...…..☆....
*
The air in the "Zone 4" rift was thick with the stench of stagnant water and ozone. This was supposed to be a routine calibration mission a low risk extermination of a Grade B Lurker to test the newly fabricated Chronos Needle. Under normal circumstances, Shi Yoon would have finished the job in three minutes, his movements a cold, surgical ballet of death.
But today, the silence of the rift was screaming.
He stood on the rusted rafters of a warehouse, the Reaper's Blade humming in his hand. The Chronos-Needle was integrated into the scythe's spine, a pulsating vein of gold amidst the obsidian. Below him, the Lurker a mass of wet, translucent muscle and snapping jaws slithered through the shadows.
Scan the target, Shi Yoon told himself. Anchor the fate. Strike.
But as he looked down, his vision blurred. For a split second, he didn't see the monster's grey hide; he saw the shimmer of a black silk hanbok. He didn't hear the creature's growl; he heard the soft, rhythmic crunch of red glass.
"Seo Jun..." he whispered.
The name didn't come out as a command or a clinical designation. It was dragged from his throat in a way that felt intimately wrong low, breathy, and laced with a desperate sort of possessiveness that made Shi Yoon's own skin crawl. He sounded like a man drowning, calling out to the very thing pulling him under.
The Lurker sensed the lapse in his concentration. It lunged, its barbed tongue whistling through the air.
Shi Yoon jerked his head to the side, but as he did, a vivid hallucination flashed across his retinas: Seo Jun's face, inches from his own, those vertical red slits pulsing with a terrifying, ancient amusement.
"Watch out, Lighthouse Keeper," the phantom voice giggled.
"Get out of my head!" Shi Yoon roared.
He moved too late. The Lurker's heavy tail slammed into his ribs, sending him crashing through a stack of shipping crates. His Aether-Watch flared a warning yellow. Integrity Drop: 12%. Concentration Variance: Critical.
He rolled to his feet, gasping for air, the taste of blood in his mouth. The monster was circling for the kill. Shi Yoon forced his fingers to steady around the scythe. He activated the Chronos Needle.
A spike of golden light shot from the blade, piercing the Lurker's chest. For the first time, a Life Timer flickered into existence above the monster's head, ticking down rapidly from ten seconds. The "blind spot" had been anchored.
With a snarl of pure, frustrated rage, Shi Yoon swung. The scythe carved through the Lurker's neck, the blade passing through flesh as if it were smoke. The creature dissolved into ash before it even hit the floor.
Mission complete. But there was no triumph. Shi Yoon leaned against a concrete pillar, his chest heaving, his mind a chaotic mess of red eyes and silk.
He didn't return to his apartment. The "weirdness" was a fever he couldn't break. He opened a portal directly into Seo Jun's safe house, his sudden appearance startling the boy, who was standing in the kitchen.
Shi Yoon didn't say hello. He didn't check the perimeter. He walked straight up to Seo Jun, stopping only when their chests were inches apart. He was looking for the red. He was looking for the tentacles. He was looking for the child with the teddy bear.
"Shi-Yoon?" Seo Jun asked, his voice trembling slightly. "You're... you're bleeding. What happened?"
Shi-Yoon ignored the question. He reached out, his thumb catching Seo Jun's chin, tilting his head up. He stared into the boy's brown eyes, searching for the slit pupils.
"Do you have a sibling?" Shi Yoon asked, his voice low and raspy.
Seo Jun blinked, looking utterly bewildered. "A sibling? No. I've told you before, my parents... I'm an only child. Why are you asking me this now?"
Shi-Yoon's grip tightened slightly. "Think. A younger brother? Someone who might look like you, but... different. Someone who wears ancient clothes?"
Seo-Jun shook his head slowly, his eyes filled with a mix of fear and a strange, deep seated concern for the man standing over him. "No, Shi-Yoon. There's no one else. It's just me. It's always been just me."
Shi-Yoon let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He let go of the boy's chin, but he didn't move back. The proximity was intoxicatingly distracting. He could hear the rhythm of Seo-Jun's heart, and it matched the pulse of the red glass in his dream.
"You're acting so strange," Seo-Jun whispered. "You're always so cold, like a statue. But today... you look like you're seeing a ghost."
"I am," Shi-Yoon muttered.
He began to talk, not about the mission, but about the logistics of the safe house, his voice a mechanical drone as he tried to re-establish his wall of indifference. He talked about the warding levels, the food supply, the communication blackout.
But his eyes kept drifting to Seo-Jun's lips, to the way the boy's throat moved when he swallowed. He found himself distracted by the sheer humanness of the boy, which felt like a lie after seeing the Sovereign in his dream.
"I'll stay here for a while," Shi-Yoon said abruptly, cutting himself off mid-sentence. "The rift activity is high. I need to monitor the resonance personally."
Seo-Jun looked at him, and for a fleeting second, a small, genuine smile touched his lips. It wasn't the predatory grin of the dream child; it was soft, relieved, and painfully beautiful. It was the smile of someone who felt safe because their protector was near.
Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the smile vanished. Seo-Jun turned away to get a towel for the blood on Shi-Yoon's face.
Shi-Yoon stood frozen. That smile was more dangerous than the A.S. Alpha Unit. It made him want to drop the scythe. it made him want to forget the Chronos Needle.
Shh, the dream-voice echoed in the back of his mind.
Shi-Yoon looked at his Aether-Watch. The fabrication of the needle was a success, but as he watched Seo-Jun walk across the room, he realized the real battle wasn't against the monsters outside. It was against the terrifying, intimate gravity of the boy who had no fate and the fact that the Lighthouse Keeper was starting to love the darkness he was supposed to guard.