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The sedan left the airport expressway, crossed the Banghwa Bridge, and was now just entering Gangbyeonbuk-ro.

Across the Han River, the Yeouido skyline came into view. He had only been away for barely a week, yet the scenery outside the window looked different.

Travel had been a part of Liu's life since childhood, but whenever he returned to his home city after being away, it was always this subtle, slightly off sensation that bothered him more than jet lag.

It felt as though someone had secretly altered a part of the city while he was gone. Changes so minute you would barely notice them, yet enough to make the familiar city feel like somewhere else. Or like returning home to find someone had gone through the place — a lingering unease that wouldn't go away.

Gazing indifferently at the approaching cluster of buildings, Liu Weikun swept his hair back and clenched it in his fist. A strange stubbornness rose in him, a desire to find the exact metaphor for this peculiar feeling he had carried since childhood.

He ran his fingertips over the stubble that had grown rough during the more than twenty hours of flight time — including the layover at JFK — and furrowed his brow.

It was like seeing the face of a former lover he had once loved intensely for years, only to find they had become a complete stranger. Someone who had once seemed inseparable from him, utterly his — yet who now had no influence on either of their lives.

He scoffed at the overly grand comparison and released his hair. He had never experienced a love that lasted that long, after all.

As he reached into his jacket pocket for a cigarette, he glanced at the seat beside him. Seeing Yeehyeon's face, buried deep in the seat, asleep, he put the cigarette back and returned his gaze to the window.

He could no longer believe that only enduring love could forge such an unbreakable bond.

"The only material I could find regarding the existence you described is this."

What Marcus had handed over was a diary so old the word "old" barely covered it — a relic that appeared to date from at least the nineteenth century.

In the roughly two months since Liu had first spoken to Marcus about Yeehyeon over the phone, Marcus had gone to great lengths to dig up even the smallest scrap of information. Partly out of personal and academic curiosity, but also because it was the first time he had ever seen Liu so distraught, so desperately seeking answers — Marcus had known he was in serious trouble and wanted to help however he could.

Marcus was a known eccentric, a fervent devotee of the Ghost among Europe's major antique dealers — a legend that remained unpopular, treated mostly as the delusion of a small niche. Because of this, whenever even a minor Ghost-related item surfaced on the market, Marcus was always the first person contacted.

This time, Marcus had acquired the diary from a dealer in Vienna, Austria, for a relatively reasonable price of 1,000 euros. For Marcus and Liu, it was invaluable, tangible evidence. But for dealers who regarded the Ghost as nothing more than the fantasy of a handful of enthusiasts, it was merely an old, anonymously written novel of little worth.

Marcus suspected the diary's owner had been one of Liu's ancestors. His father's maternal family — a fallen noble house entangled in political strife — had indeed used a Ghost from their lineage as a means to restore their wealth and honor sometime during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The dates in the diary overlapped with that period.

After the harsh medieval hostility that treated Alphas and Omegas as aberrations or demons had completely faded, they had become highly sought after in European royal courts. Nobles and royalty across Europe were desperate to have their sons or daughters become Omegas to secure advantageous political marriages.

According to family lore, the house's resurgence owed to an exceptional sense of timing — reading international trends a step ahead — and the audacity to extend their social reach beyond England to royal courts across all of Europe. But in reality, their wealth and influence were built through a different form of transaction: producing Omegas through sexual intercourse.

Now that the family had fully recovered its former status, even if a Ghost appeared among the lineage, there was no longer any need to sell themselves as before. And yet the ability to transform a Beta into an Omega could still serve as a secret commodity among the more perverse members of the upper class. It was, at minimum, excellent material to be used as a symbol of power and dominance.

To Yeehyeon, Liu could only explain it as protection from those who desired an exceptional Golden Alpha as a successor. But the real reason his parents had chosen divorce was to protect him as a Ghost.

To the world at large, Ghosts were little more than a dubious legend occasionally covered on programs like Truth or Dare. But to Liu's father's maternal family, they were a tangible reality and a source of secret pride. They believed a Ghost could emerge from their descendants at any time. His parents, wanting assurance that their son was free from that possibility, had visited Marcus — with whom they had long maintained private contact — immediately after his Alpha test results came in.

And the results were the exact opposite of what they had hoped for. The odds of someone winning the lottery three times in a row, surviving three near-death experiences in succession, and then dying from something as trivial as tetanus. Their son had beaten those near-zero odds. He was a Ghost.

If the diary was indeed his ancestor's trace, as Marcus suspected, and if the summarized contents Marcus had relayed were true, then Liu could no longer simply condemn his parents' choice as an extreme defense mechanism.

The diary, which never filled a complete volume, recorded events sporadically over about a year. Its owner, traveling across various European countries doing "work" for the family, had been dispatched to Austria during its turbulent period — where he experienced a powerful attraction to a male Beta servant who belonged to the man he was contracted to turn into an Omega.

A noble guest who had come from England for a secret transaction, and a lowly Beta servant — the difference in their status alone made any relationship between them impossible. And on top of that, the person the diary's owner was supposed to be Changing was the servant's master.

Yet, perhaps under the influence of pheromones, the two were consumed by a fiery passion. Even knowing that if it were discovered that the Changing was being attempted more frequently on the servant than on the contract target, both could lose their lives — they could not exercise even a shred of reason.

When Austria lost the Austro-Prussian War and the family that had commissioned the Changing faced collapse, the arrangement became meaningless. The diary's owner was treated as a troublesome burden and essentially driven out of the country. If not for that — if he had not been cast out of Austria amid that chaos — he would have met a disgraceful death there, together with the one he had named his "Diamond Dust," his "Didi."

The phenomenon Yeehyeon had described — ice crystals sparkling in sunlight within the atmosphere — had not yet been given the name "Diamond Dust" at that time. And even if it had, that was not why the diary's owner had bestowed that name upon his lover.

"According to the diary, as long as you are by his side, resisting the pheromonal force trying to bind you two is impossible. That would be even more true if, regardless of the pheromones' effect, you are drawn to his human charm itself and love him spiritually."

Recalling Marcus's worried face, Liu glanced over at the passenger seat again. Yeehyeon's face, eyes closed, was peaceful. Watching him — watching Yeehyeon change into an Omega because of him — Liu felt a simultaneous rush of overwhelming, irreplaceable joy that made every cell in his body tremble, and a painful, heart-wrenching ache, as though his heart were being compressed to squeeze out its lifeblood.

He could endure any pain. As long as Yeehyeon didn't push him away. As long as he didn't lose him.

Hmph. He let out a breath like the groan of a mortally wounded beast and reached his arm toward Yeehyeon's cheek. He wanted to feel just a little more of that warmth, that touch — the warmth of someone still beside him, who said he loved him.

His hand, almost at Yeehyeon's cheek, stopped when he felt the vibration of his phone in his pants pocket. The caller was Shushu.

[You're back?]

The first words out of Shushu's mouth, the moment the call connected, were aggressive — exactly as expected.

[We need to talk in person. I know you're tired, but make some time. I'll come to you.]

"Can't this wait until tomorrow at least? I'm... really exhausted right now."

Liu leaned his elbow against the window and rubbed the bridge of his nose, bowing his head.

[I waited while you were enjoying yourself in Boston so I wouldn't ruin the mood. You must have rested well enough in first class. Just a moment, that's all.]

The voice on the other end sounded resolute, as though it had been building for some time. Recognizing that refusing wouldn't resolve anything, Liu answered stiffly.

"Then let's meet outside. I don't want to... make anyone uncomfortable by bringing you here."

Shushu didn't ask who that "anyone" was. He didn't seem interested.

Just as Liu ended the call and was about to turn his weary gaze back to the window, a careful voice came from the seat beside him.

"Who was that?"

It seemed he had woken Yeehyeon despite trying to be quiet. Liu composed his expression and turned his head. Yeehyeon was looking at him with a stiff face.

"It was Shushu. Seems he's been waiting for me to get back."

"Could he have... found something out about..."

Watching the concern deepen in his lover's eyes, Liu gave a small shake of his head.

"Probably not. Hong Seon-yu isn't foolish enough to think he could get what he wants from me by telling Shushu now. Besides, all that would do is earn him more resentment from Shushu."

He stretched his arm across and kneaded Yeehyeon's shoulder, which seemed to ease a little, then changed the subject.

"I'll hire someone separately to pack the things that need to go to New York, so don't worry about any of that — just focus on your painting. You seemed to do a lot of sketching on this trip."

Yeehyeon stroked the arm resting on his shoulder and managed a faint smile. He looked as though he still couldn't quite grasp that in two weeks, he would be leaving this city.

"For work reasons... I think I'll have to tell Manager Han in advance. How do you want to handle Yuni and Juhan?"

"I'd like to tell them myself..."

"Then let's all have dinner together Friday evening, the day after tomorrow. I'll ask Manager Han not to say anything to the others until then."

"Should we invite Inwu hyung too?"

Liu hesitated at the name, licking his lower lip and rolling his eyes. Then he took out the cigarette he had been holding back the entire time Yeehyeon was asleep, put it between his lips, and spoke in a light, casual tone.

"Ah... that one would just egg Yuni and Juhan on. Let's meet him separately later. For now, let's take care of the Phantom family first."

Facing Yeehyeon, who nodded, Liu smiled with the unlit cigarette still between his lips. He felt the effort of feigning ease in front of him becoming increasingly burdensome, and he clenched the cigarette pack tightly in his hand. Behind them, the western end of the city — similar to before he left, yet somehow distinctly changed — watched the autumn sun, suddenly shorter, begin to set.