[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction

Elias didn't hang up right away.

He sat there, thumb resting on the screen, the light from the phone casting faint shadows over his face. He could still feel the shape of the couch beneath him, the luxurious fabric brushing against the back of his knees. But everything else felt distant, like he'd been pulled one layer too far from the world. 

"I'll send you the address," he said finally.

"Got it," Matteo replied. "Use the form I sent last year. It'll route through the old tenant services desk, not missing persons. Slower, but safer."

"Thanks."

"Elias," Matteo added, voice lower now. "Be careful. Numens are not a family you want to make enemies with."

Elias let the silence stretch for a moment. The overhead light flickered faintly, its hum threading through the stillness like a warning.

"I just want to know that Ruo is fine," he said, each word slow. "If she's with her family and healthy, there won't be any need for more."

He paused, his thumb tracing the corner of Ruo's phone.

"But Numens have their own enemies," he added quietly. "It could be anyone."

Matteo didn't respond right away. When he did, his voice was distant, edged with something careful. "Yeah. It could."

They ended the call.

But the weight of it lingered, heavy in the room, coiled around Elias like smoke from a fire he hadn't seen yet but could smell in the walls. 

Elias left the couch and Ruo's phone where it was, face-down on the glass like a coin tossed in warning. His hands felt strangely empty. His chest, too full with worries.

He moved slowly through the apartment, ignoring the sleek sprawl of curated excess, brushed metal bar stools, dark granite counters, and pendant lights hanging like jewelry. The kitchen was all sharp lines and quiet expense, but none of it looked lived in. Not really; neither Elias nor Ruo had time to cook. 

He poured the nearest bottle into a glass. No label. Something amber and clean, probably older than his years of school. It burned like guilt when it hit his throat, but he welcomed the sting.

He came back.

The phone was still there. Silent. Waiting.

He sat down, took another sip, this time slower, allowing the heat to settle before picking it up.

The screen lit at his touch, casting faint shadows against his palm. Same wallpaper. Same warning: Don't trust the Gods. Do not trust him.

He entered the code without thinking. Muscle memory.

He knew her passwords. Not because he needed to, not because he ever asked, but because she was terrible at remembering them. She once got locked out of her own bank account during a conference and had him call the customer service line while she lectured on genetic entropy.

She didn't seem like an alpha, not at first. Not when she was barefoot, humming off-key in the mornings, typing half-asleep with her hair in a bun made of chaos and ballpoint pens.

But get her in front of a whiteboard or on a lab floor?

God help whoever stood in her way.

There was a weight to her presence when she chose to let it surface. Like gravity remembering what it was made for.

And now she was gone.

Not just missing. Not just silent. Gone in the way that rewired the shape of a room. The kind of absence that made the air press inward, thick and wrong, like the space had noticed before he had.

Elias stared at the phone, the screen still glowing faintly against his fingers. The usual chaos wasn't there, no flood of mismatched apps, no folder stuffed with half-finished puzzle games she downloaded after one flashy ad and never opened again.

Just a single icon.

Black. Nameless.

Tucked into the corner like it had always belonged there.

That wasn't Ruo. She hated minimalism. Thought it was sterile, something cowards clung to when they were afraid of color or contradiction. Even her organization system had layers of nonsense and genius tangled together; he once found a thesis outline saved under a folder titled Emergency Noodles.

But this?

This was clean. Intentional.

His grip tightened slightly.

"What the fuck is this?" he said, low, the words more breath than voice. 

Elias took off the case, fingers moving slower now, the soft rubber catching slightly against the edge as he peeled it back. The weight in his hand was the same—but not. It was wrong in the way a dream felt wrong when you couldn't name why.

The surface was too clean.

No gouged corner. No hairline crack by the camera. No faint scuff from when it had bounced, skidded, across the sidewalk after nearly plummeting three stories from a rooftop argument she swore wasn't her fault.

He and Ruo had laughed about it later, once the panic wore off. She'd called it a battle scar. Said it gave the phone character.

He turned the phone over, angling it toward the light.

The back was pristine.

Smooth, untouched.

No deep scratch slicing diagonally across the corner. No faint crack trailing outward from the edge of the camera. Just cold, clean glass.

His stomach dropped, slow and sick.

That wasn't possible.

He remembered the sound it made when it hit the concrete. The sick thrill in his chest when Ruo had shrugged and picked it up, muttering that it was "fine, probably," before wincing at the corner and saying, "Okay, maybe not fine, but alive."

She'd refused to replace it. 

And someone had.

The air thickened, a rush of quiet static rising beneath his skin like something ancient waking up.

Elias set the phone down, slower this time. Like it might explode.

His chest tightened as he stood, each breath pulled in too shallow, his pulse starting to edge into something faster, just slightly off-tempo, like a song skipping under the surface of his ribs.

He crossed the living room, moving without fully seeing it, the faint blur of designer furniture and dimmed track lights falling away behind him.

At first glance, nothing was out of place. The books were stacked unevenly on the desk. The sweatshirt still draped over the back of the chair. But something in the air felt off, like the scent had shifted a degree, just enough to make him wonder if the window had been opened and closed again.

He crossed to the closet, crouched, and reached for the back shelf.

The box was still there. Tucked between an old projector and a half-broken modem.

He pulled it out, sat on the edge of the bed, and ran his fingers over the label.

Model number. Serial code.

She'd made him take a photo of both after the fall, just in case. Just in case the warranty made things difficult, just in case she needed to prove something, just in case her research wasn't as off-grid as she pretended it was.

Elias opened the settings on the not-Ruo phone. Scrolled to the bottom. Found the number.

His stomach turned cold.

It didn't match.