The first thing Bora registered when she stirred awake was weight. A crushing, unwelcome weight. The second was the heat of a palm pressed to her throat. Her eyes flew open to find Taemin leaning over her, pinning her against the sectional. His hair was messy, his expression sharp and infuriatingly, the haze of docility from the night before burned out of him completely.
"Rise and shine," he drawled, voice low and edged with venom. His claws flexed against her skin, cutting off her breath just enough to make the message clear. "I thought I'd return the favor of hospitality. How's it feel, waking up at someone else's mercy?"
Her vision sharpened through the red flash of rage. Bora's lips peeled back in a snarl. In one swift motion she planted her heels against his chest and shoved with brutal force. The couch cushions muffled the impact but not the crack of air leaving his lungs as he staggered back with a grunt. She surged upright, nails flashing, and raked them across the back of his hand before he could fully retreat.
He hissed, a feral sound caught between pain and fury, clutching at the scratches. She stood, every muscle coiled, breath ragged from the near-strangulation. "You wake me up by trying to kill me," she growled, voice like gravel, "and you wonder why I keep you bound."
He rubbed at the marks she'd left, lips curling in an unrepentant smirk. "I've little interest in being polite when I wake up and find myself magically shackled to a couch," he shot back, his tone bitter as steel. "You don't get to play gracious hostess when you've written chains into my skin."
Her hand cut through the air in a sharp gesture, dispelling the sigils she had cast the night before. The violet glow clinging to the cushions fizzled out, leaving nothing but faint scorch-marks along the upholstery.
Then, with a suddenness that startled even him, she slapped him across the face. The sound cracked in the living room, ringing louder than the heater's hum. His head snapped to the side, and for once he didn't have a quip ready.
Her glare could have cut steel. "Don't mistake restraint for weakness. If I wanted you dead, you'd be rotting in a ditch, not sleeping under my roof."
She didn't wait for him to respond. From the coffee table, she snatched a runestone etched with painkilling sigils. Without warning, she pressed it hard against the wound she'd carved into his skin with her nails. The stone glowed faintly, threads of magic sinking into him as the ache dulled. He hissed at the sting of contact, glaring at her through the faint light, but the tension in his shoulders eased as the pain bled away.
He flexed his fingers experimentally, staring down at the wound as the pain ebbed. "You're a strange woman," he muttered, lips curling faintly. "Beat me bloody, then patch me up. You really don't know what you want from me, do you?"
"What I want," she snapped, snatching the runestone back and tossing it onto the table with a sharp clack, "is for you to shut up and stop acting like an insufferable prick when you're under my roof."
Her hair was mussed from sleep, her voice still sharp from the snarl of waking violence, but her posture radiated control. Taemin tilted his head, smirking again, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of her attention.
"You're back to normal, and I already regret it." Her tone was acid. "Take a damn shower. You reek of travel and trouble. While you do that, I'll cook something. But don't even think about stepping into my kitchen afterward. After the way you woke me up this morning, I wouldn't trust you with boiling water, let alone anything I'd ingest."
He leaned back against the cushions, stretching as if he owned the sofa, his smirk refusing to die. "Touché," he said, his voice dripping with mockery, but he rose and stalked toward the bathroom anyway, tossing her a lazy salute on the way.
She stood, running a hand through her disheveled hair, the lines of exhaustion still sharp in her posture. Her irritation boiled hotter now that the docility had worn off completely, leaving Taemin in all his prickish glory. The memory of him last night — pliant, almost civil — made her grit her teeth. This was the real him. Her enemy. Her poison victim. Her problem.
His laughter followed her as she turned toward the kitchen, sharp and needling, a sound designed to get under her skin. She didn't look back. If he wanted to act like the arrogant bastard he was, fine. She'd survived worse enemies under worse circumstances. But as she reached for a pan, her knuckles still itched with the memory of his throat beneath her nails, and she made another mental note: the next salve would be weaker. Docility was a tool, not a crutch. And she would never again allow herself to fall asleep so easily in the presence of a man like Kang Taemin.
In truth, the bathroom itself was a snare. She had etched sigils along the frame while he was too busy smirking at her threats, lines of violet script hidden under the wood's grain. The moment he stepped inside, the runes had sprung to life.
Bora hadn't needed to hear the thud of his body hitting tile to know it worked. By the time she opened the door, the steam in the air was mixed with faint violet mist, curling from the marks on the wall.
The scent of sizzling butter and sweet batter lingered in the kitchen long after the last pancake had browned. Bora stacked them neatly, layer upon layer, until the counter was crowded with warm, golden rounds. She worked quickly, sliding each stack into reusable plastic tupperwares, snapping the lids shut with sharp, efficient clicks. The mundane rhythm of it soothed her only slightly — and only because it was something she could control.
She lined them up, one after the other, then gathered them into a plastic bag. It was almost laughable—feeding him, of all things. As though breakfast could dissolve hatred, or soften betrayal. Still, the Task Force would need something when she delivered their precious poisoned brat back into their care.
With a flick of her wrist, the runes around his wrists and ankles lifted him effortlessly from the floor. His unconscious form hovered, suspended as though weightless, and followed her through the penthouse with silent obedience. With a whispered incantation, the air shimmered around her; her form shifted, Foxglove's cloak materializing, the eye-veil shadowing her face. Her eyes burned violet through the haze, her presence cloaked in that same otherworldly chill that had haunted soldiers across countless missions. Bora was gone. Only Foxglove remained.
With practiced precision, she traced a teleportation circle at her feet. The runes flared, bright as lightning, and the world warped. In the span of a blink, the balcony of her penthouse dissolved, replaced by the colder, narrower edge of the hotel high-rise.
She landed lightly on the railing just outside Mu-hyeok's window. Her boots made no sound as she stepped down, balancing the dangling plastic bag in one hand while Taemin's unconscious body hovered at her back like some grim offering. The curtains were drawn, but faint light spilled through the seams. She rapped sharply on the glass — once, twice, thrice. The sound was unmistakable, deliberate.
When Mu-hyeok appeared at the window, his expression shifted the moment he recognized her: surprise first, then that strange, unshaken admiration that always unsettled her more than open hostility. He did not reach for a weapon, did not bark for his team. He simply opened the balcony door, gaze sweeping over her with the same careful attention he always seemed to give.
"Foxglove," he murmured, voice low, almost reverent. "You came."
The bag rustled faintly as she pressed it closer, the faint scent of pancakes drifting upward. The act was absurdly domestic against the glow of her runes, and yet she carried it with cold precision, as if pancakes and captives alike were simply tools to be handed over.
Her voice, muffled by the veil, was smooth but firm. "Sustenance. And your stray." She tilted her chin toward Taemin's body, her tone unyielding. "I have no interest in keeping him. He's your burden, not mine."
Mu-hyeok's gaze darted from her to Taemin, surprise flickering across his features. His brow furrowed, his mouth tightening as though he wanted to demand an explanation, but the words caught in his throat.
"What did you do to him?" His voice was steady, though quieter than usual, as though he didn't want to break the fragile spell of her presence.
"I put him to sleep," she answered flatly. "It's safer that way. For both of us."
She shoved the bag of pancakes into his hands before the silence could stretch any further. "Feed your men. He'll wake in a few hours."
Then she stepped back toward the balcony, cloak whispering against the floor, the runes on her arms already sparking in preparation for another teleportation. She was already drawing the sigils into the air, violet runes sparking faintly around her fingers, when Mu-hyeok's voice cut through the low hum of magic.
"Wait—!"
She studied him with sharp eyes behind the veil, and when she didn't immediately vanish, Mu-hyeok seemed to realize what he'd asked. His ears flushed faintly, the tips burning red, and he shifted in place with an awkward stiffness uncharacteristic of a soldier who faced monsters for a living.
Mu-hyeok's lips parted, as if surprised that she actually obeyed. He blinked, visibly scrambling for what to do now that she hadn't vanished in a crackle of violet light. His fingers tightened around the bag of tupperware, the plastic crinkling loudly in the quiet hotel room.
He glanced down at the plastic bag still in his grip, the rustle of it loud in the silence, and seized the excuse as though it were a lifeline. "The pancakes. If you made them… you should eat too. Sit. Share them with me. You know—so I can be sure they're not poisoned."
Foxglove's lips curved into the faintest hint of a smirk beneath the veil. "You think I'd go to the trouble of cooking if my intent was to kill?" she asked, voice low and mocking.
He shrugged, a flash of humor tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I don't know. You're clever enough for theatrics. And you have done worse."
For a long moment, she stood motionless, cloak shifting faintly with the cold air wafting in from the open balcony. The temptation to disappear was strong, to leave him with his awkward excuse and the burden of explaining Taemin's unconscious body. But then she reminded herself: Mu-hyeok was different. He did not bare his teeth at her like the others, did not seethe with the same reflexive hatred. He looked at her as though she were a puzzle he couldn't solve, not a monster to be destroyed.
And she knew, with an instinct that had kept her alive this long, that if she sat down, if she posed no threat, Mu-hyeok would not draw his weapon.
"…Fine." The word was flat, clipped, but decisive.
Mu-hyeok blinked, clearly surprised she'd actually listened, and scrambled to clear the small table near the window. He set the bag down, fumbling with the containers, the lids popping open with muted clicks. Steam still rose from the pancakes, filling the room with the warm, sweet scent of cooked batter. He slid one of the tupperwares toward her, his movements careful, almost reverent, as though the simple act of sharing breakfast with her carried some fragile weight. The hotel room was small and efficient: a bed pushed against one wall, a desk littered with a map annotated in careful handwriting, a kettle on a hotplate, and a mug with toothpaste dried on its rim. Mu-hyeok cleared a space on the low table and set two paper plates out with the ritualistic solemnity of a man who'd practiced making small kindnesses into ceremonies.
He poured coffee with hands that trembled only slightly, and when he handed her a steaming cup the warmth seared through her gloves. The runes on her wrists pulsed faintly beneath the veil, but she ignored them; for once there was no battlefield analysis in her head — only the simple, tactile business of taste.
She dug into a pancake first, deliberately, chewing with exaggerated nonchalance. "See? Not poisoned." She rolled her eyes, though he couldn't see the full motion, and cut off a small piece. The pancake was soft, still warm, buttery with the faintest sweetness. Too mundane for poison, too human. She chewed slowly, watching him watch her, until finally she swallowed and said, "Satisfied?"
His shoulders eased, a laugh slipping from him—not mocking, but quiet and almost relieved. "More than you know."
They ate in silence for several moments, the city hum filtering faintly through the balcony doors. He didn't try to fill the quiet with meaningless chatter, and for that, she was strangely grateful. Instead, Mu-hyeok simply ate alongside her, stealing glances when he thought she wasn't looking.
Once the immediate paranoia of ingesting unknown food had dissipated into the simple pleasure of a hot mouthful, Mu-hyeok grew bolder.
"So," he said, stirring sugar into his cup with the absent devotion of a man making small circlets in foam, "how has life been since the South and North unified into the Seoltang Republic? I imagine changes."
Her lips flattened. She could have answered with the performative line — rebuilding, reconciliation, the rhetoric the papers loved — but Foxglove lived closer to the gears that turned the propaganda. "Less paperwork, more politics," she said dryly. "And less interesting than chasing you boys around on assignment. Honestly, fewer headaches than being the executioner for men who refuse to die quietly." She took another bite and chewed slowly, letting the absurdity of her own life sit between them. "Unification means new borders, new loyalties, and old superstitions dressed up as national security."
His brows lifted. He folded his fingers atop the table and watched her closely as if she were describing a tactical maneuver and not a confession. "You don't miss the old life?" he asked softly.
She chewed, then swallowed slowly, giving the question an answer measured as much by appetite as honesty. "Right now is less stressful than spending every waking hour chasing Task Force Delta with a contract to kill Taemin," she replied, the corners of her mouth twitching despite herself. "So yeah."
He studied her then with an expression that tilted between curiosity and something gentler. "You know, I always wondered…why you didn't go after all of us, if it was about metahuman threats. You only ever focused on Taemin. You could have made a case for removing us all."
She shrugged, lifting her fork again. "Orders. The Legion deemed him a threat to stability. Not just because he's a metahuman, but because his bloodline traces back to the Yeougui Dynasty. You've heard the story, haven't you? The one about royal blood carrying some ancient power making their spirits immortal." Her tone carried nothing but disdain. "The higher-ups believed it. Old wives' tales, but they clung to them like scripture."
"The Legion," Mu-hyeok repeated, the word tasting sour. He stirred his coffee without looking away. "So it was orders then. No personal hatred…?"
She shrugged, the movement casual but edged. "Orders make people into useful automatons. They also give you the convenience of pretending the consequences aren't personal. For the record, I was efficient. I followed the path given to me. But that doesn't make me a monster." She paused, then added, quieter, "Though it also doesn't absolve me."
He watched her for a long moment. "I don't think you're a monster," he said, and the sentence landed softer than she expected. His eyes flicked to the runes that braided beneath her veil and then back to her face. "You did what you were told. We all do things we wish we hadn't sometimes."
Mu-hyeok leaned forward slightly, studying her with that sharp, steady gaze of his. She waved her fork dismissively.
"Whatever the reason, it doesn't change the facts," she continued. "I made lethal attempts on his life. More than once. I understand why your task force doesn't trust me. What I don't understand," her eyes narrowed behind the faint shimmer of her veil, "is you. Why you've always been… fonder than the others. Even when we were enemies."
The question hung in the air like a blade suspended by a thread. For a heartbeat, Mu-hyeok's expression shifted—something flickered in his eyes, something that threatened to give him away. He remembered the blood soaking through his Northern Legion uniform years ago, when he had been undercover in the North. How he'd worn another soldier's name, another soldier's insignia, until the day the operation went sideways and he was cut open by enemy fire. How he would have bled out there, nameless, forgotten, if not for her.
He remembered her voice as she barked at him to hold still while she would press sigils around his wounds, believing him just another soldier of her side. Foxglove hadn't known who he really was then. She had only seen a wounded comrade, and she had dragged him into safety, her hands steady and her voice sharp as she barked orders at others to fetch water and supplies. She hadn't been cruel, nor cold. She had been loyal, fierce, protective of those she thought were hers. And in that moment, Mu-hyeok had seen her not the spectre the South painted her as, not the assassin who haunted Taemin's shadow, but a woman capable of compassion, ironclad in her convictions.
"Maybe I like people who know what they're doing," he said, deflecting with a charm that was almost noncommittal. "Or maybe I like… complicated stories. Maybe I just thought you were interesting." He shrugged, the gesture casual but honest in its own way.
Foxglove's veil hid the shift that crossed Bora's features — something that might have been warmth, or annoyance at being softened by memory not hers to name. She accepted it as a deflection; it was safer that way. The truth of what he'd been and what she'd been would have meant too many raw admissions. She'd rather keep the ledger tidy.
Mu-hyeok reached across the small table and, almost impulsively, pushed his own plate toward the one she'd set down. "More?" he offered. "You can tell me more about the Republic if you want. I have time." His voice carried an open quality that invited conversation without demanding it.
She considered, fingers still wrapped around the edge of her plate. The city outside muttered a hundred small obligations; in here, time felt lenient for once. "It's messy," she said. "Old institutions rebranded, new power brokers taking bets. People swapped salaries and titles while the old grudges sat in the corners like mold waiting for humidity." She let out a small, humorless laugh. "But yes. Less hunting, more paperwork. Fewer nights spent drawing plans to end someone's breath. That's… a kind of peace."
"Thank you," he said finally, simple and raw. "For this. And for—" he gestured vaguely in Taemin's direction "—everything that's complicated between us."
She made a noise that could have been acceptance or dismissal; it was ambiguous enough to be true to both. Foxglove rose then, straightening the veil. "He'll wake," she said. "Take them, feed the others. And don't get sentimental on me, Mu-hyeok. You know what that does to my moral accounting."
He grinned, that same awkward charm returning. "I'll try to keep my sentimentality in check. For you." He paused, the offer softer than words should allow. "Stay a little longer? If you're willing."
"I have somewhere to be," Foxglove replied. Her tone was firm but not unkind. "The day won't wait for me."
Mu-hyeok's hand half-lifted, like he might reach for her, might risk another request — stay longer, explain more, peel back one more layer. But the words caught in his throat. All that left him was a soft, resigned, "Take care, Foxglove."
She stepped toward the balcony rail, runes beginning to spark faintly at her fingertips as she prepared the teleportation glyph. The hum of magic rose low and steady, a vibration that set the air between them trembling.
Then, as if on an afterthought, she paused. Her head turned slightly, veil shifting enough for him to glimpse the line of her jaw, sharp and uncompromising. "One more thing," she said, voice carrying a weight that pressed between them like iron. "I've bound Taemin."
Mu-hyeok blinked, caught off guard. "Bound him?"
"I put a binding spell on Taemin," she said flatly. "If your men question him about me—about who I am, what I look like, what happened here—he won't be able to answer. He can't betray my identity, even unintentionally." Her voice cooled to iron. "Don't waste your breath trying to pry it out of him. Consider it… an insurance policy."
Mu-hyeok's lips parted as if to argue, but he stopped himself. The tension between admiration and disapproval warred on his features, but in the end, he only nodded slowly. "You don't trust him."
"I don't trust anyone," she corrected, stepping back onto the sigil that was blooming beneath her boots. "That's why I'm still alive."
She turned, cloak whispering in the morning breeze, the faint shimmer of sigils trailing like starlight in her wake. Before she vanished back into the mist, she caught the way Mu-hyeok's eyes followed her — not with loathing, but with something perilously close to reverence. The runes flared, light crawling up the seams of her cloak. For a moment the balcony was painted violet, her silhouette sharp against the rising sun.
Mu-hyeok stood alone by the table, staring at the empty balcony. The pancakes had gone lukewarm, Taemin still lay unconscious on the couch, and the silence pressed heavier than before. He let out a long sigh, then dragged a hand through his hair, the faintest trace of a rueful smile curving his lips.
"She really does leave like a ghost," he mumbled, before sinking back into his chair, left with nothing but questions and the faint taste of butter and syrup lingering on his tongue.
Mu-hyeok shut the balcony door with a quiet click, sealing away the violet glow that had just vanished into the dawn. The room smelled faintly of sugar and butter—her pancakes, neatly packed away on the table as though she had meant to linger longer but forced herself not to. His eyes lingered there for a moment before shifting back to the slumped figure on the couch.
Taemin lay sprawled, utterly still, his breath steady and even. The faint runes etched along his skin were dim now, inert, though Mu-hyeok had no doubt they'd burned brighter when she bound him.
Mu-hyeok's arms flexed as he hoisted Taemin's unconscious body from the sofa. The younger man was heavier than he looked—lean muscle and the dead weight of deep sleep combined—but Mu-hyeok carried him with careful steadiness, unwilling to let his comrade's head loll too sharply to the side.
He carried him with care the way one would hold a sleeping cat, laying him down on the wide bed and pulling the sheets over his shoulders like one might a younger brother. For a long moment, Mu-hyeok studied his face—peaceful in sleep, so very unlike the biting, sharp-edged Taemin they all knew when awake.
Only when he was certain Taemin wouldn't stir did he pull out his phone. His thumbs moved quickly across the group chat:
[Nam Mu-hyeok]: I've got Taemin. He's safe.
Mu-hyeok had barely set the phone down before a sharp knock rattled the hotel room door. He crossed the carpet quickly and opened it to find Junwon, Seungmin, and Taek clustered in the hall. Their expressions ranged from grim to stormy, though Taek's composure remained his usual steel-edged calm.
The three swept inside without hesitation. Junwon and Seungmin went straight to Mu-hyeok, voices overlapping.
"How did you find him?" Junwon demanded, his tone clipped but laced with concern.
"What the hell happened?" Seungmin snapped, his gaze darting between Mu-hyeok and the unconscious Taemin.
Mu-hyeok lifted his hands in a rare gesture of defensiveness. "Relax. He's fine. Foxglove brought him to me."
Three pairs of eyes snapped to him, each with a different charge of disbelief.
Taek, the quietest of the three, slipped past first and knelt at Taemin's bedside. His hands moved with clinical efficiency, checking the pulse in his neck, then his breathing, before carefully peeling back the sleeve of his shirt to inspect the bruised, darkened veins of his arm.
Junwon and Seungmin stayed fixed on Mu-hyeok, peppering him with questions.
"She just… came here?" Junwon asked, incredulous.
"Through the balcony," Mu-hyeok said simply.
Seungmin's jaw tightened. "And you just let her? You didn't even—"
"She also made pancakes," Mu-hyeok interrupted lightly, his mouth quirking with cheer.
Junwon blinked. "Pancakes?"
"Pancakes," Mu-hyeok confirmed cheerily, nodding toward the stack of tupperwares on the table. "I tried them. She ate them too, right in front of me. Safe. No poison, no spells. Just food."
Seungmin gave him a look that could have flayed skin from bone. "You ate with her? The woman who has tried to kill Taemin more times than we can count?"
Mu-hyeok shrugged, unbothered. "If she wanted me dead, she wouldn't need to resort to batter and syrup."
Before Seungmin could snap back, Taek spoke up from the bedside, his voice quiet but carrying. "His arm hasn't worsened since yesterday. The discoloration is the same. Breathing steady. She must have done something to stabilize him. For now, he's just asleep."
Junwon gave a small nod of acknowledgment. "Good. That buys us time."
Seungmin's expression darkened further, jaw tightening as if the very idea offended him. "She kidnaps one of ours and then makes you breakfast? That's her play?"
As if on cue, Taemin stirred. His lashes flickered, and a groggy murmur slipped past his lips. "I wasn't kidnapped."
The room stilled instantly. All eyes turned as Taemin blinked his way into consciousness, still heavy with sleep. He pushed weakly at the sheets and rasped, "I went to her. Myself."
Junwon was at his side in a moment, eyes narrowing in stern disapproval. "Do you have any idea how reckless that was? Seeking her out alone?" His voice carried the weight of a reprimand long overdue, heavy with elder-brother authority. "You put yourself at risk, Taemin. And by extension, all of us."
Taemin gave a lopsided, sleepy smirk that barely held. "Worked out though, didn't it?"
"Don't get smart with me." Junwon's brows knit as he folded his arms. "Full report. Now."
Taemin inhaled, then opened his mouth—only for the sound to choke off abruptly. He pushed himself up on one elbow, his expression composed despite the fatigue in his eyes. "Her home is—" A faint glow flared at his throat, violet and unmistakable, crawling like living script just beneath his skin. The words died on his tongue, leaving him clutching at his neck in confusion and fury.
Taek's sigh was quiet but certain. "She put a binding spell on him. He can't reveal anything specific about her identity. Likely triggered by intent."
Junwon let out a grunt, the sound half irritation, half reluctant respect. "Smart. I can't even blame her for being careful."
But Seungmin's seething only deepened, the fury coiling tighter with every passing second. "Careful?" he hissed, fists clenched at his sides. The room fell into uneasy silence then, the only sound the soft hum of the hotel's air system and the muted pulse of that purple rune on Taemin's throat—proof of the invisible chains she had left behind.
Seungmin, however, could not swallow the fury that rose like bile in his throat. The sight of the rune along Taemin's throat made his fists clench until the knuckles showed pale. "Smart move," he spat, sarcasm sharpened into a weapon. "Good for her. She makes sure no one can make her pay. She thought ahead." Then, voice low and lethal, "I'll make sure she regrets it. If she thinks she can walk into our formation and take one of us and walk away—"
"Seungmin," Junwon warned again, softer but ice-sharp. He leaned closer to the bed, his hand on Taemin's shoulder to steady the younger man and give the appearance of reasserting control. "We don't start a war on the basis of a trick. We find out what we can without violating what little courtesy we have left." His hand dropped from the bridge of his nose, and he straightened, the familiar mantle of command falling back over his shoulders.
His voice was level, but it carried the weight of no-nonsense authority. "We'll work around her precaution. Taemin, give your report—everything you can that doesn't involve her identity or location. What happened after you left us, what she did for you, what you overheard, anything you think is useful. We don't need her name or her home address to make sense of this."
Taemin grimaced, rubbing at the mark on his neck as though he could scrub the magic away. "You're asking me to relive it when my head's still pounding."
"You'll manage," Junwon replied firmly. "This isn't about comfort. It's about making sure you don't collapse on us tomorrow because you left something out."
Before Taemin could argue, Taek's voice cut in, calm and grounding. He hadn't lifted his hands from examining Taemin's arm, his focus methodical even as he spoke. "Junwon's right. Foxglove's private life, her home, her identity—none of that matters right now. What matters is that she's keeping him alive. The rest can wait until we know how to counteract the poison in his system." He glanced at Taemin, his expression unreadable but edged with quiet concern. "Report what you can. Anything related to her motives, methods, or the way she stabilized you could give us the insight we need."
Seungmin let out a sharp scoff from where he stood near the window, his hands still clenched into fists. "So we just accept that she waltzed in here and tied our comrade's tongue? That she gets to play benevolent captor and we lap it up?"
Junwon shot him a look that could level mountains. "Enough, Seungmin. I said report, not quarrel."
The atmosphere in the hotel suite shifted when Junwon turned his eyes toward Mu-hyeok. The quiet leader's expression made it clear—his turn.
Mu-hyeok set down the mug of coffee he had been nursing, the faint trace of steam curling in the air between them. His jaw tightened as if he was weighing how much to say, but then he leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.
"She came to me this morning," he began, voice low but steady. "In full Foxglove form. Cloak, veil, runes—the whole display. She could've vanished the moment I opened the window, but she stayed. Said she had somewhere to be later, but before that, we ate together."
Seungmin snorted. "You invited her to breakfast? The same woman who's been trying to kill our youngest for years?"
Mu-hyeok gave him a flat look but continued unbothered. "It gave me the opportunity to speak with her without weapons drawn. She agreed, on the condition that I posed no threat. So we ate. She talked." He paused, eyes narrowing as he recalled her words. "When I asked why she had pursued Taemin all this time, why it was always him and not the rest of us, her answer was simple. She admitted that chasing you all those years wasn't personal, it was a mission. Orders from her higher-ups in the Northern Legion. They deemed you a threat."
"Of course they did," Taemin muttered darkly. "Because I'm a metahuman. That's all it ever is, isn't it?"
Mu-hyeok shook his head. "Not just that. They singled you out because of your lineage. Your blood can be traced back to the last royal family of the Yeougui Dynasty. And the Legion still clings to an old belief — that the royal line carries power, some ancient inheritance too dangerous to be left unchecked."
Seungmin's eyes flashed like a blade. "That doesn't absolve her of anything. Who knows what tricks she has? What if the effect only appears later?" He paced with the flat-footed rhythm of someone trying to plan violence through motion. "We should have watched her. Junwon, we should have made sure—"
Junwon put up a hand, brows knitting. "She bound him and left him under our care. She didn't abduct him to an unknown location. Right now, Taek says he's stable. We find her later. For now: patient care."
The room fell heavy with the weight of his words. Taemin's fists curled tight against his knees, his expression darkening. "So I've been chased down, poisoned, ambushed, almost killed more times than I can count, all because of some old fairytale? Because some generals in the north got spooked by bedtime stories about long-dead kings? No. That's bull. Absolutely not. She could have gone after anyone," he hissed, voice climbing higher. "Seungmin, Junwon, Taek, Mu-hyeok— You're all metahumans too! But it was me. Always me. She didn't give a damn about the rest of you. She wanted me dead. Not because of some ancient bedtime story about royal blood. She wanted me."
He was stock-still at first, the words settling over him like ice. Then, slowly, his expression cracked. His lips curled into something caught between disbelief and outrage.
"There's no way that's it. No way that's all, let's be real," His voice was a rasp. "A damn mission?" He surged forward, hands gripping his knees as though to anchor himself. "Just… a mission?" he muttered, his voice low at first, almost disbelieving. Then louder, harsher: "Just a mission?!" He shot to his feet, pacing the floor like a man whose skin was suddenly too tight. His eyes burned with a wild, unsettled light. "No. No, that's—she hated me. She wanted me dead at her hands, not anyone else's! Every ambush, every poisoned blade, every damn near-death—I was her target, her nemesis. Mine as much as I was hers."
"Taemin," Junwon began carefully, but the younger man was already spiraling.
"No—no, no, no. Don't Taemin me." He screeched back as he shot to his feet, pacing the length of the room with explosive energy. "She's been on my heels for years! YEARS! Every mission I went on, every time I turned around, there she was, trying to kill me! I thought—" He stopped dead, raking a hand through his hair, his chest heaving. "I thought I was her nemesis. Her nemesis. The one person she wanted dead more than anyone else!"
His laugh was brittle, the sound tearing out of his throat. "I thought—hell, I thought we were locked in this… this duel. Me against her. The arch-nemesis experience they write songs about. And now you're telling me I was just an assignment to her?"
Taemin's voice climbed louder, bitterer, like an explosion long contained finally given air. "This is bull. My whole life fighting her, every scar, every time I spat her name like venom, all of it, just for it to have been an assignment?!" He laughed again, sharp, broken at the edges. "No. No, I don't buy it. She wanted me dead for personal reasons. She had to."
He cut himself off, chest heaving, denial warring with fury across his face.
"I know she did," Taemin continued, words spilling fast, like he feared if he stopped speaking, the truth might crush him. "The way she fought me—always me—never any of you. She chose me! You don't get to tell me that was some bureaucrat's whim. That was personal."
His mind snapped back into memories, each one searing, burning brighter as if his outrage breathed new life into them.
He saw the snowy ridges—Foxglove's cloak flaring violet against the storm as she cut through his defenses, her blades aimed only at him, never straying toward his squadmates. He remembered her lips curling as she hissed, You die here, princeling. Was that just a line rehearsed for her assignment? Or had it meant something?
He slammed his fist against the wall, rattling a picture frame, ignoring the sharp pain crawling up his arm. His voice broke into a roar: "You don't stare a man down for years, you don't learn the rhythm of his breath, the angle of his sword arm, just because someone wrote it on a piece of paper!"
The flashbacks didn't stop. They became more specific, more intimate, and more damning to the story Taemin had told himself for years.
— There was the rooftop fight in winter where she'd laughed when he'd missed a strike, the cold air filling his lungs like shattered glass. He remembered thinking then that her laugh had been personal, a chiding, a relish. He'd nursed that as proof that she savored his pain.
"Do you know what it's like," he said suddenly, voice rising until the room felt too small for it, "to orient your whole life around one person? To name all your victories and losses against a single enemy? You become obsessed. You perfect yourself to face them. You call them your opposite. You keep with them in your mind, the way other people keep lovers. And now you tell me I was just a line on a mission brief?" He practically shook as he spoke. "I wasn't a line on a mission brief. I meant something."
Seungmin muttered from the couch, half-amused, half-nervous, "He's really losing it."
Mu-hyeok watched him with an expression carved from more complicated timber. This was the man who'd once watched Foxglove tend him under false colors; he had seen her hands steady and quick and impersonal, and he'd seen the same hands bind wounds with a kind of fierce tenderness for those she called her own. But what he had not known — what Taemin had only just learned — was the ledger behind the hands. Mu-hyeok's posture softened. He found his voice and spoke not to persuade but to anchor.
"Taemin," he said quietly, "I get why it hurts. I get why you wanted her to be personal, but think about the alternative Taek offered." He ignored Taek's brief glare and went on, gentling his tone. "If she was personal — if she hated you alone — she could have made sure you didn't wake at all. You're alive. That matters, so think clearly."
"Think clearly?!" Taemin barked, his voice cracking. His face was flushed, his eyes glistening with unshed rage. "She played with me. She spared me because she wanted to see me suffer. That was her sick pleasure. Don't twist this into mercy."
Junwon finally spoke, quiet but firm. "She spared you because she was ordered not to let you die too soon, or because it was never her choice to hate you in the first place."
"Enough," Taek cut in. His voice was stone, unshakable, the word carrying the weight of command. "If you are alive, it is because she did not care enough to make it personal. That is something to accept, not rage against."
Silence stretched before Seungmin finally spoke, his tone sharper than usual, stripped of his casual ease. "Who cares if you were just a mission?" He leaned forward, elbows braced on his thighs, dark eyes fixed on Taemin. "The intent of the beast doesn't change the bite it left behind. Foxglove still tried to kill you. She still scarred you. That doesn't vanish because her orders came from someone else."
Taemin blinked at him, thrown by the bluntness.
Seungmin pressed on, a humorless smile tugging at his mouth. "You're sitting here crashing over whether or not she meant it. She did enough to you that it doesn't matter. The mark's there, whether she wanted it or not. And honestly? She doesn't deserve to be taking up space in your head right now."
The words hung in the air like iron nails. Taemin looked away, jaw tight, but his shoulders sagged, some of the explosive fury collapsing into a simmering sulk.
Seungmin leaned back, exhaling. "We're on break for once; no missions, no reports, no chasing shadows. The North's not all battlefields and Legion politics—it's… pretty damn cool, actually. Food districts, markets, parks. People living. We could use a day of that." His gaze flicked between Junwon, Taek, Mu-hyeok, then back to Taemin. "You could use a day of that. Let's loosen up."
Taemin's chest rose and fell, his anger simmering down into a resentful burn. He didn't like it—didn't accept it—but he didn't fight it either. Slowly, reluctantly, he dropped back onto the couch, shoulders tense, eyes still storming.
Taek clapped him on the back, grinning. "There you go. Good boy. Now let's get out before I die of boredom. I saw a noodle stall down the street last night, smelled better than half the crap we get back home."
Seungmin suddenly lit up like a spark catching fire, the stormy tension from earlier dissolving in an instant. He leaned forward on the couch, eyes gleaming, and practically bounced in his seat. "You know what? Screw sulking around here," he said, practically bouncing where he sat. "I'm calling Bora to hang out."
Mu-hyeok, who had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, let out a sharp snort that cracked the fragile silence. "Unbelievable," he muttered, shaking his head. "I get an earful for eating breakfast with Foxglove, but you—" he gestured at Seungmin with a flat palm "—you're allowed to call up your little crush like a high schooler with a new flip phone?"
Seungmin's face brightened further, unbothered by the jab. "Difference being, my crush isn't a homicidal maniac. Bora's a sweetheart—not the psycho who's been trying to kill our Taemin for years." He shot Taemin a glance, then added cheerfully, "No offense."
"Sweetheart?" Mu-hyeok repeated, one brow arching. "You've known her for what—two, three days tops? You don't know a damn thing about her."
"Better two days with someone lovely than a whole morning spent eating pancakes with the devil." Seungmin retorted, crossing his arms with a defiant tilt to his chin.
Across the room, Junwon and Taek exchanged glances. Junwon's lips twitched, and he lifted his shoulders in a half-shrug. "I'm fine without a love life."
Taek didn't miss a beat. "That's because you couldn't get a girlfriend if your life depended on it."
Junwon's head turned slowly toward him, eyes narrowing, but his voice came out calm and even. "I don't need one. I already have three kids—" He ticked them off on his fingers: "Mu-hyeok, Seungmin, Taemin—" Then he turned his gaze pointedly on Taek, a faint smile curving his lips. "And a wife."
The words landed like a hammer dropped in still water. Taek's composure cracked; he visibly bristled, his spine stiffening as though someone had shoved a hot poker down his back. His mouth opened, but no immediate retort came, and the silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Mu-hyeok smothered a laugh into his fist, and Seungmin coughed into his sleeve to disguise his grin.
Meanwhile, Taemin sat in the corner of the couch, arms folded tightly, jaw clenched so hard it ached. His thoughts simmered, loud and bitter, though not a word escaped his lips.
He sat apart from them, hunched into himself on the couch, glaring at the floor like it had insulted him personally. His inner voice seethed, heavy with the kind of frustration he couldn't release. Two girls, same girl. Same face. Same damn person. One poisons me, the other smiles sweetly like butter wouldn't melt. And I can't even say a word because of that cursed spell she slapped on me.
The moment the thought sharpened enough to push past his teeth, his chest tightened. That binding spell she'd slapped on him coiled like a noose around his throat, shutting him down before he could even try. He dug his nails into his palm, biting back the frustration that surged every time he watched Seungmin's eyes light up at the mention of Bora, every time Mu-hyeok got defensive over Foxglove, every time Junwon and Taek danced around their own dynamics like it was normal.
But for now, the room buzzed with laughter, banter, and Seungmin's hopeless grin as he lifted his phone to his ear, waiting for Bora to pick up. And Taemin, trapped between his own anger and their obliviousness, thought he might actually lose his mind before this so-called break was over.
Seungmin's thumb hovered over his phone, grin plastered wide as he waited for a reply. When the buzz finally came, his eyes lit up, only to dim just as quickly as he read the message. His lips pulled into a pout, and he slumped back against the cushions like the life had been sucked out of him.
"She said she's got someone to meet today," he mumbled, tilting the screen so the others could see the short, polite text. His tone carried the weight of a sulky child denied candy.
Mu-hyeok leaned against the arm of the couch, smirk tugging at his lips. "Maybe she's already got a partner," he said, voice pitched low and teasing, like he was poking a bruise just to watch Seungmin squirm. "Would explain why she's blowing you off."
Seungmin shot upright, indignant. "She does not! She'd have told me if she did."
"Yeah, sure," Mu-hyeok drawled, thoroughly enjoying himself. "I'm pretty sure most people don't confess their entire dating history to someone they just met."
Seungmin narrowed his eyes but before he could fire back, his phone buzzed again. He glanced down, and this time his whole face lit up like sunrise. "Ha! She says she's totally free to hang tomorrow!" He practically shoved the phone into Mu-hyeok's face, grinning so hard his cheeks might split. "See? Partner, my foot. She wants to see me."
Mu-hyeok chuckled, shaking his head. "Unbelievable. The way you're glowing, you'd think you just got proposed to."
"Shut up," Seungmin retorted, but his voice was too giddy to sound serious. He flopped back against the couch, scrolling through their chat with the soft-eyed expression of a teenager who'd just scored his first date.
But apart from them sat Taemin, silent and stiff, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. His jaw ticked as his inner voice seethed.
So she has time for Seungmin. Clears her schedule for him. Smiles at his texts, makes promises for tomorrow. But for me? His jaw clenched, nails biting into his arms where he gripped them. For me, it's sneaking onto her balcony in the dead of night just to get five words out of her before she tries to bind me to a damn sofa.
He could almost taste the acid in his mouth.
Granted, he admitted inwardly, teeth grinding, Seungmin actually texts her like a normal human being instead of showing up unannounced. But still—still— She answers him. She says yes. She never—
The laughter around him grated on his nerves, every chuckle from Seungmin like salt rubbed into a wound.
She's supposed to be my nemesis, my shadow, my tether to the edge. Not his sweet afternoon plan. Not his tomorrow. Of course he gets the sweet side of her, Taemin thought bitterly.
On the outside, he stayed motionless, still as stone. On the inside, he raged. Damn her binding spell. Damn her, damn her twice over.