A Bond Tight Enough to Hurt

Won-gyeong couldn’t tell whether the feelings he had now were born because he’d been affected by the curse, or whether they were feelings that would have arisen even without it.

Unlike Doya, who began expressing her emotions openly the moment the curse took hold, Won-gyeong found it difficult to show his affection toward her.

Her affection looked clear and pure, but what he felt toward Doya was sticky, clinging.

A hug wasn’t enough.

Just brushing her hair wasn’t enough to cool the heat in his body.

The desire to bite into her soft lips and push inside tightened painfully in one corner of his chest.

As Doya rested her forehead against his chest, eyes closed in apparent peace, he found himself wishing she wasn’t actually at peace.

Like him.

As much as him.

He wanted to kiss places no one else could reach, to tangle their legs together.

<If there’s anything you want to do to me, it’s fine.>

If Doya hadn’t said that, Won-gyeong wouldn’t have been able to endure the overwhelming desire.

<Everything that happens inside the rift gets forgotten.
This isn’t even real emotion anyway.>

Doya’s calm, matter-of-fact attitude, as if solving a simple problem, felt strangely off.

She truly seemed to think that mingling bodies was ‘nothing.’

At least, that’s how it had looked—until Won-gyeong said, “I wish you weren’t fine with it.”

Doya had asked why in a voice so small it felt like it might snap.

And when he answered again…

The shoulder pressed against his began to tremble in tiny spasms.

It was the reaction of someone facing fear.

Clutching his shoulder tightly as her body shook, Doya suddenly shoved him away and wrapped her arms around herself.

Curling inward defensively, she begged him to stop.

She seemed completely unaware of what kind of expression she was making, or how she was trembling.

<Please, Won-gyeong. Stop.>

Please. Please stop….

She repeated it over and over.

In the end, he had no choice but to change the subject.

Doya calmed down quickly, but Won-gyeong couldn’t forget that reaction.

That face that had looked so unbothered, as if physical intimacy meant nothing at all.

‘Wasn’t Doya forced to be fine?’

To remain calm, that act had to be meaningless.

So she was deceiving even herself.

After all, her first suggestion hadn’t been a lie.

More than being trapped alone with Doya in this rift, her reaction bothered him.

To begin with, finding the ‘queen bee’ in this rift wouldn’t have been difficult for him.

At first, he’d stayed a little longer out of curiosity about uncovering Doya’s ability.

Then after the curse took hold, leaving somehow felt regretful….

Won-gyeong let out a long sigh and leaned back against the sofa.

Doya, who had seemed fragile at first glance, was far colder than expected.

And far sharper.

Give her a few clues and she quickly pierced through the rift’s weak points.

She claimed it was her first time entering a rift, yet she hadn’t panicked even once, simply following his instructions without hesitation.

Doya was excessively calm and rational.

That initial impression had been close to a lie.

‘Was it an act?’

Recalling the sight of Doya trembling as she held a knife, something suddenly snagged in Won-gyeong’s mind.

‘If that trembling was an act, wasn’t her reaction too fast?’

If it were acting, it would mean she had anticipated an intruder.

‘No.That can’t be.’

There was no way Doya, who didn’t even know about her ability, could have predicted their intrusion.

Still leaning against the sofa, Won-gyeong turned his head toward the bedroom where Doya was sleeping.

He pictured her closed eyes, her steady breathing—

And then—

“Doya.”

He sprang to his feet.

‘Is Doya… breathing right now?’

The ability he’d observed in her seemed like something even Doya herself couldn’t yet control.

Newly awakened ability users often failed to regulate their powers, activating them unconsciously.

Sometimes they became violent, but that usually happened with abilities that enhanced the body.

If it had been that kind of ability, Won-gyeong or others could have restrained her easily.

But Doya’s was a mental-type ability—one she herself couldn’t identify.

She had already entered and exited Jaeyul’s consciousness once.

Immediately after that, she’d fallen into the rift and been moving nonstop.

She likely hadn’t realized it, but her body was already suffering from the aftereffects of her ability.

If her powers continued to activate uncontrollably in that state, there was no telling what would happen to her body.

Won-gyeong rushed into the room, not even bothering to turn on the light, and hurried to Doya’s side.

An ability user’s body was usually reinforced beyond that of a normal person.

His vision adjusted to the darkness quickly, immediately picking out Doya lying on the bed.

He brought his hand close to her face, without even thinking to turn on the light.

‘Damn it.’

He crushed the curse between his teeth.

Doya wasn’t breathing.

He hadn’t even checked where her energy was headed, distracted for just a moment.

Cursing his own mistake, Won-gyeong reached for the bedside light.

Click.

With the sound of the switch, crimson light poured over Doya’s head.

“What… is this…?”

Seeing Doya’s body under the light, Won-gyeong’s face froze in shock and confusion.

Thinking the red lighting might be distorting his view, he turned on the white ceiling light as well.

With all the lights on, he approached and lifted the blanket covering her with trembling hands.

And then he knew his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

“No… Doya.”

The first thing he saw was her left leg, half-torn to shreds.

As if something had bitten into it, fabric and flesh were mangled, blood gushing freely.

That was the worst wound.

But there were others.

Her right hand was swollen a deep blue.

Wounds ran across her right shoulder and the nape of her neck.

Won-gyeong touched her cheek with shaking fingers.

‘I have to wake her up. Right now.’

The first thing he considered was forcibly shocking her body to wake her consciousness.

‘Physical shock won’t work. She’s already injured this badly and still hasn’t woken up.’

As he worked to stop the bleeding from her leg, his thoughts raced.

Whatever was happening inside her consciousness, her body was accumulating injuries in real time.

There was a way to pull out what people often called the ‘soul.’

Fortunately—or unfortunately—his ability allowed him to see such things and even bind them to himself if necessary.

But that method was something he used on enemies.

A curse that dragged the opponent’s ‘soul’ into a depth from which it couldn’t climb back.

That was why Won-gyeong hated calling what he saw ‘souls.’

If they truly were souls, then what he did was defile them.

It was easier to think of them as energy, or life force.

‘There’s no way I can do that to Doya.’

Even if he didn’t love her, he would never do such a thing.

Unless they were an enemy—and even then, he avoided it.

But Doya was being injured continuously.

He had to wake her consciousness as quickly as possible.

After finishing first aid on her leg, Won-gyeong turned his gaze and let out a low sound.

Her left arm.

It was broken.

He needed to treat it, but waking her was more urgent.

No matter how much he healed her body, if her consciousness didn’t return, the injuries would keep piling up.

He tore the bedsheet to immobilize her broken arm, deliberately forcing his eyes away from the smaller wounds continuing to appear.

He had never felt this kind of impatience before.

The sensation of someone else’s injuries hurting more than his own was unfamiliar.

If it meant Doya wouldn’t get hurt anymore, he would do anything.

And the method was right there, beside her pillow.

‘A spell that forcibly binds fate.’

Their connection—their souls—were already linked by a spell.

A crude spell that would last only a few days at most.

Their souls were connected by something like a single fragile thread.

Won-gyeong considered grabbing that thread connecting himself and Doya and forcibly pulling her soul back into her body.

‘The connection is too weak.’

The shoddy spell binding them now would snap under the strain of pulling her consciousness back.

Their souls simply weren’t bound tightly enough.

That was why the bond could break so easily.

Why their feelings could fade so quickly.

Strengthening a fragile bond was simple.

Overlay it with a new spell, tightly entwining their fates.

The conditions for the spell were demanding, but whether by luck or misfortune, all conditions were currently met.

First, both subjects must hold ‘affection’ for one another.

That condition was already fulfilled by the curse.

Second, a formation must be drawn using the blood of the spell’s subjects.

Only blood flowing from self-inflicted wounds could be used.

That condition was also met.

Injuries sustained beyond consciousness were considered self-inflicted.

Third, during the ritual, there must be mucosal contact where fresh blood from the wounds mixes.

The final condition was something he could manage.

Binding his soul tightly with that of a woman he’d known for such a short time was unthinkable.

Won-gyeong knew that.

But even as his mind rejected it, his body was already moving toward the bed where Doya lay.