The journey from the Obsidian Vault was a study in agonizing proximity. Kwon Si-Woo’s black sedan—a seamless extension of his own cold, controlled aura—cut through the deluge of rain, the wipers struggling against the sheer volume of water. The rhythmic swish-swish-swish was the only sound besides the ragged tempo of Eun-Hae's breathing.

Si-Woo drove with unnerving precision, his profile a rigid masterpiece carved from granite. His hands gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, his knuckles still faintly white, the tension in his shoulders betraying the war raging beneath his expensive tailored suit. He hadn’t spoken a word since shoving her into the leather passenger seat.

Eun-Hae sat pressed against the door, acutely aware of the millimeters separating their bodies. The space was not a physical gap, but a vast chasm dug by centuries and guarded by a deadly curse. Yet, the memory of his hot breath against her ear—"I have only ever loved you"—was a burning brand on her soul, making the space feel infinitesimally small.

She reached for the inner pocket of her dress, her fingers brushing against the cool, smooth surface of the Tear of the Fallen Star. The charm felt impossibly heavy, the key to an ancient story she was only just beginning to read. The immediate psychic shock had worn off, replaced by a deep, hollow conviction: she was tied to him, and he was terrified of the connection.

“Where are you taking me?” Eun-Hae finally broke the silence, her voice surprisingly steady, though it lacked its usual sharp certainty. “My studio is in Mapo. You missed the turn.”

Si-Woo did not spare her a glance. “I know where your studio is. I also know that your studio apartment has glass walls and curious neighbors. We will not be discussing millennia-old curses and forbidden relics in a structure made primarily of modern glass and lies.”

He signaled smoothly and turned onto a private road winding up Namsan Mountain, the city lights receding beneath them, leaving them cocooned in shadow and rain.

“You’re taking me to your home,” she realized, her heart stuttering. The thought of being in his personal space—a place surely steeped in the ancient secrets he guarded—sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine.

“I am taking you to a place where we will not be overheard by those who monitor things that should remain buried,” he corrected, his tone clipped. “And after you have surrendered the charm, you will be taken directly back to your modern, safe life. You will forget this night. You will forget me.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, turning her whole body to face his unyielding profile. “You just admitted we were in love. You admitted you died for me. You can’t tell a person to forget a destiny that just came calling after all this time.”

He slammed his hand against the center console, the sudden, violent movement making her flinch. The sound was deafening in the small, confined space. He did not look at her, but his jaw was clenched, a vein throbbing visibly in his temple.

Si-Woo inhaled slowly, deeply, then let out a breath that sounded less like air and more like escaping smoke. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained, agonizingly honest, yet delivered with a clinical brutality intended to wound. This was the moment of his greatest defense—the truth as a weapon.

“You ask me to be honest? Fine, Eun-Hae. I will give you the truth you crave. The one I have spent three thousand years burying.”

He brought the car to a halt in front of a sprawling, traditional hanok hidden behind high stone walls, a silent monument beneath the storm. He didn't turn off the engine.

“The curse is not simply that I cannot touch a mortal,” he began, his sapphire eyes finally meeting hers, and the raw sorrow in their depths was a crushing weight. “That is the consequence, the warning label. The curse is that for every life you live—and you have lived many, Hae-Ah—I am bound to watch you. Bound to love you. And bound to see you reach a certain age—the age of your first awareness of me—before fate rips you away.”

He paused, letting the cold, shocking magnitude of his words sink in. The rain outside seemed to quiet, listening.

“You have already died for me three times,” he confessed, the memory of each death a ghost in his voice. “The last time was two hundred years ago. You were a poet. You caught a fever after standing in the rain, waiting for me.”

A single tear slid down Eun-Hae’s cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. It felt ancient, belonging to the poet.

“The other, before that,” Si-Woo continued, his voice dropping to a painful rasp, “was accidental. You were shielding me from a rival guardian. It was a spear through your heart. I carried your body for three days before you finally… faded.”

He reached across the console, his fingers stopping inches from her face. His hand was trembling slightly, a tremor of intense restraint.

“You want to know the deepest, most terrifying secret? The price of this love? My prolonged existence is built upon your finite one. Every time you die, a fragment of your life force is tethered to the Tear of the Fallen Star, and that energy, that borrowed life, is what sustains my curse and my power. I am an immortal parasite, Eun-Hae. I keep living because you keep dying. Our love is a debt repaid by your demise.”

His confession hung between them, thick with the scent of metallic power and her own sudden, cold dread. He looked utterly defeated, yet desperate.

“You asked me why I pushed you away. I push you away because the moment you remembered me—the moment you saw my blood in your vision, the moment you touched that charm—you activated the clock. The current borrowed life you are living? It is now on a timer. The closer we get, the faster it runs out.”

He took a final, devastating breath. “Give me the charm. Let me seal the energy and reset the timeline. Let me save you by severing this thread and sending you back to a life where you never knew the phantom ache. Please, Eun-Hae. For your life, forget this terrible, wonderful night.”

Eun-Hae stared at him, not in horror of her own potential death, but in absolute, crushing anguish for his eternal, self-imposed isolation. He wasn't afraid of dying; he was afraid of losing her again. He was sentencing himself to another few centuries of watching her from the shadows.

Her hand moved slowly, drawing the cool, tear-shaped charm from her pocket. She held it up, the faint pink glow now pulsing slightly in the dark interior of the car.

“You’re wrong,” she said, her voice a strong, clear bell in the silence. “The curse isn’t love. The curse is believing that isolating yourself is protection. The curse is believing I’d choose a life without an ache over a night that felt like forever.”

She leaned across the console, bridging the gap he had fought so hard to maintain. She still didn't touch him, but she brought her face close, mirroring the intimacy of his whisper back at the gallery.

“You said you are an immortal parasite. I say you are the man I’ve been searching for across three thousand years. If my time is short, then I won’t waste a second of it running from the truth. If the curse is fueled by our love, then we will break it with our love.”

She pressed the charm into the center console, close to his trembling hand, but did not let him retrieve it.

“Tell me about the rival guardian,” she challenged, her eyes fierce, refusing the easy escape he offered. “Tell me about the Oath that broke us. I’m not leaving until I know how to break this cycle, Si-Woo. If I’m going to die, I’ll die fighting beside you, not running away from you.”

The air in the car thickened, charged with her defiance and his agonizing realization that this modern version of his soulmate was the most stubborn, beautiful, and dangerous one yet. She wouldn't be saved by distance. She could only be saved by breaking the curse together.