Kaein's POV
I woke up before the sun finished climbing through the curtains. My back ached, and for a few seconds I couldn't tell where I was. Then I saw Ren lying next to me, all calm and unbothered.
He looked unreal in that kind of half-light. His hair was a mess, falling over his face, and his skin had that early-morning glow that made me question everything I thought I knew about people's faces, his perfect glowing white skin was going to be the end of me. His eyelashes looked longer than usual, and I swear, they caught the light like they had their own damn power source.
I kept staring. I didn't mean to. But he was right there, breathing softly, like he was having the best dream of his life, while my brain was slowly catching fire. I thought maybe I was imagining things, but when he finally opened his eyes, something in me just stopped.
The left eye opened first, slow and gentle, like it was waking up at its own pace. The right one followed, a little wider, a little sharper. The left one stayed smaller, somehow softer. It shouldn't have made sense, but it did. It made him look different. Not just good-looking, but kind of… extraordinary.
And I'm not the type to use words like "extraordinary."
He blinked at me once, sleepy and confused. Then he frowned a little.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" he asked. His voice came out rough, deep from sleep.
I didn't even think. I just said the first stupid thing that came to my head.
"The lashes on your left eye look fewer than the right. Maybe that's why the left one's prettier."
The second the words left my mouth, I wanted to die.
Ren raised an eyebrow. "Did you just call my left eye prettier?"
"No, I meant It's just… Forget it."
He grinned, slow and annoying. "Wow. You've been counting my lashes in your free time?"
I rubbed my neck. "I wasn't counting. I just noticed."
"Sure," he said, stretching like a cat that knew it was being watched. "You just noticed."
"I'm serious."
"So am I," he said. "You're really bad at lying."
There was a pause, and I made the mistake of looking down at his mouth.
Don't ask me why. Maybe because he kept talking, and his lips moved slowly, too slow, and they were… I don't know how to say it without sounding weird. They just looked soft, that's all. The kind of soft that made my throat tighten for no reason.
I stood up too fast, pretending to look for something on the floor. "I should go."
"Go where?" he asked.
"Base," I said. "I've got a mission."
He sat up, blanket sliding down his chest a little too low for me to keep my eyes where they should be. "You just woke up. You could at least pretend you're human and eat something."
"I'm good," I said.
"You're lying again."
"Yeah, well," I said, halfway out the door, "I'm consistent."
I didn't look back, because I didn't trust myself not to.
Outside, the air was cold enough to sting. I tried to shake the feeling off, like I could leave it behind if I just walked fast enough. Didn't work. The memory of how he looked still clung to me all the way to the Corps base.
By the time I got there, I was already bracing for the usual lecture, but the second I walked in and saw who was waiting, I realized this wasn't "usual."
Shion, Takeshi, Daichi all sitting there, arms crossed like some kind of tribunal. Behind them stood my adoptive parents, with their two kids peeking.
Perfect. Family drama before breakfast.
"Kaein," my adoptive father said. His tone had that edge that meant he'd already decided I was guilty. "You didn't come home last night."
"Yeah," I said, unbothered. "I was working."
"Working?" Takeshi leaned forward, smirking. "Looked more like you were camping."
Shion didn't even bother to hide her disappointment. "You broke curfew again."
"I'm an adult," I said. "Curfew doesn't apply to adults."
Daichi chuckled. "You sure? Because last time I checked, adults don't sneak off and turn their trackers off."
That one got my father's attention. He frowned. "You turned off your tracker?"
"I didn't want anyone following me."
"And why would we need to?" my mother snapped. "Unless you were somewhere you shouldn't be."
I laughed under my breath. "You make it sound like I committed treason. I just needed space."
"Space?" she said, raising her voice now. "You disappear for a night, come back acting like nothing happened, and call it space? What if you ran into a demon? What if one of them tricked you? Have you forgotten what they did to your parents?"
That one landed. Hard.
I felt the floor tilt a little under me. My jaw tightened before I could stop it. I didn't say anything for a while, because I didn't trust what would come out.
Takeshi's smirk vanished when he saw my face. The room went quiet except for the sound of my pulse beating way too fast in my ears.
I could still see it when she said those words: my real parents, my little sister hiding behind them. My father had trusted that demon. Said it was harmless. Said it wanted peace. I believed him because he sounded sure. He barely knew it was a demon.
That night, I heard him screaming before I saw the blood. My sister didn't even make it out of her room. I remember running barefoot through the smoke, the heat burning my legs. I remember a woman's voice whispering that she was NOT sorry. A demon's voice.
I hadn't talked about it since. I didn't like remembering that the only reason I survived was because my adoptive father found me half-conscious on the road the next morning. They took me in, fed me, trained me. Their family had been slayers for generations, the ones who built the Corps from the ground up. The ones the other villages looked to when things got bad.
So yeah, when my mother said that when she reminded me what happened it hit like a knife.
"I haven't forgotten," I said quietly. "You think I could?"
She crossed her arms. "Then act like it."
I took a deep breath. "I'm not friends with any demon. I just needed time to clear my head."
My father's tone softened, but not much. "We worry because you mean something to us. You're not alone in this."
"Yeah," I said. "Doesn't feel like it."
He sighed. "Enough. We'll talk later. Right now, we've got work."
That was his way of saying this conversation's over because I don't want to deal with your emotions. Classic move.
Shion turned toward me. "We've got new orders from the head base. It's time you explained what you found about the demon attacks last week."
I blinked, caught off guard. "You mean the ones nea
r the east border?"
"Those," she said. "The survivors said they saw something strange. We need every detail."