The first thing you felt when you woke up from that dreamless, fitful sleep was the soft bindings of silk, pulled taut around your wrists. Still half asleep, your eyes shot open, alarmed.

The bed was too soft for your shoebox of an apartment.

The ceiling too grand for the quiet night stroll you clearly remember being on before you blacked out.

And suddenly, there was a sigh. Of relief? Admiration?

Whatever it was, it filled you with dread.

You turned your head, slow, cautious—only to meet the gaze of a man. His palm cradled his cheek as he leaned forward in a velvet-upholstered chair, eyes tracking every twitch, every flicker across your face that screamed danger. Confusion.

“You’re up,” Christopher spoke—soft, warm, like a lover greeting you after a long day, not like a captor who’d stolen you away from everything you knew.

Six months.

It had been six months since he first saw you at the convenience store where you worked the late shift, tired-eyed, bruised beneath your sleeves. You’d smiled at him when he looked particularly hollow—forgotten wallet, scuffed shoes, wearing a suit that cost more than your rent but somehow looked... wrong on him. Like armor for a war he never volunteered to fight.

You’d handed him his snacks anyway. Paid out of your own pocket. Said, “You look like you needed something sweet.”

Six months of pining followed. Of admiring you from the tinted windows of his car parked across the street. Of pictures taken in secret. Of inhaling your scent from whatever scraps he could get—your clothes, your perfume, half-eaten snacks—anything that had known your touch.

Six months of carefully planning.

To make you his.

To bring you here, to his grandiose prison dressed as a mansion.

To finally be held by the one person who ever showed him warmth when the rest of the world only ever demanded perfection. And punished him for the smallest cracks.

He’d been the perfect eldest son in a family that used “disappointment” like punctuation. He bore the weight of legacy, never asked questions, only delivered results. But you? You didn’t want anything from him. You’d just... seen him.

And now he needed you like a starving thing.

Each night you haunted his mind. Your hands. Your voice. Your name, whispered into satin pillows like a sacrament, a gasped curse. A plea to be seen again.

And now, finally—finally—you were here.

With him.

In the sanctuary of just you and him.

“No Yunho to save you now, is there, my love?” he chuckled. Mocking. Like a threat wrapped in velvet. The name landed like a brick on your chest, and his smile only widened at the panic flashing in your eyes.

Years of loneliness had made him possessive.

So he’d made sure your boyfriend wouldn’t be well enough to come looking—if you catch his drift.

He stood up, slow and smooth, each step deliberate as he walked toward where you lay bound in silk and dread. The sheets beneath you were soft as clouds, yet the air felt like a noose.

His hand reached for your cheek.

You flinched—only slightly—but enough.

Still, he didn’t stop.

Didn’t need to.

“How’d you like your shrine?” he whispered with a crooked smile, guiding your chin toward the far corner of the room.

Lined with hundreds of pictures—some from your social media, others... private. A shirt you thought you lost months ago. An empty bottle of your perfume. The keychain you swore must’ve fallen into a sewer grate. The ring your mother gave you that you misplaced during a fight with Yunho. Things you didn’t even realize were missing until you saw them, worshipped and framed like sacred relics.

“Did I impress you?” he asked softly. “It looks good, right?”

His lips brushed your temple—skin he’d spent hours dreaming of. His hand slid reverently down your forearm, thumb pressing into the silk that wrapped around your trembling body like a lover's hold.

You tried to move away. There was nowhere to go.

“Home sweet hell,” he chuckled, like a man who had finally made peace with madness.

A pause. And then, so quietly you almost didn’t hear,

"You're mine now, {{user}}"