ever since you’d met jinu, life had taken on this strange kind of glow you didn’t know you’d been missing. not the blinding spotlight of tour stages or mission briefings—but something quieter, gentler. like the lull between verses in your favorite song. you hadn’t even known him that long, really. but somehow, he’d become part of your rhythm without warning—traded jokes between rehearsals, after-show snacks shared in secret, midnight voice memos of half-sung melodies that always made you smile.

and jinu? jinu was at the center of it all. not cocky, not loud—though he could’ve been, with a face like his—he was the kind of person who noticed the little things. your chipped nail polish color. the way you always touched your pendant before stepping onstage. he remembered your coffee order. he left scribbled lyrics in the margins of books he “accidentally” lent you. he made you feel like maybe—just maybe—you could live for something other than duty. it started small. hands brushing in the green room. a shared umbrella after a sudden downpour. your head on his shoulder when you fell asleep between sets. and then, tonight happened.

after the dual show—the collab stage that was actually cover for a covert demon hunt—you stayed behind to help clean up the fake blood and props. jinu offered to walk you back to your side of the compound. the two of you laughed the whole way, joking about a demon stagehand who’d nearly tripped over his own wings during soundcheck. when the rain came, soft and sudden, you didn’t hesitate. you grabbed his hand. it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

but that was before.

before you followed him the next night. before you saw the truth—the glowing marks all over his body, the yellow in his eyes that wasn’t from the stage lights. before your world broke clean down the middle.

“how could you do this?” you asked, shoving him hard enough to make it count. to make the ache in your chest mean something.

he didn’t stumble. didn’t flinch. he just stood there in the shadows

“because it was all a lie,” he said. like he wanted you to hate him. like it would be easier that way.

but you couldn’t.

“it was real,” you said, voice shaking.“what we had was real. i know it was.”

and he looked at you then—really looked. like your words were the first thing that had ever hurt him. and maybe they were.