Doyun did not think about the word accident on his way to work. He thought about timing instead. The distance between steps, the pause before a door opened, and the way people adjusted their pace without realizing it were the things that occupied his attention.
Most people believed accidents happened suddenly. They imagined a clear before and after, a single moment that could be pointed to. Doyun had learned that this was rarely true. What people called accidents were usually the end of something that had been forming quietly.
At the office, the morning briefing was short. No one liked meetings that lingered, especially when there was nothing new to say. The supervisor flipped through a few slides and spoke in a flat tone.
"Overall losses are stable. Nothing unusual."
The word appeared again. Unusual.
Doyun wrote it down, even though he already knew it would explain nothing.
His first assignment of the day was routine. A minor collision at an intersection, no injuries, and disputed liability. The file was thin, almost reassuring. Doyun preferred thin files because they rarely demanded conclusions.
The intersection was loud and crowded. Engines idled, pedestrian signals chirped, and people crossed the street without looking up. They trusted the signal, but more than that, they trusted habit. Habit was quieter than awareness and far more efficient.
Doyun stood near the curb and watched. Three people hesitated before stepping forward. Two rushed the moment the light changed. One adjusted the strap of their bag mid-step, slowing just enough to disrupt the rhythm behind them.
None of it was remarkable on its own.
Together, it felt familiar.
A cyclist swerved to avoid a pedestrian who stopped too suddenly. A car braked sharply, tires screeching against asphalt. Someone shouted in frustration. Nothing happened. Apologies were exchanged, and the flow resumed as if the interruption had never existed.
Afterward, the space settled. Not visibly, but perceptibly, like dust returning to the ground after movement.
Doyun wrote nothing. There was nothing to submit and no rule that had been broken.
Back at the office, the case was closed in minutes. "Another clean one," a coworker said lightly, already moving on to the next file. Doyun nodded. Clean did not mean safe, but there was no category for that distinction.
In the afternoon, he reviewed historical data no one had asked him to look at. It was not required, which was precisely why it bothered him. He layered maps across his screen: traffic density, pedestrian flow, reported incidents, and maintenance schedules.
Patterns emerged slowly. Not lines or routes, but clusters that hovered just below the threshold of concern.
They never appeared where safety measures were strongest. They appeared where people trusted the environment just enough to stop paying attention. Places designed to be safe often invited carelessness, and carelessness accumulated quietly.
A notification blinked on his screen. A new file had arrived. Subway platform incident. Minor fall. No serious injury.
Doyun closed the maps and stood up.
The platform was crowded when he arrived. Trains came and went every few minutes, and people lined up behind the yellow safety line. Most of them did, at least. Some stood slightly ahead of it, their toes crossing the paint without intent.
Doyun noticed the gap immediately. A section where the yellow line had faded from repeated cleaning and foot traffic. It was still there, technically, but less visible. People stood closer in that area, not out of defiance, but because the boundary felt weaker.
A man leaned forward to peer into the tunnel. Someone behind him bumped lightly into his back. There was no fall and no incident, but the space tightened all the same, as if reacting to a near miss.
Doyun stepped back. He did not need to be closer to understand what was happening.
On the platform wall, a safety poster peeled slightly at the corner. The image showed smiling commuters and promised order. Doyun looked away before reading the text. He already knew what it would say.
The report would describe the incident as a "passenger misstep" caused by "momentary distraction." It always did. The words were accurate enough to be useless.
That evening, rain finally began to fall. Streets glistened under the lights, and people hurried with umbrellas held too low or too high. Someone slipped and caught themselves, laughing in embarrassment as others glanced over and moved on.
Doyun slowed his pace. Rain changed patterns. It made hesitation visible and shortcuts dangerous.
At a convenience store near his apartment, he watched customers enter and exit through the automatic doors. The doors opened quickly and closed just as fast. People paused at the threshold, then rushed through to avoid being hit.
The pause repeated.
The rush repeated.
No one noticed.
He paid and left without comment.
At home, Doyun spread his notes across the table. Not into conclusions, but into sequences. This before that. This after that. The middle mattered more than either end, and it was always the least documented.
He noticed something then. The patterns were growing. Not sharper, but broader, extending across locations that had never been connected before. It was not escalation, but expansion.
Doyun placed his watch beside his notebook. The second hand remained still, unmoving and precise. Outside the window, traffic continued to flow, indifferent to his observations.
Tomorrow, he would return to work. The system would remain unchanged, and the numbers would continue to follow events. Always behind them, never ahead.
Doyun lay down and closed his eyes. Sleep came more easily than it had the night before.
Because repetition was familiar.
And familiarity, unlike safety, was something he understood.