word count: 2.7K | link to chapter 1 here
The following days settled into something strange. Not peace, exactly. Nothing about Mr. Choi’s mansion felt peaceful anymore, not after Kim Myeong-gil’s men had taken over the safe house, swept through the hidden money, and forced everyone under one roof.
But it became routine: shared hallways, shared meals, shared silence, and assigned rooms behind closed doors. And, for Gun-woo, the unfortunate reality of your presence becoming harder and harder to ignore.
The mansion gym was wide and cold, filled with the dull echo of boxing gloves hitting leather and the sharp rhythm of shoes dragging against the floor. Gun-woo stood inside the ring with Woo-jin circling him, both of them drenched in sweat, both supposed to be focused.
From farther across the gym, you trained alone near the machines, headphones covering your ears, entirely disconnected from whatever was happening around you.
You moved from one machine to another with slow, controlled focus before reaching the metal pull-up bar, gripping it above your head and lifting yourself with irritating ease. A bubblegum bubble grew lazily between your lips before popping softly.
Gun-woo’s eyes drifted just for a second, which was more than enough.
Woo-jin’s glove slammed into his jaw.
Gun-woo stumbled hard, lost his footing, and fell back against the mat with a low grunt, making Woo-jin freeze, before he crouched above him, breathing hard, his brows pulled together in disbelief.
“Ya. What is the matter with you?” Gun-woo wiped the sweat from his jaw and shook his head, trying to sit up.
Woo-jin pushed him back down with one glove. “You’re almost drilling holes into her with your eyes.”
Gun-woo’s face tightened immediately. “I’m not.”
Woo-jin slowly turned his head toward you. You were still hanging from the bar, completely unbothered, bubblegum between your lips again, looking like the world had failed to interest you.
Woo-jin looked back at him. “Are you interested in her, man? I get you honestly. She’s pretty, confident, strong-”
“More like I can’t stand her presence around,” Gun-woo cut him off, sitting up properly this time. “She seems too full of herself.”
Woo-jin helped him stand anyway and passed him a water bottle. Gun-woo took it, wiping his face with the back of his wrist before drinking. “How does Mr. Choi even know someone like her?” he asked, trying to sound less interested than he was.
Woo-jin’s expression shifted slightly. “Apparently it goes way back.”
Gun-woo looked at him. That was enough encouragement for Woo-jin.
He leaned against the ropes of the boxing ring, already enjoying the fact that he knew something Gun-woo didn’t.
“Hwang Yang-jung hyung told me a few things.”
“The night she joined us,” Woo-jin said. “You left early, remember? Said you wanted to sleep because of training the next day.”
Gun-woo did remember. After the warehouse incident, after seeing your face again in Mr. Choi’s basement, after realizing you were not some random stranger but someone Mr. Choi trusted enough to bring into the house, Gun-woo had decided he was done for the night. He excused himself before the drinking started, before the stories, before people got too honest. And for the next few days, he avoided you like you were a problem he could solve by walking out of every room you entered.
If you entered the kitchen, he left. If you sat in the living room, he suddenly remembered he had somewhere else to be. One time, all you had done was open your mouth to ask where the plates were kept, and Gun-woo had moved out of the kitchen so fast you actually stood there for a second, confused, staring after him like he had lost his mind.
Which, honestly, he might have.
“Yeah?” Gun-woo pushed, sitting on the edge of the boxing ring now. “What did he say?”
Woo-jin sat beside him and lowered his voice a little. “Buckle up. Technically, they raised her since she had soft skin. Her father and Mr. Choi were partners. Close partners. Best friends, almost. This was back when Mr. Choi was still working in finance and lending before everything became… this.”
Gun-woo’s face changed slightly as Woo-jin continued.
“Her father was killed by Myeong-gil’s men during the same incident where Mr. Choi got injured. After that, Mr. Choi took her in.”
The gym noise suddenly felt farther away. Gun-woo’s eyes moved toward the glass doors leading out to the garden. You had gone outside now, continuing your cardio under the bright morning light, your figure moving steadily past the windows.
“Her mother?” Gun-woo asked quietly.
“Gone,” Woo-jin said. “Long gone. Nobody knows where she is. Apparently, she disappeared even before her father died.” Gun-woo stayed silent.
“So it was only her,” Woo-jin continued. “She lived with Mr. Choi, Yang-jung hyung, and Lee Doo-young hyung through most of her childhood. Then when she became a teenager, Mr. Choi sent her abroad to Spain. He sensed Myeong-gil’s people moving around again and got worried.”
Gun-woo’s expression softened before he could stop it. He looked toward the garden again. You didn’t look like someone who had been protected. You looked like someone who had learned early that protection was temporary.
“Damn,” Woo-jin muttered, following his gaze. “From one father figure to three. And all badasses. No wonder she punches like that.”
Gun-woo glanced at him. Woo-jin shuddered at the memory.
A few days ago, he had tried sparring with you after provoking you for nearly fifteen minutes. It ended with him on the floor, both hands between his legs, regretting every decision that led him there. Safe to say, though, at least he was establishing some kind of friendship with you. Unlike someone.
“And best part?” Woo-jin added, standing up and pulling his shirt back over his head. “Her name isn’t even Écho. It’s a nickname.”
Gun-woo gave him a flat look. “Isn’t that obvious?”
Woo-jin frowned. “Is it?”
“Who the hell would be named Écho?”
“I don’t know,” Woo-jin said defensively. “I thought it was cool. Added to the whole mysterious persona.” Gun-woo stared at him.
“I don’t know her real name, though,” Woo-jin continued. “That old guy puked on me and passed out before he got to finish the story.” Gun-woo looked away, fiddling with the fabric wrapped around his hands, and Woo-jin patted his shoulder once.
“Now excuse me, sir. I have errands to run with Doo-young hyung before the meeting today.” He started walking backward toward the exit, pointing at Gun-woo.
“You, though? Get back to training. You were lanky today.” Gun-woo scoffed as Woo-jin left the gym. He stood again and started shadowboxing, his fists cutting through the air with more force than necessary.
Still, his eyes drifted once more. Outside, you greeted Woo-jin near the garden path. He said something that made you laugh, and the two of you walked side by side until you disappeared from Gun-woo’s line of sight.
His fist paused midair. Then he hit harder.
The meeting later that noon ran smoothly. Mr. Choi’s driver had brought in new intel about one of Myeong-gil’s hidden gold storage routes, along with a possible location where part of it was being moved. Everyone gathered quickly around the table, spreading maps, photographs, and handwritten notes across the surface.
The plan was to confirm whether the information was real, track the movement, avoid unnecessary confrontation, a move only when certain. But simple plans had a way of rotting from the inside.
Mr. Choi stood near the head of the table, calm as always, but you knew him too well.
He was worried. He had been worried since the safe house fell. Since Myeong-gil’s men had taken what was hidden there and forced everyone back into this mansion, pretending it was safer because the walls were higher and the doors were heavier.
Between him and himself, Mr. Choi knew danger was rising. He just didn’t want the boys to see it. He didn’t want his men to see it either. But you saw it.
You had heard it first through the phone, before you even returned to Seoul. His voice had been gentle that day. Too gentle. The kind of gentle people used when they were trying to make bad news sound ordinary.
Everything is fine, he had told you. Everything is under control. You knew immediately that it wasn’t.
He had mentioned the two boys staying with him, Gun-woo and Woo-jin. He had mentioned Yang-jung and Doo-young. He had even tried to laugh a little, like the situation was manageable, like he wasn’t calling you from a house slowly becoming surrounded by ghosts. But the call felt too much like goodbye, and you hated that. You hated it so much that you begged him to send you a ticket home.
At first, he refused, then hesitated, then finally gave in, and you took the first flight the next morning, not because Seoul was safe, but because Spain had stopped feeling survivable.
You had been dreading life there for months by then, maybe longer. Hiding between friends’ apartments, sleeping on couches, borrowing money you hated borrowing, changing routes every few days like the city itself had teeth. Which was funny, in the cruelest way.
You had finished your postgraduate studies at the top of your class. You had built yourself into something sharp, educated, useful, and still, one person had managed to make you feel like a trapped animal.
You never said his name anymore, not out loud. Names had power when spoken. His especially. He had left pieces of himself everywhere. In the way you checked locks twice. In the way unknown numbers made your stomach tighten. In the way you couldn’t sit with your back to a door. In the way kindness, if given too suddenly, felt like a trap.
So when the plane landed in Seoul, you expected relief. Instead, the feeling of being watched returned before you even left the airport. If anything, it intensified.
You didn’t go to Mr. Choi right away. You were too afraid the danger had followed you home.
You told him you were staying with a friend for a few days because her parents insisted on having you over. In reality, you stayed wherever you could while trying to understand Seoul again. Trying to map its corners, its routes, its hiding places. And quietly, you started collecting intel on Myeong-gil. Not perfectly nor cleanly, just enough to know if Mr. Choi was hiding something from you.
A few hacking tricks you had learned overseas. A few contacts you still had. A few locked doors that opened if you knew where to press. That was how you found the warehouse, your first mission back in Seoul had not been about Myeong-gil only. It had been about the other shadow moving behind him.
The one tied to Europe. The one you thought you had outrun.
There had been one man present that night, someone crucial to both sides. A thread between Myeong-gil’s world and the one you had crawled out of.
You wanted to cut that thread before it reached Mr. Choi. Before it reached this house. Before it reached you again.
So, without telling anyone, you went to Lee Doo-young’s hidden storage compartment in an abandoned street, took one of his sniper rifles, and collected every bit of courage the last few years had beaten into you.
You didn’t know Gun-woo would be there. You didn’t know Woo-jin would be there either. You only knew one thing.
If danger had followed you back to Seoul, you needed to kill it before it learned where home was.
“Écho,” Hong Woo-jin called once from across the table. No response.
Woo-jin blinked. Then leaned farther back in his chair dramatically. “Eeeechooo.”
A few people around the table glanced up in amusement while you remained completely zoned out somewhere far from the basement walls surrounding you.
Woo-jin frowned harder now before cupping his hands around his mouth theatrically. “Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo.” Each repetition got louder and more exaggerated than the last, like he was genuinely trying to hear an echo bounce back from the room.
That finally dragged you back to reality. Woo-jin’s voice pulled at your concentration repeatedly as he waved one hand dramatically in front of your face from across the table.
Everyone had been waiting for your input for the past thirty seconds. You blinked once, then twice.
The meeting room slowly came back into focus around you: scattered maps, half-empty coffee cups, photographs spread beneath dim lighting, and the low hum of overlapping voices filling the mansion basement.
Your thoughts had drifted too far again. Back to Europe, the warehouse, and to the realization that you failed. You failed to cut the thread before it followed you back to Seoul.
And now, with this mission connected once again to hidden gold routes and overseas movement, a sick feeling curled inside your stomach.
What if he already had a hand in this too? What if you were already too late?
Woo-jin leaned back dramatically in his chair. “She’s gone,” he announced to the room. “Mentally evacuated.”
A few quiet chuckles spread around the table. Mr. Choi only smiled softly at you instead, tired, gentle, knowing. “Do you have any suggestions?” he asked calmly. “Considering your background.”
You straightened slightly in your chair, forcing your focus back into the room and the scattered material. Your fingers tapped lightly against the table before pointing toward one of the marked areas. “The stash itself is probably here,” you spoke finally. “But if this information is real, they’ll definitely have surveillance surrounding the route before the actual location.”
Everyone’s attention shifted fully toward you now. You continued. “If we move in too heavily, they’ll relocate everything before we confirm it exists.”
Mr. Choi nodded slowly. “And your solution?” Your eyes flickered briefly toward Gun-woo.
For some reason, the moment his attention met yours directly, your chest tightened slightly. Those silent stares of his unsettled you.
Not because they were cruel. Because they were observant and difficult to read.
They reminded you too much of someone else. You swallowed the thought immediately.
He doesn’t know you, you reminded yourself. He doesn’t know your past, and hopefully, he never will.
Thankfully, Gun-woo had spent the last few days avoiding you almost professionally. You noticed every single time.
“I think Gun-woo and I should verify the stash location directly,” you continued, keeping your tone level. “Woo-jin, Yang-jung hyung, and the others can stay outside the perimeter and create a distraction if things go wrong. That’ll give us enough time to move the gold out before backup arrives.” Silence settled briefly around the table. Then, unexpectedly
“I agree.” Your eyes snapped toward Gun-woo instantly.
That was the first time he had agreed with you this quickly since you arrived. He remained leaned back in his chair casually, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Still, something about it caught you off guard.
Mr. Choi looked between the two of you quietly before nodding. “Then it’s settled.”
The mission was scheduled for dawn, before sunrise. One by one, everyone slowly dispersed afterward, conversations fading throughout the mansion halls as the night deepened.
Later that night, the house had finally fallen quiet. Most lights were off by now. Only the kitchen remained dimly lit beneath the warm yellow glow above the counter.
Gun-woo entered silently, reaching for a bottle of water from the fridge before stopping mid-step. You sat on top of the kitchen counter in oversized clothes, one leg crossed loosely over the other while your laptop screen illuminated your face faintly in the dark.
You hadn’t noticed him yet. Your eyes moved quickly across the screen that displayed numbers, transaction logs, maps, and European accounts.
Then Gun-woo noticed something else, a symbol. Something tied to the warehouse photographs from earlier. His brows pulled together slightly. “What’s that?”
Your body froze almost imperceptibly. For the first time since meeting you, your reaction wasn’t calm. It was fear, and Gun-woo was quick to notice.
Your laptop shut immediately as the sound echoed softly through the kitchen, and he stared at you. You looked away first.
“You should sleep early,” you said quietly, your voice smoother now, controlled again. “If you want to survive tomorrow.”
Gun-woo stayed silent for a second longer. Something underneath all of this suddenly became clear to him. You weren’t just mysterious. You were hiding something. You are scared.
And somehow, that unsettled him far more than the possibility of you being dangerous ever did.
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