Hyunjin's POV
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He whispered forever like it was a vow.
His breath ghosted over my lips just before his mouth touched mine- soft, slow, almost reverent. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought it was love. Maybe it was. Maybe his kind of love always came dressed in red.
But the cold steel pressed to my throat told another story.
I didn’t move. I didn’t scream. I just looked at him- felix. His eyes didn’t flinch, didn’t soften, didn’t even flicker with guilt. They were oceans- still, but endless. I drowned in them even as my blood started to pool beneath us.
“Lix…” My voice cracked more from heartbreak than the cut now forming on my neck.
He tilted his head slightly, almost curious, like a painter admiring his first stroke on a blank canvas.
“I told you,” he murmured, dragging the blade a little deeper, “we’d be together forever.”
A bitter laugh escaped me- wet and sharp. “You never said it would be like this.”
He smiled, and god, it was still the same smile. The same boy who used to steal flowers for me on rainy days. The same boy who sang lullabies in a cracked voice just to keep me from crying. The same boy I kissed under summer fireworks, promising the world even though we had nothing.
Except this wasn’t that boy.
Or maybe it was.
Maybe i was the fool who didn’t look close enough. Maybe the monster didn’t grow in him- it was always there, quiet, waiting. Waiting for me to fall hard enough to not see the red flags waving in the distance.
I wanted to beg. I wanted to scream why?.
But I didn’t. I just looked at him.
And he looked back- like he was proud. Like this moment, me bleeding for him, was the masterpiece he’d been trying to paint all along.
The knife dug in again. Warmth spilled down my chest, thick and fast. My knees buckled.
And still, I whispered, “I loved you.”
He caught me as I collapsed, like he always did, with gentle arms and trembling hands. “You still do.”
He was right.
Even as I lay on the floor, breath shallow, vision fading, I thought, He's beautiful. So painfully beautiful. His curls falling in front of his eyes, cheeks flushed, hands stained with my blood. A demon draped in angel skin.
The floor was slick. My fingers twitched, reaching for him- not to fight, not to flee, but because even in death, I wanted him close. I didn’t care if it made me pathetic. I was already broken.
He cradled my face as if he hadn't just carved into me.
“I’ll see you soon,” he whispered, voice softer than ever. “I’ll follow you.”
I wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe this wasn’t the end, even as everything darkened.
Because even drowning in my own blood, even torn open by the hands I loved most…
God, he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
