Ji-woo didn't answer.
She couldn't. The shadows were no longer shadows — they were crawling. Black smoke with fingers, sliding across the wooden walls of Hanseo's main street, reaching for the glowing thread on her wrist.
Jae-min cursed under his breath — low, animal.
"Ji-woo, listen to me," he grabbed her bag and threw it over his shoulder, then — without asking — grabbed her wrist. Not gently. Desperately.
The moment his skin touched hers, _everything stopped._
The wind. The rattling doors. The whispers.
The thread between them exploded with light. Gold and crimson. Ji-woo gasped — memories that weren't hers flooded in.
_A small shrine. Two kids. 8 years old. Her aunt chanting, tying a red string around their wrists while a blood moon rose. Jae-min crying, saying "It hurts." Young Ji-woo saying "Don't leave me."_
She yanked back to reality, tears in her eyes. "You took it for me..."
Jae-min's gold eyes were bleeding back to brown, his jaw clenched in pain. Holding her was hurting him. The curse was burning him through the thread.
"And I'd do it again," he whispered. "But Ji-woo — if you stay here, it will take you tonight. Your aunt called you back because she knows. Tonight is the seventh blood moon. The debt is due."
A door behind them burst open. An old woman stood there — Ji-woo's aunt. Face pale. Hands shaking.
"Jae-min-ah, you shouldn't have touched her! You woke it!" she screamed.
Jae-min pulled Ji-woo behind him instantly. Protective. Possessive.
"You told me to stay away for seven years," he snarled at the aunt, his voice not human for a second. "I did. Now she's mine to protect."
Ji-woo's heart — fear, anger, love, all at once. The boy who left her was now standing between her and death.
She looked at her aunt. "What sacrifice? What did you do to us?"
Her aunt's lips trembled. "Not what _I_ did, Ji-woo. What your mother did... before you were born."
The mist behind her aunt formed a shape. Tall. Watching.
Jae-min felt it. He turned, eyes full gold again.
"We have to go. NOW."
He lifted Ji-woo — not asking — and ran.
He didn't stop running until the houses of Hanseo disappeared.
The forest was too quiet. Even the birds wouldn't sing. Jae-min finally set Ji-woo down behind an old, forgotten shrine covered in red talismans — the same one from her vision.
Ji-woo was breathing hard, against a mossy stone wall. Jae-min was in front of her, caging her in with his arms, checking her face, her wrist, like he was scared she'd fade away.
"Are you hurt? Did it touch you?" His voice was low, frantic.
Ji-woo slapped his chest. Hard. "You! You lifted me like a sack of rice! Who do you think you are!"
For a second, he just stared. Then he laughed — a real, breathy, boyish laugh she hadn't heard in seven years. The gold in his eyes finally faded completely.
"There she is," he whispered. "That's my Ji-woo."
Her anger cracked. Tears slipped before she could stop them. "You left me. You left me at the bus stop that day. You promised you'd wait."
Jae-min's smile died. He slowly reached up, his thumb hovering just before her cheek, asking permission without words.
She didn't pull away.
He brushed the tear away. His fingers were warm, shaking.
"I waited three hours that day," he said softly. "Then your aunt dragged me away. She said if I stayed, you'd die before your 20th birthday. That the curse marks the first daughter of your family. That tying us together would... share the weight."
Ji-woo closed her eyes. The thread on her wrist was pulsing in rhythm with his.
"So what happens tonight? Seventh blood moon?"
Jae-min swallowed. He turned and ripped one of the old talismans off the shrine. Underneath, carved into the wood, were two names: *Ji-woo + Jae-min*. And a line through them.
"Tonight, the curse comes to collect. It was never going to take just one of us, Ji-woo. Your mother made a deal to save your father. A life for a life. But she never paid it back."
He looked at her, his face inches away, his scent — wood and smoke — wrapping around her.
"So it wants us. Together. As payment."
Ji-woo's breath caught. "Then why did you bring me here? To the place where it started?"
"Because this is the only place it can't hear us," he leaned closer, his forehead almost touching hers. "And because if tonight is our last night... I don't want to spend it running."
The wind picked up outside the shrine. The talismans started to flutter. Something was sniffing around the edge of the forest.
Jae-min's eyes flashed gold again — but softer this time.
"Ji-woo-ya," he whispered, using the childhood name he used to call her. "If we only have hours... tell me you hate me. Or tell me you remember what you said that last summer. At the river."
Ji-woo's heart stopped.
She remembered.
She had kissed his cheek and said, "When we grow up, marry me, so I never have to be scared."
The shadows pressed against the shrine entrance.
She had to answer.