Rena looked down, her fingers trembling as she toyed with the hem of her shirt. Her heart was a chaotic mess: a flicker of joy that he had actually shown up, eclipsed by the sheer weight of what she was about to ask. She forced herself to look up, meeting Ren's amber eyes—deep, unreadable, and terrifyingly still.
"About the reward you promised…" Rena began, her voice gaining a fragile strength.
Ren didn't interrupt. He remained leaning back, a rigid statue of a man ready to offer anything—even if it meant dragging himself back into hell. But he felt something shift in the air. He saw the hesitation flickering across her face, a doubt that kept her words prisoner behind her teeth.
"I don't do things halfway," Ren said. His voice was cold, but it carried the weight of an ironclad vow. "When I said you could ask for anything, I meant it. Exactly as I said. Don't hold back."
Rena nodded slowly, trying to steady the frantic rhythm of her heart. She took a deep breath, gathering the last shards of her courage.
"Are you... are you part of the Loyalist Faction?" she asked suddenly.
Ren didn't blink, but internally, his world screeched to a halt. Why was the name of his greatest enemy—the very reason for the blood on his hands—coming from the lips of the girl in front of him?
"Are they a problem for you?" Ren countered, his voice dropping an octave, turning heavy. If his hunch was right, they were finally on the same side of the war.
Rena shook her head quickly. "No, it's not that. It's just... I'm in the CLOVER idol survival program. And I need—"
The mask of composure Ren wore didn't just crack; it shattered the moment she said the name. "Wait. What kind of idol?"
"CLOVER," Rena replied, blinking twice, confused by his visceral reaction.
Ren fought to pull his professional mask back into place, even as his mind became a battlefield. The Loyalists and CLOVER—two names that were destined to be his greatest targets. And now, this girl was walking straight into their jaws.
"Go on," Ren said curtly, clearing the floor for her.
Rena's explanation grew darker. She described the cutthroat nature of the CLOVER survival gauntlet. It wasn't just about fan votes; there was a shadow variable—the 'sponsorship' of the Loyalist Faction. Every month for the next half-year, those at the bottom would be culled.
"That's why... if you were with the Loyalists, I was going to use my favor to get that support," she whispered.
Ren saw the whole ugly picture now. Loyalist support was worth more than a million fan votes. CLOVER was just a front for laundering power under the guise of pop stardom.
But the reality was bitter.
"Look... this is complicated," Ren said softly, his gaze drifting to the dark horizon. "Because we aren't Loyalists. Not even close."
Rena couldn't hide the devastation. Her shoulders slumped, the invisible weight on her back doubling in an instant. For a fleeting second, she thought her salvation was within reach. But life was never that kind.
"We can't give you their 'blessing'," Ren continued, cursing the rot of CLOVER and the Loyalists in his head. The corporation hadn't even fully launched, and it already stank of manipulation. "But isn't there another way to support you?"
Rena shook her head weakly. "The fan votes are probably just a smokescreen to hide the strings being pulled by the Loyalists behind the curtain."
Silence crawled between them for a long moment.
"Actually…" Rena spoke again, her voice different now—sharper, jagged with old pain.
"I didn't audition because I wanted to be a star. Someone made an offer, and I took it. I endured a year of suffocating quarantine just to get enough leverage for this position."
She paused, her eyes locking onto Ren's with a sudden, fierce fire. "That's why I need the top spot. I believe from the peak, everything becomes visible. I can finally..."
Rena took a shuddering breath. "...I can find out what really happened to my mother."
The sentence hit Ren harder than any live round that had ever pierced his flesh. He let out a long, ragged exhale, his bandage-wrapped hand pressing against his temple to dull the sudden, throbbing ache.
How did it get this messy?
The girl in front of him was the only one who could break his chains of moral debt. Yet, at the same time, she was chasing power from the very monsters he was born to destroy.
Ren's mind spiraled back into the blood-soaked labyrinth of his past. If her request was simply to find the truth, he could give it to her. He just had to admit the sickening truth: that he was the face of the terror that razed the Marble Kingdom. He just had to tell her how her mother took her last breath right in front of him, soaked in blood amidst the ruins, leaving him with a final wish he still carried like a cross.
But if he did it now—if he confessed his sins and told her to walk away from the madness of CLOVER—he would be betraying everything she had fought for. He would destroy the only reason she had left to live.
After her dark confession, Rena seemed to startle. She realized the air around them had turned frigid. "I'm sorry... I got carried away," she murmured, twisting the fabric of her shirt. "I don't usually talk like this to anyone except Nadia. But for some reason... I felt like I could tell you."
Rena looked into his amber eyes. She saw a familiar sorrow there—a wound she recognized. In a world of plastic smiles like CLOVER, this blood-stained man felt like the only honest thing left.
She looked down at her feet, her voice a fragile whisper. She began to share the fragments of her past. Her mother, one of the countless souls lost when the Higanbana terrorists tore the Kingdom apart.
"Everyone called it an accident at first," Rena continued, her eyes glistening. "But the forensic report... it found evidence. My mom wasn't just a victim of the blast. She was murdered. Someone hurt her—on purpose—before the world ended."
Murdered.
The word echoed in Ren's ears like a funeral bell. That detail was wrong. Horribly wrong. What Rena just said inverted the reality Ren had witnessed with his own eyes in the ruins of Marble. His memory dragged him back to those dark corridors, the smell of crushed Higanbana flowers in the air. He saw Riko's pale face again—the blue bruises on her neck, the jagged burns.
He had always assumed those injuries were just the collateral of war. But hearing Rena, a hideous truth began to surface: Riko hadn't just been caught in the crossfire. Riko had been tortured.
Maybe it's not her, Ren's mind revolted. Denial was his only shield. If this was a 'premeditated murder', maybe she's talking about a different Riko. If he had the wrong person, he wouldn't have to face the fact that he belonged to an organization that had tormented the woman he cared for most.
But Riko's final words—that unforgettable testament—screamed that he wasn't mistaken.
Ren's breath hitched, his chest tightening as if the smoke of the Marble palace was filling his lungs again. With a hoarse, breaking voice, he forced out the question to end the denial.
"Wait…" Ren paused, his gaze burning into Rena's with a terrifying intensity. "Was your mother... was she a Royal Physician?"
Rena flinched, nodding slowly, her eyes wide with shock.
Ren closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his entire world collapse for the second time. There was nowhere left to run. The hope of being 'wrong' was dead.
"Was her name..." Ren's voice hung in the air, his lips trembling as he uttered the name he had only whispered in prayers and regrets for two years.
"...Riko?"
Silence. Even the wind in the hospital garden seemed to hold its breath. Rena froze, staring at the stranger in front of her with absolute disbelief. How could this man—a stranger she had met in a restaurant—know the name of her mother? A name buried beneath the ashes of a fallen kingdom.