RAINBOW OF TEARS
SEOUL – LUXE PLAZA TOWER, BOARDROOM
The air was chilled to the point of sterility, smelling of polished mahogany, expensive coffee, and quiet, vicious ambition. Park Min-Ji sat at the head of the vast table, a position that felt less like a throne and more like a target. The bi-weekly board meeting was in session.
"…and the Q2 projections for the 'Luxe Horizon' expansion into the Jongno district remain on track," she concluded, her voice a model of controlled clarity. On the massive screen behind her, graphs glowed with optimistic green arrows. "Acquisition of the remaining properties is at 87% completion."
"87%," echoed Uncle Yong-sik from her right. He stirred his coffee with a deliberate clink. "A costly percentage, Min-Ji-ya. The legal fees from that… market case alone have eroded the margin. And then there's the matter of the badwill." He said the word like a curse. "The papers are calling us 'The Mall That Eats Neighborhoods.'"
"Public sentiment is a manageable variable," Min-Ji replied, keeping her eyes on the broader board. "The long-term ROI—"
"The long-term is built on a stable present," interjected Aunt Soo-jin, her father's sister, her smile a razor blade coated in lipstick. "And stability has been… lacking. First the lawsuit. Then your car's unfortunate malfunction on the expressway. It makes investors nervous. It makes the family nervous."
The unspoken threat hung in the refrigerated air. We see your vulnerability. We scent blood.
Min-Hyuk's words from the taxi echoed in her mind. "Sometimes it's a conclusion." She needed one now. A conclusion that would cement her authority, not undermine it.
"The malfunction is being handled by security," she stated, her gaze locking onto Yong-sik. She didn't blink. "Perhaps too many of our resources are focused on internal scrutiny, rather than external competitors."
A faint flicker in his eye. Surprise, then irritation. Good.
The meeting dissolved into a debate over marketing budgets, a safe battlefield. Min-Ji participated, her mind working on a separate track. The sabotage had been a message. The board's pressure was the follow-up. They were testing the walls of her cage. She needed leverage. She needed something they couldn't predict.
She needed an outsider.
---
SEOUL – RAINBOW TAXI FORTRESS, B3 GARAGE
The garage was a cathedral of controlled chaos. The Rainbow Taxi sat gleaming under the lights, next to a black SUV being fitted with reinforced panels by Kyung-goo. The hum of machinery was the base note to the melody of focused work.
At a separate workstation, Min-Hyuk and Ahn Go-eun were refining the Proteus System. On a monitor, a 3D model of a man's face—their Bupyeong slumlord target—twitched and grimaced, running through a series of micro-expression simulations generated by Go-eun's Eidolon Core.
"The dermal layer response is 93% accurate," Min-Hyuk noted, examining a readout of simulated capillary flush on the cheeks. "But the thermal signature decay is off by 0.4 degrees. A sustained scan under infrared would see it."
"I'm tweaking the hemoglobin simulation algorithm," Go-eun muttered, her fingers a blur. "It's not just blood flow, it's emotional response. Fear causes a different heat pattern than anger…"
Jang Sung-chul approached, holding a tablet. "The slumlord, Kang Deok-su, is having a private meeting with a city zoning official tomorrow night at the 'Blue Dragon' bathhouse. It's a sweat-and-deal. Perfect for a close-range infiltration to plant audio surveillance. Do-gi will handle the op." He looked at the face on the screen. "He'll need that."
"It'll be ready," Min-Hyuk said. His Instant Calculation projected the fabrication time: 41 minutes. Application and behavioral coaching for Do-gi: 2 hours. Success probability with Proteus: 89%. Without: 47%.
Sung-chul nodded, then his expression shifted. "We have another incoming variable. A pre-booking came through the regular dispatch line. Corporate account, top-tier. For a 'reliable night driver' for the Luxe Plaza director. For the entire evening."
Min-Hyuk's hands stilled for a millisecond. Calculation: Min-Ji's move. Seeking continuity. Seeking… protection? Or intelligence?
"It's her," Do-gi said, appearing from behind the SUV, wiping grease from his hands. His tone was flat. "The chaebol princess. Her world is poison. We deliver revenge for victims, not become private security for the privileged."
"She may become a victim on our roster very soon," Sung-chul countered calmly. "And her world's poison is spilling into ours—onto our roads, targeting someone one of our drivers saved. That makes it our business. Min-Hyuk, you're the contact. You take the job. Observe. Report. The line between client and target is blurring. We need to know which side of it she's on."
The logic was impeccable. Yet, a quiet alarm rang in a deep, rarely-accessed part of Min-Hyuk's mind. This wasn't a variable in a revenge equation. This was a person. A person who had looked at him not with the gratitude of a rescued victim or the hatred of a defeated opponent, but with a profound, searching curiosity that saw past the lawyer and the driver.
"Understood," he said, his voice betraying nothing.
---
SEOUL – THAT EVENING
Min-Hyuk, back in his dark driver's jacket, picked up Park Min-Ji not from her office, but from a discreet side entrance of the National Museum of Modern Art. She was attending a charity gala, a glittering cage of her own making.
She slid into the backseat. She wore an evening gown the color of midnight, a diamond necklace like frozen tears at her throat. The facade was absolute. But as soon as the door closed, the mask slipped. She let out a long, slow breath, her shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch.
"Drive. Anywhere," she said, her voice weary.
He pulled into the flow of traffic around Samcheong-dong, the streets quieter here, lined with galleries and traditional walls.
"The board meeting," he stated after a few minutes. It wasn't a question.
She gave a short, bitter laugh. "Was it that obvious?"
"Your breathing pattern is 18% shallower than baseline. Your lingual micro-movements indicate suppressed verbal responses. You're holding in words you wanted to say."
She stared at the back of his head, stunned. "How could you possibly know that?"
Because my senses are calibrated to notice the twitch of a finger on a trigger, the dilation of a pupil before a lie. "Observation," he said simply.
"They're circling," she confessed, the words escaping as if drawn out by the taxi's quiet motion. "The car 'malfunction' was their opening move. Today was the probe. My uncle, my aunt… they don't just want my position. They want to dismantle everything I'm trying to build. The 'Luxe Horizon' expansion isn't just business to me. It's… a proof of concept. That we can grow without just crushing what's underneath." She said it quietly, as if admitting a weakness.
Instant Calculation: Sincerity probability: 86%. A conflicted heiress was a more complex variable than a straightforward villain.
"Why tell me?" he asked, turning onto a tree-lined road along the old city wall.
"Because you're not in their ledger," she said, looking out at the dark stones. "You don't owe them. You don't fear them. You just… are. You see the cracks in things. You saw the crack in their contract. You saw the crack in my car." She met his eyes in the mirror again. "I need someone who sees the cracks."
The taxi was a confessional on wheels. He was the silent priest receiving the sins of corporate royalty.
"Seeing a crack is one thing," he said. "Fixing it is another. The law has limits."
"I'm beginning to understand," she said slowly, "that your relationship with the law is… flexible. You wield it like a master, then you drive away in a taxi. What do you do, Kim Min-Hyuk, when the law is the crack?"
The question was dangerously close to the truth of his night work. Deflect. Redirect.
"I drive," he said. "And I wait for the next fare."
A small, genuine smile touched her lips, the first he'd ever seen. It transformed her face, melting the ice queen into a young woman burdened by an empire. "A philosopher in a taxi cab."
They drove in a more comfortable silence now. He took her to a quiet pojangmacha tent near the Han River, far from the gala's champagne flutes. She hesitated, then stepped out, her diamond necklace glaringly out of place among the steaming odeng pots and soju-drinking salarymen. She didn't seem to care. They sat on plastic stools. She ate a fish cake skewer with a concentration that was almost heartbreaking.
"This is real," she said, gesturing with the skewer at the bustling, unglamorous scene. "The mall… it's a beautiful illusion. But sometimes I wonder if I'm just the chief illusionist."
Back in the taxi later, her phone buzzed incessantly—family, aides, the endless pull of her world. She silenced it.
"Take me home," she said, her voice soft. "The real one. Not the tower."
He knew the address. The old Hanok villa in Seongbuk-dong, the family's ancestral home, where her ailing grandfather lived.
When he stopped at the gate, she didn't immediately leave. The space between the seats felt charged again, but with a different energy—not of fear or suspicion, but of a fragile, nascent connection.
"Thank you," she said. "For the drive. For… not treating me like a director tonight."
"You're welcome, Min-Ji-ssi," he said. The use of her name, without the title, was deliberate.
She paused, her hand on the door handle. "That conclusion I need to get to… I think I'm going to need a very good driver."
She slipped out into the night, the silhouette of the traditional Hanok roof framing her like a picture from another life.
Min-Hyuk watched her go. The assignment was to observe and report. He had observed a woman torn between a legacy of power and a desire for meaning. He had reported nothing to the base yet.
His own phone buzzed. A message from Go-eun.
Proteus mask for Do-gi is complete. He's in character. Mission is a go for 2200.
Two worlds. In one, he was helping craft a face to expose corruption in a bathhouse. In the other, he was the unnamed confidant to a queen under siege.
He started the engine. The Rainbow Taxi was a vessel that traveled between them all. But for the first time, Kim Min-Hyuk felt the weight of the road not just beneath his tires, but in his own, artificially-perfected heart.
[End of Episode 4]
[Status: Operational]
[Vigilante Mission: Active (Blue Dragon Infiltration)]
[Chaebol Variable: Park Min-Ji (Shifting from Threat to Potential Ally/Client)]
[Internal Conflict: Min-Hyuk's Detachment Protocol - Showing Signs of Stress]
[Next Episode: The Face in the Steam & The Hand in the Dark.]