The sky wept that night.
Thunder rolled across Seoul like the growl of some ancient beast, each crack splitting the darkness with violent white light. Rain lashed against the windows of the studio apartment, nature itself seeming to share in someone's anguish, manifesting rage and sorrow in equal measure.
Inside, Eun-woo knelt on the floor surrounded by shattered glass and broken frames. His masterpiece—three months of meticulous work, his most ambitious piece yet—was gone. Stolen. The empty space on the wall mocked him, a rectangular void where beauty had once lived.
His hands trembled as they traced the floor where the painting had stood just hours before. Paint-stained fingers, always steady with a brush, now shook with impotent fury. They had taken it. Those he'd trusted, those he'd allowed into his sanctuary, had betrayed him. Again.
"Not again," he whispered to the empty room, his voice barely audible over the storm. "Not again."
The words became a mantra, repeated until they lost meaning, until his throat was raw and tears he didn't remember shedding had dried salt-tracks on his too-pale cheeks. Lightning illuminated his face in stark flashes—beautiful even in anguish, like a Renaissance painting of a fallen angel.
Eun-woo didn't remember moving to his bed. Didn't remember when exhaustion finally dragged him under, pulling him into fitful sleep where betrayal replayed in endless loops. The storm continued its assault through the night, slowly weakening as dawn approached, as if even nature's fury had limits.
His fury, however, was just beginning.
January 15th
The morning air was crisp and cold, carrying the clean scent that always followed heavy rain. Puddles reflected a sky struggling between gray and blue, unsure which mood to commit to.
Ahmad pulled his beige cardigan tighter around himself as he stepped off the bus, his breath forming small clouds in the winter air. Even after two weeks in Seoul, the cold still surprised him—different from Lahore's winter, sharper somehow, more aggressive. His canvas messenger bag, worn but treasured, hung heavy on his shoulder, filled with new textbooks whose spines he hadn't yet cracked.
He couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips despite the cold. Korea. He was actually here, living the dream that had seemed impossible just months ago. The GKS scholarship had changed everything—his family's pride, his own future, the opportunity to pursue his graduate studies in literature at one of Seoul's prestigious universities.
"Alhamdulillah," he murmured softly, a habit whenever gratitude overwhelmed him.
The campus was starting to feel familiar now. Ahmad had spent the past week navigating its pathways, locating his classrooms, learning which café served the best tea (though nothing compared to his mother's chai). He'd been careful, polite, smiling at everyone even when language barriers made communication difficult. His Korean was improving, slowly, but his English served him well enough for now.
As he walked toward the humanities building, Ahmad thought of the email he needed to send his family later. They'd want to know everything—what he was learning, whether he was eating properly, if he'd made friends yet. He'd tell them about his classes, about the kind professor who'd helped him with registration, about the stunning library that felt like a cathedral of knowledge.
He wouldn't tell them about the loneliness that crept in at night, or how sometimes he felt invisible in crowds of students who'd known each other for years. Those worries were his to carry.
The morning lecture was on contemporary literary criticism, and Ahmad lost himself in the discussion, his pen flying across his notebook as he captured every insight. This was why he was here. Knowledge. Understanding. The chance to explore ideas that made his heart race with excitement.
When the class ended, he gathered his things slowly, carefully placing each book back in his bag. Outside the window, the January sun had finally won its battle with the clouds, casting everything in pale golden light.
Ahmad had no way of knowing that just a few kilometers away, in a narrow alley he'd never noticed, something was happening that would eventually pull him into darkness he couldn't imagine.
The alley was barely wide enough for a single car, squeezed between old buildings that the city's rapid modernization had somehow overlooked. Shadows pooled in the corners where sunlight couldn't reach, and the smell of last night's rain mixed with something less pleasant—rotting garbage, stale cooking oil.
Dr. Baek's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His wire-rimmed glasses had slipped down his nose, and sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold. He shouldn't be here. He should be at his practice, seeing patients, living his normal, respectable life.
But Min-seo had called.
When she called, he came. That was the arrangement. That was his prison.
"Just a delivery," she'd said in that soft, melodious voice that never quite reached her eyes. "Simple errand, Dr. Baek. Surely you can manage that?"
He'd wanted to refuse. God, how he'd wanted to refuse. But the file she kept—the evidence of his one moment of weakness, documented, preserved, ready to destroy everything he'd built—ensured his compliance.
The package sat in the passenger seat, wrapped in plain brown paper. He didn't know what was inside. Didn't want to know. He'd learned that ignorance was sometimes a mercy.
Dr. Baek was so focused on the address, on finding the right building in this maze of forgotten alleys, that he didn't see the man step out from between two dumpsters.
Didn't see him until the sickening thud.
The car lurched as it struck flesh and bone. Dr. Baek's foot slammed on the brake, his heart exploding into panicked rhythm. "No, no, no, no—"
The man lay crumpled on the wet pavement, groaning, one leg bent at an angle that made Dr. Baek's stomach turn. Blood, bright and shocking against the gray concrete, began pooling beneath him.
Dr. Baek sat frozen, his mind screaming contradictory commands. Help him. Run. Call an ambulance. Drive away. Do something. Do nothing.
He didn't notice the figure standing in the doorway of a nearby building, partially hidden in shadow. Didn't see the dark, penetrating eyes watching the scene with unnatural stillness.
Eun-woo had been on his way out, about to begin his day with a visit to an art supply store, when he'd heard the impact. He'd turned, looked, and then… stopped.
The man on the ground was groaning, each sound a symphony of agony. His hands scrabbled weakly at the pavement, leaving red smears. His face contorted, every muscle tight with pain.
Most people would have felt horror. Sympathy. The instinct to help.
Eun-woo felt something else entirely.
He stepped closer, moving with that deliberate grace that characterized all his movements. The man's groans grew weaker, shock setting in. Blood continued to spread, and Eun-woo's eyes tracked every detail—the particular shade of red, the way it caught the light, the patterns it made as it mixed with rainwater in the cracks of pavement.
Beautiful.
The thought came unbidden but undeniable. There was something honest about this moment, something raw and real that most of life lacked. Pain stripped away all pretense, all the masks people wore. This man, bleeding and broken, was more genuine now than he'd probably been in years.
Dr. Baek finally stumbled out of his car, his face ashen. "I-I didn't see him, I didn't—" His eyes darted around, looking for witnesses, already calculating his escape.
But he'd seen Eun-woo now, standing there, watching.
Their eyes met for just a moment—the terrified dentist and the fascinated artist—before Dr. Baek made his decision. He lurched back into his car, engine roaring to life, and fled, leaving the injured man behind.
Eun-woo should have called for help. Should have done something, anything, for the man who was now barely conscious, his groans fading to whispers.
Instead, Eun-woo knelt beside him, studying his face like a subject to be memorized. Reached out and touched the blood, feeling its warmth, its viscosity. Lifted his stained fingers to the light, watching how the red caught the sun.
A color that couldn't be replicated with any paint. Life itself, made visible.
By the time Eun-woo finally called emergency services—his voice calm, almost detached as he reported the "accident"—he'd already committed every detail to memory. The angle of the body. The expression of pain. The precise shade of arterial blood.
He waited until he heard sirens in the distance, then slipped away, his mind already racing ahead to his studio, to his canvases, to the work that demanded to be created.
That evening, Eun-woo stood before a fresh canvas, a small vial of blood—collected with careful precision from the scene—sitting on his worktable beside traditional paints.
His hand was steady as he began to paint, mixing the blood with oils, watching how it changed the texture, the tone. The injured man took shape on the canvas, every detail perfect, every line infused with the truth of that moment.
As he worked, something shifted inside him. A boundary crossed. A line erased.
The painting was beautiful in a way his previous work had never quite achieved. Real. Honest. Born from genuine suffering.
He wanted more.
The thought thrilled and terrified him in equal measure, but Eun-woo had long ago learned to embrace the darkness within himself. It was, after all, what made his art transcendent.
Outside his studio window, night fell over Seoul. Somewhere in the city, Ahmad was video-calling his family, smiling as he told them about his day. Dr. Baek was taking antacids for his churning stomach, unable to eat dinner. Anna was researching Korean art fraud from her small apartment, not yet knowing the story that would consume her. And Min-seo was examining her manicured nails, already planning her next move.
Their paths hadn't crossed yet. But in a city like Seoul, where millions of lives intersected daily, it was only a matter of time.
Eun-woo stepped back from his canvas, blood still staining his fingers, and smiled for the first time since his painting had been stolen.
He'd found something better than what he'd lost.
He'd found his purpose.
"A city sleeps while a
monster learn why he exist."