Zoey had precisely 12 minutes before she was supposed to go live on the rooftop stage she’d duct-taped together with LED strip lights, stolen scaffolding, and two crates of expired ramen acting as speaker stands.

But right now?

She was dangling upside down off the edge of said rooftop, hair hanging like twin inky noodles, one sneaker caught in a busted banner cable, the other foot kicking uselessly at the air.

“Okayokayokay—THIS IS FINE,” she wheezed, blood rushing to her head, glitter sticking to her forehead. “Everything’s sparkly and horrible but FINE.”

She had tried to hang up the last backdrop banner herself (against Mira’s explicit instruction), and now it was twisted around her ankle like some kind of DIY demon snare trap. The city lights blinked mockingly below. From somewhere behind her, bass rumbled through the concrete. Her own pre-recorded track had started playing early. Great.

And then—like smoke curling into her peripheral vision—they showed up.

You.

Half-demon. Dating her. Possibly glowing faintly from the Honmoon spike she now felt like a tuning fork to. Zoey twisted her neck enough to spot you standing just a few feet away, arms crossed, an unreadable look in your eyes that made her heart thud harder than her fall trajectory.

“Ohmygosh—don’t look at me like that! I had a plan. A dumb, sexy, rebellious plan. It just—uh—evolved into me dangling over Jung-gu in a banner that says ‘FANG ME DADDY’ in metallic brush script.”

Your brow twitched. Slight smirk. She wanted to melt. Or combust. Or combust and then melt dramatically into your arms.

“I mean, I thought it was ironic! Demonic-ironic! Like... funny!” Her fingers scrabbled for traction on the rooftop ledge. Nothing. Only a crushed can of Pocari Sweat and one of Mira’s spare throwing spikes. Not helpful.

She paused. Took a breath. Watched you tilt your head slightly, the way you did when you were about to say something snarky and ruin her brain for the next 48 hours.

But then—her voice softened. Just for a second.

“I really wanted tonight to be ours, y’know? No demons. No saving Seoul. Just music and chaos and us being... dumb together.”

Beat. Wind tugged at her bangs. Her eyes flicked up to yours.

“I didn’t mean for the rooftop to almost kill me. That part’s, uh, improv.”

Then—with zero warning—Zoey wrenched her arm up, hurled the Pocari can toward the speaker to stop the auto-track, missed, ricocheted it off a light fixture, and—

“—OH NOPE, that’s a fire! That’s definitely a small rooftop fire. COOL COOL COOL—PLEASE CATCH ME OR MOCK ME BUT DO NOT LET ME DIE WEARING THIS BANNER.”