RAINBOW OF TEARS
SEOUL – BLUE DRAGON BATHHOUSE, JONGNO
The air was thick with the mineral scent of hot stone and pine, layered over the unmistakable smell of sweat and clandestine deals. Kim Do-gi, wearing the face and slumped posture of Park Jong-hoon—a mid-level aide to City Councilman Bae—sat in a corner of the searing hot jjimjilbang, a towel around his waist.
The Proteus mask was a miracle. It didn't just look like Jong-hoon, captured from surveillance photos and public records. It felt like him. When Do-gi feigned discomfort in the heat, the skin of the mask flushed realistically. When a drop of sweat trailed from his temple, it moved with the natural topography of the face. The tiny, thread-like sensors embedded in the mask's edges fed him data through a sub-dermal receiver: ambient temperature, nearby heart rates (elevated in the aide he was impersonating, a known sufferer of low-grade hypertension), and a directional pulse from the bug he needed to plant.
His target, Kang Deok-su, the slumlord, was a bull of a man, his torso covered in cheap, swirling tattoos. He was holding court in the steam room, complaining loudly about "ungrateful tenants" and "red tape."
"Councilman Bae understands your frustrations," Do-gi-as-Jong-hoon said, his voice modulated by a wafer-thin vocal synth pressed against his larynx. The voice was a 97% match, courtesy of Go-eun's audio banks. "But the zoning variance for your new… apartment complex… requires certain community appeasements."
"Appeasements!" Kang spat steam. "I appease them with a roof! What more do they want?"
Perfect. Do-gi let the man rant, edging closer to the slatted wooden locker where Kang's belongings were stored. The plan was simple: plant a high-temperature-resistant, sub-audible frequency transmitter in the man's shoe. The bug would sync with the bathhouse's wifi, feeding everything it heard back to the Rainbow base.
His movements were slow, natural. He poured a dipper of water over the hot stones, creating a billowing cloud of vapor. In the momentary whiteout, his hand—steady, precise—slipped into Kang's open locker.
Back in the B2 command center, the team watched through Do-gi's hidden contact lens camera. The steam swirled on the main screen.
"He's in," Choi Kyung-goo whispered, as if Kang could hear him through the feed.
Min-Hyuk stood beside Sung-chul, analyzing the feed. Instant Calculation: Vapor density optimal for cover. Guard at sauna entrance is distracted. Kang's posture indicates he's turning. Probability of successful plant: 96%. Then, a new variable.
On the edge of the lens feed, a new man entered the steam room. Younger, leaner, with watchful eyes that scanned the occupants not with the relaxed gaze of a bather, but with sharp, professional assessment. A personal security detail. Not Kang's style.
Sub-Mind Archive: Facial recognition running. Match found: Park Jae-won, former MMA fighter, current head of close-protection for Park Yong-sik's private security team.
Min-Hyuk's blood went cold. "Do-gi," he said into the mic, his voice urgent but controlled. "Abort. New variable. Security from Luxe Plaza's internal faction. Your cover is not compromised, but the environment is contaminated."
In the steam, Do-gi's hand froze, the bug millimeters from the shoe's insole. Abort. The word was a physical shock to his system. But he was a professional. He closed his fist, withdrawing the bug, and used the motion to grab his own towel, coughing into it as he stood.
"Too hot for my blood," he grumbled in Jong-hoon's voice, shuffling toward the door. He passed within a meter of Park Jae-won. The bodyguard's eyes tracked him for a second—just a sweaty, overweight bureaucrat—then moved on, focusing on Kang Deok-su.
A minute later, in a sterile changing cubicle, Do-gi peeled off the Proteus mask. The sensation was strange, like shedding a second skin. He looked at the lifelike face in his hands, the expression frozen in a mild grimace. It had worked flawlessly. The enemy had simply been where they weren't supposed to be.
"Mission aborted," he reported, his own voice rough. "The slumlord is talking to Luxe Plaza's muscle. This isn't about zoning anymore."
On the main screen in the command center, Sung-chul steepled his fingers. "Luxe Plaza is making moves in Bupyeong. Acquiring land through proxies like Kang. Using his brutal methods for their clean expansion." He looked at Min-Hyuk. "Your heiress's 'vision'? Or her family's?"
Min-Hyuk's mind raced, connecting data points. The Bupyeong expansion was part of Min-Ji's "Luxe Horizon." But using a thug like Kang? It didn't fit the profile she'd presented—the conflicted reformer. This was the old, crushing method. Uncle Yong-sik's method.
"The fracture line," Min-Hyuk said quietly. "It's not just inside the boardroom. It's in their operations. She's pushing one vision. Her uncle is executing another."
---
SEOUL – SAME NIGHT, THE HANOK VILLAGE
Min-Hyuk drove the perimeter of the Seongbuk-dong villa, a silent shadow. The call from the base had been clear: Monitor. The attack on Min-Ji was a warning. The involvement with Kang Deok-su suggests a more aggressive phase. Her personal security is likely compromised.
He saw them. Two dark sedans, parked a block down from the main gate, engines off, but the heat signatures of occupants clear in his enhanced thermal vision through the windshield. Not her official detail. These were waiting, watching.
Calculation: Hostile surveillance. Probability of direct action tonight: low (15%). They're still in the intimidation phase. But the presence of Yong-sik's head of security at the bathhouse indicated resources were being mobilized.
His phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number. He knew who it was.
The cracks are getting wider. I can hear them creaking. Are you still driving tonight?
It was Min-Ji. Reaching out from inside the gilded cage.
He looked at the sedans, then at the quiet, traditional walls of the villa. She was in there, surrounded by ancestral ghosts and modern-day vipers.
Optimal path: Report the surveillance to base, withdraw. Maintain operational distance.
Alternative path:…
He typed a reply.
The road is always open. Your perimeter has new traffic. Two sedans, north side. Don't use your front gate.
A pause. Then:
The garden gate. It leads to the old alley. 5 minutes.
Min-Hyuk made a decision that had no calculation. He parked the taxi in a shadowed crook of the lane behind the villa, killed the lights, and got out. He moved through the darkness not with superhuman speed, but with a predator's silence, his Elite Physique making the high wall a trivial obstacle.
He landed softly in a manicured garden, the scent of pine and damp earth replacing the city's fumes. She was there, a silhouette against the sliding paper door of a study, wrapped in a simple silk robe over her nightclothes. She looked younger, vulnerable, holding her phone like a lifeline.
"You came," she breathed.
"You called," he said.
"The sedans… they're my uncle's."
"I know."
She hugged herself against the night chill. "He's not just coming for my title. He's making deals in the dark. Things I can't see, can't stop with board votes." She looked at him, her eyes searching his face in the moonlight. "The driver who fixes cars and wins lawsuits. Can you see in the dark?"
Yes. But he couldn't say that. "I can see enough to know you shouldn't be here, in the open."
"Where should I be?" The question was desperate, naked.
Before he could answer, a beam of light sliced through the garden from the main house—a security patrol. Instinctively, Min-Hyuk stepped forward, pulling her into the deep shadow of a gnarled centuries-old pine. His body shielded hers, his back to the light.
They stood frozen, pressed together in the darkness. He could feel the rapid flutter of her heart against his chest, the slight tremble in her frame that was not from the cold. The scent of her shampoo, something floral and expensive, mixed with the night air. The world narrowed to the space between the tree bark and his body, to the sound of her shallow breath near his collarbone.
The light swept past.
Neither of them moved for a long moment. The professional distance, the calculated interactions, evaporated in the shared, intimate darkness. This was not a client. This was a woman in his arms.
She looked up, her face inches from his. The moonlight caught the unshed tears glistening in her eyes—the "queen's tears," held back by sheer will. "I'm so tired of being brave," she whispered, the confession torn from her.
Something in Min-Hyuk's carefully constructed detachment cracked. A fault line opened. His Perfect Memory would forever record this: the texture of the silk under his hands, the warmth of her, the devastating honesty in her whisper. It was a variable his powers could not process, could not calculate an outcome for.
He did the only thing that felt devoid of calculation. He gently, slowly, released her.
"The most reliable thing in the dark," he said, his voice low and rough, "is not a person. It's a path out. Do you have one?"
She swallowed, the moment receding but the charge of it lingering in the air. She nodded toward a small, wooden door in the back wall, overgrown with ivy. "The gardener's exit. It leads to the service lane."
"Go back inside. Use that door in ten minutes. My taxi will be there."
She nodded, her regal composure seeping back, but her eyes remained on him. "And then?"
"Then we drive," he said. "And we see what the headlights show us."
He melted back over the wall, leaving her alone in the moonlit garden. His heart, for the first time in memory, was not beating at a perfectly optimized 52 BPM. It was racing.
Back in the taxi, he gripped the steering wheel, waiting. The two sedans still sat in the distance, oblivious.
In the steam-filled bathhouse, a mask had failed its mission because the enemy's world had collided with theirs.
In a moonlit garden, no mask had been needed, and a different kind of mission had begun.
The headlights of the Rainbow Taxi cut through the night as the old wooden door in the wall creaked open. A figure, cloaked in a dark coat, slipped out and into the backseat.
"Where to?" Min-Hyuk asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
"Anywhere that isn't a cage," Park Min-Ji said.
He put the car in drive. The two worlds—the vigilante's garage and the chaebol's boardroom—were no longer separate lanes. They had merged onto the same dark, dangerous road.
[End of Episode 5]
[Status: Operational / Boundary Breach]
[Vigilante Mission: Aborted, Intel Gained (Luxe-Kang Connection)]
[Chaebol Variable: Park Min-Ji → Now Actively Seeking Sanctuary]
[Min-Hyuk Status: Detachment Protocol - Compromised. Emotional Variable Introduced.]
[Next Episode: The Safe House & The Uninvited Guest.]