[1] Root access granted to an... Intruder?
[+] Triggering heap corruption
[+] Leaked KASLR base: 0xffffffff82000000
[+] Overwriting cred structure at 0xffff888003f1a000...
[+] Elevating privileges…
[*] Success! Dropping to shell.
id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
Full root access.
In plain terms: Leon has just walked into the most protected room of a company’s digital building, past every lock, and sat down in the owner’s chair. He isn’t a burglar. The company hired him to be one, so the real thing never gets the chance.
If anyone else had breached this system, the client could have lost billions in proprietary data and market position before sunrise. That makes another absurd, multi-figure invoice entirely justified.
Most people in Leon’s line of work would be happy—relieved, perhaps, or even ecstatic—to have a job like this behind them.
Leon just feels bored.
He leans back, and his ergonomic chair creaks. Empty soda cans—mostly crumpled green Sprite cans—ring the edge of his enormous mousepad like discarded barricades.
Three notebooks from a brief, doomed attempt at becoming organized sit stacked beside his monitors, none used past page two. Their blank pages catch the blue glow of the screens; the cans throw thin, jagged reflections across the desk.
What a waste of paper. What a waste of shelf space
.
Leon interlaces his fingers behind his head and eases his neck. His eyes sting with the dry, prickling fatigue of a high-stakes job finished in one uninterrupted evening. Still, the work is done: the exploit is verified (the door really does open), the report generated (a floor plan of exactly how he got in), the patch recommendations drafted (instructions for bolting it shut).
He retrieves his phone from the wireless charger and opens Discord. One unread message from Kenji, sent twenty minutes ago.
They go riding together now and then.
Their Discord messages are mostly dry banter, which Leon appreciates more than he lets on.
Kenji: invoice cleared?
Leon: yep
Kenji: How much?
Leon: enough
Kenji: you always say that
Leon: because it’s always enough
Kenji: one day I’m gonna see the actual number and choke on my coffee
Leon: I’d pay to see that
Kenji: tomorrow?
Leon: fym tomorrow? gonna choke on your coffee?
Kenji: i meant meetup tomorrow
Leon: yeah, ik
Kenji: don’t be late
Leon: I’m never late
Kenji: you were late last week
Leon: five minutes
Kenji: late is late
Leon: just my trademark
Kenji: nerd
Leon: idiot
Now to clear the rest of the pings.
He closes the chat and scrolls through the usual noise: shitpost memes, GitHub webhooks, tech rants, and unread server updates. Nothing worth opening.
An unfamiliar server icon catches his eye. An art server? He doesn’t remember joining one. He must have clicked an invite while hunting through a thread for exploit write-ups weeks ago. Idle curiosity wins; he opens the general media channel.
A chibi Pikachu. A generic manga protagonist. A squirrel wearing chainmail armor. What.
Then his thumb stops mid-scroll.
The illustration uses soft, warm pastels. A girl sits alone in a bright café, holding a steaming mug in both hands and gazing through a rain-streaked window. The caption reads:
small self portrait i made (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ.✧*
He thinks she’s cute.
He scrolls down to the comments, then immediately back up. The drawing isn’t only skilled; it feels warm, lived-in. His own room has nothing like that—only three monitors, a mechanical keyboard, and terminal windows bleaching the walls blue.
Then the realization hits him. Like a train. No, a plane.
He stares at the screen and runs the numbers. When was the last time he had anything resembling romance? Eight years ago? Longer?
No. That can’t be right.
He audits his life, year by year.
Middle school? Two awkward crushes. Neither went anywhere.
High school? Nothing. Just C code, network protocols, and cybersecurity forums.
College? Barely. He dropped out to take private security contracts full-time.
Now? Motorcycles, terminal sessions, demanding clients, and the sterile glow of his displays.
He has spent his late teens and early twenties securing his future, pushing himself until he became very good—arguably world-class—at what he does.
Somewhere along the way, he forgot to learn how to do anything else.
He pushes back from his desk and walks toward the living room, lost in thought. He catches his foot on the threshold—a tiny change in flooring he’s crossed for years—and barely registers the stumble. He stops in the middle of the dark room, phone raised, staring at the screen.
Will I ever get married?
Will I ever have a girlfriend?
Am I going to die alone in a room full of monitors and empty cans?
“Probably,” he tells the empty room.
He recognizes the symptoms: an existential crisis, absurdly early in life, triggered by a cute portrait posted by someone on Discord who might not even be a real person. Still, he can’t look away.
“I need to clear my head,” he mutters.
“Fuck this. I’m going out.” He tears his gaze from the phone and shoves it into his pocket.
***
He grabs his leather jacket and bike keys, starts the motorcycle, and pulls out of the driveway.
Leon lives in a spacious villa inherited from his late parents. It sits above a quiet mountain road, ringed by pine trees and overlooking the valley—the kind of isolated, picturesque place people save to an aesthetic board on Pinterest.
The nearest convenience store is too far to walk to comfortably. Cold night air slips through his jacket seams and presses against his chest as he rides downhill.
When the road levels out, the city lights spread below him across the dark terrain. Broken streetlamps leave gaps in the curves of the road.
At a red light, he looks up through his visor. The full moon hangs in a clear sky; a shooting star cuts across it and disappears before he can decide whether he actually saw it.
He turns into the paved lot of a small commercial plaza. For a moment, he considers leaving his helmet on and lifting the visor just enough to run into the store. Then he imagines how that would look and unbuckles it instead, shaking out his dark hair.
On his way toward the convenience store, he notices a new café in the corner unit. Warm yellow light fills the windows; little handmade decorations hang behind the glass, and an ornamental fireplace glows inside, apparently for atmosphere rather than heat.
Through the window he sees two students hunched over a laptop, a family at the back, and another family sharing a larger table.
Then he notices a small table near the front window, meant for one.
He stops. For three full seconds, his brain refuses to make sense of what he’s seeing.
He pulls out his phone and opens Discord.
“Isn’t that… her?”
She’s sitting at the little wooden table: same hair, same profile, stylus in hand, drawing tablet on the tabletop beside a half-empty mug.
Don’t stare. He stares.
When she starts to turn toward the window, Leon whips his head away so quickly he nearly gives himself whiplash. His reaction time would impress an F1 driver. He fixes his gaze on a random parking sign, heart pounding harder than it ever has during a critical system breach.
He takes a slow breath and adjusts his jacket collar.
“Fuck it, we ball,” he mutters.
He opens the café door. A small chime rings overhead, and the smell of espresso meets him in the cold.
And in all this, he has still forgotten to buy his Sprite.
A/N : Well, my first work published online, ever, if I recall correctly. My work is also available on wattpad! Haven't figured out how to turn on dark mode on inkitt tho. Don't forget to vote and comment your thoughts!
