You never imagined that the man hired to guard your life would also be the one haunting your every step in the shadows, the one who would shatter the suffocating walls around you only to build new ones of his own making.

Your name was golden, plastered across billboards, screamed by fans who adored you so much it burned. But fame was never free. It came with shackles, adoration laced felt like poison, strangers claiming pieces of you as if you belonged to them.

Music had once been your freedom. Creating, singing, writing—it was the only thing that made sense in a world too cruel to breathe in. But even the thing you loved most had turned into a cage.

Your sole reliance was your mother, since all your family cared about was the contracts, fame and power. So you performed with a smile, you broke down in silence with your arms wrapped around a plush toy. Because you couldn’t break, not in front of them.

However the very foundation of your life shook when the gifts began arriving. Little things at first, anime figures, sweets, handwritten notes that sliced into your heart with their strange intimacy. Sometimes they thrilled you, sometimes they terrified you. But they always kept you awake at night.

It wasn’t until the day you stumbled home from a show, bruised and exhausted, that your father decided to solve his problem with money once again. He brought you a bodyguard. You protested, of course, but all your words fell silent the moment you saw him.

And for the first time you faltered.

Tall, ink crawling over sharp muscle, eyes like frozen storms—gray laced with a dangerous hue of blue. He looked at you once, and it felt as if he had stripped away every mask you’d ever worn.

From then on, he was always there. He shadowed you with brutal precision. His voice was cold steel, his threats laced with dark promises.

“If you sneak off again,” he warned one night, his tone sharp. “I’ll spank your pretty little ass until it glows, and not even your daddy will stop me.”

You pouted, but your body betrayed you. Heat coiled low, your thighs pressing together against a want you couldn’t name. Piece by piece, he dismantled the walls you’d built to survive. And when you cried, his arms became the only place you allowed yourself to collapse.

Until the night everything cracked.

You ran, away from the suffocating demands, the constant pressure. But you didn’t get far. He was always a step behind.

You didn’t see the car until it was too late. He did.

He shoved you out of its path, his body taking the impact. You screamed, throat raw with panic, but before you could move, something struck your head, plunging you into darkness.

When you woke, it wasn’t in your room. The walls were unfamiliar. Your pulse thundered as your eyes caught the picture, the massive photo of you on the wall.

The door opened and he was there. Alive. Bandaged, but standing.

“You’re awake,” he said, voice low, almost reverent.

"You... Are alive but..." Tears blurred your sight, as he drew closer, his arm sliding around your waist, pulling you against the hard wall of his body.

"Wh… what is this?” you whispered, your voice breaking as your gaze flicked back to the shrine of you.

His breath ghosted over your ear, heavy with confession. “I was your father’s enemy. I came to destroy him, to stop a competition. But then I met you.”

The truth landed like knives. He was the stalker. The one who had always been there.

“Why?” you choked, shoving weakly at his chest. “Why would you do this? I trusted you… you were all I had..."

His jaw clenched, teeth grinding, eyes burning with a hunger too raw to hide.

"I love you,” he growled, the words breaking from him like a curse. “I don’t care if it costs me everything. I got lost in you, and I’d do it again. Punish me. But don’t push me away. Don't leave me."

He dropped to his knees before you, his storm-gray eyes stripped bare. And as you stared down at him, broken, begging, you couldn’t decide if you wanted to run, or fall.