The night his brother died, Yuren learned how quiet the world could be.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet—the kind that presses against your ears until you swear your own heartbeat is too loud. The kind that makes even breathing feel like a crime.
The hospital corridor smelled like antiseptic and grief. White walls. White floors. White lies. Everyone moved carefully around him, voices low, eyes avoiding his. Police officers stood in clusters like ghosts in uniform. Doctors avoided names. Detectives avoided truth.
Fatal gunshot wound during a mission.
Underworld retaliation.
No survivors.
They didn't look at him when they said it.
Yuren sat perfectly still in the hard plastic chair, hands folded in his lap. No shaking. No crying. No questions. His expression was calm—so calm it unsettled the nurse who brought him water and the officer who awkwardly placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Your brother was a hero," the officer said.
Yuren nodded politely.
Heroes didn't die alone on warehouse floors with six bullets in their chest.
Heroes didn't have classified files sealed before the body was cold.
Heroes didn't leave behind unanswered voicemail messages that ended mid-breath.
The clock on the wall ticked. Slow. Merciless.
12:47 a.m.
That was the time printed on the death certificate.
That was the moment Yuren's life split cleanly into before and after.
When they finally allowed him to see the body, the room was freezing. His brother lay still beneath the white sheet, face pale, mouth slightly open as if surprised by death itself. Dried blood darkened the bandages wrapped around his chest.
Yuren reached out and took his brother's hand.
Still warm.
He expected something then—anger, maybe. Pain. Sobbing. Screaming.
Instead, something inside him went terrifyingly quiet.
"I'll fix this," Yuren whispered, his voice steady, almost gentle. "I promise."
No one heard him.
The dead never answered.
Three years later, the city trembled at the name Kairav Voss.
Cold CEO.
Black suit.
Glass towers.
A man who ruled empires with numbers on paper and blood beneath the table.
Media articles described him as disciplined, distant, brilliant. Stockholders worshipped him. Rivals feared him. The underworld obeyed him without ever seeing his hands get dirty.
Kairav Voss never pulled the trigger.
He didn't have to.
From the outside, his corporate gala looked like a celebration of excess—crystal chandeliers, orchestras, black-tie guests laughing over champagne. Inside, it was a battlefield disguised as civility.
Yuren stood near the entrance, fingers curled lightly around a glass he never drank from, wearing a simple black suit that made him look younger than his twenty-one years. His hair was neatly styled. His posture was soft. His eyes—wide, warm, harmless.
Innocent.
That was the word people used when they looked at him.
The word had kept him alive.
He felt Kairav before he saw him.
The temperature shifted—subtle, almost imperceptible. Conversations softened. Laughter dimmed. People turned their heads instinctively, like flowers seeking or avoiding the sun.
Kairav Voss walked into the room like a verdict.
Tall. Sharply dressed. Dark eyes that gave nothing away. His expression was calm to the point of cruelty—not angry, not bored, just utterly uninterested in pleasing anyone but himself. He moved with the confidence of someone who had never been told no and never expected to be.
And when his gaze landed on Yuren—
It stayed.
Just for a fraction of a second longer than polite.
Yuren's breath hitched, exactly as planned.
He lowered his eyes, lashes trembling faintly. A small, nervous smile curved his lips, too soft for a room full of predators. The picture of a boy who didn't belong.
Kairav excused himself from a conversation mid-sentence.
That was all it took.
"You're not drinking," Kairav said when he reached him, voice smooth, low, controlled.
Yuren looked up, startled, as if he hadn't noticed the most dangerous man in the city approaching him.
"I—oh. I don't really like alcohol," he said with a quiet laugh, cheeks warming ever so slightly. "It makes me dizzy."
Kairav studied him openly.
Most people squirmed under that gaze. Yuren didn't—not because he was brave, but because he'd practiced this moment a thousand times in his head.
"You shouldn't come to places like this, then," Kairav said.
"I was invited," Yuren replied softly. "A friend works for Voss Holdings."
A lie. Not even a good one.
Kairav's mouth curved—not quite a smile.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yes," Yuren answered immediately, then hesitated, eyes widening as if he'd spoken too boldly. "I mean—everyone does."
Interesting.
Kairav took the glass from Yuren's hand and set it aside, his fingers brushing Yuren's skin just long enough to register warmth. Intentionally innocent. Intentionally intimate.
"You look like you'd get eaten alive here," Kairav said.
Yuren smiled again, sweet and unguarded.
"Then maybe someone should protect me."
That was the moment.
Not the touch. Not the words.
The look that crossed Kairav's face—brief, sharp, possessive—like something ancient inside him had just been challenged.
Predators recognized opportunity.
Kairav leaned closer. "Are you asking me to?"
Yuren met his gaze fully now, brown eyes clear as glass.
"Yes."
The next morning, headlines screamed success.
Kairav Voss Acquires Rival Syndicate Holdings.
A Strategic Victory.
A Cold King Expands His Empire.
In a quiet apartment on the edge of the city, Yuren read the articles while making tea.
The kettle whistled. He turned it off calmly.
On his kitchen table lay a single photograph: a smiling police officer in uniform, arm slung around a younger boy with bright eyes and a shy grin.
Brother and brother.
Yuren picked it up gently.
"Step one," he murmured.
He had spent three years preparing—studying underground networks, memorizing names that never appeared in public records, learning how money moved, how men vanished, how guilt was buried beneath power.
He knew about the mafia war that killed his brother.
He knew about the sealed evidence.
He knew about the man who'd signed the final order without ever dirtying his hands.
And now—
Now, he knew how easily monsters mistook softness for safety.
His phone buzzed.
A message.
Unknown Number: Dinner tonight. Don't be late.
Yuren stared at the screen. Then he smiled—wide, genuine, almost boyish.
"Yes," he whispered. "Protect me."
He slid the phone into his pocket and looked out at the city below, lights flickering like dying stars.
Far beneath the glass towers and bloodied deals, something had begun to move.
The underworld would call it bad luck.
The police would call it coincidence.
Kairav Voss would call it love.
They were all wrong.
Because the most dangerous person in the room
was the boy who knew exactly how to look innocent.
And this time—
He wasn't hunting justice.
He was hunting a king.