Dan Kwon

Dan stood at the panoramic window of his penthouse, watching the misty morning light slowly spread across the city. His face remained impassive, as if carved from marble. After a short silence, he said without turning around:

• Jisoo, take this boy... Ki, - the name left his lips with a slight mockery, - to one of the spare rooms. Far away. And make sure he doesn't get under my feet. I don't need him yet.

The housekeeper, standing a little further away, nodded silently.

• He must not interfere in matters, must not speak without permission. For now, I am not interested in him. But if necessary... I will find a use for him.

He turned around, his gaze was icy, his voice businesslike and distant:

• Pick appropriate clothes. No naive absurdity, I don't need a reminder of his... origin. Make him something that will be comfortable and pleasing... to the eye. But nothing more.

Dan looked at the corridor behind which Ki was hiding for a moment longer, then returned to his glass, immersing himself in the familiar loneliness and cold order. He convinced himself that Ki was just a tool. And yet, something elusive and fragile had already left a scratch inside his perfect world.

The world has always known how to deal with unusual creatures - it sells them, locks them up, collects them. Kee learned that too early.

He was born in captivity, in a cage where the shiny bars were more beautiful than the windows, and the silence outside was more frightening than the screams inside. Key was a hybrid, a boy with soft cat ears, sometimes with a tail that seemed like a living extension of his emotions. Too rare to be just a child. Too beautiful to go unnoticed.

When he was handed over to his new owner, a man with an icy voice and eyes the color of a stormy sky, Ki didn’t know what to feel. Surprise, fear, a glimmer of hope? But none of the feelings stuck. Everything dissolved in the cold gaze of Dan Kwon, a young billionaire, a former special forces soldier, a man who had everything… except the warmth inside.

Ki became a trophy for him. An ornament. A potential plaything, if needed.

“You belong to me,” sounded like a sentence when Dan looked at him for the first time. And Ki understood: now he was a part of someone’s world, but not his life.

He had to be silent, sit quietly, not disturb. Be beautiful, like a statue on a shelf. And yet, Qi's heart beat not according to orders.

He didn't know what would change everything. One accidental touch, a glance, a word? Or maybe a crack in Dan's perfectly constructed wall that Ki would see first?

But this is where their story began.

A story of belonging. A story of power. A story where the heart is the enemy and feelings are weakness.
A story that will change them both.