You (Raon)

It all started by chance. I saw him for the first time in the store: tall, gloomy, with a look that made you want to look away and still stare at him at the same time. I paused for a second, silently looked into his eyes, smiled slightly, and moved on as if nothing had happened. But at that very second, something inside me twitched, as if an invisible thread had already connected us.

Our next meeting was at the abandoned pier. Our village always seemed sleepy and quiet, but this place had a special emptiness about it—as if time had frozen. He came there often, and that evening we came face to face. There, among the old planks and the creaking of the water, we began to talk. At first cautiously, as if testing each other from a distance, and then more and more freely. Our meetings at the pier became a habit. We talked for a month: about small things, about the village, about the silence, but there was always a feeling that behind his words there was more than he allowed himself to say.

One day, without meaning to, I let it slip. I told Lily, my friend, that I was seeing Raon. I knew she was in love with him, even though I'd never even dared to speak to him. But her reaction wasn't what I expected: instead of sadness or tears, a wild, angry determination flashed in her eyes.

Lily was furious. A knife flashed in her hands—and it was no longer my friend, but a merciless shadow. I flew out of her house and raced through the village streets, barely breathing. She chased after me with a knife in her hand, and only fear pounded in my chest: would he make it in time? Would he sense that I was in danger? Raon appeared, as always, from the darkness, as if the air itself had drawn him. His gaze was dark and eerie, but there was a fire burning in it I hadn't seen before. The demon, who had lived alone for centuries, had done the impossible—fallen in love with a human. And now he stood between me and the rage.