Deep End | Hyunlix

66

Felix could feel it the moment he stepped back into headquarters, the shift in the air, the way conversations dulled and eyes lingered a second too long before sliding away. Trust, once fractured, didn't shatter loudly. It cracked in quiet places. In glances that weighed more than words. In the way people stopped filling the silence around you.

He kept his head down and walked. Han didn't say anything as Felix passed him in the corridor, but his shoulders were stiff, his jaw set. Seungmin's gaze followed him with the sharpness of someone cataloging patterns. Chan didn't look at him at all, and somehow that was worse.

This is what it looks like when they don't know what to believe anymore, Felix thought. This is the cost. He told himself it didn't matter. That feelings, hurt, suspicion, disappointment, were distractions he couldn't afford. He had one job now, and it was the same job he'd had from the beginning: bring down Lee Know before he destroyed everything in his path. Before he destroyed Hyunjin.

Felix turned down the hall toward the computer lab, the low hum of servers growing louder with every step. He scanned the room through the glass wall before entering, two analysts at the far end, both absorbed in their screens. No one paying attention to him. Good.

He slipped inside and took one of the terminals near the back, positioning himself so the monitors blocked most of the room behind him. His fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment longer than necessary. Using my code is a risk, he thought. Everything I touch leaves a trail. He exhaled through his nose and pushed the hesitation aside. If he waited for perfect conditions, he'd never move at all.

Felix logged in. The system accepted his credentials without protest, green indicators flickering across the screen. He pulled up the internal database and began typing in Lee Know's name, fingers moving fast, precise. Nothing.

Well, not nothing. Surface-level records. Shell operations. Redacted reports. A handful of transactions flagged and buried. But when he pushed deeper, when he widened the search parameters, the trail evaporated.

"Five years," Felix muttered under his breath.

Everything before that was smoke. No digital footprint. No official record. As if Lee Know had simply stepped into existence fully formed, already powerful, already connected. That's not normal. Felix leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing. People like Lee Know didn't come from nowhere. They were built. Molded. Hidden. Which meant someone had erased him or protected him.

Felix switched tabs and pulled up the anonymous email. He read it again slowly, line by line, searching for anything, metadata, syntax quirks, a signature style. Nothing obvious. Clean. Too clean. Professional, Felix thought grimly. Or personal enough to know what not to leave behind.

He opened the image files again. Club Apep. Changbin sitting in the VIP corridor, his posture casual, predatory. Felix standing too close, too exposed. And then, Hyunjin. The alleyway photo made his chest tighten every time he looked at it. No kiss. No undeniable proof. Just closeness. Felix's hand lifted, reaching. Hyunjin turned toward him, face unreadable in the grainy black-and-white. Two silhouettes pulled together by something neither of them had been strong enough to deny.

Felix's mind drifted, unbidden, back to that night. The walls they'd built crashing down piece by piece. The way Hyunjin had looked at him, like hope was something dangerous but irresistible. We knew we shouldn't, Felix thought.  And we did it anyway. A quiet ache settled behind his ribs. He didn't hear the footsteps until it was too late.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Felix flinched hard, heart jumping into his throat as he spun halfway in his chair. I.N stood just behind him, voice low, eyes soft with concern. The younger slipped into the seat beside him without waiting for an answer, careful not to draw attention.