The reinforced door was matte black, seamless, waiting. No hum came from the restraints behind it, no alarms, no warning pulses. That was what made it worse. Whatever was happening inside had stabilized just enough to seem like it had disappeared entirely.
Saejin stood still, one hand hovering near the access panel, not touching.
"You could at least pretend to care about your safety."
Hara's voice rose in his memory, soft as breath on frost glass. She'd said that the last time, just before they sent him into a failed match zone that ended in three discharges and a burn scar that never healed right. She hadn't spoken from fear; she rarely did. Her warnings came from somewhere else: belief. The belief that Axiom could do better. Should do better.
"They use you when the others fail and call it efficiency. You know that, right?"
He'd said nothing then, just like now. Speaking it aloud wouldn't change the outcome anyway. And he'd already learned the difference between what could be changed, and what just had to be endured.
The hallway lights flickered, barely noticeable, but enough to hint at the energy bleeding out from within the room. Yuwon was still in there. Alive, but burning.
Saejin touched the panel. It lit beneath his palm with a low beep, and the lock released with a soft hiss.
"He has no compatible Guides."
He remembered the briefing. Axiom had been clear about it:
"He burned through two anchors in under three minutes. The neural interference hasn't subsided."
"If he dies without stabilization, the feedback could rupture containment."
The door slid open, and Saejin stepped through. The air changed immediately: thinner, drier. Light filtered in through narrow slits in the ceiling, just enough to reveal the outline of the room. Everything had been built to absorb force: reinforced walls, rounded corners, no edges to catch on. A trace of static clung to the floor, sharp at the back of the throat.
Chains glinted in the far corner, heavy and unmoving.
A breath tore through the room, rough and ragged, like it had been pulled from somewhere deeper than lungs. He was watching.
Saejin didn't meet his eyes. He sat, cross-legged, not too close, just within reach of his own voice, and began to speak.
"There's a moth that mimics the colors of poisonous frogs. It doesn't have venom. It doesn't need it. All it has to do is remind the predator of what pain looks like."
Silence followed.
Then a sound, low, something like a laugh, but ragged and distorted.
"No tranquilizers today?"
The voice was rough, cracked, spit through clenched teeth, but aware. Sharp.
Saejin kept his eyes lowered. "Do I look like a tranquilizer?"
"You look like a funeral."
The chains shifted, soft, metallic tension. Still, Saejin didn't move.
"Then you've misread me" he said.
"No" Yuwon replied, voice closer now. "You just haven't moved yet."
The chains shifted again, but Saejin stayed motionless, unmoved by the proximity or the taunt.
"Do you think if I stay still long enough, you'll just go away?" Yuwon asked, quieter now.
"No."
"Of course you won't..." he grinned.
He let a pause slip in, just enough for it to be noticed, then impact.
Yuwon lunged. Chains snapped taut mid-air, stopping him inches from Saejin's face. Sudden. Violent. Controlled.
Saejin didn't flinch. He tilted his head slightly, just enough to meet Yuwon's eyes: red-rimmed, pupils narrow, teeth bared, shoulders trembling under restraint.
"Better" Yuwon muttered, strained. "Now I know where your threshold is."
"You haven't found it" Saejin said, calm.
He lowered his gaze again and went back to his initial monologue.
"The moth survives not by poison, but by reminding the world of it."
Yuwon drew in air through his teeth, sharp and audible.
"You know what's worse than tranquilizers? People who pretend they're not tranquilizers."
"I'm not pretending anything."
"You're here to sedate me with metaphors."
"I'm here because sedation would kill you. And the only language left between you and the world is metaphor."
Yuwon didn't respond right away. He just watched, his eyes narrowing, breath uneven but beginning to steady.
"You've never been inside a zone" he said.
It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Then don't talk like you've felt it."
Saejin met his eyes, fully now. No retreat.
"I haven't stood inside one, but I've lived with what it leaves behind."
Something flickered across Yuwon's face, a sort of recognition, maybe. Or the briefest suspicion that this person in front of him was not lying.