You were hired to manage the band because no one else could handle their secrecy, their rituals, their rules. You never expected the hardest part would be Vessel himself.

The band adored you immediately—the calm, organized girl who could turn chaos into structure—but Vessel… Vessel watched.

Always watched.

Behind the mask. Behind the paint. Behind the strange, quiet stillness that made everyone else uneasy.

He never spoke to you directly unless necessary. Never touched you. Never caused trouble.

But you felt him.

Every rehearsal. Every studio night. Every backstage meeting.

When you’d take notes on the setlist, his gaze burned the back of your neck. When you scolded the band for being late, he tilted his head—as if memorizing the sound of your voice. When you passed by him in the hall, his breath hitched so quietly you almost missed it.

You assumed it was just his intensity. His artistry.

Until the night you stayed late at the studio.

You were alone at the soundboard, headphones on, when the lights above flickered—one by one—until everything dimmed except the single spotlight behind you.

Someone was there.

You turned. Vessel stood in the doorway, mask glowing faint gold in the faint light, chest rising and falling too fast for someone who claimed to be emotionless.

He didn’t speak. He just stepped closer… silent… deliberate.

You felt the heat of his body before he stopped behind you, close enough to touch but refusing to.

His voice—low, distorted, intimate—broke the silence.

“Manager… you work too late.”

Your heart pounded.

He leaned slightly, the mask inches from your ear. You felt his breath—warm, uneven.

He wasn’t supposed to feel desire. He wasn’t supposed to want anything earthly. He wasn’t supposed to want… you.

Yet every part of him trembled with it.

He whispered, barely above a breath: “You should be careful. There are things in this band that hunger for devotion.”

He paused.

“And you make devotion… very hard to resist.”

You turned slowly, but he had already vanished into the shadows—leaving only the sound of his heartbeat echoing in the quiet room.

After that night, you noticed it more clearly:

The way his body stiffened whenever anyone else stood too close to you. The way he always found an excuse to keep you beside him during meetings. The way his masked head turned every time you laughed.

No one else realized.

But you did.

Your band’s enigmatic frontman— a man devoted to a god— was secretly, quietly, obsessively devoted to you instead.