Hello there, a few warnings before the episode: mentions of murder, physical abuse, non-consensual medical (can it be called that?) procedures, blood, and injuries. it's a heavy read? Perhaps a depressing read, reader discretion is advised. Happy reading. - L

Back when he was about seven or eight years old, he would look at the grainy TV screens on each of the main street windows and would dream about being sucked inside their small, insignificant worlds. He’d stay there, standing as if entranced, be it summer or winter, no matter the heat or the snow or even the wind or rain. He’d always find himself immersed into a world where he was a kid that didn’t have to worry about walking on his tiptoes when going to the bathroom.

Now he doesn’t need to worry about walking on his tiptoes, because that’s just how he walks now.

It’s a little funny, Jeongwon thinks, considering that his father’s assistant looks like she’s on the brink of a heart attack when he pops out of the blue next to her. She’s a woman whose name he never learnt, or wasn’t told. Still, it’s okay because he has brought it upon himself to call her Lila, her eye-bags are so profound the colour of her skin over the area looks like an awful pair of bruises that never leave her face.

Red, maybe even burgundy at times.

But Jeongwon doesn't like to think about red and burgundy, so Lila it is.

He used to be close with Lila, as close as he could, at least. She was extremely reserved, and her disdain for being his babysitter was evident with every interaction. She wasn’t cruel though; she was human, after all, so she’d try to get him to walk around the city and get to know all the streets, corners, and little alleyways.

She even went through the trouble of getting him ice cream and float drinks, though these events were scarce, they had a usual table at a local shake shop that specialized in dairy products. He loved those days.

Lila always told his father she was taking Jeongwon “scouting”, or at least training for when the real “scouting” happened. He had to memorize the map of the entire city by age eleven, and he was eternally grateful to the woman who had actively made him walk up and down, left and right. She had made him familiar with the usual ice-cold walls of the city that knows no summer.

It has got him out of trouble more times than he likes to admit, being his father's messenger isn’t an easy task. One day he nearly had half his foot eaten by a very violent parrot, he didn’t even know people could have parrots as pets, much less train them to be so obnoxiously bloodthirsty.

—

Sitting on the floor of an empty warehouse, he feels like his lungs are about to burst with pressure, every breath pains the muscles around his ribcage as if it’s only making it worse. This time, no angry parrot was chasing him down the streets and avenues of the city, making him parkour over the buildings in the middle of dawn. With a very obstructed view of the next step due to how dark it all was, may he add. This time, it was Maria.

Hers is probably the first name he’s ever learnt.

Maria Lionheart.

The more he learnt about her, the more he knew her name resembled that of an old knight more than anything else. She was a very small, very thin and frail-looking individual whose agility and speed were bizarrely unnatural.

But he guessed that it’s just as unnatural as his own abilities, so he didn’t think much about it.

—

Maria first appeared to Jeongwon in the form of blue hoodies and very sharp, very shiny silver earrings. She was probably one of his first targets, her parents were some higher-up politicians who his father wanted to tame. He was supposed to follow her, get her every step on paper and report it, for it would be useful when trying to make her disappear.

It was supposed to be a warning for the Lionheart family, but Jeongwon felt vile rise up his throat as he was sent off to accomplish his task. He couldn’t do it, of course.

At the time he was about thirteen, and Maria was fifteen going on sixteen. She was a teenager with a lot on her shoulders and no real support, and it felt unfair to go after someone so innocent. Still, Jeongwon dedicated himself to studying her, and each day and each night, his prolific knowledge of the underground citadel gave him a free way to keep tabs on her ever since. His father forced him to stalk the poor girl for two years, learning everything there was to learn about her, everything she was, and who she was supposed to become.

She was brilliant, basically a golden child with how her report cards always came, full of A’s, full of 100’s, full of congratulatory speeches given by hundreds of teachers and trainers all over the nation. She wasn’t one to have millions of friends, but those she had she held close, and cherished with all she had. Furthermore, she was quiet, but her statements were loud when they mattered the most, making it to the first page of every single newspaper twice the time her parents ever were.

Maria Lionheart was a gem, she was one of those kids every generation ought to have as a representation of everything perfect and proper. She was excellent at everything she put her heart into, and Jeongwon envied her so much.

But, he was only a child against her, and soon after getting soaked into every little detail about her life, he became oddly fond of her.

It was an awful mistake, and he came to regret it very soon.

Jeongwon had become Maria’s shadow, and even if her family was aware of his father keeping tabs on her, they didn’t know Jeongwon, they couldn’t have fathomed that a crooked-looking kid like him would be the one making the young lady paranoid, couldn’t have ever thought he was the one giving her nightmares and shaky hands.

Jeongwon thought they were only going to take her for a while, like they do in the shows he used to watch on the TV’s by the windows. He thought that maybe she was supposed to disappear from the phase of the earth for a week or two before her parents complied to whatever his father wanted them to do, and then they’d get her back.

When Jeongwon became fifteen, he learnt the truth.

She wasn’t someone he was supposed to stalk, she was his target, and after years of tormenting her like a shadow in the corner of her eye that made her painfully nervous, he was supposed to end her life.

Maria Lionheart wasn’t weak, knowing she’d be vulnerable alone, she had been trained since she was very young, and her expertise in martial arts and melee weapons nearly rivalled Jeongwon’s.

Nearly.

He didn’t want to do it, he couldn’t understand the reason to go to such length for something so small as a “warning”, but he never really saw the fruit of his father's insistence until years later.

—

When he declined his task the first time, Lila had to bandage his torso and force him to stay in bed until his bones healed so they wouldn’t pierce one of his lungs. Years later, after one of his ribs healed in a weird position, his side now gently pokes at him when lying down.

The second time he tried to stand his ground, he woke up nearly blind and deaf.

When Lila took off the bandages, she very curtly explained the intricacies of his father’s new creation: a small implant now drilled into his skull, making his cranium feel like a large hand of electricity was enveloping it always, making him shiver and tick in the oddest of ways out of the blue. His temples pressed at the sides of his head more effectively, and Lila explained it was due to the nano-speaker said hand carried, making him hear things and people that weren’t there. Lastly, his eyelids, now heavier, carried a small screen of something, neither he nor Lila were sure what, but now every single thing Jeongwon did, his father saw.

His father had effectively wired Jeongwon directly into his CCTV network, being able to torture him with loud sounds, shrieks, and unpleasant— see: borderline excruciating— sensations palpitating all over his skull at the touch of a small button.

When his wounds healed and his stitches were ready to be removed, Lila looked at him intently for a few seconds, and with a shaky voice and glassy eyes, bid her goodbyes to the boy.

Jeongwon barely ever saw her again.

The third time his father sent him off to Maria, Jeongwon couldn’t say no. All the man had to do was press a button.

[name: Maria Lionheart, date: January 17th, 2015]

—

Years later, he was chased down into a foul-smelling warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

The Lionhearts could be very insistent when it came to their daughter, even if she was no longer with them.

Year after year, they’d send their lackeys to try and find Jeongwon and bring him to justice. At first, his father's name was enough to have them all running back to the gutter, but with the years, the family became enlightened with the dirty secrets of politics. After years of chasing after him, Maria’s parents had finally come knocking down his door to try to make him pay.

He looked up at the sky, holding onto his shoulder to try to relocate it quickly before his body had the chance to heal. It was difficult enough with the cold nearly immobilizing his hands with shivers, but the shivers and tics his head was pressing down on him made it so much worse.

“Where is he?!” He heard a few meters away.

“I shot him five times, where the fuck is the blood?” The man sounded heavily exasperated, maybe he was new.

“Are you dense? That freak’s practically made of steel, even if you smash his thorax into pieces he’ll come back alive like some sort of maniac”

That wasn’t quite the truth, but if it helped ease their minds, then Jeongwon was no one to pop their bubble.

“I thought only—”

“Over there!”

Had he not moved the moment he heard something being thrown his way, he’d have a skull full of blades. Jeongwon had managed to pop his shoulder back into place, and with the pain subsiding as quickly as it came, he twisted just in time to shoot.

Two or three bangs later, he was limping away from the area, carrying the bodies onto the sea and hoping the rain and thunder hid the blood now smeared all over the concrete.

—

[name: John Doe from Lionheart, tall with mole of left cheek, date: January 18th, 2022]

[name: John Doe from Lionheart, short with scars on his neck, date: January 18th, 2022]

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