Chapter Text
─── ᗢ ───
Guide Control Act, Section I, Clause II
"A Guide, once identified, is no longer subject to familial claim, civil protection, or provincial law. Their service is sacred, their body and mind imperial properties."
It began the way gravity does. Soft, invisible and irreversible.
Not with the roar of war machines or the scream of alarms, but the quiet hum of drones drifting over Neo-Sidney’s skyline, steady as breath. A sound that settled into the bones. That told you, without fanfare, you were being watched .
Jake had always known this day would come.
One can’t live like a meteor drifting just out of orbit forever. Sooner or later, something pulled you in. A planet. A star. A blackhole.
Jake had always known this day would come.
The world he lived in didn’t make space for people like him. Not really. Not openly. The Galactic Empire had reshaped the structure of human life across the stars, building provinces out of ash and metal after the First Warfare. Earth had been carved like a carcass, strategic sectors for industry, genetics, military output. Neo-Sidney was part of the South Orbit Military Corridor, located in the Pacific Rim Province, and Jake Sim had been born into its elite.
His father, Commander Elias Sim, was a decorated Sentinel and a man of duty. His mother, a former biomedic, passed before Jake ever understood the way grief rewires a man. But Jake remembered the softness in her voice when she said, “Keep your pulse quiet. Don’t let anyone feel it.” She must’ve also known, that the day would come.
Because Jake was a Guide.
And in this world, that meant he was hunted.
The government called it The Last Guide Program, a carefully worded attempt to classify a tragedy. After the Second Intergalactic Warfare, Guides had become scarce. Some claimed genetic exhaustion. Others blamed exposure to the old psionic weapons. Whatever the reason, when a Guide was found now, they were marked, taken into military custody, bonded to Sentinels in service of the Empire.
“Precious,” the Senate called them.
“Property,” whispered everyone else.
Jake Sim was never supposed to exist, at least, not like this. Not free.
Although his father was a Sentinel, or perhaps especially because he was one, he had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep Jake hidden. He masked his readings, falsified bloodwork with military clearances, and trained Jake to keep his pulse steady and silent, even when nightmares clawed at the edges of his mind.
He couldn’t go to school. Couldn’t play with other children, especially if one of them happened to be a latent Sentinel. An accidental pulse, especially from an untrained Guide, could trigger a reaction. They were never strong enough to break a zone, but the stimulation was measurable. Traceable.
It was a lonely childhood. But Jake never truly felt alone.
His father made sure of that. So did his older brother, and the few loyal staff members who knew what he was. He was raised behind walls, but with love and care. Schooled in every subject, though his tutors always pointed out his true talent lay in physics and engineering. His brother shared martial arts lessons with him, sparring between laughter and bruises. And sometimes, their father would join, turning their plays into a small, secret world.
Maybe that’s why it hurt so much when they finally came for him.
It was raining the night the Sweep Operation began.
They’d gone out for the annual identity verification, a routine inspection required of every legal citizen. His family always waited until the final days of the deadline. It was less crowded then, and enforcer patrols thinned out. The lull made it easier for his father to call in favors, to slip Jake through the system unnoticed.
But this year, something was different. The deadline had been shortened without warning, forcing them into a rushed appointment. The reason made itself known just as they were climbing the stairs at the entrance of the Department of Registry Affairs.
Sirens in Neo-Sidney didn’t wail. They sang with sterile, melodic layers of a female-coded AI, soft as velvet and just as smothering.
“ATTENTION: Omega Sweep Operation active. All civilians remain stationary. Identification scanning in progress.”
Drones filled the aerial space of the city like vultures and a stillness washed over the crowd, unnatural and sharp, like the breath held before a blade fell, as holographic scanners swept the crowd.
“Move,” Commander Sim said, as if that would prevent anything from happening, but Jake felt the sweep net before it touched him. A low-grade field designed to tug at specific resonance patterns. And Guides… they vibrated differently.
His father started to pull him closer, move away from the crowd when the blue hologram from the net turned red around Jake, eyes frantic as he calculated exit strategies in his head. But Jake knew, from the moment the net passed through him, the drones halted. He’d triggered the scan.
There was no more hiding.
They were surrounded before the second breath.
Imperial Extraction Forces moved without sound, black uniforms, visors lit with tactical readouts. One of them stepped forward, scanning Jake’s ID Chip behind his ear.
“Unregistered Guide signature detected. Subject: male, class unidentified, provisional.”
Jake could feel his father’s hand clench behind his back, a silent restraint or maybe a futile attempt of keeping him close.
When one of the enforcers tried to grab Jake, his father moved first. In less than a breath, Jake was behind him, pulled under the protective span of a broad back and an outstretched arm. One arm locked across his chest like steel, the other moved with the swiftness of muscle memory, reaching for the gun holstered at his hip.
Jake’s breath came shallow, adrenaline icing over his veins as his hands grabbed the sleeves of his father’s uniform. He could feel them now, there were Sentinels among the enforcers. Their presence pressed at his senses like heavy static. He wasn’t trained, not fully, but instinct didn't care about preparation. It vibrated under his skin, raw and rising, begging for escape. His father was strong, he’d seen that his whole life, but there were too many. Too many Sentinels. Too many guns. And Jake couldn’t help the sick feeling curling in his stomach: What if something happened to him?
“Commander Sim.” One of the officers stepped forward, weapon held low but ready. He dipped his head in shallow acknowledgment. “You are ordered to comply. Failure to do so will result in immediate detainment under the Guide Obstruction Act.”
The words were a death sentence wrapped in regulation.
Jake’s gaze flicked between them. The other enforcers had drawn weapons. Not raised but waiting. Waiting for a twitch. For a refusal. The air was taut with the promise of violence, and Jake knew they wouldn’t hesitate.
For a moment, the world narrowed to options. Fight or run. But this wasn’t a movie. There was no hidden escape route. No miracle backup plan. He could feel his father’s arm tighten, the low tremble of fury just beneath his skin, the way his muscles coiled like a spring about to snap. His father would fight, would die trying to protect him, and Jake knew, with searing certainty, that he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t destroy his family in one desperate act.
He looked up and saw it in his father’s face, jaw locked against helplessness, the barely-restrained fear in his eyes. And Jake made the decision.
“I-I’m turning myself in,” he said, voice trembling along with the thunder in his chest.
He flinched at any movement. His eyes filled with tears. Beside him, his father choked in disbelief.
“Jaeyun, don’t-” his voice cracked, low and desperate. His hand clawed for his son’s arm, for anything to hold on to.
Jake stepped forward, gently slipping from his father’s grasp.
“Let my father go.”
But they didn’t let him go.
Despite his surrender, despite the clear compliance, Jake and his father were both taken into custody. Cuffed and surrounded by enforcers like a silent threat, their posture alone enough to herd the two men into the transport craft. It was a quiet ride, the hum of the engine pressing on Jake’s skull like a migraine, making him press himself along his father's side, silent tears creating dark patches into the blue of his uniform. Beside him the man was rigid, face unreadable.
They were taken to an Imperial Outpost, one of the larger ones just outside the city limits. It was all glass and steel, long corridors that smelled of antiseptic and something sharper, like singed data wiring. Security drones buzzed quietly overhead, and the lights were too white, too clean, the kind that made skin look colorless.
Jake was separated from his father the moment they entered.
He was led into a sealed room, transparent walls on three sides, the kind of space designed less for comfort and more for observation. Two enforcers flanked the door as a third stepped in, his uniform pressed sharp enough to slice. A scanner table waited in the center, shaped like an arch, haloed with pale blue light.
“Remove your outerwear and stand in the scanframe,” the man instructed, voice devoid of interest.
Jake hesitated, then complied. The machine hissed as it activated, lines of energy sweeping vertically and horizontally over his body, brushing his skin like static. The pulse reader engaged next with sharp needles that prickled against his temples and the base of his neck. It was invasive and painful, pulling out a whiny yelp he couldn’t hold back and if he wasn’t crying already, it would have definitely made his eyes sting with tears.
The machine beeped. Then again. And then once more, louder.
A light blinked red, and the officer straightened. His brows pulled together as he glanced at the tablet syncing with the scanner’s results. He tapped through the screens in silence.
“Subject confirmed: Guide-class. Ranking-S.”
Jake blinked. He didn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t that. S-class. The highest tier. The rarest. The ones that weren’t just paired with any Sentinels, but assigned to command-grade ones, the strongest and most dangerous.
Afterwards, he was pushed harshly into an interrogation room, where the officer droned on and on about how Jake had gone so long without being caught. At some point he looked up again, eyes tired and clearly annoyed.
“Again,” he said. “Who else knew?”
Jake licked his dry lips. “No one. Just my family.”
“You expect us to believe that?” the man snapped, stepping closer, the weight of his authority like a second presence in the room. “No tutor? No tech? No neighbor saw the signs? Your records have been wiped clean and that means someone covered for you. Someone helped. Who?”
“I told you,” Jake said, voice small but steady with bone-deep tiredness, eyes red-rimmed but no longer wet. “No one. Just my father.”
The officer’s expression twisted, frustrated, suspicious. Jake expected him to strike, maybe not physically, but with threats, with drugs, with neural needles. But instead, the man sneered and turned, pressing a command into his tablet before walking out.
Jake barely had a moment to breathe before another person entered. This time, not in enforcer black but in a sterile technician's uniform, gray and white, marked with the Imperial Medical Division insignia.
She was older, with streaks of silver in her dark hair, and her features were calm, professional. But when her eyes met Jake’s, something in her face softened.
“Jake Sim?” she asked, her voice low and careful.
He nodded, wary.
She approached and held out a tablet, offering it instead of shoving it in his face. “I’m Dr. Haneul Min. I’ll be conducting your preliminary neurological evaluations. I... I knew your mother.”
Jake froze.
The world narrowed, his throat tightening. “You-what?”
“She was a brilliant biomedic. One of the best I’d ever trained under. We worked together in the Coalition Medical Wing before she passed.” She looked at him with something close to sadness. “You have her eyes.”
His knees nearly buckled. Outside of his family, his mother hadn’t been mentioned by anyone in years. Jake swallowed thickly.
“My father?” he rasped.
Dr. Min nodded gently. “He won’t be arrested. The Council’s ruling already passed down. Your surrender qualified under a Class S override, and given your father's rank and decorated service, they’ve decided not to pursue charges.”
Jake exhaled fast and shaky.
“But…” she added quietly, “he will be stripped of his military patent. They’ll retire him. Officially, his record will remain untarnished, but he’ll be removed from active duty effective immediately.”
Jake’s shoulders sagged, the tension bleeding out of him all at once. It was a punishment, yes but not one that came with bars or bullet wounds. His father would be safe. That was all he cared about.
He nodded, unable to form words. Dr. Min gave him a quiet moment before continuing.
“Now,” she said gently, placing the scanner helmet in place, “let’s begin the neuro-compatibility test. I’ll try to make it as quick as possible.”
And Jake let the scan begin, eyes closing, pulse thrumming.
The next time Jake saw his father, it was only for a moment. A glimpse through the blurred distortion of a one-way panel, the glass fogged slightly from the temperature-controlled room Jake had been locked inside. His father stood on the other side, eyes locked on him like a man already mourning someone still alive. He pressed his hand against the glass, his voice muffled but desperate as it filtered through the intercom.
“I’ll get you out, Jaeyun. Don’t worry. Dad got this.”
But Jake knew better. They were words meant to soothe, not promises meant to be kept. In his father’s eyes, Jake saw guilt. Rage. Powerlessness. And worst of all, he saw sadness. That was the last time he saw him.
After that, Jake was escorted down sterile corridors, the silence louder than any screaming. They brought him to a secluded processing room with no windows nor warmth. Just polished steel and sterile light that made his skin feel too tight around his body. They gave him a uniform, plain and pale-gray, and told him to change. He did so with trembling hands, pulse low and controlled out of instinct more than defiance. The moment he finished, the enforcer returned, not alone.
In his gloved hands was the collar.
It was thinner than Jake expected, sleek black, no more than half a centimeter thick. Lightweight and almost elegant. But he knew better. Knew what it meant. The moment it was secured around his neck, a soft hiss activated the embedded lock. He felt it click into place with a sharp prickle, the cold kiss of tech syncing with the neural relay just at the base of his nape.
He’d seen collars like it before, on Guides who had been caught, subdued, claimed. The glossy surface was broken only by two touch-screen pads on either side, each glowing faintly with a digital pulse. Inside, it was much worse: biometric readers tracked everything from location, heart rate, fluctuation of pulse, and most importantly, emotional frequency spikes that could trigger a Pulse Flare.
For an untrained S-Class Guide like Jake, that meant constant regulation. The collar would monitor him, suppress any natural instinct to guide, and most of all, it avoided any low unpermitted sentinel to demand his guidance and ensured he couldn’t freely choose who he guided.
That right was stripped away.
Until bonding, only his appointed officer could deactivate the suppression field with their digital authorization. Then and only then could he guide. Then and only then could he feel his own pulse untethered. But his ability would remain exclusively tied to his bonded Sentinel.
It hurt not because it prickled his skin and part of his field awareness, but because it stole his freedom.
Once the collar was secured, they updated his ID chip, a small silver node embedded behind his right ear. A single beep confirmed the transfer. He was officially property of the Coalition now.
Imperial ID: S-JY/EN-1115
Designation: NATURAL GUIDE – NON-INSTITUTIONALIZED
Classification: Class S+
Current Status: Unbonded. Under military supervision.
Home Province: Neo-Sidney, Pacific Rim Province, Earth
Age of Registration: 21
Hair: Black | Eyes: Blue
As they escorted him out, Jake caught the tail end of a conversation between two officers outside the door. His name. His class. His destination.
“-being transferred to the Eastern Training Base.”
“Farther East Province?” one asked.
“Top-tier facility. Remote, secure. Ideal for an untrained S-Class. Especially one who slipped through the cracks this long.”
Jake didn’t speak. He didn’t resist. He just let them take him.
The Guide Training Facility was buried deep in the mountain ranges that had once belonged to northern Japan, although that name didn’t exist anymore on any modern map. Only coordinates and coded districts. The wind there cut sharper, thinner than anywhere Jake had lived before. Cold enough that the breath in his lungs burned.
The campus was enormous and eerily silent, buildings carved into the sides of cliffs and tunneled through stone. Every window was mirrored from the inside out so no one could see in, and the Guides weren’t allowed to see out.
He remembered the way the cold touched his collar first. How it found the metal before it found his skin. A silent promise: you don’t belong to yourself anymore.
The facility was cold by design. Everything in the Farther East Province was. Temperature control kept the Guides dulled, their pulses quieter, more manageable. The moment he stepped into the Guide Sector, he was told it would be his new home. They didn’t ask if he wanted it.
Jake learned quickly. He had no choice.
But learning was something Jake had always done well, naturally gifted and curious, but above everything, he had been raised to prepare. His father, a decorated Sentinel officer, had trained him physically from the moment he could stand without wobbling. His older brother had taught him to take a punch and land a better one. Their weekend sparring sessions had been masked as family bonding, but Jake understood now, his father wasn’t just teaching him to fight. He was teaching him to survive.
He could still remember those mornings: sweat stinging his eyes, the low thrum of his father’s voice laugh as he urged him to get up again, just one more time, to not let his brother win. And he always did happily, proud in making his father proud, to say “Look, hyung, I’m as strong as you and dad!” even if he could never be as strong as two Sentinels.
His intellect came from his mother, sharp and endlessly curious. Even after her death, her presence lived in the shelves of their home, in the notes she left in textbooks, in the tutors she had personally selected for him. Jake had devoured information like it might save his life someday. Politics, law, tech, history, psychology and especially the Sentinel-Guide Codex. He knew it backward. Every clause and every horrifying truth hidden in clinical language.
He had always known this day could come. And so he had studied, trained, waited.
And now he was here.
He learned how to drop into a Guide State, how to slow his breath and open his mind’s channel like a door, inviting, but not welcoming. He was taught to ground a Sentinel on command, to breathe for two, to think for two, to anchor another’s psyche inside his own without crumbling under the pressure. He learned to be a stabilizer. A lifeline. A leash.
They taught him to smile when it hurt, to speak in low tones that wouldn't agitate the Sentinels or trigger alarms. They taught him how to disappear in plain sight.
But Jake Sim refused to disappear.
He didn’t scream or beg. He didn’t break even if he cried. His rebellion came in smaller, sharper forms. He called out instructors who degraded the younger Guides. He corrected them when they quoted laws incorrectly. He whispered truths to the other Guides when no one was listening.
And he remembered every name.
The other Guides, most of them kids, looked at him like a myth. A grown man. Someone who had lived a life before this place. Jake came to love them in a way. He played with them during downtime, helped with breathing exercises, walked them through drills. Most had been brought to the facility right after birth and never seen the sky. Others had been caught as teens, snatched mid-life, like him. But none of them had a past like his.
So he told them stories.
Of what school was like even if he never had gone to one, only seeing in movies. Of the taste of fastfood, of walking down a busy street during a rainstorm, of animals that weren’t digital renderings. He talked about stars. About the many different genres of music. About family. About how even though he was scared too, and angry, and so full of grief he sometimes couldn’t sleep, he wasn’t going to let himself become someone he didn’t recognize.
He was not a product. Not a number. Not a pulse to be managed.
Yes, he was afraid. He missed his father’s voice, his brother’s jokes, the quiet click of Mr. Oh’s pen at the kitchen table, his father’s guide. He wanted to scream some days, to fight, to tear the collar from his neck and make them feel what they’d taken from him.
But more than anything, Jake Sim did not want to lose himself.
That was the line he would not let them cross. So once in a while,his temperament would flare, a streak of rebellion would make itself known. He refused to call the Sentinels “sir,” and one time, during Zone Control drills, he looked one of the high-ranking military Sentinels in the eye and called him a parasite.
The room went dead silent. A moment later, the collar lit.
Jake dropped to his knees with a strangled sound as the surge ran up his spine. His jaw locked from the voltage, but he never looked away.
It happened more than once. The shock collar was programmed for obedience enforcement. Each pulse was short but efficient, an unmistakable reminder that no matter how smart or good he was, he had been claimed.
But still, they didn’t discard him. He wasn’t locked in ISO or marked as “unstable.” They didn’t sedate or suppress his records.
Because Jake Sim was valuable.
His psychological walls were stronger than most trained operatives. His instincts were clean, fast, and impossible to mimic. During field simulations, he dropped into resonance so quickly he outpaced the senior guide instructors. When he wasn’t resisting, when he allowed his mind to settle into stillness, his presence became gravitational. Sentinels in his radius unconsciously leaned into his frequency. Their vitals dropped. His pulse harmonized perfectly.
Even the Elite Sentinels who came to observe felt it. A deep, undeniable pull in the base of their instincts, the kind that made them stop in the middle of their stride, just to breathe in his presence.
Natural compatibility. Universal resonance.
Rare. Dangerous. Desired.
The facility administrators updated his file. A red marker appointed him for pairing priority.
The moment they found a match strong enough to hold him, Jake Sim would be bonded.
Whether he wanted it or not.
The day came only six months after he had been identified and the morning after his twenty-second birthday.
No celebration. No cake. Not even a quiet word of acknowledgment from the staff who handed him his washed uniform with robotic efficiency. Just the cold hum of the ventilation system, and the soft hiss of a door opening across the hallway. Jake had barely finished dressing when the summons came, his name spoken flatly over the intercom. He knew what it meant.
There were no pleasantries, no attempts at conversation as he was led down the long corridor lined with mirrored glass and biotrackers.
He was seated across a table made of reinforced steel, the room stark, the walls humming faintly with surveillance tech. Across from him, an officer with tired eyes and the stiff posture of someone desperate not to be involved, slid a thick tablet toward him.
Subject Transfer Notice
Receiving Sentinel: Captain Heeseung Lee
Imperial ID: L-HS/EN-1015
Designation: Sentinel
Classification: Class S+
Bonding Status: Unbonded (Voluntary Refusal)
Compatibility Index: 96.6%
Posting: Tactical Housing HYB-19, Tier 2 Clearance Sector, Zone Omega-East District - Neo-Seoul
Orders: Immediate relocation. Field training to commence.
Jake read the name three times.
Captain Heeseung Lee.
He knew it. Everyone in the facility did. The man was a legend whispered behind training walls. A Class S Sentinel with combat experience that spanned five years of bloody border disputes and three recorded urban insurgency terminations. And, more curiously, known for turning down every single Guide assigned to him.
“Refuses to bond,” one of the oldest training guides at the facility had once said at the breakfast table, while the latest military news was playing out on the central monitor. “I heard he uses Artificial Neuro-Guides exclusively. Like, he doesn’t need us.”
“Or hates us,” another of them had muttered. Jake had looked at both girls, they were teens, barely eighteen years old and already expecting to be paired up at any moment. It didn't seem likely, a Sentinel who hated Guides? In this society? Not when Guides were so highly valued Sentinels thought they had ownership rights or some shit like that.
Now, Jake stared at the monochrome image attached to the file of Captain Lee in uniform, dark eyes unblinking, hair slicked back against the regulation cut, expression unreadable. The information beside it glaring in underlined text: Voluntary Refusal.
Jake’s heart thudded harder than it should. His pulse spiked, just slightly, but enough that his collar chimed in warning. He ignored it. Let the fear settle cold in his stomach, tightening like a knot.
What was to happen to him?
He didn’t know what was worse: being bonded to someone who wanted a Guide so badly they’d crush him under need or being assigned to someone who didn’t want one at all.
Because if Captain Lee Heeseung had turned down every Guide before him…
Why hadn’t he turned down Jake?
And what did it mean, that he hadn’t?
They didn’t let him breathe before the transfer.
By the next morning, Jake was escorted into the fortified Zone Omega-East District of Neo-Seoul. His collar adjusted to sync with the Tactical Housing system, blinking once in authorization as the reinforced gates of the Outpost HYB-19 closed behind him.
It didn’t feel like military housing. It felt like a vault.
Tier 2 Clearance meant maximum regulation, with chrome architecture, glass security towers embedded with weaponized drones, walls pulsing with military-grade shielding. Inside, the Unit Complex stretched like a polished scar across the skyline. Each bonded pair was given a high-rise suite, customized to match Sentinel thresholds. Jake was led to the 04th floor, a narrow corridor humming with insulation fields.
He was told nothing.
No briefing. No schedule. No welcome. Only “Stand here” when he entered a wide, cold room lined with chromatic steel and clinical glass.
Captain Lee Heeseung was already inside.
The man sat at the end of the long table, posture a perfect mix of authority and boredom. Broad shoulders squared, hands resting calmly over a glowing tablet. His gaze was on the screen, not even flicking up when Jake entered with his responsible officer.
Jake stood behind a chair, the silence pressing against his skin like static. He recognized the tension immediately, controlled and deliberate. Heeseung wasn’t ignoring them. He was making a point.
He didn’t know what they were waiting for and felt bothered when Heeseung didn't even acknowledge them. But it all shifted the moment the Commander arrived.
As soon as the door slid open, Captain Lee stood. It was subtle, but respectful, a soldier clearly following protocol. He didn’t salute, but he acknowledged her rank, and Jake watched the interaction with barely contained intrigue.
“This is Sim Jaeyun, the Guide assigned to you, Captain,” the Commander said without ceremony. “He will reside here under your command-”
“With all due respect, Commander,” Heeseung’s voice cut in, steady but clearly resistant, “we’ve gone over this-”
“Do not interrupt me, Captain Lee.” Her tone sliced through the air, sharp as a blade. “You’ve been indulged long enough. I personally don’t care if you burn yourself out with ANGs, but your neuro-map is too valuable for the Coalition and they refuse to lose you, so you will bond with a Guide. This is no longer optional. It’s an order.”
Tension rolled off Heeseung like heat and Jake stood frozen, trying to read the man’s expression. Why? Why the resistance? There were Sentinels who would kill for a Guide like him, a Class S, with near-perfect resonance, tactical certifications, and one of the highest compatibility indexes ever recorded. And yet this man couldn’t even look at him.
Jake’s throat felt tight, something bitter rising behind his ribs. He didn’t want to be forced into this either. But being rejected before the bonding even began? It hit somewhere deeper than he wanted to admit.
The Commander continued, voice cold and clipped. “Sim Jaeyun is a high-level S-Class Guide with a 96.6% compatibility index. That’s unprecedented. You are perfectly matched . You’ll introduce him into your Unit and begin joint field training within the week.”
She turned to Jake. “You are under his command now. Follow protocol. Do not leave the premises without authorization.”
With that, she turned to the responsible officer, giving a single nod. The man stepped forward, a small square device in his palm already blinking.
“The collar access code is being transferred,” the officer announced. “Captain Lee, please authorize the digital handover.”
Jake tensed. He’d never been this close to a Sentinel outside of training, at least never without supervision or without the cushion of authority between him and them. But now… now he was about to surrender the last vestige of control he had left.
The collar, sleek and black against his skin, was more than just regulation. It was ownership. And the moment Heeseung pressed his biometric code into its interface, Jake would no longer belong to himself.
Heeseung stepped forward.
Up close, he was massive. Not just tall, but commanding, his presence filled the room in a way that no sensor could calibrate. Jake felt it, a pressure, a pull like no other. Sentinels exuded force, yes, but this was something deeper, almost magnetic. It felt inescapable.
Heeseung’s hand reached out slowly, sure and steady towards the side of Jake’s neck, where the touchpad interface gleamed beneath the soft light. He could’ve done it without getting that close. Jake knew that. But he didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t.
The backs of his fingers brushed Jake’s jaw, the contact almost incidental, a breath of warmth against skin, but it jolted Jake like a current. His throat bobbed. The air between them felt heavier than it should’ve been. Charged.
He tried not to stare. He really tried.
But up close, Heeseung wasn’t just the war machine Sentinel everyone whispered about. He was young, no more than twenty-five. His face was clean-shaven, his jaw sharp, but not hardened with age. His features were striking , the kind that walked the line between handsome and devastatingly pretty, cheekbones high, nose straight, doe-eyed like a deer.
There were scars too.
Small ones. A nick along the edge of his brow. Faint pale lines beneath his right eye. Another just above the curve of his top lip, nearly invisible, but there. They made him look so real. Made Jake forget for half a second that this was a man feared enough to terrify entire resistance cells.
And his eyes, when they lifted for that brief moment, weren’t cold. They were intense. Alive with restraint.
Jake’s breath hitched the moment their skin touched again, the pad of Heeseung’s thumb barely brushing the edge of the collar’s screen as he pressed his biometric code.
The collar chirped. The suppressor dropped. And their fields collided.
Jake felt it like a current under his skin. The room went hot. His pulse surged. Something ancient and electric flickered through his chest, like being seen for the first time. Like the world narrowing to just the space between them.
Heeseung inhaled sharply, eyes darkening not in shock, but recognition.
Resonance.
Perfect sync.
Jake flinched back a half step, startled by how right it felt. Like his body had been waiting for this, wired for it. Heeseung’s eyes locked on him for a fraction of a second, unreadable, but intense.
And then, the transfer beeped complete. The suppressor reactivated and the field dropped. Just like that, the connection was severed, leaving Jake reeling.
Heeseung stepped back without a word.
The responsible officer gave a curt nod. “Access transferred. Captain Lee is now the sole regulator of your collar until bonding.”
Jake came back to himself at once when the words registered. It meant that from now on, Lee Heeseung owned him, mind and body. Whether they both wanted it or not.