Control Is Not the Same Thing

I keep thinking about Baek’s operator log, sealed neatly away until morning. The sensible part of me knows the inspection request is stronger if every entrance is opened publicly. The dishonest part wonders whether I am building rules because I fear losing control, or because I still fear what control could cost someone.

I can accept that the rival chiefs will not trust me. Sangho already measures me by what I can force from him. Puri treats every promise as a trap with better manners. Eunha is filming because evidence matters to her, not because I matter to her. I should be relieved. I am. I am also annoyed that relief did not arrive first.

What unsettles me is how badly I want the Maru to be mine. Not the vessel, not even the salvage route. I want to know that I saw the shape of it before anyone else. That private certainty feels embarrassingly close to childhood, to waiting at the edge of a buried site while my grandfather refused to tell me where the gold was. Maybe I am not hunting treasure. Maybe I am hunting proof that the life I abandoned was not taken from me for nothing.

Tomorrow, I will find out who controls the vessel. I hope the answer humiliates Baek. I hope I am disappointed. I do not hope I am afraid.

I am afraid.