The town held no seasons.
No rain. No sun. No nightfall. Only the same soft twilight pressing down on everything, like a painting that refused to fade.
By now, Seo-jin and Elior had walked the same streets a dozen times. The bakery. The fountain. The fence Elior had helped mend. Everything stayed the same. Even the broken slat of wood—Elior's work—was never repaired further, never weathered, never grew moss.
Time here didn't move. Or perhaps it moved in circles.
Seo-jin hated it.
But Elior—Elior was starting to settle.
They sat at a wooden table outside the inn. Elior sipped at a cup of steaming tea. Seo-jin stared into his own untouched cup, eyes sharp, hands restless.
"You're drinking illusions," Seo-jin muttered.
Elior blew on the tea, serene. "Perhaps. But illusions warm my hands. They ease my throat. Is that not something?"
Seo-jin snorted. "Would you kiss a corpse if it smiled convincingly?"
Elior raised his brows but didn't argue. He simply drank. And that infuriated Seo-jin more than if he'd snapped back.
He slammed his fist on the table. The cups rattled. The clay-faced innkeeper turned her head in their direction—too slowly, too smoothly. Seo-jin's lip curled.
"Do you not see it?!" he hissed. "They're puppets. They glitch. Watch closely, Elior. Watch them."
Elior sighed. "I have watched. Yes, they repeat. Yes, their smiles never change. But… that doesn't mean I must spit on the only peace we've had in months."
Seo-jin leaned forward, voice low and vicious. "Peace is a blade with honey on the edge. You lick it long enough, you'll forget the cut until you're bleeding out."
Elior set his cup down. For a moment, his calm cracked. His knuckles whitened. "And perhaps bleeding in a quiet street, with laughter echoing in the distance, is better than bleeding in chains."
The silence between them was thick, taut.
Seo-jin wanted to snap back. Wanted to tear into Elior's soft hope and shatter it. But instead, the whisper came.
Soft. Fragile. In daylight.
"…Don't fight."
Seo-jin froze. His blood chilled.
Elior frowned. "What is it?"
Seo-jin's mouth worked, but no words came. The voice wasn't an echo this time. It wasn't fading in the corners of his mind. It was here—threaded into the air, as real as Elior's own.
She's bleeding into the waking world now.
He shoved away from the table, chair scraping against cobblestones. "I need air."
Elior half-rose. "Seo-jin—"
"Stay." Seo-jin's voice cracked like a whip. Elior froze, confusion flickering across his features.
Seo-jin stalked off, fists clenched.
The fountain stood in the town's center. The old man whittling wood was there, just as always. Seo-jin crouched, staring into the rippling water. His reflection stared back—sharp-eyed, scarred, ragged. But behind it… something else shimmered.
A silhouette. Faint. Feminine. Long hair drifting like ink in water.
Seo-jin's breath caught.
He whispered, hoarse. "Who are you?"
The silhouette's lips didn't move. But the whisper came anyway.
"…I am not your enemy."
Seo-jin's nails dug into the stone rim of the fountain. His heart pounded with a rhythm he hated. Not enemy? Then what are you? Why now?
He wanted to demand answers. But when he blinked, the silhouette was gone. Only his reflection remained.
The old man looked up from his carving. For the first time, his faceless mask twitched. A flicker. Like a glitch in a screen.
Seo-jin staggered back.
That night, Seo-jin didn't sleep. He sat by the window, staring at the lanterns that never burned out.
Elior lay on the bed, his breathing steady. But in sleep, he whispered something—words too soft to catch. A prayer? A plea?
Seo-jin's eyes narrowed. He turned away.
Then came her.
The whisper brushed against his ear like breath. "…Don't be alone."
Seo-jin squeezed his eyes shut. His chest hurt again. That maddening ache he didn't know how to fight.
He muttered under his breath, "You're not real."
But even as he said it, he wanted—needed—the whisper to answer.
And it did.
"…Even if I'm not, I'm here."
Days folded into one another.
Seo-jin stopped mocking Elior outright. Instead, he kept his distance, sharp and restless. Elior noticed.
He tried to bridge the gap—offering bread, sharing stories from his fractured faith, even laughing once at a villager's mechanical clumsiness.
Seo-jin barely responded. His eyes were elsewhere. Watching shadows. Listening for her.
One evening, Elior finally said it:
"You've changed."
Seo-jin didn't look at him. He kept his gaze on the clay-faced children, their game of tag looping endlessly in the square.
Elior's tone was quiet, but edged. "You look at corners that aren't there. You mutter in the night. You leave before dawn and return with eyes like a hunted man. What are you hearing?"
Seo-jin's jaw tightened. He almost snapped a denial. But the whisper came again—this time weaving through Elior's words.
"…Don't tell him."
Seo-jin's throat closed. His hand curled into a fist.
He forced a smirk, bitter and sharp. "Maybe I'm just seeing what you refuse to see. Maybe I'm the only one not playing house with corpses."
Elior flinched, but he held Seo-jin's gaze. "Or maybe you're falling into a different trap."
Seo-jin barked a laugh, too loud, too brittle. "Maybe."
But he didn't deny it.
The cracks widened.
A vendor dropped a fruit—and it shattered like porcelain, shards scattering instead of pulp.
A child tripped—and their knee bent wrong, bone twisting before snapping back into place.
At the fountain, the old man carved wood endlessly. But one day, Seo-jin looked closer and saw: the shavings didn't fall. They hung in the air like dust, never landing.
This wasn't life. It was a mask. A set.
And through the seams, she whispered.
"…Find me."
Seo-jin whispered back, ragged, desperate. "Where?"
But the answer never came.
One night, Seo-jin woke with his throat raw, his hands shaking. Elior sat at the foot of the bed, watching.
"You were speaking again," Elior said quietly.
Seo-jin stiffened. "…And?"
"You said 'don't leave me.' Over and over."
The air between them hung heavy.
Elior's eyes were sharp now, suspicion unhidden. "Who are you talking to, Seo-jin?"
Seo-jin forced a grin, all teeth. "Maybe I'm praying, like you. Isn't that what saints do? Whisper to someone who never answers?"
Elior's jaw tightened. "Someone is answering you. I can see it."
Seo-jin said nothing.
Because for once, Elior was right.
That night, the whisper came louder. Clearer.
Not a plea this time. Not a fragment.
A name.
Seo-jin's name.
Spoken like a secret. Like something tender.
And Seo-jin, who had sworn never to need anyone, whispered back.
"…I hear you."