At three-thirty in the morning, Xinyue discovered three things.
First, she had no clean towels left.
Second, blood looked much worse under warm apartment lighting.
Third, she needed to make better life choices.
The apartment had gone quiet except for the radiator clicking every few minutes and the occasional car passing outside. Xinyue sat in the chair opposite the sofa, wrapped in a blanket she'd dragged from her bedroom, watching the stranger she had no business sheltering.
Taehyun was still somehow conscious out of what she could only describe as pure stubbornness. He had not passed out once. He should have.
Most people with his level of blood loss would have faded in and out, complained, or at least looked properly miserable about it. He had done none of those things. Instead, he lay on her couch with the unsettling stillness of a man enduring rather than suffering, as if pain was an inconvenience and not a condition.
That should not have been attractive.
Not even a little bit.
Xinyue stood up and walked to kitchen sink, start rinsing a cloth pink and then red and then pink again, glaring at absolutely nothing.
"This," she muttered to herself, "is why women are told not to help strange men in alleys."
Behind her, his voice came, rougher now. "Talking to yourself?"
She wrung out the cloth and turned.
"Yes. Because the alternative is talking to you, and frankly, you're very difficult."
He was half-sitting now, one arm braced behind him, the blanket slipping low over his waist. The position had pulled at the bandage and she could tell instantly by the tension in his shoulders that moving had cost him.
"Don't," she said.
His gaze lifted. "Don't what?"
"Move like you've got something to prove."
His mouth tilted faintly. "I do."
"That you're annoying?"
"That I'm fine."
Xinyue stared at him. "You have been shot, stitched up in a small apartment, and are currently one bad decision away from bleeding through my furniture again. You are not fine."
"Subjective."
"No. Medical."
That almost made him smile again.
Almost.
It was deeply inconvenient how often that happened. He looked better being serious, colder, easier to classify as dangerous. The almost-smiles made him human, and human was always harder.
She crossed the room and crouched by the coffee table to reorganize the supplies she'd thrown everywhere. Gauze. Scissors. Thread wrapper. Forceps. One shallow metal tray with a single bullet sitting in it like an accusation.
Her apartment looked as though a very professional burglary had been interrupted by trauma care.
"Do you usually treat patients in your living room?" he asked.
"Only the deeply suspicious ones."
"Suspicious."
"Gunshot wounds. No surname. No hospital. No police. Mysterious silence. You're either a criminal, an assassin, or the worst kind of rich man."
His eyes stayed on her face. "And which do you think?"
Xinyue reached for the tray and stood. "I think," she said, carrying it into the kitchen, "that I regret my entire personality."
She locked the bullet in a drawer, then paused.
When she turned back toward the living room, Taehyun was watching her with that same unreadable focus. It made her feel as though he wasn't just seeing what she did, but what she chose. What she valued. What lines she would or wouldn't cross.
It was unnerving.
She walked back in and folded her arms.
"All right. New rule."
His brow lifted slightly.
"You answer at least one question honestly, or I reconsider every life choice I've made in the last hour."
"That sounds inefficient."
"You know what else is inefficient? Dragging a grown man up two flights of stairs while he bleeds on your shoes."
He was quiet for a second.
Then, calmly, "Ask."
The answer caught her off guard because she hadn't expected him to agree.
Xinyue sat down on the armchair again, though every muscle in her body protested. Now that the adrenaline had begun to ebb, exhaustion was settling into her bones like damp weather.
She studied him.
"What happened?"
He did not answer immediately. Good. That meant he was deciding how much to say, not whether to lie.
"Someone made a mistake," he said at last.
Xinyue blinked. "That is the vaguest answer I've ever heard."
"It's the truest."
"You got shot."
"Yes."
"That generally narrows the field."
His gaze drifted to the dark window for half a second before returning to her. "I was ambushed."
The word dropped into the room with quiet weight.
Not attacked.
Not mugged.
Ambushed.
Deliberate. Planned.
Xinyue leaned back slowly. "By who?"
"No."
She let out a breath through her nose. "One question. Right. Fine. You are exhausting."
"You should sleep."
She laughed in disbelief. "That is a spectacular thing for the man bleeding in my apartment to say."
"You're tired."
"That isn't an observation. That's my personality now."
He looked at her for a moment longer, then said, "You should still sleep."
For some reason, that irritated her more than it should have.
Maybe because it sounded too close to concern. Maybe because she had absolutely no room in her life for concern from men with gunshot wounds and suspiciously expensive watches.
She stood and went to the small kitchen to make coffee, because sleep was clearly no longer part of the plan and if she was going to ruin her own peace, she intended to do it alert.
The machine sputtered awake.
Behind her, silence stretched.
Then…
"You live alone."
It was not a question.
Xinyue glanced over her shoulder. "Yes."
"No boyfriend."
She nearly dropped the mug.
Then she turned slowly, one eyebrow lifting. "Excuse me?"
His expression did not change. "There are no signs of another person."
She stared at him in outright disbelief.
"Are you profiling my apartment?"
"I'm observing it."
"At three-thirty in the morning? From my couch? After I removed a bullet from your body?"
"Yes."
For one second Xinyue considered throwing a spoon at him.
Instead, she said, "For the record, that is an insane thing to say out loud."
"Just telling e fact."
"That does not help your case."
Coffee in hand, she crossed back into the living room and sat down, keeping both eyes on him now out of principle.
He looked… steadier, actually. Still pale, but less on the edge.
That should have relieved her.
It didn't.
Because stable people could leave.
And she still had no idea whether she wanted him to.
"Do you always look at people like that?" she asked.
"Like what?"
"Like you already know, they'll disappoint you."
The question escaped before she could pull it back.
The room went unexpectedly still.
Something changed in his face then—not softness, not exactly, but a shift.
He answered after a beat. "Most people do."
Xinyue wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the heat settle into her palms.
"And me?"
He looked at her a long time.
Too long.
Then, quietly, "I haven't decided."
That should not have sent a strange little pulse under her skin. It absolutely should not have. She took a sip of coffee just to avoid reacting. It was terrible coffee.
Naturally.
The universe had committed to the atmosphere tonight. Her phone buzzed on the side table. Both of them looked at it.
'Yuerin.'
Of course.
Xinyue reached for it quickly and answered before the second ring.
"Don't start."
Yuerin's voice came sharp and whisper-loud through the speaker. "You were supposed to text me when you reached home? And why do you sound like a trouble?"
"I know. Because I'm alive and cursed."
"That doesn't narrow it down."
Xinyue pinched the bridge of her nose. "I had a situation."
"You always say 'a situation' like you didn't choose it yourself."
On the couch, Taehyun's attention sharpened. He wasn't even pretending not to listen.
"Yuerin," Xinyue said carefully, "I need you not to panic."
There was a dangerous pause.
Then her friend said, very slowly, "What did you do?"
"I found someone injured."
"Oh my God."
"It's handled."
"That sentence has never once meant anything good when it comes from you."
Xinyue glanced at the couch. At the dark eyes tracking her every word.
"He's fine," she said.
Yuerin inhaled sharply. "He? There's a he in your apartment?"
Xinyue closed her eyes. "Please lower your voice."
"I am not the one with random men in my home!" She shouted through the phone.
Taehyun's mouth moved—very slightly. Not a smile. Something worse. Amusement.
Xinyue wanted to strangle him or maybe Yuerin.
"I'll explain tomorrow," she said.
"You absolutely will. Also, if this is how you get murdered, I'm haunting you."
"Noted."
"Do you need help?"
She hesitated. She did actually, but not the kind Yuerin could safely give.
"No. Just…. trust me until morning."
Yuerin exhaled slowly. "I hate when you say things like that"
I know. I'm sorry.
She hung up before the conversation got any worse and set the phone face down.
Silence.
Then Taehyun said, "She cares about you."
Xinyue looked at him sharply. "That is not your business."
"No."
His voice was calm. "But it's true."
She should have let that go. Instead, perhaps because she was tired or because he had somehow rearranged the emotional furniture of her entire night, she said, "You don't say much for someone who notices everything."
"No."
There was that near-smile again. She hated that she was starting to understand the rhythm of it.
Outside, the first hint of dawn began to gray the edges of the window.
The city was still quiet, but not for much longer. Soon there would be traffic, voices, ordinary life beginning again. Xinyue looked at the man on her couch, at the ruined shirt, the old scars, the sharp gaze, the impossible composure. Nothing about him belonged to ordinary life.
She knew that already.
What she did not know was why, despite every working sensible instinct warning her otherwise, she still hadn't told him to leave. Maybe because he was injured. Maybe because he looked less like a threat when he was pale with pain and wrapped in her old blanket. Maybe because she could tell, with the same certainty she used to read vital signs, that this man had lived too long in a world where people approached him with fear, greed, or lies. And somehow, without meaning to, she had offered him none of the three.
The thought unsettled her enough that she stood abruptly.
"I need to check the dressing again."
Taehyun watched her come closer.
This time, when she leaned over him, he did not tense.
That was new.
The bandage was holding. Good.
She let out the breath she had been carrying in her chest.
"You'll live," she said.
His gaze did not leave hers. "You sound disappointed."
Xinyue straightened and gave him the driest look she could manage.
"No," she said. "Just resigned."
Something unreadable passed through his eyes. Then he looked toward the door. His entire body changed in one second. Xinyue saw it happen.
The stillness sharpened.
The tiredness vanished.
His focus went cold and absolute.
Every exhausted line in him seemed to pull tight.
"What?" she whispered.
He was already pushing himself up despite the pain.
Xinyue turned instinctively toward the apartment door.
At first, she heard nothing.
Then…
Footsteps.
Not on the street.
Not outside the building.
Inside.
On the stairs.
Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.
Her pulse kicked once, hard.
Taehyun rose fully this time, one hand pressed to his side, the other reaching toward the kitchen counter where she had, very stupidly, left a carving knife.
Then he looked at her. Really looked.
And in a voice so calm it chilled her, he said…
"Go to your room. Lock the door. Do not come out unless I tell you."