How to Survive an Internship at Ahjin Guild

by matchamoii

Summary:

You applied for a Mana Stabilization Research Internship to graduate.

You got in. Amazing.

The problem? Your placement is Ahjin Guild—run by South Korea’s newest S-Rank Hunter, Jeju Island’s hero, and a man who commands an army of shadow soldiers.

You’re a civilian Mana Engineering student whose bias is Choi Jongin. This is not Choi Jongin.

Now you’re balancing lectures, deadlines, and a paid internship spent checking mana readings like weather forecasts, stress-testing systems, and labeling everything with sticky notes—while trying not to panic around your terrifyingly quiet guild master.

You just wanted to graduate.
You didn’t mean to get noticed by Sung Jinwoo.

Chapter 1

The lunch hall is loud in the way only universities manage—voices overlapping, chairs scraping, someone laughing too hard at something that probably wasn’t that funny. You sit wedged between two friends at a long table that has seen better decades, balancing a half-cold sandwich in one hand and your laptop in the other.

The sandwich is turkey. You think. It might also be regret.

You flip open your laptop anyway, because if you don’t check your email now, you’ll check it in thirty seconds, and then again after that. Your phone buzzes uselessly beside your tray, abandoned for once in favor of a bigger screen and a false sense of productivity.

Around you, your friends are mid-conversation—loud, animated, and very much not paying attention to you.

“I’m telling you,” Mina says, waving a fry for emphasis, “his mana flow is completely different from other S-ranks. It’s denser, but it’s not unstable. It’s like—”

“Like it’s layered,” Jisoo cuts in. “I saw a breakdown online. Someone compared it to stacked pressure plates. If one fails, there are five more underneath.”

“That’s terrifying,” someone says fondly.

You hum absently, scrolling through your inbox. Spam. Spam. Department notice. Spam. A promotional email from a café you’ve never been to. Your sandwich drips something onto your tray.

Behind you, another table erupts into excited chatter.

“Did you see the announcement? The Association finally confirmed it.”

“The tenth S-rank, right?”

“Yeah—Sung Jinwoo. The Jeju Island guy.”

Your fingers pause on the trackpad.

Mina leans back, clearly in her element. “Can we talk about how insane his transformation is? Like, have you seen his first hunter ID photo?”

“Oh my god,” Jisoo laughs. “He looked like he’d get knocked over by a strong breeze.”

“And now?” Mina fans herself dramatically. “Buff. Tall. Handsome. Scary in a morally ambiguous way.”

“That’s the best kind,” someone mutters.

You swallow and keep scrolling. You are not listening. You are absolutely listening.

“He doesn’t even look like the same person,” Mina continues. “It’s wild. Like, if someone told me that was a glow-up arc in a webtoon, I’d say it was unrealistic.”

Your inbox refreshes.

A new email slides into view.

Subject: Mana Stabilization Research Internship – Acceptance

Your brain stalls.

You blink. Once. Twice.

You click it.

The world narrows to text on a white background, your sandwich suddenly forgotten in your hand.

Dear Applicant,

We are pleased to inform you—

Your grip loosens.

The sandwich falls.

It hits the table with a soft, tragic splat, lettuce escaping like it’s making a break for freedom.

The table goes quiet.

“You okay?” Mina asks.

You stare at your laptop. Your heart is pounding so hard you’re pretty sure it’s messing with your vision.

“I—” Your voice comes out thin. “I got it.”

“Got what?” Jisoo asks.

You look up slowly, eyes wide. “The internship.”

There’s a beat.

Then—

“What?!”

“You’re kidding.”

“No way.”

“You’re lying.”

You turn your laptop so they can see, pointing vaguely at the acceptance email like it might disappear if you don’t anchor it to reality.

“I’m not lying,” you say faintly. “I got accepted into the Mana Stabilization Research Internship.”

The table erupts.

Mina grabs your arm. “That’s insanely competitive.”

Jisoo leans over your shoulder. “That’s the one you need to graduate, right?”

“Yes,” you say, nodding. “It’s— it’s literally the exact practicum requirement. And it’s paid.”

“How paid?” someone asks.

You scroll. Your eyes widen again.

“…Very.”

There’s a chorus of groans.

“You’re kidding.”

“That’s criminal.”

“I hate you, but respectfully.”

You laugh weakly, still scrolling through the email, adrenaline buzzing under your skin. Your hands are shaking a little, but that’s fine. That’s normal. You’ve worked for this. You survived three years of impossible equations, sleepless nights, and one professor who genuinely seemed to enjoy watching students suffer.

This is good. This is great.

Your eyes skim lower.

Partner Organization: Ahjin Guild

Your smile freezes.

“…No,” you whisper.

Mina squints. “What?”

You scroll back up. Then down again. Then up. Like it might change if you look at it from a different angle.

“Oh no,” you say.

Jisoo leans in. “What do you mean, ‘oh no’?”

“It’s—” You swallow. “It’s not the Hunters Guild.”

There’s a pause.

Mina’s face lights up. “Oh my god, is it the White Tiger Guild?”

“No.”

“Reapers?”

“No.”

You take a breath. “It’s Ahjin Guild.”

Silence crashes over the table.

Then—

“…The Ahjin Guild?” someone says slowly.

“The one with—” Mina makes a vague, spooky gesture. “—him?”

“Yes,” you squeak.

Jisoo’s eyes go wide. “The brand-new one?”

“Yes.”

“With only one human employee?”

“Yes.”

“And the rest are—”

“Shadow soldiers,” you finish miserably.

There’s a second of stunned quiet.

Then Mina slaps the table. “I’m jealous.”

“What?” you yelp.

“He’s hot,” Mina says immediately. “Scary, yes. But hot.”

“He literally commands an army of shadows,” you say.

“Still hot.”

Jisoo tilts her head. “I heard he barely talks.”

“That’s worse,” you say. “That’s so much worse.”

Someone across from you snorts. “You’re going to die.”

You groan, dropping your forehead onto the table. “I’m going to pass away. This is it. I’m done.”

“But think about it,” Mina says. “You’ll be working at a cutting-edge guild.”

“With a terrifying guild master.”

“Who saved Jeju Island.”

“Who looks at people like he’s deciding whether they’re a threat,” you counter.

Jisoo scrolls on her phone. “People online say he’s polite.”

“That’s what they say about storms before they destroy a city.”

You lift your head and look back at the email, dread and excitement tangled together in your chest.

This internship is everything you need.

It’s paid. Handsomely.

It fulfills your graduation requirements.

It’s directly aligned with your specialization.

Your job description scrolls into view again, painfully familiar and suddenly ominous.

You’ll be checking readings like checking the weather.
Running simulations like stress-testing an app.
Fixing equipment when it bugs out.
Explaining things with sticky notes and diagrams.

You can do this.

You want to do this.

You just didn’t expect to do it somewhere that feels like the setting of a horror movie.

“I was supposed to meet Choi Jongin,” you mutter.

Mina laughs. “You still might. He’s affiliated with like, everyone.”

“Not the same,” you say mournfully. “I was supposed to casually exist near him. From a safe distance. Preferably with witnesses.”

Instead, you’ll be working under Sung Jinwoo.

The tenth S-rank Hunter.

The man who walked out of Jeju Island like the concept of death was optional.

The founder and guild master of Ahjin Guild.

The owner of exactly one human staff member and an army of obedient shadows.

You close your laptop slowly.

“So,” Jisoo says, grinning. “When do you start?”

You glance at the date at the bottom of the email.

“…Monday.”

Mina raises her drink. “To surviving.”

You raise your half-empty cup with a sigh. “To not getting eaten by shadows.”

As laughter bubbles around the table, you lean back in your chair, heart still racing, mind already spiraling ahead.

You’ve spent years preparing for this.

You just didn’t think the scariest part would be the guild master himself.

---

You accept the offer at 11:47 p.m., sprawled on your bed with your laptop balanced dangerously on your knees and a cup of instant ramen cooling forgotten on your desk.

You stare at the screen for a full minute before clicking Accept, like it might bite you back.

It doesn’t.
It just sends a polite confirmation email and a calendar attachment.

That feels worse.

Now you’re lying on your back, phone held above your face, watching the minutes tick closer to midnight. Your room is quiet except for the faint hum of your laptop fan and the distant noise of someone laughing in the hallway outside—someone who does not have to report to Ahjin Guild in less than a week.

Your phone wallpaper stares back at you.

Choi Jong-in, mid-smile, caught in the middle of a press event where he looks relaxed, confident, and very much alive. Fire mage. Celebrity hunter. Your bias. Comfort person. Safe choice.

You sigh dramatically and roll onto your side.

“How did it come to this,” you whisper to no one.

You miss him already. Not that you ever knew him, but that has never stopped you before.

Your thumb opens YouTube on instinct. Muscle memory. Habit. Coping mechanism.

You type his name into the search bar.

Press conference highlights. Interview compilations. A fan-edited video titled “Choi Jong-in Laughing for 12 Minutes Straight (You’re Welcome)”. You click it without hesitation.

His voice fills your room, warm and teasing, punctuated by laughter and applause. He jokes with reporters. Deflects personal questions with practiced ease. At one point, he grins directly at the camera and says something charming enough that you physically clutch your pillow.

“Yes,” you murmur. “This is what I was supposed to have.”

You let the video play while you stare at the ceiling, imagining a universe where your internship email said Hunters Guild instead of Ahjin Guild. Where your biggest worry would’ve been embarrassing yourself in front of Jong-in instead of… whatever fate has in store for you now.

Your phone buzzes with a notification.

You glance down.

A recommended video thumbnail stares back at you, impossible to ignore.

[LIVE STREAM CLIP] Sung Jinwoo vs. Ant King – Jeju Island Raid (Trending)

You groan.

“No,” you tell your phone. “Absolutely not.”

Your thumb hovers.

You know exactly what this is. You avoided it when it first trended. You skimmed articles instead. Read summaries. Looked at still images very carefully cropped to avoid prolonged exposure.

Because Sung Jinwoo is intimidating. Sung Jinwoo is dangerous. Sung Jinwoo is not meant to be watched casually in bed at midnight when you are already emotionally vulnerable.

Also, Sung Jinwoo is going to be your boss.

Which means you absolutely should not watch footage of him in combat, effortlessly dismantling the most dangerous magical creature in modern history.

You sigh.

You tap the video.

The stream opens with shaky footage and distant screams. The camera pans wildly before finally locking onto him—standing in the ruined landscape of Jeju Island, shadows writhing at his feet like something alive.

You pause the video.

“…Okay,” you say to the empty room. “This is fine. This is research.”

You hit play.

He moves.

It’s worse than you expected.

Not the violence—you were prepared for that. You’ve seen enough dungeon footage to know what to expect. It’s the way he moves. Controlled. Efficient. Like the world itself is slightly slower around him.

The Ant King lunges.

Sung Jinwoo doesn’t flinch.

You sit up in bed, ramen completely forgotten.

The camera struggles to keep up as he dodges, counters, and commands shadows that surge forward like an extension of his will. There’s no wasted motion. No hesitation. No unnecessary flair.

Just precision.

Your stomach does a very traitorous little flip.

“Okay,” you mutter. “I see it. I understand why people are normal about this.”

He speaks once during the clip—just a short command—and the sound of his voice is low, steady, almost calm.

You blink.

You rewind.

You listen again.

“Oh no,” you whisper.

He’s… infuriatingly handsome.

Not in the loud, charismatic way Jong-in is. Not flashy. Not playful. It’s understated. Severe. The kind of face that looks like it belongs on statues and warning signs.

You groan and drop back onto your pillow, staring at the ceiling again.

“I’m loyal,” you say firmly. “I’m a loyal fan.”

Your phone buzzes again as autoplay kicks in, lining up another clip.

This one is slower. Closer. A different angle. Sung Jinwoo walking through the aftermath of the fight, coat torn, expression unreadable. Shadows follow him like obedient ghosts.

You don’t stop it.

You watch him step over debris like it doesn’t exist. Watch his gaze sweep the battlefield, assessing, calculating.

You realize something uncomfortable.

This man does not look like someone who notices people casually.

He looks like someone who notices everything.

Your phone dips slightly in your hand.

“Oh, this is bad,” you murmur.

You sit up again, propping your back against the headboard, watching despite yourself. There’s something almost unreal about him on screen, like he doesn’t quite belong in the same world as press conferences and internships and sticky notes.

And yet.

He’s going to be real. In person. In the same building as you.

You glance down at your hands.

These hands fix malfunctioning sensors with duct tape and prayer. These hands write equations in the margins of notebooks and draw diagrams with smiley faces so you don’t cry.

What are you going to do when those same hands have to present data to him?

You imagine it.

You, standing in a lab or conference room, pointing at a graph with a laser pointer that’s definitely shaking.

Him, watching silently.

Shadows lining the walls.

Your soul leaving your body.

You pause the video and bury your face in your pillow.

“I can’t do this,” you mumble. “I absolutely can. But I don’t want to.”

You roll onto your side again and peek at your phone.

The video is still paused on his face.

You sigh and unpause it.

Despite everything—your fear, your bias crisis, your impending doom—you can’t look away.

There’s a strange comfort in watching him fight. The certainty. The control. He ends the battle decisively, without spectacle, without hesitation.

When the clip finally ends, you realize your heart has slowed.

You’re calmer.

That annoys you.

“So this is how he does it,” you mutter. “Terrify people into peace.”

You lock your phone and drop it beside you, staring up at the ceiling once more. Your room feels smaller now. The future feels closer.

Monday.

Ahjin Guild.

Sung Jinwoo.

Your phone lights up again with a message from Mina.

Mina: did u accept 👀

You type back.

You: …yes

Three dots appear immediately.

Mina: LOL
Mina: congrats AND rip
Mina: if u survive can u tell me if he’s taller in person

You groan and toss your phone onto the bed.

You turn onto your side, facing the wall, and pull the blanket up to your chin.

Somehow, you’re going to survive this.

You have to.

You’ve survived finals week. You’ve survived three-hour labs. You’ve survived professors who thought exams were a personality trait.

How hard can one terrifyingly quiet S-rank hunter with an army of shadows really be?

You close your eyes.

Your phone buzzes once more as autoplay resumes quietly in the background, Sung Jinwoo’s image flickering across the darkened screen.

You pretend not to notice.

You fall asleep wondering when exactly your life became this strange—and whether you’ll ever be able to look at a press conference the same way again.

Chapter 2: Not my Boss being the Final Boss

Summary:

Monday greets her like a warning. A quiet office, a too-normal guild, and chaos disguised as paperwork lull her into false calm. Then a door opens, power settles in the air, and one brief exchange hints that this internship won’t stay ordinary for long.

Monday arrives like a threat.

You wake up before your alarm, heart already racing, staring at the ceiling as if it personally betrayed you. For a brief, blessed moment, you forget why today feels different.

Then it hits.

Ahjin Guild.

You sit up so fast you almost pull a muscle.

After a very intense internal debate that involves lying back down and pretending society isn’t real, you get up. You shower. You stare at your closet for far too long. You change outfits twice. Three times. Four.

Eventually, you settle on something that feels… safe. Nicer clothes. Business fancy, but casual enough to not scream first day on the job, please don’t perceive me. Clean lines. Neutral colors. Nothing flashy. Nothing that says I am nervous even though you very much are.

You put on makeup carefully. Not heavy. Just enough to feel like you have some kind of control over the situation.

You tell yourself it’s practical.

You tell yourself it’s professional.

You do not tell yourself that maybe—just maybe—you’re hoping it’ll hide the way your face burns red when you’re stressed. Or that it’ll somehow shield you from the terrifying reality of meeting Sung Jinwoo in person.

It doesn’t matter. You don’t even know yet whether you regret it.

The bus ride is quiet in that early-morning, half-awake way. You sit by the window, clutching your bag, checking your reflection every time the glass turns into a mirror. Phone screen. Window. Polished metal pole. Repeat.

Your makeup hasn’t smudged.

You don’t know why you keep checking.

Your heart thuds harder with every stop closer to your destination.

Ahjin Guild’s building comes into view and… you frown.

It’s normal.

Painfully normal.

No dramatic architecture. No ominous statues. No massive guild emblem carved into stone. Just a clean office building that looks like it could house accountants, or tech startups, or people who send emails with phrases like per my last message.

This somehow makes it worse.

You step off the bus and stand there for a second, staring up at it.

“That’s fine,” you mutter. “This is fine.”

The doors slide open easily.

Inside, it’s quiet.

Not tense quiet. Not eerie. Just… empty.

You step in, your footsteps echoing softly against polished floors. The air smells faintly like cleaning solution and coffee that’s been forgotten on a hot plate somewhere. The lights are on, but dimmed, like the building itself hasn’t fully woken up yet.

You look around.

There’s no front desk.

No receptionist.

No sign that says Welcome to Ahjin Guild or Please Sign In or Don’t Panic.

Just rows of desks, neatly arranged, computers asleep, chairs tucked in.

“…Hello?” you call softly.

Your voice feels too loud.

You take a few tentative steps forward.

Still nothing.

Then you see it.

A body.

Slumped over one of the desks.

You freeze mid-step.

Your brain immediately offers several unhelpful possibilities.

Is he—
Is that—
Should you—

You look around wildly.

Do you approach? Run? Call for help? Is this normal? Is this a test? Is this some kind of guild initiation ritual where civilians discover corpses to prove emotional resilience?

Your pulse is in your ears.

Then the body groans.

You make a noise that is not dignified.

Your soul ejects itself cleanly out of your body and leaves the building.

The man shifts, lifting his head slowly from the desk. His hair is a mess. His tie is loose. His face is pale, eyes half-lidded, dark circles so deep you’re pretty sure airport security would flag them.

He blinks at you.

You stare back.

Neither of you speaks for a solid three seconds.

“…You’re early,” he croaks.

You open your mouth.

Nothing comes out.

He squints, pushing himself upright with visible effort. “Wait. New face. Uh.” He rubs his eyes. “Intern?”

“Yes,” you say immediately, far too loud. “I mean—yes. Yes, I’m the intern.”

He nods slowly, like this confirms something he suspected but hoped wasn’t true. “Cool. I’m Yoo Jinho.”

Your brain does a hard reset.

“…Vice-guildmaster Yoo Jinho?” you ask faintly.

He winces. “Please don’t say it like that before noon.”

He stands, swaying slightly, and you fight the urge to reach out and steady him. He looks like he’s operating entirely on caffeine and spite.

“You’re not… dead?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Jinho laughs weakly. “Only spiritually.”

That makes sense.

He gestures vaguely around the room. “Welcome to Ahjin Guild.”

You glance around again. “Is… is it just you?”

“Yep.”

“…Just you?”

“And you,” he adds, pointing at you. “Congratulations. You’ve doubled our workforce.”

That’s not comforting.

He shuffles around the desk and motions for you to follow him. “Come on. I’ll show you around. It’s not much.”

He’s not kidding.

The tour takes approximately three minutes.

“This is the main office,” he says, gesturing to the very space you’re standing in. “That’s the meeting room. Storage is down the hall. Lab space is… pending. Guildmaster Sung prefers things minimal.”

You nod, absorbing this.

“Where is he?” you ask before you can think better of it.

Jinho pauses.

“…Out.”

That’s it.

That’s the whole answer.

You decide not to press.

He leads you back to his desk—or what you assume is his desk, based on the sheer volume of chaos piled on it. Papers, folders, envelopes, notebooks, sticky notes in at least five colors, some with writing, some blank, some stuck to other sticky notes like they formed emotional attachments.

“And this,” he says, gesturing to another desk beside his, “is yours.”

You stare at it.

It is worse.

There is a pile of paperwork so tall it might legally qualify as a structure. Some of it is neatly stacked. Most of it is not. You spot official-looking forms, handwritten notes, printed emails, a takeout menu, and—alarmingly—a single sock.

You pick up one folder at random.

“What is this?” you ask.

Jinho peers at it. “No idea.”

You open another. “This looks like… dungeon expense reports?”

“Probably.”

“And this one?”

“Personal mail.”

“Why is it here?”

He shrugs. “It showed up.”

You look at him. He looks back at you, eyes bloodshot but earnest.

“What exactly,” you ask slowly, “is my first task?”

Jinho smiles tiredly. “Organization.”

You laugh.

He doesn’t.

“Oh,” you say. “You’re serious.”

“Deadly.”

You look back at the pile. Seventy percent of this has nothing to do with mana stabilization. Some of it has nothing to do with anything. There are receipts. There’s a flyer for a gym membership. There’s a handwritten note that just says ask Jinwoo later.

“What the hell is going on?” you whisper.

Jinho rubs his face. “We started operations very fast.”

That explains nothing.

He claps his hands weakly. “Sort what you can. Flag anything important. If you don’t know what it is, make a pile.”

“How many piles?” you ask.

He thinks. “As many as you need.”

This is not a system.

You sit down slowly, staring at the desk like it personally wronged you.

“This is the exact internship I need to graduate,” you mutter.

“Yep.”

“It’s paid,” you add.

“Very.”

You pick up a sticky note and stick it to the first folder you sort. You label it Possibly Important. Then another pile: Definitely Not Important. Then another: Why Is This Here.

Within ten minutes, you’re surrounded by stacks.

Jinho watches you work with something like reverence.

“You’re really good at this,” he says.

You don’t know how to respond to that.

As you flip through another folder, a strange feeling settles in your chest. This place is chaotic. Understaffed. Barely holding itself together with duct tape and exhaustion.

And yet.

Somewhere in this building is Sung Jinwoo.

The man who built this.

The man who approved your internship.

The man you haven’t met yet.

You swallow and straighten another stack.

What the hell have you gotten yourself into?

Hours pass in a way that feels both painfully slow and alarmingly fast.

At some point, you lose track of time entirely, swallowed whole by paper cuts, sticky notes, and the quiet, relentless act of making sense out of nonsense. You’ve created systems where none existed. Categories. Subcategories. A color-coded sticky note hierarchy that would make your professors proud and mildly concerned.

Jinho checks on you occasionally, hovering like a ghost with a coffee cup that has been reheated one too many times.

“You’re doing great,” he tells you at one point, voice hoarse. “Hyung-nim would love this.”

You pause mid-sort.

“…Hyung-nim?” you echo.

Jinho blinks. “Oh. Right. I mean—” He straightens a little, like someone remembering his job title. “Guildmaster Sung would love this.”

You nod slowly, filing that away in the ever-growing mental folder labeled Things I Didn’t Need to Know But Now Do.

Hyung-nim.

The idea of Sung Jinwoo being referred to casually—affectionately, even—does something strange to your brain. It humanizes him in a way you weren’t prepared for. Makes him feel… closer. Too close.

You push the thought aside and return to your work.

By the time your stomach growls loud enough to embarrass you, the chaos has transformed into something resembling order. You lean back in your chair and stretch, satisfied despite yourself.

“This is actually kind of nice,” you mutter.

Jinho looks at you like you’ve just confessed to enjoying tax forms.

Then—

The doors to the main office click open.

The sound is soft. Unassuming.

It still makes your entire body lock up.

Footsteps follow. Calm. Unhurried.

And then—

“I’m back.”

That voice.

You freeze.

It’s exactly the same voice from the Jeju Island raid clip. Low. Steady. Casual, like he’s announcing he went out to buy milk and not, presumably, annihilate monsters for a living.

Your soul leaves again. It is not returning.

Jinho straightens immediately. “Hyung-n—” He catches himself. “Guildmaster Sung.”

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

You stay very still, crouched behind your mountain of paperwork like it might protect you. You hear Jinwoo hum in acknowledgment, the sound close enough now that it sends a chill down your spine.

There’s a soft thud.

Then another.

Then several more in quick succession.

Something hits the tile floor with a sharp, crystalline clatter.

Jinho exhales. “You brought back a lot.”

“Needed them,” Jinwoo replies simply.

You frown.

Crystals?

Curiosity betrays you.

You peek over the edge of your paper fortress.

Your brain short-circuits.

There is a pile of mana crystals on the floor so large and radiant it might legally qualify as a celestial event. They gleam under the office lights, refracting color across the walls, sharp edges catching and scattering brightness like they’re trying to blind anyone who looks too long.

They’re beautiful.

They’re terrifying.

They are expensive.

“Oh,” you whisper.

Jinho notices you then. “Ah—right.” He gestures vaguely in your direction. “That’s the intern.”

Intern.

You.

Your stomach drops.

“Oh,” Jinwoo says.

That single syllable is enough to make your pulse spike.

You watch his gaze shift toward you. You don’t look up fast enough to meet it, eyes glued stubbornly to the floor like it might swallow you whole.

“The intern,” he repeats mildly.

“Yes,” you squeak. Then, panicking, add, “I mean—hello.”

Jinho rubs the back of his neck. “She’s been organizing all the paperwork. Lifesaver, honestly.”

Jinwoo hums again. “I see.”

You do not, in fact, see anything, because you are refusing to look.

He steps closer.

You know this because the air feels different. Heavier. Like standing too close to a speaker at a concert. Not suffocating—just… present. Overwhelming in a way that’s almost polite.

“I’m Sung Jinwoo,” he says plainly.

You stand up so fast your chair screeches in protest.

“I’m—” You bow slightly, then panic and straighten, then bow again. “L/N Y/N. Thank you for— for the opportunity.”

You want to lie down on the floor and fade into the tile.

“Mm,” he replies.

Why does he sound like that. Why is that noise doing things to your brain.

He turns back toward the pile of crystals. “Jinho.”

“Yes, hy— Guildmaster Sung,” Jinho corrects himself quickly.

“How valuable would these be?” Jinwoo asks casually, like he’s asking about office supplies.

Your heart stops.

Jinho looks at the crystals. Then at you.

You feel something cold crawl up your spine.

“Uh,” Jinho says slowly. “That’s actually… something she could probably answer better.”

Silence.

You feel Jinwoo’s attention shift back to you.

Your lungs forget how to function.

He turns slightly. “Can you?”

Oh.

Oh no.

This is it. This is how you die. Not eaten by shadows, but asked a question you weren’t emotionally prepared for.

Your inner angel and devil appear immediately.

Angel: Be calm. You know this. You’ve studied for this exact scenario.

Devil: Pass out. Fake a medical emergency.

Angel: This is literally your field.

Devil: Cry.

Jinwoo waits.

Patient.

Unmoving.

You force yourself to step closer, each footfall feeling like a mistake. Your eyes stay firmly on the floor until you’re close enough to the crystals that their light reflects off your shoes.

You crouch slightly, examining them without touching. Your brain kicks into autopilot, blessedly familiar territory.

“They’re… high-grade,” you manage, voice trembling but coherent. “Refined. The mana density is very stable. I’d say these are from at least an A-rank gate, maybe higher.”

You swallow.

“Based on the clarity and saturation, each crystal could go for… a significant amount on the market. Individually. As a set, even more so.”

You risk a glance up.

Mistake.

He’s watching you.

Not critically. Not coldly.

Just… listening.

Your face burns.

“I—I mean,” you continue hurriedly, “if they’re processed correctly. Improper handling could reduce their value. But if stored properly, they’d retain—” You gesture weakly. “—this.”

He nods once.

“That seems accurate,” he says.

You release a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Jinho looks impressed. “See? Told you.”

Jinwoo’s gaze lingers on you for half a second longer than necessary.

“Good,” he says.

That’s it.

One word.

It hits you harder than it should.

He turns away, already done with the conversation, discussing logistics with Jinho like he didn’t just dismantle your nervous system with minimal effort.

You retreat back to your desk on shaky legs and sit down very carefully.

Your heart is racing.

Your hands are clammy.

Your face feels like it’s on fire.

So much for makeup hiding stress.

You stare at the sticky note in front of you and try to remember what letters look like.

Behind you, Jinho laughs softly. “Hyung-nim, you scared her.”

“I did?” Jinwoo replies, genuinely curious.

You choke.

“No!” you blurt, horrified. “I mean— no, sir. Guildmaster Sung. It’s just— first day.”

There’s a pause.

Then—

“…I see,” Jinwoo says.

You don’t know why, but something about the way he says it makes you think he really does.

You lower your head and return to your work, desperately pretending to be normal.

This is going to be a very long internship.

Notes:

Yikers

Chapter 3: Day Two and I’m Already Out of my Depth

Summary:

Back on campus, exhaustion lingers—and so does him. Paperwork trauma fades into quiet resolve, until day two shatters expectations. A simple request pulls her out of routine and into something far too fast, too close, and unmistakably dangerous.

By the time you step onto campus again, the sun feels personally offensive.

Your shoulders are heavy, your backpack somehow heavier, and the dark circles under your eyes could qualify as a separate personality trait. You walk through the hallway toward your next lecture like someone who has seen things. Terrible things. Bureaucratic things.

You barely register your surroundings until footsteps match your pace.

“Oh my god,” Mina says beside you. “You look dead.”

“Dead-adjacent,” Jisoo corrects, squinting at your face. “Like… spiritually deceased.”

You hum weakly, eyes fixed on the floor as if gravity itself might pull you into it and spare you the rest of the day.

“Was it that bad?” Mina asks. “First day horror stories are kind of a rite of passage.”

You sigh, long and tired. “I didn’t even do anything.”

Jisoo blinks. “What do you mean you didn’t do anything?”

“I organized paperwork.”

There’s a pause.

“…That’s it?” Mina asks.

“Yes,” you say. “For hours.”

“That doesn’t sound traumatizing,” Jisoo says carefully.

You stop walking and turn to them, deadpan. “Sung Jinwoo was sitting on the couch the entire time.”

Mina gasps. “Oh.”

Jisoo winces. “Oh no.”

You resume walking. “Exactly.”

They trail after you, immediately invested.

“So,” Mina says, lowering her voice. “What’s he like? In person.”

“Quiet,” you say. “Terrifyingly quiet.”

“But hot?” Mina presses.

You glare at her. “This is not the time.”

“That’s a yes,” Jisoo says smugly.

You groan. “He didn’t even do anything. He just… existed. Leisurely. While I was sorting through a mountain of paperwork that made me question every life decision I’ve ever made.”

Mina snorts. “Honestly, that sounds worse than if he’d yelled at you.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” you reply. “At least then I’d know where I stand.”

“So was it what you expected?” Jisoo asks.

You think about it.

You expected chaos. Shadow soldiers lurking ominously. Near-death experiences. A dramatic, cinematic first day.

Instead, you got endless paperwork, a vice-guildmaster who looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, and a guild master who asked one question and nearly made you faint.

“It was… the opposite,” you say finally. “The paperwork was more intimidating than he was.”

Mina stops walking. “That’s insane.”

“I know,” you say. “And that’s the worst part.”

You reach your lecture hall just as students begin filing in, the noise and movement blurring together. You slump into your seat, dropping your bag with a dull thud.

Your friends sit nearby, still eyeing you like you might collapse at any moment.

“You should sleep,” Jisoo tells you.

“I will,” you promise. “Eventually. Probably in another life.”

The lecture begins.

You try. You really do.

You open your notebook. You uncapped your pen. You stare at the professor as they start talking about mana distribution curves and infrastructure stress models—topics you should, theoretically, care deeply about.

The words wash over you.

Nothing sticks.

Your brain feels like it’s buffering.

You blink slowly, eyes burning. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep. Or the adrenaline crash. Or the fact that you spent the entire morning hyper-aware of every movement you made because Sung Jinwoo might glance in your direction.

Your notes devolve quickly.

A sentence starts strong, then trails off into nothing. Your handwriting slants. You doodle a box. Then another box. Then write remember to eat dinner in the margin like you might forget.

You rub your face with both hands and exhale.

Focus. Please.

Five minutes later, your phone is in your hand.

You don’t even remember deciding to take it out.

You do what every other exhausted university student does during lecture: you open YouTube.

You search his name automatically.

A press conference thumbnail pops up, recent. Choi Jong-in stands at the podium, composed and confident, fire insignia visible against his suit. The title mentions recent raids and new safety enforcement laws.

You mute the video immediately and turn on subtitles, glancing around to make sure the professor isn’t looking your way.

Then you watch.

Something in your chest loosens the moment he starts speaking.

Even muted, you can hear him. The familiar cadence. The calm authority. The ease with which he addresses reporters, explains complex situations, reassures the public.

He smiles at one point—small, practiced, but warm—and it’s like someone turned down the volume on your anxiety.

Your shoulders relax.

Your breathing evens out.

God, you missed this.

Subtitles scroll across the screen as he talks about tightening raid protocols, improving civilian safety, enforcing accountability across guild operations. He answers questions with clarity and confidence, redirecting attention away from himself and onto the system as a whole.

Reliable. Predictable. Safe.

You lean your cheek into your hand, eyes glued to the screen.

“This,” you whisper internally, “is what keeps me alive.”

The weight in your chest melts away. The stress. The dread. The image of shadow-filled offices and silent guild masters fades just a little.

This is familiar.

This is comfortable.

This is your bias.

You watch until the video ends, then replay it once more, just because.

When you finally lock your phone and tuck it away, you sit up straighter in your chair.

Okay.

You can do this.

You straighten your notes, even if they don’t make sense yet. You listen to the lecture again, catching fragments this time. Enough to survive. Enough to get through the day.

You remind yourself of the plan.

Finish the internship. Graduate. Apply to Hunters Guild.

This is temporary.

Ahjin Guild is just a stepping stone. A slightly terrifying, shadow-infested stepping stone.

You glance at the time.

Your shift tomorrow will probably be more paperwork. Maybe some actual mana readings if you’re lucky. Maybe Sung Jinwoo will be there again. Maybe he won’t.

Either way, you’ll survive.

You always do.

You sit there, surrounded by other tired students, sunlight filtering through the windows, and let the quiet determination settle in your chest.

This internship is necessary.

Hunters Guild is the goal.

And Choi Jong-in is waiting—figuratively, at least.

You’ll get there.

You just have to make it through this first.

Except, apparently, God has other plans for you.

You find this out the very next morning.

You arrive at Ahjin Guild ten minutes early—because yesterday taught you that being late here feels like tempting fate. You step inside, balancing a coffee in one hand and your bag slung over your shoulder, mentally bracing yourself for another day of paperwork, sticky notes, and pretending you are not hyper-aware of your surroundings.

You don’t even make it to your desk.

“Can you come with me?”

The voice is calm. Close.

Your soul briefly leaves your body, trips over the doorway, and faceplants somewhere in the parking lot.

You turn slowly.

Sung Jinwoo is standing there.

Up close.

Again.

You hadn’t expected that. You hadn’t prepared for that. You had not mentally rehearsed a response that didn’t involve screaming internally.

“I—” you start, then stop, because words are suddenly optional apparently.

“There’s a gate,” he continues, unfazed. “I’d like you to assess it.”

Your brain blue-screens.

“…Assess?” you echo weakly.

“Yes.”

He says it like this is the most normal request in the world. Like he’s asking you to proofread an email.

Your pulse spikes. “As in— analysis?”

“Yes.”

Dungeon.

Site.

Analysis.

Your stomach drops somewhere near your feet.

You absolutely did not expect this. Not on day two. Not without warning. Not without at least thirty minutes to mentally prepare, cry, and possibly Google survival statistics.

You panic quietly. Internally. Like a professional.

But you nod anyway.

“Yes,” you say. “Yes, I can do that.”

Your voice sounds suspiciously calm for someone whose fight-or-flight response is currently filing paperwork.

You set your coffee down on the nearest surface with great care, then reach for the strap of your backpack.

You hesitate.

The bag is heavy. It always is. Half of it is actual equipment. The other half is… stuff. Snacks. Chargers. Three pens that don’t work. A notebook you forgot was there. Emergency hair ties. A folded receipt from last week.

Do you take it?

You need your tools. You need your sensors. You need your tablet.

But do you need everything?

You stand there for a second too long, weighing your life choices.

Behind you, Jinwoo waits.

Silently.

Patiently.

You feel his presence like pressure at your back—not aggressive, not impatient, just… there.

You glance back.

His brows are faintly furrowed.

Not annoyed.

Just confused.

He is, you realize, watching you think.

Which somehow makes it worse.

Your internal angel and devil reappear.

Angel: Take the bag. Be prepared.
Devil: Leave it. Fake confidence. Run.

You shut both of them up.

You sling the bag fully onto your shoulder and straighten. “I’m ready.”

Jinwoo nods once.

You expect him to turn and lead the way.

He does not.

Instead, he steps closer.

Too close.

Before you can process what’s happening, his arm is around you.

Around you.

Your brain completely shuts down.

And then—

The world goes dark.

Not like someone turned off the lights. Like the concept of space itself folded in on you. Shadows rush up, wrapping around your vision, swallowing sound and sensation in a way that makes your stomach lurch violently.

When the darkness clears, the world snaps back into place.

You stumble slightly, heart in your throat.

You’re standing in a park.

Or what used to be one.

Barricades ring the area, tall metal fences blocking off access points. Yellow warning tape flutters lazily in the breeze. Beyond it, civilians are gathered at a safe distance, murmuring, pointing, phones held up.

And in front of you—

A gate.

It glows faintly, rippling with mana, its surface shimmering like heat haze trapped in the air. The pressure from it is subtle but unmistakable, prickling against your skin like static.

Your stomach flips.

Hard.

Acid surges up your throat, sudden and violent, and you have to clamp your jaw shut and breathe through your nose to keep from embarrassing yourself immediately.

Second day.
Not today.

You swallow hard and steady yourself, gripping the strap of your bag like it’s the only thing anchoring you to reality.

Jinwoo releases you and steps away, already focused on the gate.

“I acquired this gate about an hour ago,” he says calmly.

An hour.

You blink. “You— already claimed it?”

“Yes.”

Of course he did.

“I’ll go inside and clear it,” he continues, as if discussing a grocery run. “Your job is to assess mana decay after closure. Determine how long the area remains unsafe for civilians.”

You process that.

Then frown.

“…After closure?” you ask carefully.

“Yes.”

You hesitate. “Usually, mana stabilization researchers are contacted after a gate is closed. To measure residual mana.”

He looks at you.

“I know.”

A pause.

“…Then,” you say slowly, “does that mean you expect me to wait here while you clear it?”

“Yes.”

Your eye twitches.

“This is an A-rank gate,” you add, because apparently you’ve chosen today to be brave.

“Yes.”

“…That could take hours.”

He considers this for exactly half a second.

“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

You stare at him.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “Did you say—”

“Fifteen minutes.”

Your jaw drops.

You stop trying to hide it.

“Guildmaster Sung,” you say faintly, “even Choi Jong-in’s fastest recorded A-rank clear time is two and a half hours.”

You immediately regret saying his name.

Jinwoo doesn’t react.

“Then this will be faster,” he says simply.

Is he crazy?

Yes.

Absolutely.

This is Sung Jinwoo.

You open your mouth, then close it. There is no point arguing with a man who says things like that with complete sincerity.

You give up.

“…Okay,” you say weakly. “I’ll— I’ll wait.”

He nods, satisfied.

Without another word, he steps forward and enters the gate.

The glowing surface ripples, swallowing him whole.

You exhale shakily and slump onto a nearby bench, legs weak.

“Fifteen minutes,” you mutter. “Sure.”

You check the time.

You have nothing to do until he gets back.

So you do the only reasonable thing.

You scroll through TikTok.

Time blurs.

You watch a cat fall off a couch. Someone reviews street food. Another video explains a conspiracy theory you immediately forget. You like a post without realizing it.

At some point, the air changes.

You look up.

The gate trembles.

Light pulses once—twice—and then collapses inward with a low hum, the glow shrinking until it vanishes completely.

Jinwoo steps out.

You blink.

You check the time.

Your stomach drops again.

“…It’s been fifteen minutes,” you whisper.

You stare at him, stunned. He looks exactly the same as before. Calm. Unbothered. As if he didn’t just shatter every benchmark you know.

You scramble to your feet and get to work immediately, professionalism kicking in on pure instinct. You pull out your sensors, tablet lighting up as readings stream in.

“Residual mana is high immediately post-closure,” you report, eyes fixed on the data. “But the decay rate is steep. This gate’s mana signature is… unusually clean.”

You glance at the readings again.

“The area should be unsafe for civilians for approximately forty minutes. After that, mana levels drop below disruption thresholds. Full stabilization in about ninety.”

He listens.

You explain how lingering mana can interfere with electronics, cause nausea, induce minor hallucinations in non-hunters if exposure is prolonged. You note the lack of chaotic residue, suggesting minimal structural damage risk.

He nods.

“Thank you,” he says when you finish.

That’s it.

Two words.

You pack up your equipment, very carefully avoiding eye contact.

“Good work,” he adds.

You nearly drop your tablet.

You nod, cheeks burning.

Lord.

This man is a handful without even trying.

Notes:

This girl cannot fathom Jinwoo for her life lolll

Chapter 4: Three Days Unconscious, Zero Days Resting

Summary:

A calm afternoon fractures into panic when quiet breaks the wrong way. Fear lingers, relief follows, but rest proves temporary. As truth surfaces and duty calls again, it becomes clear that peace around him is fragile—and waiting never feels safe for long.

The afternoon starts quietly.

Suspiciously quietly.

You’re seated at your desk with your laptop open, multiple supplier tabs pulled up as you compare prices for mana sensors, stabilization anchors, and shielding units that don’t immediately explode when exposed to high residual output. Your coffee is still warm. Your shoulders are relaxed for once. The office hums softly with the sound of the air conditioning and the occasional rustle of paper.

Across from you, Jinho is hunched over a stack of ledgers, muttering to himself and tapping a pen against the desk like he’s trying to summon sleep through rhythm alone.

“This one doesn’t make sense,” he grumbles.

You glance over. “Does it ever?”

“No,” he admits. “But this one especially doesn’t.”

You smile faintly and return to your screen. You’re finally ordering equipment you actually need—proper analyzers, portable mana gauges, containment casings. Things that make your work feel real, official. Less like you’re borrowing scraps from a half-formed guild and more like you belong here.

It’s peaceful.

Suspiciously peaceful.

Sung Jinwoo has been gone all morning, which means no quiet pressure in the air, no sudden awareness of your posture, no internal debate about where to look when he enters a room. You tell yourself you’re not relieved.

You definitely are.

You stretch in your chair, sipping your coffee. Maybe today will be easy. Maybe you’ll finish early. Maybe you’ll even leave work without feeling like you’ve aged ten years.

Then Jinho’s phone rings.

At first, you barely register it. He answers automatically, still scanning the ledger in front of him.

“Yeah?” he says. “This is Yoo Jinho.”

You continue scrolling, humming under your breath.

There’s a pause.

Jinho straightens.

“…What?”

You stop humming.

His grip tightens around the phone. “Where?”

Your stomach drops.

“No—no, slow down,” Jinho says, standing abruptly, chair scraping loudly against the floor. “Hospital? Which one?”

Your heart begins to pound.

You look up fully now, watching as the color drains from his face.

“Hyung—” he starts, then stops, voice catching. “Guildmaster Sung… collapsed?”

Your fingers curl against the edge of your desk.

Collapsed.

Jinho nods as if listening to details only he can hear. “Double dungeon,” he repeats quietly. “I see.”

He ends the call without ceremony and looks at you.

“Get ready,” he says, voice tight. “We’re leaving.”

Your brain struggles to catch up. “What—what happened?”

“Hyung-nim is in the hospital,” Jinho says. “He collapsed after clearing a double dungeon.”

Your chest tightens painfully.

“Oh,” you breathe.

You’re on your feet before you realize you’ve moved, hands shaking as you grab your bag. Panic floods your system, fast and overwhelming, chasing each other in dizzying spirals.

Hospital.

Collapsed.

Double dungeon.

Your thoughts derail immediately.

What if he’s seriously hurt?
What if he doesn’t wake up?
What if—

A horrifying, selfish thought cuts through everything else.

What if you lose your internship?

The guilt hits immediately after.

You shake your head, trying to ground yourself. This isn’t about you. This is Sung Jinwoo. An S-rank hunter. A national asset. A person.

You follow Jinho out of the office in a daze, barely registering the world as you rush down the street and into a taxi. Jinho gives the address with shaking urgency, tapping his foot relentlessly as the car pulls into traffic.

You clutch your bag in your lap, fingers digging into the fabric.

“Double dungeon,” you murmur. “That’s— those are dangerous.”

Jinho nods, jaw clenched. “Even for him.”

The ride feels endless.

Your mind races, filling the silence with fragments of news reports and half-remembered articles. Double dungeons are unpredictable. Overexertion is no joke. Even S-ranks have limits, no matter how invincible they look on screen.

You think of the way Jinwoo had walked out of that A-rank gate like it was nothing. The way he spoke calmly. Casually.

Had he been pushing himself too hard?

The taxi screeches to a stop in front of the hospital. You’re out of the car before it fully halts, following Jinho through the sliding doors and into the sterile brightness of the lobby.

Everything smells like disinfectant and anxiety.

Jinho moves with purpose, clearly familiar with the layout. You trail after him, heart pounding louder with every step. Nurses glance at you curiously as you pass. Somewhere down the hall, someone cries quietly.

Your chest aches.

When you finally reach the room, Jinho hesitates just long enough to knock before pushing the door open.

Inside, Sung Jinwoo lies on the hospital bed.

Peaceful.

Still.

For a terrifying half-second, your heart stops entirely.

Then you see his chest rise.

And fall.

Relief crashes over you so hard your knees nearly give out.

He’s pale, yes. Exhausted. Dark circles shadow his eyes, his expression unguarded in sleep in a way you’ve never seen before. IV lines run into his arm, machines beeping steadily at his side.

But he’s breathing.

He’s alive.

Jinho exhales shakily, one hand braced against the wall. “Hyung-nim…”

A doctor clears their throat softly from the corner.

“He’s fine,” they say gently. “Just asleep. Severe mana exhaustion. His body essentially shut down to recover.”

You clutch your bag tighter.

“So… he’s not—” Jinho swallows. “He’s not in danger?”

The doctor shakes their head. “Not at the moment. Honestly, it’s a miracle he walked himself here at all. Most hunters wouldn’t have made it out of a double dungeon alive.”

Your legs feel weak.

“As long as he rests,” the doctor continues, “he’ll recover fully.”

Rest.

You glance back at Jinwoo.

He looks… younger like this. Less like an untouchable force of nature and more like a man who pushed himself past his limit.

Relief washes over you like a cold glass of water after a long run.

You slump into a chair without realizing it, shoulders finally dropping.

“Oh,” you whisper. “Thank God.”

At least you aren’t losing your internship.

At least the world isn’t losing a powerful S-rank hunter.

At least—at least he’s okay.

Jinho rubs his face, letting out a shaky laugh. “I swear,” he mutters. “He’s going to give me a heart attack one day.”

You manage a weak smile.

A few minutes pass in quiet. The steady beeping of the machines fills the room, grounding you. You hadn’t realized how tightly wound you were until now.

Three days pass in a strange, suspended way.

Not fast. Not slow. Just… heavy.

You still go to work. You still attend lectures. You still eat and sleep and answer emails. Life keeps moving because it always does, even when something important is paused somewhere else. But everything feels muted, like the world has turned its volume down while you wait for something to resume.

Sung Jinwoo remains unconscious.

The news doesn’t say it outright, but everyone knows. Articles skirt around the truth with careful wording—resting, recovering, under observation. No photos. No updates. Just speculation layered on speculation.

Ahjin Guild feels emptier without him, which is ridiculous considering how quiet he usually is.

Jinho is worse.

He drinks more coffee than usual. Talks faster. Checks his phone constantly. Tries to act normal and fails spectacularly. You don’t comment on it. You just keep working, keep ordering equipment, keep filing reports and running simulations and pretending that your chest doesn’t tighten every time you see a headline about Japan.

By the third day, neither of you can stand it anymore.

“We should go,” Jinho says abruptly that morning, already grabbing his jacket.

You don’t argue.

The hospital looks the same as before—clean, bright, calm in a way that feels inappropriate given how many lives pass through it on the edge of disaster. You walk beside Jinho down the hallway, steps slowing as you near the room.

He hesitates at the door this time.

Then opens it.

Sung Jinwoo is awake.

He’s sitting up slightly, back supported by pillows, dark hair a little messy, gaze sharp and alert despite the IV still attached to his arm. His eyes flick to the door the moment it opens.

For a split second, surprise flashes across his face.

Jinho makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

“Hyung-nim!” he blurts, rushing forward. “You’re awake—oh my god, you scared me half to death—do you have any idea how long you—”

“Jinho,” Jinwoo interrupts gently.

Jinho stops mid-rant, blinking rapidly.

“You’re awake,” Jinho repeats, voice breaking this time. “You’re really awake.”

Jinwoo nods once. “It seems so.”

Relief floods the room.

You don’t rush forward like Jinho does. You just stand there, gripping the strap of your bag, breathing a little easier. Alive. Awake. Sitting up. No machines blaring. No alarms.

You didn’t realize how tightly you’d been wound until now.

“You slept for three days,” you say quietly.

Jinwoo’s gaze shifts to you.

“Oh,” he says. “That long.”

Jinho stares at him. “That’s all you have to say?”

“I was tired,” Jinwoo replies.

You bite the inside of your cheek.

Somehow, despite everything, he looks… fine. Not weakened. Not diminished. If anything, there’s something different about him—something settled, heavier, like the air around him has changed. Not pressing, not overwhelming. Just… vast.

You don’t have the words for it.

Neither does Jinho, apparently, because he exhales sharply and scrubs a hand through his hair. “You can’t do this again. The doctor said—”

“I know,” Jinwoo says.

Then, without missing a beat, he asks, “What’s the situation with the S-rank gate in Japan?”

The shift is immediate.

Jinho freezes.

Your stomach drops.

“…You don’t waste time, do you,” Jinho mutters.

Jinwoo watches him steadily. Waiting.

Jinho exhales and leans against the foot of the bed. “It broke out.”

Silence.

“Giants emerged,” Jinho continues, his tone grim. “Multiple. They’re rampaging through cities. Infrastructure damage is catastrophic.”

You swallow.

“The containment failed,” Jinho adds. “Yuri Orlov was deployed.”

Jinwoo’s expression doesn’t change.

“He… didn’t make it,” Jinho finishes.

That unreadable look appears on Jinwoo’s face again. The one you’ve seen before. Not shock. Not anger. Just something internal, calculating, distant.

You feel cold.

Yuri Orlov. A name you recognize immediately. An established S-rank. Powerful. Experienced. The kind of hunter your professors spoke about with respect and caution.

Dead.

Jinwoo says nothing.

He shifts, swinging his legs over the side of the bed with fluid ease. Too fluid for someone who was unconscious for three days.

Jinho straightens. “Wait—what are you doing?”

“I’m leaving,” Jinwoo says simply.

He stands.

You feel something sharp twist in your chest.

“Hyung-nim, you can’t just—” Jinho starts.

“I can,” Jinwoo replies, already reaching for his jacket.

He looks like he wants to go.

Not out of curiosity.

Not excitement.

Duty.

You’ve noticed it before, in small moments. The way he doesn’t hesitate when something needs to be done. The way he steps forward without waiting to be asked. The way he carries responsibility like it’s an expectation, not a burden.

You move without thinking.

“Are you really planning to go?”

Your voice sounds louder than you expect in the quiet room.

Jinwoo stops at the door.

He doesn’t turn around.

He doesn’t look at you.

“I’m thinking about it,” he says.

That’s all.

Then he leaves.

The door clicks shut behind him.

You stand there, frozen.

Jinho stares at the door for a long moment, then lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Unbelievable.”

You don’t laugh.

Your heart is pounding too hard.

You sink into the chair beside the bed, hands trembling slightly as the weight of what just happened crashes over you.

Japan.

Giants.

A dead S-rank.

And Sung Jinwoo, fresh out of a three-day coma, walking out of the hospital like he’s late for a meeting.

“Can he even do that?” you whisper.

Jinho runs a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”

That answer terrifies you more than anything else.

You think back to your lectures. To the diagrams. To the recorded footage of giant-type dungeon monsters. Their sheer size. Their destructive capability. The way even small ones required coordinated S-rank teams to handle.

Giants are not something one person handles alone.

Even Choi Jong-in, for all his power, would never attempt something like that solo. No one would.

Except—

Except Sung Jinwoo.

You don’t really know how far this man can go.

You’ve seen glimpses. Fifteen-minute A-rank clears. Double dungeons. Shadow armies that defy known mana logic. A presence that feels less like a hunter and more like a natural phenomenon.

And yet.

You’ve also seen him unconscious in a hospital bed.

You’ve seen exhaustion catch up to him.

You’ve seen how thin the line is between invincible and human.

“If he goes,” you say slowly, “what if he collapses again?”

Jinho doesn’t answer.

“What if it’s worse this time?” you continue. “Giants are different. Their mana output is unstable. Their physical damage is—”

“I know,” Jinho snaps, then immediately softens. “I know.”

You fall silent.

Your thoughts spiral.

Duty versus survival. Responsibility versus limits. A world that keeps throwing impossible problems at one man because he keeps solving them.

And you—what are you in all this?

An intern. A civilian. Someone whose job is to predict disaster, not stop it.

You look down at your hands.

You don’t know what to do.

You don’t know if you should be worried, angry, impressed, or all three.

You don’t know if he’ll come back.

And that scares you more than you want to admit.

Somewhere in the city, Sung Jinwoo is already moving.

Toward something no one else could handle.

And all you can do is sit in a hospital room and wonder how far he’s willing to go—how far he already has.

After all, you don’t really know the limits of a man who no longer relies on systems or safeguards.

Only his own power.

And his sense of duty.

Notes:

This plot still follows the main plot line of Solo Leveling starting at the Giants in Japan Arc.

Chapter 5: This Internship is Following Me Home

Summary:

A quiet return turns into an unexpected confession, and a single conversation shifts something fragile into place. Distance follows, but his presence lingers—in headlines, emails, and fate itself—until it’s clear this internship won’t stay contained to work hours.

You go back to the office first.

Jinho insists on it, waving you off with a tired smile and a promise that you’ll still be paid for the full shift. “Go home,” he tells you. “Today doesn’t feel like a workday anyway.”

He’s right.

Nothing about today feels normal. Nothing about Ahjin Guild does, really—but today especially feels… suspended. Like the air itself is holding its breath.

So you take a taxi back to the office, hands folded tightly in your lap as the city passes by outside the window. You don’t check your phone. You don’t scroll. You just stare, thoughts circling endlessly around one name, one image, one unanswered question.

You tell yourself you’re only going back to grab your things.

You tell yourself you’ll be alone.

You’re wrong.

The office door opens with a familiar, soft click.

And there he is.

Sung Jinwoo sits on the couch like he always does—quiet, composed, one arm resting against the back, gaze lowered as if he’s thinking about something far away. The room feels different the moment you step inside, like the air subtly tightens around him.

Your heart nearly jumps straight out of your chest.

You stop short, frozen halfway through the doorway.

You thought he went home.

You thought you’d be alone.

Now you’re not.

And worse—it’s him.

“Oh,” you breathe, barely audible.

You swallow and straighten instinctively, bowing your head slightly. “H-hello.”

He doesn’t respond.

Not verbally, at least.

You don’t know if he heard you. You don’t dare check.

So you do the only thing you can think of: you sneak.

Quietly. Carefully. Like a cat burglar whose sole objective is retrieving a backpack and escaping with dignity intact.

You edge around the couch, eyes glued to the floor, footsteps soft against the tile. Your desk comes into view like a beacon of safety. You reach it, exhale, and begin packing with exaggerated care.

Laptop. Charger. Notebook. Pens. You move slowly, deliberately, making sure nothing rattles or clatters. Your hands shake a little despite your best efforts.

Once everything is packed, you sling your bag over your shoulder and turn toward the door.

Freedom is right there.

You take one step.

Then—

“How did you know?”

His voice cuts through the silence like a blade.

You freeze.

Your soul leaves your body and considers filing for early retirement.

Slowly, you turn back around.

“Huh?”

He’s looking at you now.

Really looking.

“How did you know,” he repeats calmly, “that I was planning to go?”

The fact that he’s speaking to you—asking you—shocks you more than the question itself. You hadn’t expected conversation. You hadn’t expected… this.

Your heart pounds painfully against your ribs.

“I—” You swallow. “You looked like… like it was your responsibility.”

He watches you, expression unreadable.

You press on, words tumbling out now that you’ve started. “You didn’t look curious. Or hesitant. You looked like you already decided, even if you hadn’t said it yet.”

He considers that.

“Do you think,” he asks quietly, “that it’s the right thing to do?”

The question lands heavy.

You blink.

You didn’t expect that.

You expected certainty. Conviction. You expected him to always choose the righteous path, to never question helping people because that’s what heroes do. That’s what the world seems to expect of him.

But here he is—asking you.

“I…” You hesitate, choosing your words carefully. “I don’t think you should force yourself.”

His brows knit faintly.

“You’ve already collapsed once,” you continue softly. “You’ve been carrying so much. And everyone just assumes you’ll keep going because you always do.”

You shift your grip on your bag strap, grounding yourself. “I know what you’ve been through. Everyone does.”

You don’t need to explain further. The headlines are burned into public memory. His sister’s school. The dungeon outbreak. The orcs. The terror of knowing someone you love could be taken from you in an instant.

“How could that not change you?” you ask quietly. “How could it not?”

The office feels impossibly still.

“You collapsed,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “And it felt like the world didn’t even pause to ask if you were okay. It just… waited for you to get back up.”

You shake your head. “So no. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t go. Not even a little.”

He doesn’t interrupt you.

He listens.

“At the end of the day,” you finish, “you’re human.”

The word hangs in the air.

Human.

Something shifts.

He finally looks at you fully—no distance, no weight pressing down on your chest. Just attention. Real, focused attention.

And somehow… it doesn’t feel suffocating anymore.

It feels warm.

His shoulders relax visibly, the tension bleeding out of him in a way so subtle you might’ve missed it if you weren’t watching closely.

Then—

He smiles.

It’s small. Barely there. But it’s real.

And it hits you harder than any aura ever could.

“Thank you,” he says.

Two words. Quiet. Sincere.

Your throat tightens unexpectedly.

The office falls silent again.

You take that as your cue.

You bow slightly, more out of instinct than necessity. “I— I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nods once.

You turn and walk toward the door, steps light but unsteady, heart still racing as you leave the office behind.

The door clicks shut.

And for the first time since you met him, the weight doesn’t follow you out.

---

You read the email in the middle of your morning lecture.

Which is, admittedly, your fault.

You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t check your inbox during class again—not after the last time you spiraled over a poorly worded subject line and missed half a lecture on mana resonance theory. But your phone buzzes quietly in your pocket, and your curiosity wins before your self-control even puts up a fight.

You open it under the desk, brightness turned all the way down.

From: Yoo Jinho
Subject: Time Off

Your heart stops.

Oh.

Oh no.

You stare at the subject line like it personally insulted you.

Time off?

That’s… that’s not good, right?

You scroll, dread pooling in your stomach.

Hey,
So—this might sound sudden, but you can take a week off work.

You blink.

Your brain immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusion.

Oh my god.
You’re fired.

This is it. You messed up. You said the wrong thing. You called him human. You overstepped. This is corporate speak for please quietly disappear.

Your chest tightens.

You scroll faster.

You’ll still be paid. Don’t worry about that.
Guildmaster Sung and I will be out of the country for a bit, so there won’t be anyone to supervise your work anyway.

You pause.

Out of the country.

You reread that sentence slowly.

Then—

He decided to go. I’ll be accompanying him, so don’t stress too much. Use the time to rest or catch up on school. You’ve been doing great.

You stare at the screen.

Then you laugh.

It comes out too loud.

A few students turn to look at you.

You clap a hand over your mouth, eyes wide, then sink lower in your seat as your heart hammers wildly in your chest—not with panic this time, but with something dangerously close to relief.

You’re not fired.

You’re… on paid leave.

A week.

A full week.

Because your boss is off fighting giants on another continent.

You don’t know whether to cry or laugh.

You settle on exhaling shakily and leaning your forehead against the desk.

Okay.

Okay.

That’s… good.

That’s really good.

Your boss can go be the hero.

You can go be a stressed university student.

A fair trade.

You glance back at the email once more, rereading the line about Jinho going with him. That helps. A little. You’re glad he won’t be alone. You’re glad someone—anyone—is there to watch his back, to tell him to rest, to remind him he’s not indestructible.

Even if you suspect none of that will actually work.

You lock your phone and finally look up at the lecture.

The professor is mid-sentence.

You have no idea what they’re talking about.

Which is… a problem.

Because finals are coming.

And you have not been focused.

At all.

So you make a decision.

You’re going to study.

Hard.

The week that follows is a blur of caffeine, highlighters, and regret.

You pull all-nighters that make your eyes burn and your head ache. You attend study groups you’ve been meaning to join for weeks. You sit in the library until closing time, then relocate to your room and keep going like sheer stubbornness will carry you through.

You even start using AI flashcards online.

Which feels like cheating.

But also feels like survival.

You mutter prayers to no one in particular as you flip through digital cards, answering questions out loud like the walls might judge you if you don’t. Your notes multiply. Your desk disappears under stacks of paper.

Somewhere in the chaos, you start dreaming in equations.

You sleep. Barely.

And occasionally—because you’re still you—you check the news.

Every headline out of Japan confirms the same thing.

Giants defeated.
Cities stabilized.
Unprecedented solo intervention.

There are blurry images. Satellite shots. Shaky footage of colossal silhouettes falling one by one.

Sung Jinwoo’s name is everywhere.

You feel a strange mix of pride and dread every time you see it.

You had a feeling he could do it.

Of course you did.

And yet—

Every time you remember the hospital room, the pale skin, the way he looked when you called him human… something tightens painfully in your chest.

You push that feeling aside.

You have exams.

By the time the week is up, you’re exhausted—but in a different way. Productive exhaustion. The kind that comes with knowing you did everything you could.

Your boss isn’t back yet.

You don’t know where he is now. Japan? Somewhere else? The news has stopped giving specifics, shifting focus to diplomatic fallout and reconstruction efforts.

You tell yourself that’s fine.

Then the invited guild list for the International Guild Conference is released.

You’re sitting in the student lounge when you see it, scrolling idly between study sessions. You don’t expect much. These lists are always predictable. Big names. Established guilds. Familiar faces.

You’re already smiling to yourself, expecting to see one name in particular.

Choi Jongin.

Of course it’ll be him. He’s practically made for these things. Charismatic. Media-savvy. The perfect representative.

You scroll.

Your smile fades.

You scroll back up.

Then down again.

No.

No, no, no.

You read it again.

South Korea – Ahjin Guild: Sung Jinwoo

Your phone trembles slightly in your hand.

This.

This really kills you.

You stare at the screen like it personally betrayed you.

“Are you kidding me,” you whisper.

Forget about Sung Jinwoo fighting giants and saving countries—he is now actively replacing your bias at every major event in existence.

First raids.

Then press.

Now international conferences.

He’s everywhere.

Like a storm.

Rampaging wherever the wind blows.

You sink back into the couch, staring at the ceiling.

“This is targeted,” you mutter. “This has to be.”

Your friends notice immediately.

“Why do you look like someone stole your lunch?” Mina asks, peering over your shoulder.

You show her your phone.

She squints. Then grins.

“Oh my god.”

“Don’t,” you warn.

“That’s your boss,” she says delightedly. “He’s representing the country.”

“That was supposed to be Jongin,” you whine.

Jisoo snorts. “Life said no.”

You groan, dropping your head back. “He’s everywhere. I can’t escape him.”

Mina smirks. “You work for him.”

“That’s different.”

Is it?

You close your eyes.

Somewhere across the world, Sung Jinwoo is still moving. Still doing. Still carrying responsibility like it’s second nature.

And here you are, studying for finals, surviving on flashcards and caffeine, trying not to think too hard about how entangled your life has become with his.

You sigh.

This internship was supposed to be temporary.

And yet—

The universe seems determined to keep pushing Sung Jinwoo into every corner of your life.

Whether you like it or not.

Notes:

Jinwoo has no chill

Chapter 6: International Travel Gone Wrong

Summary:

A long day ends with a summons that feels routine—until it isn’t. Far from home, surrounded by power and politics, exhaustion gives way to unease. Somewhere between safety and silence, something goes wrong, and help is suddenly very far away.

Sung Jinwoo has not been kind to you in your head.

Not lately.

You try to remind yourself that this is unfair. That none of this is his fault. That he didn’t personally sit down and decide to upend your finals week, your internship schedule, and your emotional stability with military precision.

But logic doesn’t help when the email hits.

It’s right after your last final. Right after.

You’re still sitting in your chair, staring blankly at the answer sheet like it might accuse you of something, when your phone vibrates. You don’t even look at it at first. You’re exhausted. Emotionally hollow. Your brain feels like it’s been wrung out and left to dry.

Then you glance down.

From: Yoo Jinho

You sigh and open it.

Hey!
Hope finals went okay!
We need you to come with us to the International Guild Conference.

You blink.

Once.

Twice.

Then you reread it slowly, just to be sure.

Come with us?

Your thumbs hover over the keyboard.

You type carefully, politely, the way you’ve learned to when emailing anyone even remotely adjacent to authority.

Hello Vice-Guildmaster Yoo,
Thank you for the message. May I ask why my presence is required? The invited list only shows Guildmaster Sung as the representative for South Korea.

You hit send and immediately feel a little foolish.

The reply arrives almost instantly.

Right!
The conference requires relevant members of the representing guild to attend, as well as a designated bodyguard.
So obviously, you’ll be coming too.

Obviously.

You stare at the word like it personally mocked you.

And that’s how you end up here.

In a foreign country.

In the United States.

Standing inside a massive conference hall that feels less like a professional venue and more like a battlefield wearing a suit.

You understand every announcement, every half-whispered conversation, every politically careful phrase spoken across the room — and somehow that only makes it more overwhelming. Power lingers heavy in the air. Hunters speak to one another lightly, casually, even as their words carry the weight of nations.

You stick close to Officer Woo Jinchul like your life depends on it.

Because it might.

He stands stiffly beside Sung Jinwoo, posture rigid, eyes sharp, every inch of him radiating controlled unease. The title “bodyguard” feels absurd for someone like Jinwoo — and, judging by Woo Jinchul’s expression, he knows it too.

Jinho had teased him earlier.

“Congratulations,” he’d said brightly. “You’re protecting the strongest hunter on Earth.”

Woo Jinchul did not find it funny.

You, however, are deeply grateful he’s here. He feels solid. Familiar. An anchor in a sea of dangerous strangers whose casual small-talk discussions in English sound like diplomatic landmines waiting to detonate.

You don’t question anything.

Not the way conversations soften when Sung Jinwoo passes.

Not the way your spine straightens on instinct when he’s near.

And not the ache in your chest when you notice who isn’t here.

Choi Jongin.

He should have been here. In another world — one where Ahjin Guild didn’t exist — he would have been.

Instead, Sung Jinwoo walks through the hall like a storm in human shape.

Before you can properly mourn the thought, someone important approaches.

A man in a pressed suit. Confident posture. A practiced diplomatic smile.

“Guildmaster Sung,” he says in fluent, polished Korean. “Adam White. May I speak with you privately?”

Sung Jinwoo studies him for a moment, then nods.

“Of course.”

Just like that, the gravity in the room shifts.

You and Jinho are politely redirected away, an escort already waiting with a courteous smile that leaves no room for argument.

“This way, please,” she says. “Your transportation to the hotel is prepared.”

You glance back once.

Jinwoo is already walking away with Adam White, disappearing into the crowd.

Then the doors close, and the noise falls away.

The car outside is sleek and dark. You sink into the back seat with a tired sigh. Jinho collapses beside you.

“Wow.”

You huff. “Wow what?”

“Wow everything.”

The city passes by outside, glowing with unfamiliar lights and tall, unapologetic buildings. Every sign, every advertisement, every overheard voice — you understand all of it. No translation barrier. No buffer.

Just reality.

You lean your head back.

Finally — quiet.

“You okay?” Jinho asks gently.

“Yeah,” you say. “Just overwhelmed.”

“That makes sense,” he says. “You did great.”

You snort. “I just stood there.”

“You survived. That counts.”

The rhythm of the car lulls you. Your shoulders begin to loosen. The world outside blurs.

And then — the drowsiness hits.

Heavy. Wrong.

You frown.

You glance at Jinho.

He’s already slumped forward. Unconscious.

Your heart jolts.

You try to speak — and the world tilts sideways.

Darkness swallows everything.

—

You wake up to a scream.

You understand every sound in it — every broken English curse, every panicked shout.

Your eyes fly open.

You try to move.

You can’t.

Your wrists are tied behind a metal pole, rope digging into your skin. The air smells like rust and dust.

An abandoned factory.

Your heart hammers violently.

You hear voices nearby — English — casual, joking, cruel.

And you understand all of it.

“Did you see his face when he tried to fight back?”

“Yeah. Pathetic.”

A chill spreads through you.

You turn your head and see him.

Yoo Jinho.

Bloodied. Bruised. Barely conscious.

And standing in front of him —

Hwang Dongsoo.

Your stomach drops.

His reputation has followed him across both countries. You’ve read interviews. News stories. Arguments. Everything people don’t say out loud — you understood that, too.

Seeing him here feels unreal.

He punches Jinho in the stomach again.

Jinho screams.

“Stop!” you cry out. “Please stop!”

Dongsoo pauses and turns toward you.

His gaze sharpens — assessing, curious.

“So you’re awake,” he says in Korean first — then switches deliberately to English. “Good. That means you’ll understand everything.”

Your blood runs cold.

Because he’s right.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” you say, voice shaking. “Let him go. Please—”

He laughs.

“Oh, you definitely know why,” he replies.

He grabs Jinho by the hair, lifting his head.

“This one belongs to Sung Jinwoo.”

Your chest squeezes painfully.

“That makes him valuable.”

He strikes him again.

You scream.

One of the men nearby mutters in English, uneasy, “You’re hitting him too hard.”

Dongsoo doesn’t even look back.

“No,” he says flatly. “I’m not.”

His eyes return to you.

“My brother died,” he says. “And your boss walked away untouched.”

You understand every word. Every bitter edge. Every twisted intention.

And understanding doesn’t save you.

It only makes the fear sharper.

Colder.

More real.

You are just a civilian.

Just an intern.

And every person here knows it.

Sung Jinwoo doesn’t know where you are.

And Hwang Dongsoo smiles like that fact pleases him.

And in that moment —

you truly understand just how wrong everything has gone.

Chapter 7: Bad Decisions, Near-Death Edition

Summary:

Pain, silence, and fear close in as control shatters. A line is crossed, and the consequences awaken something far beyond rage. In the dim edge between life and loss, the world holds its breath—because what follows won’t be mercy.

Hwang Dongsoo doesn’t stop.

He keeps hitting Jinho, over and over, like he’s trying to break something that isn’t bone — something deeper. Each punch lands with a wet, sickening sound that makes your stomach twist. Jinho’s head snaps forward, then lolls to the side again. His breathing comes out ragged, shallow, pained.

“I just need one thing,” Dongsoo says calmly, as if he’s discussing the weather. “One answer. That’s all.”

Jinho doesn’t speak.

He can’t.

There’s blood in his mouth. You can see it on his chin, smeared down the front of his shirt. His good eye is barely open. His fingers twitch weakly against the rope, like he’s trying to move, but his body won’t listen.

Dongsoo grabs his collar and pulls him upright again.

“Tell me,” he says, voice low, controlled — too controlled. “Sung Jinwoo was responsible for killing my innocent brother?”

Your breath stutters.

Oh.

That’s what this is.

You don’t know the details — no one does — but the rumors implied enough. Sung Jinwoo was and E-Rank before his reawakening. He was hired into raid teams to satisfy numbers.

And Hwang Dongsoo?

He wants what he thinks was stolen.

His brother.

Jinho wheezes for air but doesn’t speak.

Dongsoo’s jaw tightens.

He hits him again.

And again.

You flinch with every impact, tears stinging your eyes. It feels endless. Cruel. Meaningless. There is no interrogation in this. Just punishment. Rage looking for somewhere to land.

“Stop,” you whisper.

No one hears you.

Jinho’s head drops forward, his body barely reacting anymore. He isn’t resisting. He isn’t talking. He’s just enduring.

Something breaks inside you.

You don’t think.

You don’t plan.

You just open your mouth.

“HEY!”

Your voice rips through the factory, raw, furious, reckless.

Hwang Dongsoo pauses mid-motion and slowly turns his head toward you, eyes narrowing.

You glare at him.

“I said stop,” you snap, chest heaving. “What is wrong with you? You’re beating someone who has nothing to do with your stupid grudge. He’s not involved!”

His expression shifts — curiosity first.

Then amusement.

That should’ve been your warning.

But fear and anger swirl together, boiling over.

“And you know what?” you spit, ignoring the way your throat trembles. “You’re a coward. A loser. You call yourself a hunter, but you’re just some insecure bitch who can only hit people who can’t fight back!”

The words leave your mouth like glass. Sharp. Irreversible.

Jinho weakly lifts his head.

“D-don’t—” he rasps, voice barely there.

Too late.

Hwang Dongsoo goes still.

The room chills.

Slowly… very slowly… he lets go of Jinho’s shirt.

His boots echo across the concrete as he steps toward you, every movement deliberate. Predatory.

Your heart slams wildly in your chest.

You try to swallow, but your mouth is dry.

You should stop.

You should shut up.

But something hysterical and desperate keeps you talking.

“And Guildmaster Sung didn’t kill your brother because he’s some villain,” you push on, voice shaking but loud. “He killed him because Hwang Dongsuk was evil. Because he deserved it.”

You don’t know if that’s true.

You want to believe it.

You need to believe it.

Because the alternative is too terrifying.

Hwang Dongsoo stops right in front of you.

For a heartbeat, there is silence.

Then—

His hand flashes.

The slap lands so hard the world explodes white.

Your head snaps sideways, a violent crack echoing through your skull. Pain shoots across your jaw, sharp and blinding. Your ears ring. Something small and hard rattles against your tongue.

A tooth.

You taste iron.

Warm and metallic.

You gasp, breath hitching, tears springing instantly to your eyes as agony blooms across your cheek.

You regret everything.

All at once.

Why did you say that?
Why did you open your mouth?
Why couldn’t you just stay quiet?

But there is no time to think.

No time to breathe.

His boot slams into your stomach.

The air is punched out of you in a choking, soundless gasp. Pain floods your torso in a crushing wave. For a horrible second, your lungs forget how to work. Your ribs scream. Your vision blurs.

The pressure lingers even after he pulls his foot back — like the imprint of his strength is still pressed inside you.

You try to inhale.

You can’t.

You cough instead, choking on blood and saliva, body convulsing weakly against the ropes.

He clicks his tongue.

“Big mouth,” he mutters.

Then he hits you again.

Once.

Twice.

You lose count.

Blows rain down mercilessly — ribs, shoulder, side of your face — each one sending fresh sparks of pain racing through your nerves. Your head spins. The room tilts. Every breath burns.

You hear a sound.

It takes a moment to realize it’s you.

A broken, choked whimper you can’t swallow down.

“Stop!” Jinho croaks hoarsely from somewhere to your right, voice shredded. “Please — stop—!”

Dongsoo ignores him.

He’s locked on you now.

Because you insulted him.

Because you said the one thing you shouldn’t have.

He grabs your jaw harshly, forcing your head up. Your eyes struggle to focus. His face swims in and out of clarity — cold fury twisting his features.

“You think you know anything?” he snarls. “You think you understand my brother? Or Sung Jinwoo?”

You try to speak.

Only a weak, broken sound comes out.

His hand tightens.

Pain shoots through your skull.

“You’re nothing,” he hisses. “Just some useless little civilian who got dragged into the wrong world.”

He lets go.

You slump forward, barely held up by the ropes.

Your body feels wrong.

Heavy.

Far away.

He hits you again.

And again.

You stop feeling the individual impacts.

They blur together into one long, drowning sensation of pain and pressure and breathlessness. Your vision flickers at the edges, dark creeping inward like closing curtains.

You think you might be crying.

You’re not sure.

Everything hurts.

Your body sways helplessly with each blow, ropes digging deeper into raw skin, blood trickling down your chin. The metallic taste thickens in your mouth. Your breathing turns shallow, shaky, wet.

Somewhere in the haze, you hear Jinho shout your name.

You want to answer.

You can’t.

Dongsoo steps back for a moment, chest rising faintly with exertion.

He studies you.

Like he’s checking whether you’re still conscious.

Barely.

Your head droops forward, vision dim.

The world tilts.

Sound dulls.

Your heart pounds sluggishly in your ears.

You realize — dimly, distantly —

You are very close to dying.

The thought doesn’t fully form.

It just drifts through the fog of pain and exhaustion and fear.

Your body hangs limp in the restraints, every nerve screaming, every breath weaker than the last.

You try, just once, to lift your head.

To stay awake.

To exist.

But the darkness surges again.

And this time, it feels like it might swallow you whole.

Then—

The pain stops so suddenly that, for a split second, your mind can’t comprehend it.

There is no transition. No warning. One moment, your body is drowning in agony — ribs screaming, nerves burning, breath coming in broken, shallow gasps — and then the world jerks.

A sound crashes through the factory.

Not a punch. Not a kick.

Something deeper.

Louder.

Like thunder made of metal and air.

You don’t see what happens.

You barely see anything at all — your vision is a smear of colors and shadows, your eyes struggling to stay open. But you hear it. The echo ricochets through the empty space, vibrating through the pole behind you, rattling in your bones.

Something — someone — slams into a wall.

Hard.

Concrete cracks.

Debris skitters across the floor.

Men shout in shock.

You don’t understand.

You don’t process.

You’re too far gone for that.

The only thing you feel is… absence.

A sudden lack of impact.

No more blows raining down.

No more sharp jolts of pain.

Just your own body — broken, heavy, collapsing inward on itself.

Your head droops forward, chin brushing your chest, breath wheezing weakly through your throat.

Then—

Arms.

Warm.

Steady.

Strong.

You’re lifted, carefully, like you’re made of glass and the entire world might shatter if he moves too fast.

Your ropes fall away. You don’t remember them being cut. You don’t remember anything except the sudden sensation of not being bound anymore — not pulled upright by restraints, but held.

Supported.

Your cheek presses against something solid.

Fabric.

Warmth.

You try to open your eyes.

They flutter.

The world swims.

A voice says your name.

Low.

Close.

Frantic — but controlled.

You know that voice.

You’ve heard it in quiet hallways, beside dungeon gates, in news clips and long silences that said more than words.

You try to respond.

Nothing comes out.

Your lips part weakly as something touches them — cool glass, then a liquid slipping past your mouth, into your throat.

It tastes faintly sweet.

You almost recognize it.

Elixir.

Healing potion.

You swallow because your body does it automatically, not because you have the strength to try.

It should help.

It always helps.

But—

Nothing happens.

The pain doesn’t fade.

Your chest still burns. Your ribs still throb with every shallow breath. Your limbs feel heavy and numb, like they barely belong to you. The world spins slower, edges darkening again, not from impact but from failure.

Something is wrong.

The pain lingers.

Your heartbeat flutters weakly.

The potion doesn’t work.

You don’t know why.

You don’t have the strength to wonder.

You feel movement — your body shifting slightly in his arms, as if he’s adjusting his hold, as if he’s trying to make you comfortable even when comfort is impossible.

His breathing is close.

Ragged.

Controlled too tightly.

His hand trembles — just barely — where it brushes your back.

More sound erupts around you.

Walls shatter.

Concrete cracks.

Heavy footsteps skid across the ground.

Voices scream — not in triumph, not in confidence —

In fear.

Panic tears through the room like wildfire.

You don’t recognize most of the sounds, but one stands out — a sharp, wordless noise of impact followed by a strangled gasp.

Another crash.

Another body slams into something hard.

You don’t know what’s happening.

You don’t know who is happening.

You don’t know that Hwang Dongsoo is being thrown again, and again, and again — that every hit is fueled by a fury so cold and absolute it borders on something inhuman.

You don’t know that shadows ripple across the floor like a living tide.

You don’t know that the abandoned factory has become a battlefield — one-sided, relentless, drenched in killing intent that makes hardened hunters choke on their own terror.

You don’t know that Yoo Jinho, half-conscious and barely able to lift his head, uses what little voice he has left to choke out:

“She— she’s going to die—”

You don’t know that those words break something inside Sung Jinwoo that was already stretched to its limit.

You don’t know that he heals Jinho first — fast, efficient, desperate — not because he cares less about you, but because Jinho can still be saved easily, because stabilizing him takes seconds, because you—

You took more of the beating.

You took the hits meant for someone else.

You don’t know that the potion bottlenecked inside you, unable to work, because your body has fallen too close to the threshold where healing items fail — where magic refuses to restart what is already slipping away.

You don’t know that your pulse is barely there.

You don’t know that your breathing stutters.

You don’t know that Sung Jinwoo is staring down at you with an expression no one alive has ever seen on his face before.

Not rage.

Not coldness.

Something worse.

You only feel warmth.

Arms holding you tighter.

Fingers brushing your hair away from your face, trembling like he’s afraid you’ll fade if he doesn’t touch you.

Your name again.

Broken this time.

Urgent.

Begging.

You want to answer.

You try to answer.

Your lips part.

Nothing comes out.

Your chest rises.

Falls.

Barely.

Your vision fuzzes — shapes melting together, shadows swallowing details until all that remains is a blur of black and gray and warmth.

Your body feels…

Light.

Too light.

Like you’re drifting.

Like gravity is forgetting to apply to you.

Sound warps — distant, echoing, like you’re hearing it through water.

The chaos around you dulls — shouts turning into muffled noise, crashes into hollow reverberations that fade faster each time.

You don’t see the last of it.

You don’t see the final blow.

You don’t see the fear in Hwang Dongsoo’s eyes when he realizes — too late — what kind of monster he provoked.

You don’t see the floor crack beneath Jinwoo’s feet, shadows surging like a tidal wave, rage ripping through the air so violently the remaining men can’t even scream properly.

You don’t see Dongsoo hit the wall one last time, his body crumpling uselessly to the ground.

You don’t see the silence that follows.

You don’t hear Jinwoo’s breath — harsh, uneven, shaking — as he looks down at you again.

You don’t hear Jinho whisper your name from across the room, voice shaking with horror and guilt.

You don’t hear the way Jinwoo’s voice drops to barely a whisper, like something sacred and terrified at the same time, as he says:

“Stay.”

You don’t feel the way his hands hold you tighter, as if anchoring you to the world — as if his grip alone could command you not to go where he can’t follow.

You don’t sense the way mana surges beneath his skin — vast, ancient, unfathomable — gathering not because he calls it…

…but because it answers him on its own.

You don’t realize that somewhere, in a place deeper than magic and deeper than power, something inside him refuses.

Refuses to let you go.

Refuses to acknowledge a world where you are no longer in it.

You don’t know any of that.

Because by then—

The world blurs completely.

The edges fade.

Your body goes still.

The last thread of consciousness slips quietly from your grasp.

And the world

turns

into

darkness.

Chapter 8: When Kindness and Violence Shared the Same Face

Summary:

A hospital room, a quiet breath, and a truth that doesn’t fit inside the walls. What should feel safe instead feels fragile, like something important has shifted. He speaks calmly, but the distance left behind hints that whatever comes next won’t be easy to face.

You wake up like your body suddenly remembers how to breathe.

Air rushes into your lungs in a sharp gasp, your chest rising too fast, heart thudding like it hit an unpause button. For one disorienting second, your brain expects your bedroom ceiling, your sad little apartment light fixture, your familiar world.

Instead—

White ceiling.

Plain. Sterile. Too clean.

A small room. Soft lighting. Walls the color of “government-approved calm.” To your left, a narrow window with blinds half-drawn. Outside—indistinct daylight.

And then you hear it.

Beep.
Beep.
Beep.

Rhythmic. Slow. A little too real.

A hospital monitor.

Oh.

Oh.

You’re in a hospital.

You stare at the ceiling for a moment, brain lagging like bad Wi-Fi. Your fingers twitch, and you instinctively lift your hand.

IV drip.

Tubing taped to your skin. Pale wrist. A bit of redness from the tape. Your knuckles look… fine, actually. Not shredded. Not swollen. Not like the last thing that happened to your body was a torture sequence.

Which is weird.

Because that is, in fact, the last thing that happened to your body.

Memory slams back in pieces.

Hwang Dongsoo.
The factory.
Ropes.
Blood.
Jinho—
Your ribs—
The pain—
The world blurring—

Oh god.

You swallow, throat dry.

Yeah. That happened.

Your hands clench instinctively, bracing for the stab of pain in your ribs—

Nothing.

You blink.

You shift a little more, carefully, waiting for something to scream, crack, sting—

Still nothing.

Your body feels… heavy, like you ran a marathon in your sleep, muscles sore in a vague, overused way. Your head aches dully. Your limbs are made of wet sand.

But no sharp pain. No broken-rib agony. No burning rope cuts.

Just exhaustion.

Bone-deep, soul-deep exhaustion.

Your mind scrambles, confused.

Before you can even begin spiraling properly, you notice something else.

Someone else.

There’s a person sitting across the room.

A man.

Back straight. Legs crossed. Arms folded loosely. Completely still in the chair like waiting is his full-time occupation.

He’s staring at you.

His eyes—

Glow.

Purple.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally glowing. Like there’s a galaxy trapped inside them and it’s very politely choosing to stare only at you.

You freeze.

Your brain short-circuits.

Hold on.

Hold on.

WAIT.

You are, in fact, in a hospital room.

You are, in fact, hooked to an IV.

And there is, in fact, a man with supernatural LED eyeballs sitting three meters away like this is normal?

“What the—” your mind whispers.

You blink.

Once.

Twice.

Your vision sharpens.

The purple fades, not gone, just… dimming. Settling back into something human. Familiar.

Oh.

Oh, that’s why.

It’s him.

Sung Jinwoo.

Your boss.

Guildmaster of Ahjin Guild. National phenomenon. Walking disaster siren. The human embodiment of “don’t make eye contact or you might dissolve.”

And he is just. Sitting there.

Watching you.

In a hospital room.

Like this is his assigned seat.

Your brain attempts to reboot.

You almost didn’t recognize him—not with that aura, with those eyes that look like they’d been dipped in starlight. You swear they used to be blue in raid footage. Or maybe that was lighting. Or maybe you’re hallucinating. Honestly? Fair.

You are, scientifically speaking, Not Okay.

You blink again.

He stands.

Slowly. Deliberately. Like he’s making sure not to startle you.

He steps closer to the bed.

You can’t move.

You can’t think.

You are approximately three seconds away from ascending into the ceiling out of sheer emotional overwhelm.

He stops at your bedside.

His voice is low. Careful.

“…How are you feeling?”

You stare at him.

Your brain supplies exactly zero functional words.

His tone isn’t cold. Or distant. Or intimidating.

It’s—

Gentle.

Soft around the edges. Grounded. Shockingly, painfully sincere.

Concern.

For you.

You blink hard, like maybe the scene will change if you refresh your eyeballs.

It doesn’t.

He’s still there.

Still close.

Still watching you like every micro-movement matters.

Your throat works uselessly for a moment before you manage to speak—barely.

“I… um.”

Great start. Very eloquent. Truly a scholar.

You clear your throat. It feels rough, like it was sandpapered at some point.

“I’m… alive?” you croak.

His brows draw together just slightly.

“As long as you’re awake,” he says quietly, “that’s enough.”

Oh.

Oh no.

Your chest does something weird.

Your heart decides to attempt parkour.

You look away, staring at the hospital blanket because looking at his face feels illegal somehow.

Everything feels distant. Your body is heavy in that strange, floaty way — like you’ve slept too long in the wrong position, like your limbs are three seconds behind your thoughts.

Your mind, however?

Not numb.

It is doing backflips.

You remember.

The hits.
The concrete.
The ropes cutting into your wrists.
The slap.
The kicks.
Your ribs screaming.
Your breath failing.
Darkness closing in.

Yeah. Fun times.

Trauma flashback speedrun complete.

You swallow again.

“Hospital,” you murmur, mostly to yourself. “Right. Yeah. That makes sense.”

You shift slightly, testing your range of motion, bracing again for the sharp echo of broken bone—

Still nothing.

Just fatigue. The weight of your own body. A weird disconnect between memory and sensation that makes your skin crawl.

Okay. So you’re not dead.

You’re just… fried.

Your nerves feel like someone plugged them into a wall socket and then unplugged halfway through.

You force your gaze back to him.

He’s closer than you realized.

Not looming. Not imposing.

Present.

Grounded.

Like gravity rearranged so he could stay exactly where you might need him.

“Did I…” you start weakly. “Uh. Fail to die?”

He exhales softly — something almost like a breath of relief.

“You were close,” he says.

You wince.

Right.

Cool.

Almost died. No big deal. Happens.

He continues, voice low.

“Your body was… badly damaged at first,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “Beru healed everything. Completely. But after that…” His gaze flicks to the monitor. “Your system crashed. The doctors said it was severe trauma response. Exhaustion. Like your body shut down to catch up to what happened to you.”

You stare at him.

Beru.
Right. Healing. Magic.

Of course.

Of course your ribs don’t hurt.

Of course your wrists don’t burn.

Of course the worst thing you feel is bone-deep fatigue and a headache, while your memories insist you should be in pieces.

Your stomach twists.

“So physically, I’m…” You swallow. “Fine?”

He nods once.

“The tests aren’t showing any injuries now,” he answers. “But your body went into shock. Your mind…” He trails off, eyes softening. “Didn’t have time to process before you were healed.”

Oh.

Oh.

That… makes a horrible kind of sense.

Your brain is still in the factory, screaming.

Your body has already fast-forwarded to the “all clear” screen.

No wonder everything feels wrong.

You suddenly remember the sound — thunder through steel — the feeling of being lifted — the warmth — the voice—

Was that… him?

You’re pretty sure it was.

You’re also pretty sure you blacked out before your brain could properly file the memory.

You want to ask.

You don’t.

Not yet.

Instead you whisper, half-dazed, half-Gen-Z-self-defense coping mechanism:

“So… uh… I didn’t just hallucinate the kidnapping? That was… real?”

A beat of silence.

Then he nods once.

“It was real.”

You sigh.

“Damn.”

He almost smiles.

Almost.

His gaze flickers briefly to your hands, then back to your face. No rope marks. No bruises. Nothing to show what happened. His expression darkens anyway — subtle but unmistakable.

Oh.

He’s mad.

Not at you.

At someone else.

At Hwang Dongsoo.

You feel… weirdly guilty.

Which is insane because you were the one who got turned into a stress ball by a rogue S-rank ego problem. But your brain, unhelpfully, goes:

Sorry for being an inconvenience?

You swallow.

“What… happened?” you ask softly. “Like… after?”

His eyes meet yours again.

For a moment, you see something there.

A storm.

Then it’s gone.

“I handled it,” he says.

You believe him.

Absolutely.

Without hesitation.

You don’t need the details.

Your imagination supplies enough — shadows, fury, silence.

You nod faintly.

Your chest aches — not from broken bones, but from something tight and invisible wrapping around your lungs.

Silence settles between you.

Not awkward.

Not hostile.

Heavy.

Real.

Then, suddenly, a ridiculous thought runs through your head:

Wow. I look so ugly right now.

IV tubing. Hospital gown. Hair probably tragic. Dark circles under your eyes from two days of unconscious “rest.”

You’re in front of Sung Jinwoo like this?

Amazing. Excellent. Exactly how you wanted to be perceived.

You almost laugh.

Instead, you breathe out softly.

“Am I… allowed to ask how long I’ve been here?”

He nods.

“Two days.”

Two.

Days.

You blink.

“Damn,” you whisper. “I really speedran the near-death experience.”

One corner of his mouth twitches.

Very slightly.

Like he’s not used to smiling, but the instinct almost slips out.

“You shouldn’t joke about that,” he says quietly.

You think, If I don’t joke about it, I’ll cry, but you keep that to yourself.

Your voice softens.

“The vice guildmaster…?”

“Safe,” he replies immediately. “Stable. He’s recovering.”

Relief crashes over you.

You didn’t realize how much weight that worry had until it lifts.

“Good,” you breathe. “That’s… good.”

Your eyes sting for a moment — emotion welling up too fast, too raw.

You look away again.

You don’t want him to see your eyes glossing like you’re about to sob.

You’re an intern.

A civilian.

You shouldn’t be here.

You shouldn’t be this close to disasters, to death, to him.

You swallow thickly.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, barely audible. “I caused trouble.”

His brows knit immediately.

He steps a fraction closer — voice firmer now, quiet but resolute.

“This is not your fault.”

Your breath catches.

He holds your gaze.

“There is nothing,” he says slowly, deliberately, “for you to apologize for.”

Your chest does that thing again.

Like someone gently pulled a string inside and your entire nervous system glitch-loops for a second.

Oh.

Oh.

That… means more than it should.

You nod faintly, because you don’t trust your voice.

Silence again.

This one softer.

Safer.

His eyes linger on your face a heartbeat too long — like he’s checking, measuring, confirming that you’re really here.

Really awake.

Really alive.

And for once…

His presence doesn’t feel terrifying.

It feels—

Steady.

Anchoring.

Warm.

You blink slowly.

“…So,” you whisper, voice barely more than breath, the humor creeping back in because you cannot help yourself, “does— uh— paid medical leave count as work hours?”

There’s a pause.

Then —

He exhales through his nose in something that is dangerously close to an actual laugh.

Just a breath.

Just a sound.

But real.

“I’ll make sure you’re compensated,” he says softly.

You smile weakly.

“Nice,” you croak. “I love capitalism.”

His eyes soften.

Now what?

Silence enveloped the room once more.

The silence stretches.

Not hostile. Not tense.

Just… there.

You sit propped up against the pillows, IV line tugging faintly in your arm, trying very, very hard to act normal while your brain is absolutely not doing that.

He doesn’t seem bothered.

Of course he doesn’t.

He sits back down in the chair across from your bed, posture relaxed, hands folded loosely, gaze steady on you like he’s content to just… exist here. No fidgeting. No sighing. No impatience.

Meanwhile, you are sweating like a sinner in church.

Your palms are damp. Your heart does that anxious flutter thing. Your thoughts loop like a broken playlist.

Hwang Dongsoo.
Factory.
Jinho.
You.
“Handled it.”

Handled it how?

Your brain queues up possible answers like a terrible multiple-choice test.

A) Arrested
B) Hospitalized
C) Thrown into legal hell
D) Deleted from existence

You want the answer to be A.

Your gut tells you it’s not.

You swallow, trying not to look as unhinged as you currently feel.

He said he handled it.

Which means Hwang Dongsoo was defeated. Beaten. Neutralized. Stopped from ever doing this again. Good. Great. Fantastic. You hope he’s rotting somewhere miserable, preferably with no pillows and terrible lighting.

But…

Something gnaws at you.

What really happened?

You want to ask.

Your mouth does not want to cooperate with that plan.

Your courage is somewhere under the hospital bed, sobbing.

Maybe you should wait. Wait for a nurse. Wait for Jinho. Wait for literally anyone less terrifying to casually drop the exposition you desperately need.

Would a nurse even know?

Probably not.

You shift.

You don’t mean to.

It just happens — a tiny, restless movement, your fingers tightening in the blanket, your shoulders tensing.

He notices instantly.

Of course he does.

His eyes narrow slightly — not suspicious, not sharp — just… assessing. Like he’s following the thread of your thoughts without you saying a word.

“You’re curious,” he says.

Statement. Not question.

Your brain short-circuits on the spot.

You sputter. “I— I mean—”

He doesn’t make you struggle for it.

He meets your eyes.

And says it.

Simply.

Flatly.

“I killed him.”

You stop breathing.

The room tilts — not physically, not literally, but emotionally, like the gravity of the moment shifts and drops straight through your stomach.

He says it like a footnote.

Like an undeniable fact stamped onto a page.

No hesitation.

No apology.

No weight added.

Just truth.

Your mind empties.

No jokes.

No coping.

No snappy internal commentary.

Just shock.

Cold and absolute.

He keeps going, voice level.

“I was… enraged,” he says, the word quiet but brutally honest. “He committed a sin worthy of death.”

Sin.

Worthy of death.

Your heart stutters.

Something inside you twists painfully.

Not because Hwang Dongsoo is dead.

You’re not mourning him. You’re not defending him. The man kidnapped you. Tortured you. Nearly killed you. You feel no sadness for him. No sympathy.

But—

The person who killed him…

Is sitting three feet away.

The man you are slowly — stupidly — beginning to trust.

The one who carried you out of hell.

The one who watched over you while you slept.

The one who told you this wasn’t your fault.

You swallow.

Your hands tremble.

To you — a civilian — a normal person — taking a life is something so distant, so far outside the realm of everyday existence that your brain rejects it on instinct.

Even for hunters.

Even for monsters.

Death isn’t casual.

It isn’t supposed to be.

But he says it like gravity.

Unavoidable.

Final.

You’re scared.

Not of dying.

Not of Hwang Dongsoo.

Not even of Sung Jinwoo — not exactly.

You’re scared of the weight of what that means.

You’re scared of what he is capable of.

You’re scared of the line he has crossed — the line he doesn’t seem to regret.

Your body reacts before your brain does.

The words slip out.

“…Why?”

Your voice is soft.

Steady.

Dead serious.

There is no humor left to hide behind.

No shaky jokes.

No deflection.

Just the question.

Why?

Why did you kill him?

His gaze doesn’t waver.

“He committed a sin that warranted death,” he repeats calmly.

Your jaw tightens.

Something flares in your chest — fear, yes, but also something else.

Moral instinct. Human instinct. Something stubborn and painfully alive.

You shake your head.

“No,” you whisper. “Death isn’t the only answer.”

His expression doesn’t change.

You push on, heart pounding.

“He deserved punishment. Yes. He deserved to suffer for what he did. He deserved prison. He deserved to rot slowly. To lose everything. To live as nothing. That—” Your breath hitches. “That would’ve been worse for him.”

Your voice is trembling now.

But you don’t stop.

“For someone like him,” you continue, “being powerless, being hated, being trapped — that’s the worst punishment imaginable. He could’ve lived the rest of his life knowing he failed. Knowing he lost. Knowing he wasn’t worth anything.”

You swallow hard.

“You didn’t need to kill him.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

Not awkward.

Not empty.

Heavy like storm clouds.

He watches you.

His eyes shift —

Purple.

Cold.

Not cruel.

Not angry.

Something deeper.

Older.

Utterly unwavering.

For one terrifying heartbeat, you don’t recognize him.

Not as your boss.

Not as the quiet man who sits in the office.

Not as the person who carried you out of hell and sat beside your hospital bed until you woke up.

Something vast stares back at you.

Something that does not think like you do.

Something that does not place death where you place it.

He doesn’t raise his voice.

He doesn’t argue.

He doesn’t justify.

He simply says:

“He deserved death.”

The words fall like a verdict.

Unquestioned.

Absolute.

Your stomach sinks.

Your throat goes tight.

There’s nothing you can say to that.

Nothing that won’t break you further.

You open your mouth.

Nothing comes out.

The fear doesn’t come from violence.

It doesn’t come from cruelty.

It comes from the realization that his world — his rules — his morality —

is not yours.

You sit there, frozen.

Small.

Human.

Breathing shallowly through the ache in your chest that has nothing to do with broken ribs and everything to do with the memory of them, the monitors still softly ticking away your fragile existence.

He remains calm.

Quiet.

Steady.

Unmoved.

You can’t tell whether that terrifies you more…

…or hurts.

Your throat tightens.

You don’t know how long the silence stretches this time — seconds, years — but eventually, your voice finds its way out again.

“Please,” you say quietly. Then, firmer. “Leave.”

It comes out steadier than you feel. No stutter. No hesitation. Just… a line.

Something shifts in his expression immediately.

Like a switch being flipped.

The cold, distant certainty in his eyes dissolves, replaced by warmth, concern, something painfully familiar — the same gentleness from earlier, the one that made you feel safe enough to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “If I offended you. That wasn’t my intention. I just—” His voice trails, then steadies. “I wanted you to understand.”

You don’t hear the rest.

Not really.

His words blur at the edges, drowning under the pounding in your ears and the pressure in your chest. Your hands clench tighter into the blanket. Your muscles tremble with a fatigue that’s no longer just physical. Your brain feels like it’s pulling away from him, inch by inch, instinctively retreating.

You shake your head.

“Leave,” you repeat, firmer now. “Please.”

Your eyes don’t waver.

For a moment, he looks like he might say something else.

Then he doesn’t.

He bows his head slightly.

“…Alright.”

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t press. Doesn’t force the conversation back into your hands.

He stands slowly.

“I’ll… let the nurse know you’re awake,” he says quietly. “If you need anything… call for them.”

He hesitates only a second longer — like there’s something else he wants to say, something he doesn’t know how to — then lets it go.

“Rest well,” he murmurs. “I hope you recover quickly.”

And then he turns.

Walks to the door.

Opens it.

Pauses — just long enough that you know he’s still thinking about you —

Then steps out.

The door clicks shut.

The room goes silent.

You stare at the ceiling.

Your chest trembles.

Your vision blurs.

And suddenly — like a dam giving way — your eyes sting, and tears spill before you can stop them.

They fall silently at first, sliding down your cheeks, dripping onto your hands where they clutch the blanket too hard, knuckles pale.

Then more.

Hot. Stinging. Relentless.

You bite your lip to keep from making a sound.

You don’t even know what you’re crying for.

Pain, maybe.

Fear.

Grief for something you didn’t know you were building.

Because for a moment — back then, in the office, in quiet hallways, in rare soft glances — he’d felt human to you.

The man who asked you if it was the right thing to go to Japan.

The man who doubted. Who questioned. Who looked… lost.

Someone you could almost understand.

But now…

He feels like something else.

Something vast. Unreachable. Built from rules you don’t live by.

Even if he acted out of rage. Even if he believed it was justice. Even if, somewhere in that terrifying certainty, there was still kindness.

To you —

He took a life.

And your body, perfectly healed, lying in a hospital bed with monitors calmly ticking and no visible wounds, feels like proof of how far beyond normal he really is.

You don’t know if it was his first.

You don’t know how many times he’s crossed that line.

You don’t know where he stands anymore.

You don’t know where you stand.

The trust that had quietly — stupidly — been forming between you feels cracked now, fragile and foreign in your hands.

Once, you had almost felt like you could meet his eyes.

Now…

You’re not so sure you can look at him at all.

Notes:

At the end of the day, Jinwoo is someone that's no longer a normal human. That doesn't absolve him from having human emotions. But it shows you how much he has left of it in exchange for power.

Chapter 9: The Day My Future Started to Feel Like a Trap

Summary:

Still recovering in the hospital, she learns he personally chose her long before everything fell apart. The knowledge warms and unsettles her at once, and as the world moves on without her, a quiet resolve begins forming — one that may change what she runs from… or what she faces.

Two days pass.

The world keeps moving without you — conferences, political meetings, international hunters pretending they’re normal people in suits — while you remain in a hospital bed, trapped inside sterile walls and your own thoughts.

You’re not discharged yet. The doctors say your vitals are good, your scans are clear, and there isn’t a single broken bone or tear left to fix — which is insane, considering what happened. But your body feels like it ran ten marathons back-to-back. Your limbs are heavy, your head foggy, and every so often, the memory of being kicked flashes across your mind and your chest tightens even though there’s no pain anymore.

Beru healed you.

Your body knows that.

Your nerves and your brain… haven’t fully caught up.

Sung Jinwoo attends the closed sessions of the International Guild Conference.

You stay here.

It feels like you’re existing in a different timeline than everyone else.

You stop thinking about him as much as you can.

You fail often.

On the second afternoon, you hear a familiar knock — two soft taps, the kind someone makes when they’re nervous about intruding.

The door opens.

Yoo Jinho peeks inside first, like he’s asking permission from the universe before entering.

Then he beams.

“You’re watching TV?”

You glance at the screen.

They’re playing Rush Hour.

Old movie. Classic. The action scene has Jackie Chan flying through a curtain while Chris Tucker yells something in English.

“You’re really gone, huh?” Jinho sighs dramatically as he walks in, plopping into the chair beside your bed. “You’ve transcended boredom. You’re watching a movie you can’t even understand.”

You blink slowly.

“I understand it perfectly.”

He pauses.

“What?”

His eyebrows furrow.

You point lazily at the screen. “He just said ‘Don’t touch my radio.’”

Jinho blinks again.

“How—?”

You stare at him.

“I’m fluent in English.”

There’s a beat.

Another beat.

Then:

“…Oh.”

He looks genuinely shocked.

Like genuinely shocked.

You tilt your head at him.

“…Did you not read my resume?”

You don’t say it accusingly. Just… curious.

Because you know you listed it there. Under Skills. Right beside “advanced mana field analysis” and “multi-lingual database notation.”

It’s a weird thing to forget about someone.

Jinho freezes.

You watch realization travel across his face in real time.

He laughs weakly.

“I… uh…”

You narrow your eyes.

“…Vice Guildmaster.”

He coughs into his fist.

“So funny story—”

You stare harder.

He cracks.

“I didn’t… actually look at your resume.”

You squint.

“You didn’t—? But… you hired me.”

He lifts both hands defensively.

“In my defense, Guildmaster Sung told me to hire you, and when he says something like that, I usually don’t ask questions!”

You blink.

Hold on.

Your brain does a little buffering circle.

You sit there for a few seconds and rewind the conversation in your head like a cassette tape.

“…So he read my resume?” you ask slowly.

“Yeah,” Jinho nods. “Apparently.”

You look at the TV but your brain is absolutely not watching Jackie Chan anymore.

“He read it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then told you to hire me.”

“Yes.”

“And you… didn’t read it.”

“I skimmed your name!” he offers weakly.

You stare at him.

He smiles nervously.

You sigh into your pillow.

“So… how exactly did that happen?”

He shifts in his seat, guilt creeping onto his face.

“When Ahjin Guild was first established… it was just me and Hyung-nim,” he begins. “Well — three people technically. We needed a third to form legally, so my cousin joined temporarily. She’s an actress. We made a contract, she signed, filled the quota, and after that she left to continue her career. She’s still under us on paper, but she doesn’t work or raid.”

You nod slowly.

You vaguely remember hearing that in the news.

“So then it was just us,” Jinho continues. “One D-Rank guild member and one… Hyung-nim.”

You don’t correct that description.

It’s… accurate.

“We needed someone else,” he says simply. “Someone actually useful. Someone who could support raids and logistics. A real member of staff.”

He rubs the back of his neck.

“Hyung-nim showed me your resume one day.”

Your heart stutters.

“He what?”

“He was the one who found it,” Jinho says. “Said you were a perfect fit.”

Your stomach flips in the weirdest possible way.

A mix of shock, disbelief, reluctant warmth, and… something like dread.

“He didn’t say anything else,” Jinho continues. “Just told me to hire you.”

You stare at your hands.

He read your resume.

He chose you.

On purpose.

Not by accident. Not randomly. Not because the association dropped your application somewhere convenient.

He saw your qualifications.

Your research focus.

Your background.

And thought:

Yes. Her.

Your chest tightens — not in fear this time, not in physical pain, just in that deep, invisible way exhaustion amplifies every feeling.

You don’t want to feel that.

Not right now.

Not after—

You swallow.

Jinho studies your expression.

“You didn’t know?” he asks softly.

You shake your head.

“No.”

Silence settles between you for a moment.

On the TV, someone gets punched through a table.

Very thematic.

“…You should’ve told me you spoke English,” Jinho says weakly.

You side-eye him. “I did tell you. On paper. In words. In neat bullet-point formatting.”

He winces.

“That’s fair.”

You sigh.

“Unbelievable.”

He bows his head in dramatic shame.

“I am sorry…”

You roll your eyes.

“It’s fine.”

It isn’t.

It is.

You’re too tired to choose right now.

He brightens slightly when you don’t keep scolding him.

“Well, uh… it really came in handy, right?” he says quickly. “Since we’re in America and everything.”

You shrug lightly.

“It’s more useful than you think.”

He nods thoughtfully, then goes quiet — his gaze drifting to your IV line, to the way you’re half-slumped against the pillows, eyes a little too tired for someone with a perfectly clean medical chart.

His expression softens.

“Are you… okay?” he asks quietly.

You look at him.

Really look.

He’s trying to sound casual.

He isn’t.

There’s guilt in his eyes.

Fear.

Relief tangled into something messy and fragile.

You stare back at the movie instead.

“I’m… alive,” you say eventually.

He nods.

“That’s enough,” he says, echoing someone else’s words without realizing it.

You don’t react to that.

You don’t want to.

He stays for a while.

You talk about small things.

About the plane food he hated. The ugly suit jackets he saw at the conference. A rumor about an Italian S-rank who apparently eats pasta during meetings.

He tries to make you laugh.

You let him.

It helps.

A little.

But every time the conversation drifts too close to him — to shadows, to rage, to what happened in that factory — you feel your chest tighten and your throat burn, your mind trying to drag your body back into a pain that isn’t actually there anymore.

So you don’t go there.

Not yet.

Not with Jinho.

Not with anyone.

He eventually stands.

“I’ll come again tomorrow,” he says warmly. “Text me if you need anything, okay?”

You nod.

He waves before leaving.

The door closes.

The room goes quiet again.

You turn your head toward the window.

The blinds filter the sunlight into faint lines across the floor.

You breathe in.

Out.

Slow.

You don’t know what to do with the new information sitting in your chest like a small, heavy stone.

He read your resume.

He understood your work.

He saw your potential.

He chose you.

Before everything.

Before the dungeon. Before Japan. Before fear and death and cold purple eyes.

He trusted you with his guild.

You trusted him…

…until you didn’t know if you could.

You change the channel.

Not because you’re especially interested in American cable television, but because Rush Hour suddenly feels too light, too detached from the real world you’ve just been violently reminded you live in.

Click.

Local robberies.

Click.

Election pundits yelling at each other.

Click.

Some Hollywood actor apparently cheated on his third wife. Tragic.

Click.

Trending world events.

You settle there.

A female anchor speaks in measured English, the captions rolling across the bottom of the screen.

“…and in international hunter news, tensions have risen in the United States following an incident involving South Korean S-Rank hunter Sung Jinwoo and the Scavenger Guild…”

Your heart drops straight through the mattress.

Oh.

Oh no.

The screen cuts to shaky phone footage — a wide street, scattered debris, damaged concrete, panicked onlookers filming from windows and balconies.

And there he is.

Black coat.

Unmoving expression.

Shadows rippling behind him like a living tide.

Across from him — battered, furious, massive — Thomas Andre.

The Strongest Hunter in America.

Or… formerly.

The footage rewinds mid-discussion, zooming in on the moment Thomas Andre slams into the ground hard enough to crack pavement. Commentators replay it like a sports highlight reel:

Slow motion.
Impact.
Shockwave.

Your chest tightens.

The anchor continues:

“…sources confirm that Sung Jinwoo engaged and defeated the Scavenger Guild’s guildmaster in a one-on-one confrontation. While no civilian deaths have been reported, structural damage to nearby property was significant…”

Your jaw slackens.

You’re not stunned because he won.

Of course he won.

Somewhere deep down, some horrid part of you already accepts that Sung Jinwoo is the kind of person who breaks natural law just by existing.

What shocks you —

Is that he did this at all.

He picked a fight.

Again.

With America’s most powerful guild.

In America.

At their home turf.

In the most politically volatile environment on Earth.

The news panelists begin analyzing:

“…while Scavenger is unlikely to retaliate—”
“…not realistically capable of defeating him—”
“…this places diplomatic strain—”
“…an unpredictable variable—”
“…potential national threat classification—”

The phrases make your stomach turn.

Threat.

Instability.

Danger.

You cover your mouth with your hand without realizing it.

“Right,” you mutter weakly. “Of course. Why not? Why stop at one international disaster arc.”

You thought the kidnapping incident was horrible.

You thought the hospital, the fear, the moral whiplash of seeing him as both savior and executioner — that was already too much.

Now?

Now he’s out here bodyslamming America’s most iconic S-Rank hunter into the pavement.

Great.

Amazing.

Love that trajectory for your employer.

Your mind spirals.

This isn’t just personal anymore.

This is public.

Global.

Ahjin Guild’s reputation — already strange, already low-profile and unnervingly mysterious — has now gone from:

“New independent guild with strange vibes”

to

“Mysterious shadow man who beats up international superpowers on foreign soil.”

You groan quietly.

Why couldn’t you have interned at a nice, boring guild?

A guild where the worst controversy is someone accidentally tweeting from the official account?

You feel your chest tighten — not from injuries, but from stress, a phantom pressure your body mimics because your brain is still on high alert.

Something more complicated.

Because this isn’t just about Jinwoo.

This is about you.

Your degree.

Your future career.

Your reputation.

You’re a Mana Engineering student.
You’re supposed to analyze gates.
Stabilize mana fields.
Design safe environments for post-raid exposure.

You are not supposed to be attached — on paper — to a guild that casually instigates international incident headlines.

The anchor continues:

“…critics argue that Sung Jinwoo’s unilateral actions place pressure on diplomatic channels, increasing tension between global guild alliances and national security organizations…”

Great.

So now you’re tied to a guy the world thinks is a destabilizing force.

Your dreams of working abroad?

Poof.

You picture future job interviews.

“So, you interned at Ahjin Guild?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that the guild whose master threw the Strongest Hunter in America into a crater?”

“Oh, haha — yeah, that guy — but I swear I only calibrated mana residual decay sensors :)”

Yeah.

That’s going to go great.

Your temples throb.

You press your hand over your face.

“Fuck,” you whisper under your breath. “Why did my boss pick the most violent country on Earth to beef with.”

You shouldn’t be thinking like this.

You know that.

You know the world is more complicated.

Political context.
Guild conflicts.
History.
Power structures.

All of that.

But you are:

A twenty-something student.
On an internship.
Who almost died two days ago.

And now the guy who runs your workplace is escalating headlines like he’s farming chaos XP.

You exhale shakily.

“It’s fine,” you tell yourself.

It is very clearly not fine.

But you lie anyway.

“My job is just gate analysis. That’s it. I’m a civilian. I’m going to graduate. Then I’ll get hired somewhere safe. Somewhere normal.”

You cling to that thought like a lifeline.

Like a mantra.

But another thought slips in like a draft through a cracked window.

What if you can’t?

What if every hiring manager sees your guild experience and thinks:

“This intern survived Ahjin Guild? Liability risk.”

Or worse:

“Potential political complication.”

Or even worse:

“We don’t want to be associated with Sung Jinwoo.”

Your throat tightens.

You swallow.

“Hunters Guild will still take me,” you whisper to yourself, barely audible.

They have to.

They’re stable. Established. Controlled. Powerful, yes — but in the structured, publicly trusted way.

That’s been your dream since before Ahjin.

Since before Jinwoo.

Since before…

…everything.

Right?

Right.

They’ll still take you.

They won’t care.

They’ll see your skills.

Your research.

Your performance records.

They won’t look at the shadow your boss leaves behind him wherever he walks.

They won’t see you as another variable in Sung Jinwoo’s orbit.

Right?

You stare at the television.

The footage replays again.

Thomas Andre rising — furious.

Jinwoo approaching — calm.

Unmoving.

Unshakeable.

Unhuman.

The world watching him not like a hero.

Not like a villain.

Something else entirely.

Your stomach twists.

You don’t know what terrifies you more:

The thought that they won’t hire you —

Or the thought that even if they do…

You might never outrun what you’re tied to now.

You really thought you’d get the rest of the day to spiral in peace.

To stress-eat hospital crackers and catastrophize your entire future in quiet, uninterrupted panic.

But of course the universe — and by “universe,” you very specifically mean Sung Jinwoo — has other plans.

A soft knock snaps you out of your doom-spiral.

You jolt slightly, wiping at your face out of instinct even though you weren’t crying — this time — and quickly school your expression into something neutral.

Calm. Collected. Totally not panicking about your career, your morals, your mortality, and the trajectory of your entire existence.

“Come in,” you call, voice steadier than you expect.

The door opens.

And because fate has a sense of humor, it’s him.

Black coat.
Black shirt.
Black pants.

Shadow chic.

He walks in quietly, composed as always, that expression of effortless stillness that looks like discipline and control and also, unfairly, breathtaking handsomeness.

For a horrifying split second, your brain forgets the emotional crisis you’ve been nursing about him and instead goes:

wow pretty man™

You hate yourself a little for that.

He approaches your bed without hesitation, pulling up the small stool nearby and sitting — not too close, not too far, like he’s careful about distance now.

Like he remembers the last conversation.

You don’t know if that makes things better or worse.

He reaches into his coat pocket.

For a moment your stomach drops — unreasonable instinct, like he might pull out a weapon, or another truth you’re not ready to hear.

Instead, he produces…

A white envelope.

Plain, thick paper. Your name written on the front in neat, careful handwriting. It looks strangely formal against the hospital backdrop.

He holds it for a second, then sets it gently on the table beside your bed, turning it so you can read your name clearly.

Your mouth goes dry.

“…What’s that?” you ask, even though you already kind of know.

“A recommendation,” he says quietly. “For you.”

You stare at the envelope like it might explode.

He doesn’t push you to open it.

He just waits.

You reach out, fingers a little unsteady — not from physical weakness, but from the way your heart is suddenly beating too fast in your chest. You slide a finger under the flap and pull out a few crisp sheets of paper.

It’s on official Ahjin Guild letterhead.

You recognize the logo at the top.

Your eyes skim the first lines.

To whom it may concern—

They move down.

Words leap out at you.

exceptional aptitude in mana analysis
unmatched reliability under high-pressure conditions
demonstrated initiative, insight, and professionalism
my strongest recommendation

Your throat tightens.

You flip your gaze to the signature at the bottom.

Sincerely,
Sung Jinwoo
Guildmaster, Ahjin Guild

You swallow.

Your fingers tighten on the edges of the paper.

He watches you carefully.

“I didn’t hire you so you could get hurt,” he says quietly.

The words hit harder than anything written on the page.

You freeze.

He keeps speaking — steady, measured, as if every sentence matters.

“I’m… deeply sorry you were caught in the crossfire,” he continues. “None of this should have involved you. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near it.”

Your throat tightens.

Your fingers curl more tightly around the letter.

He takes a small breath.

“If you want to quit,” he says, “I won’t blame you.”

The word lands like stone.

Quit.

Your heartbeat stutters.

He nods toward the envelope — toward the future on fancy paper beside your bed.

“I’ve already written that,” he adds, voice unwavering. “If you decide to leave, you can use it for any guild you choose. Anywhere. I’ll make sure you’re placed safely. Somewhere stable. Somewhere far from situations like this.”

You stare at him.

Your heart does not know how to react.

Pain prickles beneath your ribs — not physical pain, just that heavy, emotional squeeze that exhaustion makes worse.

You don’t understand why it hurts.

He just offered you everything.

Freedom.

Safety.

A clean exit.

No consequences. No bitterness. No resentment.

The logical response should be relief.

But instead, something inside you twists.

Like he’s gently… pushing you out.

Like he’s saying:

You don’t belong near me.
You got hurt.
You’re fragile.
You’re… burden.

Remorse?

No.

Pity.

The thought stings.

You swallow, breath shaky.

So that’s it?

You get beaten half to death.

You survive.

He feels guilty.

And his solution is to remove you from his orbit.

To remove himself from your world.

Convenient.

Cold.

Clean.

But then you look at him more closely.

Really look.

His guilt isn’t neat.

It sits in his expression like something raw.

Something bruised.

He looks—

Human again.

That same softness you’d glimpsed before. The same conflict. The same quiet grief at the cost of existing in his world.

Ridiculous man.

Ridiculous, impossible, terrifying, deeply complicated man.

You hate that part of him.

You hate that his vulnerability makes your anger weaker.

You hate that seeing his sensitivity — his remorse, his care — makes him harder to hate entirely.

You hate that it makes you want to see him as human.

When you’re trying so hard not to.

You grind your teeth.

Your chest aches.

You look at him.

At his posture — straight, controlled, but tense at the edges.

At his eyes — careful, cautious, carrying something like distance.

He’s already prepared for you to leave.

He expects it.

Maybe he even wants it —

Not because he doesn’t value you.

But because he thinks letting you go is the right thing.

The safe thing.

The moral thing.

And god, that—

That makes you angrier than anything.

Your fingers tighten around the blanket with one hand, the edge of the letter with the other.

Maybe the worst thing you could do to him…

…isn’t leaving.

Maybe it’s staying.

Maybe it’s refusing to let him decide for you.

Maybe it’s throwing his guilt back in his face and telling him:

No.

You don’t get to push me away to make yourself feel better.

You inhale slowly.

Your heart beats too loud in your chest.

You look him dead in the eye.

And for the first time since the factory —

Your voice doesn’t shake.

Notes:

Omg i didn't mean for it to be this long. But oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chapter 10: Therapy Session Cut Short by Supernatural Business

Summary:

A quiet hospital room becomes a place of truth and rebuilding. Hard words are spoken, trust cracks and mends, and something fragile but real forms between them. For a moment, it feels safe—until the world calls him away again, reminding her that peace beside him never lasts for long.

Your words come out before you can second-guess them.

“To be honest,” you say quietly — then firmer — “I didn’t want this to work with you at all, Guildmaster Sung.”

His eyes widen a fraction.

You don’t stop.

You’ve been holding this in for months — fear, resentment, confusion — and now it spills out, not angry, not hysterical, just… honest.

“When I first got assigned to Ahjin Guild,” you continue, “I was disappointed. Furious, even. I wanted to be at Hunters Guild. I admired Choi Jongin — still do. He’s… the reason I went into this field. I trusted the image of him I grew up with.”

Your throat tightens.

“I didn’t trust you.”

You say it plainly.

He doesn’t flinch.

You keep going.

“You weren’t talked about like a hero back then. Not the way others were. You were… infamous. Unpredictable. A walking question mark with too much power. And I was terrified. I didn’t understand you. I didn’t want to.”

Your hands curl into the blanket.

“But the more I worked with you… the more human you felt. Not this myth people whisper about. Not a monster. Just… a man. Quiet. Awkward sometimes. Thoughtful in ways no one sees.”

Your chest aches as you speak.

“Those little moments — watching you work, hearing you doubt, seeing you worry — they mattered. They made me think… maybe I could trust you. Maybe you weren’t as far from the rest of us as I thought.”

You pause.

The silence feels fragile.

“But it wasn’t enough,” you say softly. “Not yet. Not to carry me through something like… what happened.”

You swallow.

“When you told me — so casually — that you killed him… everything cracked. I’m not Jinho. I’m not someone who follows you unquestioningly. I can’t just accept that. Not when I’m… human.”

Your voice wavers — not from fear.

From conviction.

“I respect you as a hunter. As the hero of Jeju, of Japan, of Korea. I know what you’ve done for the world. I know people live because of you.”

You breathe in.

“But as a person… I question you. I don’t like what you did. And at the same time I understand it — and that makes it worse.”

You look at him — really look.

His expression is unreadable.

You feel something hot in your chest — anger, hurt, betrayal, grief.

“So when you tell me to leave,” you continue, voice sharpening, “when you say you’ll write me a recommendation and place me somewhere safe, it doesn’t sound kind.”

Your gaze hardens.

“It sounds like pity.”

The word lands heavy in the room.

You don’t take it back.

“It sounds like compensation. Like — ‘I feel bad, so let me fix it with favors and distance.’ Like you’re sweeping me aside so your guilt doesn’t have to sit near you anymore.”

Your eyes sting, but you don’t blink.

“That isn’t remorse. That’s convenience.”

A faint flicker passes through his eyes.

You don’t stop.

“If you really feel responsible? If you really regret that I was hurt? Then you don’t just… push me away.” Your voice softens — not kinder, but truer. “You don’t get to erase me because it makes it easier to breathe.”

You inhale slowly.

“If you insist on letting me go, fine. Do it. Throw me away. But you’ll have to live with the fact that someone trusted you… and you couldn’t face them long enough to fix what you broke.”

Silence.

He doesn’t interrupt.

You hold his gaze, unwavering.

“But if you keep me,” you continue — quieter now — “then treat me like an employee. Like a person in your care. Respect me. Work with me. Be honest. Be… human.”

The last word lingers between you.

“If you really feel bad… show me. Not with money. Not with letters. With how you treat me.”

You sit back against the pillow, breath shaking.

“I’m already tied to Ahjin Guild forever. Any guild that sees my record will know I worked under you. Some won’t like that. Some won’t touch me because your guild isn’t ‘traditional’ enough. One man and shadows, instead of teams and hierarchies.”

A bitter laugh slips out.

“So even if I walk away… your shadow follows me anyway.”

You look at him one last time.

“I deserve more than pity as payment.”

The room goes quiet.

So quiet you can hear your heartbeat through the monitor.

And you wait — not knowing whether he will keep you…

…or let you go.

He doesn’t answer right away.

The silence stretches — not tense, not sharp, but heavy. Full. Like the room itself is holding its breath along with you.

Sung Jinwoo sits there with that unreadable expression again, his gaze fixed on you, his shoulders still, his posture composed. But something in him wavers. Subtly. Barely visible unless you’re looking for it.

You are.

He draws in a slow breath.

Deep.

Measured.

As if he’s sifting through every word you said, every accusation, every truth, every ache behind your voice — weighing them not against his pride…

…but against himself.

His eyes lower briefly.

Then lift again to meet yours.

“I understand,” he says quietly.

No defensiveness.

No dismissal.

Just acceptance.

“I was wrong.”

The words land softly, but they echo anyway.

Your fingers tighten slightly on the blanket.

He continues.

“I shouldn’t have tried to distance you. Even if I thought it was the safest option.” His voice is steady — but underneath, you hear something raw. “I didn’t do it to push you away. I did it because I thought… removing you from my world would protect you.”

He pauses.

“And because it was easier.”

There it is.

Honesty.

You watch him, and for the first time since that terrifying moment in the hospital when he said he killed a man without flinching…

He looks fragile.

Human.

“I regret what happened to you,” he says, not looking away. “Not in the way you interpreted — not as pity. I regret that I failed you. That you were harmed while under my responsibility. That I could not prevent it.”

His hands rest on his knees.

Still.

Grounded.

“But regret isn’t enough,” he adds, voice quiet but unyielding. “You’re right. Simply compensating you and sending you away… would have been convenient. It would have allowed me to feel absolved without actually facing the consequences of what my world does to people around me.”

Your chest tightens.

He breathes out slowly.

“I don’t want to be that kind of person.”

Silence.

Then, with calm certainty:

“I’ve decided to keep you.”

Your breath catches.

He holds your gaze, firm and steady now — not imposing, not cold. Certain.

“You are a member of Ahjin Guild,” he says. “My colleague. My responsibility. Someone who placed their trust in me — even if that trust hasn’t always been clear or easy.”

His voice softens.

“I won’t run from that.”

You feel something shift inside you.

Not dramatic. Not explosive.

More like…

A wall quietly lowering a few inches.

He continues, gently now.

“I will do better. Not by removing you from danger without asking how you feel. Not by assuming I know what’s best for your life.” His words are careful. Considered. “But by treating you the way you asked me to treat you.”

His eyes warm.

“Like a comrade.”

Your chest warms at the word.

Almost painfully.

He hesitates — just for a moment — before adding:

“And… like a friend.”

You blink.

Slowly.

The room feels different now.

Not as cold. Not as stark. Like some invisible pressure that had been sitting between you has eased. The air feels lighter. Warmer. Less isolating.

Maybe it’s the way he’s sitting now — less rigid, less distant, like he’s not hiding the edges of himself anymore.

Maybe it’s the way his gaze doesn’t loom over you, but meets you halfway.

You breathe out.

And, to your surprise…

You smile.

Not big.

Not bright.

Soft.

Relieved.

“I like that answer better,” you admit gently.

His eyes soften further.

You continue.

“Accountability and loyalty… that’s the right thing to do. Not pushing people away when things get difficult — but facing what happened. Staying. Repairing. Taking responsibility the hard way.”

You swallow lightly.

“That’s what makes someone worth trusting.”

Something passes through his expression.

Something quiet.

Grateful.

He nods.

“I’ll earn that trust,” he says softly. “Not by asking for it. But by proving it.”

You feel the tension in your chest loosen — that hard knot of fear, anger, uncertainty that’s been there since the factory, since the hospital, since the moment he said he killed someone without blinking.

It’s not gone.

But it’s no longer choking you.

You draw in a slow breath.

And for the first time in a long time, talking to him doesn’t feel like standing at the edge of a cliff.

It feels…

Safe.

Not because he’s harmless —

But because he’s trying.

Because he listened.

Because he chose the harder path, not the cleaner one.

The world around the two of you shifts.

Subtly.

Softening.

The distance between you thaws into something warmer, something more mutual — no longer a gulf of power and fear and unspoken things, but something closer to a bridge.

A fragile one, yes.

But real.

His gaze lingers on you — not as a commander to a subordinate, not as a force of nature to a civilian.

As a person to another person.

You see it clearly now.

The quiet awkwardness. The sincerity that hides behind silence. The guilt that doesn’t know how to speak, but still tries. The loneliness he carries like shadow.

And you think —

Maybe he isn’t such a terrible boss after all.

Maybe he’s just a man trying to figure out how to exist in a life that keeps turning him into something larger than human.

Maybe he wants — desperately — to remain human anyway.

You shift slightly in the bed, your ribs no longer aching quite as sharply.

“I’ll hold you to that,” you say lightly — but the meaning beneath it is real.

He nods.

“I expect you to.”

And there’s the faintest curve to his lips — not a smile exactly, but something close. Something small and earnest and maybe just a little unsure.

It fits him.

You relax back into your pillow, and for the first time since waking up in this hospital bed…

You don’t feel completely alone in the room.

He doesn’t feel distant anymore.

He doesn’t feel like a shadow you can’t reach.

He feels like someone sitting beside you —

Not above you.

Not beyond you.

With you.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“Maybe you’re not that bad of a boss,” you murmur.

His eyes warm.

“…I’ll do my best not to prove you wrong.”

The monitor beeps rhythmically.

Soft light filters through the blinds.

Outside, the world continues — conferences, politics, guilds, monsters.

But here, in this small, quiet hospital room —

Something mended.

Not fully.

Not perfectly.

But enough to begin again.

---

The mood shifts, little by little, like the weight in the room has been peeled back layer by layer.

The tension drains from your shoulders. Your breathing evens out. The ache in your chest dulls into something gentler, less raw. The hum of the monitor blends into the background, and for the first time in weeks, it feels like you’re talking to a person and not a storm disguised as a man.

The night stretches on.

Conversation comes easier than you expected.

“…So,” you say slowly, trying to think of something that isn’t emotionally devastating, “what do you do when you’re not… you know. Raiding. Fighting eldritch creatures. Saving the world.”

He blinks.

Like he didn’t expect the question.

“I… read,” he says after a moment.

You tilt your head. “What kind of books?”

He pauses for just a moment too long.

You narrow your eyes.

“Guildmaster Sung,” you say carefully, “do you read… self-help books?”

He looks away.

You gasp.

“Oh my god,” you whisper, delighted and horrified at the same time. “You do.”

“It’s not—” he starts, then sighs, defeated. “They’re… practical.”

“You read How to Communicate Effectively in the Workplace, don’t you?”

Silence.

You grin.

He clears his throat like he can physically erase the embarrassment.

“…Leadership is a responsibility,” he mutters. “It requires skill.”

“Yeah,” you nod gravely. “Emotional intelligence. Delegation. Empathy. Scheduling shadow monsters appropriately.”

His lips twitch.

You almost choke.

Was that—

A laugh?

You lean in a little. “Do you highlight passages?”

He refuses to answer.

Which means yes.

You giggle.

He stares at the ceiling like he’s reconsidering letting you live.

Then, slowly, he exhales.

“I also… watch cooking shows,” he admits quietly.

You blink.

“…Cooking shows.”

“Yes.”

“Do you cook?”

“Yes.”

You stare.

Then laugh.

“What's so funny?” he asks, jokingly offended, “I cook for my sister?”

Then— he smiles. “It’s… relaxing.”

You soften.

That actually makes sense.

He watches other people do normal things to feel normal.

You can’t even mock him for that.

“Okay,” you nod. “That’s fair.”

There’s a pause.

Then he says:

“What about you?”

You blink.

He asked you.

Sung Jinwoo.

Voluntarily.

You think for a second.

“I build mana simulation models,” you say first — then cringe. “Wait. That sounded worse out loud. I promise I do normal things too.”

He waits patiently.

“I like cafés,” you admit. “And sleeping. And pretending my assignments don’t exist until they ruin my life.”

He snorts through his nose.

You grin.

This is…

Strange.

Warm.

Almost peaceful.

The conversation drifts.

You talk about food.

He discovers you dislike black coffee.

You learn he sometimes forgets to eat for entire days.

You threaten to lecture him like a kindergarten teacher.

He accepts this judgment quietly.

Somewhere along the way —

You forget to be afraid.

Not careless.

Not naive.

Just…

Comfortable.

You don’t expect it when he asks, casually but genuine:

“…Do you think I should hire more people?”

You blink.

He looks almost uncertain.

Almost shy.

Like he’s opening a door he isn’t used to opening.

You sit up a little straighter.

“YES.”

He startles.

You point at the air aggressively.

“Absolutely yes. Immediately yes. Yesterday yes.”

He blinks again.

“…That strongly?”

“Guildmaster Sung,” you say, exasperated. “You have one D-rank hunter and an intern. Your vice-guildmaster is working himself into the ground. And I can only do mana field reports and analysis.”

You lift your hand and start listing on your fingers.

“You need logistics. Finance. PR. Operations. Equipment management. Trade coordination. Risk oversight. Legal advising. And Jesus Christ, a receptionist.”

He stares at you.

You keep going.

“Do you know how weird it is to walk into a world-famous guild and see no one at the front desk? It feels like a cult.”

He presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh.

You narrow your eyes.

“Don’t laugh. I’m right.”

He nods, solemn.

“You are.”

“And the vice guildmaster,” you continue, softer now, “he works hard. He really does. But he’s handling too much. He needs support. You need support. That’s what a guild is supposed to be.”

His expression shifts.

Thoughtful.

Quiet.

Soft.

He nods.

“…You’re right.”

He pauses.

Then adds, almost shyly:

“I’ll ask for your opinion when I start hiring.”

Your breath catches.

He trusts you.

That warms something in your chest you didn’t know was cold.

“I’d like that,” you say softly. “A lot.”

He smiles.

Small.

Real.

For the first time, you see the version of him no one else gets to.

Something gentle. Something earnest. Something achingly human.

You think —

Maybe you can stay.

Maybe you can believe in him.

Even if it scares you.

The room settles into a comfortable quiet.

Then —

It shifts.

So subtly at first you almost miss it.

His shoulders stiffen.

The temperature — or maybe just the air — drops.

His expression hardens, gaze sharpening, body tensing like a predator catching scent in the distance.

His eyes —

Glow.

Deep purple.

Cold.

Ancient.

You freeze.

“…Guildmaster?” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer right away.

His jaw tightens.

His shadows ripple faintly at his feet — like something beneath them has woken up.

He inhales slowly.

“I need to go.”

The words are low.

Final.

Something instinctive freezes inside you.

And before you can say anything else —

He steps backward.

The shadows rise.

Fold around him like a curtain swallowing him whole.

And then—

He’s gone.

Just like that.

No footsteps.

No door.

Just silence.

You stare at the empty space where he sat seconds earlier.

The room feels colder now.

Lonelier.

You let out a small, tired breath.

“…Welp,” you mutter softly. “There he goes.”

You sink back into the pillow.

You don’t know where he went.

You don’t know what danger called him away or what disaster just shifted somewhere in the world.

You don’t know if you should worry.

You do anyway.

But beneath the worry, beneath the fear, beneath the uncertainty —

Something lingers.

The warmth from earlier.

The connection you rebuilt.

The words he said.

Comrade.

Friend.

You sigh.

Close your eyes.

And for a moment…

You hope he comes back alive.

Notes:

I would've taken that recommendation and left without a word

Chapter 11: Trauma Processing? No, I Have Emails

Summary:

Caught between grief in the headlines and the strange calm of routine, she buries herself in work while the world shifts around her. Small gestures linger, unanswered questions grow, and quiet moments hint that something deeper is beginning to take shape beneath it all.

The news doesn’t wait for you.

It never does anymore.

You’re halfway through the long-haul flight back to South Korea when the Wi-Fi finally reconnects, and your phone lights up with push notifications — some in English, some in Korean, some from news outlets, some from TikTok repost accounts with dramatic captions and sad piano music.

At first, you think it’s just more conference coverage.

Then you see the headline.

CHAIRMAN GO GUNHEE FOUND DEAD — AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATING

Your breath stalls in your throat.

You scroll.

Another article.

MURDER CONFIRMED — PERPETRATORS ESCAPED

Then video clips — shaky footage taken at night, flashing sirens, glimpses of crushed pavement and twisted architecture, people murmuring in panicked whispers.

And then —

Sung Jinwoo was the first to arrive at the scene.

Your heart sinks.

You tap one of the TikTok clips.

A narrator overlays the headline in a dramatic voice you immediately resent:

“It’s been confirmed that Go Gunhee, Chairman of the Korean Hunter Association, was murdered last night by unidentified individuals. Reports say S-Rank hunter Sung Jinwoo attempted to apprehend the assailants, but they escaped before he could…”

The phone feels heavy in your hands.

Chairman Go.

Dead.

Murdered.

The man who smiled on television with calm resolve. The man every hunter in Korea — every citizen, even — saw as a pillar, a stability in a chaotic world.

Gone.

Your stomach knots.

Your thoughts immediately jump to one person.

Your thumbs move before you can second-guess yourself.

 

You:
Are you okay?

 

You stare at the message.

No honorifics. No formality. No buffer.

Just raw concern.

You almost delete it.

You don’t.

Three dots appear after a moment.

Then disappear.

Then appear again.

You hold your breath.

 

Sung Jinwoo:
I wasn’t there in time.

 

The words sit cold on your screen.

Flat.

Emotionless.

But you’ve been around him long enough to recognize the weight behind them.

Regret.

Self-punishment.

Quiet grief sharpened into blame.

Your fingers hover over the keyboard.

You type.

Delete.

Type again.

Delete again.

What do you even say to someone like him?

I’m sorry feels useless.

It’s not your fault feels dangerous.

Before you can find anything, another message appears.

 

Sung Jinwoo:
Review the resumes Jinho sent when you have time.
We’ll start interviews soon.

 

You blink.

You read it twice.

Three times.

Chairman murdered.
Suspects escaped.
National mourning.
Political chaos.

And his follow-up thought is —

Hiring schedules.

Of course.

You exhale.

A sound that is half disbelief, half exhausted acceptance.

He works like disaster doesn’t pause life.

Because for him…

It doesn’t.

You glance at the email app, and sure enough, there it is:

[FW] Department Applicant Files — Logistics / PR / Finance / Ops

You sigh.

“…He really doesn’t waste time,” you mutter under your breath.

The passenger beside you snores softly.

The cabin lights are dimmed, casting everything in a soft bluish haze. Blankets draped. Laptops closed. People dozing.

You should be sleeping too.

You’re not.

Fine.

If he’s moving, then you move too.

You open the email.

Hundreds of pages.

Resumes. Portfolios. Cover letters. Experience logs. Security clearance history. Mana-exposure test records. Background verification certificates.

It’s overwhelming.

You rub your eyes.

Then you start reading.

One at a time.

A logistics specialist with experience managing guild raid equipment transport. A PR graduate with a minor obsession for brand management. A former military quartermaster who writes like he’s applying to run a war.

You skim.

Highlight.

Annotate.

Reject.

Save.

Shortlist.

You build an informal ranking list in your head, then refine it into a spreadsheet draft. You compare their specialties to the gaps you’ve seen firsthand — where Jinho is stretched thin, where systems don’t exist yet, where shadows cannot fill roles meant for humans.

Every so often, the grief creeps in again.

Chairman Go.

Gone.

You swallow it down and scroll to the next resume.

Maybe this is what working under Sung Jinwoo means.

You don’t stop just because the world breaks.

You work through it.

By the time the cabin lights brighten for meal service, your eyes sting and your head feels stuffed with cotton — but your shortlist folder is thick.

You shift in your cramped seat, spine aching, and begin drafting an email:

Potential candidates for first-round interviews — preliminary shortlist attached.
Recommendations prioritized based on operational need and organizational structure gaps.
Notes included per department.

Your fingers hover, then add —

Let me know if you’d like me to arrange time slots when we land.

You reread the whole thing.

Professional.

Efficient.

Normal.

You attach the files.

Take a slow breath.

And hit send.

The email flies off into digital space — 2 hours before landing.

Which means…

You are now free to panic about airport immigration lines like a normal human being.

You turn off airplane Wi-Fi to save battery and lean back, eyes closing for just a second.

When you open them again, a flight attendant is announcing descent over the speaker, and every passenger is already fighting for overhead luggage space like it’s a sport.

You groan softly.

Right.

Incheon Airport.

Arrivals. Crowds. Noise. Cameras. Hunter presence. International tension.

And somewhere out there…

A funeral notice spreading through the nation.

You gather your things — phone, charger, passport — and steady yourself as the plane tilts into descent.

Clouds peel away, revealing Seoul’s coastline in the pale morning light.

The city looks calm from above.

Peaceful.

You know it isn’t.

The wheels hit the runway with a jolt.

Your heart thuds with it.

Welcome home.

---

Interview day arrives faster than you’re ready for.

The next few days blur together in a rush of scheduling emails, room preparations, and Jinho sprinting around the office like a man trying to hold the universe together with sheer optimism and caffeine. You help rearrange the meeting table, print evaluation sheets, and set up a laptop for video call applicants. There’s even an honest attempt at placing a decorative plant to make the office feel less like “two overworked people and a stack of existential paperwork.”

Honestly?

You’re surprised there are formal interviews at all.

You didn’t get one.

You’d basically materialized into Ahjin Guild like a stray cat someone decided to keep.

You assume it was because Jinho had been desperate and Sung Jinwoo had gone,

“Yes. She does mana things. Hire.”

No process. No briefing. Just vibes and a job offer.

But now?

Now that you’re here — and apparently competent — Jinho can finally breathe long enough to care about formality. Which is probably why he insisted on grilling candidates like a man who has slept a full eight hours at least once in his life.

…He hasn’t.

But he’s trying.

The first candidate comes in sharply dressed, portfolio bound with thin silk cord.

They bow.

You smile politely.

Jinho smiles nervously.

They’re overqualified.

Like — terrifyingly overqualified.

This person could probably run three mid-tier guild departments blindfolded with one hand tied behind their back. They explain complex logistics strategies with calm confidence while you nod along and circle YES with increasingly enthusiastic pen pressure.

The next candidate is…

Different.

Still capable.

But also deeply, profoundly weird.

They spend ten minutes explaining the emotional philosophy behind organizational workflows and how mana exposure affects “corporate chi.” You write passionate but unhinged in the margin and slide the sheet toward Jinho under the table.

He nods solemnly.

There are candidates who shine.

Those who stumble.

Those who radiate “quiet competence,” your favorite category.

Some speak like veterans.

Some like students eager to prove themselves.

Some like salary demons who have seen hell and returned stronger.

Lunchtime passes without either of you realizing.

At some point your hand cramps. Your neck hurts. Your back does the thing where it feels like it’s been compressed by a hydraulic press used for scrap metal. Jinho looks slightly dead inside, but in a deeply professional way.

By early evening, the interviews wind down.

You and Jinho collapse into chairs with the slow, dramatic sighs of office workers who have given society their last neuron.

Now the review begins.

Evaluation sheets spread like a paper battlefield across the desk as you cross-reference qualifications, temperament, and Ahjin Guild’s desperately empty infrastructure.

You debate.

You weigh candidate strengths.

You advocate hard for the logistics tactician who talked in clear systems instead of jargon.

Jinho makes a heartfelt pitch for the accountant who has the quiet steadiness of someone who will never — under any circumstances — misplace a receipt.

You compromise.

Eventually, the list is final.

A team that feels real.

A guild that might — for the first time — feel like something more than shadows, chaos, and half-finished paperwork.

Jinho drafts acceptance emails.

You edit the wording to sound welcoming instead of like he copied it from a legal disclaimer.

Then, finally —

He hits send.

And the two of you slump forward at your desks like freshly unplugged appliances.

You don’t even remember your eyes closing.

Just…

Darkness.

Static.

Sleep.

---

You wake up to pain.

Not dramatic pain — just the slow, awful stiffness of someone who has slept in a very wrong position for a very long time.

Your cheek is pressed to your arm.

Your mascara feels like betrayal.

Your back?

You’re ninety years old now.

Congratulations.

You peel yourself upright — disoriented, puffy-eyed, confused, and hit with a terrible realization.

“…I slept in my makeup.”

Your voice sounds like a ghost.

You grab your phone.

5:42 AM.

Office lights off.

Seoul sky still dim outside the window.

Across from you, Yoo Jinho is in the same exact position he died in last night — slumped over paperwork, mouth slightly open, spiritually gone.

You blink blearily.

Then you notice it.

At the corner of your desk.

Condensation dripping gently down plastic.

A fresh cup of iced coffee.

Lid sealed. Straw untouched.

No sticky note.

No message.

Just…

There.

You blink again.

Your brain scrambles through the suspects.

Option A: Jinho.

But Jinho is absolutely deceased across from you. His soul has left his body. If he had gotten up to buy this, you would’ve heard the clatter of bone and determination.

Also, he’s drooling on a spreadsheet.

So probably not him.

Option B: A ghost.

Possible.

Concerning.

But given your line of work, actually not the weirdest explanation.

Option C: The shadow soldiers.

Even more concerning.

You glance suspiciously at the dark corners of the room.

No movement.

No glowing eyes.

Nothing.

And then…

The dangerous thought creeps in.

Slow.

Uninvited.

Option D:
Sung Jinwoo.

Your heart does something humiliating in your chest.

You look at the cup again.

It’s not fancy.

Not expensive.

But there’s something careful about it — like whoever bought it paid attention. The ice hasn’t melted yet, which means it hadn’t been sitting long.

Meaning someone was here recently.

Meaning —

He came into the office.

Saw you asleep at your desk.

Didn’t wake you.

Didn’t speak.

Just…

Left coffee.

You swallow.

Your brain tries to reject the idea.

No way. He’s not the type to do small gestures like this.

Except…

Lately, you’ve seen sides of him no one else has.

The quiet.
The guilt.
The awkward sincerity trying to learn how to exist around people again.

You lift the cup slowly.

It’s exactly your usual order.

Your fingers tighten around the plastic.

There’s no note.

No acknowledgment.

No proof.

Just a quiet, careful act from someone who — until recently — didn’t know how to keep people close without pushing them away.

You glance toward the entrance.

The sun is rising.

Jinho is still asleep.

The office is silent.

You exhale softly.

“…Thanks,” you murmur, barely above a whisper.

You don’t know if anyone hears you.

But part of you hopes a shadow does.

Notes:

This girl is doing anything but her internship. Side quest final boss

Chapter 12: We’re Stable Now… I Think

Summary:

A growing guild, steadier days, and quiet routines begin to feel almost safe. Trust takes root where fear once lived, even as small moments hint that calm can’t last forever — and that walking beside him may carry consequences neither of them can fully see yet.

The transformation of Ahjin Guild doesn’t happen overnight — but when it happens, it feels like watching a small, chaotic startup suddenly evolve into… well, still a chaotic startup, but one with structure, paperwork trays, and people who know what payroll is.

Five full departments.

Logistics. Finance. Administration. Security. Research.

Four people in each. Real employees. Real desks. Real job descriptions that don’t read like “please do everything or we die.”

And — blessedly —

A receptionist.

A real, breathing, living receptionist.

You nearly cried the first morning you walked through the front doors and saw an actual human being sitting at a front desk instead of a corpse-looking Jinho or a potted plant pretending to be one.

They smiled. They greeted you. They handed you mail.

Civilization has returned.

Adding your own department — Mana Stabilization — meant, ironically, that you were still a department of one. But that was fine. You didn’t need a team. You didn’t need assistants. You didn’t need interns.

You only needed yourself.

Because there was only one hunter in Ahjin Guild who actually entered gates.

And it was always the same one.

Wherever Sung Jinwoo went — you followed.

To assess mana decay.
To measure atmospheric residue.
To document gate aftereffects before the Association pried too deeply.

Your job now felt… real.

Not like survival.

Not like emotional whiplash in a collapsing office.

But like actual professional experience.

And you thrived in it.

The building no longer echoed hollowly when you walked through it. Footsteps overlapped. Printers hummed. Security teams trained in the rear courtyard. Administration employees argued politely about scheduling. Logistics carefully labeled equipment storage like responsible adults.

You even saw a Finance associate set up spreadsheets in peace.

It was beautiful.

Not romantic.

Just efficient.

Jinho, especially, looked like he’d been resurrected from academic-week-before-finals death. His face wasn’t pale anymore. His eyes didn’t have that frantic glaze of a man juggling seventeen crises at once. He actually smiled during meetings.

You once caught him humming.

HUMMING.

It was like seeing a dried plant after its first watering in months.

“This,” he whispered one morning as you passed in the hallway, “is what happiness feels like.”

You patted his shoulder solemnly.

“I’m proud of you.”

Meanwhile —

You had time to breathe too.

Time to think about your work, not just survive it.

Time to refine mana decay models, run simulations, test spatial flicker readings from a few of Jinwoo’s older cleared gate sites.

Time to actually be… a student intern.

A very tired one.

But still.

And, of course…

Time with him.

Because no matter how big the guild grew, no matter how many people filled its halls —

A lot of your job still required you and Sung Jinwoo being alone together.

Out in empty streets cordoned off with caution barriers.

On rooftops overlooking sealed rifts.

In fields where the wind still hummed faint mana residue that only specialized sensors could read.

He’d arrive from the dungeon — calm, controlled, shadows dusting off behind him like a cloak lifting back into the ground. You’d step in after, tracing the air with instruments, recording readings, observing how quickly the pressure normalized.

Sometimes, neither of you spoke.

Sometimes, you exchanged short, practical questions.

Occasionally…

You talked.

About normal things.

You balance a bento box on your lap while your laptop hums quietly beside you, recording mana decay curves.

“So,” he says, leaning against the hood of the car, “what model are you testing this time?”

“Hybrid decay regression,” you reply, stabbing a piece of tamago. “Trying to predict residual mana half-life. My professor thinks suffering builds character.”

He nods like this is a universal truth. “Jinah says that about her math teacher.”

You look up. “How’s she doing?”

His expression softens. “Good. Stressed. There’s a ramen place she likes now. She says the broth tastes like hope.”

You laugh. “Wish my grades did.”

Silence settles — comfortable enough to breathe in.

He glances at your food. “You should eat the rice before it gets cold.”

“I am,” you protest, even though you’re obviously not.

He waits.

You sigh — then shovel in a bite.

He watches the gate’s lingering shimmer fade, patient as the sky.

“Do you ever take breaks?” you ask.

“I’m on one,” he says simply.

You raise a brow. “This counts?”

He looks at you, almost smiling. “Yes.”

You finish the last bite and close the container.

Only then does he straighten.

“I’ll walk you back.”

He always waited to make sure you were safe before he left.

Not in a hovering way.

Just…

Present.

There.

He never pushed.
Never patronized.
Never repeated that unwanted sentence — You can leave if you want.

He treated you like what he’d promised:

A colleague.

A comrade.

Sometimes, even…

A friend.

Little by little, something inside you stopped bracing every time he spoke.

Stopped flinching at the invisible gravity around him.

Stopped expecting him to hurt you without realizing it.

Your understanding of Sung Jinwoo shifted — not into something naïve, not into blind trust…

…but into something grounded.

Balanced.

A truth somewhere between monster and myth, between danger and humanity.

He wasn’t harmless.

He wasn’t safe in the way ordinary people were safe.

But he wasn’t someone who discarded people anymore.

Not you.

Not Jinho.

Not this guild that now breathed and lived as more than just his shadow.

There were moments — fleeting, subtle — when you caught him looking around the office as if still unfamiliar with the fact that it was full now.

As if he hadn’t expected it to become… something sustainable.

Something stable.

And every once in a while, he’d pass your desk — pause —

And you’d catch that faint, small nod.

Quiet acknowledgement.

Wordless gratitude.

A silent,

I heard you.

And more importantly —

I listened.

You hated that it made you feel things.

Not romantic things. Not yet. Not quite. Something slower. Warmer. Calmer.

Something like…

Trust putting down roots where fear used to sit.

Of course —

There were still days when everything felt tense again.

Days when the world reminded you who he truly was beneath the warmth and awkward attempts at normalcy.

Days when the purple glow crept faintly from his eyes, responding to something distant and dark.

But those days didn’t erase the others.

The ones where he held doors open for new employees.
Where he tolerated Logistics nagging him about equipment expense forms.
Where he stood in the hallway drinking coffee like a man who was still learning how to exist around people again.

And sometimes —

On the way back from site visits,

He’d walk beside you instead of ahead of you.

Not leading.

Not dragging you along.

Just…

Beside you.

And every time, some small, stubborn part of you whispered:

Maybe I was right to stay.

Maybe respecting him didn’t mean excusing him.

Maybe being here didn’t mean agreeing with everything he’d done.

Maybe it meant something messier.

More human.

Two flawed people standing on a line where trust has to be earned — again and again — and both choosing not to step away from it.

You never mentioned the coffee he left for you that night in the office — the one he set beside your sleeping form without a note, without acknowledgment, like a quiet apology he didn’t know how to say out loud. You never thanked him for it. He never brought it up.

But you didn’t throw the cup away, either.

You rinsed it out, dried it, and tucked it into the back of your desk drawer — a small, ridiculous memorial to the first kindness he offered you on purpose. Proof that he could choose gentleness, even when he didn’t know how to speak it.

The guild grew.

Your workload balanced.

Your role mattered.

And Sung Jinwoo…

Kept his word.

He didn’t push you away.

He made space —

and let you stand in it.

Notes:

ooooooh he's slowly opening uppp

Chapter 13: Career Crisis but Make It Emotional

Summary:

Torn between the future she planned and the life she’s slowly building, she faces a question she isn’t ready to answer. Admiration, loyalty, and something far more complicated collide — and the silence that follows hints that whatever she chooses next will change everything.

The announcement came first through news alerts, then through hushed conversations in the office hallways, then through the Association’s formal bulletin stamped with the new seal.

Woo Jinchul — President of the Korean Hunter Association.

Former head of Surveillance.

Closest confidant of the late Chairman Go.

It made sense. It felt right. It also felt like pressing on a bruise that hadn’t finished healing yet.

You read the headline twice, then scrolled past the solemn portrait photo — black ribbon overlay at the corner, text framed in mourning tones. The public called it continuity. Stability. A man Chairman Go had trusted enough to bear the burden he left behind.

You mourned quietly.

But when you glanced up from your phone, you saw Sung Jinwoo sitting beside you on a cracked stretch of concrete near the gate site — lunch container propped loosely in his hand, eyes unfocused, gaze fixed on… a rock.

Just a rock.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing symbolic.

His food remained mostly untouched.

His shoulders, usually so steady, felt… still in a different way. Not tense. Not relaxed. Just quiet.

Your chest tightened.

You didn’t mention the announcement.

You didn’t offer condolences, didn’t ask how he felt, didn’t pry open something you suspected was already tearing at seams you couldn’t see.

As much as he was no longer entirely human by nature…

You were human enough to be considerate.

So instead, you looked away and flicked open your email.

Promotional spam.
Group project docs.
A rejection letter from a scholarship you applied to out of pure delusional hope.

And—

Ah.

A push notification about Choi Jongin.

You tapped it immediately. Muscle memory.

Hunters Guild confirms: Choi Jongin to lead A-Rank raid in Gwangmyeong-si tomorrow.

Your heart fluttered like a traitor.

You hadn’t seen him in person since… ever, actually. You’d only ever watched him through screens, interviews, digital conference broadcasts, and a devastatingly well-lit press photo gallery you absolutely did not have bookmarked.

An in-person raid.

Tomorrow.

You could already imagine the Association barrier tape, the field crews, the crowd clustered beyond the safety line, fans pretending they weren’t fans, pretending they weren’t waiting just to glimpse him.

You sneak a glance at Jinwoo.

Still staring at the rock.

Perfect.

Maybe… if you planned carefully… if the timing lined up… if the universe was merciful for once—

He’ll let you go, right?

Totally professional reason. Full academic curiosity. Raid observation relevance.

Absolutely nothing to do with emotional bias or your long-standing parasocial attachment—

You clear your throat casually.

“Um… Guildmaster.”

He hums faintly — acknowledgment without looking away.

You pick your next words like stepping stones across a pit.

“What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

“Six raids,” he answers, plain as weather. “Then a meeting at the Association.”

Six.

Raids.

You blink.

That’s… at least a six-hour shift doing field assessments, post-gate decay studies, and reviewing readings.

Which means—

No Gwangmyeong.

No Jongin.

No standing at the barricade breathing the same air as your bias while pretending you didn’t come there just for him.

You fidget.

“Well… do you, um… really need me tomorrow?”

You hate how hopeful you sound. Like a child asking if class is canceled because of rain.

He turns.

Slow.

Brows knitting slightly.

“Yes.”

There’s no hesitation.

“I don’t know anything about mana stabilization,” he adds bluntly. “I’d rather not risk civilian safety or exposure miscalculations.”

You wince.

Fair.

Correct.

Responsible.

Horrible.

“Right. Of course.” You nod vigorously. “Totally valid. Just— hypothetically— someone from the research team might be able to cover for me? For one day?”

His gaze narrows.

Not angry.

Suspicious.

“Why,” he asks, voice low, “are you planning to take the day off tomorrow?”

Ah.

There it is.

The guillotine rope snapping.

You freeze.

Lie?
Deflect?
Feign illness?
Say you’re spiritually unwell?

He tilts his head just slightly.

“Tell me the truth.”

The command isn’t loud.

But it lands like pressure in the air, the kind that makes your nerves prickle instinctively.

You swallow.

Your courage lasts exactly three seconds.

“I… wanted to see Choi Jongin,” you confess in a small voice. “He’s leading a raid. I thought— maybe if I went, I could… support him.”

Silence.

Not even wind.

He just… looks at you.

A long, unreadable stare.

You suddenly become hyper-aware of every embarrassing detail about yourself — the crumpled lunch wrapper beside you, the rice grain near your thumb, the way your heart is beating too loudly for this to be normal workplace interaction.

You consider dissolving into vapor.

He blinks once.

Then:

“No.”

It’s final.

Simple.

Sharp.

He stands without another word.

His half-finished lunch remains forgotten on the ground.

Before you can protest — ask why — plead — bargain — explain that it’s just one raid, just a glimpse, just a little stupid dream you’ve been carrying since university—

He walks toward the gate.

Shadows stir faintly around his feet.

You open your mouth.

Nothing comes out.

He doesn’t look back.

He steps forward and disappears into the glow, swallowed by the threshold of another world.

The wind shifts.

The leftover food beside you cools in silence.

You sit there,

Alone,

Staring at the space where he vanished,

And all you can think is—

Tomorrow, you’re working your full shift.

You stand there for a long moment after he disappears into the gate.

At first, you think you misheard him.

Maybe there was wind. Maybe your brain lagged. Maybe this is one of those situations where the universe glitches and the word that comes out of someone’s mouth is not actually what they meant.

But no.

He said it clearly.

“No.”

Just that.

No explanation.

No hint of softness.

No follow-up.

You blink at the empty air for what feels like five whole minutes.

“…No?” you whisper to nobody.

It echoes back at you inside your skull.

Professionally, you understand why. Rationally, logically, academically — sure. You’re his sole Mana Stabilization Researcher. You’re responsible for calculating decay forecasts and public safety zones post-gate closure. Your job is important. Leaving mid-operation is irresponsible.

Fine.

You get that.

But the way he said it…

That didn’t sound like a scheduling reason.

It sounded personal.

Too personal.

Was he…mad?

Because you were supporting a competitor?

Did he think you were betraying him?

Did he somehow know that — yeah — you’d been planning to leave after your internship? That you’d dreamed of applying to Hunters Guild? That you’d imagined emailing their recruitment team with a painfully hopeful cover letter?

Did it sound like you were already halfway gone?

Your throat feels tight.

You look down at the lunch box he left behind. Half-eaten rice. Cooling broth. Disposable chopsticks set carefully to the side. He never leaves food unfinished.

You kneel down slowly and close the lid.

You pack his lunch neatly.

Because you don’t know what else to do with your hands.

The field around you is quiet. The wind draws thin lines through tall weeds near the barricade. Your equipment bag presses heavy against your leg, every tool anchored to responsibility you can’t walk away from — not today, not tomorrow.

You wait.

Normally, Jinwoo spends fifteen, maybe twenty minutes in a B-Rank or A-Rank gate. Sometimes less. Sometimes he’s back out before you even finish labeling your instrument container.

You glance at your phone.

Twenty-three minutes.

You sigh.

Okay. Longer than usual — but fine. Maybe the monsters clustered awkwardly. Maybe he’s mining crystals again. Maybe—

Thirty-five minutes.

You frown.

That’s… unusual.

You sit on the curb.

The breeze grows colder.

You keep your eyes trained on the gate.

Forty-five minutes.

Your stomach tightens.

This is only a B-Rank. Even if it had a weird layout, even if the boss room required deeper traversal — there is no reason Sung Jinwoo should be in there this long.

Unless—

No.

He’s fine.

He always is.

Right?

Your heartbeat gets louder anyway.

The gate ripples.

You stand suddenly.

He emerges through the fading light, calm as always, shadows trailing behind him like an obedient tide. His steps steady. His clothes unscathed. His expression unreadable.

Like nothing happened.

Like nearly an hour didn’t pass.

The gate behind him shudders and collapses inward, its glow shrinking to a dull fracture in the air before disappearing entirely.

You inhale sharply — then snap back into focus.

Work.

Right. Work.

You move automatically.

Sensor in hand. Atmospheric readings first. Residual pressure mapping. Stabilization curve capture. You trace slow arcs through the field, monitoring the decay signature like you’ve done dozens of times before.

Your clipboard fills quickly.

You don’t look at him.

You don’t speak.

Your chest hurts.

You send off the report to the guild server, attach hazard specs and safety thresholds, and finally — finally — look up.

He’s already turning to leave.

Like he always does.

Like today is just another day.

No conversation.
No acknowledgment.
No explanation.

He takes two steps.

You don’t think.

You just act.

Your hand darts forward and grabs the sleeve of his hoodie.

He stops.

The fabric is warm under your fingers. Real. Heavy.

You swallow hard.

“Wait.”

He turns his head slightly.

Not questioning.

Not annoyed.

Just… waiting.

You stare at his shoulder instead of his face.

“Why did you say no?”

Silence.

The wind skims across asphalt.

You tighten your grip.

“It didn’t sound professional,” you say quietly. “It sounded… personal.”

Your voice shakes — just a little.

“Was it?”

He’s silent for a long time.

Then he shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t personal.”

You bite your lip.

He continues:

“It’s fine that you admire Choi Jongin.”

Your heart jolts.

You look up — surprised — but his expression remains steady.

“I don’t mind that,” he adds softly. “You’re free to respect whoever you want. Support whoever you want.”

The tension in your shoulders loosens.

For about half a second.

Then he exhales — slow, careful — like he’s picking up something fragile inside himself.

“But…” he murmurs, voice lower, “I was afraid you might leave Ahjin Guild after your internship. For him.”

The world tilts a little.

Ah.

You swallow.

Your fingers loosen on his sleeve.

So he knew.

Or at least — he suspected.

You don’t deny it.

Because you can’t.

Because it’s true.

You had always imagined your internship as a stepping stone — a launch point to the Hunters Guild, to Jongin’s organization, to the future you imagined back in university lectures where paper dreams still felt untouched by reality.

You’d never thought much farther than that.

You’d never pictured a future here.

With Ahjin.

With… him.

He watches your expression shift.

He must see the guilt.

The hesitation.

The half-formed truth.

“Do you,” he asks gently, “like him that much?”

Your breath sticks in your chest.

“Enough to leave?” he continues. “Enough to throw away a stable career you’ve already helped build here?”

Your throat closes.

You don’t know how to answer.

Because the truth is —

Yes.

You do like Choi Jongin that much.

Or at least… you think you do.

Or maybe you like the idea of him — the image burned into your admiration since you were younger, the sense of safety and charisma and idealized professionalism.

He represents certainty.

Recognition.

Validation.

Ahjin Guild didn’t exist in your dreams.

It was a detour.

A coincidence.

A story you never planned on living.

Until now.

You stare at the pavement.

“I…” you begin.

Nothing comes out.

You clutch your clipboard tighter.

He waits.

Quiet.

Patient.

And somehow that makes it harder.

Because he isn’t angry.

He isn’t accusing you.

He isn’t saying you owe him anything.

He’s just asking.

Truthfully.

Simply.

If there’s already somewhere else your heart belongs.

You don’t know what to do with that.

Your silence must say enough.

His eyes soften — almost imperceptibly.

He nods, like he expected that answer even before you tried to force it into words.

Then his voice changes.

Not colder.

Not harsher.

Just…

More vulnerable.

“Then tell me something,” he says. “If there were a future where you could like me more than him…”

Your breath stops.

“…would you stay?”

The world goes quiet.

Cars in the distance fade.

Wind retreats.

The air feels thick and fragile all at once.

You stare at him — stunned — because you don’t know what that means.

Like him?

More than Jongin?

Like him how?

Professionally?

Personally?

Emotionally?

Romantically?

You aren’t ready for that question.

You aren’t ready for the possibility buried inside it.

You aren’t ready for what it implies —

that somewhere, somehow, he’s thinking about a future where you remain here.

Where you choose this guild.

Where you choose him.

Your lips part.

But no sound comes out.

You don’t know how to process this.

You don’t know how to answer a question that feels like stepping off the edge of something you never meant to approach.

You don’t even know what you feel.

You’re still standing in the echo of the word no, still trying to grasp the edges of loyalty and admiration and duty and whatever this strange, quiet bond between you has become.

And he —

He just watches you.

Waiting.

Hands at his sides.

Expression unreadable.

The kind of silence that demands honesty.

You open your mouth again.

Still nothing.

Your head spins.

Because truly…

You don’t know.

You don’t know if you could like him more than the image you’ve idolized for years.

You don’t know if you want to.

You don’t know if the idea of staying scares you more than the idea of leaving.

You don’t know how to articulate the truth without hurting him — or yourself.

Your fingers slip from his sleeve.

The empty space between you widens.

The wind rustles through the grass near the barricades.

His question hangs there —

unanswered,

heavy,

dangerous,

raw.

And you stand there, caught in it,

with no idea what to say.

Notes:

Well, what now girl. mc really have to choose between her bias and bias wrecker

Chapter 14: When Your Boss Hits You With Facts

Summary:

A quiet confrontation shifts from emotion to professionalism as boundaries, expectations, and respect are finally defined. Hard truths land gently, trust steadies — and beneath the calm, the future hints at choices that may cost more than either of them realizes.

You don’t answer him right away.

Not because you’re resisting.

Not because you’re trying to craft a response.

But because you truly — genuinely — have no idea what to say.

Your thoughts don’t come in words. They don’t even come in feelings. They just… stop. Like your mind has stepped too close to an unmarked ledge and gone weightless. The world narrows to breathing, heartbeat, the faint rush of wind past your ears.

You open your mouth.

Nothing comes out.

You close it again.

The silence stretches. Not tense. Not dramatic.

Just real.

You’re speechless.

And Jinwoo sees it.

You watch the realization flicker across his face — quiet, contemplative, something settling into place rather than breaking. His eyes lower briefly, then rise again, steady, focused, clear in a way that feels different from moments ago.

He isn’t desperate now.

He isn’t trembling.

He isn’t clinging.

He’s thinking.

And then he speaks.

“You’ve told me before,” he says calmly, “that you want me to respect you as an employee.”

The words land cleanly in the air between you.

Not sharp.

Not harsh.

Measured.

You blink.

He continues.

“Not as someone I rescued,” he clarifies. “Not as someone special. Not as someone fragile. You wanted me to treat you like a coworker. Like a member of this guild. Like… a friend I work with.”

There’s no accusation in his tone.

Just memory.

Just truth.

Your chest tightens.

He takes a slow breath.

“And I do,” he says. “I’ve been trying to. I’ve made it a point to.”

Something inside his gaze changes — not colder, not distant — firmer.

“But I expect the same respect in return.”

The words don’t stab.

They anchor.

Your stomach drops anyway.

He watches you for a moment — searching, reading, understanding — and then he continues, voice still calm, still steady.

“The problem,” he says quietly, “isn’t that you like Choi Jongin.”

The name doesn’t burn the way it did before.

It simply exists.

Neutral.

Honest.

“You’re allowed to admire him,” Jinwoo says. “You’re allowed to respect him. To look up to him. To wish you could work with him someday.”

His expression softens — not emotionally, but professionally — like a mentor speaking to someone he believes in.

“I don’t fault you for that.”

You swallow — or try to — but your throat feels tight.

He tilts his head slightly.

“The problem,” he says, more gently now, “is that you were willing to drop your work because of it.”

There it is.

Clear.

Undeniable.

He doesn’t raise his voice.

He doesn’t accuse.

He states.

“If your reason for leaving,” he continues, “isn’t about your goals… or your growth… or the direction of your career — but just because you like someone…”

His eyes meet yours.

Direct.

Grounded.

“…then that isn’t commitment.”

The words don’t feel cruel.

They feel… devastatingly fair.

“If one day,” he says carefully, “you like me more than him — or someone else more than me — then your decision still wouldn’t be about your work. It wouldn’t be about building experience. Or choosing the environment that challenges you. Or following a path you believe in.”

His tone deepens slightly — not stern, but weighted.

“It would just be about admiration moving from one person to another.”

You feel the truth of it like gravity.

Slow.

Inevitable.

“You wrote about it in your cover letter,” he says, “that your career mattered to you more than anything. That you’d work wherever you needed to if it meant growing. Learning. Becoming better.”

You remember.

You remember every word you wrote.

Every line you agonized over in your cover letter.

He does too.

“That’s why I hired you,” Jinwoo says softly.

Your breath stutters.

He isn’t dramatic when he says it.

He isn’t nostalgic.

He is clear.

“I chose you because I saw your dedication in your resume. In your writing. In the way you talked about research. About gates. About responsibility.”

His eyes warm — not emotionally tender — but proud.

“You weren’t impressed by big names. You didn’t chase a famous guild. You didn’t wait for comfort or prestige.”

His voice lowers — thoughtful.

“You accepted an internship in a two-person guild with no reputation… no security… no guarantee of success.”

It washes over you slowly.

Heavy.

Undeniable.

“That told me something,” he continues. “That you valued your career more than your idolization of anyone else.”

You look down.

He isn’t wrong.

He isn’t exaggerating.

He isn’t twisting anything.

He is simply telling the truth — the version of you he believed in when he chose you.

“And right now,” he says quietly, “it feels like you’re forgetting that.”

Your chest tightens painfully.

Because he’s right.

He is completely, painfully right.

“I want to be able to work with you properly,” Jinwoo says — voice steady, posture composed, presence unmistakably — finally — a boss.

“That includes trust.”

He pauses.

“That includes commitment.”

Another pause.

“And that includes showing up to your job.”

The words land with finality.

Firm.

Professional.

Unarguable.

You say nothing.

Because there is nothing to say.

He hasn’t shamed you.

He hasn’t guilted you.

He hasn’t pulled rank for ego.

He simply drew a boundary.

Like a guild master should.

Like a leader who values you enough to expect better.

Your silence stretches — not resistant, not defensive — stunned.

He’s right.

He got you.

Not with force.

Not with emotion.

But with reason.

With respect.

Your boss — the one who rarely plays the role out loud — finally used the boss card on you.

And he did it perfectly.

The realization burns in your throat.

You take a small step back.

Your voice comes out quiet — controlled — humbled.

“…I understand.”

The words feel like swallowing something sharp.

You bow your head slightly.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “You’re right. I… should not have let something like that interfere with my work.”

You force yourself to hold his gaze.

“It won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of it.”

For a second, you think he might stay stern.

That he might hold the line there and leave it intentionally heavy.

Instead —

He smiles.

Not smug.

Not victorious.

Warm.

Relieved.

Grateful.

“Thank you,” he says softly. “For understanding.”

The breath you didn’t realize you were holding leaves your lungs all at once.

He nods slightly.

“And… just to be clear,” he continues, voice returning to that strangely gentle professionalism that only he can pull off, “you’re still allowed to like whoever you like.”

Your brows lift faintly.

“I don’t want to take that away from you,” he adds. “Not admiration. Not preference. Not excitement.”

Then —

His tone deepens again.

Not cold.

Not heavy.

Responsible.

“But I hope it never gets in the way of your future.”

Your heart twists.

“This,” he says, gesturing loosely between you — to the guild, to your work, to everything you’ve been building — “is something you’re investing in. Something that will follow you long after you stop liking whoever you like today.”

His eyes soften.

“Idols change,” he says gently. “Biases change. Feelings change.”

You feel the weight of it settle in your chest.

“But a stable career,” he finishes quietly, “isn’t as easy to rebuild if you lose it.”

Silence falls again.

Not tense.

Not wounded.

Reflective.

Real.

There he goes again.

Being devastatingly perfect as a boss.

Grounded.

Rational.

Protective in a way that has nothing to do with control — and everything to do with wanting your future to exist.

You swallow.

Your throat feels tight — not from argument — but from gratitude and guilt colliding somewhere deep inside you.

“…Thank you,” you say softly. “I’ll remember that.”

He nods once.

Not triumphant.

Not superior.

Just — satisfied.

Trust restored.

Respect mutual.

And somehow, that hurts more than any anger would have.

Because he believes in you.

Because he still does.

Because he expects better not out of disappointment —

—but because he genuinely thinks you are capable of it.

And as the wind settles and the world feels painfully ordinary again…

You realize —

no part of this conversation was about possession.

No part of it was insecurity.

No part of it was about keeping you for himself.

He just didn’t want to watch you throw away the person you fought so hard to become —

for something as small, as fleeting, as shallow as a crush.

And in its own way…

that is a different kind of dangerous.

Not because he’s holding you in place.

But because for the first time —

you see how much he values you

not as admiration,

not as devotion,

not as attachment —

but as a professional…

and as someone he respects.

Notes:

Nahhhh Jinwoo really saying all that knowing damn well he doesn't want his employee like his competitor

Chapter 15: Why Is My Boss Raiding at 8AM

Summary:

A chaotic early-morning raid day turns unexpectedly human — coffee theft, exhaustion, quiet humor, and uneasy admiration all collide. But beneath the jokes and banter, tension stirs… and one brief encounter hints that something far more complicated is beginning to shift.

You wake up early the next day.

Not “morning-person early.” Not “healthy lifestyle early.”

No.

You wake up because your boss scheduled a raid at eight in the morning like a clinically feral human being.

Seriously.

Who raids at 8 A.M.?

Who wakes up, looks at the rising sun, and thinks:

Yeah. Let’s commit violence against dungeon monsters before breakfast.

Sung Jinwoo, apparently.

Of course.

You stare at the ceiling for a solid thirty seconds, contemplating all your life decisions that led you here. Then you sigh, peel yourself out of bed, and begin the sacred ritual of exhausted capitalism survival behavior.

Shower.
Clothes.
Hair.
Bag.
Tablet.
Clipboard.
Field log notebook because digital redundancy still sometimes fails in high-mana fields.

And then…

Coffee.

On your way to the office, you stop by the same corner café you’ve been sustaining your fragile existence with since the internship started. You order two 12-oz iced lattes because experience has taught you one painful truth:

One coffee will not survive six raids.

Yes. Six.

Six gates.

Six raids.

Six full dungeon runs your boss has apparently decided to speedrun like he’s a Twitch streamer doing a charity event.

Which wouldn’t be insane if he were:

• a raid team
• or part of a guild with resources
• or using literally any amount of help

But no.

Your boss is a one-man massacre machine running the equivalent of two full Hunters Guild teams combined, and you — a humble Mana Stabilization Research Intern — are forced to keep up with the logistical aftermath.

Intern.

You are an Intern.

Except you’re working more than a standard full-time career researcher, and the Association absolutely knows it but pretends not to because… well…

It’s Sung Jinwoo.

And technically…

You’re being paid significantly more than a normal employee in your field.

So it cancels out.

Or something.

Capitalism math.

You get to the guild and the first thing you do — before breathing, before thinking, before processing reality — is greet the one soul in this building who understands human suffering:

Your treasured receptionist.

The girl you absolutely bullied Jinwoo into hiring.

She looks up from her desk the moment you enter, eyes wide, shoulders tense, posture screaming will flinch if spoken to by the Guild Master.

“Morning,” she whispers.

Her voice sounds like someone just told her death is a suggestion.

You grin.

“Morning. Ready to suffer?”

She exhales like a defeated Victorian ghost.

“I don’t know why I applied for this job.”

“You wanted stable hours and a fair salary,” you say cheerfully. “You forgot to read the footnote about emotional damage.”

She squints at your two coffees.

“Those are both for you?”

“One’s insurance,” you reply. “We’re doing six raids today.”

Her soul leaves her body.

“Six—” she chokes. “In one day?”

“Yeah.”

She slumps forward on the desk.

“This is not receptionist-level exposure to physical danger.”

“You’re inside the guild building,” you say. “You’re literally the safest one here.”

“That,” she mutters darkly, “is debatable.”

You tilt your head. “Why?”

She leans in.

“I can’t even look your boss in the eye without my brain deleting all vocabulary.”

You blink.

Then laugh.

“There it is,” you say. “The weakness of mankind.”

She groans into her hands.

“He’s too… much.”

“I know.”

“He says hello and my lungs forget oxygen exists.”

“I know.”

“He’s just… tall and quiet and professional and…”

“Yeah.”

“…and terrifying.”

“There it is.”

You bump her shoulder lightly across the counter.

“We’ll die together someday,” you say sweetly.

She lifts her head just enough to squint at you.

“You’re not reassuring.”

“I don’t get paid to reassure,” you reply. “I get paid to stand near collapsing dimensional anomalies and pray.”

You are both basking in silent mutual suffering when—

“Are you ready to go?”

You freeze.

Your receptionist freezes.

Time stops.

The universe goes silent.

You turn slowly —

He’s standing there.

Of course he is.

Sung Jinwoo.

Fully composed.
Fully awake.
Fully functional at 6:53 A.M.

Because the laws of nature apparently do not apply to him.

You haven’t even clocked in.

You haven’t even taken a sip of your emotional support latte.

Your shift starts at seven.

Seven.

And it is 6:53.

You stare at him with your best plastic customer-service smile.

“No,” you say politely. “I need to clock in and unpack.”

He studies you for one brief, blank moment…

Then he reaches out.

Takes one of your iced lattes.

Your latte.

Your survival beverage.

“Okay,” he says casually, turning away. “I’ll be waiting in the car.”

And walks out.

You and the receptionist stare at the empty doorway.

Silence.

Utter, holy silence.

You slowly turn your head toward her.

She stares back at you, eyes wide, expression mirroring every internal scream you do not have the strength to vocalize.

“…Did that just happen?” you whisper.

She nods in slow, horrified awe.

“It did,” she murmurs. “He… just stole your coffee.”

You inhale.

Exhale.

Close your eyes.

“Murder,” you mutter softly. “I’m going to commit it.”

You drag yourself to your desk like a tragic war veteran.

He can wait.

He can absolutely wait.

You clock in at 7:00:00 on the dot, because labor laws exist for a reason and you will cling to them out of spite.

You take eight entire minutes to unpack your lunch into the fridge.

You drink half of your remaining latte out of sheer stubborn moral victory.

Then, at 7:15, you go to his car.

He is sitting in the driver’s seat.

Peaceful.

Calm.

Serene.

Drinking your iced latte like it was always destined to be his.

You buckle your seatbelt.

Say nothing.

He drives.

The next five hours unfold exactly as expected.

Five raids in.

He clears each dungeon in fifteen to twenty minutes like he’s taking a casual stroll through hell.

You stabilize mana residue, record readings, mark sample sites, and upload field logs at a rate that should be illegal.

Ten minutes of cleanup.

Back in the car.

Drive.

Repeat.

You are convinced your spine has left your body.

By the time the clock hits noon, you are no longer a person but a ghost haunting a research tablet.

Which is how you both end up sitting in a little ramen shop near the sixth gate — because even eldritch demigod warlords need carbs.

The shop is quiet.

A little worn-down.

The kind of place that smells like broth and comfort.

You sink into the booth seat with a groan that sounds like it came from your ancestors.

Jinwoo sits across from you.

You both wait.

You talk.

Not about raids.
Not about research.
Not about strategy.

Just…

Random things.

Light.

Human.

He glances at the condensation on your cup. “You always stop at the same café in the morning.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “They know me too well at this point. Last week the barista wrote ‘Good luck surviving’ on my cup.”

His brow lifts. “Surviving… what?”

“My job,” you deadpan. “You.”

A beat.

Then—very quietly—he huffs a laugh.

“I kept the sticker,” you add. “Felt spiritually accurate.”

“Remind me to tip them more,” he murmurs. “They understand the situation.”

You snort.

You lean back slightly, shaking your head. “Yesterday our receptionist cried in the break room.”

His expression sharpens. “Why?”

“Oh—good crying,” you reassure quickly. “She saw her first paycheck and realized she could finally move out of her shared basement suite.”

His shoulders ease.

“That’s good,” he says softly. “I’m glad.”

“She said she’s never worked somewhere that didn’t try to underpay her.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

Then—

“…Then we’re doing something right.”

You smile.

He hesitates—then looks down at his hands, thoughtful.

“When we first rented the office,” he says, “the landlord was… persistent.”

“In what way?”

“Every time I went to sign paperwork,” he says slowly, “she gave me fruit.”

You blink.

“Fruit?”

He nods. “Apples. Pears. Sometimes tangerines. She said I looked like I wasn’t eating enough.”

You stare at him.

Then start laughing.

He tries not to smile. Fails.

“And the furniture,” he goes on, tone dry now. “Jinho and I spent three hours building one desk.”

“Three hours?”

“We didn’t realize the instructions were upside-down.”

You wheeze.

“He kept saying, ‘Hyung, it’s not supposed to bend like that.’”

You press a hand over your mouth.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “No I’m not. Please continue.”

He rests his chin on his hand, the corner of his mouth barely curving.

“We finished at three in the morning,” he says. “The desk was crooked. Jinho said it had character.”

“It sounded like trauma,” you say.

“Probably,” he admits.

You laugh.

He relaxes.

And for a moment — just a moment — you almost forget who he is in the eyes of the world.

The bowls arrive.

Steam rises between you like a soft veil.

You eat.

The world slows.

Then —

He sets his chopsticks down.

“There’s a meeting at the Association later,” he says casually.

You blink.

“A meeting?”

“A guild conference,” he clarifies. “They’re formally welcoming the new Association President.”

Your chest tightens.

Woo Jinchul.

Of course.

Chairman Go Gunhee is gone.

You remember the news.
The funeral.
The silence that swallowed the country.

You nod quietly.

Jinwoo continues.

“They want representatives from all S-Rank guilds,” he says. “I was going to attend alone.”

A pause.

“Come with me.”

You stare at him.

Then you laugh.

Like actually laugh.

“No,” you say instantly. “Absolutely not. I’m not stepping into a building full of arrogant hunters again. Last time was traumatic.”

He raises a brow.

You fold your arms.

“I’m serious. I’m not standing in a room where half the people look at me like I’m a lab rat and the other half look at me like I accidentally wandered in from the civilian world.”

“Mm.”

“I refuse.”

“Mm.”

“I’m not going.”

He nods thoughtfully.

Then says, almost as an afterthought—

“Choi Jongin will be there.”

Your soul leaves your body.

There is a long, quiet pause.

You stare at your ramen.

You stare at the table.

You stare at life.

Then you say, without hesitation:

“When are we leaving?”

---

You stand beside Sung Jinwoo.

A little too close.

Close enough that your shoulder nearly brushes his arm, close enough that you can feel the faint heat radiating from him like standing near sun-warmed stone. You don’t notice — because your focus is entirely on survival — but if you had looked up at just the right angle, you might’ve seen it:

His cheeks.

Rosy.

Almost blushing.

He turns his head slightly away, jaw tightening like he’s pretending it’s nothing, like the color wasn’t there at all.

You, meanwhile, have precisely zero brain cells to spare for that.

Because you have to stand this close.

He is your shield. Your armor. Your human emotional hazard barricade. The only thing preventing your fragile civilian soul from being crushed beneath the pressure of a room full of S-Rank hunters radiating intimidation like cologne.

Last time, you had Woo Jinchul acting as your emotional guard dog.

But now?

He’s the Association President.

He’s busy being powerful and responsible and unavailable.

So here you are — clinging to the metaphysical safety zone behind Sung Jinwoo like a terrified alley cat hiding behind a parked car.

From the outside, you probably look pathetic.

From the inside?

Accurate.

And as expected…

No one approaches.

Because your boss has the most frightening, impenetrable resting-bitch-face in recorded history. His presence alone forms a social perimeter. People greet him from a polite distance like he’s a nuclear reactor they respect but do not wish to stand near.

You are safe.

Emotionally.

Socially.

Spiritually.

Then—

You hear raised voices from across the room.

You glance over.

Baek Yoonho and Choi Jongin are arguing about something.

Your heart immediately slams against your ribs like it’s trying to file for legal separation from your body.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh yes.

Your hands start trembling.

Excitement buzzes up your spine.

Before you even realize it, you rapidly — aggressively — tap Jinwoo’s arm, exactly the same way you would with your best friend during a midnight fangirl emergency.

“Jinwoo— Jinwoo — Jinwoo —” you whisper-hiss.

He glances down at you, expression unreadable.

You point.

“He’s here.”

“…Who?” he asks flatly, as if he doesn’t already know.

“Choi Jongin,” you whisper, eyes sparkling like a feral toddler seeing fireworks for the first time.

Jinwoo sighs.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just quietly — like he’s already tired of the situation.

You grab his sleeve.

“Can you—” you pause to breathe because your lungs forgot how to function, “—can you just… walk over there? Say hi? Please? Just for a second? I just — I just need to see him up close so I can spiritually ascend—”

You are babbling.

You are shameless.

You are using Sung Jinwoo — Nation’s Strongest Hunter — as your personal emotional Uber.

He gives you a long, silent look.

You smile at him like a cat begging for snacks.

He exhales.

“Fine.”

You light up.

He starts walking.

You trail behind him.

Still hiding.

Still pressed into his shadow like a shy NPC following the main character.

The conversation reaches the two hunters mid-banter.

Baek Yoonho is mid-rant.

“I’m telling you,” Baek says, brows furrowed, “that dungeon rotation makes no sense. Why send two A-Rank teams instead of one S-Rank?”

Choi Jongin shrugs coolly. “Because the Association thinks redundancy equals security.”

“That’s not security,” Baek grumbles. “That’s wasting manpower.”

Jinwoo approaches.

Both men pause.

Baek brightens. “Ah — Sung Jinwoo!”

Choi Jongin smiles politely. “It’s been a while.”

Jinwoo inclines his head. “Yoonho. Guild Master Choi.”

Baek crosses his arms. “You still ignoring joint-raid invitations?”

“Yes,” Jinwoo replies without hesitation.

Baek snorts. “Figures.”

Choi’s lips curve slightly. “Ahjin Guild must be thriving, then.”

“It’s stable,” Jinwoo says simply.

Baek raises a brow. “You say that like you didn’t clear five gates before lunch yesterday.”

You resist the urge to scream.

You are not here.

You are a shadow.

You are a small irrelevant atmospheric detail.

And yet—

Your eyes stay locked on Choi Jongin.

He laughs lightly. “That does sound like him.”

His smile is warm.

Soft.

Devastating.

You feel your brain exit your body and file for immortality in the clouds.

Then—

Baek finally notices the shape of a person peeking around Jinwoo’s shoulder.

His eyes squint.

“…Who is the child hiding behind you?”

You stop breathing.

Child???

CHILD???

You are literally the same age bracket as everyone here.

CHILD??????

You fight the urge to scream.

Jinwoo glances sideways at you — then back at Baek.

“She’s my mana stabilization researcher,” he says calmly. “I brought her because Jinho’s busy today. She’s one of my trusted aides.”

The words hit you like a physical force.

Trusted.

He trusts you.

You are going to emotionally combust.

Baek nods slowly. “Oh. So not a child.”

You stare at him in silent rage.

Then—

Choi Jongin looks at you.

Directly.

Your soul leaves your body.

He smiles — gentle, respectful. “You work in mana field analysis?”

Your mouth opens.

Nothing happens.

You try again.

“Yes— I mean— yes, sir— I specialize in post-gate residue stabilization and… uh…”

Words.

You cannot find them.

Your brain has turned into a soggy paper napkin.

He nods encouragingly. “That’s an important field. Dangerous, too. You must be competent if Ahjin Guild trusts you with it.”

You stammer. “I— I try my best— sir—”

He chuckles softly.

“I’m sure you do.”

You nearly die.

Beside you, Jinwoo watches.

Quiet.

Expressionless.

Then —

Choi’s gaze shifts to Jinwoo.

Their eyes meet.

Something flickers between them.

Choi stiffens.

Just barely.

Like a small jolt ran through him.

He steps back half a pace — polite, composed — but distant now.

“Well,” he says lightly, “it was nice seeing you. I should greet the Association staff before the meeting begins.”

Baek blinks. “Leaving already?”

Choi smiles. “Duty calls.”

He nods to Jinwoo.

Then to you.

“Keep up the good work.”

He turns.

Walks away.

You stare after him, stunned, dazzled, unsure whether your heart is beating too fast or not at all.

“What… just happened?” you whisper.

You don’t notice the way your boss’s jaw has tightened.

The way his eyes follow Choi Jongin’s retreating back.

Cold.

Sharp.

Murderous.

You only know one thing:

You have absolutely no idea what that moment meant.

But Sung Jinwoo does.

And he does not like it.

Notes:

I read a comment from the previous chapter saying Jinwoo was taking mc to an event Choi Jongin was and I'm absolutely gone. Their prediction is so accurate it temporarily ascended me. Made me think "have my drafts been accidentally leaked or smthn???". Honestly though, im hella impressed 👏👏👏. On a side note, mc is so me with the 2 coffees and Jinwoo would absolutely raid at 6am if he wasn't considerate about mc being a human being.

Chapter 17: Haha Yeah… That’s Not A Normal Gate :)

The drive back to the guild felt… lighter.

Not easy — not clean — but lighter in the quiet, complicated way that comes after surviving too many things in one day.

The lingering awkwardness from the conference still hovered between you — the buzzing humiliation of fangirling in public, the sharp, unreadable tension that flashed across Jinwoo’s face when Choi Jongin spoke to you, the subtle shift in the air when Jinwoo ended the conversation and walked away first.

But somehow… none of it felt suffocating now.

The silence in the car wasn’t heavy.

It was steady.

Your guilt curled up beneath your ribs — not the same guilt as before, not about leaving or staying — but something newer, messier, stitched through with the memory of Jinwoo’s earlier words. The professionalism. The boundary. The quiet concern for your future disguised as stern leadership.

And Jinwoo — for once — seemed at ease.

Not triumphant.

Not distant.

Just… calm.

He rested one hand on the steering wheel, the other relaxed at his side, wearing a small, thoughtful half-smile as he spoke — like the day hadn’t involved international hunters, emotional landmines, and you nearly collapsing over Choi Jongin’s existence.

Then — casually, almost like a joke —

“So,” he said, “you really do like Choi Jongin.”

You blinked — then laughed under your breath. “Of course I do. I’ve admired him for a long time.”

He tilted his head slightly. “What do you like about him?”

The answer came out of you without hesitation — soft, drifting, dreamy.

“He’s well-spoken,” you said. “And really creative with his magic. The way he structures his casting patterns? It’s so fluid. He explains things clearly, too — especially mana-theory stuff. He’s a good advocate for researchers.”

Your voice softened as you talked.

You sounded like someone tracing a constellation in the air.

Jinwoo hummed.

Plain.

Unreadable.

His fingers tightened just a little on the steering wheel.

After a beat, he asked — quieter this time,

“…Do you find my magic interesting?”

You blinked.

Then actually thought about it.

“I mean… yeah,” you said slowly. “There aren’t many formal studies on your ability. It’s like summoning magic, but it isn’t. It operates on a different principle entirely — closer to autonomous field manifestation than creature-binding. It’s… hard to categorize.”

Another pause.

“Do you think it’s cool?” he asked.

You didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah,” you said honestly. “It’s pretty cool. But—” you frowned thoughtfully, “—I still don’t really understand what your ability actually is. You’re obviously more than a mage-type hunter.”

He shrugged lightly.

“I learned to fight here and there when I was an E-Rank,” he said, tone casual. “I never really relied on my shadows that much.”

You stared at him.

That didn’t sound right.

But he said it so simply — so matter-of-fact — that doubt slid away before you could question it.

Silence drifted between you again.

Not cold.

Not strained.

Just… thoughtful.

You wished — unexpectedly — that things could stay like this a little longer.

But of course, the universe hates peace.

The guild building came into view.

And Jinwoo’s head lifted slightly, his gaze sharpening.

“Hm,” he murmured.

You blinked. “…What?”

“There’s a strong presence inside the building,” he said calmly. “Not malicious. But… strong.”

Your soul left your body.

“What do you mean ‘strong presence’?” you whispered. “Like… a ghost? A monster? The spirit of unpaid invoices?”

He tilted his head, unfazed. “No. Hunters.”

Oh.

Oh no.

You fumbled for your phone and immediately opened your email — and nearly choked.

There were seven emails from Yoo Jinho.

Each subject line screamed the same thing.

SUBJECT:
COME BACK WITH HYUNG-NIM PLEASE

Body text:
PLEASE

That was it. No punctuation. No dignity. No context.

Just serial pleading.

You scrolled. More emails. Same subject. Same one-word cry for help.

Oh god.

You scrolled further.

Another email.

Different subject.

THOMAS ANDRE AT THE OFFICE
LENNART NIERMANN TOO
PLEASE COME BACK FAST

Your lungs stopped working.

Oh.

Oh no.

You whipped your head toward Jinwoo, who was calmly scanning the parking lot like someone who thought the situation was mildly interesting at best.

Meanwhile, you were having a spiritual aneurysm.

While he was distracted, you braced a hand against his back and shoved him gently — urgently — toward the building.

“Inside,” you hissed.

He blinked. “What—?”

“No questions,” you whisper-shouted. “Walk faster. Please. God.”

You bolted ahead of him, heart pounding as you practically sprinted to the main doors. He followed, more confused than concerned, which somehow made everything worse.

You threw open the office doors.

And instantly understood every atom of panic in Jinho’s emails.

The reception area was silent.

Too silent.

Your receptionist sat at the front desk with a smile so tense it looked like their soul was disassociating through the ceiling. The admin team behind them resembled statues pretending to be human beings. Someone’s eye twitched. Someone else looked like they were praying internally.

And then —

You saw them.

On the couch.

Thomas Andre.

Lennart Niermann.

Two S-Rank hunters.

In your lobby.

Like this was casual.

Like they didn’t radiate presence so strong the drywall looked like it might emotionally collapse.

Yoo Jinho stood nearby, sweating through his suit, smiling so hard his face had developed new geometry.

“Hyung-nim!” he squeaked.

Jinwoo stepped into the room beside you.

His expression didn’t change.

If anything, he looked… mildly unimpressed. As if two international titans of power suddenly showing up in his lobby was equivalent to someone forgetting to refill the coffee machine.

He glanced at you.

“Translate,” he said calmly. “Ask them what the hell they’re doing here.”

You stared at him.

Then stared at the interpreter woman already standing politely beside Thomas Andre.

Then stared back at him.

“Guildmaster Sung Jinwoo,” you whispered harshly, “be respectful.”

“I am being respectful,” he replied blankly.

“No, you’re being—” you inhaled sharply, “—you. Let me handle this.”

You turned back toward the guests and switched into English with the smooth, cordial cadence of someone trying not to spontaneously combust.

“Guildmaster Sung welcomes you to Ahjin Guild,” you said, bowing slightly. “He’s honored by your visit. May we ask what brings you here today?”

Thomas Andre leaned forward, eyes lighting with approval — like he’d just discovered the concept of pleasant surprise.

“Well now,” he rumbled, grin sharp. “You’re good. Didn’t know Ahjin Guild hired someone so capable.”

You laughed — politely — while internally screaming.

Lennart gave a small nod of greeting. Calm. Polite. The kind of man who could kill you and apologize about it mid-swing.

Thomas rested his forearms on his knees.

“I came,” he said, “for both of you.”

You blinked.

“For… us?” you repeated cautiously.

He nodded toward Jinwoo.

“And for the matter concerning Hwang Dongsoo.”

Your stomach dropped.

Of course.

Of course it was that.

You maintained your diplomatic smile.

Your brain, however, curled into a ball and whispered:

Great.
Just.
Fucking.
Great.

Behind you, Jinwoo remained steady and unreadable.

Beside you, Jinho exhaled like a man on the brink of spiritual collapse.

The receptionist did not blink.

The admin team did not move.

And you?

You were standing between international S-Rank tensions, a murder scandal, your emotionally complicated boss, and the second-hand stress of an office that definitely did not get paid enough for this.

You take a slow breath, then turn back to Thomas Andre and Lennart and begin translating into Korean.

“Hwang Dongsoo,” you say carefully, “—they’re here to discuss the matter surrounding him.”

Jinwoo exhales through his nose. Not quite annoyed — not quite amused — somewhere in that quiet middle space where he files problems.

Thomas leans forward again, smiling like a man who wins even when he loses.

“And,” he adds smoothly, “I owe the both of you dinner.”

Before you can react, Lennart straightens politely.

“I arrived first,” he says mildly. “And I have also been waiting—”

Thomas ignores him with the kind of confidence only billionaires and apex predators possess.

“I also brought a gift,” he says — but this time, he looks at you.

Your fingers tighten around your clipboard.

…Gift?

You translate the message back to Jinwoo, and for the first time since you entered the room, something like curiosity flickers across his expression.

Lennart clears his throat.

“I should introduce myself properly,” he says. “Lennart Niermann. Germany—”

You translate, because manners still exist in your world even if Thomas Andre ignores them.

“It is an honor to meet you,” Lennart says with a small bow.

You return it politely.

Thomas claps his hands once.

“Good. Now let’s go.”

Go?

Go WHERE?

Before you can ask, he’s already rising — and somehow, in the span of ten seconds, Lennart has been abandoned in your lobby, still standing there mid-sentence.

You don’t even know what to do for him emotionally.

Your receptionist looks like they want to apologize on behalf of the universe.

Then it hits you.

You are being escorted.

By Thomas Andre.

Somewhere.

Against your will.

Fantastic.

You, Jinwoo, Thomas, and his interpreter exit the building — Jinho half-collapsing in relief behind you — and within minutes you’re seated at a beautifully lit restaurant with private service, closed to the public because of course it is.

Thomas has apparently booked the entire hour.

Must be nice to live like a DLC character.

You translate for Jinwoo as the waiter brings water, and you feel mildly guilty for the interpreter, who technically isn’t needed — but she watches you with mild curiosity instead of resentment.

Thomas leans back in his chair, grin sharp.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” he says.

You translate.

Jinwoo doesn’t react.

Of course he doesn’t.

A man in a sleek black suit approaches the table, setting down a metal case.

You stare.

Oh no.

Not another traumatic briefcase.

Thomas flips it open.

Inside — resting against black velvet — lies a dagger.

Long. Jagged. Dark and silver at once, edges rippling like a weapon forged from a monster’s spine.

The air feels heavier just looking at it.

Thomas’ voice lowers — reverent.

“This,” he says, “is how I repay my life — and my guild — for that day.”

You translate slowly.

Your words feel like they echo.

His gaze shifts to Jinwoo — serious now.

“This is Kamish’s Wrath.”

You don’t fully understand the implication —

—but Jinwoo does.

His eyes narrow — not with hunger, not with awe — but recognition.

Power.

History.

Danger.

They talk — names, raids, scales of destruction — vocabulary you recognize academically but not spiritually. You translate anyway, syllables flowing, your mind hovering between comprehension and instinct.

Thomas explains the story — how the weapon was recovered, how few relics of Kamish exist, how priceless it is — how no one else has ever been deemed worthy—

until now.

Jinwoo reaches forward.

He does not hesitate.

He lifts the dagger from its velvet cradle — and for one terrifying second, the entire restaurant feels colder.

His shadow ripples at his feet.

His fingers tighten along the hilt — like the weapon isn’t entering his possession —

—but returning home.

The air shifts.

Your breath leaves you.

And he—

simply sets it beside him.

Like it’s nothing.

Like it’s an umbrella.

Like it isn’t a relic that entire countries would murder to obtain.

You glance between them.

Thomas smiles.

Satisfied.

“It’s yours.”

You translate.

Jinwoo nods once.

Simple.

Final.

Another suited man arrives — this one carrying a folder.

Thomas gestures toward it.

“This,” he says, “is for you.”

You blink.

“For… me?”

You open it.

A document.

A grant.

A bursary.

Issued by the Scavenger Guild.

Your tuition year expenses —

fully covered.

You stare at the paper.

Your chest goes cold.

Of course.

Of course.

Hunters are all the same.

Break lives.

Shatter bones.

Then smooth the cracks over with money.

Blood debts disguised as scholarship funds.

Your jaw tightens.

Heat climbs your throat.

Something ugly twists under your ribs.

You feel anger bloom sharp and deceptively bright.

An insult disguised as generosity.

Compensation wrapped in charity.

Your hands tremble.

Your mind screams.

Then—

A hand finds your arm.

Warm.

Grounded.

His thumb presses lightly — not controlling, not commanding.

Steady.

Wordless.

Jinwoo.

You blink.

Your breath returns in slow, shaky pieces.

Right.

Not now.

Not here.

Not like them.

You swallow the bitterness.

You loosen your grip on the paper.

You look at Thomas — and bow your head.

“Thank you,” you say.

Polite.

Perfect.

Hollow.

He sees through you.

You know he does.

But he does not push.

Not with Jinwoo sitting beside you.

Smart man.

Quiet settles.

The restaurant hums gently beneath expensive lighting.

Then —

Jinwoo’s head lifts.

Thomas’ too.

Their attention sharpens in the same second — like two predators hearing something the rest of the world can’t.

The interpreter freezes.

You feel nothing.

Just… unease.

Jinwoo stands.

Thomas follows.

No words exchanged.

Only instinct.

Only recognition.

You grab your notebook and rush after them, heart pounding as you trail into the street.

Wind cuts through the air.

Cold.

Electric.

You follow their line of sight —

—and your world tilts.

Above the city

swirling

spinning

rippling through the sky

is a vortex of violet light.

A massive gate.

Not hovering over ground.

Not anchored to earth.

But hanging in the heavens like a tear in reality itself.

A purple whirlpool suspended over the world.

An omen.

A wound.

A promise of catastrophe.

Your breath catches.

The street falls silent.

Traffic stops.

People look up —

—and scream.

Your knees nearly buckle.

Because this is not like the gates you’ve studied.

This is not a localized tear or a spatial rupture with measurable mana decay curves.

This is wrong.

Huge.

Ancient.

Alive.

Your mind scrambles for logic.

For procedure.

For the classroom rules your professors drilled into you.

But there is no model for this.

There is no chart.

No calculation.

No safety window.

No protocol.

This is beyond.

Beside you —

Thomas’ aura sharpens.

Behind you —

shadows ripple at Jinwoo’s feet like something restless and hungry has begun to stir.

Your chest constricts.

Because you know — instinctively, terrifyingly —

that whatever this is…

…it changes everything.

You stare up into the sky.

And for the first time since you began this internship

you understand

deep in your bones

that the world is about to break.

 

Chapter 18: This Episode Was Not in the Internship Handbook

Summary:

A quiet moment fractures into uncertainty as trust, distance, and unspoken feelings collide. Something is changing — between people, and in the world around them — and every choice from here on feels like the edge of a turning point.

Your boss sends you home early.

Not gently.

Not hesitantly.

Calmly.

Firmly.

Like it’s the most rational decision in the world.

“The situation is unpredictable,” he says. “I’ll handle this by myself.”

You try to argue — of course you do.

You remind him you’re a field researcher.

You remind him this is your job.

You remind him that if the world is going to split open into purple cosmic death-spirals in the sky, then maybe — just maybe — the person whose literal profession is analyzing shit like this should stay.

He doesn’t raise his voice.

He doesn’t explain himself further.

He doesn’t falter.

He just looks at you — steady, immovable — and repeats,

“Go home.”

And that’s when you know.

Shit is real.

Because Sung Jinwoo doesn’t pull rank often.

But when he does?

There is no room left to argue.

So you leave.

Your feet move automatically, carrying you through the crowd while half your mind stays behind with him — watching the faint ripple of his shadow, watching the way the air seems to bend around his presence, watching as he disappears into the shifting sea of people and uniforms and flashing emergency barriers.

Then —

The shadows surge.

And Kaisel erupts upward — enormous wings slicing the sky, aura expanding like a storm front.

Jinwoo rises with him.

Up.

Up.

Up toward the impossible gate hovering above the world.

Your heart drops somewhere into the earth below.

He didn’t even look back.

You swallow hard.

You don’t cry.

But something inside you feels like it’s tearing a little.

---

Twenty minutes earlier.

“Give me a reading.”

His voice was calm — clipped — professional on the surface, but there was something underneath it. Not impatience. Not doubt.

Tension.

You nodded automatically, already dropping your bag and unzipping your equipment case. Your hands moved on instinct — sensor pad, calibrator lens, micro-field reader — the ritual you’d repeated across dozens of gates and training fields and long nights spent chasing data until your eyes blurred.

You crouched at the curb.

Breath steady.

Hands steady.

You’d always been steady.

The calibrator chimed softly as you tuned the frequency. Data curves began to scroll across your tablet — clean, precise, aligned to standard mana-resonance structures.

Except…

The graph didn’t move.

Not even a tremor.

The line remained flat.

Calm.

Baseline civilian levels.

You frowned.

You adjusted frequency bands.

Switched to secondary mapping.

Reran the scan.

Nothing.

No surge.

No interference.

No distortion curve.

The instrument behaved as if you were standing in the middle of a quiet marketplace at noon — not beneath a colossal vortex of violet light tearing open the sky.

You switched to backup sensors.

Raw particle capture.

Redundancy logging.

All silent.

As if the gate…

didn’t exist.

Beside you, Jinwoo stood very still. His gaze wasn’t on the tablet — it was on the sky. His expression didn’t shift, but the air around him felt different. Heavy. Focused.

“…It’s not detecting anything,” you said quietly.

Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to.

He didn’t answer right away — not because he was ignoring you, but because he was thinking. Measuring. Comparing something only he understood.

You swallowed. “I can try alternate tuning bands—”

“That’s enough,” he said gently.

Not sharp.

Not dismissive.

Gentle.

You blinked up at him. “But the anomaly is—”

He finally looked at you.

Not irritated.

Not disappointed.

Worried.

“Go home,” he said — softer now.

You froze. “…What?”

His jaw tightened — not with anger, but restraint.

“This isn’t something normal instruments can detect,” he said quietly. “If I’m right… it isn’t a gate in the usual sense.”

You didn’t fully understand — but you heard what he wasn’t saying.

Monarchs.

Unknown domain.

Something that existed outside measurable systems.

Something that wasn’t supposed to be touched.

Or approached.

Or stood near.

He exhaled slowly. “If I let you stay, I’ll be putting you inside a situation I can’t predict. And I won’t do that.”

Your chest tightened.

Not with shame.

With something else.

“You’re not useless,” he added — firm, deliberate, as if he knew exactly where your thoughts had gone. “Your work matters. Just not here. Not with this.”

His eyes flicked toward the sky again.

Then back to you.

“Go home,” he repeated softly. “Please. Let me handle this.”

For a moment, you didn’t see a guild master dismissing an intern.

You saw a man drawing a line between you

and danger

and choosing

to stand on the wrong side of it

himself.

---

Back to the present.

Your legs carry you on autopilot.

Through streets.

Across crosswalks.

Past neon signs and the muffled roar of traffic and people craning their heads skyward like terrified flowers bending toward the wrong kind of sun.

Your thoughts spiral.

He probably sent you home because you were useless.

No — worse —

Because you were irrelevant.

Because when it mattered —

when the world stopped behaving the way science said it should —

your tools failed.

Your measurements failed.

You failed.

And suddenly…

you were expendable.

He promised.

He promised he wouldn’t just discard you the moment you stopped being useful.

But men like him don’t change, do they?

Strong.

Isolated.

Practical.

When reality becomes sharp — when danger crawls into the bones of a city — people like you get pushed to the edges.

For your “safety.”

For “efficiency.”

For “focus.”

But it still feels like abandonment.

You don’t even notice where your feet take you until you’re standing in front of the little café near the guild.

Soft lighting.

Warm windows.

Normalcy pretending to exist.

You push the door open.

The bell above the frame rings.

You step inside and breathe in the faint scent of coffee beans and pastries and something slightly burnt.

You order a chamomile tea.

Not coffee.

Not matcha.

Not anything that promises energy or adrenaline or alertness.

Just something quiet.

Calming.

Something to drown the noise rattling in your chest.

You should’ve ordered matcha.

Your brain usually demands it.

But your thoughts are too thick, too heavy, too fog-soaked to choose anything with intention.

The cup arrives.

You wrap your hands around the warmth.

It doesn’t help.

You sit there.

Staring at the surface of the tea.

At the faint ripples.

At your reflection fractured across pale gold liquid.

You didn’t think it would hurt like this.

Being dismissed.

Being told to leave.

Being… left behind.

You’ve always known you weren’t like them — not a hunter, not a warrior, not someone able to tear open reality with their bare hands.

But you thought you mattered anyway.

You thought you’d earned your place.

That he respected you.

Trusted you.

Valued your presence beside him.

Your chest twists.

It doesn’t feel like rejection of your work.

It feels personal.

You hate that it feels personal.

You take a breath.

Another.

You press your thumb into the porcelain edge of the cup until it hurts a little — grounding, stabilizing, sharp enough to stop the spiral.

You don’t cry.

You’re just…

tired.

So tired you don’t even notice when someone pulls out the chair across from you.

You look up.

And your mind stops.

Choi Jongin sits down.

Calm.

Composed.

Close.

Too close.

For a second, you think you’re hallucinating.

Or dreaming.

Or dead and being rewarded by a very niche, very emotionally confused afterlife.

“…What?” you whisper.

He offers a polite, gentle smile — warmer than the café’s lights.

“Hello,” he says softly. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

You open your mouth.

Stammer.

Close your mouth.

Stare.

Words assemble very slowly inside your brain and fall out of your mouth in fragments.

“I— uh— hi— hello—”

Smooth.

Perfect.

The pinnacle of human grace.

He suppresses a small laugh — not mocking, just fondly amused.

“I saw you leave the Association district earlier,” he says. “You looked… troubled.”

You swallow.

Hard.

“I— um— I was dismissed early,” you manage. “So I just… ended up here.”

Ended up.

Like you drifted in from a tide.

Like you washed ashore in a cup of tea and regret.

He studies your expression quietly.

You don’t even try to fake a smile.

Your face won’t cooperate.

“What happened?” he asks gently.

You open your mouth.

But nothing comes out.

Because how do you explain it?

How do you say:

He sent me away because I was useless.
Because the anomaly broke the rules and so did I.
Because in the one moment I needed to prove I belonged there — I couldn’t.

You fumble for words.

“I just…” you murmur. “My… work didn’t matter today.”

Silence.

Then —

Jongin leans back slightly, thoughtful.

“You were with Guildmaster Sung,” he says, not a question — an observation.

Your heart twists.

You nod.

He sighs quietly.

“I see.”

You wait for judgment.

You wait for pity.

Instead —

He rests his arms lightly on the table, voice dropping to something softer.

“Don’t let it get to you.”

You blink.

Your brows pull together.

He goes on.

“He’s… someone who thinks protecting people means pushing them away,” he says. “Not because they’re in the way. Not because they’re weak.”

Your throat tightens.

“But because it hurts him if they get hurt because of him.”

His voice carries no bitterness.

No resentment.

No superiority.

Just understanding.

Old and weary.

Like he has known this truth for a long, long time.

The words don’t comfort you.

They don’t soothe you.

They echo things you already knew.

Things you’ve been trying to ignore.

You stare at the tea.

Your reflection bends and breaks.

You should be trembling with excitement.

Your bias.

Your admiration.

The man whose interviews you memorized, whose research commentary shaped half your academic career, whose presence used to make your heart flutter like a trapped bird —

is sitting across from you.

Close enough that you could count his eyelashes if you lifted your eyes.

You should be giddy.

You should be glowing.

You should be whisper-screaming internally and fighting the urge to pass out dramatically into your chamomile.

Instead…

Your chest aches.

Heavy.

Dull.

Unresolved.

Choi Jongin keeps talking.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Softly — like he’s setting every word down on the table between you with care.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself for something like this,” he says gently. “Situations like today… there are variables that exist beyond technical understanding. When the world stops behaving the way it’s supposed to, even the best instruments fail.”

You stare at your tea.

He continues.

“That doesn’t mean you failed. It only means the phenomenon is outside the current scope of what humans — even gifted ones — can measure.”

He says it like truth, not comfort.

Like a man who has had to tell himself the same thing more than once.

You swallow.

He rests his hands loosely around his own cup.

“I’ve worked with a lot of researchers,” he goes on. “Some of them burn out when something defies what they know. Some get ashamed. Some quit.” His eyes soften. “But the ones who keep learning? The ones who don’t turn away just because something is frightening or unfamiliar?”

A small smile.

“They’re the ones who change the field.”

You let out a slow, shaky breath.

Damn it.

You already knew everything he was saying.

You had said versions of it to classmates, to first-years, to overworked grad students crying in stairwells at 2 a.m.

But hearing it now…

from him…

The meaning sinks beneath your ribs, warm and slow, melting through the tightness.

He really does have a way with words.

It feels unfair.

Your chest loosens — not healed, not repaired — but quieter.

He waits a moment before asking, gently:

“How did you end up in Ahjin Guild?”

You blink.

“…Ahjin?”

He nods. Patient. Curious. Not prying — inviting.

You sigh.

And for once…

You just tell the truth.

“It was an internship placement,” you say. “Hunters Guild was my first choice. I applied… knowing the odds were impossible — but I still hoped.”

He doesn’t interrupt.

You keep going.

“I got matched with Ahjin instead. At first I… hated it. Not the work. Just—” you hesitate, searching for the right word, “—the atmosphere. Jinwoo was… quiet. Intimidating. Hard to read. The guild was small. Empty. I felt like I didn’t belong there.”

He nods — slow, understanding.

“I told myself I’d leave after my internship,” you admit. “Finish my hours. Transfer somewhere else. Start over somewhere that made sense.”

Your voice softens.

“But then… things happened. Raids. Reports. Conversations. Moments, I guess. Somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing Ahjin as just… a detour.”

Jongin listens.

Completely.

No impatience.

No judgment.

Just sincerity.

You stare down at your hands.

“It was still hard,” you add quietly. “Jinwoo can be… frustrating. Confusing. Impossible to read sometimes. But I stayed. I worked. I tried to do my best anyway.”

Silence settles.

Heavy.

Gentle.

He exhales slowly.

“You did a good job.”

You blink.

Your throat tightens.

He doesn’t say it like praise.

He says it like recognition.

“You handled yourself well despite the circumstances,” he says. “Despite uncertainty. Despite being placed somewhere unexpected.”

Then, softly:

“That takes strength most people don’t have.”

Your breath falters.

Oh.

You weren’t ready for that.

He leans back slightly.

“And if you ever need a place to go,” he says — warmth blooming behind every word — “Hunters Guild will welcome you with open arms.”

For a moment…

Hope rises.

Small.

Fragile.

Bright.

You think —

Maybe you weren’t foolish for admiring him.

Maybe you were right to choose him as your bias.

He feels different.

Gentler.

Kinder.

So completely — devastatingly — different from your boss.

You open your mouth to respond.

To say thank you, or something sincere, or something emotional you’re not sure you’re ready to admit—

Your phone rings.

You glance at the screen.

Your heart drops.

Sung Jinwoo.

You freeze.

Jongin notices the shift in your expression.

“Go ahead,” he says, voice warm. “I’ll wait.”

You nod stiffly and step outside.

Cool air brushes your face.

You answer.

“Hello?”

His voice comes through the line — quiet, low, serious.

“Where are you?”

Your heartbeat stutters.

“I’m… at the café near the guild.”

A short pause.

“Wait there,” he says.

Before you can reply —

The call disconnects.

You stare at the screen.

“What—?”

You barely have time to blink.

Shadows gather beside you.

And he appears.

Right there.

Black trench coat.

Turtleneck.

Dark eyes.

Cool night air curling around him like a second skin.

He looks…

different.

He looks like a decision.

“Do you want to go to an amusement park?” he asks.

You stare at him.

Brain empty.

“Excuse me?”

He blinks.

Calm.

Serious.

Not joking.

That’s it.

You run out of patience.

“You sent me home,” you snap. “You told me to leave — you shut me out — and now you show up and ask me if I want to ride a ferris wheel?! What is wrong with you?”

The words spill out.

Hot.

Frantic.

Honest.

“You say you don’t throw people away — then you push me aside the second my work doesn’t fit the situation! You don’t explain — you just decide for me — and now you—”

Your fists hit his chest.

They don’t hurt him.

But you do it anyway.

Desperate.

Frustrated.

Confused.

He doesn’t move.

He just stands there.

Letting you hit him.

Letting you be angry.

Then —

His hand closes around your wrist.

Gentle.

Firm.

He pulls you closer.

“I want to spend the end of the world with you,” he says softly.

The words fall into the air like something heavy and irreversible.

Everything stops.

Your breath.

Your thoughts.

Time itself.

The street noise fades. The wind stills. Even your heartbeat feels like it stumbles in your chest and forgets how to continue.

“…What?” you whisper.

Your voice barely exists.

He swallows — the motion sharp in his throat — and for the first time since you’ve known him, he looks unsure. His gaze dips away from yours, then drifts back again, like he’s fighting some invisible force inside himself.

“There’s a chance,” he says slowly, each word deliberate, fragile, “that what’s coming… changes everything. The monsters. The sky. Whatever this anomaly is — it isn’t natural. And I don’t know how much time is left before things spiral.”

His tone isn’t dramatic.

It isn’t poetic.

It’s quiet.

Earnest.

Terrifying.

You stare at him.

Your hands tremble.

Your lungs refuse to fill.

“And you want to spend it with me?” you ask — the question cracking at the edges. “Why me?”

For a second, he can’t answer.

The silence stretches — heavy, trembling, unbearably vulnerable.

Then his voice drops.

“Because…”

His lashes lower.

His eyes soften.

And suddenly he isn’t Sung Jinwoo, Shadow Monarch, hunter, monster, myth —

He’s just a man.

Standing in front of someone he doesn’t know how to hold without breaking.

“You’re the only girl I like,” he says.

Your mind crashes.

Everything inside you jolts out of alignment.

The world tilts.

“…What,” you breathe.

He rushes forward — not physically, but in words — like he’s afraid if he stops talking, he’ll lose the courage entirely.

“A-Apart from my mom — and Jinah — and Cha Hae-in — and my high school counselor — you’re the only other girl I… like being around.”

It’s clumsy.

Chaotic.

So painfully sincere you could scream.

You just stare at him.

Your thoughts spiral wildly — disbelief, anger, confusion, something dangerously close to hope — all colliding in your chest.

He keeps talking.

He can’t help it.

“You’re not family,” he says, voice unsteady. “You’re not duty. You’re not…” He exhales shakily. “You’re not someone I’m obligated to protect.”

Your heart twists.

Hard.

“You’re just… you,” he finishes quietly. “And I like being with you. I like the way you talk, and the way you think, and the way you look at me like I’m… still human. I don’t feel—”

He falters.

His hands curl slightly at his sides.

“I don’t feel alone when you’re there.”

The confession hangs between you.

Raw.

Unpolished.

Terrifying.

It sounds like love without the vocabulary.

It feels like a confession spoken in a language he’s still learning — words too big for his mouth, feelings too large for his chest.

But he says it like an idiot.

Like a man who doesn’t realize what he’s admitting.

You stare at him in disbelief.

This man.

This absolute, infuriating, emotionally illiterate disaster of a human being.

He is going to be the death of you.

You want to scream at him.

You want to shake him.

You want to tell him that people don’t just say things like end of the world and you’re the only girl I like in the same breath unless they intend to destroy someone.

Your chest aches.

Your eyes burn.

And he’s standing there—

—looking terrified.

Terrified not of death.

Not of monsters.

Not of cosmic catastrophe.

But of you.

Of your answer.

Of losing something he doesn’t even know how to name.

Your anger softens.

Not completely.

But enough to hurt differently.

More deeply.

You exhale — slow, shaking — like you’re accepting gravity again after falling.

“…Fine,” you whisper.

The word trembles.

“I’ll go with you.”

Like a fool.

Like a match drawn toward a wildfire.

Like someone who knows better and still steps forward anyway.

His shoulders loosen — the tension draining from him in one fragile, staggering breath. His eyes widen — not with shock, not with triumph —

—but with relief.

As if the sky has not fallen.

As if the world has not ended yet.

As if, for one brief, impossible moment,

the only thing holding it together

is the fact

that you said yes.

Notes:

Another long one lol. Now what if there was a Choi Jongin route lolllll

Chapter 19: HR Could Never Prepare Me for My Boss Catching Feelings

Summary:

A quiet night turns fragile as unspoken feelings surface beneath a sky that shouldn’t exist. Choices linger, futures tremble, and a moment that feels too real — and too temporary — hints that something far larger is waiting just beyond this calm.

You walk next to Sung Jinwoo.

Your boss.

Your emotional disaster.

Your possible doomsday companion.

Very awkwardly.

The amusement park stretches around you in bright colors that feel wrong beneath the vast violet swirl darkening the sky. The purple gate blots out the sun like an eclipse — casting everything in an eerie twilight glow — yet somehow, people are still here.

Laughing.

Eating overpriced churros.

Standing in line for rides like the world isn’t actively fraying at the seams.

You guess everyone has their own way of coping.

If the world is going to end…

…some people pray.

Some people run.

Some people go home to loved ones.

And apparently, some people buy cotton candy so expensive it feels like a personal attack.

You and Jinwoo move through the crowd like ghosts, his presence attracting attention whether he wants it or not. People slow down when they pass. Whisper. Stare.

Some keep their distance out of fear.

Some move closer out of awe.

You pretend not to notice.

He pretends not to exist.

The two of you just walk.

Side by side.

Not touching.

Not speaking.

Just… there.

It’s almost surreal, this moment — a quiet path through the noise. The smell of popcorn. The whirring machinery. Children’s laughter blending with the faint hum of dread crawling through the air.

You wonder if everyone else feels it too.

The unease.

The heaviness.

The sense that the world is holding its breath.

You’re lost in thought when Jinwoo suddenly stops.

You don’t.

You bump right into his back.

“Hey— what—”

You follow his gaze.

And your soul leaves your body.

A rollercoaster.

A massive one.

Twisting steel.

Towering tracks.

A thousand screaming strangers flung recklessly through the air like fate is a toy.

Oh no.

No no no no no.

That?

That is not a ride.

That is an instrument of death.

That is a high-speed coffin on rails.

Forget the Gate. Forget monsters. Forget cosmic extinction.

That is the thing that will end your life today.

You side-eye him slowly.

His face looks…

Soft.

Nostalgic.

Like the rollercoaster just reached into his memories and tugged something loose inside his chest.

His eyes are distant.

Small.

Almost boy-like.

And that…

is unfair.

You look at him.

Then at the rollercoaster.

Then back at him.

Your survival instinct screams.

Your knees tremble.

Your entire soul begs you to walk away.

You could say no.

You should say no.

You are a coward.

A rational coward.

A proud coward.

You open your mouth to decline—

But then you see it again.

That expression.

Gentle.

Lost.

Like he’s standing in front of a doorway to a life he never got to have.

Something twists painfully inside your chest.

Damn him.

Damn your heart.

Damn your conscience.

You grab his wrist.

“Let’s go,” you say, forcing bravery into your voice that does not exist. “Come on.”

His eyes widen — surprised.

He lets you drag him toward the line.

You regret everything.

Immediately.

The closer the ride gets…

…the more your soul peels away from your body like smoke.

By the time you sit down in the seat, you are already halfway dead.

The safety bar lowers.

You grip it.

You grip it like your existence depends on it.

You close your eyes to pray—

Too late.

It moves.

The coaster begins its slow ascent.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Every sound is a countdown to death.

Your spirit tries to disassociate.

You attempt to eject your consciousness from your human form.

You want to become a floating entity watching someone else suffer instead.

But reality chains you to the seat.

The world drops.

Your life flashes before your eyes.

You scream.

You scream louder than you have ever screamed in your entire life.

You scream like the air is trying to rip itself out of your lungs.

Meanwhile—

Sung Jinwoo sits next to you.

Calm.

Silent.

Bored.

He looks like he’s on a mild escalator ride at a department store.

You are dying.

He looks like he’s thinking about laundry.

It’s insulting.

It’s humiliating.

It’s deeply unfair.

By the time the ride ends, you are no longer a person.

You are a hollow shell.

A soulless corpse with trembling knees and trauma burned into your bones.

You stumble off.

You collapse onto the nearest bench.

You stare blankly into the void.

“This,” you rasp, voice cracked, “is the last time… I’m ever… nice to you.”

He stands in front of you, awkward.

Guilty.

Unsure what to do with his hands.

You glare up at him, fury barely stronger than the nausea.

“Why,” you croak, “did you look so bored while I was fighting for my life?”

He hesitates.

Then scratches the back of his neck.

“I… used to like rides like that,” he says quietly. “When I was younger.”

You blink.

He looks away.

“But after becoming a hunter… that kind of thrill just… stopped feeling like anything.”

Silence.

The words hit harder than they should.

That pang inside your chest again.

That ache.

That sharp, aching sympathy you never asked for.

Right.

Of course.

Normal fear means nothing to someone who faces real death every day.

Joy, danger, adrenaline — all those human sensations — dulled into nothing.

You sigh.

Deep.

Heavy.

You look at him.

He looks back at you — unsure, almost apologetic.

You stand.

“Okay,” you sigh. “What else do you want to see?”

He blinks.

“...You don’t have to,” he says softly. “We don’t need to go anywhere you don’t like.”

You narrow your eyes.

Oh?

No.

Absolutely not.

You cross your arms.

“You don’t tell a girl you like that you’re not enjoying your time with her,” you say sharply. “Even if you didn’t mean it romantically — which you absolutely didn’t — the rule still applies.”

His eyes widen.

Panic.

Pure, immediate panic.

He nods.

Fast.

“Okay. Right. Sorry.”

You smirk.

Good.

He follows you.

You choose something non-lethal.

Shooting games.

Plastic targets.

Air rifles.

Rigged prizes.

Now this you can handle.

Jinwoo steps up to the line.

The game attendant looks at him.

Looks at the gun.

Looks back at him.

He senses danger.

He senses fate.

He senses despair.

Jinwoo lifts the rifle casually.

Fires once.

Every target drops.

The attendant stares at the devastation like he just watched his wife leave him.

“Uh— pick… anything,” he says weakly.

Jinwoo turns to you.

Hands full of prizes.

Stuffed animals.

Plush keychains.

A ridiculous rabbit you absolutely don’t need but immediately cling to.

You laugh.

You laugh for real.

You move to the next game.

He destroys it too.

Whack-a-mole.

Hammer falls so fast and precise the machine spiritually checks out of its physical body.

Another prize.

Another laugh.

Somewhere — between the noise, the crowd, the faint scent of fried dough and metal oil — something shifts.

You stop thinking about the gate.

You stop thinking about feeling disposable.

You stop thinking about your place in his life.

For a brief, impossible moment…

You just have fun.

He watches you.

Quiet.

Relaxed.

Almost at peace.

Even though he only meant this as something normal —

—something human —

—something to share with someone he trusts more than he understands —

He sounds like a man asking you to be something else.

To stay.

To exist beside him.

To walk with him through whatever may come.

But you don’t believe it.

You don’t let yourself believe it.

Because you know better.

Because this isn’t romance.

Because this isn’t a confession.

Because he’s Sung Jinwoo —

and you…

You don’t deserve someone like him.

Not his world.

Not his loneliness.

Not his quiet gravity.

Not his impossible heart.

You clutch the plush rabbit a little tighter.

You keep walking.

You tell yourself this is enough.

Just this.

Just now.

Just pretending the sky isn’t tearing open above you while the two of you try, desperately, foolishly, beautifully —

to feel normal.

---

The sky dims slowly.

The violet haze of the gate drapes across the sky like a torn veil, and somewhere beneath it, the last relics of daylight bleed out into dusk. Street lamps flicker on, gold halos forming around everyone who passes beneath them. The world looks… suspended. Halfway between evening and something else.

You’re mid-lick on an ice cream cone.

Vanilla. Cheap. Sweet. Cold.

Your hands are a little sticky, but the breeze feels good against your skin. For a strange moment, it almost feels like childhood — warped through danger, uncertainty, and the faint echo of fear humming under your ribs.

You don’t realize Jinwoo has stopped walking until you nearly pass him.

He turns his head toward you.

His eyes linger on you for a moment — quietly, thoughtfully — then on the darkening sky.

“Come with me,” he says softly. “There’s something I want to show you.”

You blink.

“What? Where—”

But he’s already walking.

You sigh and follow.

Because of course you do.

You throw away your empty cone on the way out of the park. The laughter behind you fades. The music turns distant. The sound of machinery becomes a memory.

You get in the car.

The city passes by in streaks of orange and purple.

You rest your chin in your hand and stare out the window, watching buildings slide past like quiet shadows, watching the sky bruise deeper, watching the world stretch itself thin beneath that impossible cosmic wound.

He doesn’t talk.

You don’t either.

Your pulse feels like it’s floating in your throat.

You don’t know if you’re nervous.

Or calm.

Or terrified.

You just know you’re here.

With him.

The road curves.

The buildings thin.

The noise falls away.

The car slows as you reach a hill overlooking the city.

He parks.

You step out.

The air is colder here — clean, full of distant night and earth and wind. The city sprawls beneath you, glittering like a thousand scattered constellations.

Beyond it, beyond the skyline and glass towers and concrete arteries, the gate hangs in the sky — vast, wrong, otherworldly, swallowing daylight and bleeding light around its edges like a universe cracking open.

And still…

…it’s beautiful.

Not in a way that feels comforting.

Not in a way that feels safe.

But in the way a storm looks beautiful just before it destroys the shore.

You stand there silently.

The breeze brushes your hair.

Your heartbeat slows.

For one dizzying second…

You feel alive.

You forget the guild.

You forget the fear.

You forget the ache clawing at your chest.

You forget the world might end.

It’s just you.

The sky.

The city.

And him.

You don’t hear him step closer.

You only realize he’s behind you when the air shifts.

He doesn’t touch you.

He doesn’t breathe too close.

He just stands there.

Watching you.

Watching everything.

Like he’s trying to memorize it.

Then he speaks.

His voice is quiet.

Fragile.

Careful.

“You probably don’t like me the way I like you.”

The words land softly.

But they still knock the breath out of you.

You turn.

Slowly.

He’s looking at the ground.

Then at the skyline.

Anywhere but you.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For being… the kind of boss I was to you.”

Your chest tightens.

He still won’t meet your eyes.

“I didn’t mean to make things hard for you,” he continues. “I never tried to be distant on purpose. Or harsh. Or confusing. But even when I didn’t mean to… I still ended up that way.”

You swallow.

You don’t know what to say.

So you say nothing.

“I’ll let you go,” he says softly. “When your internship ends.”

The words feel like something cracks behind your ribs.

He exhales slowly.

“And whatever you need for your career — references, transfers, support — I’ll help you. I’ll make sure you get where you want to go.”

His voice doesn’t waver.

But something inside it does.

“You gave everything to Ahjin Guild,” he says. “You stayed. You worked. You believed in something that… wasn’t stable. Wasn’t safe. Wasn’t worthy of your trust at first.”

He swallows.

“I owe you the guild,” he continues. “I owe you its foundation. Its survival. I owe you more than I know how to say.”

Your eyes sting.

He finally looks at you.

There is gratitude in his gaze.

But something else too.

Something deeper.

Something raw.

“And because of your effort — your patience — your dedication — I want to thank you,” he says quietly. “Sincerely. For everything.”

Your throat burns.

You open your mouth.

Nothing comes out.

He breathes in.

Slow.

Unsteady.

“Earlier,” he says, voice softer now, “what I said… back at the café…”

Your heart stops.

“It was… half romantic,” he admits. “And half… not.”

He searches for words.

“Because you are my closest friend,” he says. “My truest. The one who stayed beside me when most people would’ve walked away.”

Your heart trembles.

“But somewhere along the way… I started to like you,” he continues.

The world tilts.

Not dramatically.

Not violently.

Quietly.

Dangerously.

“For the way you are,” he says. “Not for what you’ve done. Not for your loyalty. Not for your usefulness to the guild.”

His gaze softens.

“For you.”

You stop breathing.

“For believing in me,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

Silence stretches between you.

The city glows.

The sky hums.

The wind brushes your face.

You don’t know what to say.

You don’t even know what you feel.

Everything has happened too fast.

Too much.

Too soon.

You can’t even tell where admiration ends and affection begins. You can’t untangle all the threads inside you. You don’t know whether you’re capable of returning anything he’s offering.

And he knows.

You can see it.

He already accepted your uncertainty.

He already prepared himself for it.

He smiles — faintly, bitterly.

“The world is going to change soon,” he says quietly. “And I don’t know what comes after this. I don’t know what I’ll lose. Or what I’ll have to give up.”

His eyes drift back to the horizon.

“But even if this moment is brief… sudden… fragile…”

He exhales.

“I don’t want to regret it.”

He steps closer.

Slow.

Measured.

Careful.

Like he’s approaching something fragile.

Something sacred.

You don’t move.

You can’t.

You feel the warmth of his presence.

The faint closeness of his breath.

The world narrows.

“Tonight,” he says quietly, “if you could grant me one wish…”

Your heart pounds.

He hesitates.

“…before you forget this,” he finishes softly, “don’t push me away.”

The wind stills.

The world holds its breath.

He leans in.

Not impatient.

Not desperate.

Just…

slow.

Careful.

Gentle.

You close your eyes.

His lips brush yours.

Soft.

Warm.

Tentative.

Not claiming.

Not demanding.

Just asking.

You don’t pull away.

You don’t lean in.

You simply exist in that moment.

The kiss doesn’t last long.

It breaks like a fragile breath.

His hands rise — hesitant — then settle against your cheek.

His thumb brushes your skin.

You open your eyes.

And there it is.

A look you have never seen on his face before.

Not command.

Not resolve.

Not danger.

Love.

Quiet.

Terrified.

Endless.

He breathes out slowly.

“I wish I had more time,” he says.

His voice cracks.

“I wish I had time for you to grow feelings for me,” he murmurs. “Time to show you more than confusion and mistakes and fear.”

Your eyes blur.

More time.

More chances.

More room for something that could have been.

“I wish…” he whispers, “this didn’t feel one-sided.”

Your chest twists.

Hard.

Painful.

But he smiles.

Soft.

Resigned.

“But this is enough,” he says. “Right now… this is enough for me.”

The gate glows above.

The city flickers below.

He looks at you like he’s memorizing you.

Like he’s carving you into the inside of his heart to keep there — even if the world collapses.

“Maybe you’ll move on,” he says gently. “Maybe you’ll live a long life somewhere warm and bright… far away from shadows.”

He swallows.

“Maybe I won’t be there.”

The words echo inside you — slow, deliberate — like something dropped down a deep well and never quite reaches the bottom.

The wind brushes your face.

The sky hums.

And something inside you breaks open.

Not with pain.

With revelation.

With grief shaped like truth.

With a shift that feels tectonic — like fault lines inside your chest finally giving way.

For years, your heart had belonged to someone else.

To Choi Jongin.

To the idea of him.

To the dream of standing in his guild, working under his guidance, earning his respect. Every exam. Every sleepless night. Every page of research stained with fatigue and caffeine and desperation — all of it had been for him. Every drop of blood, every bead of sweat, every tear shed in empty libraries and bus rides home felt justified because it brought you one inch closer to where he stood.

You shaped your life around that future.

You endured everything because admiration made the suffering feel noble.

You told yourself loyalty meant staying true to that dream no matter what.

You believed that if you kept going — if you worked hard enough, waited long enough — someday you would finally stand beside him and think:

It was all worth it.

And then Jinwoo walked into your life.

Quiet.

Unassuming.

Terrifying.

Human.

He didn’t replace the dream.

He ruined it.

He made you hesitate.

Made you question the path you had carved into your own bones.

Made you realize that somewhere along the way, your devotion to Jongin had become… rigid. Unyielding. A monument built from longing rather than living.

With Jinwoo — nothing made sense and everything did.

He frustrated you.

He confused you.

He hurt you.

He challenged you.

He made you feel seen.

And you hate — desperately, helplessly — that after working beside him, after watching him shoulder a world that should have broken him, after hearing him say these words with a voice that shakes despite all his power…

You haven’t felt loyal to Jongin the way you once did.

Your faith cracked.

Your certainty fractured.

And beneath the guilt…

Something bloomed.

Something unbearably real.

Something painfully, beautifully good.

A warmth you never expected to feel.

A tenderness that terrifies you.

You don’t cry because you’re sad.

You don’t cry because his words hurt.

You cry because they dig into every place inside you that you have spent years ignoring — every fragile corner that never received anything but pressure and expectation — and they fill it with something gentle.

Something honest.

Something that feels like being seen for the first time in your life.

The tears spill.

Quiet.

Uncontrolled.

They slip down your cheeks like your soul finally losing its composure.

He lifts his hand.

Careful.

Tentative.

His thumb brushes one tear away — reverent, soft — like touching you is something sacred he’s afraid to break.

He smiles.

Not victorious.

Not pleading.

Soft.

True.

“I don’t regret this,” he says.

The words land in your chest and resonate like a bell — clear, unwavering, devastating.

You don’t answer.

You can’t.

Your heart is too full.

Your chest too tight.

Your soul too loud — a storm of contradictions and memories and longing colliding all at once.

The sky darkens.

The city breathes.

The gate glows like a wound in the heavens above you.

And still…

The world waits.

Time stretches thin.

And you stand on a hill with Sung Jinwoo —

caught between ending and beginning,

between the life you thought you were meant to live

and the life that began the moment he stepped into it.

Between loyalty and transformation.

Between fear and tenderness.

Between the dream you spent years chasing

and the person who made you realize you could want something else.

You hold this moment in trembling hands —

fragile,

temporary,

impossible —

a moment that was never meant to last,

and yet

will never stop living inside you.

Notes:

Fun fact: I'm not afraid of heights but i've never been on a rollercoaster. I LOVE the idea of rollercoasters tho or anything that makes me jump off and do a flip mid-air

Chapter 20: So We Had a Very Professional Emotional Breakdown

Summary:

An unspoken confession leaves things unsettled, not broken. Boundaries are drawn, but feelings linger in the quiet spaces between them. As the world hums with looming catastrophe, small choices and late-night conversations hint that what’s unresolved now may return when everything else falls apart.

You step back.

Not because you’re afraid of him.

Not because you want distance.

But because you need to see him clearly.

All of him.

The man standing in front of you is not the 10th S-Rank Hunter carved into headlines and whispered rumors. He’s not the impossible hunter who bends reality and death to his will. He’s not even your boss right now.

He’s just… Jinwoo.

Tall. Still. Hands loose at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Eyes steady but uncertain, holding something fragile that you can tell he’s prepared to drop the moment you tell him to.

And you don’t know how to feel.

That’s the worst part.

You’ve never explored feelings beyond friendly with him. Never let yourself. To you, he was your boss first — the one you navigated carefully, professionally. Then your frenemy — sharp words, shared silences, unspoken understanding. Then your colleague — someone you trusted with work, with quiet moments, with long days and longer nights.

But this?

This wasn’t in the plan.

You hadn’t prepared a response for this version of him.

You hadn’t practiced the right words. You hadn’t rehearsed how to stand, how to soften your face, how to choose the correct expression that wouldn’t hurt him.

So you do nothing.

You just stare.

Uncertain.

Silent.

Your heart feels too full and too empty at the same time.

Jinwoo notices.

Of course he does.

He always notices.

He exhales slowly, like he’s letting something go before it can tear him apart.

“You don’t need to say anything,” he says quietly. “And you don’t need to… return it.”

Your breath catches.

“I didn’t tell you because I expected something back,” he continues. “I just… didn’t want to leave it unsaid.”

The word leave lands heavily between you.

He keeps his voice steady, even — but you can hear the effort behind it.

“I’m fine if it’s one-sided,” he says. “I really am.”

You don’t believe him.

But you know he means it.

“I know we’re not in the right places,” he adds. “You’re just starting your life. Your career. Your future. And I…”

He trails off.

Then gives a faint, self-aware smile.

“I sacrifice my life every day. That’s not something I can pretend isn’t true.”

Your throat tightens.

“I wouldn’t ask you to step into that,” he says softly. “I wouldn’t ask you to wait for someone who might not come back.”

He looks past you, toward the city, toward the glowing wound in the sky.

“I just wish,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper, “that I’d met you somewhere else.”

Somewhere safe.

Somewhere ordinary.

Somewhere he wasn’t bleeding himself dry for the world.

“Maybe then,” he says, “things would’ve been different.”

The words hurt more than any confession could.

You look at him — really look — and your brows draw together as despair wells up in your chest.

Because he isn’t asking.

He isn’t pressuring.

He isn’t clinging.

He’s letting you go before you even have the chance to push him away.

And the guilt is immediate.

Heavy.

Crushing.

It eats at you from the inside out.

Because you do care about him.

Because he matters to you.

Because he trusted you with something precious and terrifying and fragile — and you have nothing equal to give back.

You swallow hard.

Then you finally speak.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

Your voice shakes.

“I’m so sorry.”

He turns toward you instantly.

“You don’t need to—”

“I do,” you cut in, shaking your head. “I really do.”

The words spill out, clumsy and earnest and raw.

“I’m sorry I can’t return it. I’m sorry I don’t know how to feel the way you deserve. I’m sorry I didn’t even realize this was happening until you said it out loud.”

Your chest aches.

You press a hand there like you can hold the feeling in place.

 

“I’ve never… thought about us like that,” you admit. “Not because you’re not—” you stop, struggling, “—not because you aren’t someone incredible. You are. You really are.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“But I can’t find it,” you continue softly. “No matter how much I look. I don’t feel that way. And I hate that it’s one-sided. I hate that I’m the reason you’re standing here accepting something like that.”

You shake your head again, helpless.

“You’re right,” you whisper. “We’re in the wrong place. The wrong time. You’re fighting a war that never stops, and I… I was never meant to be permanent here.”

The truth hurts coming out.

“I planned to be temporary,” you say. “An intern. A passing figure. Someone who learned and left.”

Your voice breaks.

“But you wanted something that lasts.”

Something solid.

Something that stays.

“And I can’t be that for you,” you finish.

The silence that follows is deep and aching.

Jinwoo closes his eyes for a brief moment.

Just a second.

When he opens them again, there’s no anger there.

No resentment.

Only understanding.

And something like quiet sadness.

“That’s okay,” he says.

He means it.

That’s what breaks you.

“I knew,” he continues gently. “I knew when I said it. I knew you might not feel the same. I just… didn’t want to pretend anymore.”

He gives a small shrug.

“You were honest with me from the start. About your goals. Your plans. Your future. I was the one who… hoped.”

He looks at you again, really looks at you, like he’s imprinting this version of you into memory.

“I don’t regret it,” he says again. “Even now.”

Your eyes sting.

You step forward without thinking.

Not to hug him.

Not to touch him.

Just closer.

“I’m sorry,” you say again, quieter this time. “For being someone you wanted more from.”

He shakes his head immediately.

“No,” he says firmly. “Don’t say that.”

His gaze is steady.

“You weren’t wrong for being yourself. And I wasn’t wrong for feeling what I felt.”

A pause.

“Sometimes,” he adds softly, “people just meet at the wrong moment.”

The words settle between you like truth you can’t escape.

The wind passes over the hill, cool and gentle.

The city lights flicker.

The sky hums with something vast and unknowable.

You stand there together — not lovers, not strangers, not quite friends anymore either — something in between, something undefined and fragile.

A connection that didn’t fail.

It just… couldn’t become what one of you needed.

And somehow, that hurts worse.

You don’t know what comes next.

You don’t know what this means for tomorrow, or your internship, or your future, or his.

But right now —

Right now, you just stand there with him, both of you holding something that was real, even if it was never meant to last.

---

The evening goes on.

Jinwoo drives you home.

The city slides past in muted colors — streetlights smearing gold across the windows, storefronts half-lit, people still moving as if tomorrow is guaranteed. The gate glows faintly in the sky behind you, just out of sight now, but you feel it anyway. Like a pressure behind your eyes. Like a reminder pressed gently against your spine.

The car is quiet.

Not the awkward kind.

Not the kind that demands conversation to fill the gaps.

This is the solemn kind of quiet. The kind that settles in your chest and stays there, heavy but not hostile. The kind that exists when too much has already been said.

You stare out the window.

At reflections.

At passing shadows.

At your own face ghosted faintly in the glass.

Your thoughts move in slow, overlapping circles.

Everything he said keeps replaying — not loudly, not intrusively, but persistently. Each word slips past the defenses you’d spent years building. Past the barricade you’d carefully constructed around your heart — the one that had always been loyal to Choi Jongin. Loyal to the dream. Loyal to the plan.

And now Jinwoo stands there.

Between you and the future you thought you wanted.

Between you and the version of yourself that never questioned.

The closer the car gets to your apartment, the tighter your chest feels. A strange, fleeting sensation surfaces — delicate, unwelcome, undeniable.

You don’t want to leave yet.

Not because you want more.

Not because you want him.

But because something unfinished lingers in the air between you. Like a sentence cut off mid-thought. Like a door left half-open.

When Jinwoo pulls over in front of your building, neither of you moves.

The engine hums softly.

Streetlight spills across the hood.

You sit there, hands folded in your lap, staring at nothing.

You glance sideways.

He looks… broken.

Not shattered.

Not undone.

Just… worn.

Like someone who carried something heavy and finally set it down — relieved and devastated all at once.

Maybe it’s guilt.

Maybe it’s impulse.

Maybe it’s the end of the world pressing too close to your skin.

But you turn to him and ask, quietly,

“Do you… want to come in? Just for a second.”

He freezes.

Actually freezes.

Sung Jinwoo — the man who faces gods and monsters without blinking — looks genuinely surprised.

His brows lift.

His lips part slightly.

For a moment, you think you’ve made a mistake.

Then he nods.

“…Okay.”

You don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

But it’s done.

You unlock your apartment and step inside.

It’s small.

Humble.

A little cluttered.

Books stacked unevenly on the coffee table. A jacket draped over a chair. Notes scribbled and taped to the fridge. Evidence of a life that’s busy and unfinished.

Jinwoo steps in carefully, like he’s afraid to disturb something.

He sits on the couch while you wander into the kitchen, opening cabinets and immediately realizing the gravity of your mistake.

No snacks.

No groceries.

No emergency ramen.

Just a few forgotten condiments and your pride slowly dissolving.

You sigh.

Then you spot it.

Two bottles of wine.

Good ones.

The ones you were saving for a future celebration you’re no longer sure will happen.

You grab them.

Two glasses.

You sit across from him in the living room and set everything down.

His eyes flick to the bottles.

“…Wine?” he asks, mildly surprised.

“You better keep up,” you say, pouring. “These are my good ones.”

He hesitates.

“I can’t really get drunk,” he admits. “Alcohol doesn’t affect me much. Poison immunity.”

You don’t even look up.

“Too bad,” you say. “Drink anyway.”

He takes the glass.

You drink.

The wine warms your chest.

Loosens something in your shoulders.

You talk.

About nothing important.

About everything unimportant.

You complain about the new hires — the one who keeps labeling samples wrong, the other who refuses to read memos but somehow survives.

Jinwoo tells you Jinho accidentally emailed an entire raid budget spreadsheet to the wrong guild once.

You laugh.

He actually smiles.

You gossip — lightly, harmlessly — about which Association staff members are secretly dating, who everyone thinks is competent but absolutely isn’t.

At some point, you’re both laughing.

Not loudly.

But genuinely.

The tension eases.

The weight shifts.

The night stretches on.

The bottle empties.

Then the second one does too — slower, but still inevitable.

Your head feels light.

Not spinning.

Just… loose.

Your thoughts drift.

The conversation fades.

Silence settles again.

Different this time.

You look at him.

Really look.

The lamplight catches his face softly — familiar, impossibly calm, devastatingly kind.

And then you say something incredibly stupid.

“Do you want to sleep together?”

The words hang in the air.

Absurd.

Blunt.

Unfiltered.

Even you don’t know where they came from.

You stare at him, heart racing.

“Just for tonight,” you add quickly. “One night. Maybe it’ll help you let go. Maybe it’ll make me feel less guilty.”

He stiffens instantly.

“No,” he says.

Firm.

Immediate.

Your brows knit.

“I shouldn’t,” he continues quietly. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

You scoff weakly.

“That’s—”

“And even if you hadn’t,” he adds, “it wouldn’t help. It might make things worse. For both of us.”

His gaze is steady.

Not tempted.

Not wavering.

“I won’t take advantage of you,” he says. “And I won’t pretend it would fix anything. I respect you too much.”

The words land like a blade.

You laugh — a soft, incredulous sound.

“I don’t even know why I said that,” you mutter.

But something inside your chest cracks anyway.

Because how is it possible?

How is it possible that someone so incredible, so careful, so decent —

is the one who loves you alone?

You stand abruptly and move to sit beside him.

Closer.

Too close.

You don’t touch him.

You just… exist there.

You stare ahead and say, half-laughing, half-broken,

“Whatever happens tonight is because it’s the end of the world or something.”

He turns to you.

You keep going, voice unsteady now.

“Forget formalities. Forget dignity. What future am I even protecting at this point?”

The room is quiet.

Your heart pounds.

Outside, the city breathes.

The sky still hums with something vast and wrong.

And you sit there beside Sung Jinwoo, the line between right and wrong blurring, the weight of everything pressing down — not because you want to fall apart…

…but because part of you is terrified you already have.

Notes:

I'm gonna try to be consistent with my uploads now that I'm back in college ;-;. Not even consistent in my other fic anymore huhu. But I'll try, send help!!!