Chapter Text
The lunch hall is loud in the way only universities manage—voices overlapping, chairs scraping, someone laughing too hard at something that probably wasn’t that funny. You sit wedged between two friends at a long table that has seen better decades, balancing a half-cold sandwich in one hand and your laptop in the other.
The sandwich is turkey. You think. It might also be regret.
You flip open your laptop anyway, because if you don’t check your email now, you’ll check it in thirty seconds, and then again after that. Your phone buzzes uselessly beside your tray, abandoned for once in favor of a bigger screen and a false sense of productivity.
Around you, your friends are mid-conversation—loud, animated, and very much not paying attention to you.
“I’m telling you,” Mina says, waving a fry for emphasis, “his mana flow is completely different from other S-ranks. It’s denser, but it’s not unstable. It’s like—”
“Like it’s layered,” Jisoo cuts in. “I saw a breakdown online. Someone compared it to stacked pressure plates. If one fails, there are five more underneath.”
“That’s terrifying,” someone says fondly.
You hum absently, scrolling through your inbox. Spam. Spam. Department notice. Spam. A promotional email from a café you’ve never been to. Your sandwich drips something onto your tray.
Behind you, another table erupts into excited chatter.
“Did you see the announcement? The Association finally confirmed it.”
“The tenth S-rank, right?”
“Yeah—Sung Jinwoo. The Jeju Island guy.”
Your fingers pause on the trackpad.
Mina leans back, clearly in her element. “Can we talk about how insane his transformation is? Like, have you seen his first hunter ID photo?”
“Oh my god,” Jisoo laughs. “He looked like he’d get knocked over by a strong breeze.”
“And now?” Mina fans herself dramatically. “Buff. Tall. Handsome. Scary in a morally ambiguous way.”
“That’s the best kind,” someone mutters.
You swallow and keep scrolling. You are not listening. You are absolutely listening.
“He doesn’t even look like the same person,” Mina continues. “It’s wild. Like, if someone told me that was a glow-up arc in a webtoon, I’d say it was unrealistic.”
Your inbox refreshes.
A new email slides into view.
Subject: Mana Stabilization Research Internship – Acceptance
Your brain stalls.
You blink. Once. Twice.
You click it.
The world narrows to text on a white background, your sandwich suddenly forgotten in your hand.
Dear Applicant,
We are pleased to inform you—
Your grip loosens.
The sandwich falls.
It hits the table with a soft, tragic splat, lettuce escaping like it’s making a break for freedom.
The table goes quiet.
“You okay?” Mina asks.
You stare at your laptop. Your heart is pounding so hard you’re pretty sure it’s messing with your vision.
“I—” Your voice comes out thin. “I got it.”
“Got what?” Jisoo asks.
You look up slowly, eyes wide. “The internship.”
There’s a beat.
Then—
“What?!”
“You’re kidding.”
“No way.”
“You’re lying.”
You turn your laptop so they can see, pointing vaguely at the acceptance email like it might disappear if you don’t anchor it to reality.
“I’m not lying,” you say faintly. “I got accepted into the Mana Stabilization Research Internship.”
The table erupts.
Mina grabs your arm. “That’s insanely competitive.”
Jisoo leans over your shoulder. “That’s the one you need to graduate, right?”
“Yes,” you say, nodding. “It’s— it’s literally the exact practicum requirement. And it’s paid.”
“How paid?” someone asks.
You scroll. Your eyes widen again.
“…Very.”
There’s a chorus of groans.
“You’re kidding.”
“That’s criminal.”
“I hate you, but respectfully.”
You laugh weakly, still scrolling through the email, adrenaline buzzing under your skin. Your hands are shaking a little, but that’s fine. That’s normal. You’ve worked for this. You survived three years of impossible equations, sleepless nights, and one professor who genuinely seemed to enjoy watching students suffer.
This is good. This is great.
Your eyes skim lower.
Partner Organization: Ahjin Guild
Your smile freezes.
“…No,” you whisper.
Mina squints. “What?”
You scroll back up. Then down again. Then up. Like it might change if you look at it from a different angle.
“Oh no,” you say.
Jisoo leans in. “What do you mean, ‘oh no’?”
“It’s—” You swallow. “It’s not the Hunters Guild.”
There’s a pause.
Mina’s face lights up. “Oh my god, is it the White Tiger Guild?”
“No.”
“Reapers?”
“No.”
You take a breath. “It’s Ahjin Guild.”
Silence crashes over the table.
Then—
“…The Ahjin Guild?” someone says slowly.
“The one with—” Mina makes a vague, spooky gesture. “—him?”
“Yes,” you squeak.
Jisoo’s eyes go wide. “The brand-new one?”
“Yes.”
“With only one human employee?”
“Yes.”
“And the rest are—”
“Shadow soldiers,” you finish miserably.
There’s a second of stunned quiet.
Then Mina slaps the table. “I’m jealous.”
“What?” you yelp.
“He’s hot,” Mina says immediately. “Scary, yes. But hot.”
“He literally commands an army of shadows,” you say.
“Still hot.”
Jisoo tilts her head. “I heard he barely talks.”
“That’s worse,” you say. “That’s so much worse.”
Someone across from you snorts. “You’re going to die.”
You groan, dropping your forehead onto the table. “I’m going to pass away. This is it. I’m done.”
“But think about it,” Mina says. “You’ll be working at a cutting-edge guild.”
“With a terrifying guild master.”
“Who saved Jeju Island.”
“Who looks at people like he’s deciding whether they’re a threat,” you counter.
Jisoo scrolls on her phone. “People online say he’s polite.”
“That’s what they say about storms before they destroy a city.”
You lift your head and look back at the email, dread and excitement tangled together in your chest.
This internship is everything you need.
It’s paid. Handsomely.
It fulfills your graduation requirements.
It’s directly aligned with your specialization.
Your job description scrolls into view again, painfully familiar and suddenly ominous.
You’ll be checking readings like checking the weather.
Running simulations like stress-testing an app.
Fixing equipment when it bugs out.
Explaining things with sticky notes and diagrams.
You can do this.
You want to do this.
You just didn’t expect to do it somewhere that feels like the setting of a horror movie.
“I was supposed to meet Choi Jongin,” you mutter.
Mina laughs. “You still might. He’s affiliated with like, everyone.”
“Not the same,” you say mournfully. “I was supposed to casually exist near him. From a safe distance. Preferably with witnesses.”
Instead, you’ll be working under Sung Jinwoo.
The tenth S-rank Hunter.
The man who walked out of Jeju Island like the concept of death was optional.
The founder and guild master of Ahjin Guild.
The owner of exactly one human staff member and an army of obedient shadows.
You close your laptop slowly.
“So,” Jisoo says, grinning. “When do you start?”
You glance at the date at the bottom of the email.
“…Monday.”
Mina raises her drink. “To surviving.”
You raise your half-empty cup with a sigh. “To not getting eaten by shadows.”
As laughter bubbles around the table, you lean back in your chair, heart still racing, mind already spiraling ahead.
You’ve spent years preparing for this.
You just didn’t think the scariest part would be the guild master himself.
You accept the offer at 11:47 p.m., sprawled on your bed with your laptop balanced dangerously on your knees and a cup of instant ramen cooling forgotten on your desk.
You stare at the screen for a full minute before clicking Accept, like it might bite you back.
It doesn’t.
It just sends a polite confirmation email and a calendar attachment.
That feels worse.
Now you’re lying on your back, phone held above your face, watching the minutes tick closer to midnight. Your room is quiet except for the faint hum of your laptop fan and the distant noise of someone laughing in the hallway outside—someone who does not have to report to Ahjin Guild in less than a week.
Your phone wallpaper stares back at you.
Choi Jong-in, mid-smile, caught in the middle of a press event where he looks relaxed, confident, and very much alive. Fire mage. Celebrity hunter. Your bias. Comfort person. Safe choice.
You sigh dramatically and roll onto your side.
“How did it come to this,” you whisper to no one.
You miss him already. Not that you ever knew him, but that has never stopped you before.
Your thumb opens YouTube on instinct. Muscle memory. Habit. Coping mechanism.
You type his name into the search bar.
Press conference highlights. Interview compilations. A fan-edited video titled “Choi Jong-in Laughing for 12 Minutes Straight (You’re Welcome)”. You click it without hesitation.
His voice fills your room, warm and teasing, punctuated by laughter and applause. He jokes with reporters. Deflects personal questions with practiced ease. At one point, he grins directly at the camera and says something charming enough that you physically clutch your pillow.
“Yes,” you murmur. “This is what I was supposed to have.”
You let the video play while you stare at the ceiling, imagining a universe where your internship email said Hunters Guild instead of Ahjin Guild. Where your biggest worry would’ve been embarrassing yourself in front of Jong-in instead of… whatever fate has in store for you now.
Your phone buzzes with a notification.
You glance down.
A recommended video thumbnail stares back at you, impossible to ignore.
[LIVE STREAM CLIP] Sung Jinwoo vs. Ant King – Jeju Island Raid (Trending)
You groan.
“No,” you tell your phone. “Absolutely not.”
Your thumb hovers.
You know exactly what this is. You avoided it when it first trended. You skimmed articles instead. Read summaries. Looked at still images very carefully cropped to avoid prolonged exposure.
Because Sung Jinwoo is intimidating. Sung Jinwoo is dangerous. Sung Jinwoo is not meant to be watched casually in bed at midnight when you are already emotionally vulnerable.
Also, Sung Jinwoo is going to be your boss.
Which means you absolutely should not watch footage of him in combat, effortlessly dismantling the most dangerous magical creature in modern history.
You sigh.
You tap the video.
The stream opens with shaky footage and distant screams. The camera pans wildly before finally locking onto him—standing in the ruined landscape of Jeju Island, shadows writhing at his feet like something alive.
You pause the video.
“…Okay,” you say to the empty room. “This is fine. This is research.”
You hit play.
He moves.
It’s worse than you expected.
Not the violence—you were prepared for that. You’ve seen enough dungeon footage to know what to expect. It’s the way he moves. Controlled. Efficient. Like the world itself is slightly slower around him.
The Ant King lunges.
Sung Jinwoo doesn’t flinch.
You sit up in bed, ramen completely forgotten.
The camera struggles to keep up as he dodges, counters, and commands shadows that surge forward like an extension of his will. There’s no wasted motion. No hesitation. No unnecessary flair.
Just precision.
Your stomach does a very traitorous little flip.
“Okay,” you mutter. “I see it. I understand why people are normal about this.”
He speaks once during the clip—just a short command—and the sound of his voice is low, steady, almost calm.
You blink.
You rewind.
You listen again.
“Oh no,” you whisper.
He’s… infuriatingly handsome.
Not in the loud, charismatic way Jong-in is. Not flashy. Not playful. It’s understated. Severe. The kind of face that looks like it belongs on statues and warning signs.
You groan and drop back onto your pillow, staring at the ceiling again.
“I’m loyal,” you say firmly. “I’m a loyal fan.”
Your phone buzzes again as autoplay kicks in, lining up another clip.
This one is slower. Closer. A different angle. Sung Jinwoo walking through the aftermath of the fight, coat torn, expression unreadable. Shadows follow him like obedient ghosts.
You don’t stop it.
You watch him step over debris like it doesn’t exist. Watch his gaze sweep the battlefield, assessing, calculating.
You realize something uncomfortable.
This man does not look like someone who notices people casually.
He looks like someone who notices everything.
Your phone dips slightly in your hand.
“Oh, this is bad,” you murmur.
You sit up again, propping your back against the headboard, watching despite yourself. There’s something almost unreal about him on screen, like he doesn’t quite belong in the same world as press conferences and internships and sticky notes.
And yet.
He’s going to be real. In person. In the same building as you.
You glance down at your hands.
These hands fix malfunctioning sensors with duct tape and prayer. These hands write equations in the margins of notebooks and draw diagrams with smiley faces so you don’t cry.
What are you going to do when those same hands have to present data to him?
You imagine it.
You, standing in a lab or conference room, pointing at a graph with a laser pointer that’s definitely shaking.
Him, watching silently.
Shadows lining the walls.
Your soul leaving your body.
You pause the video and bury your face in your pillow.
“I can’t do this,” you mumble. “I absolutely can. But I don’t want to.”
You roll onto your side again and peek at your phone.
The video is still paused on his face.
You sigh and unpause it.
Despite everything—your fear, your bias crisis, your impending doom—you can’t look away.
There’s a strange comfort in watching him fight. The certainty. The control. He ends the battle decisively, without spectacle, without hesitation.
When the clip finally ends, you realize your heart has slowed.
You’re calmer.
That annoys you.
“So this is how he does it,” you mutter. “Terrify people into peace.”
You lock your phone and drop it beside you, staring up at the ceiling once more. Your room feels smaller now. The future feels closer.
Monday.
Ahjin Guild.
Sung Jinwoo.
Your phone lights up again with a message from Mina.
Mina: did u accept 👀
You type back.
You: …yes
Three dots appear immediately.
Mina: LOL
Mina: congrats AND rip
Mina: if u survive can u tell me if he’s taller in person
You groan and toss your phone onto the bed.
You turn onto your side, facing the wall, and pull the blanket up to your chin.
Somehow, you’re going to survive this.
You have to.
You’ve survived finals week. You’ve survived three-hour labs. You’ve survived professors who thought exams were a personality trait.
How hard can one terrifyingly quiet S-rank hunter with an army of shadows really be?
You close your eyes.
Your phone buzzes once more as autoplay resumes quietly in the background, Sung Jinwoo’s image flickering across the darkened screen.
You pretend not to notice.
You fall asleep wondering when exactly your life became this strange—and whether you’ll ever be able to look at a press conference the same way again.