Yul paced the penthouse floor, candlelight flickering across his sharp features. The city's hum outside was distant, irrelevant. His thoughts were not on fans, not on music, not on the empire he had carefully constructed over decades—they were on the man who had just appeared, slipping in and out of shadows like smoke.
He could still feel the words lingering, searing at the edges of his mind: "He loves you… but his love binds you to mediocrity."
Yul's golden eyes narrowed as he recalled every detail. The way the man had leaned closer, the softness of his voice, the seductive precision of each syllable. Every sentence was designed to plant doubt, to twist loyalty into fear.
He stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and pressed his palms to the glass. The lights of Seoul stretched below, glittering, insignificant, fragile.
"He doesn't understand me," Yul whispered to himself, voice low, tense. "He couldn't."
And yet… the shadow's words gnawed at him. The idea of an empire, of ultimate power, of finally claiming what had been denied to him for centuries—it was intoxicating. Dangerous. Perfect.
A knock echoed softly on the penthouse door.
Yul froze, every muscle taut. Impossible. I didn't summon anyone.
The door creaked open. There he was. Not a memory. Not a ghost. The man from the shadows.
"I see you're considering my offer," he said, stepping inside, eyes glinting. "Good. I knew you had ambition buried somewhere in you. You've survived long enough to know the taste of it."
Yul didn't respond. He clenched his jaw, fists trembling slightly—not from fear, but from restrained rage and something else… something deeper. Desire, frustration, and the pull of temptation all tangled into a single knot in his chest.
"You've built something beautiful here," the man continued, walking closer, voice velvet but sharp as a blade. "But it's incomplete. You could be so much more. Don't let him—" he gestured vaguely, but Yul knew who he meant, "—limit you."
"I control my path," Yul said, but the words rang hollow even to his own ears.
"Do you?" the man whispered, leaning closer, almost intimate. "Do you really control it if every choice you make is haunted by loyalty, by love? That hunter… he has you entangled, doesn't he? And you—golden blood, immortal, unstoppable—you let him?"
Yul's chest heaved. The whispers, the insinuations, the temptation—they were pulling at the deepest parts of him. He had fought for centuries to remain free, to not be manipulated, to not fall prey to desire.
And yet…
"You could claim it all," the man murmured, a hand brushing Yul's arm in a deliberate, calculated touch. "The empire. Power. Reverence. Glory. And you'd do it without regret. Only trust me, doubt him. Let go."
Yul's golden eyes flashed. A storm of conflicting emotions surged through him—rage, longing, fear, lust, ambition.
"I will not be your pawn," Yul said finally, voice low, shaking with intensity.
The man smiled, slow, deliberate, confident. "You already are. You just don't know it yet."
With that, he vanished. Not through the door. Not through the walls. Simply gone, as if the shadows themselves had swallowed him.
Yul remained alone. Breathing hard. Heart pounding. The prism on the floor reflected a fractured golden light. He picked it up, fingers trembling.
He had escaped the man once. He had thought he would never see him again.
And now… he was back.
And this time, he wasn't sure he could resist.