Chapter 2 - Marco
One year later.
I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.
The bathroom light was harsh. It stripped away every shadow and left nothing hidden. I stood there and kept my eyes fixed on the sink instead of the glass above it. My hands gripped the cold porcelain until my knuckles ached.
It had been one year since that night, and still the reflection felt like a betrayal I couldn’t face.
If I looked up, I would see the boy who had witnessed everything and done nothing.
My dark curls fell across my forehead. The single black ribbon tied into them was slightly crooked from another restless night.
I hated the way those green eyes had rooted themselves inside me. No matter how often I buried the memory, it always clawed its way back. He had been standing over a body, blood on his hands, and yet…
He was beautiful. Monstrous, but beautiful.
The thought made my stomach twist with self-loathing. I almost gagged. How could I think that? How could I let those words form in my head about the devil who had carved himself into my nightmares?
I forced my gaze up for one second, just one, and immediately dropped it again.
The boy in the glass looked like he might shatter if anyone breathed too hard in his direction.
That was me. Marco Bellini, scholarship recipient, professional ghost, expert at mapping hallways to avoid the Void Kings. Especially him.
Alexei Morozov.
I had learned his name within days. The rumors traveled fast in Bloodburn’s corridors: one of the three untouchable Void Kings, the coldest. There were three of them, each more terrifying than the last, but Alexei… he was the one whose stare had followed me into every dream.
I turned the faucet on full blast and splashed icy water on my face, hoping it would wash away the memory. It never did.
For three hundred and sixty-five days I had expected him to come for me.
Every morning I woke up surprised to still be breathing.
Every night I jolted awake convinced the door was opening.
I mapped new routes between classes. I kept my head down.
My notebook, filled with frantic sketches of stars and blood and green eyes I could never quite capture, and poems I would never let anyone read, stayed clutched to my chest.
I was easy to overlook. Or at least I prayed I was.
But the universe delighted in tormenting the weak.
I had noticed him watching. Always from a distance.
A flicker at the edge of morning assembly.
A tall silhouette pausing at the end of a hallway just long enough for my pulse to spike.
It felt deliberate. Like he was feeding on the fear, waiting for the moment my guard finally shattered so he could finish what that stare had started.
Today would be no different, I told myself as I forced my eyes away from the mirror and grabbed my backpack. Just another day of surviving.
I kept my head down, notebook pressed tight to my chest, and tried to disappear into the flow of students. Portraits of long-dead founders lined the walls, their painted eyes following me with judgment.
I took the long way around the east wing to avoid the usual spot where the Void Kings sometimes lingered. My heart hammered anyway.
I didn’t see him until collision was inevitable.
The impact jarred through my entire body. My sneakers slipped on the polished floor and I went down hard, notebook flying from my hands before slapping against the marble several feet away.
“I’m sorry, I—” The apology died in my throat.
I looked up.
Alexei Morozov towered above me.
Raven-black hair fell in careless tousles over his forehead.
Pale skin. Broad shoulders. Tattoos slithering up his neck.
Piercing green eyes locked onto mine immediately, dissecting, pulling me in, stripping away every defense I had spent a year building.
Up close they were devastating, and so beautiful.
A faint scar traced his left temple, barely visible unless you were this close. I had never been this close.
Out of hundreds of students, it had to be him.
My heart exploded into a frantic gallop. My full lips parted in shock. Color drained from my face until I must have looked ghostly. Tremors raced through my limbs. I couldn’t speak. My mouth opened and closed uselessly.
He extended one large hand toward me. The gesture looked polite. It wasn’t.
“It was my fault,” his voice was hollow in a way that made the lie obvious. “I didn’t see where I was going.”
The hallway wasn’t narrow. There had been room.
He had stepped into my path on purpose.
I stared at his offered hand like it was a live grenade. Rumors said Alexei Morozov hated being touched. One careless brush in the cafeteria and the student had been found the next morning with his throat opened in one of the classrooms.
Touching the devil meant inviting death.
My thoughts fractured into screaming what-ifs. My body stayed frozen on the floor.
Before I could scramble back, Alexei leaned down.
His face neared mine, close enough that I could see every detail of that scar, close enough to feel the cool brush of his breath, close enough that those eyes filled my entire world.
His fingers closed around my wrist in an uninvited grasp.
His thumb pressed lightly over my thundering pulse, counting the beats, savoring the rhythm of my terror.
He pulled me upright.
His palm swallowed mine completely. I stared at the contrast, unable to process anything beyond the burning point of contact. Heat flooded through me that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the sick, shameful awareness that he was touching me. That he had chosen to.
Slowly, my eyes dragged upward. He was so tall. I had to crane my neck painfully just to meet his gaze, and even then he seemed to swallow the entire hallway.
“L… let go,” I whispered. My voice came out small like a plea from a cornered animal.
Alexei leaned down further. I could smell pine and something underneath, the faint metallic trace that might have been memory or imagination.
“I didn’t hear you,” he murmured.
I squeezed my eyes shut, gathered every shred of courage left in my shaking body, and forced the words out louder.
“LET GO!”
It came out louder than I expected. Students turned. My heart stopped. I was going to die. Right here. He was going to drag me away and finish what he had started on the roof because I had dared to raise my voice.
I braced.
Alexei simply released my wrist.
“That’s better,” he said, straightening to his full height. He looked down at me like I was a mildly interesting specimen. One large hand gestured between us, emphasizing the ridiculous gap. “It’s quite hard to hear you from up here. You have to speak louder, little one.”
Little one.
Those two words highlighted exactly how small and powerless I was compared to him. I wanted to glare. I wanted to be defiant. Instead I kept my eyes on the floor, cheeks burning with shame.
Alexei lingered one more endless second. Then he turned and walked away. The crowd parted for him without a word.
I wanted to exhale in relief but a traitorous part of me was still feeling the ghost of his thumb on my pulse.
A gentle hand landed on my shoulder.
“Marco? Hey, are you alright?”
I looked up, and there he was - Rei Kurosaki, my lifeline in this world. I nodded quickly, managing a small smile. Rei’s own smile bloomed in return. He was 5’6, taller than me but nowhere near intimidating. Around him, height never made me feel small or scared.
He shoved a little bag of strawberry candy right in front of my face. My eyes lit up immediately. Anything strawberry-related had a way of cutting through my anxiety like nothing else. I snatched the bag with both hands, clutching it like treasure.
“Thank you!” I normally hated accepting things from people, but free strawberries? I would never say no to that. Never.
Rei chuckled softly, his silver hair adorned with black flowers. He was genuinely stunning, with soft features and kind eyes that never held judgment. “Of course, sunshine,” he murmured, leaning in to press a quick kiss to the top of my head.
He wrapped one arm loosely around my shoulders, pulling me gently into his side as we started walking together toward class. I had met Rei a few months ago. From the first day, he had been different. He was as rich as the rest of them but he never made me feel lesser for it.
“Let’s get to class,” he said. Students still glanced our way, but with Rei beside me, the stares felt less threatening. “Then we can head over to your place for that project, yeah? I really don’t want to deal with the parasite at home today.”
I nodded eagerly, leaning a little into his side. The “parasite” was his stepfather, a man I had only met once when I had gone to Rei’s place for a group project. The way he had looked at me, like I was some annoying insect that had crawled into his house, still gave me the creeps.
“Sounds perfect,” I replied, popping one of the strawberry candies into my mouth.
After class finally let out, Rei and I gathered our things and headed out together.
Bloodburn Academy was a world away from my neighborhood, literally.
My house was really far, tucked into a modest part of the city where the buildings got smaller.
Without a car it was a nightmare. I had to wake up at 4 AM every morning just to catch the earliest bus and make it on time.
Rei had offered more than once to arrange a driver for me.
But I couldn’t accept. It already felt like too much, and he knew me well enough not to push.
The bus ride was bearable with Rei next to me.
When we finally stepped off and walked the last few blocks to my house, the small two-story building came into view, modest brick with a tiny front yard and my mom’s little herb garden.
Rei never made me feel embarrassed about it.
Not once. But I still felt the familiar twist of shame in my gut every time we approached.
The moment we walked through the door, my parents doted on Rei immediately, the way they always did.
“Rei! Tesoro, come in, come in!” my mom exclaimed.
Her English was still a work in progress, so the words tumbled together with little slips of her native tongue.
She wiped her hands on her apron and pulled him into a motherly embrace before guiding him toward the living room.
“I made biscotti fresh today, fragola, strawberry ones, just for you boys. Sit, sit!”
My dad grinned wide from his armchair, eyes crinkling warmly.
“Those black flowers in your hair match Marco’s little black ribbon perfectly.
You two look like a matching set.” He chuckled, reaching out to gently ruffle my dark curls as I passed, making my ribbon bounce. I ducked my head with a shy laugh.
My younger brother, Luca, who was fifteen and mute, lit up the second he saw Rei. He couldn’t speak, but his excitement was impossible to miss. He bounced on the couch cushions, hands flying in rapid, enthusiastic signs.
Rei had learned most of sign language just for him, and the way he lit up in return made my heart feel too big for my chest.
“Hey, little man,” Rei said, signing back fluidly as he dropped onto the couch beside Luca. “Brought you something.” He pulled a neatly wrapped package from his bag, a new set of colored markers and a sketchbook, because Luca loved drawing.
Luca’s eyes went wide, and he threw his arms around Rei in a tight hug, signing “Thank you!” over and over with happy little flourishes.
Mom returned with a tray of warm strawberry biscotti and fresh lemonade, chattering happily in her mix of languages.
“Mangia, eat! You too skinny, Rei. Marco, you make sure he eats, sì?” Dad kept complimenting Rei, calling him “a good influence on our boy,” while Luca leaned against Rei’s side, contentedly flipping through his new sketchbook.
After the snacks, Rei and I excused ourselves to my room to work on our project. My bedroom was tiny, barely enough space for a single bed, a small desk, and a worn beanbag, but I loved it. The walls were painted a soft baby blue that I had chosen myself, with black accents everywhere.
We settled on the floor with our laptops and notes spread out around us.
“This is way better than my house,” he sighed happily, bumping his shoulder gently against mine.
I smiled, popping another strawberry candy from the bag he had given me earlier. “You know my mom’s going to try to send you home with leftovers again. She thinks you don’t eat enough at home.”
Rei laughed. “She is probably right. Your biscotti are the best. Hey—” He reached over and gently adjusted the ribbon in my curls that had gone a little crooked. “There. Matches mine again.”
My cheeks heated. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Rei.”
He tilted his head. “You would be just fine, sunshine. But I’m glad you don’t have to find out. Now come on, let’s finish this project before Luca comes in here and steals all my markers.”
We worked in silence for a while but my mind kept drifting back to green eyes. To the way Alexei had looked at me. To the terrifying, shameful truth that part of me had felt seen in a way I never had before.
I was supposed to be terrified. I was terrified. But underneath the fear, I remembered the press of his thumb over my pulse and felt myself burn.
He touched me.
I didn’t know what that meant for tomorrow.
All I knew was that the devil had finally stepped out of the shadows.
And I was waiting to see what he would do next.