Morning light spilled softly through the tall apartment windows, washing the bedroom in pale gold.
Outside, the futuristic skyline of Itwatsuki slowly awakened beneath drifting clouds, but inside the room everything remained warm, sleepy, and quiet.
The digital clock beside the bed glowed faintly.
8:00 AM
20th October, 3027
Monday
Under the dark bedsheet, Jin still slept peacefully for once.
His black robe was slightly wrinkled from sleep, the collar loose near his neck, dark hair messy against the pillow.
One arm rested beneath the blanket while the other had been completely captured by Lily sometime during the night.
Lily slowly blinked awake first.
Her silver eyes adjusted lazily to the morning brightness as she remained curled beside him beneath the same blanket, her cheek resting against his shoulder.
For a few quiet seconds, she simply watched him.
And softened.
He looked different while asleep.
Not cold.
Not intimidating.
Not “Jin Corp president.”
Just… calm.
His breathing was slow and steady, his expression unusually relaxed, as if the weight constantly pressing on his shoulders had loosened for a few hours.
A tiny smile tugged at Lily’s lips.
“Hm?” she whispered quietly.
“Still asleep?”
Carefully, she lifted one hand and gently brushed her fingers through his black hair.
Soft strands slid between her fingertips.
“You seem so relaxed…” she murmured.
Then, with a sleepy little hum, she nuzzled closer into his shoulder beneath the blanket.
“Maybe because it’s me here…”
The room stayed quiet after that.
Only the faint hum of distant city traffic could barely be heard through the glass windows.
Lily stared upward at the ceiling while still holding his arm against herself, thoughts wandering lazily through her half-awake mind.
“Hm… the government really changed things a lot…” she whispered.
She remembered how different the education system used to be years ago.
Back then, college took much longer.
Now everything had changed.
First and second grades merged together.
Third and fourth too.
Fifth and sixth compressed the same way.
Three whole years shortened.
Lily blinked slowly.
“And I passed college at eighteen…” she whispered softly.
“Back in June…”
Her eyes drifted back toward Jin again.
Toward the man sleeping beside her.
The man she now shared a bed with.
Her fiancé.
Her expression melted completely.
“And now here…” she whispered faintly.
“My honey…”
A warm feeling bloomed quietly inside her chest.
Maybe the world rushing forward wasn’t entirely bad.
Maybe all those shortened years simply gave her more time with him while they were still young.
The thought made her smile against his shoulder.
Then suddenly…
Jin stirred slightly.
A sleepy mumble escaped him.
His brows twitched faintly as if reluctantly returning to consciousness.
Lily immediately perked up a little.
She leaned closer, silver hair sliding softly across the pillow.
“Jin?” she whispered gently.
“Wake up…”
Her fingers lightly poked his shoulder.
“It’s 8 AM…”
Another sleepy sigh escaped him.
“You gotta go work, it’s Monday.”
Jin finally opened his eyes slowly.
Dark eyes half-lidded with sleep blinked toward the ceiling first before drifting toward her.
He still looked exhausted.
Lily instantly giggled.
“You look like a clingy cat.”
Jin huffed softly without missing a beat.
“Nah… you’re being one here.”
“Mm-mm,” Lily argued immediately.
Then before he could react, she suddenly leaned upward and planted a quick soft kiss onto his cheek.
“…No you.”
Jin froze.
A faint blush immediately appeared across his face.
He looked away awkwardly.
“Stop doing these things…”
Lily stubbornly shook her head.
“No.”
Jin sighed the sigh of a man repeatedly losing invisible wars.
Eventually he pushed himself upright against the headboard, adjusting his messy morning hair with one hand.
Beside him, Lily sat up too beneath the blanket, white robe slightly slipping off one shoulder before she fixed it casually.
She watched him quietly for a moment before asking:
“Jin?”
“Hm?”
“You’ll be back by 7 PM?”
Jin nodded calmly.
That single nod instantly made Lily pout dramatically.
“Mmph…? Whole time without you?”
Another casual nod.
Lily crossed her arms with fake offense.
“Then I need one strawberry milkshake when you come back.”
Jin blinked slowly.
“St… what?”
Lily narrowed her eyes seriously as if negotiating an international treaty.
Jin stared at her for two whole seconds.
Then sighed deeply.
“Okay, okay…”
Instant victory.
Lily beamed brightly and immediately wrapped both arms around him in a tight hug.
Jin nearly malfunctioned again.
“H-hey…” he muttered, lightly blushing.
“I said no super clinginess…”
Lily instantly pulled back dramatically.
“You’re no fun.”
“I am danger,” Jin replied calmly.
Lily smiled softly at him.
“Handsome danger.”
Jin clicked his tongue softly in retreat.
Defeated once more.
Without another response, he stood from the bed and stretched slightly, black robe shifting loosely around him.
Meanwhile Lily leaned comfortably against the headboard, watching him with sleepy amusement.
“Hm…” she hummed thoughtfully.
“Maybe I can go shopping with Yumi…”
Jin stopped mid-step.
Turned sharply.
“Shopping?”
Lily blinked at his sudden reaction.
Jin frowned lightly.
“Uh… you can’t go alone.”
“What?” Lily tilted her head.
“But I usually go.”
Jin crossed his arms.
“Well… I don’t want you going out on 20th October.”
His voice became firmer now.
“Today’s also Free Labour Day. All the drunk people roam around.”
Then quieter:
“Just stay here, got it?”
Lily stared at him for a moment.
A tiny teasing smile appeared.
“Worried about me, ey fiancé?”
Jin instantly clicked his tongue.
“No.”
Then after half a second:
“Just worried about noise.”
Lily nearly giggled again.
Clearly unconvinced.
Jin simply turned away before she could tease him further and walked toward the washroom.
“Whatever,” he muttered quietly.
The bathroom door slid open.
Then closed behind him.
Lily remained sitting on the bed beneath the messy blanket, silver hair glowing softly in the morning sunlight.
A warm smile slowly spread across her face as she looked toward the closed washroom door.
He always denied it.
Every single time.
And every single time… his actions betrayed him completely.
Outside, Monday had already begun.
But inside the room, warmth still lingered quietly in the air like the final peaceful moments before a long countdown truly started.
And
By 10:00 AM, the warmth of the morning bedroom had completely vanished downstairs.
The first floor executive office of Jin Corp stood in absolute contrast to the softness upstairs.
Cold.
Silent.
Precise.
The massive office stretched wide beneath towering ceilings, designed with expensive minimalism that almost felt intimidating.
Dark polished marble reflected the golden lines of sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the main desk.
Black steel accents blended into deep brown luxury furniture, every object placed with near surgical perfection.
Nothing unnecessary existed in the room.
Not a single thing out of place.
Transparent holographic screens floated calmly above the executive desk, rotating financial statistics and glowing company charts in pale blue light.
Digital reports scrolled silently through the air while projected documents spread neatly across the dark wooden desk surface.
The atmosphere itself felt expensive.
At opposite corners of the office, two Jin Corp guards stood motionless in formal black uniforms, maintaining silent watch over the room.
And at the center of it all…
Jin sat calmly in his executive chair.
Brown luxury coat.
Matching tailored pants.
Crisp white shirt beneath.
His posture was perfectly straight, one hand resting near the digital stylus while the other flipped through projected reports with controlled motions.
No trace of the sleepy man from the bed remained.
This was the real public version of him.
Cold CEO mode.
Sharp eyes reflected streams of holographic data as he reviewed financial reports one after another.
Economy status: stable.
Growth rate: strong.
Security systems: flawless.
Company expansion: ahead of schedule.
Everything looked perfect.
Silence filled the office except for the faint hum of holographic technology.
Then suddenly…
Jin’s gaze narrowed slightly.
One floating company profile caught his attention.
A new holographic chart expanded in front of him.
KAI CORP
His dark eyes scanned the rising statistics carefully.
Growth rates.
Market influence.
Expansion speed.
The company was growing fast.
Almost disturbingly fast.
Nearly matching Jin Corp’s own rise.
One of the guards subtly noticed the shift in Jin’s eyes and instinctively straightened slightly, expecting irritation.
But Jin simply huffed softly.
“Tch.”
He dismissed the hologram with one swipe.
Not important right now.
His body leaned back stiffly into the executive chair, fingers resting calmly against the armrest as his thoughts drifted elsewhere entirely.
“Hm…” he thought quietly.
“Need to start investigation of the killer though…”
The softness from the morning disappeared from his expression again.
His father’s death.
Five years ago.
Still unresolved.
Still unfinished.
His eyes darkened faintly.
“Now that Guard 137 and Toyo are handled…”
A quiet exhale left him.
“I can finally focus properly.”
Then another thought surfaced.
“Natsumi…”
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
“I’ll need her help for further investigation.”
Upstairs meanwhile…
The atmosphere couldn’t have been more different.
On the 13th floor, inside Jin’s private room, Lily sat cross-legged comfortably on the bed wearing a soft white pastel dress, her silver hair falling loosely around her shoulders.
The room smelled faintly of tea and morning sunlight.
She hummed quietly while scrolling through her phone, completely relaxed beneath the warm glow pouring through the windows.
Currently:
Texting Yumi.
Her phone buzzed violently.
📲 Yumi:
“LILY!!”
“WHERE ARE YOU HUH?”
“You don’t seem to be in your house nowadays”
Lily instantly blushed.
Even typing felt embarrassing somehow.
Her fingers moved carefully over the keyboard.
📲 Lily:
“Um…”
“I am with my fiancé actually…”
“In his house…”
Three seconds passed.
Then:
📲 Yumi:
“WHAAAAAT!????”
“WHEN!?”
“HOW!?”
“AM I DREAMING”
Lily burst into soft giggles at the screen.
📲 Lily:
“Umm… nope”
Another message immediately arrived.
📲 Yumi:
“HMMMM…”
“Sooo…”
“Any kisses yet?”
Lily froze.
Her entire face turned bright red instantly.
Her thumbs hovered awkwardly above the screen while her heart began pounding against her chest.
“A-ah…” she mumbled to herself.
After nearly twenty seconds of internal suffering, she finally typed:
📲 Lily:
“Just a… little kiss…”
The reply came instantly.
📲 Yumi:
“I KNEW IT”
Lily squeaked softly and hid half her face behind the phone.
Too embarrassing.
Way too embarrassing.
Meanwhile downstairs again… Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Jin remained seated in the massive executive office, still reviewing data in silence.
Then suddenly…
His eyes paused.
A random thought drifted into his head out of nowhere.
“Um?”
His brows narrowed slightly.
“…Strawberry milkshake.”
Silence.
Then realization hit.
Lily’s stubborn morning demand.
Jin sighed softly and leaned back again.
“She is strange…” he thought.
But after another second…
His expression softened faintly.
“Hm…”
“I’ll give her that.”
Then he froze completely.
A horrifying realization slowly dawned on him.
He was currently inside a multi-billion credit executive office…
Thinking about buying a strawberry milkshake for his fiancée.
During work hours.
Jin’s ears reddened faintly.
A small blush appeared across his face before he immediately looked away from absolutely nobody.
“What the hell…” he muttered internally.
At the corners of the office, both guards noticed everything.
The terrifyingly cold CEO of Jin Corp…
Blushing over milkshakes.
The two guards subtly glanced toward each other.
One nearly broke composure instantly.
The other looked like he was fighting for his life trying not to react.
Both awkwardly looked away again.
The atmosphere in the office somehow became even more dangerous from secondhand embarrassment alone.
At the center of the luxurious room, Jin sat stiffly in his chair pretending nothing had happened while holographic company reports continued floating around him.
Upstairs, Lily happily kicked her feet lightly on the bed while texting Yumi about her tiny kiss victory.
And somewhere between those two floors…
The cold, untouchable CEO of Jin Corp was ,quietly losing against one clingy strawberry-loving girl more every single day.
Slowly, he pulled a blank sheet of paper toward himself.
The paper slid neatly across the polished desk surface.
One of the guards standing silently in the far corner glanced forward for only half a second before returning to stillness again.
Jin picked up the black pen resting beside the digital files.
Click.
The pen opened.
Then the scratching sound of ink quietly filled the office.
He began writing.
Locations.
Timelines.
Names.
Possible witness routes.
His dark eyes narrowed slightly while reading over his own notes.
“Hm…”
The holographic lights flickered blue across his face while his thoughts deepened further.
“To find the killer…”
His pen paused for a brief second against the paper.
“I need evidence closer to father’s murder spot…”
The memory surfaced again.
Rain.
Police lights.
Blood against wet concrete.
His father laying motionless beneath the bridge-side field.
Jin’s jaw tightened faintly.
The pen resumed moving.
“Not somewhere unrelated like Virex Club…”
His eyes sharpened.
That path had wasted enough time already.
No more side trails.
No more meaningless detours.
He stared silently at the paper for several long seconds before finally nodding once to himself, as though locking the decision permanently into place.
Then quietly, almost cold enough to disappear into the office air itself, he muttered:
“I have to visit Latteyal Bridge’s side field…”
His gaze lowered toward the final line he wrote.
“…where he was murdered.”
Silence returned immediately afterward.
Heavy silence.
The kind that pressed against walls.
The holographic charts continued rotating slowly in the air above his desk, but now the atmosphere had changed entirely.
The investigation had officially begun again.
And somewhere beneath all that cold focus…
A darker storm had started moving.
Far below the polished towers of Jin Corp…
Below the marble floors.
Below the elevators.
Below the luxury and technology.
Basement Level 1 remained buried in darkness.
The underground corridor stretched endlessly beneath dim industrial lights.
Concrete walls sweated faint cold moisture, and the distant sound of metal ventilation echoed through the prison sector in uneven breaths.
Cell 18.
Inside the dark room sat Toyo.
The white mask still covered his face completely.
His black suit had become slightly wrinkled after days inside confinement, though strangely, he still carried himself with unnatural calm.
He sat against the wall with his head lowered.
Silent.
Motionless.
The tiny barred window near the ceiling allowed only a thin line of weak gray light to enter the cell.
Beside the wall sat a small metal basin, untouched.
For several seconds nothing moved.
Nothing breathed.
Then slowly…
Very slowly…
A smirk curled beneath the white mask.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just enough to feel wrong.
Like someone hearing a distant joke nobody else understood yet.
Meanwhile, farther down the underground corridor…
Cell 15 remained even quieter.
Toro sat against the concrete wall inside complete darkness.
Black ninja mask.
Dark clothing.
Arms resting still.
No movement.
No visible emotion.
No reaction to the cold.
He almost looked less like a prisoner and more like a shadow someone had forgotten to erase.
The underground air drifted faintly through the corridor bars.
Cold.
Empty.
Unnatural.
Above ground, sunlight still touched the upper floors of Jin Corp.
Employees walked hallways.
Meetings continued.
Coffee machines hummed.
The city moved normally.
But beneath that normal world, hidden under layers of steel and concrete, danger still sat breathing quietly in the dark.
Above ground:
Jin had finally begun searching for the truth behind his father’s murder.
Underground:
Toyo smiled behind his mask.
“Its…20th…finally”
Toro ,then,remained silent within the shadows.
And somewhere between both worlds…
Something larger was beginning to move.
Something patient.
Something waiting.