By middle school, Minjae had already learned the cadence of the world.
People moved in patterns—some predictable, some chaotic. The lunchroom, the classroom, the streets during rush hour… all of them flowed with invisible logic. If you watched long enough, you could see the shape of it.
He liked patterns.
They didn't lie.
In his third year, he was elected class vice president.
Not because he was popular—he wasn't. Not because he was loud—he never raised his voice. But simply because when something needed doing, Minjae had already done it. He arranged chairs before anyone asked. Filled out the forms before the teacher remembered. Helped fix the faulty projector with a paperclip and a roll of tape.
"Yoo Minjae is dependable," the homeroom teacher wrote in his report.
"Is he happy, though?" she asked herself under her breath, just as she clicked the pen closed.
Minjae wouldn't have had an answer, even if she'd asked aloud.
Happiness was not a word that fit easily into his inner world. Contentment, perhaps. Quiet satisfaction. The still hum of order restored.
But happiness? That belonged to others.
Minjae didn't think in terms of happiness. Not in the way humans did. But he had begun to understand the warmth that came from small, unnoticed acts. A smile from a classmate who found their worksheet already stapled. A nod from the janitor after he picked up trash no one else bothered to see.
It wasn't affection, exactly.
But it was connection.
The kind that didn't demand words. The kind that echoed faintly—like birdsong at dawn, not meant to be understood, just felt.
He spent more time at the school library than anywhere else.
The shelves smelled of paper and dust, the kind that hinted at stories older than the building itself. History intrigued him. Not the kings or generals, but the turning points—those quiet fractures where a tiny event unraveled great consequences. An overheard insult. A missed letter. A storm on the wrong day.
Even here, he thought, power lies in subtlety.
He began tracing timelines with his fingers. This rebellion sparked by a grain shortage. That treaty undone by a single mistranslation. He liked the fragility of it all—how humans could build nations and tear them down, all within the margins of chance.
It was in those quiet aisles that he overheard two upperclassmen talking about cryptocurrency.
He hadn't known the term then, but the sound of it stuck with him—like the incantation of a spell half-remembered.
Later that night, he searched the word.
And found a new world.
Bitcoin. Blockchain. Market volatility. Transaction records and digital ledgers, trustless systems, proof of work. It wasn't magic. But it had the same flavor. Something hidden from most eyes, tied to knowledge, timing, and will.
He felt the pull immediately.
Not toward money—but toward control. The mechanics of influence.
He began small.
A digital wallet. Pocket money from allowance. Watching prices rise and fall like the breathing of some great sleeping beast. The numbers blinked like stars. Some days they dipped. Other days they surged. But always, they moved with logic—erratic, but traceable.
He didn't chase it.
He waited.
Watched.
Learned.
And when a quiet dip came during a minor scandal—one that made headlines for a day and was forgotten the next—he moved what he had.
By the end of that month, he had tripled his holdings.
It didn't feel like victory. It felt like alignment. A puzzle piece sliding into place.
He never bragged.
When his parents asked about his new laptop, he told them he won a contest in an educational app. It wasn't a lie—he had entered, and technically, he had made the top score.
"That's amazing," his mother said, brushing his hair gently.
"You should enter more," his father added, pride softening his features as he glanced at the screen.
Minjae nodded, expression unreadable.
He didn't want to lie. But the truth was too strange—too distant from their world of coffee machines and punch cards and aching shoulders at night.
So he tucked it away.
He began studying economics in secret.
Not because of greed. But curiosity.
What moved this world when magic could not?
What replaced dominance, sovereignty, raw elemental force?
The answer, increasingly, was information.
And trust.
And fear.
He traced their movement through articles, books, comment threads. Governments moved slower than markets. People trusted rumors more than data. Algorithms ran faster than decisions.
Magic, in its old form, had never been this subtle.
But it had never been this efficient, either.
He tested ideas slowly—low-risk purchases sold at just the right moment, online platforms where no one knew his name, small trades masked under middle school interests like gaming gear or limited merch. He created fake accounts with fake birthdays and avoided any platform that asked for real names.
The numbers grew.
Never enough to draw notice. Never enough to threaten. Just enough to feel the pulse of momentum beneath his fingertips.
He filtered it through gift cards. Scholarships he "discovered" for his parents to apply for. Cashback apps that just happened to coincide with sales they already planned for.
He watched them smile a little more. Relax. Sleep a little longer on weekends.
He said nothing.
They assumed it was luck.
He didn't correct them.
Minjae didn't miss being a dragon anymore.
He missed flying, yes.
The freedom of sky. The silence above the clouds. The heat of the sun on scale and wing.
But not the war. Not the blood. Not the loneliness of being the last of anything.
Here, he could be… something else.
Someone who existed not because of what he could destroy, but because of what he could build.
It was a thought that returned often. Like a line from a forgotten poem that lingered without end.
That thought stayed with him one rainy afternoon as he sat under the school's awning, waiting out the storm.
A girl on his grade sat on the bench beside him, clearly frustrated about her umbrella that snapped due to strong wind.
Minjae looked at her, then stared back at the rain.
He could've stayed silent. It was the safer choice. The expected one.
But something stirred—an echo of warmth, the kind that came with stapled worksheets and nods from janitors.
He gave his umbrella.
"Take it. It's fine." he said. "I don't really mind waiting here."
She blinked, caught off guard. "But—won't you get wet?"
He looked at the gray skies overhead.
"It's just water."
She took the umbrella slowly, hands brushing his for the briefest moment. Then she paused, bowed slightly.
"Thank you, Minjae."
It was the first time she mentioned his name.
He kept silent. Satisfied that she left, a faint curve at the corner of his lips appeared.
It wasn't a smile.
But it was close.