Under the flickering sign of a 24-hour convenience store, Taeyang Choi counted the seconds until sunrise.
Plastic bags rustled, neon lights hummed overhead, and the glass doors sighed open every time a late-night wanderer stumbled in for instant noodles or cheap cigarettes. Seoul never slept — but Taeyang wished it would, just for a moment.
He dragged a mop across the sticky floor, glancing at the clock. 3:12 AM. Still hours left.
On the mounted TV above the counter, a news anchor recited tonight's real story:
"—ranked A-class hunters have entered the newly appeared gate in Gangnam. The Association estimates monster density to be moderate—"
A blurry feed showed figures in sleek combat suits striding through a crackling portal in the middle of a city street. Reporters huddled behind barricades, cameras flashing.
Taeyang paused, leaning on the mop handle.
A-class. Gate clearers. Walking legends. Every kid in the country grew up hoping to see their name flash across an Awakening Pod screen — Hunter. Rank C, B, maybe even A if the gods smiled. A gate meant danger, but it also meant money, power, fame.
His parents hadn't gotten any of those.
A pair of rowdy university students pushed through the doors. One wore a hunter guild cap — cheap merch, but still enough to make Taeyang look away from the TV. They dropped a couple cans of beer and instant ramen on the counter.
"Hey, rankless!" one snickered. "Scan this fast, I'm starving."
Taeyang forced a polite grin, beeping each item. He could smell the alcohol on them, stale and sharp. He'd worn that same guild cap once — five years ago. A street vendor in Busan. His father had bought it for him the day before the gate opened two blocks away and turned their neighborhood into a war zone.
The scanner beeped. Total: 8,900 won. The taller one threw bills on the counter like tossing scraps to a dog.
Taeyang bowed anyway. "Thank you for shopping with us."
They left without another word, laughing about which hunter they'd bet on clearing the Gangnam gate first.
The glass door swung shut. Silence returned.
At 5 AM, Taeyang clocked out, slung his cheap backpack over one shoulder, and stepped into the early dawn. The neon lights of Seoul flickered into the rising sun like ghosts fading at daybreak.
He walked two blocks to the bus stop, half asleep, half awake. His phone buzzed in his pocket — a notification from the Seoul Hunter Association.
[AWAKENING RESULT: RANK E]
[SPECIAL SKILL: NONE DETECTED]
[HUNTER LICENSE ISSUED: YES]
[RECOMMENDED OCCUPATION: PORTER]
He read it three times just to feel it properly — the final nail. Rank E, the absolute floor. Worse, no skill at all.
He could carry gear for real hunters. Haul corpses of monsters. Sweep the aftermath of someone else's glory. Or keep mopping floors for minimum wage.
The bus came. He didn't get on. He walked instead — twenty minutes through streets waking up with fried food smells and tired faces.
At the edge of the city, hidden behind an old church and a row of leafless trees, the graveyard sat quiet and stubborn.
His parents' headstones faced east. They always had loved the sunrise.
Taeyang sat in the wet grass, the morning chill sinking into his bones. He placed a cheap can of coffee by each headstone. His father used to drink the same kind every morning before heading to the docks in Busan. His mother preferred hers warm, but the vending machine only sold it cold.
"Hey," he murmured. "It's me again. I thought—"
He swallowed. Words jammed in his throat.
"I thought maybe I'd get a rank. Just one skill. Anything."
His breath left in a white puff. The city was waking up behind him — cars honking, buses rumbling. It felt like a different world here, quiet enough to hear his heartbeat.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I'm… trying."
He bowed his head, pressing his forehead to the cold stone. A promise to ghosts. A lie to himself.
When he stood, the sun had fully risen — bright enough to hurt his eyes. He didn't belong here. Not in the world of hunters, not in this graveyard either. Just stuck in between.
The walk back took him past the base of a low mountain — just a lump of forest pressed up against the sprawl of Seoul's endless gray. An old park sign warned visitors to stay on the path. The government said wild gates sometimes opened in remote places like this — unranked hunters vanished all the time poking their noses where they shouldn't.
Taeyang stopped.
An old man sat on a splintered bench under the shade of a leafless tree. His clothes were so plain they looked out of place — no jacket, just a threadbare coat, sandals with socks. He could have been asleep if not for the way his head turned, eyes sharp under thick white brows.
Their eyes met.
The old man didn't blink. Didn't nod. Didn't look away. He just spoke — voice dry, but clear as a blade.
"Boy. Do you want to be strong?"
"Stronger than anyone?"
Taeyang laughed under his breath. The cold air turned it to steam.
"Wrong guy, old man," he muttered. He adjusted his backpack strap and stepped past.
The man's voice followed him — soft but cutting through the morning sounds.
"If you do, come behind the mountain tomorrow. In the shrubs where no one will see you."
Taeyang kept walking. He didn't turn back. He didn't run, either. His heart should have scoffed at it — a street crazy with nonsense. But it didn't. The words stayed. Heavy. Stupid. A question he didn't know how to throw away.
By the time he got home — a shoebox room above an old coin laundry — the sun was high enough to fill every crack in the peeling wallpaper. He dropped his bag, sank onto the thin mattress, and stared at the yellowed ceiling.
Rank E. No skill. Porter, janitor, invisible. He could live like this forever — scraping hours, bowing to drunks, staring at the TV while real hunters carved monsters apart for headlines and money.
Or he could go behind the mountain.
"Even if it was a scam he had nothing left to loose"he thought to himself.
His eyes drifted shut.
In the half-sleep before dreams, his father's voice echoed from five years ago — "Taeyang-ah, one day you'll see the sunrise for yourself."
Outside, the city roared to life. But behind Taeyang's eyelids, all he saw was that old man's eyes — sharp, ancient and waiting.