Kwon Si-Woo felt his curse strain, a millennia-old chain threatening to snap. Every atom in his body screamed at him to pull away, to place a continent between himself and the mortal woman standing before him. Yet, her smile—that fragile, knowing shield—was the one weapon he could not counter.

“If I do… I might never stop.” Her words were both a challenge and a surrender, a declaration that felt ripped from the heart of their shared, forgotten past.

His sapphire eyes, usually cold and unreadable, flickered with an internal battle that was tearing his control to shreds. He had spent centuries as a guardian, an observer, an entity bound to protect this city’s secrets while his own soul withered in isolation.

He was the curse. He was the protector. He was the Untouchable.

He leaned back just an inch, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement that felt like a lifetime of retreat. The metallic tang of his desperation mixed with the scent of rain and old paper that Eun-Hae had noticed.

His voice, already a low rumble, dropped to a dangerous whisper, a sound meant only for her ears, overriding the polite din of the gallery.

“Stop,” he commanded. The word was not a request. It was an ice sheet cutting through the electrical charge. His eyes were dark, not with anger, but with an agonizing fear of his own power. “You must stop speaking. You must stop looking at me.”

His gaze moved to her left hand—the one that had throbbed—and then back to her eyes. He knew about the phantom ache, the strange warmth, the memories she carried without knowing their source.

“You came here for a missing person, Ms. Eun-Hae,” he stated, his tone shifting abruptly to the cool, professional curator. “Mr. Kim. He often visits the vault. He will not be returning tonight. There is nothing for you here.”

He was pushing her away, deliberately injecting cold logic into the burning moment. But he saw the spark refuse to die in her eyes.

“You know where he is,” she countered, her filmmaker’s instinct for the truth cutting through the romance and the fear. “And I know you’re not just a curator. I’ve seen you, Si-Woo. In my sleep. You're the one who... bleeds.”

The last word was a whisper. The public facade he maintained crumbled for a terrifying second. He saw the red stain on the white silk shirt she wore in her visions, the life force he had nearly lost millennia ago.

He took a step back, separating himself completely. The tension, however, remained, stretched thin like a wire ready to snap.

“You should leave this vault, Ms. Eun-Hae,” Si-Woo said, his voice now devoid of any emotion, cold and final. “And if you know what is good for you, you will forget everything that happened tonight. Especially me.”

But just as he turned to walk into the shadows, a faint, metallic glint caught Eun-Hae’s eye. It was a single, tiny tear-shaped charm, identical to the one she wore on a necklace since childhood, lying half-hidden beneath the pedestal where he had been standing.

As she reached for it, Si-Woo's body froze. He couldn't risk turning around, because he knew exactly what she was touching. An ancient relic. A piece of their fate.