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Part III: "The Smile Game"
Summary: He tries to blend in by following teens near a metro station, mimicking their behavior. Two teens notice him as an outsider and follow him. He senses the tailing immediately and plans a reverse maneuver.
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Part III: "The Smile Game"
He made his way toward the metro by instinct, following bus signs and the distant clatter of a passing train. On a pedestrian overpass, he paused to study the motion of the traffic—how people flowed around corners, how eyes met and turned away, how long glances meant trouble or invitation or threat.
A group of teens passed him—four of them, dressed in layered hoodies, puffed coats, sagged jeans, and loud sneakers. They were joking about something. Something stupid. Elias couldn't tell what.
He didn't smile, but his lips moved as if they might.
He followed behind them at a slight distance. They didn't notice. He mirrored their rhythm. Their hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, laughter too big. He tried it—lifting his voice in a quiet fake chuckle.
It sounded wrong.
Still, he kept at it.
By the time they reached the metro entrance, they peeled off to a corner store, and Elias stayed on the path down to the station. It was old. Cement steps dark with rain stains. Turnstiles like iron ribs. The air carried the scent of oil, rubber, and old gum.
He stopped at the map near the kiosk.
Didn't need to. He already memorized it two blocks ago.
He just needed to look like he needed to.
Then he felt it again.
A wrinkle in the air behind him.
He shifted slightly and caught a faint reflection in the plexiglass of the map frame. Two teens. Not from the group he mimicked. These ones had eyes sharp like his own. Predatory. One was tall and twitchy, the other short with a scar down his left cheek.
They weren't casually loitering.
They were tracking.
They had noticed him watching the group earlier. Outsiders watching locals stand out, even if they're quiet. A quiet face in the wrong rhythm draws attention.
He let out a breath, shallow.
Alright, then.
His reflection stared back at him. This new face—young, unfamiliar—stared with eyes that didn't blink.
Elias moved.
He turned away from the kiosk and walked toward the north exit, not the platform. They followed. He could feel it in the bounce of gravel under their shoes—slightly staggered, not too close, not too fast.
"Yo," one of them called, testing him.
He didn't turn around. Just slipped his hand into his hoodie pocket, fingers brushing the half-folded map. It made his walk tilt just a little. Slower. Measured.
He reached a chain-linked side stair that dipped below the overpass, rarely used.
And then he smiled.
The real kind. Subtle. Closed-lip. Almost amused.
Because they hadn't noticed something.
While they were watching him, he had been watching them.
He'd already seen where they kept their phones. One in the front right hoodie pocket, the other in the back waistband.
He let himself be followed.
Now he was leading.
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Final moment/image: Elias descends into the tight, shaded staircase with two pursuers on his trail—and a plan forming that would flip the script before they realized the rules.
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