[North Busan Juvenile Correction Center – Block D][Three days after Eli's arrest]
The transport van turned off the main expressway and climbed a narrow road with chain-link fencing running both sides. It didn't look like a prison. More like a closed campus, or the shell of one.
A slate sign by the gate read:
NBJCF-D // UNIT 4 – INTENSIVE YOUTH CORRECTION
The kind of place that says nothing, but makes your stomach pull anyway.
Inside, the air smelled like paper, plastic, and humidity. Uniforms weren't orange or blue — just gray cotton zip-ups with ID numbers faintly stitched on the collarbone.
Eli stepped off the van last. Hands free. No cuffs.
One of the guards didn't speak to him, but wrote something on a clipboard, then nodded toward the hallway.
"Block D. Fourth room. Don't talk. Don't ask."
Eli didn't answer.
----------------------------------------------------------
The floors were polished. Fluorescent lights washed out every shadow. Cameras watched from every corridor angle, but never moved. Everyone acted like they weren't there.
There were no gangs here — not in name.
Just clusters.
Rooms weren't cells, just two-person dorms with metal-frame bunks, a desk bolted to the floor, and a frosted-glass window too high to reach.
Eli's was empty.
For now.
Across the hallway, a group of boys passed by and glanced. One of them had a small dog tattoo inked into the base of his neck, with one cracked eye.
Eli watched them walk. He caught rhythm in their steps. A shared sync.
He'd seen this before — unspoken chain of command.
----------------------------------------------------------
They weren't the biggest. Weren't the loudest.But they moved with immunity.
Seven of them — spread across Blocks D and E — coordinated meal shifts, medical requests, even how long someone got on the weight bench.
No guard interfered.
Everyone called them the Glass Dogs, but never directly to them. No patch. No armband. Just dogs with cracked-eye tattoos, and a tendency to move in twos.
Choi Dae-Kwan was the one no one made eye contact with.
His routine:
First into the cafeteria
Last out of the yard
Never speaks to guards
Runs laundry and exchange duties from a side stairwell
When he heard a new boy from Dogsung came in — no crew, no file trail — he smiled without showing teeth.
----------------------------------------------------------
Eli sat on the top bunk of his room, still dressed. He didn't touch the bed. Just sat with his back to the wall, knees up, fingers locked.
He hadn't said a word since entry.
At lights-out, the hallway speakers crackled: a low chime, then silence.
Someone across the room whispered, not to him, but loud enough to travel.
"He's the one from the warehouse clip, right?"
"Yeah. The Devil."
Eli leaned his head back. Closed his eyes.
Didn't correct them.
----------------------------------------------------------
[South Busan, Overpass Market – Night]
Samuel stood beneath a half-lit bus shelter, holding a disposable phone with a glitched screen. He'd already changed numbers four times in two days.
CTRL9 hadn't touched him directly yet — but they didn't need to.
He was unraveling himself.
His tracker pings on Ji Yun kept routing to nowhere. He'd started testing decoys — planted false names on forums. One got flagged and locked within 40 minutes.
He stared at a flyer stapled to the wall: a missing pet. Smiling cat, reward listed, two contact numbers.
"People want their animals more than they want their people."
He flipped his hood up.
Walked into the night again.
----------------------------------------------------------
[Cafeteria, Day 2 – Noon]
The room buzzed in low rhythm — spoons on metal trays, rubber soles on tile. Eli walked in alone. He didn't look for a seat. He didn't scan for threat.
The Glass Dogs already sat at the corner table. Dae-Kwan looked up once. Then went back to chewing.
Eli sat near the edge.
Didn't touch the tray.
The boy with the cracked-eye tattoo walked over, stood in front of Eli without saying a word.
Eli stared at the spoon in his hand. Slowly twirled it.
"You need something?" he asked.
The kid shook his head and returned.
----------------------------------------------------------
Later that day, a kid who shared a bunk with Eli's hallway neighbor got dragged from the laundry room with a dislocated wrist.
No one said why.
The guard wrote down "equipment mishap."
Inmates knew better.
It wasn't about the kid. It was about who he sat next to at breakfast.
Eli took it in silently.
He could see the map forming.
Not turf — rhythm.
----------------------------------------------------------
[Underground Archive Access Point, Gupo District]
Samuel bribed access to a government records storage server using cash and a one-line favor from an old mercenary.
He pulled data on instructor certifications, field units, juvenile transfer patterns.
Then froze when a string came up under Facility Transfers / "North Busan JC".
It showed a list of former block leaders. Names. Affiliations.
He recognized one.
"Wait—he was buried three years ago."
He stared at the screen.
CTRL9 had sent people here before.
----------------------------------------------------------
Dae-Kwan sat in the maintenance room by the boiler, flicking lint off his uniform. The boy with the cracked-eye dog came in, handed him a folded napkin.
He unfolded it.
Scrawled in pen:
"Three days. Push him."
Dae-Kwan smiled. This time, it reached his eyes.
He folded the note twice, then twice again, then stuck it into the vent.