The night carried its secrets well, wrapping them in silk and candlelight, but Min-jun had always known how to steal what the dark tried to conceal. The party's golden chaos faded for him into a series of vivid details: glances flickering like warning lights, a champagne spill glistening on tile, a raw melody playing beneath the surface chatter and laughter. But all these shrank to nothing compared to the gravity of her—Amal—standing at the edge of the gallery, so close to art she might be mistaken for a dream herself.
He let himself watch her. To anyone else, he would have seemed just another arrogant celebrity, chin slightly raised, posture loose and careless. But the predator within him, the vampire beneath the immaculate suit, catalogued everything: the flutter of her breath, the determined set of her jaw, the hidden tremor in her fingers as she ran them over the edges of a frame. She didn't know she was being watched, or maybe she did—he suspected her instincts were strong, stronger than she understood.
Amal was absorbed in a painting, a landscape smeared with colors bold and aching. She muttered something under her breath, lips curving. Min-jun caught the words: "It's wrong, the horizon is bleeding," and felt that peculiar electric surge again—a collision of art and blood.
"You see things differently," he said, stepping quietly to her side, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her skin, close enough to see the golden flecks in her brown eyes.
She startled, shoulders rising, but didn't step away. Instead, she looked up at him—really looked. There was a flicker of recognition, but it faded, replaced by wary curiosity.
"I suppose you're going to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about," she said, chin lifting. "That this is a masterpiece beyond human criticism."
He smiled, slow and hungry. "On the contrary. Masterpieces are usually mistakes people learn to worship."
She laughed, not out of kindness, but surprise—a sharp sound that echoed a little too loudly. "You don't talk like the others here."
"Maybe I'm not like the others."
She studied him with the distant, skeptical focus of someone used to seeing through facades, and Min-jun had to resist the urge to shift, to melt into the crowd, anything to avoid her gaze. But he stood steady, letting her examine the surface of him—a K-pop idol, a gorgeous, unreal mask—and waited to see what she would find.
"Are you an artist?" she asked at last.
"I appreciate beauty," he offered. "That's enough for tonight."
He caught her frown, a twitch of disappointment—or confusion? He ached to tell her, to explain who he truly was, the boy who once painted with her in bursts of childish creativity, the one who had vanished, aging out of her memory and into something monstrous. But there was too much risk, too much at stake. Would she run? Would she scream? Or would she stay, as she always had, defiant and bright?
She glanced away first, tracing the chaotic swirl of color on the canvas with an expert's frustration. "Do you ever wish you could fix things?" she whispered. "Undo the wrong colors, the lines out of place?"
He didn't answer for several long heartbeats. "Sometimes. But I've found it's better to let things bleed. Art is truer that way."
Their eyes met. She held his gaze, stubborn and inquisitive. The air between them vibrated with the promise of some old memory neither could quite grab—an unfinished canvas, a secret sealed behind their ribs.
But a commotion from across the room broke the spell. A tall man—a party guest with too much alcohol and too little patience—bumped into Amal, nearly sending her into Min-jun's arms. He gripped her elbow instinctively, steadying, and in that brief touch felt her pulse thundering, felt the fleeting panic and the swiftly clamped-down gratitude.
"Thank you," she murmured, cheeks staining pink, stepping back immediately.
"Careful," Min-jun drawled, letting his voice dip into something playful and dangerous, so unlike the accident. "There are monsters at these parties."
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "I think I can handle monsters."
He grinned, something ancient rising in him, dark and hungry. "We'll see."
Around them, the night pressed in, music swelling, shadows deepening. For a moment, neither spoke—locked in a silent challenge, an exchange of stolen glances each more telling than words.
What was she to him? A memory, a muse, a temptation he should have outgrown. But as the party roared on, Min-jun felt the sweet pulse of risk and need: he would not let her out of his sight again, not tonight, not ever.
And somewhere in her heart, behind her practiced caution, Amal felt it too—a creeping sense of recognition, a warning blooming with the promise of something beautiful and dangerous just beyond the canvas.
Tonight, neither would escape unchanged. Not from each other, and not from the truths waiting to be revealed.