The air moved like it was being held hostage — still, faintly filtered, a slow wheeze through the apartment's old ventilation system. Morning light broke across the concrete walls in thin stripes, cutting through the half-closed blinds like quiet blades. The heat hadn't woken him. He didn't sleep deeply enough for that anymore.
He sat on the floor, bare feet against the smooth wood, legs crossed with mathematical precision. The green tea in his hands didn't steam — it never did. It had been poured and cooled precisely, like everything else he consumed. His eyes were half-lidded, fixed not on anything but on the space between objects — the corner of the baseboard, the slow drip of water from the filter pitcher in the fridge.
She moved like a ghost in the kitchen. Soft-footed, dressed in black shorts and a pale hoodie two sizes too big. Her hair was tied up with a grip clip, exposing the delicate line of her neck. He didn't look directly at her, but the rhythm of her movements — the fridge door, the kettle, the drawer — timed against his own pulse. Synced. Not romantic. Operational.
In the back room, silence pressed around the shape of a sleeping toddler. No cartoons. No lullabies. Just the steady hiss of air and two adults pretending they were alone.
From the outside, it was charity. He'd let her move in after everything went to shit. Kind older stepbrother. Private man. Generous. She'd been through enough, people thought. The kid didn't even have his last name.
His phone vibrated once. No sound. Just a dry buzz against the hardwood.
He didn't flinch. Just lifted it with one hand, eyes flicking to the screen.
ZNN FLAG: H0M-EUR1-43B ALERT
→ WALLET: 6.2M RELEASED [RED FLAG, FROZEN STATUS OVERRIDE]
→ SOURCE: CRYPT-NTWK LOCK RUPTURED VIA SINGAPORE PROXY
He tapped the notification once. The screen went dark again.
In the kitchen, she said, "I'll re-route it through Stockholm. Don't worry." Her voice was quiet, habitual. Like someone reminding you the door was locked.
He didn't respond. Just let the silence fill the space between them, thick as the sunlight.
The kettle clicked off, unused.
Her phone buzzed.
One note. The kind designed by expensive app designers to make your stomach twist just slightly.
She didn't look right away. Wiped her hands on the edge of her hoodie. Picked it up with two fingers like it might be someone else's.
He already knew it wasn't.
A pause.
She blinked once.
Then: "Another one of them posted."
His gaze didn't move. "Which one?"
"She didn't use a name. Just the baby. Wrapped in white. Caption says 'you can't hide blood.'"
Still, he didn't blink. The tea was cooling on his tongue. It didn't taste bitter. Nothing did anymore.
Her thumb hovered over the image. Then lowered. "Your eyes. I think she gave it your eyes."
He breathed once through his nose.
She didn't speak again. Just turned slightly, leaned her hip against the counter, and stared at him.
No accusations. No jealousy. Just observation. Like a doctor waiting for symptoms.
He set the tea down. The cup made no sound.
Across the silence, their phones lit up with identical alerts again. Shell system flagged. Another node attempting re-entry.
Neither of them moved. Not yet.
The child in the other room stirred once. Then settled.
She was the first to look away. Her voice barely above a hum. "I'll handle it. Just keep your name out of headlines for another forty-eight."
He nodded, finally. Once. Then turned his head, only slightly — enough to face her but not enough to let it feel like confrontation.
The buzz of her phone still echoed in the room, even though it had stopped.
There was never silence in their world.
Only the air between them.
The last image from Part 1 lingers: their phones still lit with silent alerts, and the air between them loaded with everything not said.
He rose from the floor with a single motion—measured, fluid. She didn't track him with her eyes, but she knew exactly where he moved. His cup was still on the floor. Empty. He walked past it without reaching.
Her screen stayed on. The baby photo—pixelated, high-contrast, probably filtered for virality—burned faintly into the glass.
Then: black.
His footsteps faded as he entered the hallway, but something in the shift of air tripped memory like a live wire.
Then
The room had been red, and not metaphorically. Everything from the LED ceiling to the silk sheets to the champagne in her hand. Crimson on crimson. Neon heartbeats on the windows, the skyline thudding with club sounds, even thirty floors up.
He had just turned nineteen.
She was older. Not in age, but in exhaustion. Her fame clung to her skin like sweat. He could smell the after-party still burning off her.
She cried when she kissed him. That part always confused people.
"You're so calm," she whispered into his shoulder, mascara smudging onto his skin. "Like a drug."
He didn't speak. Let her keep talking. Her voice cracked once but steadied with performance. Habit.
"Do you even feel anything when I'm on top of you?"
He did. Pressure. Warmth. Sweat. The shape of her ribs beneath his hands.
Not emotion.
She kissed him again, shallow, slow. A fan-kiss. Memorized from rehearsals.
Then she laid her head beside him, cheek on his chest. Her body curled into his without invitation. Like a decision made years ago.
"Would you ever settle down?" she asked. "Like—if someone broke past your perimeter?"
His fingers paused where they were stroking the edge of her hip.
"If she's more peaceful than I am," he said.
That was all.
She laughed too hard at that. Like it was poetic.
Now
He was back at the kitchen counter, fingers brushing the lip of the ceramic mug. She hadn't moved since he left the floor. Her phone was off again. Her posture told him she hadn't actually read the caption—just absorbed the implication.
"She's going to pretend it's yours," she said finally, voice unreadable. No sarcasm. Just a plain statement of fact.
He shrugged once. "Maybe it is."
Her eyes lifted. They landed on him, held him, didn't blink.
It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't even suspicion. It was assessment. Not of the baby. Of him.
Then, still watching him, she reached over and poured more tea into his cup.
"You should've worn a condom when you were famous," she said, soft. Almost like a joke.
He took the cup from her, their fingers not quite touching.
"You should've told me when you missed your period," he answered, same tone.
She looked down. Not away—just… lower. Her lips didn't move, but her breath caught once.
Then, lightly: "We should start testing the Maldives node. It's been idle for six weeks."
He nodded.
Outside, traffic shifted against the building like waves. Far off, a siren wound itself around a corner and vanished.
Inside, they said nothing else.
The tea was still warm in his hand when a sound cracked the room's stillness—a padded thump, then another. Feet, soft and erratic, wandered from the back hallway.
The child appeared at the edge of the kitchen, his t-shirt twisted from sleep and one sock half-off. Blonde hair stuck in two directions. Eyes unfocused, but he knew the way to his uncle.
Without changing expression, the man crouched low and opened his arms. No words. Just the smallest tilt of his head. The child blinked, then rushed him—knees wobbling, fists balled.
He lifted the boy like he weighed nothing. Held him not like a parent, not like a sibling. Like something he'd held many times before and would again. Familiar. Steady.
"You smell like dreams and crackers," he whispered, deadpan.
The boy giggled and collapsed against his neck.
From the hallway, she watched. She didn't move. One hand against the wall, the other hanging by her side, fingers flexing slightly. Her sweatshirt sleeves were pulled over her hands like a nervous tic. The morning light hit just enough of her face to show what she didn't say.
He hadn't even looked at her.
Her voice didn't rise to greet the child. Didn't coo, didn't perform. Just a simple line:
"Let uncle do his boring work, baby."
The boy pulled back, grinning. Planted a wet kiss on his cheek and squirmed down. He disappeared into the living room with the staggering confidence only toddlers possess, narrating to himself in half-words.
She still hadn't stepped into the light.
His fingers adjusted the cup again. Still not drinking. Still seated low to the floor.
"I told myself I'd take a pill," she said, finally.
He didn't answer.
Her eyes flicked once toward the living room, then back.
"I was going to. After that night."
Still silence. Not cold—just complete.
Flash.
Then.
Two years earlier. Her fingers shook as she turned the test over. Not because of fear, but because she already knew. The second line bloomed pink before she even finished peeing.
Eighteen. In his apartment. Rain on the glass. A silence between them that had always meant something else.
He hadn't said congratulations. Or I'm sorry. Or anything normal.
Just: "I'll get a crib. Not here."
She had nodded. And then folded her arms and stood in the corner of the room until the rain stopped.
Now.
She stepped forward, picking up a napkin and slowly tearing it into strips.
"There's a new influencer moving in next door," she said softly.
He raised one brow, finally sipping the tea.
"Brazilian. Eight million followers."
He didn't even ask the gender. Just kept sipping.
"She wears sunglasses at night. Big ones. Like a threat."
The corner of his lip twitched—something almost-smile, almost-smirk.
Then, calm: "You watched her already."
She didn't deny it.
"She watches back," she added.
He let the silence close around them again.
The boy laughed at something invisible in the other room.
Nothing about the moment looked strange.
But if someone had walked in then—just walked in—they wouldn't have known who the father was.
The window breathed cold. Not from the air outside, but from the glass itself—thick and old and sweating slightly with June heat. He sat shirtless in the dim room, elbows resting on his knees, hands loose, face blank.
The city glittered beyond the balcony, an organism of lights twitching with thirst. Below, traffic slipped in ribbons through the veins of wet concrete. He didn't blink often.
From this angle, he could see the apartment building across the alley—seven floors up, three units wide. One window had been dark an hour ago. Now lit. Curtains pulled half-shut.
Movement behind them.
His eyes didn't shift. He simply observed the reflection in the glass. A pale silhouette moved behind him.
Blanket first. Then her.
She walked like she knew the boards that creaked and the ones that didn't. When she settled beside him, she didn't sit—she leaned. Half her body touching his, half wrapped in grey fleece.
"She's watching you," she whispered.
He didn't ask who.
"I saw her with the phone. Out on her balcony. She's doing the slow-pan trick. Like pretending she's filming the city."
He inhaled once, slow. "She'll post it. Crop the edge of my jawline. Stir curiosity."
Her voice barely rose. "Hope you DM her."
He said nothing.
Then: "Will you?"
His jaw flexed. "No."
She didn't move.
"I already know she's loud," he said.
The silence afterward was warm. Not kind—just familiar.
She turned her head into his shoulder, pressing her forehead against the hollow between muscle and bone.
The city hissed beneath them. Some club in the distance dropped bass hard enough to vibrate the glass faintly.
She whispered into his skin, "You still look like her father."
He didn't react.
Then, calm: "Because I am."
No shift in posture. No breath held.
But her hand, slowly, deliberately, slid beneath the blanket. Found his. Didn't squeeze it. Just held.
Their silhouettes, to anyone watching from the other side, were two shapes beneath a shared sheet of wool. Could've been siblings. Could've been strangers.
Could've been lovers.
Inside the room, the floor ticked from cooling wood. One of the child's toys rolled gently off a table somewhere behind them. Neither moved.
The woman across the alley lit a cigarette. Her phone, still raised, glinted briefly in the city haze.
She didn't know who she was photographing.
Not really.
The scent of butter hit first—low, slow, browned. It mixed with the sharpness of lemon from somewhere, maybe the countertop spray, maybe her fingers. The room was wrapped in sunlight, soft now, filtered through the curtains she'd finally remembered to wash.
The child giggled, mouth full of something too sweet for breakfast. His feet kicked against the legs of the stool.
She stood at the stove, back curved slightly, hoodie swapped for a long black tank top that clung in the right places and ignored the rest. Bare legs. Hair still damp from a rushed shower. The kind of clean that wasn't meant for anyone outside the house.
He poured hot water into the same cup as yesterday. Same tea. No sugar. No sound.
Their morning ritual moved like muscle memory—no talk, no glances, only functional proximity. She passed him a plate. He accepted. The boy asked about cartoons. She deflected. He didn't notice.
Then the doorbell rang.
It wasn't a real bell. Just a buzz—short, low, enough to feel in the ribs.
They both paused.
The boy kept chewing.
She turned off the burner and wiped her hands. He didn't move. Just kept stirring his tea, though it didn't need stirring.
When she opened the door, the envelope was already on the mat. No courier in sight. Just a manila rectangle stamped with a red seal and a QR code in the top right corner. She picked it up with two fingers. Closed the door behind her with her foot.
"It's addressed to you," she said. No emotion. Just clarity.
He looked at the cup, then finally at her.
She peeled it open without asking.
One page.
Thick stock. Laser print. Folded only once.
She didn't hand it to him. Just read it aloud, like the air needed to hear it too.
"She filed it publicly."
He didn't ask who.
She folded the paper again. Set it on the table like a clean napkin.
"She used a caption on the post. 'Blood tells truth.' Hashtags in Korean and English. Trending under an hour."
The tea was ready.
He poured it from the small ceramic pot with the care of someone who could end a war with posture alone.
Then: "Then it's time I become a little louder."
The child knocked over his juice.
No one moved to clean it up.