He didn't sleep that night.
Not because he wasn't tired.
But because every time he closed his eyes, he felt her fingers on his wrist again.
Not the pressure.
The effect.
The quiet.
It disturbed him more than the underground labs ever could.
Tae-Hyun sat on the edge of the thin mattress in Han Jae-Min's room, elbows on his knees, staring at a wall stained by years of someone else's loneliness.
He had built companies.
Broken competitors.
Signed decisions that had moved thousands of lives.
And yet the most destabilizing thing in this second life…
was a woman holding his pulse.
He lifted his hand slowly.
Focused inward.
The hum responded, faint but constant, like something waiting.
He had learned to redirect pain.
To suppress weakness.
But this… this was different.
When she touched him, his body didn't obey.
It aligned.
As if she wasn't external.
As if she belonged to the same system.
That shouldn't be possible.
Nothing about his existence should be.
He exhaled.
"Focus," he murmured to himself.
Revenge didn't allow room for attachment.
Attachment created leverage.
And leverage was how men like him were killed.
Two days later, she called.
He was cleaning equipment in B9 when his phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
He already knew.
"Can you come to the hospital tonight?" she asked quietly. "Not Helix. Somewhere neutral."
"When?"
"After my shift. Ten."
He looked through the glass wall into the lab.
At the sealed rooms.
The moving shadows.
"I'll be there."
She had arranged access to a private diagnostic room.
Old equipment. Minimal staff. No Helix servers.
She changed into casual clothes before meeting him, but she still moved like a doctor—precise, alert, carrying responsibility even when she tried not to.
"Sit," she said, pointing to the examination chair.
He did.
She pulled on gloves.
The snap of latex was loud in the small room.
"This isn't official," she said. "There will be no records."
"Good," he replied.
She hesitated. "You don't ask what I plan to do."
"I don't think you'd hurt me."
Her gaze flickered up. "You shouldn't trust that."
"But I do."
That made her pause.
Then she turned on the scanner.
"Tell me if anything feels wrong," she said.
"When does it ever not?"
The corner of her mouth lifted despite herself.
She began with basics.
Heart.
Eyes.
Reflexes.
Skin conductivity.
The machine beeped in confused little sounds.
Her silence grew longer.
"…Your cells are responding before the stimulus," she murmured. "That's not reflex. That's anticipation."
He watched her face as she worked.
The way her brows knit when data didn't behave.
The way she bit the inside of her cheek when thinking.
Human habits.
Real.
Not lab-sterile.
"Can you do anything to yourself?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Show me."
He hesitated.
Then focused.
On the lingering ache in his shoulder.
On the residual weakness from this body's past.
The hum intensified.
Heat moved under his skin.
The ache dissolved.
Not vanished.
Integrated.
Her scanner spiked.
She sucked in a breath.
"…You're not healing," she said. "You're reallocating."
"Meaning?"
"You're treating damage as data," she replied slowly. "And then rewriting where it belongs."
He looked at his hand.
"This isn't medicine."
"No," she agreed.
"It's design."
They were quiet for a moment.
Then she did something he didn't expect.
She reached out.
Placed her bare fingers on the inside of his wrist again.
He stiffened.
Instantly, the hum softened.
His breathing deepened without permission.
The machine steadied.
Her eyes widened slightly.
"It happens every time," she whispered.
"What?" he asked.
"You normalize."
She withdrew her hand.
And he felt the loss of it like pressure leaving a wound.
She removed her gloves.
Sat on the stool across from him.
"You aren't an experiment," she said softly. "You're a system. And systems don't… choose."
He met her gaze.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying," she replied, "whatever they were trying to build… your body recognizes me as a variable it needs."
The words were scientific.
The meaning was not.
Silence stretched.
Then he said quietly, "That's dangerous."
"Yes," she agreed.
"Especially for you."
She didn't look away.
"Especially for both of us."
And for the first time since waking in this body…
he didn't feel like a weapon.
He felt like a problem.