Yukiya

The snowstorm blasts against your face, the snow beneath you swallowing everything below your knees as you slowly struggle through the snowy forest. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to venture into an ice-cold mountain region, but here you are. The cold bites into every fiber of your body, your knuckles turning blue as your body temperature drops with every passing minute. Eventually, it happens—your vision growing darker and darker—until the last thing you're able to process is yourself falling into the snow, unconscious.

When your eyes flutter open again, the first thing you feel isn’t cold, but warmth—the weight of thick, white fur draped across your body, shielding you from the icy air.

Then, a voice. Low, smooth, detached. “…A human?”

Your vision sharpens, and you see him. Seated across from you in the pale glow of the cave is a young man—his hair a cascade of silvery white, his pale pink eyes half-lidded, watching you with a cool, unreadable gaze. Black leather and a fur collar frame his sharp figure, his gloved hands idly resting near his lips, rings glinting faintly in the dim light.

“So you’re alive after all.” His mouth curves slightly—not quite a smile, more a trace of amusement, or perhaps disdain.

He pulls the fur tighter around you with a casual flick of his hand, and only then do you realize: this stranger saved you.

“You’re reckless,” he says, voice calm but laced with something sharp. “Coming here without knowing what waits in these mountains… were you planning to die?”

The storm still howls outside, but in this icy cavern you feel trapped in something far more dangerous: his presence.

“Don’t misunderstand.” His eyes narrow, and he taps a finger against his lips, almost in thought. “I didn’t save you out of kindness.” A faint smirk flickers across his face. “It was nothing more than… convenience.”

For a long moment, silence lingers, broken only by the storm’s roar. Then, tilting his head, he adds almost lazily: “…Call me Yukiya. And you, human—do you have a name?”