Emotional limits

Chapter 13: The Hopeless Search.

Jina wasn’t the type to intrude into other people’s worlds. She didn’t like noise and bustle. Jun Seo, whom she had met by chance, was exactly like that. Cold, unapproachable, and always creating a shell that very few people could penetrate. When they met, Jun Seo never spoke much. It was as if he lived in a separate world, where there was no room for deep relationships or sharing.

But even so, there was something about Jun Seo that Jina couldn’t ignore. The brief moments she saw his weakness, the hurt he tried to hide behind a mask, made her curious. Even though she wasn’t the type to pry into other people’s pasts, Jina sensed that Jun Seo wasn’t who he appeared to be. He wasn’t someone who could be simply ignored. That was for sure.

Then one day, in a chance conversation with an old friend of Jun Seo, she heard the story of his past. A crazy man, obsessed with power, adopted Jun Seo along with other children. These children were not normal children. They were turned into living experimental tools, forced to endure terrible trials to satisfy the man's blind faith. (Recap of the previous chapter=)).

From that moment on, everything changed for Jina. She could not ignore Jun Seo's past, even though he did not want to mention it. She knew that if she continued to let him live in that darkness, he would never truly escape it. But she also understood that, to help him, she had to find him first. And that was the difficult problem.

Jina did not give up easily, but she was not in a hurry either. That was her personality: patient, slow, never doing anything without careful preparation. She started searching, but there were no clear traces. Jun Seo was not someone who left behind easily recognizable clues. He had no close friends, no one who frequented him. What she knew were only the periods when he lived in isolation and seclusion. However, Jina did not give up. She started asking his few friends, those who used to live around the area where he used to live, but their answers were all the same: he was a person who lived in isolation, no one knew much about him. Gradually, Jina realized that it was not the people around her who would help her find him, but Jun Seo's past that was the key. She turned back to the stories about that crazy man. She searched for information about Jun Seo's friend from the other day, those who were affected by his experiments, those who had "disappeared". She didn't find many clues, but a strange bit of information about a remote area on the outskirts of the city caught her attention. This was where Jun Seo and the other children had lived for a short time after their escape. It was probably the only place he could go to hide, away from the man's pursuit.

Jina didn't know if that was where Jun Seo was hiding, but it was all she could do at the moment. She packed her bags and set off, unsure of what awaited her. She wasn't a professional detective, but she had a patience that not everyone had. After a few days of traveling, she finally reached the remote area. It wasn't an easy place to find, and Jina felt an indescribable sense of unease as she realized she was getting closer to Jun Seo.

The area had only a few small houses, most of which were abandoned or destroyed. She walked along the narrow road, her eyes always on guard. Everything here was gloomy and quiet, like a forgotten area. Finally, she found an old, dim house. It was the house where Jun Seo had lived during his first years on the run. She stood in front of the door, her hand tightly gripping the doorknob. Everything in this space had an eerie stillness, and Jina felt like she had wandered into a place where time no longer existed.

She walked in, her heart filled with anxiety. Traces of Jun Seo were still here, faint but clear. Old objects, memories left behind as part of the past. But Jun Seo was no longer here. Where had he gone? Even though she felt disappointed, Jina couldn't stop. She continued searching, room by room, until she finally found him.

Jun Seo stood in his old bedroom, his back to her. He didn't turn around, didn't say anything. The room was cold, as if nothing had changed in years. But Jina knew, this was a sign. He was here, he existed within these walls.

She approached, unhurried. She didn’t want to threaten him, but she couldn’t leave without saying anything. “Jun Seo…” She called his name, her voice soft but firm. “I want to help you. It sounds stupid, but I can be useful. I just don’t know if we can…”

Jun Seo didn’t turn around, but she could feel the tension in his body. He didn’t respond, but Jina knew he was listening.