A Blade at the Throat
At the word demon, my heart lurched.
A dozen thoughts shot through my head in an instant, but the answer that came out first was the one meant to get me past this moment.
"…No."
…Swish.
After a brief pause, I felt the cold presence withdraw from my throat.
Sensing the person behind me put distance between us, I turned my head while rubbing my neck — and there stood the woman from the lecture hall, holding a dagger engraved with all manner of strange patterns along its blade.
In that instant, the memory of the beings called Knights that the demon had told me about rose to the surface, and I barely suppressed the tremor before it could show, falling back on my acting.
After a lifetime of hiding my uncomfortable relationship with my sister from everyone around us — my own family included — my acting wasn't bad at all.
"Who the hell are you…? And what's this about demons? What do you want with me!?"
Deliberately working anger into my voice, I calculated the reaction anyone unconnected to demons should rightfully display in this situation.
"Your reaction told me everything. You're not a demon. But… judging by the scent I'm picking up, you're definitely connected to one somehow."
The woman didn't so much as pretend to listen to my words. She hid her blade and murmured to herself, her expression lost in thought.
Her cap slid back a little, revealing hair with straight-cut bangs.
And with it, glossy black strands that caught the light slipped down over her shoulders in a soft cascade.
The baggy military jacket and cap had concealed most of her, but even the parts that showed were enough to tell she was strikingly beautiful.
"So! What the hell is this 'demon' thing supposed to be?"
Afraid her black eyes might read some flicker of turmoil in mine, I deliberately didn't look away — I met her gaze head-on.
The woman stared at me steadily, as if trying to peer into my soul, then tilted her head slightly, her brows arching like a swallow's wings, as though my thoughts proved impossible to read.
"I can't tell if you're acting or not… If some demon has you in its clutches, tell me now. I can help you."
I stared blankly at her as if I couldn't understand a word she was saying, letting my performative anger show.
"I don't know what you're talking about, but nobody asks for help from the person who just put a knife to their throat, do they?"
The woman's startled expression broke into a quick laugh.
"Fair point. Either way, remember this. I belong to the side that stands against demons. I have the power to kill demons — and to save you."
Watching the woman turn away after saying her piece, ready to vanish, I thought:
Kill demons?
So she really is part of that group called the Knights.
How does she plan to find out about me?
What basis does she have for thinking I'm connected to a demon?
And if they truly could… could they kill Yoon Jia — kill the demon?
A momentary tremor stirred in me, but I quickly shook my head.
It was already settled. I couldn't let that happen, and I must not.
"What exactly are you trying to do here? Cause all this commotion and just walk away?"
When I spoke in a voice full of disbelief, the woman waved a hand over her shoulder without stopping.
"Call the police if you want. Tell them some crazy bitch threatened you with a knife and asked if you were a demon. For the record, there's no CCTV around here. And my name is Ryeonhwa. Yoon Dohyun."
The woman — Ryeonhwa — stopped abruptly, turned back to look at me, and said:
"I'll be watching you. I pray to everything holy that you're not a human tangled up with demons."
As I watched Ryeonhwa recede into the distance, I scanned my surroundings, but thankfully — or perhaps unfortunately — there wasn't a single witness in sight.
Relief and a tangle of far more complicated feelings crashed over me all at once.
Should I tell the demon what just happened?
That was the first thought I'd had, yet somehow I couldn't bring myself to act on it right away.
Which also meant I hadn't yet fully opened the door of my heart to the demon.
A chill crawled up my spine.
At the sudden wave of cold that washed over me like a phantom draft, I scanned my surroundings again.
…What is it?
The distinct sensation of someone watching me.
That same unsettling feeling came creeping back — the one from home, from those nights just before sleep, when the darkness beyond the crack of my door seemed to hold someone's eyes fixed on me.
But nothing about the area seemed out of the ordinary no matter how much I looked, so I dismissed it once more as baseless paranoia and put the thought aside.
Then, realizing I'd been gone for quite a long time, I hurried back toward the cafeteria where the others were waiting.
Never once noticing the gaze that watched me ceaselessly from within the dark.
When the afternoon lectures ended and the hour came to head home, Wooshin suggested we grab a drink together.
With my mind still churning over the morning's events, I politely declined, though I felt a genuine pang of regret doing it.
"Then let's all eat together some other time. We've exchanged numbers, so let's set something up in the group chat."
Woo-sik sulked, apparently having hoped for more, until Siwoo laughed and patted him on the back — and with that, our first day ended with the five of us each heading our separate ways home.
"Um… Dohyun-oppa?"
I was gathering my bag, getting ready to leave the lecture hall, when Hanbyeol called out to me hesitantly.
"I overheard where your neighborhood is earlier, and it sounded like we go the same way for part of it… Would you like to walk together?"
"Is that so? Sure, let's."
Watching Hanbyeol smile shyly up at me, I did find it a little unexpected, but I took it at face value without reading anything deep into it.
"That lecture was really fun today!"
"Right? The professor taught with such wit. Everything just went straight into my head."
"Exactly! Because the lectures were so engaging, it was easy to stay focused!"
"Oh? Are we going to have one student walking away with an A+ already?"
"Wh-no, of course not!"
"Haha!"
Hanbyeol and I walked side by side out of the university and down an alley steeped in dusky shadow, heading for home together.
Hanbyeol talked nonstop about the day's lectures, and I found myself agreeing and chiming in until the conversation blossomed — privately, I thought we clicked remarkably well.
Maybe it was the age difference, but she gave off something of a younger-sister vibe, and yet I couldn't help thinking she was close to my ideal type of woman.
Someone who smiles easily, who goes along with you, who is feminine and devoted to the one she loves — the kind of woman, perhaps, that every man wants…
And in the middle of that thought, the demon suddenly surfaced in my mind.
…Why am I thinking of the demon right now?
"Oppa, do you…"
Hanbyeol stopped walking, looked at me once, then averted her eyes and asked:
"…Are you really not going to get a girlfriend?"
The loaded question nearly made me jump to conclusions for a second, but I denied it inwardly and answered offhandedly.
"Hmm… like I said at the cafeteria, I'm not really thinking about it yet. But… if I meet someone I click with, there'd be no reason not to, I suppose."
At my answer, Hanbyeol broke into a pleased smile and was just opening her mouth to say something more —
"There you are."
At the sound of the voice, our heads turned in unison — and there stood a lone woman, bathed in the glow of a streetlamp.
"She's beautiful…"
More than puzzled, Hanbyeol's first reaction to the woman was pure admiration, her eyes going wide.
For my part, the sudden appearance of the woman — of Jia — left me stunned and flustered all at once.
I had no idea why Jia, who was supposedly out with her classmates, was here, but now that she'd run into Hanbyeol, I had no choice but to introduce myself.
Which meant telling the people of the university that Jia was my little sister.
"Hello! I'm Yoon Jia, a junior of Dohyun-oppa's from the same high school. I just started as a freshman at Hankyung University this year."
Beaming.
Faster than I could scramble to cut in, Jia had already flashed Hanbyeol a smile like warm sunlight and introduced herself.
When I heard Jia describe our relationship as nothing more than senior and junior from the same high school, my eyes widened in shock.
Defining our relationship as something other than family — that was a choice she could never have made without knowing exactly how I felt about Yoon Jia.
The moment my deepest fear was so gracefully accommodated, I was swept up in an emotion I couldn't name.
"Ah… h-hello? Um… I'm Lee Hanbyeol, I'm in the same year as Dohyun-oppa."
Hanbyeol bowed her head low, as if greeting a noble lady of the highest standing, addressing her own junior with such deference.
"Oh, you're her senior. Ah… I hope I'm not interrupting your time together?"
"Oh no, not at all, it's just…"
When Jia asked so carefully, Hanbyeol fidgeted, glanced once at my face, and said:
"We go different ways from here, so we were about to split up anyway. Well then, I'll be off, Dohyun-oppa."
"Yeah… see you tomorrow."
The moment my answer left my mouth, Hanbyeol turned red as if she'd been caught red-handed at a crime scene and hurriedly retreated from the spot.
I watched Hanbyeol's back as she faded into the distance, then turned to Jia, who had sidled up beside me.
"Didn't you say you had plans?"
"Unfortunately, they got canceled, oppa. So I texted you and called you, but you never picked up. I figured if I walked the way you'd go home, I might run into you — I'm so glad we bumped into each other like this."
Jia pouted for a moment, then broke into a radiant smile as her eyes found mine.
I checked my phone just in case, and sure enough, several texts and missed calls were waiting there.
I probably hadn't heard them over the noise of my conversation with Hanbyeol.
"I'm sorry."
When I apologized, Jia shook her head.
"It's fine. More importantly…"
The corners of Jia's eyes narrowed slowly, and she asked me — as the demon:
"Do you like the way that woman looks?"
"…What?"
Before I could answer, the demon spread her palm toward Hanbyeol's distant figure, her back still visible beneath the streetlamp's glow.
A scene bloomed in my mind, and I opened my mouth to stop her — but the enormous mouth rising out of the darkness reached Hanbyeol faster than any word of mine could.
It brushed past her…?
The grotesque spectacle I remembered from that video did not unfold.
Whether Hanbyeol never even registered the shadow of the beast that passed through her body, she simply kept walking as she had been, vanishing into the crowds along the main road.
"So? What do you think?"
At a voice that should have been impossible to hear, I turned my head — and standing where Jia had been was a being wearing Hanbyeol's exact face.
At first I wondered if my eyes were deceiving me, but one look at the languid, melting smile on that Hanbyeol's face, aimed straight at me, and I knew — this was the demon.
"What did you just do?"
Shock and unease put a tremor of tension into my voice.
The demon beamed with Hanbyeol's face, as though to put me at ease.
"Don't worry, my love. I didn't devour her existence like last time. I merely took her appearance. That human woman will come to no harm — I swear it. The fact that you were walking beside her means you regard her differently from other humans, doesn't it? And I will never lay a finger on a human like that without your permission. The things you treasure, the things you've told me not to do — I do not do them. I respect you more than anyone else in this world."
Every single word was steeped in the demon's deep, tender consideration for me.
And still, I could find no trace of a lie anywhere in them.
"So… what do you think?"
Swish.
"Ngh…"
Suddenly, the demon caught the hem of the dress Hanbyeol had been wearing and lifted it, revealing the pink panties hidden beneath.
The most intimate place of a woman who, mere minutes ago, had been chatting pleasantly by my side was now bared before my eyes.
Startled by the demon's actions, I still couldn't tear my gaze from the exposed underwear — dragged there by nothing more than male instinct.
Apparently satisfied with my reaction, the demon smiled with sultry grace.
"I couldn't take her existence, so I couldn't take her personality either — but her body is perfect down to the last detail. The blood flowing inside this, the flesh, the bones, the genes, and… even in here."
She peeled back the bottom of the panties and spread the hidden flesh with her fingers, revealing the pink folds within.
The woman's body the demon had shown me in the living room just days ago, along with those words of seduction, replayed in my head, and I felt the blood begin to pool low in my body.
"With this human woman's body, she could even become pregnant. If she bore a child, it would be born from a mix of this woman's genes and yours. A child of you — born flawless by nature — and that woman."
As if to prove she could make good on everything she'd promised, the demon pried the opening wider with her fingers.
"That human woman will never know. That a child was born from a body identical to her own. A child born without her knowledge. A child made to be born against her will entirely. If you showed her the baby she'd given birth to — what kind of face would she make, do you think?"
The demon smiled deeper and deeper, luring me in.
"Aren't you curious?"
The demon's sticky, honeyed voice seeped into me like perfume, and began to stimimate every corner of my mind.