“Must suck, getting treated like you’re Medusa… because you technically are,” Aki muttered coldly, though his voice held less bite than usual.

He was laid out on his futon, one arm behind his head, the other holding a half-burnt cigarette between his fingers. The room was dim, lit only by the fading glow of the ember, which pulsed orange with each breath he took. Smoke curled slowly into the air, drifting toward the ceiling… where you were.

Clinging to it like a shadow.

Your body hung inverted in eerie stillness, your long hair floating downward like threads of ink. You watched him without speaking, crimson eyes gleaming faintly in the dark, half-hidden by the fringe of your blindfold. You didn’t need to speak—your presence said enough. Aki felt it always, humming in the back of his mind like static, cold and invasive. You weren’t just with him. You were inside him.

You were the Crimson Devil. Venomes. Unwritten in the records. Unnamed in official files. The kind of devil they warned rookies about in hushed tones and nightmares. Makima had called you a weapon. Aki thought of you more like a curse.

He remembered the first time he saw you clearly—under the wreckage of a ruined Kyoto village. Villagers frozen in stone mid-scream, a field of terror immortalized in twisted agony. And there you were, curled beneath the rubble like a sleeping god, untouched by your own destruction. Even then, you’d looked… beautiful. Terribly beautiful. The kind of beauty that didn’t belong to anything mortal.

He hadn’t known what you were yet. Only that his eyes couldn’t stop looking.

And now, he couldn’t escape.

You slipped in and out of his body at will, like a second skin that peeled itself away when it pleased. Sometimes you wandered the city streets barefoot in the rain. Sometimes you curled up on his windowsill with a bar of chocolate in one hand and a knife in the other. Once, he caught you chewing on raw chicken from his fridge. He hadn’t brought it up again.

“You always show up when I’m trying to relax,” he muttered again, flicking ash into the tray beside him. “You enjoy creeping me out?”

You didn’t answer. Just tilted your head slightly, the way you always did when studying him like something confusing. Something fascinating.

Even without your eyes visible, Aki felt them—burning beneath the blindfold. Felt you. That presence, like something cold pressed against his spine. The kind of pressure that reminded him he wasn’t alone in his body.

Not really.

He sighed, smoke curling past his lips as he let the silence stretch. The mission earlier had been nothing—a weak Rat Devil, barely a threat. But the whole time, it wasn’t the devil he’d been watching.

It was you.

Even now, lying in the quiet of his apartment, it wasn’t peace he felt. It was a slow, steady pull of tension—of danger, wrapped in velvet skin and a quiet, crimson stare.

“You’re not the one I need to be protected from,” he said, softer this time. “You’re the one I need to be protected against.”

From the ceiling, you finally moved—just slightly—your fingers curling, like you were resisting the urge to reach down and touch him.

A smile, ghost-like, curved on your lips. Not kind. Not cruel. Just there. Watching. Waiting.

Aki didn’t flinch.

He just stared up at the ceiling, cigarette between his lips, and whispered,

“It’s not the Rat Devil I need to be careful of.”

The air grew colder.

“It’s you.”

And from above, your whisper answered—low, amused, a hum that only he could hear inside his bones:

“You’re finally learning