[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
The next morning, Jo Yu-ri woke up feeling something she hadn't experienced in almost a week: a hint of normality. The visceral fear that had gripped her had dissipated, drowned out by the laughter of the previous night. The image of Leo, the great adventurer, yelping and hiding behind her, had broken the spell of terror he himself had created. He was no longer a mythical, untouchable figure from a dark world. He was a man. A very tall, very capable, and very, very idiotic man. And that, somehow, made him much less terrifying.
She went down to the kitchen intending to grab some coffee and found a scene that solidified her new perspective. Leo was already there, completely recovered from his ordeal of the night before. He wore jeans and a black t-shirt that fit a physique that, Yu-ri couldn't help but notice, was that of someone who actually jumped between buildings for a living. He was leaning against the counter, using shameless charm and surprisingly fluent Spanish to convince the villa's cook, a middle-aged woman named Soo-jin, to prepare him a breakfast fit for an entire battalion.
"...and three more eggs, please, scrambled, not fried. And if you had a little of that leftover kimchi from last night... it would be perfect! You're an angel, Soo-jin, a true national treasure," he said, winking at her.
The cook, normally a stoic woman, giggled foolishly, completely captivated. Yu-ri shook her head, a small smile forming on her lips. It was exasperating. He was a hurricane of charisma and chaos. And, to her own surprise, she realized that the villa, her golden cage, felt a little less like a prison and a little more like... something akin to a dysfunctional home. A home with an incredibly annoying yet strangely endearing resident.
The feeling of guilt hadn't completely disappeared, but it had changed. It was no longer the crushing guilt of having caused his death, but the shared responsibility of having to deal with his existence. She was no longer the victim of his world; she had, in a way, become one of its exasperated inhabitants.
[POINT OF VIEW: HELENA AND WI HA-JOON - THIRD PERSON]
By mid-morning, the domestic comedy atmosphere evaporated. Helena convened a war council in the main living room. Maps returned to the table. Laptops opened. The air grew heavy with the seriousness of the situation.
This time, it wasn't just the planners. Helena insisted that the entire group be present. "Last night, you proved you are no longer mere spectators," she had said, her gaze lingering on Yu-ri for a moment. "You are involved parties. You need to understand the magnitude of the game being played."
Helena, dressed in her usual impeccable efficiency, stood at the front, like a CEO presenting a quarterly report on an existential crisis.
"The situation has become simpler and, at the same time, infinitely more complex," she began, her voice an instrument of precision. "We have three active fronts. First: the Helix Corporation. Leonidas's prank in North Korea, while stupid, bought us some breathing room. Helix intelligence will be in chaos, trying to verify the story. But they're not fools. They know Leo is alive, and they know he has the screen, the clue to the Royal Seal. They will return. And this time, they won't be subtle. They are our primary and immediate threat."
She paused, letting her words sink in. "Second: North Korea. We humiliated their leader. That's not something they forget. They won't start an open war, but their clandestine intelligence services, the RGB, likely have agents looking for him right now. They are a secondary threat, but unpredictable and lethal. A dangerous wild card."
"Third and most important," she continued, pointing to the screen that now rested on a stand in the corner of the room. "The Royal Seal of the Joseon Dynasty. This is the reason for everything. Helix wants it. Leo wants it. And the only way to end this game is to find it first."
Wi Ha-joon, in his role as tactical analyst, chimed in. "Our best option is to stay here. Strengthen security. Use Inspector Park's protection and wait for them to make a mistake."
"Negative," Helena retorted instantly. "Helix is a cancer. They have resources, moles in government agencies worldwide. Remaining in one place makes us an easy target. The best defense, in this case, is a proactive attack. We have to move. We have to go for the Seal."
All attention turned to Leo, who until that moment had been unusually quiet, examining the screen with a magnifying glass.
"The clue isn't a map," he said, without looking up. "It's a poem. Written in an ancient dialect. It speaks of 'the serpent that swallows the setting sun' and 'the jade lair under water that does not wet.' It's a metaphor. A riddle."
"And do you have any idea what it means?" Lee Jung-jae asked.
"I have a couple of theories," Leo admitted. "The 'serpent that swallows the sun' could refer to an eclipse, or a river flowing west. The 'jade lair' could be an underwater cave, or the name of a temple. I need access to historical archives, Asian folklore databases. I need to go to a library."
The idea that the most wanted man by two lethal organizations would calmly want to go to a library was so Leo that no one knew what to say.
"The point is," Helena interrupted, bringing the conversation back on track. "That while we decipher this, we are vulnerable. Helix knows this group is Leo's only known connection. They could try to use you to get to him. Or to lure him into a trap."
The threat loomed over them, real and personal. They were no longer just the friends of the girl who got caught in a mess. Now they were potential targets.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEO - FIRST PERSON]
Meetings. I hated meetings. They were the polar opposite of everything I was. Talking, planning, weighing risks... it was exhausting. I was a man of action. Of improvisation. Of jumping first and figuring out if there was water below afterwards. This talk of "active fronts" and "secondary threats" was putting my brain to sleep.
I had already given them the clue. A poem. Let the intellectuals decipher it. My job was to deliver the next punch, not to theorize about the philosophy of the punch.
I discreetly pulled out my phone. I needed a distraction. I put on my headphones, looking for something to pull me out of this strategic stupor. I scrolled past my "Chaos and Destruction" playlist (mostly heavy metal), my "Tomb Raiding" playlist (adventure movie soundtracks), and landed on my "Guilty Pleasures and Mental Anarchy" playlist. And there it was. A classic. A masterpiece of catchy stupidity.
It's Muffin Time.
At first, I just tapped my fingers on my knee to the beat. Helena shot me one of her "I'm going to turn you into an ice cube" glares, but I pretended not to see it. The song was too good. I started humming.
"...somebody kill me, it's muffin time..."
The conversation downstairs was getting more intense. I heard words like "extraction protocols" and "expendable assets." Blah, blah, blah. Much more interesting was the guitar solo playing in my ears.
I got up. The meeting no longer concerned me. I stretched and, feeling inspired, started wandering around the villa's second floor, which was a kind of gallery or mezzanine overlooking the double-height living room below.
I saw an armchair. Not just any armchair. It was one of those ornate, high-backed chairs with Louis XIV style legs, upholstered in red velvet. It looked like a throne. A ridiculous throne. Perfect.
I dragged the chair to the edge of the glass railing, right above where the boring war council was being held. Now I had a stage. I took off my headphones, letting the song play through my phone's speaker. The volume was quite loud.
The music filled the space, violently clashing with the serious atmosphere downstairs.
"I've baked a cake!" I sang, my voice echoing through the living room. Below, several heads turned upward. I saw Helena's face of pure exasperation. It was glorious.
"Oh, boy! What flavor?" I continued, starting to dance a little on the chair.
"CAKE FLAVOR!" I shouted, mimicking the song's voice.
[POINT OF VIEW: GROUP - THIRD PERSON]
"As I was saying," Helena continued, trying to ignore the cacophony now raining down from the second floor. She gritted her teeth. "Helix's strategy will likely be surveillance and harassment to force..."
"DIE, DIE, DIE!" Leo's voice sang from above, his enthusiasm utterly out of place. "IT'S MUFFIN TIME!"
Lee Jung-jae covered his face with one hand, but his shoulders trembled with suppressed laughter. Jo Yu-ri looked up, her mouth open in a mix of horror and amusement. Was it possible to die of vicarious embarrassment? She was about to find out.
Leo was now standing on the velvet throne. He had grabbed an empty water bottle and was using it as a microphone, gesticulating like a rock star in the middle of a concert. He was completely lost in his own world, a world where the threat of a killer corporation was less important than a catchy refrain about suicidal muffins.
"I wanna die, die, die! Please, I wanna die, die, die!" he sang at the top of his lungs, bobbing his head to the music.
"LEONIDAS!" Helena roared, her voice a thunderclap that barely managed to overcome the music.
But he didn't hear her. Or he ignored her. He was reaching the climax of his performance. He braced himself for the grand finale. He spun on the chair, a move that probably seemed very cool in his head. He lifted one leg in a rockstar kick.
It was at that moment that physics, that cruel, humorless mistress, decided to intervene.
The ornate chair, designed for aesthetics and not acrobatics, wobbled precariously on its slender legs. Leo's eyes widened as he realized his stage was tipping towards the abyss. The rockstar vanished, replaced by a man who had just made a very, very stupid miscalculation.
He flailed his arms like a windmill, the water bottle flying through the air. He let out a yell that was a mix of surprise and the words "oh, sh...!"
And then, he and the Louis XIV chair tumbled over the glass railing.
Time seemed to slow down. The group watched, paralyzed, as the chair tumbled, followed an instant later by Leo's gangly figure. His fall was not graceful. It was a chaos of flailing limbs. His trajectory was clear. Just below the balcony, as part of the villa's extravagant design, was a decorative, shallow indoor pool filled with lily pads.
There was a crash as the chair hit the water, followed an instant later by the sound of a massive SPLASH!!! that splattered chlorinated water onto the expensive sofas.
The silence that followed was absolute. The little tune from Leo's phone, which had fallen nearby, still faintly played: "...it's muffin time..."
A head emerged from the water, spitting out a mouthful of water and what looked like a lily pad. It was Leo. His hair streamed down his face. The chair floated sadly beside him, overturned like a dead turtle.
He looked up at the eight stunned faces looking down at him from the edge of the second-floor balcony. He ran a hand over his face, plucked the lily pad from his head, and gave them the most embarrassed, stupid grin in the world.
"Well," he said, his voice echoing in the silent living room. "I guess the meeting's adjourned for now, isn't it?"
Helena stood there, staring at the soaking wet disaster that was her best and only operative. She said nothing. She didn't need to. Her face, a mask of pure, limitless, transcendental exasperation, said it all.
Jo Yu-ri stared at the man in the pool. The man who had faced death, dictators, and corporations. And who had just been defeated by a chair, a pool, and a song about muffins. The line between wanting to help him and wanting to drown him with her own hands had never been so thin.