The Man Standing at the Edge of Suspicion
His instincts kicked in on the way to work.
Lately, Sang-hyuk had been sensing someone's gaze more often than usual. It wasn't the familiar frequency of women staring at him with admiration — this was a different kind of wave, a different kind of intent.
At first he dismissed it as mere paranoia. But on the morning subway, the moment he stepped into the company building, even walking the streets at lunch — he could feel eyes watching him from a fixed distance.
The presence wasn't hostile, though. No murderous intent. It was closer to observation — calm, professional, measured.
Who is it? Am I being followed?
Sang-hyuk gave nothing away. He crossed the company lobby with his earphones in, same as always. But the gaze at his back refused to fade.
After clocking in —
The Management Support Team office.
The moment Sang-hyuk sat down, the air around him shifted in that subtle, familiar way. The female employees' eyes drifted toward him out of habit, lingered, then fell away again. He was used to it by now.
Once something becomes routine, it becomes ordinary. And once it's ordinary, the thrill and the excitement simply stop.
After the morning meeting, he ran into Lee Yu-na in the hallway. She was carrying a stack of documents, and the instant she saw him, her steps froze.
"…Deputy Shin."
Her voice was lower than usual, trembling just slightly.
Without a word, Sang-hyuk took her by the wrist and pulled her toward the emergency stairwell. The door had barely shut before he pressed his lips to hers and poured his saliva into her mouth.
A long, deep French kiss followed. Yu-na sucked on his tongue as if she meant to pull it free, straining for every drop of his spit she could take. Their tongues coiled together like two snakes.
"Enough."
At his command, Yu-na nodded weakly.
It was a brief contact — just enough to maintain the addiction. He didn't let it drag on any longer than that.
Count Valentine's core pulsed quietly, as if satisfied. Spreading his power through women and binding them to him was becoming more natural by the day.
Afternoon.
In the lobby of Taesung Group Headquarters, people from the affiliates had gathered in front of the elevators, waiting to deliver their reports.
Among them, one woman spotted Sang-hyuk and stopped in her tracks.
Song Mi-jin.
CEO of Taesung Bio. Younger sister of Executive Director Song Hee-jun, and daughter of the Group Chairman.
Unlike her older brother Hee-jun — still stuck as an executive director at headquarters under their father's thumb well into his late thirties — she had already climbed to the presidency of an affiliate in her mid-thirties and proven her worth through sheer results. Their eldest brother, for his part, ran another of the group's core subsidiaries.
Of the three siblings, only Song Hee-jun had failed to fully earn their father's trust, remaining at headquarters under the pretext of successor training, still holding the executive director's seat.
Song Mi-jin looked Sang-hyuk up and down, slowly. So this was the man the whole company had been talking about lately — Deputy Shin, the face of the firm.
"…Deputy Shin Sang-hyuk?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Mi-jin braced a stack of documents against one hand and fixed her gaze on his face.
He was different from the first impression she'd expected. Beyond handsome — there was a strange pull to him, a presence that drew people in.
"Working in Management Support at headquarters is fine, but have you ever thought about working with us?"
Before Sang-hyuk could answer, she held out a business card.
"Taesung Bio is looking to reinforce the Strategy Office. If you're interested, get in touch. I'll speak with headquarters myself."
She smiled briefly. There was more than a simple recruitment pitch in that smile — a clear, personal interest.
"You've got the looks, and the presence to match. You'd be put to better use at our company."
Even as she walked away, Song Mi-jin glanced back at him one more time.
Sang-hyuk turned the card over between his fingers.
A new face, a new self — and now new eyes, new opportunities, were opening toward him.
Hye-seon had come home.
The lower half of her body still ached from offering her virginity to Sang-hyuk.
Even alone, just thinking of him brought a smile to her face.
The more she replayed the night before, the more it stirred her all over again.
As the daughter of a devout Christian household, she hadn't even given her virginity to Ji-hoon, the man she'd promised to marry. Her parents had always stressed premarital purity, and Hye-seon had done her best to honor that teaching. At least, until she met Sang-hyuk.
She checked her phone. A message from Ji-hoon asking how she was. She sent a short reply and locked the screen immediately.
The deeper the night grew, the more honest her body became. Even buried under the covers, she kept feeling Sang-hyuk's hands, his breath, and that overwhelming sensation that had completely undone her.
Her legs trembled faintly. In the end, Hye-seon was the one who reached out first.
The next day, at Sang-hyuk's studio apartment.
Hye-seon was on her knees, sucking his cock. Spit overflowed and soaked his groin. Sang-hyuk gripped the back of her head and pushed himself deep into her mouth.
"Ghk— ghk—"
Even as the head of his cock stabbed her throat and she gagged again and again, she clenched around him, tightening her throat for him.
If it would please him, she didn't care what happened to her body.
Thanks to Count Valentine's core, once Sang-hyuk got hard he could easily last an average of four hours. Even after climax, a ten-minute rest was enough to go another full four. Endurance far beyond any human limit.
His cock was no longer a reproductive organ. It had become a predator's weapon — a tool for dominating women.
Sang-hyuk used her throat slowly, but deeply. Before long, the signs of climax began to build.
Still gripping the back of her head, he came deep into her mouth.
"Swallow."
Hot semen flooded her mouth in a massive rush.
"Mmph… mmph…"
The volume was enormous. Hye-seon sucked hard, determined not to spill a single drop of the thick, musky fluid sliding down her throat.
With every swallow, her body was being trained to want him more — an addiction taking root.
"Slurp…"
She licked the last of the cum from the corners of her mouth and gasped for breath. Her eyes were unfocused, fixed on his cock with a longing she could no longer escape.
In that moment, Sang-hyuk's phone rang. It was Ji-hoon.
Sang-hyuk answered without pulling out of her mouth.
"…You deposited it? Got it."
A short answer, and he hung up.
He checked the deposit through internet banking, then stood up from the sofa. He stroked Hye-seon's hair and spoke calmly.
"Ji-hoon deposited the full amount. The collateral arrangement ends here. You're free. Go back to him."
Hye-seon slowly lifted her head. Cum still smeared across her lips, she stared at him. Despair filled her eyes.
"…What?"
"The collateral's been released, so go back to the man who's going to be your husband. We don't have any more business with each other."
At those words, her expression twisted sharply.
"What are you talking about? That goes against the code of the trade!"
Sang-hyuk frowned.
"The code of the trade?"
"Who just takes the principal and calls it done? There's interest! If you don't collect the interest, that's a violation of social justice!"
Hye-seon grabbed his clothes like a woman genuinely furious. The rims of her eyes had gone red.
"I don't need interest."
"Why are you so soft? You have to squeeze every last bit out of people! Please… collect the interest properly, all the way to the end. I'll pay it off with my body."
Before Sang-hyuk could say another word, she turned around. She bent over the bed, face down, and spread her own ass with both hands.
Her anus, clenched tight like a chrysanthemum bud, was fully exposed. She must have relaxed the sphincter — a small black hole had opened.
With her face buried in the sheets, Hye-seon spoke in a trembling voice.
"I'll pay with my ass… Take the interest. Please… If you don't, my conscience can't take it."
Sang-hyuk looked down at Hye-seon — that pure face, begging her boyfriend's friend to fuck her open hole — and found himself at a loss for how to handle this.
An old motel on the outskirts of the city.
Yu-mi stood in front of the bathroom mirror. The wounds on her shoulders and flanks — torn open by silver ectoplasm threads — still hadn't fully healed.
Black blood had dried into scabs.
The price of killing Noctis had been steeper than expected.
She lit a cigarette and stared out the window. The city lights looked different somehow. The hunger was still there, but it wasn't simple anymore.
"…Sang-hyuk."
The moment she murmured his name, a strange bitterness filled her mouth. The man who had made her this way. The one who claimed to free her, only to cast a shadow over her entire life.
Then, from the building across the street, an unfamiliar presence brushed past her.
She moved to the window and looked out.
The source seemed to be a café in the building opposite.
The gaze of her own kind. Curiosity, wariness, and a thin thread of hostility mixed together.
A rookie who'd killed a five-hundred-year-old senior was already drawing the attention of other incubi and succubi. Of course.
Yu-mi stubbed her cigarette out in the motel's paper cup of instant coffee and spat.
They're just testing the waters. Doesn't look like they're coming to kill me right away.
Was the bitch I killed that much of a name among the succubi?
She looked at her own face in the mirror one more time. Almost nothing of the old Kim Yu-mi remained.
Right… so that's what it was. Now I get it.
Staring at her transformed face, Yu-mi suddenly understood why Sang-hyuk had become so handsome.
When you become a dream demon, your appearance gets recalibrated to match the ideal of the opposite sex in that era…
Well, of course. A dream demon's whole purpose is to seduce and devour the opposite sex. Being ugly wouldn't cut it.
Human looks, if you measured them purely by numbers, didn't differ that much between the ugly and the beautiful. A few millimeters of nose height or eye size was all that separated a plain face from a stunning one.
Whatever had been injected into her — if it was a demon's power — reconstructing the facial contour cells probably wasn't that big a deal.
Either way, her current appearance was still based on her old self, just heavily upgraded.
Looking like this, I could even snag a chaebol's son…
But human money and status meant little to her now.
One thing she knew for certain.
She was no longer human. A normal life was impossible.
From here on, she would either be hunted down and killed — or keep hunting humans herself, enduring a terrible emptiness across an eternity of time.
Anyway… where's the nearest church or temple?
The hunger rose again. It was time to find her next meal.
At the same hour, the temporary operations command post of the Special Disaster Response Division.
Shin Sang-hyuk's movements were displayed on the monitors in real time.
"Subject shows no abnormal behavior. Maintaining daily patterns."
An agent reported. The team leader rested his chin on his hand and stared at the screen.
"What about the anomalous cell detector?"
"We've conducted three long-range scans. Results… all negative."
The deputy tilted his head.
"If he were a dream demon, there should be a reaction. There's not even a trace of residual energy."
The team leader's brow tightened.
"The connection to Kim Yu-mi is clear. But the man himself isn't a dream demon…?"
He looked down at Sang-hyuk's photograph. That unnaturally handsome face. The statements from people around him. And Yu-mi's awakening.
"This is likely more than a simple connection. Make direct contact."
Evening.
When Sang-hyuk opened the front door of his studio after work, two men in black coats were standing in the hallway.
The one in front held out an ID.
"Lee Ju-sung, Section Chief, Special Disaster Response Division, under the Office of the Prime Minister. Are you Shin Sang-hyuk?"
Sang-hyuk's eyes narrowed slightly.
The man smiled briefly and continued.
"We'll need you to come with us for a moment. There are a few things we'd like to ask regarding Ms. Kim Yu-mi."
Under the hallway light, their gazes quietly locked.
Sang-hyuk slowly lifted the corner of his mouth.
"…Understood. Lead the way."
(To be continued)