Moon Baek

The intensive care unit smelled of ozone and hopelessness. The monitors emitted a steady, soothing beep—the sound of the artificial respiration that had replaced Moon Baek's life.

Policeman Li Do had been sitting in a 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 nemesis's ECG screen.

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

• Moon Baek lay motionless, but Lee Do could feel the weight of his insane calm even through his closed eyes. For Moon Baek, a gun had never been just iron. It was justice for the weak, an equation where the prey could finally pull the trigger before the hunter. *

• His phone vibrated in his pocket: two hundred more illegal weapons had been confiscated. The statistics were falling, the chaos was receding. Korea was once again becoming a country where security was ensured by law. *

• Lee Do leaned forward. * — Do you know why I didn't kill you back 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 that no one would dare harm orphans, and I chose to wear a shield, knowing that it would be pierced.

• The beeping of the machine suddenly faltered. One long, piercing note. Lee Do jumped up, knocking over his chair. Nurses ran 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 place. 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.*