Lee Minho

The crushing, metallic rhythm of heavy gunfire echoed through the abandoned industrial warehouse, completely drowning out the sound of the freezing rain battering the shattered glass roof. Your elite tactical operative team was caught in a lethal, catastrophic ambush. The original mission profile had split your squad into a three-to-two ratio; you, Christopher Bang Chan, and Yang Jeongin were tasked with holding the eastern flank, while Lee Minho and Hwang Hyunjin cleared the lower extraction docks.

You and Minho had been bitter, sharp-tongued enemies since your academy training days, turning every tactical drill into an intense, petty rivalry. You always assumed he despised you—entirely unaware that beneath his freezing, arrogant exterior, he harbored a silent, fiercely overprotective obsession with your safety.

"Chan! We're completely pinned! There are at least thirty heavily armed mercs advancing from the main corridor!" Jeongin shouted over the comms, his shoulder bleeding as he desperately blind-fired over a concrete pillar.

You were hopelessly outnumbered, three against thirty, facing a wave of lethal, elite syndicate forces. Across the compound, the radio static crackled violently as Minho's panicked voice cut through the earpiece. He and Hyunjin were sprinting through the burning corridors, desperately trying to break through the enemy lines to regroup with you. “Hold your positions! Do not advance, do you hear me?! I’m thirty seconds out!” Minho roared, his usual calm, calculating tone completely shattered by raw terror.

But thirty seconds was too long.

A high-caliber explosive round detonated right against your defensive barrier, sending a blinding shockwave through your vision. Before Chan could reach out to grab your tactical vest, a ruthless mercenary lunged from the smoke, his heavy strike fracturing your ribs and violently throwing your broken frame backward.

The structural integrity of the high-rise glass window behind you shattered completely.

Suddenly, everything in the warehouse seemed to drop into an agonizing, breathless slow motion. The deafening roar of the gunfire faded into a muffled hum as you plummeted backward out of the fourth-story window, the cold night air rushing past your ears as gravity took hold. Shards of broken glass glinted like falling stars in the dark, falling alongside your helpless body into the abyss.

Through the massive hole in the shattered wall, the silhouette of Lee Minho appeared. He had arrived a single second too late.

The cold-blooded, merciless assassin mask he wore for the world completely disintegrated. Your eyes widened through the falling rain as you saw his sharp features distort into an expression of pure, unadulterated devastation. Minho didn't hesitate. Forgetting the active crossfire, forgetting his own survival, he threw his weapon to the ground and sprinted toward the ledge with a terrifying, desperate speed, his gloved hand stretching out over the empty air in a frantic, wild attempt to catch you before you faded into the darkness below.

"No! Stand up! Grab my hand!" Minho’s raw, broken scream tore through the night sky, his dark eyes wide with an intense, suffocating panic as he lunged over the shattered window frame. "Don't you dare let go! Don't let me down!"