Chapter Text
The Demon King had endured centuries of humiliation.
Once, he had commanded vast armies of shadow, consuming villages in fire and soul, devouring kingdoms and quenching his thirst with the fear of men. Once, his name alone had been enough to still the voices of men and make even the fiercest demons kneel.
His name had been carved in screams, his banners dyed in blood. Mortals told their children bedtime tales of him—not to amuse, but to terrify.
Entire villages had fled at the whisper of his footsteps.
Now, he lingered beneath the Honmoon, weakened, bound by the cursed voices of the Hunters who had forged the barrier generations ago.
It was an indignity too sharp to voice.
The Hunters—descendants of the accursed ones who had first sealed him—still patrolled the mortal realm. Their power, though a flickering candle compared to the first who had trapped him, burned hot enough to repel his attempts.
He had sent minion after minion, each torn down by mortal hands wielding divine music. He had watched from below, gnashing his fiery teeth as his servants failed, their screams echoing into the abyss.
His demons scattered, his generals fell.
But there was something odd about this generation. Something peculiar.
It was not the Hunters themselves that galled him, nor their songs, and their insipid bravery. Not their leader, not their fiercest, not their most blessed.
No—it was the man who hovered around them. A mortal without power, without song, without weapons, who nonetheless bound them together as firmly as chains of steel. He scolded them, guided them, comforted them. He kept their lives orderly, their faces bright for the cameras, their fragile human bodies fed and rested.
The Hunters’ strength depended on that man.
And his name… was Bobby.
The Demon King’s laughter had once made mountains tremble. Now it echoed hollowly in the cavern of his prison.
“Bobby,” he hissed, rolling the name over his jagged tongue. How absurd. A name with no grandeur, no weight of history. It sounded like something one would name a stray dog.
And yet—this ordinary man moved the Hunters like pieces on a board. He had no divine light, no blessed instruments. And still, when they faltered, they turned to him. Even their leader, the strongest among them, obeyed his call.
He was no warrior, yet he was indispensable.
Gwi-Ma could not comprehend it.
Perhaps the man’s power was hidden, masked beneath plainness. Perhaps he was a vessel in disguise, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Or perhaps—most dangerous of all—his strength was not supernatural, but human. The kind of strength that could not be consumed by fire or soul-harvesting.
The Hunters’ manager was ordinary, bumbling, laughably mortal. Yet he held sway over them in ways Gwi-Ma could not comprehend. They bent their schedules to his word, trusted him with their weaknesses, let him guard their secrets. He was either a fool… or something else entirely.
Gwi-Ma intended to find out which.
The Demon King watched. And the longer he did, the deeper the knot in his chest tightened. Was it hatred? Suspicion? Fascination? He did not know.
But he did know this: if the Hunters’ strength flowed from this man, then the Demon King would strip it away.
To conquer the Hunters, he must conquer Bobby.
And so, for the first time in centuries, the Demon King made a plan not of armies or war, but of infiltration.
The modern world was loud. Even from beneath the Honmoon, he could feel its constant thrum—machines, electricity, voices spilling through invisible webs that linked mortals together. He had studied them, quietly, while his minions failed above. Phones. Social media. Apps. Strange rituals of self-display. He had watched it evolve from his prison, each generation adding another layer of foolishness.
They now spoke into glowing boxes. They sang not to summon light, but to be praised by faceless millions. They spent more time staring into their little shrines than into one another’s eyes.
It was sickening. It was ridiculous.
It was… an opportunity.
Humans no longer needed temples to worship themselves; they carried those shrines in their pockets as the new modern option.
If he wanted to lure Bobby, he would use those shrines.
Thus, the Demon King turned his will toward creation.
The Demon King could not stride into the Hunters’ world as he was. A ten-foot mass of molten fire and shadow tendrils was difficult to explain in polite company. So he would wear a mask. Not of illusion, but of flesh crafted from his essence, molded to their shallow ideals, sculpting himself.
His essence bent, weaving flesh from shadow and vanity.
He crafted a form.
First, height: towering, to remind all who beheld him of their smallness. His human body rose tall and sleek, broad shoulders cut clean lines as he tapered into a figure mortals would fall into lust for.
Hair black as spilled ink, incarnate of midnight, catching light with an unnatural sheen, spilling in sleek silken waves to frame his face.
His face he shaped with precision: angular jaw, straight nose, lined brows.
Eyes dark and sharp, but rimmed faintly with glow—as though fire smoldered just behind the iris.
His mouth curved into a perfect shape—not his monstrous maw of fire, but a sculpted thing of lips and teeth, capable of smirks and smiles, curved in arrogant promise.
All his features carved as if by divine hand. Every inch of him bespoke danger wrapped in allure.
He beheld himself in a conjured mirror and almost laughed. He was magnificent. A god among men.
Mortals would tremble.
He whispered his new name aloud, tasting it.
“Gui-hyeon.”
It slid off the tongue like silk and shadow. A name humans would remember.
On the surface, perfectly ordinary. In truth, “Demon Wisdom.” He smirked at his own cleverness. Surely no mortal would grasp the double meaning.
And so he conjured the phone—a mortal device he had studied from afar, stolen knowledge from a wandering demon who had once possessed a businessman. Its glass face lit up beneath his touch, alien and infuriating.
Gwi Ma had worn many guises across centuries—prince, pauper, scholar, soldier. Each mask had been honed to perfection, each deception woven with care. Yet never, in all his reign of terror, had he stooped to something so… so low as this.
While appearance was something he solved with ease, technology was his battlefield.
Its surface glowed, cold light spilling across his regal face.
App Store. Download. Install. Sign Up. Terms and Conditions.
The Demon King narrowed his eyes. “Terms? What insolence. I bow to no command.”
Still, the glowing rectangle refused to yield until he accepted. He pressed the button with ill grace and a scowl.
The app opened, blinding him with cheerful colors.
Welcome to CupidNet! Find your match today.
He stared. Cupid? Was this an app dedicated to some rival deity?
His fingers fumbled across the screen. The glowing letters shifted when he tapped them.
“Sign up. Create Profile. Upload Photo.”
Gwi-Ma’s burning essence nearly cracked the phone in half. How was this sorcery more baffling than the Honmoon itself? The barrier forged by generations of Hunters he could understand—it was power, sacrifice, song. But this? Tapping tiny glowing icons to lure mortals into revealing their innermost desires? The audacity of human invention was almost admirable.
He stabbed a claw—no, a finger—at the glowing field marked “Bio.” A mocking counter appeared: 0/80 characters.
His fingers tapped with irritation at the glowing rectangle in his hand. Sign up? Profile photo? Utter nonsense.
The Demon King sneered. “What is this… ‘bio’? You would compress my glory into 80 characters? And what are these… emojis? Hieroglyphs of the modern age?”
Still, the app was where humans sought companionship now. If he wanted to understand this manager who hovered so closely to the Hunters, he would use their tools.
He tapped slowly, hunting for letters on the glowing screen. His clawed fingers—now human—fumbled with absurd precision. Each tap brought forth mocking little icons: smiley faces, hearts, foods. Emojis, they were called. He pressed one by accident: 🍆.
The image glared at him.
“An eggplant? What sorcery is this?” He erased it with fury. “I will not be mocked by vegetables.”
His fingers hovered. What should one say, in this so-called bio? He had ruled for centuries. He had devoured kings. He had broken armies. He had drowned empires.
But none of that fit within the allotted space.
Finally, with regal disdain, he typed: Looking for someone interesting.
Concise. Mysterious. It would suffice.
It was infuriatingly plain. But perhaps the mystery would bait them.
Then came the photograph.
He angled the device. A glowing circle counted down—three, two, one—and flashed. His image appeared. His sculpted face gazed back, framed in midnight hair. Perfect.
A face mortals would weep to behold, features too symmetrical for chance. No filters, no mortal contrivances. His face alone would be enough to ensnare them. He looked aloof, untouchable.
Satisfied, he uploaded the impossibly flawless photo.
It would do.
Name: Gui-hyeon.
Age: …
He paused. Should he write his true age—over six centuries—or select from the pitiful range provided? 18–99.
He sneered. “Mortals insult me.” With disdain, he chose 34.
He pressed Done.
And the world answered.
Match! Match! Match!
He expected—no, demanded—the mortals fall over themselves to match with him. And indeed, dozens of alerts chimed within minutes.
The phone chimed madly, vibrating in his hand, as if possessed. Mortals, dozens of them, clamored for his attention, throwing themselves at his feet. As they should. They sent messages filled with emojis, praise, pathetic compliments.
He scrolled, unimpressed. Too desperate. Too eager. Too shallow.
He swiped past them, unimpressed, until one made him pause.
Bobby (34): “I like fried chicken, old vinyl records, and my girls HUNTR/X. I work too much, but I’ll still bring you soup if you’re sick.”
The photo accompanying it was laughable. A man of short stature, pudgy cheeks, a broad grin beneath a baseball cap. He held a plate of fried chicken like a trophy. His shirt bore the faces of HUNTR/X, the very Hunters themselves.
The Demon King stared.
This was the man? He was ridiculous. Plain. Almost insultingly average. Yet… Gwi-Ma found himself staring at the tiny, round-faced man in the photo, grinning under a ball cap.
This plain creature with a smile like sunshine, this mortal who boasted of chicken and vinyl and caretaking?
This was him.
This was the man who unraveled him from afar.
His lips curled. “Pathetic.”
This mortal dared place his ordinariness beside the Demon King’s perfection?
It was insulting. It was absurd.
And yet… there was something. A warmth in the eyes, a steadiness in the smile. The words were not bait but simple truth. No grandeur, no games.
It was… intriguing.
The app chimed again.
It’s a match!
The Demon King nearly dropped the phone.
“Fu—
He sat very still, shadows pooling at his feet, while the glow of the phone lit his flawless face. The match meant Bobby had chosen him. Without hesitation.
Why?
The Demon King’s mind spun. Was it fate? Did Bobby sense the truth beneath his disguise? Or was he so foolish that he swiped without thought?
The Demon King’s chest burned—not with rage, not with hunger, but with something disconcertingly close to… anticipation.
What game was this mortal playing?
He clenched the phone.
Very well. If Bobby had invited him in, then he would step through the door.
Bobby was exhausted.
He slumped onto his couch, dropping his keys on the cluttered coffee table with a clatter, phone in hand. Practice had gone late again and he’d promised the media and communications team an updated schedule by morning. Now he was home, alone, his body aching.
His head ached, his stomach growled, and his phone buzzed with an alert.
A dating app.
He’d downloaded it last week in a haze of self-pity, mix of loneliness and late-night boredom, convinced he should at least try to meet someone who wasn’t a fan of Huntrix looking to score tickets or a manager with too much caffeine. Half the profiles he saw were all the same—guys flexing at the gym bragging about how wanted they were, sending unwanted nudes, or quoting bad pick-up lines.
But now—someone new.
Gui-hyeon. Profile pic: insanely good-looking. Like, magazine-cover good-looking.
Bobby squinted at the photo.
Jesus. The guy looked like he’d been sculpted out of marble and dropped into a GQ shoot. Sharp jaw, flowing black hair, the kind of dark, broody eyes you only saw in romance dramas.
The kind of face that didn’t even look real. Too symmetrical, too polished.
He tapped the bio. Looking for someone interesting.
“…That’s it?” Bobby murmured aloud.
He scratched his chin. “Huh. Weirdly empty. Probably shy. Or maybe just bad at apps.”
He shrugged. He’d been on enough bad dates to know not to expect much. Still, something about it tugged at him. Even if the guy turned out boring, Bobby figured he could at least buy him a coffee and call it a night.
With a casual swipe, Bobby unknowingly opened the door to the Demon King himself.
Vague or not, the guy was gorgeous. Bobby had had a long week, and dammit, sometimes you just wanted to swipe right on a pretty face and see what happened.
He tapped the message field, grinning faintly.
And it matched instantly.
“Oh, wow,” Bobby said, tossing his phone onto his stomach.
He typed, half-smiling. ‘Hey, you free this week? There’s a good coffee shop near the company building. I’ll buy.’
He hit send before he could second-guess it.
Far away, the Demon King stared at the glowing words.
‘I’ll buy.’
Buy? A mortal dared offer him tribute? No, not tribute—hospitality.
For the first time in six hundred years, the King of Shadows felt… unsettled.
Not by armies. Not by chains.
Not rage. Not hunger.
Anticipation.
By a mortal named Bobby, offering him coffee.