Chapter 22: The First Stalker

The entity detected by the curse tried to escape.

Though it didn’t possess the innate senses of Si-woo, it wasn’t entirely clueless either.

As soon as it noticed Kitsunezawa’s reaction, it attempted to flee.

Without hesitation, Kitsunezawa leaped after it.

She wasn’t going to lose.

She was confident that she could defeat it, no matter how fierce the attack.

With that certainty, Kitsunezawa reached out her hand toward it.

“Found you.”

It didn’t matter that it had no physical form.

The curse of the Nekomata was extremely powerful, but no matter how potent it was, it couldn’t curse something that didn’t exist.

Thus, the shadow of the Nekomata’s curse dragged it out.

It gave existence to what shouldn’t have been there.

The shadow, spilling from the black flames, wrapped itself around it.

CRACK—!!

“!!!!!”

Kitsunezawa caught it.

The tangible sensation of it in her hand caused her eyes to shine brightly.

But then.

It slipped away.

With a desperate need to remain undetected, it overcame the curse of the Nekomata.

As it began to flicker out of existence, Kitsunezawa tightened her fist, intending to catch it again.

However, when her hand closed, only a few strands of hair remained.

It had already plunged into the world of invisibility.

The only sensation left in Kitsunezawa’s hand was the feeling of having caught something.

She looked at the pure white hair tangled in her fingers and clicked her tongue, conjuring flames not from the outside, but from within.

“What… is this?”

“Hair. If I had grabbed its arm, it wouldn’t have been able to escape.”

Her red eyes were now tainted with a deep, black hue.

She had implanted the curse into her eyes, enabling her to perceive even the invisible realm.

She thoroughly surveyed the room.

The eyes, tainted by the curse, felt stiff but weren’t overwhelmed by it.

For an average Hunter, the curse’s extreme toxicity would have been lethal, but Kitsunezawa’s eyes began to scan for what was hidden.

Then, she sensed a faint presence.

“It’s gone. It escaped far away.”

It was gradually slipping out of the invisible realm.

If Saria, whose detection range was likely broader than Si-woo’s, had been present, she could’ve detected it.

However, Kitsunezawa, having already figured out the direction it was heading, declared that they wouldn’t be able to track it anymore.

“It blended in with the crowd.”

Upon hearing that, Saria started her mana detection, but it was already too late.

It had already merged into the crowd of students heading toward the Academy.

Even if detection was possible, if it mixed with people, there was no way to catch it now.

‘Only Se-ah, with her mana-detecting abilities, could’ve tracked it.’

A sense of regret flowed from Kitsunezawa’s eyes.

If only she had acted a few seconds sooner, she could’ve captured not just the hair but its body.

Even without that, if there had been a stronger catalyst, like blood, instead of something as faint as hair, she could’ve used the curse properly.

Her gaze fell upon the pure white hair, which now glowed brightly.

Although white hair was rare among the general population, for Hunters, whose bodily features often changed during their transformation, it wasn’t as uncommon.

‘It’s not a clue… nor a catalyst for the curse.’

She dismissed it as a potential lead.

“Wait, hold on.”

“Can I see the hair?”

“Are you going to use it for a curse?”

“No, it’s just familiar hair.”

Familiar?

At those words, both Kitsunezawa and Baek Eun-seol immediately thought of someone.

“Baek Eun-seol?”

“Hunter Eun-seol?”

Siwoo knew many people, but someone with this kind of skill was rare.

Out of those, Baek Eun-seol was the only one who had white hair.

“Why did Eun-seol come up all of a sudden?”

However, Siwoo immediately dismissed their thoughts.

Even though they both saw the same white hair, Siwoo assessed it as something entirely different.

“Even if it’s white hair, Eun-seol’s hair has a faint blue tint when light hits it.”

That wasn’t all.

Just as Baek Eun-seol could immediately recognize Siwoo, thanks to his yang energy, Siwoo, if he focused, could sense her yin energy from afar.

This wasn’t just true for her; it applied even to the fragments that came off her body.

If the culprit was Baek Eun-seol, there should have been a faint chill in this hair.

‘As expected, I don’t feel anything.’

There was no coldness, nor any traces of mana.

That’s why Siwoo immediately realized who the owner of the hair was.

“I’ve been so busy these last six months that I forgot.”

Yes, Si-woo knew.

But he had forgotten.

“Si-woo, do you know who that person is?”

“Of course.”

He couldn’t forget.

It was because.

“He was the first person to stalk me.”

After being scouted by Yoo Seo-ha, Si-woo spent two months learning the ropes of being a host as part of his probation.

Judging by his looks, he could have jumped straight into the battlefield, but as a complete novice at being a host, problems were inevitable.

While he knew how to shorten the distance with others, he didn’t know how to maintain a proper distance to avoid offending customers.

He knew how to entertain guests, but didn’t know how to get rid of troublemakers.

Under Yoo Seo-ha’s orders, he learned all these things without rest, day and night, drilling them into his mind as necessary skills for a host.

“As an aspiring Hunter, I shouldn’t be tired from just this much.”

Si-woo couldn’t deny that it was completely true.

Because of that, he spent every day tirelessly learning the behavior expected of a host.

He had no time to spend on housework.

Each day, his room turned more and more into a garbage dump, but it didn’t matter.

He was only coming home every three days anyway, while he was learning his job.

If it got too bad, he figured he’d take a day to do a major cleaning.

But one day, as he was living his routine…

‘Huh?’

Si-woo returned home as usual and witnessed an unbelievable sight.

‘Why is the house so clean?’

The room, which had been like a pigsty, was now as tidy as a new house.

The trash that had filled the room was gone.

Not only that, the laundry and dishes, which he had been putting off for a long time, were all done and neatly organized in the closet and drawers.

A faint lavender scent filled the room.

He was momentarily stunned by the sudden transformation of his room.

But then, he noticed a paper on the desk.

<It was too dirty, so I cleaned up. If it was a nuisance, I won’t do it again.>

The timing was perfect.

There was no other way to describe it.

If Si-woo had found such a message during the time he had horrible experiences as a host, he would have begged them to leave, even shedding tears in the process.

<It’s fine. I’m actually grateful.>

But since Si-woo had never actually worked as a host, he didn’t feel the need to ask it to leave.

He didn’t come home often, and there hadn’t been any strange actions—just cleaning and organizing.

Of course, it was still a criminal act, but back then, Si-woo wasn’t in his right mind.

Thus began the strange cohabitation.

<Today, I cleaned up.>

<I made breakfast. Eat before you clean.>

As time passed, the strangeness became familiarity.

Having learned everything he needed to as a host, Si-woo’s hours working overnight at the host bar began to decrease.

He left the cleaning to the other person, and in return, he would take care of meals and conveniences for them.

Though they didn’t spend time together, an indescribable sense of closeness began to build.

However.

‘Sigh…’

The coexistence with that person suddenly came to an end.

It had been about a month since he started working as a host.

Si-woo’s heart began to rot as he spent time with women captivated by the allure of his engraving.

He started to feel disgusted by women.

After moving because of the stalker and kidnapper, he would circle the neighborhood several times just to avoid coming home.

Yet, those women still managed to find his house.

‘What are you doing?’

‘S-Si-woo! That’s not it…!!’

Using the address they had discovered, they relentlessly harassed Si-woo.

They rummaged through trash bags looking for discarded items, and tried to take photos of the inside of his house through the windows.

It felt like being in a world where privacy didn’t exist.

Slowly, Si-woo began to break down.

And then, it said goodbye.

Before Si-woo could ask it to disappear, it disappeared on its own.

Up until then, he hadn’t cared.

In fact, he had been pleased that one less stalker was gone.

Completely broken, Si-woo forgot about his time with that person.

“Still, you were by my side.”

He lifted the pure white hair that had always been next to the letter.

There was some hesitation.

Their relationship had been strange from the very beginning, even before their separation.

In fact, he could convince himself that their parting was for the best.

‘Alright, let’s start over properly.’

If not, at least he would make sure to end things properly.

With this resolve, Si-woo took a piece of paper and raised it.

The content wasn’t long.

From the beginning, conversations with that person had always been brief and concise.

Si-woo, reminiscing about the past, left a short message.

It was a phrase he had never used until now.

Si-woo sat at the table, waiting.

Tick-tock.

With every tick of the clock on the wall, the time of the appointment drew closer.

The coffee he had just brewed was still steaming.

He had prepared an espresso with a touch of sugar, the same way he had done for her 10 months ago. Si-woo quickly drank a glass of water.

He was nervous.

But there was no fear.

‘She will definitely come.’

He had never seen her before.

He didn’t know her face, where she lived, or even her name.

In a situation where trust couldn’t form, Si-woo was certain.

She would definitely appear before him.

Whoosh!

A gust of wind blew through the open window.

The warm air in the room rushed out.

The coldness of the late night filled the empty space, replacing the warmth.

“…!!”

And then, she appeared.

She emerged into the room with the moonlight, a woman with white hair that resembled the soft glow of the moon.

Her violet eyes.

No, her eyes met Si-woo’s.

It seemed awkward, as if it was their first time facing each other.

She avoided his gaze, so Si-woo took a step closer.

“Nice to meet you… I should say, right?”

“…Yeah.”

It was their second first meeting.