Alpha's Victory

"We can't keep going like this," Jeong Seung-woo said, going around to the surviving teams and proposing an alliance.

"Honestly, they did tell us on the broadcast to stick together."

"Then who takes overall command?"

As the players argued, someone had quietly settled into position above their heads.

So they decided to huddle up, after all.

Watching the situation from atop a tall building, Yoon Jae-hee steadied his breathing and pulled the trigger. He couldn't afford to give them time to unite.

"Argh!"

It wasn't the crack of a real gunshot — just the wheeze of a deflating paint round — but it carried enough terror all the same. And every single shot dropped one player without fail. A hundred shots, a hundred hits.

"Wait, wasn't there a limit on sniper rounds?"

"Where is he even shooting from?"

Yoon Jae-hee never once paused. He'd been involved in designing the building itself, so he knew exactly where to place his feet to climb it — he could have done it with his eyes closed. He looked like the protagonist of a video game come to life.

Scrambling up the building's exterior barehanded, he looted the sniper rifle and ammunition canisters waiting on the rooftop, then casually wiped out Team 6. Even the PD watching through the monitors clicked his tongue in disbelief.

"Uwaah!"

"Over there!"

With his last round spent and his position compromised, Yoon Jae-hee ducked into cover — then swiftly relocated to a new spot.

"Spread out!"

"No! Stay together!"

Seung-woo shouted himself hoarse, but the alliance had been thrown together ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too hastily, and it promptly splintered along team lines. The moment Yoon Jae-hee sensed the flow shifting in his favor, he drove straight into the gap, picking off the cast members one by one.

"Uwaah!"

"Where is he?!"

Unlike Team 3, who had been caught off guard, the remaining players were wound tight as bowstrings now, and cutting through them was no easy task. His once-pristine clothes grew a little dirtied where paint rounds had splattered off the walls around him.

When one player ran dry and came at him with hand-to-hand combat, he set his own gun aside as well, answering with fluid, graceful movements.

Whoa. What is this? Is this even possible?

The PD monitoring the situation through the screens felt his jaw drop. Fine — Team 3 had been caught napping. But wiping out Team 6 with ease, and now holding an overwhelming advantage in the middle of this chaotic melee? This was something else entirely.

Team 1 won't be easy, though.

One by one, methodically, he thinned the field — until only Seung-woo remained. Seung-woo had guessed that Jae-hee was Alpha from early on, and that was exactly why he had fought as though it were real combat. His reactions had once brought Yoon Jae-hee within a hair's breadth of elimination.

"Ah!"

Realizing he was out of paint rounds, Seung-woo clicked his tongue in frustration. He broke distance first, then called out at the top of his lungs.

"It's you, Hyung-nim, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

He's talking to me? Yoon Jae-hee pulled off his mask. Despite the winter chill, he wore only light clothing, his hair damp with sweat — and somehow even that looked striking.

"Huh?!"

"Wait — isn't that him? The actor?"

His entrance had been straight out of a drama. The players he'd already eliminated lay sprawled on the ground, whispering among themselves.

Only Yoon Jae-hee and Seung-woo paid them no mind, simply facing each other. Yoon Jae-hee held up the mock pistol in his hand.

"I've still got rounds left, you know."

"Th-then let's settle this fair and square!"

"Hmm. How, exactly?"

"A knife duel!"

Truthfully, a thirty-on-one matchup had never been fair to begin with — and Yoon Jae-hee hadn't minded at all. In fact, he hadn't even used the various advantages the PD had arranged for him.

"Deal!"

"Go get him, Seung-woo!"

The cheering around them grew so loud that an automated voice warned them to tone it down for the broadcast. Seung-woo glanced sheepishly at Yoon Jae-hee, having been the one who started it.

"S-so, what do you say?"

"Sure. Let's see how much you've grown."

Unlike Choi Tae-yang, who had doggedly challenged him time and again back at Wings Company, Seung-woo had rarely tested himself against Yoon Jae-hee directly. He had only ever watched from the sidelines while others sparred.

But not today. Yoon Jae-hee holstered the pistol and drew his knife — a rubber training blade that oozed paint on contact.

So he's done his homework on me, has he?

No wonder he spent all that time just observing. He smiled at the way Seung-woo came charging in, and slipped the attack by a razor's margin. Because he knew his own habitual movements inside and out, every one of Seung-woo's motions registered with piercing clarity.

He's improved a lot. His openings are as plain as day, though.

Seung-woo fought with a rare, almost disarming honesty these days — no feints, no deception. That honesty was the very reason Yoon Jae-hee had reached out to him the moment he returned to Korea and yet...

He still hasn't broken that habit of his, I see.

He caught it: Seung-woo wrinkled his nose ever so slightly, and his eyes flicked toward the pistol at Yoon Jae-hee's waist. A split second's tell.

"Seung-woo, you can do it!"

"The pride of our Soldiers!"

Yoon Jae-hee smiled. Seung-woo — the man who had demanded a fair and honorable knife duel — reaching to snatch a gun? Unthinkable in any other context.

But this was variety show filming. He was probably going for a dramatic reversal. Yoon Jae-hee obligingly left his flank open and whipped the knife in a quick arc.

Seung-woo, who had been biding his time, seized the pistol from his waistband and sprang back to open the distance.

"Ha! What do you say to that, Hyung-nim?"

"Well, well."

Yoon Jae-hee raised both hands in mock surrender. The eliminated players erupted in cheers, Seung-woo grinned triumphantly, and he pulled the trigger.

"...Huh?"

The paint round that should have fired — didn't. Seung-woo stared at Yoon Jae-hee, eyes wide and blank.

"There were never any rounds left in that thing."

"...What?"

"Good work out there."

Yoon Jae-hee gestured toward the back of his own neck, as if to say go ahead and check. Following that gesture, Seung-woo slowly raised a hand to the back of his own neck. The faint, damp smear of paint he felt there... surely not.

"Ah!"

There was something brushing the back of my neck when I grabbed the gun — so I hadn't imagined it. No, wait — when did he even land the hit?

Turns out I was the one who got played first.

Seung-woo let out a hollow laugh.

The moment the announcement crackled through the speakers, the fallen players swarmed toward Yoon Jae-hee.

"It's an honor."

"Wow, seriously, what WAS that? Cut us some slack!"

"I struggled out there too, you know."

Whether out of camera awareness or not, the players crowded around him and heaped on the praise. Soon even those eliminated earlier came drifting over to join the scrum.

That movement I saw earlier...

The Team 2 leader — Seung-woo's classmate from their training days — narrowed his eyes at Yoon Jae-hee, who stood trapped in the prison of compliments. When their gazes met, Yoon Jae-hee pressed a finger to his lips. The Team 6 leader, seeing it, promptly sealed his own mouth as well.

Wait. Our training instructor was Yoon Jae-hee?

Why the hell does that Seung-woo punk keep all the good intel to himself?

Under the two men's murderous glares, Seung-woo made a great show of looking elsewhere and fidgeting with something — anything — else.

"Great work out there, everyone!"

The PD, sprinting over at full tilt, was practically vibrating at the corners of his mouth. Honestly, he hadn't expected Yoon Jae-hee to make this big of a splash — which was why he'd laid out all those perks in advance: a revival ticket, powerful weapons, the works.

And Yoon Jae-hee had crafted a magnificent episode without using a single one of them.

This is going to be absolutely HUGE!

The moment this aired, the internet would explode. The PD itched to bolt straight to the editing suite.

"Director."

"There you are."

Yoon Jae-hee arrived at Lee Young-chang's workshop, a place familiar to him by now, and handed over an assortment of gifts he'd picked up in the States.

"How many times have I told you to stop bringing things."

"It would've felt wrong to come empty-handed. How's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the film coming along?"

"Premiere's just around the corner. You'd better be at the press screening."

"Wouldn't miss it."

The next project — one that had been in preparation since long before their reunion — was now mere weeks from release. The film meant for Yoon Jae-hee himself, however, had yet to move an inch.

"Nothing eventful on your end, I take it?"

Reading the look in Lee Young-chang's eyes as he asked, Yoon Jae-hee smiled.

I don't know what he's trying to observe in me, but I don't mind it. He's probably opening the door so I can talk about my complicated past, if I want to. And that makes me all the more grateful.

He took his time laying it out — wrapping up his affairs in America, and clearing up the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠misunderstandings with his family.

"Having become a parent myself, I think I finally understand your mother's heart."

"Your eldest is a teenager now, isn't he?"

"My youngest is."

Entering the second year of middle school — right at the age when a family becomes a running meme. Yoon Jae-hee could sympathize with the director's dark expression.

"In any case — a parent's role matters enormously to a child, but it's never absolute. There's so much a child simply never says, and so much that slips past us because of it."

"That's true."

"I'm glad you managed to clear the air, even this late."

Yoon Jae-hee found his conversations with Director Lee Young-chang easy and pleasant. This was the first person who knew the secret of his having once been Yoon Jae-hee, and he knew that no matter the circumstances, this was a man who would guard that secret.

So it was to Lee Young-chang alone that he confided the things he couldn't tell anyone else.

"Actually... something happened recently."

"Something bad?"

"Yes."

For days afterward, Han Jin-woo had made a point of calling ahead every time before visiting Yoon Jae-hee's home. Things were back to normal now, but the shock had been considerable.

"I even thought about going back to the States because of it. They have a well-established support system there for discharged soldiers."

"Absolutely not."

The words burst out of Lee Young-chang before he could temper them. After all this time, the man had finally climbed over his past and begun to unfurl his gift for acting — if he went back to America now, he might never return. The muse he had only just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠found again, and he'd speak of leaving before they'd even breathed together once more?

"Ahem. Of course, resolving your... situation is what matters most."

Lee Young-chang scrambled to recover. Yoon Jae-hee knew his heart well enough to let it slide, waving a hand as if to reassure him.

"So I tried to handle it in my own way. You remember what I told you before?"

"You mean overcoming your past on set."

"I went on that variety show to put it to the test."

"And?"

Yoon Jae-hee shook his head, a trace of disappointment in the gesture. He had played along with the Soldiers K cast at their own pace, deliberately drawing things out — and while doing so, he had studied his own interior. But the effect had never come, not the way it had during Daldongne.

"So that's why you've been holding off on Seo-won's film offer."

"Yes."