babichigo
I first met Ahn Keonho on the fourteenth of February. The sky was a stark, unbroken blue that afternoon—clear enough to make the winter sun gleam off the glass of my scope. I sat motionless in the chill, listening to him introduce himself over the line, his voice carrying a smooth, steady composure that cut effortlessly through the static: "I go by my surname, Ahn. Nice to meet all of you."
I pressed the transmitter and spoke quietly into the radio. "Nice to meet you too, Ahn."
There was a brief beat of silence, as if he hadn't expected anyone to actually break the channel. Then came a subtle shift in his tone—a flicker of quiet surprise that softened into an easy, low laugh. "Thank you. And you are?"
babichigo
I didn't answer right away. I carefully adjusted my weight, leveling the rifle until the crosshairs settled over the target, steady and unyielding. Through the 35x lens, every small detail was brought into sharp, amplified focus: the measured cadence of the target's stride, the careless tilt of his chin, and the gestures of someone navigating a conversation destined to end either in a handshake or a barrel to the head. My entire world narrowed down to that single, microscopic corridor of vision. The distant hum of city traffic below, the dry scrape of leaves across the ledge, and the static buzz of the radio frequency all began to bleed away, dissolving into absolute silence.
