It started with whispers.
Then came the glances. The likes. The reposts.
And finally, the venom.
In a fluorescent-lit café nestled on the outskirts of Busan, two young women sat on opposite corners. Both had come wearing SOLARIS merchandise—oversized black hoodies from their debut showcase. Both had lightsticks dangling from their backpacks. Both claimed to be Jae-min's 'number one fan.'
But that afternoon, only one would leave unhurt.
Jin-hee sat alone, sipping from a plastic cup of strawberry milk. She'd just uploaded her video from the recent Seoul pop-up store—where she'd managed to get a small wave from Jae-min. A miracle. One second, caught on camera. It had already reached 3,000 views. Her caption read: "He looked right at me. I know he remembers."
From the other corner, Hyun-ae had been watching.
She had recognized Jin-hee the moment she walked in.
The faker. The thief of glances. The delusional imposter who dared to claim Jae-min's attention.
It wasn't just fan rivalry. It was obsession.
Hyun-ae's own room was a shrine—walls layered with Jae-min's photos, from rehearsals to press events. A body pillow. A toothbrush she claimed he once used. Her lockscreen: a badly edited image of their faces spliced together like a wedding shoot.
She watched Jin-hee laugh, sip, smile.
A switch flipped.
Within minutes, the café echoed with shouting. Tables toppled. People stared as Hyun-ae lunged across the room, pulling Jin-hee's hair, screaming in broken English and K-Korean.
"YOU LIED! YOU STOLE HIM FROM ME!"
Jin-hee screamed, trying to push her off.
It took three strangers to separate them.
Hyun-ae's eyes were wild, bloodshot, and unfocused. She wasn't just angry. She was unraveling.
And in a different plane—a place without time, without shape—he watched.
The demon Asura.
He had no face.
He didn't need one.
His essence was made of rage and regret, born from the discarded desires of forgotten fans and broken dreams. Long ago, he too had been human. Once.
Once.
But now he lived off twisted love, devouring the dark corners of obsession and turning it into power.
He stood atop the invisible void between worlds, watching Hyun-ae's rage through eyes not his own.
"She's ready," he whispered.
The shadows around him hissed.
He extended his arm, and a sliver of his essence slipped into the café—unseen, unfelt—nesting into Hyun-ae's spine.
She stilled.
Eyes vacant.
But a smile spread across her lips.
That night, #JaeMinFanFight trended briefly.
Fans were divided—some condemning the behavior, others glamorizing it as "true devotion."
Jin-hee deleted her account.
Hyun-ae started a new one.
@JaeMinsOnlyOne
Her bio read:
"If I can't have him, no one will."
Back in Seoul, Jae-min scrolled through the incident half-asleep in the dressing room.
He sighed.
His bandmate, Min-jae, looked up from his water bottle. "Another one?"
Jae-min nodded. "They fought in public. Again."
"This isn't love anymore."
"It never was," Jae-min muttered.
He shut the phone. And looked up at the ceiling. The white tiles, the cold lights.
He didn't know why, but for a moment, he remembered her—the girl from the video. The one who didn't scream. The one who didn't beg.
He wondered where she was now.
In Mumbai, Aarohi awoke from a nightmare she didn't remember.
All she felt was cold.
And watched.
A single phrase echoed in her half-sleeping mind:
"If I can't have him, no one will."
She didn't know where it came from.
But far beyond her window, the shadow moved again.
And Asura whispered:
"Soon."