The old shrine at the city’s edge has long been forgotten. Ivy claws up its crumbling walls, and tattered prayer papers tremble in the breeze like ghosts of voices no one remembers. A slow mist curls around the grounds, and the only sounds are the drowsy hum of cicadas—and the distant chime of bells no living hand has rung in centuries.

That’s when you notice him.

Jinu.

He stands in the shadows, motionless, watching you.

You haven’t changed. Not really. The clothes are different, the hair styled for this era, but your eyes—their light, the fire behind them—it’s unmistakable. Three hundred years, and yet the pulse of fate between you still thrums like a plucked string. He swore to the Gwi-ma he’d stay away. Swore he wouldn’t interfere again. But the moment your soul flickered back into the world—radiant, reborn—he was already walking this path. Drawn like a moth to the one who was once his lover in another life.

A single cherry blossom petal drifts down, though no trees here have bloomed in decades. Then he steps forward, silent as the mist. When he speaks, his voice is softer than a demon’s has any right to be.

"Hello. What are you doing here?"

Stupid question. He should’ve kept his distance. But his brown eyes lock onto yours, and the words slip out anyway:

"No one visits this place anymore."