Sunlight gleamed through the sheer curtain, landed on Kim Dokja's face. The sounds of traffic and people passing by echoed vaguely, completely different from his sleep quarter. His eyelashes fluttered slightly, then flashed open, he promptly sat up:

"Crap, I'm late!..."

Wait, I'm taking a vacation, aren't I?

He looked around confused, locating his phone first thing. After confirming that it was lying on the bedside table not far away, he realized that the place he was in wasn't his sleep quarter at all. He scratched the back of his head, slowly recollecting what happened. His sleep was still haunted by nightmares as usual, yet this time they seemed more docile than before. Aside from some not-so-SFW stuff occasionally got mixed in, the feeling when he woke up wasn't as heavy as usual.

His memories were a bit jumbled, but not difficult to organize. What was strange was that he couldn't remember what happened after finishing lunch. Kim Dokja had just opened his mouth to yawn, when a sharp pain attacked, making his eyes reflectively squeezed. With one hand pressed on his painfully chapped lips, he tapped his phone open. One whole day had passed since that lunch, making him feel uneasy, had his situation become so bad that he even lost his memories now?

Still, there was nothing strange on his phone, and no missed call from Yoo Sang-Ah, so Kim Dokja could be confident that things were still within his control. He closed his eyes, focusing on tracking the other end of his Shackle, and quickly identifying the Sinners standing outside.

"Cinnabar and Garofano, huh? I knew she wouldn't follow my order just simply like that."

They probably were ordered to protect him from afar, so just let them be. The door suddenly opened from outside, a tall figure donned in black walked in, holding a wooden tray in his hand. A covered ceramic bowl with delicate poppy flower patterns was placed on it:

"You're awake."

To Kim Dokja - who met attractive people on a daily basis, getting stunned by someone's appearance wasn't something that happened easily. Yet he still felt like an electric current just flashed through his nape. The man's semi-wavy black hair fell across his forehead, seemed to defy gravity as it framed the sharp features that were both freezingly beautiful and impenetrable. From the scars on his hands and arms, this man was no doubt that strange chef yesterday.

As if reading Kim Dokja's confusion, he spoke in an indifferent tone:

"You passed out after finishing your meal, so we brought you up here."

"...Have I paid yet?"

"Yes."

Kim Dokja scratched his nape, feeling a bit embarrassed. Passed out was to be expected, considering his condition at the time. No wonder he didn't remember anything, for there was nothing to remember.

The chef pulled a half-rectangular table from somewhere and put it next to Kim Dokja's bed, forming a convenient table, and put the tray he had been holding on. He could easily smell the appetizing smell of food emanating from the air vent above the ceramic bowl lid.

"Eat up."

After saying those words like ordering, the man leaned his back against the wall next to the window, with absolutely no intention of leaving the room. With such a transparent attitude, Kim Dokja was certain that this man knew him, so he took this chance and asked directly:

"Have we met before?"

Stare.

"Can you tell me how we met? I've been quite forgetful lately..."

Blatant lie. You didn't remember shit.

Yoo Joonghyuk glanced at the other's smile, almost reflectively blurted out, but managed to hold it in. He started telling the wildest story Kim Dokja had ever heard.

*****

"Will I let go of this hand or won't I?"

Kim Dokja replied with a smile, "Release your hand and get lost, you damn son of a bitch."

*****

"Kim Dokja's Company?"

"I'll quit right away if it's really named that."

*****

...

*****

Kim Dokja had finished his congee long ago, briefly remembering drinking water sometimes after that. Still, the amount of information made his brain feel like being fried. The man - Yoo Joonghyuk had brought the empty bow out, giving him time to digest the information.

This... If he learned about it as an outsider, he would be very excited. It had been a part of his nature ever since he could remember. Despite feeling guilty every time, he still loved to read and hear the stories, which was why every Sinner interrogation in the MBCC was done by him.

Still, being the center of it was another thing. After a while, he gave out a long breath and propped his hand under his chin. The whole thing was wild, he noticed that Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't told him everything, but this gave him a lot of things to look into already, so let's look over it for now.

Kim Dokja looked at his palm, red vein flashed in an instant then quickly faded into his skin.

"To think that the Shackles wasn't my original power, what a trip full of surprises."

Korea.

Kim Dokja had heard about that country. It got struck by a piece of a meteor - around the same time as the Perishing Star. But as the piece was too small and showed no activity, their government gradually dropped their caution. Until about 10 years ago, it suddenly reactivated, trapping the whole country and the supercontinent in a gigantic dome. Then after 3 years, that Dome suddenly disappears, showing the world a whole different order.

Yoo Joonghyuk said the last time they met was at First Murim, a city in the North of the Korean Peninsula, which was also the closest coastal city to the meteor. First Murim was destroyed by the Catastrophe when the Dome disappeared - when people 'deactivated the meteor', as stated in the record.

The impact that meteor piece brought was no less than the Perishing Star, each faction on that supercontinent was formidable with powerful people, or Sinners, like how DisCity calls them. Thus, their law regarding Sinners was also markedly different from DisCity and others.

After he was done organizing, energy also returned to Kim Dokja's body. He walked out of the room, expecting to talk to others at the restaurant when two teenagers almost bumped into him.

To be frank, Yoo Joonghyuk was a terrible storyteller. He completely skipped over details like looks and characteristics, only telling him the events, so for most of the part, Kim Dokja had to analyze himself.

He looked at the girl and said uncertainty:

"Shin... Yoosung? and Lee Gilyoung, right?"

Their eyes light up immediately, the girl held her hand near her chest:

"Have you regained your memories?"

"...I'm sorry, It was Yoo Joonghyuk who told me."

"Oh..."

Their head flopped down disappointingly, he felt like he could see two pairs of furry ears drooping down on their head. But then, they gave him a tight hug:

"It's alright. We have a lot of time from now on, you will remember us all eventually."

Just as you always do.

During that afternoon, Kim Dokja reacquainted himself with all the people who had known him before, learning a whole new aspect of his past life, in a much more vivid manner. The kids wanted him to keep staying, however knowing that would raise unnecessary suspicions, he couldn't comply. Instead, he booked a room at the nearby hotel - the one with a good view that he was going to stay before.

During that whole time, the distance from the other end of Shackle never changed.

That evening the sky was rare, the crescent moon hung high in the sky dyed by orange lights. However, his room's windows face the park and mountains, so light pollution didn't have much chance to disturb the view. Kim Dokja curled up on the cushioned low chair near the ground-level windows, arranging notes on his smartphone while drinking the warm milk he bought earlier, feeling like a happy camper.

The next morning, Kim Dokja woke up at 6 a.m. as usual, but immediately closed his eyes. He was determined to spend the entire day sleeping - organizing information already kept him awake until 1 a.m, until someone knocked on the door repeatedly. After looking at the Mobius strip standing vertically (8) on the screen, he grumpily let out a groan while dragging himself to the door.

Through his blurry eyes, Yoo Joonghyuk was standing right in front of the door, dressed in an unusually neat manner. A black trench coat covered his wide frame, although his turtle neck shirt left no room for imagination as it tightly wrapped over his defined line and bulging muscle. Close-fitting black pants and combat boots hugged his long and powerful legs. In short, he looked like he was about to kill someone.

If ignoring his reddened ears.

Kim Dokja briefly thought about his pitiful abs. Dr. Iron had created a separate workout schedule for him. And despite almost never missing a single workout session, his body still doesn't seem to have gained any muscle mass, only his abs were a bit more visible.

His eyes then trailed down to the man's hand. In his hands were two bright color tickets.