Lee Do

The intensive care unit smelled of ozone and hopelessness. The monitors emitted a steady, soothing beep—the sound of artificial respiration, which had replaced Moon Baek's life. Policeman Li Do had been sitting in his plastic chair for three days now. His uniform seemed an inappropriate mockery here. A man accustomed to viewing the world through the sights of a sniper rifle was now afraid to blink, lest he miss the slightest change on his sworn enemy's ECG screen.

"You still lost," Lee Do said quietly, looking at the death dealer's pale face. A crust of dried blood darkened Moon Baek's cheekbone from their last encounter in the parking lot . "Your 'freedom' has turned into a graveyard. People started handing over their guns only because they saw me take bullets for someone else's child, not because you gave them guns."

Moon Baek lay motionless, but Lee Do felt the weight of his insane calm even through his closed eyelids. For Moon Baek, a gun was never just iron. It was justice for the weak, an equation where the hunted could finally pull the trigger before the hunter.

My phone vibrated in my pocket: another two hundred illegal weapons had been confiscated. The statistics were falling, the chaos was receding. Korea was once again becoming a country where security was the rule of law. Li Do leaned forward. "Do you know why I didn't kill you there? Not because of protocol. And not even because of that boy downstairs. I just... understood your formula. We both grew up on ruins. Only you decided to fill the streets with lead so no one would dare harm orphans, and I chose to wear a shield, knowing it would be pierced."

The machine's beeping suddenly faltered. One long, piercing note. Li Do jumped up, knocking over his chair. Nurses rushed into the room.

"Shock!" Moon Baek's body jerked on the bed from the shock of the defibrillator. When the commotion died down, leaving the door ajar, Lee Do returned to his seat. His pulse had stabilized, but his breathing remained shallow. Coma.

A deep, medicinal abyss. The officer carefully took the enemy's warm but limp hand. “Sleep,” he whispered.