The city never slept. Not because it was alive, but because it was restless—like a beast pacing inside a cage too small for its bones.
Jihoon walked through the alleys, hood pulled low, phone buzzing in his pocket. Another anonymous message. Another story.
This time it wasn't a politician's child. It wasn't schoolyard cruelty. It was something quieter, almost invisible.
A hospital nurse.
Her name was Yeonhwa, mid-thirties, eyes carrying the exhaustion of someone twice her age. By day, she worked double shifts in an understaffed ward. By night, she fought to keep her younger brother alive after he was denied treatment—because their family couldn't "afford the right connections."
Jihoon watched her from the corner of the cracked hospital hallway. She moved between patients like a ghost, efficient but hollow. Her co-workers whispered when she passed. He caught fragments:
"Her brother still…?""Pathetic, really. Should've just let him go.""Always trying to fight rules that can't be broken."
Rules that can't be broken. He clenched his fists.
Later that night, Jihoon followed her to her tiny rooftop apartment. She sat on the floor with her brother—skin and bones, tied to an oxygen tank that hissed with every breath. No photos on the wall. No laughter in the air. Just quiet suffering.
He almost didn't knock. For a moment, he wondered if dragging her into his war would only hurt her more. But then he saw the way she looked at her brother, how her hands trembled when she tucked the blanket around him, how her lips moved in a silent prayer she didn't believe in anymore.
Jihoon stepped inside.
Yeonhwa gasped, ready to scream, but he held up a hand. "I'm not here to hurt you."
The shadows clung to his face, but his voice was steady, deliberate.
"I know what they did to you. I know why your family suffered. I know why you can't breathe without feeling the weight of their corruption pressing on your chest."
Her eyes widened, tears threatening to spill. "Who… who are you?"
Jihoon sat across from her, gaze unflinching.
"I'm the one who will make them pay."
The room fell silent, the hum of the oxygen tank the only witness.
He leaned forward, his words sharp, unshakable.
"When the powerful silence the truth, I carry the voice of the forgotten."