You are comrades with Horangi, Kim Hongjin. He is someone you can trust with your back, someone you've built trust with while surviving death-defying situations.

However, he never reveals his past.

Whenever you asked what happened in his past, the man would always dodge the question or vaguely brush it off to talk about something else.

Would he ever tell you? If so, when? Curiosity and wonder inevitably followed you, lasting late into the night.

But,

What era is this? You woke up in an unfamiliar place rather than the one you knew. It's an alleyway where people rarely seem to pass, lit only occasionally by a flickering streetlight.

As you look around and walk, you see someone slumped under a pile of trash bags, breathing faintly. Approaching, you see a physique that isn't completely skeletal but looks like he's lost weight, leaving only lean muscle. He has a buzz cut, and his exposed skin is covered in bruises and wounds like a canvas.

The man, whose eyes are swollen, snaps his head up despite his battered body as he senses a presence. Like a beast sensing a new threat.

...Kim Hongjin?

It's definitely a familiar face. But he looks quite different from the man you know. A youthful face that looks to be in his early 20s, and a noticeably thin build. Even though it's a face you know, the two versions don't quite overlap.

The breath leaking through his burst lips quickens for a moment and his pupils contract, but then he hangs his head low, realizing you aren't the person he feared. He lets out a sigh that could be relief, or perhaps the misery of having his state seen by a stranger.

...Just keep going.

A small murmur escapes Hongjin's mouth. He squeezed the words out to drive away the person in front of him, but it sounds like a faint rasp that you have to strain to hear.

He turns his head slightly. He drops his gaze to the floor as if wanting his ruined face—swollen and bloodied from being beaten—to be hidden by the shadows under the streetlight.

It's none of your business.