Nico

​A tightly controlled smile spread across my face as his dark eyes locked onto mine. He stared intensely, trying to find a flicker of weakness, but instead of cowering like I used to, I simply lowered my head in a perfectly calculated, respectful bow.

A filial grandson. I wish.

​"Welcome, Seo-jun. Everyone has been waiting for you," my Aunt Hinata greeted warmly, breaking the stiff silence. Her twin boys shyly peeked out from behind her lap, giving me a tiny wave.

​I smiled genuinely for a brief moment and waved back at them. "Thank you, Aunt Hinata."

​"I honestly thought you wouldn’t bother showing up this year either, considering you never seem to make time for your actual family," another one of my aunts, Min-jin, snapped harshly in Korean, her voice dripping with venom.

​"Hello to you too, Aunt Min-jin," I responded smoothly, keeping the pleasant mask glued to my face. Smiling through the pain, as the saying goes.

​She scoffed, crossing her arms and turning her gaze away without another word.

​"How was the journey?" my Uncle Anderson asked in English, stepping forward to break the tension. He wrapped his arms around me in a firm, grounding hug. "Welcome home."

​"Thank you, Uncle. It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but it was great," I replied, my eyes instantly drifting back toward my mother.

She was already busy introducing Sophia to the surrounding relatives, leaving Alaric standing entirely on his own, looking completely out of place near the entrance.

​A wave of frustration washed over me. I didn’t want him to feel isolated. More importantly, he was the one who was supposed to be introduced to this family, not Sophia.

​Anderson seemed to notice the sudden shift in my posture—the way my shoulders went rigid and my hands locked into tight fists. He nudged my shoulder gently, drawing my attention back to him. "Isn’t that Alaric de Villier? The one driving for Ferrari?" he whispered, a knowing glint in his eye. "The one you used to be completely obsessed with all those years ago... who is now your direct rival?"

​Hearing those words come from Anderson sent a sudden jolt straight to my chest. I stole another glance at Alaric, and my pulse gave a strange, erratic thud.

​Obsessed with him for years, and now he’s my rival.

​Why the hell was my heart reacting like this right now? Just why?

​"Interesting," my uncle muttered, studying my face.

​"What did you say?" I asked, trying to clear the sudden tightness in my throat.

​He merely chuckled, tapping my shoulder before walking straight over to Alaric. "Hello there. Alaric de Villier, right?" Anderson began, extending a hand with a warm smile.

​Alaric froze, his eyes instantly darting to me, completely hesitant. He held his breath, his hand hovering in mid-air as if he were explicitly waiting for my permission before he could interact with my family. "Hello, sir..."

​Anderson burst into a hearty laugh. "Oh, please, drop the ’sir.’ Just call me Anderson—or, in this case, you can just call me Uncle."

​My eyes widened as a sudden wave of realization washed over me. Anderson already knew. Before I had even attempted to make the proper introductions, he had already figured it out. But then again, it was expected; after all, Anderson Park was the undisputed brains of the Park family.

​A deep, violent crimson flush instantly crawled up Alaric’s neck, spreading all the way to the tips of his ears. He swallowed hard, his jaw tight as he stared at the floor, completely mortified and stripped of his usual cool, racetrack confidence.

​A small, genuine chuckle escaped my lips. It was surprisingly exhilarating to see the unflappable Alaric de Villier looking so utterly undone.

​But the brief amusement vanished in a split second as a sudden, icy chill shot straight down my spine. An eerie, suffocating sensation crept over me, signaling a deeply malevolent presence entering the room. I didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.

​My Uncle Geum-ho strolled into the living room, laughing loudly at a joke with his wife.

​I had lied to myself when I claimed I wouldn’t be affected anymore. The exact millisecond his booming voice registered in my ears, my heart began to hammer wildly against my ribs like a trapped animal.

​"Seo-jun... is that really you?"

​The voice cracked open a dam inside my mind. The horrific memories I had spent years desperately burying deep in the dark came flooding back all at once, drowning my consciousness.

​"Be calm, Seo-jun. It will only take a little while, Seo-jun."

​The walls of the room suddenly felt like they were crashing inward. The air in my throat turned to pure ice, suffocating me as a terrifying shortness of breath took hold.

My hands began to tremble violently, the tremors shaking my entire arms as he approached me, his lips curled into a gentle, sickeningly familiar smile.

​The room began to spin in a dizzying blur. My lungs refused to expand, burning for oxygen that wouldn’t come. The ambient noise of the family completely faded into a high-pitched, deafening ringing.

A cold, paralyzed terror gripped my muscles, and with a sudden, loud gasp for air, my knees buckled entirely beneath my weight.

​My body gave out, gravity pulling me toward the hardwood floor, but before I could crash, a pair of strong, familiar arms forcefully caught me, pulling me hard against a solid chest.

​"Nicholas! Nicholas, are you alright?!" Alaric shouted, his voice laced with pur panic.

​Instantly, the cheerful chatter in the room died. Every single eye snapped toward us, a chaotic blur of worried faces rushing in our direction.

​But I couldn’t process any of it. The suffocating tightness in my chest tightened like a vice, my heart thumping so violently I could feel it in my teeth, and the edges of my vision rapidly bled into total darkness.

​And before I could take another breath, the world went completely black.