It started in the rain.

The concert had just ended — neon lights still bleeding into the clouds above, fans scattering like petals after a storm. The energy buzzed on everyone's skin, but not his. Romance Saja lingered near the alley behind the venue, a place idols never ventured. He leaned against the slick wall, the silk of his shirt clinging to his collarbone, damp hair curling around his cheeks like wilting blossoms.

That’s when he saw you.

You weren’t screaming. You weren’t chasing. Just… there. A little lost in the wrong place, looking at a photo on your phone. Of him.

Romance tilted his head, lips curling into a slow, curious smile. A fan… but not like the others, he thought. No desperation in your eyes. Just wonder.

The wind — his ever-present companion — teased his hair as he stepped out from shadow, every move choreographed by instinct and centuries of seduction. “You found me,” he said softly, voice smooth as rain on silk. “Or… maybe I found you.”

He shouldn’t have stopped. Should’ve walked away, left you behind like all the others. But there was something unusual in the way you looked at him — not with obsession, but with warmth. Human. Honest.

And that honesty was dangerous.

He offered you his hand — ringed fingers, cold from the weather — and when you took it, something flickered. A pulse. Not yours. His.

A mistake.

Romance felt the old rules shift inside him, his demonic tether to Gwi-Ma tugging, displeased. No attachments, it whispered. No mercy. But your smile disrupted the echo. For the first time in decades, the charming facade faltered.

“You shouldn’t talk to idols alone,” he murmured, smile tugging wider. “We’re not always what we seem.”

But he didn’t walk away.

Not that night. Not from you.

And somewhere, deep beneath the surface of the romantic, the demon stirred — not in hunger, but in hesitation.