Haerin's POV
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He always said the city never slept.
I did. But only with my eyes open.
Every Thursday, my world shifted a little off-axis. The office shoes came off, and the skin-tight professionalism peeled away like old wallpaper. Beneath the crisp collars and polite nods, something feral still breathed.
The car arrived like clockwork—silent, tinted, forgetting. I stepped in like I was no one.
We never spoke. I liked it better that way.
Tonight smelled like gasoline and secrets. The Han River blurred outside the window, Seoul's glass towers bleeding into the black. Even the sky seemed unsure whether to rain or burn.
We stopped. The same spot. An ugly warehouse hunched like a memory no one wanted to clean up. It matched me well.
The heels were gone. The gloves were on.
I didn't knock. Monsters never did.
Inside, the light flickered the way guilt does. On, off. Truth, lie.
He sat chained. Pale, twitching. Supernatural. His breath stank of fear and two-day blood.
"You're one of them," he spat.
I didn't answer. There's no need to confirm a rumor when fear already tells the truth.
He muttered something about hunger, as if that excused what he did in Busan.
I tilted my head. "So were they."
He didn't like that. They never do. Monsters hate mirrors.
My blade wasn't shiny. I never cleaned it for aesthetics. It had a job to do, and so did I.
"You're too late," he growled. "He'll come."
"Let him," I said.
He didn't understand. They never do until the last breath.
He screamed. They always scream.
When it was done, I didn't feel better. I never do.
But I felt cleaner.
Rain met me outside like an old friend with cold hands. The kind that doesn't hug but still shows up.
I scrubbed my knuckles under an outdoor tap. The blood never fully leaves. Not really. It just hides deeper.
Back in the car. Same silence. Same route.
He asked, "Same place?"
I nodded.
By the time we pulled up to the penthouse, the skyline was melting into early dawn. Gold on grey. Hope pretending to be light.
The office lights were still on. Of course they were.
I shouldn't have gone up.
But something in me always returned to the fire.
The elevator dinged like a warning bell I chose to ignore. I stepped in.
He was still at his desk.
Same posture. Same stillness. As if rest was a weakness, and he refused to be weak.
"You're working late," I said.
He didn't look up. "I never stopped."
I placed a document down. Useless excuse.
"You have a 6 a.m. with London."
"I know."
I turned to leave. I should have.
Then he spoke. The kind of voice that makes rooms colder.
"Did you sleep at all, Miss Yoon?"
I hesitated. "No."
He looked at me for the first time. Really looked.
"Your eyes. They're red."
"Allergies," I said.
He smirked—just enough to slice air.
"You don't have allergies."
"I'm very good at lying."
That made his eyes narrow. But not in judgment. In curiosity.
He leaned back like a king bored of his throne.
"Do you believe in monsters, Miss Yoon?"
I didn't blink.
"Only the ones who wear suits."
He chuckled. The kind that doesn't touch the eyes.
"Then I must be terrifying."
"You are," I said. "But not for the reasons you think."
The room went still.
Then someone knocked on the glass.
That lazy grin. Two coffees. Always on time for chaos.
"Did I miss the philosophical showdown?" he asked.
"You're early," came the cold reply.
"You're not sleeping again," he said as he walked in. "Should I replace your blood with espresso?"
My chest tightened for a second.
He didn't mean that. Couldn't.
"You should go home," the boss said.
"I was just leaving."
As I passed the one with the grin, he whispered, "Rough night?"
I smiled with my lips. "All nights are the same."
He didn't believe me. I could feel it in the way his eyes didn't laugh.
I stepped into the elevator, and for one beat—just one—my hands trembled.
I stared at them like they belonged to someone else.
The doors closed.
Somewhere above, glass windows whispered secrets.
He always watched from high places. Maybe that's why he never trusted anyone on the ground.
"She's hiding something," I heard him say.
"Aren't we all?" came the reply.
They didn't know I could still hear them.
He stood. Quietly. No wheelchair creak. No effort.
And that's when I knew he was even more dangerous than I thought.
"I want her followed," he said.
"You sure?"
"She's not normal."
"And you are?"
Silence.
Then a whisper that stuck to my spine.
"No. That's the problem."