RAINBOW OF TEARS
SEOUL – TWO WEEKS LATER
The rain didn't fall so much as it invaded, a relentless, silver-grey siege that turned Seoul into a city of smeared neon and echoing tires. It was the kind of rain that made the wealthy grateful for their sealed towers and the desperate curse their leaking roofs.
Kim Min-Hyuk felt it through the steering wheel—the subtle hydroplaning threat on the Banpo Bridge, the decreased visibility that was a variable in a hundred constantly-running calculations. His Instantaneous Calculation function ran a low-level subroutine: Tire tread depth optimal. Wind shear from Han River: manageable. Probability of accident spike on southern expressway: 78%.
"Quiet night," came Choi Kyung-goo's voice through the earpiece, tinny from the underground garage. "Even the scum are staying in. You should come back, warm up. Jin-eon made tteokbokki."
"Patrolling the southern corridor," Min-Hyuk replied, his eyes scanning the slick black ribbon of the Olympic Expressway. "One more pass."
It wasn't about the call. It was about the rhythm. The lawyer's mind needed the lawyer's work—the clear logic, the defined boundaries. But the rest of him, the part forged by the mysterious accident (a blur of white light, searing pain, then a cold, vast clarity) and honed into a silent weapon, needed this. The open road. The anonymity. The tangible world of metal, rain, and consequence.
Sub-Mind Archive identified the car ahead, even through the downpour: a black Hyundai Equus, chauffeur-driven, current model. A vehicle for executives, diplomats, or chaebol heirs. It was moving fast, but with a slight, inconsistent weave. Not drunk driving. Something mechanical.
His senses, heightened beyond elite human norms, parsed the data. The sound of the tires on wet asphalt was off—a frequency of friction indicating anxious over-correction. The brake lights flickered once, twice, then stayed dark for a dangerously long stretch before flashing again.
Probability of brake system instability: 94%.
The Equus was in the fast lane. Min-Hyuk, in his rainbow-striped taxi, was three cars back in the middle lane. He watched as the luxury sedan approached a sweeping curve that arced high above the Mapo district. A curve with a faded guardrail.
Calculation: Current speed, reduced traction, brake failure → trajectory will carry vehicle through guardrail at curve's apex. Survival probability for occupants: 31%. Collateral risk to other vehicles: high.
"Go-eun," he said, voice calm. "Monitor Olympic Expressway southbound, near Mapo curve. Black Equus, plate number…" he recited it from a single glance. "Predicting a critical failure."
"On it," Ahn Go-eun's voice clicked, followed by the sound of rapid keyboard strokes from the B2 command center. "Vehicle is registered to a corporate holding company… one sec. It's a Luxe Plaza Group subsidiary car."
A single, crystalline moment of connection. Luxe Plaza.
The Equus hit the curve. The brake lights didn't come on at all this time. The car's rear end began a slow, inevitable drift toward the guardrail.
Min-Hyuk's body moved before the conscious command was fully formed. Enhanced Physique translated thought into flawless action. He dropped a gear, stomped the accelerator of the Sonata taxi—its engine, modified by Park Jin-eon, responded with a guttural roar—and shot forward through a narrowing gap between a truck and a sedan. Horns blared. He was alongside the Equus as it scraped against the guardrail with a shriek of tearing metal.
Through the rain-beaded window of the back passenger seat, he saw her.
Park Min-Ji. Her ice-queen composure was shattered. One hand was braced against the ceiling, knuckles white. The other clutched a dead smartphone. Her eyes were wide, not with terror, but with a furious, incredulous helplessness. She was yelling something at the panicked chauffeur.
Time dilation effect, a side-product of Rapid Recall/Calculation. The world slowed. The spinning raindrops became individual lenses. He saw the micro-fractures in the Equus's windshield. He saw the exact point where the worn guardrail would give way.
His taxi was ahead now. He slammed his own brakes, pulling sharply in front of the careening Equus. The Sonata's rear bumper kissed the Equus's front grille. Instant Calculation: Required deceleration rate, weight differential, coefficient of friction on wet asphalt. He began a controlled, brutal slowdown, using his own vehicle as a friction brake.
Metal groaned. The smell of burnt rubber and panic cut through the rain. The taxi and the Equus slid together in a tortured ballet, finally shuddering to a stop a hand's breadth from the compromised guardrail, overlooking a dizzying drop to the streets below.
Silence, save for the hammering rain and the hiss of steaming metal.
Min-Hyuk was out of the taxi first, the cold rain soaking through his driver's jacket in seconds. He approached the Equus. The chauffeur was hyperventilating, slumped over the wheel.
The rear door unlocked. Park Min-Ji pushed it open, stumbling out onto the flooded shoulder. The rain destroyed her in moments. Her ivory trench coat was plastered to her, her perfect hair a dark ruin around a face that was all sharp angles and shock. She stared at the twisted metal of the guardrail, then at the taxi that now bore the scars of her salvation.
Then her gaze landed on him.
Recognition was instantaneous. Her eyes, those dark, intelligent eyes that had assessed him in the courtroom, now widened with a new, profound confusion. The distance between the sterile world of contracts and the visceral reality of near-death collapsed to zero.
"You…" The word was a breath stolen by the wind. "You're the lawyer from the market case."
Min-Hyuk gave a curt nod, his mind already running diagnostics. Adrenaline levels in subject: elevated but not debilitating. Signs of shock: mild. Priority: secure scene, assess vehicle, eliminate immediate threat. He moved past her to the open driver's door.
"Night job," he said, his voice flat, almost lost in the rain. He leaned into the Equus, his fingers dancing over the steering column. Sub-Mind Archive: Automotive electrical systems, common sabotage techniques. The brake line wasn't cut—too crude. The failure was electronic. He found the main control unit under the dash. A secondary, non-factory wire was spliced into it, leading to a small, fried module. A remote kill-switch. Professional.
"Get in," he said, straightening up and nodding toward his taxi. "I'll take you home. This car isn't going anywhere."
She didn't move. She was staring at his hands. In the gloom, lit by the erratic flash of hazard lights, they were steady. Rock-steady. No tremor from the adrenaline, no shock. Just calm, capable motion as he'd pried open the panel. Elite Physique. It was unnatural.
"Someone did this," she stated, her voice finding its steel again. It wasn't a question.
"Yes." He didn't elaborate. He opened the passenger door of the Rainbow Taxi. The interior light was warm, yellow, and safe. A stark contrast to the cold, blue death she'd just escaped.
Something in his blunt acknowledgment broke her paralysis. She slid into the taxi seat, the soaked fabric of her coat squeaking against the vinyl. He closed the door, a sound that sealed them into a sudden, intimate silence. The roar of the rain became a muted drumming on the roof.
He got in, started the engine, and pulled carefully back into the sparse traffic, leaving the crippled Equus and the weeping chauffeur for the police to find.
For five minutes, the only sounds were the windshield wipers and the hum of the heater. The air was thick with the smell of wet wool, expensive perfume, and near-disaster.
Min-Ji watched him. He drove with an impossible smoothness, the taxi gliding through the chaotic rain as if on a predetermined track. No wasted movement. His profile in the dashboard glow was unreadable.
"A lawyer who drives a taxi at night," she said finally, the words probing the silence like a scalpel. "Who fixes cars by touch in the pouring rain. Who doesn't panic when a guardrail is about to give way." She turned fully toward him. "Who are you, Kim Min-Hyuk? Really?"
He kept his eyes on the road. Instant Calculation: Reveal nothing. Maintain cover. Yet, the variable of her was now active and unpredictable. "I drive. Sometimes I help people. The law is just another set of tools."
"Tools you used to humiliate my company two weeks ago."
"I used them to uphold the law."
"You cost us millions."
"I saved a community."
Another stretch of silence. They were crossing the bridge back toward the glittering fortress of Gangnam, where her penthouse awaited.
"That wasn't an accident," she whispered, more to herself than to him. She looked down at her own hands, which were trembling slightly. She clenched them into fists. "My uncle on the board. He opposed my 'Luxe Horizon' expansion. Said it was too aggressive. He said…" She trailed off, the corporate paranoia clashing with the physical reality of sabotage.
Sub-Mind Archive: Luxe Plaza Group board structure. Chairman Park (ailing). Two sons, one daughter (Min-Ji's mother, deceased). Three younger brothers vying for position. Internal hostility probability: 87%.
"You should report it," Min-Hyuk said, the lawyer's advice automatic.
"And trigger a shareholder panic? A family scandal?" She let out a short, bitter laugh that held no humor. "It would be handled internally. A quiet reassignment. A stern talking-to." She looked at him again, her gaze searching. "You understand, don't you? The things that happen in the shadows. The justice that never makes it to court."
He said nothing. He understood better than she could imagine.
She shivered violently then, the cold and the delayed shock finally seeping through her formidable control. The movement was small, vulnerable. A crack in the jade.
Without a word, Min-Hyuk shrugged off his dark blue driver's jacket. He didn't look at her, just held it out in her direction, draped over his right arm as he continued to steer with his left.
Min-Ji stared at the offered jacket. It was simple, worn at the cuffs, smelling of rain, engine oil, and a clean, neutral soap. It was the antithesis of everything in her world—the custom silks, the bespoke woolens. It was real.
Hesitantly, she took it. The fabric was still warm from his body. She pulled it around her shoulders. It was too big, engulfing her. The residual heat was a shock, an unexpected comfort that felt dangerously like sanctuary.
"Thank you," she said, the words so quiet they were almost swallowed by the wipers.
He merely nodded.
The taxi exited the expressway, entering the curated, rain-slicked canyons of Gangnam. He navigated to the exclusive, high-security apartment tower without needing an address. Of course he knew where she lived.
He pulled under the building's grand porte-cochere. The uniformed doorman rushed forward with an umbrella, his eyes widening at the sight of the bedraggled heiress in a taxi driver's jacket.
Min-Ji didn't move immediately. She sat, cocooned in his warmth, in the dim capsule of the taxi. The universe had narrowed to this: the patter of rain, the dashboard glow, and the enigmatic, silent man beside her who existed between the lines of her world.
"The case is closed," she said softly, echoing his words from the courtroom. "But this isn't, is it?"
Min-Hyuk finally turned his head to look at her. In the shadowed light, his eyes were unreadable pools. He saw the queen of a retail empire, alone in a taxi, wearing a stranger's coat, her kingdom suddenly filled with unseen knives.
"No," he said, his voice low. "It's not."
She held his gaze for a long moment, then slowly removed the jacket, folding it neatly on the seat between them. The act felt strangely ceremonial. "Then… good night, Attorney Kim. Or… Driver Kim."
"Good night, Director Park."
She slipped out into the doorman's waiting umbrella, transforming back into Park Min-Ji before she crossed the threshold into the marble lobby. She didn't look back.
Min-Hyuk watched her go. Then he looked at the folded jacket on the passenger seat. Perfect Memory captured the exact drape of the fabric, the faint scent of her perfume now mingled with his own.
He put the taxi in gear and pulled away, back into the drowning night.
"Do-gi," he said into his earpiece, his voice all business. "I need a full forensic pull on a vehicle incident. Olympic Expressway. And a deep background run on the Luxe Plaza board, focusing on internal rivalries. It's not a revenge request yet."
"Yet?" Kim Do-gi's voice came back, grim and understanding.
"Yet," Min-Hyuk confirmed. He drove toward the secret entrance that would lead him down to the B3 garage, to the planning room, to his other life. The rain on the windshield blurred the bright, perfect world of Luxe Plaza into streaks of meaningless light.
The lawyer's work was done for the day.
The taxi driver's work was just beginning.
[End of Episode 2]
[Status: Operational]
[Legal Quota: Pending]
[Vigilante Quota: Activated - Monitoring]
[New Variable: Park Min-Ji (Threatened/Alliance Potential)]
[Next Episode: The Reliable Night Driver.]