POV — Taejun
She was still struggling.
Both hands against my chest — pushing, insistent — and I could feel the strength in her even through everything that was running through me, even through the Aphrodisiac that had reduced my entire existence down to one single overwhelming demand.
"What are you doing—" Her voice came out sharp and frightened. "What are you doing to me—"
"I'm sorry." The words came out rough. Barely words at all. "I'm sorry — I was drugged — I — you are too beautiful — please — please help me—"
I don't know if she heard all of it.
I don't know if any of it made sense.
But my hand found her VJ and she gasped — sharp and sudden — and the struggling stopped.
Just like that.
Stopped.
Her hands were still on my chest but they were no longer pushing and her breathing had changed completely and I looked at her face — really looked at it for the first time — and saw something there that had nothing to do with fear anymore.
I kept going.
I couldn't stop.
The Aphrodisiac wouldn't let me stop and honestly in that moment I wasn't sure I wanted to — her skin under my hands, her warmth, the sounds she was making that she clearly hadn't intended to make — every single thing about her was pulling me deeper and deeper into something I had no language for.
I touched her everywhere.
Every part of her. Slowly. Deliberately. Like I had been given something I hadn't known I needed and my hands were trying to memorise all of it before it disappeared.
She wasn't struggling.
She wasn't telling me to stop.
She was — here. Present. Her breathing coming fast and her eyes half closed and her body responding to everything I did with a honesty that made something in my chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with the drug.
I pulled the towel from around my waist.
And then—
She made a sound.
Small. Sharp. Surprised.
It cut through everything.
I froze.
Her nails found my arm — both hands gripping — digging in hard enough that I felt the sting of it, felt the small line of pain running across my skin, looked down and saw the faint marks she had left there bleeding slightly.
She was crying.
Quietly. Not dramatically. Just — tears falling without her permission, her face turned slightly away from mine like she was trying to hide them.
I didn't move.
I waited.
And slowly — slowly — she stopped.
Her grip on my arm loosened.
Her breathing steadied.
And we stayed there together in the ruined quiet of room 2204 with the broken glass still on the floor and the water still drying on the tiles and the whole impossible evening pressing down around us.
I released.
And then I had nothing left.
I fell back against the bed — flat, completely emptied out, the Aphrodisiac finally, finally quiet — and stared at the ceiling.
"God."
A pause.
"What have I done."
She moved before I did.
I felt her sit up. Heard the small sounds of her finding her clothes in the dark — fabric against skin, the quiet urgent movements of someone who needed to be somewhere else immediately.
I reached out.
"Wait—"
She was already at the door.
It opened.
It closed.
And she was gone.
I lay there for exactly five seconds.
Then I was on my feet.
Cap. Mask. Jacket.
I went to the door and pulled it open and stepped out into the corridor.
Empty.
I walked quickly to the lift and rode down to the lobby and came out onto the street.
I looked left.
I looked right.
Nothing.
No sign of her anywhere — not on the pavement, not across the road, not in any direction as far as I could see. The street was quiet and empty and completely indifferent and she was simply — gone.
Like she had never been there at all.
I stood on the pavement for a moment longer.
Then I raised my hand for a cab.
One pulled up immediately.
I got in.
The door closed.
I sat in the back of that cab with my hands in my lap and let everything that had happened in room 2204 settle over me all at once.
Her face.
The way she had looked at me when she walked through that door — calm and professional and completely unbothered — not knowing, not having any idea what she was walking into.
Her voice.
What are you doing.
Her tears.
Quiet and private and turned away from me like she hadn't wanted me to see them — like she had been trained to cry where nobody could notice.
Her nails on his arm — still stinging faintly through his jacket sleeve.
And underneath all of it — louder than all of it — the one question that had no answer.
Who is she.
Not her name. Not where she lived. Not anything that would help him find her. She had walked into his room and walked back out and taken everything with her and left him with nothing except the marks on his arm and a guilt so heavy he could feel it in his chest like something with actual weight.
What have I done to her.
Who drugged me and why.
Will I ever find her.
Does she hate me.
The cab moved through the quiet streets and Taejun sat in the back with a hundred questions and not a single was answered
Because there was nothing to say.
And nobody to say it to.