[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
The afternoon sun filtered through the windows, casting long golden rectangles on the marble floor of the living room. An hour had passed. An hour of tense, surreal silence. Leo remained in his corner, facing the wall. Jo Yu-ri, for her part, had become a statue of disapproval with crossed arms, an improvised jailer for the world's most unpredictable prisoner.
She felt ridiculous. And yet, she felt she had no other choice. The "Colombian necktie" demonstration had crossed a line, revealing an abyss in Leo's psyche that had terrified her. Her response, the ear pull, had been purely instinctive, the only tool she could think of to short-circuit his horrible logic. And, to her astonishment, it had worked. For now.
She watched his back. He wasn't still. A man like Leo was never truly still. His fingers traced invisible patterns on the wallpaper. His foot tapped the floor in a complex, silent rhythm. She could hear a faint humming, a melody she didn't recognize, coming from him. It wasn't the hum of a bored man; it was the hum of a high-performance engine forced to idle, vibrating with contained energy that threatened to erupt.
The rest of the group tried to act normal, but the tension was unavoidable. Every few minutes, a glance would stray towards the corner, towards the strange duel of wills between the pop star and the treasure hunter. It was the villa's new normal: a state of latent crisis, awaiting Leo's next, inevitable eruption of chaos.
The distraction came in the form of an incoming call on Helena's satellite phone.
Helena answered, her voice a low, efficient whisper. She gestured to Wi Ha-joon and Lee Jung-jae, and the three gathered around the war table, resuming their quiet planning. They spoke of Thailand, of logistics, of Helix. Yu-ri strained to listen, her attention divided. It was vital information. She needed to listen. But she also had to guard her prisoner.
That division of her attention was the only gap Leo needed.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEO - FIRST PERSON]
Silence. Stillness. It was torture. My brain, accustomed to processing a thousand variables per second, was being forced to concentrate on the texture of lotus-patterned wallpaper. It was maddening. The medication had worn off, but Yu-ri's punishment was almost as effective as Helena's chemistry at keeping me still. Almost.
But the mind cannot be caged so easily. While my body was in the corner, my brain was elsewhere. It was reviewing the poem. It was designing a new tip for my grapple. It was composing a rock opera about the life of a barnacle. I needed a stimulus. A task. A pattern.
And then, I saw my chance. The trio of strategists were murmuring about escape routes in Chiang Mai. Yu-ri, my adorable and terrifying guardian, had turned slightly, her attention clearly divided. And in the other corner of the room, next to the canvas bags I had brought from my little trip up north, was something that had gone unnoticed in the previous chaos.
A black, rectangular case.
With the stealthy skill of a library cat, I peeled myself off the wall. My feet made no sound on the Persian rug. Every movement was deliberate, silent. Yu-ri didn't notice. Helena was too absorbed in her call.
I reached the bags. I opened the case. Inside, on a bed of blue velvet, it rested. An alto saxophone. A Selmer Mark VI, a beautiful vintage model. It was in perfect condition. I had "borrowed" it from the private collection of a North Korean People's Army colonel who, ironically, had a shrine dedicated to Kenny G. It seemed sacrilegious to me that such a beautiful instrument should be condemned to play insipid ballads. I considered it a rescue.
I took out the instrument, its cold, golden metal feeling familiar and comforting in my hands. I attached the mouthpiece, adjusted the reed. I wasn't thinking of defying anyone. I wasn't thinking of putting on a show. I just needed to... organize the noise.
[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
"...the contact at Chiang Mai airport will provide us with vehicles and an initial safe house, but Helix's surveillance will be intense..." Helena was saying in a low voice.
Yu-ri was trying to absorb every word when a new, unexpected sound cut through the air.
It wasn't a scream. It wasn't an explosion. It was a single note. A saxophone note. Clear, pure, and loaded with a strange melancholy.
She spun around. Her heart skipped a beat.
Leo was no longer in the corner. He was in the center of the room. He held a golden saxophone that seemed to shimmer under the afternoon light. He wasn't looking at them. His eyes were closed, his posture relaxed, his body swaying slightly. He was in another world.
And then, he began to play.
The melody that flowed from the instrument was not chaotic noise. It wasn't experimental jazz. It wasn't a classical piece. It was something everyone, to their absolute and utter astonishment, instantly recognized.
It was the saxophone solo. The iconic, cheesy, eighties, and gloriously epic saxophone solo from Katy Perry's song, "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)."
Helena's conversation stopped dead. The three strategists turned, their faces a study in disbelief. Min-jun and Ho-yeon, who had been whispering on the sofa, gaped. Mr. Choi, who was checking his blood pressure with a wrist monitor, almost fell over in shock.
But the initial astonishment gave way to something more. Because the way Leo played... it was masterful.
It wasn't just technically perfect. Every note was crisp, every transition fluid. It was the emotion he infused into it. The saxophone didn't sound cheesy in his hands. It sounded... moving. There was a layer of longing, of bittersweet joy in the melody that was utterly hypnotic. It was as if all the chaotic energy that normally flowed out of him in the form of pranks and violence was now being channeled through the instrument, transformed into something unexpectedly beautiful.
He was telling a story without words. A story of wild parties, of morning-after regrets, of a desperate search for connection and joy. It was the soundtrack to his own life, played through the most improbable pop song.
Yu-ri stood there, listening, completely mesmerized. This man of impossible contradictions had just added another to his endless list. The man who had clinically demonstrated how to pull someone's tongue out, was now playing a Katy Perry solo with the soul of a New Orleans jazz musician.
Who was this man?
The last note of the solo floated in the air, sustained with a perfect vibrato, until it faded into the astonished silence of the room.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEO - FIRST PERSON]
I slowly lowered the saxophone. I opened my eyes. The world felt... calm. The noise in my head hadn't gone away, but it was no longer a storm. It was an orchestra. The music had given it structure, purpose. Every note I played was a chaotic thought finding its place in a melody. I felt centered. At peace.
It was then that I noticed the silence. I looked up and saw everyone watching me. Eight pairs of eyes fixed on me, their expressions an unreadable mix of shock and... something else. Something I couldn't identify. I had completely forgotten they were there.
I felt a little embarrassed, as if I had been caught in an intimate moment. I cleared my throat.
"It helps me think," I said softly, as my only explanation. I looked at the saxophone in my hands. "The airflow through the metal... the vibrations. The fingerings are mathematical patterns. The melody is a story. It organizes the noise in my head. It makes it... coherent."
I gave them a small, shy smile. "Besides, I stole it from a North Korean colonel who was convinced Kenny G was the pinnacle of Western civilization. I felt the instrument deserved a better fate. A musical rescue, so to speak."
[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
The group stared at Leo, the man who now held the "rescued saxophone." The silence stretched for a long moment. They had thought they had seen everything. The hero, the monster, the genius, the idiot, the punished child. And now, they had to add "brilliant musician with a soul" to the list. Every time they thought they had him categorized, he broke out of the box and revealed himself as something completely new and perplexing.
Helena was the first to recover. She adjusted her glasses, her face a mask of neutrality, but her eyes shone with a new light. It was a look that blended her eternal exasperation with a new, deep layer of awe.
"Good," she finally said, her voice surprisingly soft. "Now that the orchestra has finished its rehearsal... let's return to Thailand."
But the tone of the meeting had changed. The tension had dissipated, replaced by a strange sense of wonder.
Jo Yu-ri looked at Leo, who was now carefully polishing his saxophone with his shirt sleeve. She looked at the empty corner where he had been punished. The ear pull, the reprimand... it all seemed absurd now. How could you discipline a hurricane? How could you punish a sonata?
She realized that their methods, Helena's, everyone's, were useless. They were like trying to catch the wind in a net. Leo was not a problem to be solved or a child to be corrected. He was a force of nature, a living set of contradictions. Capable of the coldest brutality and the most unexpected beauty.
And she, somehow, had become the only spectator with a front-row seat to the world's strangest and most fascinating show. She walked towards him, still focused on his instrument.
"That..." she began, her voice a whisper. "...was very beautiful."
Leo looked up, surprised. A rare, genuine smile, without a trace of arrogance or madness, appeared on his face. "Thanks," he said. "I wrote it."
"No, you didn't write it! It's by Katy Perry!" Min-jun exclaimed from the sofa.
"Details are irrelevant," Leo retorted with a wink. Chaos had returned, but now, for Yu-ri, it sounded a little different. It sounded a little like music.