CHAPTER III: Echoes behind the eyes

The hotel door slammed shut behind him with a metallic snap, the kind that echoed through the sterile walls like a gunshot in a confession room.

Tae Dong-hwan leaned against it, eyes closed, breath sharp. The tension in his jaw pulsed like a wound—tight, twitching, involuntary. He yanked off the tinted glasses and tossed them onto the desk. They skidded to a stop next to a bottle of untouched bourbon, the one he’d meant to save for celebration.

Celebrate what, exactly? he thought bitterly. That he called me Belka? That he looked at me like he already knew how I bled?
He strode to the mirror. The fake scar on his jaw was starting to smudge. With a frustrated swipe, he wiped it off, leaving a red smear across his cheek that looked more like blood than makeup.

Belka.

He hated how the word still echoed in his ears, in Rurik’s voice—velvety and smug, a slow-burn knife between the ribs.

How?How did he know that name?

No one outside his unit had called him that. No one alive, anyway.

Belka... 

He's heard that name countless times before.. In Seoul. In training. On nights when his squad laughed on fire barrels, drunk off cheap soju, someone would nudge him and say it, teasing. 

"Little squirrel. Fast hands. Twitchy temper"

He hadn't heard anyone call him that in a decade... 

So how did Rurik Dyavol Sokolov knew it? 

He turned the faucet on and splashed cold water on his face, hoping it would drown the memory—but the moment at the chess table came back in brutal detail. Rurik’s calmness. The click of the pieces. The way his eyes never blinked when Tae tried to press him. Like the whole match had been theater. Like Rurik hadn’t come to win the game, but to read him.
Tae gripped the sink tighter, water still dripping from his chin.

Rurik’s voice came back again:

> “You always play this seriously, Belka?”

A beat. The smirk. That damned smirk.

> “A little squirrel. Always hiding something. Always twitchy. But more dangerous than you look, I think.”

Tae punched the mirror.

Glass cracked, not fully shattering, but enough to spiderweb around his reflection. For a second, he saw himself split in half.

He saw through me.

It wasn’t just about being made. Tae had done undercover work before. He could handle being recognized. What he couldn’t handle—what terrified him—was that Rurik hadn’t just recognized his face… he’d recognized something deeper. Something he kept buried behind his badge, his rank, his uniform. Something true.

He dried his hand with a towel and stared at the board he had drawn earlier that day on paper—mapping Rurik’s known allies, his syndicate’s weak points, the smuggling lines across the Ural Mountains.

None of it mattered if Rurik was already five steps ahead.

And somehow… it excited him.

He hated the thought. But he couldn't lie to himself. There was something intoxicating about sitting across from Rurik. The ease. The control. The way he wielded words like blades, but never once raised his voice.

He’d dealt with crime lords before. They were loud, greedy, desperate.

Rurik was none of those things.

He was still.

Silent like a snowy forest moments before an avalanche.

Tae unbuttoned his shirt, too hot now, and sat on the edge of the bed. He grabbed the bourbon bottle and poured himself a shot, the amber liquid catching the soft lamplight. He downed it in one gulp. It burned, but not enough to distract him.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Unknown Number:

>"You left without saying goodbye... Not very polite Belka.. I had already planned another match for us.." Rurik's voice echoed in the room from the other side of the call 

His grip on the phone tightened.

"You don't get to use that name..."

>"But I do~" Rurik replied without missing a beat "because something in your twitched when I said it... Like you missed hearing it"

"You're delusional."

>"Mm.... Maybe I am? But even in delusions we find truth don't we?"

There was a pause 

>"You're good Dong-hwan... Almost perfect. But you're too careful. Too cold. I've been watching men like you since I was twelve... And they all have one thing in common..."

Tae said nothing 

>"They break... Not all at once. They splinter piece by peace. Like a mirror.."

The line went dead. 

Tae held the phone close to his ear for a moment longer. 

Then he hung up 

Then, he threw the phone across the room.
It hit the wall, battery cover snapping off, screen flickering once before dying.
He sat in silence.

In the reflection of the cracked mirror, he saw himself again. Shirt half-open. A bruise already blooming across his knuckles. His eyes weren’t cold like they should’ve been. They looked… alive. Awake. Lit by something he couldn’t name.

Was this what obsession felt like?

He didn’t want to think about that.

But he would.

Tonight.

He would think about Rurik’s smile.

His voice.

And the game that had only just begun.