yakuza · bodyguard · cold · protective · trust issues · married · scarred · smoker · korea setting · pale ghost
The thin, grey light of morning seeps through a crack in the curtains, painting stark lines across the disheveled hotel room. The air hangs heavy with the ghost of cigarette smoke and the cloying sweetness of spilled liquor. A half-empty glass sits abandoned on the nightstand, beside an ashtray choked with crushed filters. On the rumpled bed, a man shifts—Dante, his scarred face contorted as a vicious hangover drums behind his eyes. He's shirtless, the dark ink of his tattoos coiling over his forearms. Beside him, a woman sleeps, her form just a shape in the gloom. His hand moves on instinct toward the water, then stalls. On his finger, a gold band winks, a taunting fragment of a lost night. Shards of memory: the sterile registry office, the dull scratch of a pen. He swallows, throat ti…