Director Song called on a Sunday, which Ryan had learned by now meant something worth interrupting a weekend for.
“There’s been movement,” she said, without preamble, her voice clipped and businesslike over the speaker as his father set the phone on the kitchen table between them.
“Nothing overt.
But someone attempted to access Orion’s enrollment records two days ago.
The attempt was caught and blocked, but it confirms what I suspected — Valen already knows about the Trial date.”
His father’s jaw tightened.
“How compromised are we?”
“Not badly, yet.
Orion takes security seriously, more seriously than most institutions its size.
But I’d be lying if I told you there’s zero risk between now and the Trial itself.” A pause, papers shuffling faintly on her end.
“I’m recommending some precautions.
Nothing dramatic — I don’t want to disrupt Ryan’s life more than necessary.
But I’d like a car arranged for him, mornings and evenings, instead of walking.
And I’d like someone keeping a discreet eye on the family in general, just until the Trial’s behind us.”
“A bodyguard,” Ryan said, flat, from across the table.
“A precaution,” Director Song corrected, not unkindly.
“I know it feels like an overcorrection.
I’d rather you find it excessive and safe than proportionate and sorry.”
Ryan wanted to argue — some stubborn part of him rebelling at the idea of his ordinary life shrinking further, becoming smaller and more managed with every passing week — but he thought of the stairwell, of three boys who’d been fed just enough information to know his name mattered to someone, and found the argument dying before it fully formed.
“Fine,” he said.
“For three weeks.”
“For three weeks,” Director Song agreed.
“After the Trial, we reassess based on the actual result.
I know this isn’t the life you signed up for, Ryan.
I’m sorry it’s the one you got instead.”
The car showed up Monday morning — unremarkable, dark grey, driven by a woman named Mira who introduced herself with brisk efficiency and asked exactly zero personal questions, which Ryan appreciated more than he expected to.
She dropped him a block from school, out of sight of the gate, understanding without being told that the last thing Ryan needed was to arrive at school in a manner that invited more rumors than he already had.
Ji-hoon noticed anyway, of course, materializing at his side within thirty seconds of Ryan reaching the gate.
“New commute?” he asked, no judgment in it, just genuine curiosity.
“Director Song’s idea.
Precaution, apparently.” Ryan kept his voice light, though something in him still chafed at saying it out loud.
“Feels like overkill.”
“Probably isn’t, though.” Ji-hoon’s expression had gone more serious than usual, thoughtful in a way that made Ryan wonder, not for the first time, exactly how much real-world experience sat behind his easy exterior. Read this novel at NovelPing for the best experience.
“People who arrange precautions like that usually have a reason.
Good sign someone’s actually taking your safety seriously, even if it feels smothering right now.”
“You say that like you’ve had a car and driver before.”
Something flickered across Ji-hoon’s face — brief, complicated, gone before Ryan could properly name it.
“Something like that.
Different circumstances.
Long story I’m still not ready to tell.” He said it lightly, but there was real weight underneath, and Ryan, recognizing the shape of a door being gently closed rather than slammed, let it go without pushing.
“Fair enough,” he said, and Ji-hoon’s small, grateful smile told him the phrase had become something like a shared language between them — permission granted, boundary respected, no explanation owed.
Wednesday brought the first real crack in the careful calm Director Song’s precautions had built.
Ryan was walking between classes, Ji-hoon beside him mid-conversation about nothing important, when he caught sight of a woman standing near the far end of the corridor — unremarkable at first glance, visitor’s badge clipped to her coat, the kind of adult presence nobody questioned in a school full of them.
Except she wasn’t looking at a map, or a schedule, or any of the ordinary things a visitor might consult.
She was looking directly at him, and had been, Ryan realized with a cold lurch, for long enough that her stillness had already registered somewhere in the back of his mind before his conscious attention caught up.
Ji-hoon noticed the shift in him instantly.
“What is it?”
“Woman by the office.
Visitor badge.
She’s watching me.” Ryan kept his voice low, steady despite the sudden spike of adrenaline.
“Don’t look right at her.”
Ji-hoon’s gaze flicked over, casual and unhurried, giving nothing away — the same practiced discretion Ryan had learned from his own father over the last month.
“Got her.
She’s not doing anything.
Just watching.”
“That’s kind of the problem.”
“Want me to walk you the other way?”
Ryan considered it, and found, to his own surprise, that some new stubborn instinct in him didn’t want to simply retreat.
“No.
Let’s just get to class.
If she’s here to do something, a hallway full of witnesses is the last place she’d try it.”
Ji-hoon studied him for a beat, something like approval flickering across his expression.
“Good instinct.” He fell into step slightly closer than before, angling his body just enough to keep himself between Ryan and the woman’s sightline without making the adjustment obvious.
“That’s not comforting.”
“Wasn’t trying to comfort you.
Was trying to be honest.” A faint, sharp smile, the ice from the stairwell flickering briefly back into his expression.
“I meant what I said, that first day.
Whatever this is, I’m not going anywhere.”
They reached the classroom without incident, the woman never moving from her spot by the office, and by the time the bell rang for the next period, she’d vanished entirely — gone as quietly as she’d appeared, leaving nothing behind except the cold certainty, settling into Ryan’s chest, that Director Song’s precautions weren’t overkill at all.
He texted his father the moment he had a free period, keeping the message short and factual, and received a response within two minutes: Already telling Song.
Stay close to people today.
We’ll talk tonight.
That evening, after a family dinner conducted with the specific brittle calm of people trying very hard not to let fear show at the table, Ryan found Ji-hoon waiting for him outside the apartment building — an arrangement Ryan hadn’t asked for and hadn’t expected, but felt, standing there in the cooling evening air, entirely grateful for anyway.
“You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”
“I wanted to make sure you got home alright.
Selfish reasons, mostly.” Ji-hoon leaned against the building’s low wall, hands in his pockets, expression more serious than Ryan had seen it since the stairwell.
“That woman today.
You think it’s connected to whatever’s been circling you for weeks?”
“Almost definitely.”
“You want to tell me what it actually is yet?” Ji-hoon asked, gently, no pressure behind it, just an open door left carefully unlatched.
“Not because I’m owed it.
Just — feels like carrying it alone is getting heavier, and I’d rather help carry some of the weight than keep guessing at the shape of it.”
Ryan looked at him for a long moment — this strange, steady, unfairly loyal boy who’d walked into his life two weeks ago and somehow already felt like one of the few solid things left standing in it — and found, for the first time since the whole ordeal began, that he wanted to say yes.
“Not tonight,” he said finally, quieter than he meant to.
“But soon.
I promise.
You’ve earned that much, at least.”
Ji-hoon nodded, unbothered, entirely patient.
“Soon works.
I meant what I said about the waiting.” He pushed off the wall, offering Ryan a small, warm smile before turning to leave.
“Get some sleep, Ryan Han.
Three weeks isn’t that far off anymore.
You’re going to want to be rested for whatever’s actually coming.”
Ryan watched him go, the strange warmth in his chest fighting quietly against the cold unease the day had left behind, and thought, climbing the stairs to an apartment full of people trying too hard to seem calm, that Ji-hoon might be the first entirely good thing to happen to him since all of this had started.
He held onto that thought carefully, the way you hold onto anything fragile and warm in the middle of a season that had otherwise turned steadily, inexorably colder.