The clock on the precinct wall ticked past 9:00 PM. The cheap plastic frame was cracked in one corner, the second hand struggling each time it reached the 12, as if time itself hesitated in this place. The station had mostly emptied out. Only a few officers remained, their presence marked by the occasional flicker of cigarette embers or the sound of keyboard clicks from half-hearted report writing.
Kim Taehyung sat at his desk, hunched over a mess of case files, his fingers stained with ink from hastily scribbled notes. His coffee had gone cold hours ago, untouched.
In front of him: two names.
Jonas Ngoni.
Iman Daro.
One dead. One missing. No clear connections. No clear answers. He rubbed his temples, flipping through Jonas Ngoni's case again. A Zwarten man found murdered near the docks three months ago. No strong leads. No reliable witnesses. The only thing that stood out? The whispers. The quiet insinuations that his death wasn't just a crime of opportunity—it was racial.
Zwarten don't die by accident in this city. It wasn't in the reports, but Kim knew how Jinjahan worked. The tension between Zwarten, Alben, and Medean was an unspoken truth, carved into the city's foundation. And Jonas's murder? It smelled like something deeper than a simple act of violence. But the case had gone cold.
Now, there was Iman Daro. An eight-year-old Medean boy. Gone without a trace. The report was thin—barely anything to work with. The parents hadn't filed the complaint directly; a local social worker had pushed it through. There were no official interviews, no CCTV footage, nothing but a single address and a vague mention of the child having "latent mutant genes."
The clock kept ticking. The precinct's fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly glow over the cracked linoleum floor. Kim barely noticed—his eyes were still glued to the files in front of him, his mind turning circles in the same dead ends.
Beside him, Choi stood up from his desk, stretching his arms with a groan. He had already packed up his things, ready to leave this godforsaken building for the night. Unlike Kim, Choi had long since learned how to let go of cases that didn't pay off.
Kim barely reacted as a crumpled Lyd landed on his desk with a soft thud.
"For dinner, junior," Choi muttered, adjusting his coat.
Kim glanced at the money. He didn't need to count it—he already knew it wasn't much. Maybe enough for a cheap meal from a street stall. Maybe not even that. And knowing Choi, that Lyd had passed through at least three different hands before it ended up with him.
Kim sighed but pocketed it anyway. Beggars couldn't be choosers. As Choi headed toward the door, Kim called out, "Give me a ride?"
Choi stopped, turning back with a smirk. "Now you're asking favors? Thought you were the noble, hardworking type."
Kim didn't bother answering. He just waited. Choi rolled his eyes but jerked his head toward the exit. "Fine. But don't expect this to be a habit."
The ride was silent at first. Jinjahan's streets stretched ahead, a maze of flickering neon, shadowed alleyways, and distant sirens that never seemed to stop. The air reeked of oil, street food, and something deeper—something rotten, soaked into the city's bones.
As they hit a red light, Choi finally spoke, his voice laced with that familiar sarcasm. "You know, I told you before, working your ass off at JPD won't get you extra." He scoffed, shaking his head. "Like the government ever cared about us."
Kim said nothing. "You think you're gonna change something? You think solving a couple of cases will make a damn bit of difference?" Choi let out a bitter laugh. "This city spits out people like you, Taehyung. It chews you up, grinds you down, and then, when you're too damn tired to fight anymore, it throws you in the gutter with the rest of us."
Kim stared out the window. He knew Choi wasn't wrong. Jinjahan didn't reward effort. It didn't reward honesty. It sure as hell didn't reward people who cared too much.
Choi sighed as they pulled up to Kim's apartment. "Get out. And don't die chasing ghosts."
Kim smirked, stepping out. "No promises."
Choi shook his head as he drove off, leaving Kim standing in the dim glow of a broken streetlamp. Kim Taehyung reached his apartment door, exhaustion dragging at his limbs. The night had settled over Jinjahan like a thick, choking fog, swallowing the sounds of the city into a distant hum. He fished his keys from his pocket, the cold metal biting against his fingers.
But before he could step inside, his foot brushed against something—something rough, crumpled, discarded like trash. A newspaper.
Dirty, smudged with boot prints and rainwater, its edges torn like it had been tossed aside without a second thought. Yet, through the filth and wrinkles, one thing remained disturbingly clear—the headline. "DAEYANG SOHN: THE MAN WHO WILL MAKE JINJAHAN WHOLE."
Kim's breath stilled for a moment. A grainy black-and-white photo accompanied the bold text, showing Daeyang Sohn, a sharp-eyed, suit-clad politician standing in front of a polished podium, mid-speech, his hands lifted as if shaping the very future with his words.
The subheading read: "Jinjahan's most promising mayoral candidate pledges to 'settle' the city's disorder by introducing strict district zoning—ensuring harmony through structured racial divisions."
Kim crouched down, picking up the damp paper, running his fingers over the ink-stained promises. To some, it must have sounded like a solution. A groundbreaking policy, a fresh start. But to Kim?
It was just another way to carve up the city—Zwarten here, Alben there, Medean somewhere else. Walls, both seen and unseen, cutting through lives, separating people like cattle into neat little boxes.
They called it "settling."
Kim knew better. It was segregation dressed as order. A city divided in the name of peace. Kim stared at the subheading, his fingers tightening around the crumpled newspaper.
Strict district zoning. Ensuring harmony through structure. To the public, it was a promise of order. To the blind, it was progress. But to Kim, it was something else.
If a politician openly pushed for racial separation, then people like Jonas—activists who fought for equality—weren't just inconveniences.
They were obstacles. Obstacles that needed to be removed. The thought hit him like a spark in dry kindling, igniting a chain reaction in his mind. Jonas Ngoni's murder—cold, unsolved, abandoned—wasn't random. It wasn't just another street killing in a city drowning in crime. It was a message.
Kim felt his pulse quicken. He turned on his heel, pushing into his apartment, slamming the door behind him. The room was as he left it—small, cluttered, dimly lit by the flickering bulb that buzzed overhead. Papers were scattered across his desk, case files layered over each other in a mess that only made sense to him.
He tossed the newspaper onto the desk and moved straight to the tiny kitchen. His stomach had long since learned to endure hunger, but tonight, he needed fuel.
His hands moved on instinct, grabbing a pack of RasaPanas—his favorite brand of instant noodles. Not because they were good. They weren't. The broth was thin, the spice artificial, the noodles barely holding texture. But they were cheap. Reliable. A meal that didn't ask for much, just like him.
The water boiled fast in his dented pot. The steam rose, clouding the air like the fog outside. He poured in the noodles, watching them twist and soften as he poured in the neon orange seasoning packet.
His mind, however, was still locked onto the headline. Jonas Ngoni. A Zwarten activist. A believer in unity. A voice that could disrupt Sohn's plan. Kim grabbed his notebook, flipping it open to a blank page, his pen scratching furiously as he began to write.
To Daeyang Sohn,
You say you want order. You say you want a city that thrives. But tell me—does that future include justice? Or does it only serve those who fit neatly into your perfect design?
Was Jonas Ngoni's death just a coincidence? Or was he another piece in a city that you plan to carve apart, one body at a time?
He paused, staring at the words, letting their weight sink in. Then, without hesitation, he picked up his phone, typed the message into an anonymous email account, and sent it. The instant the message disappeared into the void of cyberspace, a strange silence settled over his room.
Then, morning came slow and heavy, dragging behind it the weight of a sleepless night. Kim Taehyung pulled his coat tighter around his frame as he stepped toward the precinct. The air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked concrete, the city waking up in sluggish motion. His mind buzzed with the events of the night before, replaying every word of the message he had sent.
He pushed through the station doors, the dull hum of officers moving about filling his ears. He barely took two steps toward his office when something felt… off.
His instincts screamed at him. A group of officers stood by his door—his seniors. Their postures too casual, their smiles too wide. Something was wrong.
"Morning, hero," one of them greeted.
Kim barely had time to react before the first punch connected. A fist slammed into his gut, knocking the air from his lungs. He staggered, but before he could recover, another hit followed—this time to his ribs, sharp and brutal. A kick swept his legs out from under him, sending him crashing onto the cold tile floor.
Laughter. Mocking voices surrounded him as more kicks landed—his back, his shoulder, his stomach.
"Thought you were smart, huh?"
"Thought you could just send messages and walk away?"
A boot pressed against his chest, keeping him down. Through the haze of pain, Kim forced himself to look up.
One of them crouched beside him, smirking. "Daeyang is not someone you mess with, kid. You think you can write freely without a trace? That you can just question a man like him and go unnoticed?" The officer scoffed. "Idiot."
"You got tracked," another officer sneered. "Daeyang saw your little message. Traced it. And guess what? He didn't even need to lift a damn finger. He just warned the commissioner that somehero in JPD was trying to act out of line."
A boot collided with Kim's ribs again, sending him rolling onto his side. "And guess who the commissioner immediately suspected?"
The officer leaned in close, whispering into Kim's ear."You."
Kim coughed, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. His vision blurred for a moment, the fluorescent lights above flickering like static.
The officers straightened, fixing their uniforms like nothing had happened. One of them gave a final, almost casual kick to Kim's side before stepping over him. "Stay in line, Taehyung."
The others followed, one chuckling under his breath. "Or next time, it won't just be a warning."
Kim lay there for a moment, his body aching, his breath shallow. The precinct bustled around him. Officers walked past as if nothing had happened.