Kwon Jiyong had been in SM’s capital city exactly three times in his life. The first time, Jiyong was seven. Born illegitimately to a high-powered bureaucrat, Jiyong had spent his early days sequestered in his family’s summer home in the countryside, forbidden from appearing in the public eye. On his seventh birthday, his nanny secretly took him into the city for a day trip, showing him through the chaotic streets of the meatpacking district. His second time came at age ten, when his academic success and inclination for sports attracted the attention of military recruiters. He was accepted into a pilot program, meant to train secret agents younger, faster, and better. The head of the program, up-and-coming politician Lee Sooman, took Jiyong to his father’s office in the city’s downtown, where he signed away his guardianship of his son to the state with a clinical precision. The measured glance at Jiyong that said, “do not disappoint me” was the last time Jiyong ever saw his father. The third time, Jiyong was fourteen. After completing a particularly grueling Tech 10 exam, Youngbae coerced him into going to the city to celebrate, and somehow he ended up in the red light district trying to fend off three very aggressive hookers.

These brief forays into the city had left a very distinct impression of a lively, bustling metropolis. Thus, Jiyong was slightly off-put to see how dead the produce district was. The streets were grimy and deserted, storefronts boarded up and heavily graffitied. The only signs of life were the beggars hunched in the alleyways, who drew back at the sight of the military insignia on his jacket. Jiyong quickened his pace, skirting around a line of dumpsters before emerging at a run-down apartment complex.

At a second glance, the apartment complex wasn’t just run-down; it looked downright abandoned. Numerous windows were boarded up, and the metal tags labeling the wall of mailboxes were either scratched out or worn out beyond legibility. The boxes themselves had all rusted shut. Inside, the halls were dark, illuminated solely by the watery rays of sunlight that were able to push through the cracks in the boards, illuminating pieces of broken glass strewn across the floor. Jiyong was beginning to doubt Seungri’s information. Tempo was fleecing enough cash off all the tech trainees to live in a , he should have his pick of any apartment in the city, and he chose here?

Luckily for Seungri, Tempo did indeed seem to be living there. Jiyong spotted at least three security cameras tucked into the shadows of 34B’s hallway. Careful to stay in the cameras’ blind spots, he discreetly rolled a small round ball along the wall, waiting until it caught in 34B’s doorframe before turning around and leaving. Five minutes later, he crashed through the window connected to the back fire escape, gun trained on the overweight man seated at the kitchen table. The man looked up, seemingly unperturbed, set down his half-eaten donut, closed his newspaper, and sighed.

“The meth man is one more floor up, dude. Jesus, this is at least the fifth time this week.”

Jiyong snorted and jammed his gun into the man’s forehead. “Nice try, but I’m not here for the meth guy. I’m here for you.”

Before Jiyong could blink, the man whipped a pistol from his fluffy pink bathrobe and poked it into Jiyong’s stomach.

“Most people have the decency to knock,” he said calmly, leveling a reproachful glare at Jiyong. “Sit down.”

Jiyong sat down opposite to the man, gun still trained on him.

“At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’ve been expecting you,” the man continued. “Donut?” he asked, producing a box of chocolate glazed and waving it at Jiyong.

“Um,” Jiyong said. “What?”

“You know what a donut is, right?” the man said, looking shocked. “I mean, they’ve technically been illegal for plebs like me since the rationing system was instated, but a high level assassin like you must be able to enjoy the luxuries we commoners are denied.”

Slowly, Jiyong holstered the gun and took a donut. The man smiled brightly and tucked his gun back into the pocket of his bathrobe.

“Glad we were able to reach an understanding,” he continued, setting the box down and picking up his own half-eaten donut. “Now, what can I do for Mr. G-Dragon himself?”

Jiyong studied the man. His face was round, his expression cheerfully cute, but his eyes were hard and flat. Tempo had the eyes of a soldier. Jiyong blinked, temporarily thrown off guard. Then he smiled.

“You damaged important hardware when you hacked my computer,” he said smoothly. “I’m afraid that’s a breach of national security, and I’ll have to take you in for that.”

“You came all the way out here to tell little old me that in person? What a sweetheart,” Tempo cooed. Then, there was a loud bang and the entire kitchen filled with an acrid black smoke. Jiyong’s smile widened, as he pulled his shirt over his mouth, listening to Tempo scramble towards the front door. Jiyong carefully inserted two rubber earplugs, then detonated the sonic bomb he planted outside the door earlier. He couldn’t hear Tempo’s scream of pain and surprise, but he did find him minutes later curled up in the doorway, clutching his head and whimpering.

The first thing Choi Seunghyun felt when he came to was an persistent, grating ringing in his ears. The next thing was the soreness in his shoulders, presumably caused by his hands, which were cuffed together behind him. Oh dear. This was not good. Seunghyun finally dared to open his eyes, only to be met with a glaring pair of eyes two inches from his face. Seunghyun let out a very manly shriek and almost fell off his chair.

“The sleeping beauty awakes,” the man in front of Seunghyun intoned. Seunghyun eyed him warily, momentarily drawing a blank, then started panicking in earnest as the his memories of their previous encounter flooded back. Of all the people to piss off, he thought, his idiot had to piss off the nation’s top assassin. After holding the fates of so many assassin trainees in  his hands, his ego had inflated beyond his means. He should have just cut the damn connection when he realized the person who hacked Kim Kibum’s connection was the G-Dragon, but no, his damn hubris prompted him to poke the dragon in its eye, so to speak. He had thought he was being clever, hadn’t even bothered to conceal his IP properly. Now, he was probably going to pay by spending the rest of his life in a gulag somewhere in the desert accompanied only by his own, miserable-

“So,” G-Dragon said, snapping his fingers in front of Seunghyun, jerking him out of his daze. “You’re quite the mystery man.”

Seunghyun stared, bemused. G-Dragon continued.

“SM has probably the most extensive citizen registry in the world. There’s no one the government doesn’t know about. Fingerprints, facial recognition, DNA sequencing-we have it all. But why, Mr. Tempo, do our records indicate that you don’t exist?”

Seunghyun opened his mouth to reply, probably some involuntary smart- comment likely to get his idiot self even more killed, but G-Dragon held up a finger and forestalled Seunghyun.

“One option: you were born under an extensive network of people hiding from the government and simply raised without any identification. Now this is almost impossible, given how tightly population growth has been controlled in the past century. Option two: you hacked the citizen database and erased yourself, which is much more likely given your technological expertise.”

G-Dragon, inched even closer to Seunghyun, closing a hand around his throat and breathing lightly in his left ear. Seunghyun furiously tried to tamp down a tickle-induced giggle.

“So,” G-Dragon breathed, “who are you really?”

“What’s it to you, assassin man?” . Why was he like this?

Surprisingly, G-Dragon laughed heartily and sat back in his chair.

“I may be pissed that you melted my computer,” he said, smiling disarmingly at Seunghyun, “but I actually was more impressed by how you were able to do it. Those kinds of skills are hard to find, and I just so happen to be looking for someone like you for my team.”

“Your team,” Seunghyun said warily.

“Yes, my assassin team that lacks the necessary technological backup to properly carry out our missions,” G-Dragon replied.

“Can I say no?”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life wasting away in the desert?”

Well, at least he had options now.

“Choi Seunghyun, nice to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but you seem to have handcuffed them.”

G-Dragon smiled, and reached around to free Seunghyun’s hands.

“Kwon Jiyong. Welcome to the team.”