Applause still echoed faintly in my skull even after I slammed the front door shut. Pavilion Eight thought I'd vanished into the night like some phantom—too elusive, too untouchable. But here, in the privacy of my home, I wasn't the glittering idol they worshipped.
Here, I was just a man.
A man with silence so wide it pressed against my ribs.
The penthouse smelled of rain on marble, sharp citrus from the diffuser, and faint smoke from the candles burning low in the hall. Crystal chandeliers hung like cages of light. Velvet couches. Imported art. Wine racks stacked too neatly. Everything was expensive, deliberate, meant to look like a dream someone else would kill to live in.
But none of it was mine. Not really.
Father had been dead four years—heart attack, swift and merciless. Mother long gone before him. And the woman who replaced her? A "stepmother" in name only. Sharp red nails, sharper perfume, sharpest instincts. She paraded through London as if she owned half the world, expanding her empire—most recently a feminine cosmetics brand called Rose Water Sin . A familiar word I still remembered . It was launched first in Tokyo, now legally bound and now , flourishing in London too .
She called me her "son." I called her nothing. Not love. Not hate. Just bones wearing flesh.
…Though, I'll admit, she gave me what my real mother never had—freedom. And that was enough. At least she didn't make me feel abnormal. At least she didn't shackle me with shame. In a strange way, I was… satisfied by it.
We weren't family. We were investors in each other's survival.
The only other "family" was a stepbrother in Germany. I hadn't met him yet and didn't care to. If he wanted to show his face, fine. If not, that was his problem.
I loosened my collar, tugged at the vest damp with stage-wine. Pavilion Eight's Kaoru might have been every man's fantasy, the cosplayer Kaoru every girl's fever dream… but here, alone, I was just a man whose veins still burned from a pair of panicked eyes.
Hiroshima.
My gaze dropped to my wrist. The "H" tattoo gleamed faintly in the lamplight.
I traced it with my thumb, almost tenderly, as if the skin itself could bruise from memory. Then I sighed—sharp, deliberate—hardening my face before the weakness could root.
Something desperate boiled inside me. A hunger I couldn't quench. A need to uncover everything about that clever fool. From his birth to his blood type, from his address to the grave he'd eventually rot in—I wanted it all.
I flicked open my laptop, scrolled, hunted. Hiroshima's name. His shop profile. In Your Shape. The very name he'd whispered under his breath tonight, shock flashing across his face when my lyrics pierced him.
I wasn't imagining it. I could read lips. I could read psychology. A thousand faces, a thousand masks—every day my profession forced me to study them. So no, life hadn't been a total waste. And tonight proved it.
He wasn't shaken just because of a song. Something else stirred beneath his panic. Something personal. Something hidden.
I dug deeper.
Nothing.
No address. No phone number. Just sterile campaigns, curated posts, flawless advertising that told me everything about the shop and nothing about the man.
Had he hidden it all away tonight, the moment he fled?
The thought gnawed at me, chewing me hollow. Why the fuck was he running like a rat? Did he think cats let go once the chase began? Did he think I could simply shrug and forget?
No.
The mouse had crawled into my veins, and cats don't surrender their prey until the neck snaps.
My jaw clenched, heart racing with a heat that was equal parts rage and hunger.
The glass in my hand gave before I realized my grip had turned brutal. A sharp crack, and shards cut into my palm. Crimson spilled across the white marble counter, dripping softly, quietly.
"Shit."
I hurled the fragments into the sink, cursing under my breath.
He was making me sloppy.
One man. One moth of a man—older than me, yet stumbling like a boy who had just been born—and I was unraveling because of him.
My phone buzzed.
A notification blinked across the screen.
A reminder I had set for myself, to keep me tethered.
Live at midnight—BL cosplay stream (Rakuin Yurei).
Ah. Yes. That. My anchor, my foolishness, my favorite mask. The one I could never shed.
I exhaled, wiped my palm, forced the fury down into my ribs. Fans didn't want rage. They wanted fire. They wanted the fox.
I slid open the wardrobe. Silk rustled as I drew out the gray costume. A fox yokai's skin—long silver wig tied into a sharp ponytail, a black-gold robe for the right arm, sleeves slashing wide, sash drawn with deliberate elegance.
The mirror threw back a figure that was regal, dangerous—yet somehow softer than a man should be. Too sharp for flesh, too tender for stone.
Wine—red, rich—poured into a marble cup. A single rose petal floated lazily across the surface, identical to the Yeifēng blend once dressed with roses.
I adjusted the lighting. Positioned the camera.
And when I went live, the screen exploded.
Kaoru-san !!
Is it Yurei tonight?!
Our Baby fox right hand!!
My heart can't take this much cuteness and hotness all at once—
The comments poured like rain, endless, starving.
I smirked into the lens, tilting the cup, letting the red stain my lips. "Good evening," I purred. "I thought tonight… you deserved a sip of Rose Water Sin. The same taste I once shared with my…lotus-green eyed drama king."
Fans screamed in text. Emojis rioted across the feed. Hearts burst like fireworks.
I leaned forward, eyes half-lidded, voice dipping low as I recited one of Yurei's old lines. Lines I had carried since I was a boy. But tonight, they weren't just Yurei's. They were mine...from someone who is responsible for today's confudent Kaoru:
"Be stubborn like me… but not blind. Desire nothing you cannot hold, or regret will haunt you forever."
The words cut deeper than they ever had before.
Because tonight, I was already blind. Already desiring what I couldn't hold.
Hiroshima.
The comments surged, begged, adored. Fans praised me, worshipped me, drowned me in love.
But behind the fox mask, my chest ached with fury. With want.
Yurei was only half a whole. Without his other half—without those lotus-green eyes I still remembered—he burned.
And maybe that was me now.
I swirled the wine, tilted it to my lips, let the rose petal cling to my tongue. Then I lifted my gaze back to the lens, eyes sharp as blades.
"You'll understand soon," I murmured—voice dripping like a promise, or a curse.
The screen flooded with hearts.
But I wasn't speaking to them.
I was speaking to him.