Chapter 101 – A Reward for the Quiet Ones
POV: Jaeheon Kang
She didn't speak when she returned.
No doorbell. No knock. No keycard sound.
Just the silent glide of a lock responding to her fingerprint, and then the hush of her presence filling the room again like snowfall in the dark.
Jaeheon looked up from where he sat at her marble dining table, lyrics half-finished, his pen frozen between words that would never be enough.
She wore all black. Coat, gloves, low heels that didn't make a sound. Like someone who had just returned from war—or worse, diplomacy.
He stood immediately.
She didn't acknowledge him.
Not at first.
Just walked past him, into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, then stopped.
Back to him.
"You didn't leave."
It wasn't a question.
"No," Jaeheon said quietly.
She turned.
And in the soft, moon-pierced light that fell through the skyline window, her eyes glinted. That cold, northern blue that made angels look like myths and devils look tame.
"Most men would've run by now."
"I'm not most men."
A silence stretched between them, not hostile, not warm—just knowing.
She approached. Not fast. Not slow. Just… inevitable.
And then she stopped in front of him.
Close enough to feel the heat of her skin. The gravity of her stillness.
Jaeheon didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't dare shatter whatever this was becoming.
She studied him with that same inhuman precision she used to build machines and destroy empires.
"You're still here," she murmured. "Even after I said nothing. Gave nothing."
"You let me stay."
She tilted her head. "That's not the same as asking you to."
"I don't need to be asked."
He meant it.
She must've known.
Because she stepped even closer.
And with the softest, strangest sigh—
She rose on her toes and kissed him.
Brief.
Barely there.
But it landed like a shot through the ribs.
No seduction. No softness. No love.
Just… acknowledgment.
Her lips ghosted over his like frost over glass.
And when she pulled back, her expression didn't change. Not one degree.
"Consider it a reward," she said simply. "For not being boring."
Jaeheon stared at her.
Heart slowing.
Breath wrecked.
Voice nonexistent.
She turned, walking past him again.
He didn't ask for more.
Didn't chase her.
Because in her world—cold, brilliant, terrifying—what she'd given him was already too much.
Later, alone in the guest room again, he wrote without stopping.
Track 112: The Architect's Mouth
You kissed me like I was oxygen you didn't need,
but maybe—just for a second—you wanted to taste.
I'll take that second.
I'll turn it into eternity.
In the world outside, headlines screamed. Theories exploded. Fans wept and demanded answers.
But here—
In her home, in her silence, in the space she let him breathe—
Jaeheon finally understood something devastating:
She would never love him.
But she had seen him.
And that, somehow, was worse.