The glass was sweating in your hand, the amber liquid inside swirling as you stared into it. The bar was a dive, tucked away in the lower levels of a Huanglong border town—the kind of place where the air smells of old metal and desperation. The noise of the crowd was a dull roar that helped drown out the persistent, phantom thrumming of your resonance mark.

You took another long pull from your drink, the burn in your throat finally quieting the voices in your head.

"I told you," a voice purred, cutting through the haze like a knife. "You were always a messy little lamb when you were bored."

The stool beside you slid back. You didn't need to turn around to know who it was. The air suddenly felt heavy, charged with that familiar, jagged energy that set your teeth on edge.

"You’re a ghost," you muttered, your chin resting heavily in your palm. "I’m hallucinating. Too much... whatever this stuff is."

"A hallucination? How cruel," Scar chuckled. He was dressed down, the crimson accents of his outfit muted in the dim, smoky light of the bar, but his eyes—those burning, chaotic red and black eyes—were unmistakable. He leaned in, propping his elbow on the sticky wood of the bar. "If I were a ghost, could I do this?"

He reached out, his gloved fingers tracing the rim of your glass before sliding over to cover your hand. His skin was warm, and the moment he touched you, your resonance mark didn't just throb—it flared. A soft, traitorous glow spilled through the fabric of your collar.

"See?" He smirked, his voice dropping to a low, intimate vibrato. "Your body knows I’m real. It’s practically screaming for me."

You turned your head, your vision swimming. Up close, his face was a blur of sharp angles and mocking smiles. You reached out a clumsy hand, your fingers brushing against his cheek, tracing the red patterns there.

"You're very pretty for a monster," you giggled, the sound airy and completely uncharacteristic. "A loud, annoying, beautiful monster."

Scar’s hand tightened over yours. The smug look on his face faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by something dark and intensely focused. He pulled your hand away from his face, but he didn't let go. Instead, he brought your knuckles to his lips, kissing them while his eyes stayed locked on yours.

"Careful, my love," he whispered against your skin. "I might start to think you actually missed me."

"I missed... stabbing you," you corrected, though your head was beginning to loll toward his shoulder.

"Is that so?" He leaned closer, his chest pressing against your arm. The sync was screaming now, a high-pitched vibration in your bones that made you feel like you were floating. "Because right now, you look like you’d rather do something else."

Before you could respond, a shadow fell over the table. Two men, looking like local mercenaries, were staring at the glowing mark on your neck with greedy eyes.

"Hey, lady. That’s a pretty bright resonance you got there," one of them growled, ignoring Scar.

Scar didn't even look at them. He just sighed, a disappointed sound. "Honestly. Why does someone always have to ruin the mood?"

One of the men reached for your shoulder. In a blur of motion, a red card flashed in the dim light. A sharp thwack followed as the card embedded itself inches into the wooden bar, right between the man's fingers.

"The lady is occupied," Scar said, his voice turning from playful to lethal in a heartbeat. He stood up, pulling you flush against his side, his arm wrapping around your waist to hold your dead weight. "And I don't like to share my toys."

Scar didn’t bother with the mercenaries. He simply radiated a pulse of jagged, crimson energy—a warning so foul and oppressive that the men scrambled backward, tripping over chairs to get away from the monster hiding in plain sight.

“Pests,” Scar hissed, his gaze softening only when he looked down at you. You were heavy in his arms, your head lolling against his shoulder, eyes half-closed. “Come on, little lamb. Let’s get you out of this cage before you decide to start a fight you can’t finish.”

He hoisted you up, carrying you bridal-style toward the back exit. The cool night air hit your face, but it didn't sober you up; it only made the world spin faster. Your resonance mark was a dull, rhythmic ache, pulsing in perfect synchronization with his heartbeat.

As he stepped into the shadows of a quiet alleyway, you reached up, your fingers tangling in the front of his shirt, bunching the fabric against his chest.

“Scar…” you mumbled, your voice cracked and small.

“I’m here,” he murmured, his voice uncharacteristically steady. “Just keep your eyes shut. I’ll have you somewhere comfortable in a—”

“I should’ve stayed,” you interrupted, the words tumbling out in a slurred, desperate rush.

Scar stopped dead. The red cards hovering around him as a perimeter guard flickered and vanished. He looked down at you, his red and black eyes wide, searching your face. “What did you say?”

“I regretted it,” you whispered, a single, drunken tear trailing down your cheek. You gripped his shirt tighter, pulling him closer until your foreheads touched. “Every day for eight years. I told myself I hated you. I told myself you were a monster... and you are. You’re a monster, Scar.”

You let out a shaky, broken sob against his collarbone.

“But I hated being away from you more. I should have just... I should have stayed. I shouldn't have walked away.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Even the Tacet Discords in the distance seemed to go quiet.

“You have no idea how much I wanted to go back,” you continued, your voice rising with a frantic, liquid honesty. “I sat in Jinzhou and watched the sky, wishing you’d just come and take me. I hate what you do. I hate the Fractucidus. But god... I still love you. And it’s killing me.”

Scar’s grip on you tightened until it was almost painful. His breathing hitched, a sharp, jagged sound in the dark. For eight years, he had operated under the belief that you moved on—that you had found "peace" in the world he wanted to destroy. To hear that you were just as broken as he was—that you had been mourning him as much as he had been hunting you—shattered his composure.

“You… you regretted it?” he asked, his voice raw, stripped of all its playful arrogance.

“Every second,” you breathed, using the old nickname that made his resonance mark flare a violent, emotional red. “I’m so tired of fighting it, Scar-Scar. I’m so tired of pretending I’m okay without you.”

You finally went limp, the confession draining the last of your energy. You fell into a deep, alcohol-induced stupor against his chest, leaving Scar standing alone in a dirty alleyway, holding the one thing he ever wanted—and the crushing realization that he had let you suffer in that regret for eight years.

He didn't move for a long time. He just stood there, buried his face in the crook of your neck, and let out a shaky, broken laugh that sounded dangerously close to a sob.

“Then I’m never letting you go again,” he whispered into your skin, his voice trembling with a new, terrifying resolve. “I don't care if I have to burn the whole world down to keep you—I’m keeping you.”