Rain fell again that evening — thin, silvery drops tracing the windowpane beside Ren's desk. The air smelled faintly of ink, paper, and the herbal notes of coffee gone cold.
His tablet screen glowed with the half-finished sketch of two figures — a monarch cloaked in shadows and the dragon kneeling before him.
Ren's hand trembled.
He could never quite finish their eyes.
There was always something about those gazes — so full of possession, guilt, and something that was almost tenderness — that made his chest ache.
He leaned back, exhaling a slow breath. "I must be getting too deep into this story," he muttered to himself. "They're just characters…"
But even as he said it, the name Auren pressed itself into the back of his mind — heavy, familiar, like something from a dream he couldn't escape.
---
Ren Arisawa was twenty-eight, a part-time novelist who'd recently left the editorial department of a small publishing house to work full-time at a clinic during the day.
His coworkers said he had an old soul. He smiled rarely, spoke quietly, and always seemed half-absorbed in a world that wasn't here.
At night, after his hospital shifts, he wrote.
His manga project had begun as an experiment — a way to exorcise the strange nightmares that had haunted him for months. In them, a man with silver eyes knelt before a dragon, both drenched in blood and moonlight. He could never see the end; he always woke before it came.
When he began to draw, those dreams grew sharper, as if the act of sketching was summoning them back from somewhere they had once belonged.
By the third chapter, the online readers of his test release had exploded with emotion. "It feels real," they wrote. "Like this story already existed."
That was when Hoshikaze Publications contacted him, assigning one of their top editors to guide the series' official serialization.
Kaito Minami.
---
The first time Ren met him, he was caught completely off guard.
The man who entered the café that afternoon carried himself like the quiet before a storm — calm, deliberate, and unreadable. Black hair with faint waves, crisp white shirt under a dark coat, and sharp, glass-clear eyes that seemed to see everything at once.
"Arisawa Ren?"
The voice was soft but had the depth of something older than it should be. Ren looked up, and for a single breath, the world seemed to tilt.
It was irrational — that heartbeat that went out of rhythm, that cold rush through his veins. Something about Kaito's gaze struck him like a memory he didn't have.
The same silver-gray as the monarch's eyes in his dreams.
Ren forced a polite smile. "Yes. You must be Minami-san. Thank you for coming."
When Kaito sat opposite him, a strange tension filled the air — the kind that felt more like recognition than introduction.
Their conversation was perfectly normal: schedule, layout, publication plans. But beneath it, something electric simmered. Kaito's voice lingered in his head long after he left.
That night, Ren dreamed again — this time, the dragon turned its head toward him and whispered, "He's near."
---
A week later, Kaito began visiting Ren's apartment to work on revisions.
Ren had never collaborated like this before; as a novelist, he had always been his own editor. But Kaito worked differently. He didn't correct Ren's story as much as he seemed to understand it before Ren even spoke.
"You draw their connection too cleanly," Kaito once said, leaning over Ren's shoulder. "Love isn't always gentle. Sometimes it devours."
Ren froze, pen still in hand. Those words echoed exactly what he'd written in his private notes about Auren and Zephyxion. But he hadn't shown them to anyone.
"How did you—?"
Kaito smiled faintly. "Just a guess."
Ren didn't press. He couldn't explain why his heart was pounding, or why Kaito's nearness felt like gravity. The faint scent of cedar from his coat made it hard to breathe.
---
Days turned into weeks. They worked together until the moonlight gave way to dawn.
Sometimes Kaito would cook for him — precise, minimal meals that somehow carried warmth. Other times, they'd eat ramen from the convenience store, sitting on the balcony, city lights sprawling beneath them.
Ren found himself waiting for those quiet hours — the small talk that wasn't really small, the subtle glances, the half-smiles.
Yet, every time Kaito's hand brushed his by accident, Ren felt an ache deep in his chest — not comfort, but longing laced with sorrow.
He didn't know why.
---
Kaito began visiting Ren's apartment almost daily after that.
Officially, to review scripts, check panel pacing, and adjust narrative flow.
In truth, the boundary between editor and artist dissolved somewhere between the smell of coffee and the sound of pencils scratching.
Ren's apartment was small — a narrow living room filled with sketchbooks, coffee cups, and stacks of manga references. Kaito often arrived at dusk, his tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, carrying quiet order into Ren's chaotic world.
They fell into rhythm.
Ren would draw, head bent over the tablet, and Kaito would read beside him, occasionally murmuring suggestions in his calm voice. Sometimes they'd argue over lines — Ren's emotions spilling over, Kaito's restraint like an opposing gravity. But more often, silence filled the space, the kind that felt almost intimate.
One night, Kaito cooked dinner — grilled mackerel and miso soup.
Ren watched him quietly, noting the precision of his movements. There was something old-fashioned in the way Kaito handled the knife, as if he had once wielded blades for a different purpose. When Kaito looked up and caught him staring, Ren looked away too quickly.
Later, they sat on the balcony, sharing a cigarette in the cold night air.
Their shoulders brushed — accidentally, inevitably.
"Minami-san," Ren said softly. "Do you ever feel like you've met someone before?"
Kaito turned, his gaze unreadable.
"Sometimes," he said. "And sometimes I wish I hadn't."
The wind rustled between them, carrying the faint scent of rain.
Ren didn't ask more.
But that night, he dreamed of fire — and wings breaking apart in his arms.
---
The days blurred.
Ren began writing faster, as if guided by invisible hands.
Every panel he drew — the Monarch, the Dragon, their obsession — it all came out too naturally. Too true.
Kaito noticed.
He would watch Ren sketch with quiet fascination, his eyes darkening whenever the artist's expression turned pained.
Sometimes, Kaito's hand hovered near Ren's shoulder — as if wanting to touch, to comfort, but something always held him back.
Once, when Ren fell asleep on the couch, Kaito covered him with a blanket.
Ren's face in sleep was softer, vulnerable. Kaito's fingers brushed his cheek before he could stop himself. He pulled away immediately, staring at his trembling hand as if it belonged to someone else.
"Why do you feel so familiar…" he whispered.
The tablet screen glowed with the half-finished page — the monarch reaching toward the dragon, whose body was bleeding beneath his touch.
In the dream that followed, everything was too vivid.
The dragon's scales were black as night; his eyes, gold like a dying sun. He had once been a god's companion — pure, peaceful, gentle. But the years of slaughter had twisted him, each kill for his master turning his heart darker until even his wings were tainted.
He could no longer bear it.
To protect his master — to save the man who had once been a god of spring and now a monarch of ruin — he had chosen to end his own life.
Ren could feel his own hands shaking as he watched it unfold.
The dragon whispered, "To make you free, I must become nothing."
And the monarch screamed his name — "Zephyxion!"
Ren jolted awake, tears burning down his cheeks.
"Auren…" he breathed — the name escaping before he realized it.
The sound lingered in the quiet apartment, trembling with grief.
Behind him, Kaito froze in the doorway.
He had come to bring coffee, but stopped when he heard Ren cry out that name — Auren. Something twisted deep inside him, sharp and nameless.
He didn't know why it hurt.
Only that hearing it made something inside him recoil — as if he had just been called by another man's name.
Without a word, he set the cup on the table and left the room.
Ren sat motionless for a long time, unaware of the door closing behind Kaito.
The image on the screen glowed faintly — the dragon's eyes still open, reflecting the monarch's despair.
He reached out, touched the edge of the tablet — and whispered,
"Why does it feel like I've lived this before…?"
Outside, the rain began again — gentle, but relentless.
---
By the end of the month, Ren's manga had reached its supposed ending — the one where the Dragon dies.
And then the dreams stopped.
For the first time in years, Ren slept soundly — no fire, no wings, no blood.
But instead of peace, there was emptiness. His pen hovered over the page, unmoving.
The story refused to continue.
He sat at his desk late into the night, frustration clawing at him.
"I can't…" he murmured. "It's gone."
From the doorway, Kaito watched him — silent, concerned.
Ren looked up, eyes shadowed with exhaustion.
Their gazes met — and in that fragile moment, something inside both of them cracked.
Kaito took a slow step forward, as if drawn by instinct alone.
Ren didn't move. Didn't breathe.
The distance between them thinned to a heartbeat — until Ren whispered, voice trembling:
"Why do you feel like someone I shouldn't love?"
The air trembled.
Kaito's expression flickered — pain, longing, something unnamable.
But he only said quietly, "Then maybe we've met before… somewhere we weren't allowed to."
---
Ren turned back to his screen.
The unfinished panel still showed the Monarch reaching toward the Dragon — their hands almost touching.
A storm broke outside. Lightning flashed. For an instant, Ren saw another hand overlaying his own — pale, marked by a sigil that didn't exist in this lifetime.
And from somewhere deep inside his mind, a voice — soft, sorrowful, distant — whispered:
"Even if we forget, our souls never do."
Ren dropped his stylus.
The panel glowed faintly — a faint outline of wings spreading from the Monarch's back.