Seoul, 1983

She disappeared the night the Black Lotus warehouse exploded — smoke, gunfire, and a single pair of earrings left behind. Jungkook had searched for weeks, ripping apart gangs and ghost-trailing every whisper of her name. But she was gone. Dead, they said. Or worse — taken. What they didn't know: she was never a civilian. She was trained. Embedded. His.

They had history long before the empire, before the blood. She was his edge — the only one who ever got close enough to hurt him... and the only one who didn't.

Now, two years later, she was back.

Seoul, 1985

The old warehouse near Mapo was collapsing in fire, the sky above it pulsing red as flames reached for the stars. Inside, broken glass crunched beneath Jungkook's boots as he stepped over bodies, his coat heavy with smoke and blood. His pistol was nearly empty — only one bullet left. Ahead of him, two men moved in the dark, unaware they were seconds from dying.

But then, without warning, someone emerged from the smoke.

The moment he saw her, time stopped. Her face was illuminated by firelight — older, marked, different — but unmistakably hers. She stood still, her eyes on him, just as calm as she had always been.

Jungkook didn't lower his weapon. His voice, when it came, was quiet but steady. "You came back."

Before anything else could be said, one of the armed men behind her raised his gun. Jungkook fired without hesitation, the bullet ripping through the man's head with brutal precision. The second man turned and fled into the dark, the warehouse swallowing his retreat.

As the silence returned, Jungkook stepped closer, unable to pull his gaze from her. Every step toward her felt like peeling open a wound he had learned to live with. He studied her features — the streak of blood on her cheek, the small burn just below her collarbone, the slight tremor in her hand that she tried to hide.

"They told me you were dead," he said, his voice quieter now, laced with something heavier than disbelief.

He glanced briefly at her wrist, where the scar still ran pale and deliberate along her skin. It was a mark from another life — a shared one — and seeing it again made something sharp twist inside him.

"Why now?" he asked, not expecting an answer.

Without a word, she reached toward him, took the pistol from his belt, and checked the chamber with the same ease she always had. After confirming what he already knew, she handed it back, her eyes never leaving his.

"I should kill you," he said, not with anger, but with the quiet acknowledgment of someone who had considered it for too long. "But I won't."