jae sounded so offended after reading the chat. He quickly got a hang of the device and ended the live.
"You gotta chill, Man." Leo whined getting up.
But Jae didn't care to answer. He just tossed him the phone. Almost immediately, behind the wall panel, something started beeping.
No…no!
The alarm system had cycled early and he didn't notice. The download was only at 73%. If he pulled the device now, the key fragment would be corrupted and he'd have to start over.
And If he stayed any longer, the building's security would lock down the entire floor in less than ninety seconds.
"Okay." Leo wheezed, still bent over but somehow grinning. "So you're, like, an assassin or what?"
No answer. Jae was still calculating, he didn't have any time for distraction.
"Oh wait I think I got it!" Leo said answering his own question.
"Shut up!" Jae yelled.
But Leo continued, "Common, you haven't even heard me yet. Can I at least get a picture,"
Jae ignored and instead grabbed him by the throat. Leo's hands came up instantly. Not defensive, just reflexive and in minutes he attacked back.
The casual way he gripped Jae's wrist told a very different story than the golden-retriever personality suggested. This man definitely had some form of training.
"You just killed us both," Jae hissed. "Do you understand? The people who own this building don't call the police. They call cleaners."
"Cleaners?" Leo was totally confused now.
"People who make other people…..ugh! You disappear! Completely."
Leo's eyes widened. "Bro. Wait. Is this good or bad?"
"You're hopeless" Jae snapped pulling away from his grip and taking the opportunity to hold him firmly.
But the beeping intensified. Jae's brain ran the calculations in half a second: there were three exits, all biometrically sealed now. The security team were already converging from the opposite stairwells. The download would finish in approximately forty seconds, but he'd be trapped by then. Unless…..
His eyes flicked to the window. There were thirteenth floors up.
Leo followed his gaze. "Oh hell no. I know you're not thinking...my answer is no!"
"I never asked." Jae released him, spun back to the wall panel, and ripped the device free at 89% download. Not ideal, but it would have to work.
He was already moving toward the window when the studio lights slammed on full blast. Five men in tactical gear appeared in the doorway.
They were definitely not gym security. They looked the kind of men Jae earlier described as cleaners.
"Down on the ground!" The first one raised his weapon. It didn't look like a gun, it was something worse. "Both of you! Now!"
Leo raised his hands slowly. "Listen, guys, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I'm just a personal trainer. I teach people how to do squats. I don't even know this — dude!"
Jae threw a fire extinguisher at the window. The glass exploded outward in a shower of diamonds. Then he yanked Leo by the arm and leaped forward.
"What the….dudeeee!"
They went flying through the window together. For one perfect, crystalline moment, they were airborne.
Leo screaming all the curse words he could think of, and how he was going to die without getting married and having kids.
"Shut up!" Jae yelled, loud enough for Leo to hear. But he was still screaming his lungs out.
Jae was calculating the trajectories. The beautiful Seoul sunrise painting them both in gold and pink. Few seconds later, gravity kicked in. Jae twisted mid-air, catching the edge of the window-washing scaffolding one floor down.
His shoulder screamed in protest, but he held on. Shirtless Leo slammed into him a second later, and the scaffolding swung so wildly the cables shrieked.
Above them, the tactical team appeared at the broken window.
"Move!" Jae snarled.
They dropped again but this time onto a delivery truck that was, miraculously, filled with yoga mats and foam rollers.
Leo landed flat on his back, wheezing. "I take it back. I don't know who the fuck you are, but I don't like you. This is bad. No, no, it's terrible."
Jae was already rolling off the truck, hitting the pavement in a crouch. "Get up!"
"My phone, we have…"
"Leave it. You wouldn't want to be tracked down by those guys, trust me."
"Bu—but my entire 'life' is on that phone." He sounded sad. But Jae didn't have time for this.
"I'll explain later. Lets go."
A black SUV screeched around the corner. Jae didn't wait. He grabbed Leo's wrist and ran.
"Where are we going?" Leo asked, following Jae's Lead as he dragged his wrist.
"It sounds crazy," Jae said. "...but just trust me."