When Juhwan finally stirred, sunlight was spilling weakly through the blinds, painting pale lines across his face.
His body felt heavy but rested—no racing heartbeat, no cold sweat, no phantom voices whispering his name.
He blinked blearily at the clock.
10:04 a.m.
'Guess I really slept through the night…'
Stretching, he groaned softly, muscles cracking as the tension bled away. The world felt… normal again.
The distant hum of traffic outside, the faint sound of a neighbor's TV, the smell of dust and laundry detergent—it was all grounding.
He shuffled into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, washed his face, then stood for a while just staring at his reflection.
No dark aura behind him. No shadow that didn't belong.
Just him.
'Finally…' he muttered, splashing more water onto his face.
By the time he stepped out, hunger had replaced fear. His stomach growled, a deep, honest reminder that he was alive.
He made instant noodles—lazy, comforting, human. The warmth of the steam filled the tiny kitchen, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he smiled.
'It's over,' he told himself again, sitting down at the table. 'It's actually over.'
But then—
BZZZT.
His phone lit up on the desk.
A single notification pulsed faintly on the screen.
At first, he thought it was just a text. Maybe a game update. But the icon wasn't from any app he recognized.
A black heart, half-glitched, flickering faintly.
His chest tightened.
He reached for the phone, hand hesitant.
'No way… it's not still running, right?'
The text below the icon read:
> [Date Complete: Han Sooyeon ♥]
Tap to view results.
Juhwan stared at it for a long second, the spoon of noodles hovering midair.
His appetite faltered. The room suddenly felt colder again.
'...I shouldn't look,' he thought.
'If I open it, it'll start again…'
But curiosity, that cruel part of him that wanted to understand, slowly won out.
With a deep breath, he tapped the notification.
Juhwan stared at the screen, blinking rapidly. His hands trembled slightly as he read the results:
━━━━━━━━━━━
Blind Date Results – Han Sooyeon ♥
Affection Achieved: 5%
Sanity Gained: +1
Courage Gained: +1
Points Earned: +20
Mission Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━
A small notification popped up immediately after:
[Reward Unlocked: Black Knife]
Special Property: Can affect spiritual entities.
He picked up the knife icon with a trembling finger, and it shimmered faintly before materializing in his hand.
It was black, sleek, and cold, almost unnaturally so. The blade reflected no light.
'…I'm not supposed to hurt ghosts,' he muttered to himself, voice quiet and shaky.
'If this is for… self-defense, maybe it's okay.'
He rotated the knife slowly in his hand, feeling the weight, the sharpness, the faint pulse of something otherworldly beneath the surface.
It was a tool for survival.
'How am I supposed to fight those things, anyway?' he thought, voice barely above a whisper.
'I can't just swing a knife at them like some action hero. Some of them… they float and they disappear. They also think. Maybe they're smarter than me.'
His chest tightened.
'So I just… stay alive. Protect myself. That's all I can do. Don't overthink it. Don't die.'
He slipped the knife into his inventory, the black shimmer fading until only the icon remained.
'…At least now I have a way to defend myself if it comes to it.'
He exhaled slowly, trying to calm the jitter in his fingers.
'That's all I can do. Protect myself. Survive.'
For now, the shadows in the apartment were just shadows. The world outside was calm
Juhwan leaned back in his chair, letting out a slow, shivering breath.
'…I really need to figure out how to survive this thing.'
After finishing his meal and setting the knife aside, Juhwan tried to ground himself in normalcy again.
The best way he knew how was to study.
He pulled out his notes and opened his laptop. The moment he saw the pages filled with dense formulas and theories, he sighed.
'No matter what you did in high school,' he thought, 'it's nothing compared to this.'
Back then, he used to think of himself as smart—always near the top of the class, always praised for quick understanding. But college was a different world. Everyone here was smart. Everyone worked hard.
Now, he just felt… average. Maybe worse.
He read the same paragraph three times before realizing none of it was sticking. His brain kept drifting back to last night—the floating bouquet, the cold air, the voice in his head.
He shook his head, pressing his fingers to his temple.
'Focus, Juhwan. You're still alive. That's good enough. Just study.'
He forced himself to read again, highlighting a few lines, underlining key terms. It was dull, slow work—but it was normal. Safe.
And for a little while, that was enough.
Night fell quietly again, the city hum faint through Juhwan's apartment window.
He brushed his teeth, checked his phone, and played a simple dating sim until his eyelids grew heavy. The familiar rhythm of mundane life lulled him—screens, dim light, and silence.
Soon, he was asleep.
...
Far from his small apartment, in the abandoned grounds of Gwancheon Old High, the air was thick again—colder than usual, saturated with something unseen.
Four figures stood under the half-collapsed archway, dressed in formal black suits.
Each wore a white mask shaped like an animal—a fox, a rabbit, a crow, and a deer. Their presence was calm but deliberate, the kind of stillness that comes from experience.
The woman in the fox mask knelt, brushing her gloved hand over the dusty floor.
"Residual traces… fresh," she murmured.
"Something happened here recently."
The man in the crow mask adjusted his tie and looked toward the gym.
"It's thick with malice. Feels like layered grief… and hatred."
They began their inspection methodically—opening doors, shining faint spectral lights, measuring the faint hum of energy only they could sense.
Their movements were quiet, professional. These weren't exorcists from old tales with charms and incense.
They were company agents—modern specialists trained to locate, contain, and neutralize spiritual anomalies.
When they reached the garden, the air shifted.
The deer-masked man raised a small device that glowed faintly blue. "Activating trace-view," he said. The others stepped back.
A shimmer rippled through the darkness, and suddenly, they saw it—
A faint, flickering image of a man and a woman seated at a table. Both blurry, both translucent.
The scene was eerily still, frozen in a ghostly moment. The man looked almost casual, holding a glass; the woman, long hair draped over her face, motionless.
"What the hell…" the rabbit-masked woman whispered.
"Are they… eating together?"
The fox-masked woman crossed her arms.
"A date? Here? That's absurd."
"Could be a residual illusion," the crow-masked man muttered, though his voice was uneasy.
"Or maybe the ghost's reenacting her obsession… but the man's aura looks solid. He's human."
The others exchanged silent looks, the faint hum of the device fading out.
No one spoke for a while.
The idea of a living man casually having dinner with a ghost—it was ridiculous! Unthinkable! But the traces were undeniable.
"Whoever he was," the fox said quietly, "he's either reckless… or an expert."
They marked the coordinates and prepared to leave, their suits catching the moonlight as they vanished into the misted road.
Meanwhile, the so-called expert lay sprawled on his bed, drooling slightly, dead asleep.
A faint snore, the glow of his phone screen still on the pillow beside him.