Midnight again.
Another dead body.
Another ocean of pain.
But this time... it didn't feel right.
Jin Ha-yul stood still at the center of the court.
The world around him shimmered, refracting color like broken glass.
And yet—something was missing.
No, not missing.
Hidden.
He reached forward, dipping his hand into the red tide.
Fear still surged around him.
Sickly. Heavy. Like the room itself was gasping.
But underneath it—he felt it again.
Shock.
The yellow sliced through the crimson like a knife.
Wrong.
Unnatural.
An interruption.
Ha-yul pressed his palm against the current.
Images flickered.
Shapes twisted in the flow.
A man.
Smiling.
The victim recognized him.
He knew that now.
But there was more.
His fingers tingled.
A pulse struck his wrist.
Not from him—from the emotion.
Static.
A glitch.
He gasped.
Emotion noise.
He'd heard of it.
Corrupted signals in the flow.
Fragments that didn't belong.
But this was the first time he'd seen it himself.
"LUX," he said, eyes locked on the disturbance.
"This is contaminated."
LUX didn't answer.
Just watched.
Its glowing eyes dimmed slightly.
Ha-yul scowled.
"This flow was tampered with."
And then—he felt something else.
Cold.
Not just the ambient kind.
This was... internal.
His hands didn't shake.
His breath didn't hitch.
He realized it, suddenly:
He felt nothing.
No empathy. No sadness. No anger.
That's why he could see so clearly.
Because he had no feelings of his own.
His body was just a lens.
A tool.
Others called it a gift.
He knew it was a curse.
He could read every emotion but feel none of them.
And that's what made him the perfect tracker.
But even he couldn't ignore what he saw now:
The fear had been covered up.
Edited.
Someone wanted the truth to stay buried.
That meant only one thing—
The killer knew about the court.
And worse—
They'd figured out how to manipulate it.
Then, behind him, a new ripple.
Not emotion.
A person.
Female.
Soft steps.
Cold breath.
"You're early," he said without turning.
The voice answered—warm, but precise.
"You're late, Jin Ha-yul."
He turned.
Yoon Si-on.
New liaison.
Fresh from the Emotion Center.
Her presence stirred the air.
She smiled.
But her eyes—sharp. Curious.
Too curious.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
She stepped closer.
The emotions between them shifted.
Still unreadable.
Still unpredictable.
But his pulse…
for the first time in years…
wavered.
→ [To be continued in Episode 3]
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