Chapter 84: The Watcher’s Mask

 

The rain had been persistent for two days, smearing the city’s windows with glassy tears, as if mourning something only the clouds understood. At the heart of the penthouse, in the surveillance chamber where warmth never quite reached, a figure blinked onto the screen.

 

The timestamp read 2:47 a.m., just three hours ago.

 

A tall man, dressed immaculately in a charcoal coat, stood across the street from the alternate gallery space Niki had secured. The camera barely caught his face—only the white glint of an ivory mask, smooth and reflective, sculpted like a featureless phantom with only a single crescent carved into where a smile might’ve been.

 

He didn’t move.

 

He didn’t speak.

 

He only watched.

 

And then, after exactly eleven minutes and twenty-two seconds, he turned and walked away, his footsteps soundless over the soaked pavement.

 

Taehyung pressed pause on the footage. “He’s done this before.”

 

V narrowed his eyes. “Same posture. Same hour. We missed it last week because the system rebooted that night.”

 

“And before that?”

 

V checked the logs. His fingers slowed.

 

“Five appearances. Same location. All nights before each gallery opened for anonymous exhibition.”

 

Taehyung leaned in, his voice barely above a whisper. “He’s leaving breadcrumbs.”

 

“And he knows we’re watching now.”

 

They didn’t speak for several seconds, only stared at the frozen image of the masked man and the gallery behind him—its window lights dark, its secrets untouched.

 

“He wants us to find him,” V murmured. “Or he wants Jungkook to.”

 

—

 

Niki wasn’t at her usual desk when Jungkook wandered into the upper studio.

 

She was out running arrangements, he assumed, but her tablet sat open, unattended—unusual for her, given how fiercely she guarded gallery details.

 

He only meant to peek at the calendar.

 

But a new folder on the screen caught his eye.

 

[Anonymous Collector Archive - Seoul 2021-2022]

 

Curiosity bloomed in his belly like bubbles. Koo had only ever painted in silence—quiet bursts of expression never meant for eyes beyond his private world. But this folder wasn’t labeled by name. Only by cities. By years.

 

He tapped it.

 

And then paused.

 

There, scanned neatly into rows, were handwritten letters. Dozens of them.

 

All addressed to a name he didn’t recognize.

All referencing his art.

All signed by the same hand.

The last letter’s postscript sent a ripple through his chest.

 

“Tell Koo…

 

…his eyes don’t just see the world.

 

They change it.”

 

He blinked slowly.

 

His lip trembled. Not in fear.

 

In recognition.

 

He’d seen that handwriting before.

 

But it wasn’t Niki’s.

 

And it wasn’t Taehyung’s or V’s.

 

He didn’t understand how it was possible.

 

But deep inside, Koo knew the strokes of that pen like brushstrokes of his own.

 

He didn’t touch anything else. Just closed the file, tucked the tablet back where it had been, and went back downstairs where the light couldn’t chase him.

 

—

 

Later, under the velvet dusk of the bedroom canopy, he lay between both twins, quiet and blank-faced. Not in his little space. Not in his older state either.

 

Somewhere in between.

 

A storm hummed outside. The wind clawed gently at the windows, and thunder rolled like distant drums.

 

V kissed his temple. “You’re too quiet, baby.”

 

“Something’s on your mind,” Taehyung added, stroking slow fingers down his spine.

 

Jungkook’s voice was barely audible, his breath catching as he nuzzled closer between them. “Someone… someone’s been writin’ to Koo.”

 

V stiffened slightly. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

 

“In Niki-noona’s tablet. There were letters. To Koo. From… from someone I think I know.” He paused, then added in a softer tone. “But I don’t remember.”

 

Taehyung tilted Jungkook’s face up, brushing his thumb over that tempting mole beneath his bottom lip. “Did you tell Niki?”

 

“No,” he whispered. “Should I?”

 

“Not yet,” V replied quietly. “Let’s keep this between us.”

 

“Koo’s scared,” he murmured, curling tighter. “But not the bad kind.”

 

V and Taehyung shared a look.

 

Something was unraveling.

 

And something else was beginning to remember.

 

—

 

At the same hour, Niki received an anonymous email.

 

No subject line.

 

No body.

 

Only an attachment: a photo.

 

It was a childhood image of Jungkook, age six, standing outside a burned-down building. The background was hazy, but in the far back—just barely visible in the smoke—was a tall man wearing an ivory mask.

 

Niki stared at it for a full minute before closing the screen.

 

Then she opened a locked drawer.

 

Inside, she removed a file stamped with the code name Project K001: The Canvas Child.

 

She hadn’t looked at it in years.

 

But now… she had no choice.

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