𝐍𝐕 (𝐄𝐧𝐯𝐲)

NV (ENVY) — Part One

From the Gathering of Seven to Their Debut

The rain never touched Zumi.

Even while standing beneath the glowing Seoul streetlights at 2 a.m., every drop curved away from her body as if the world itself feared her magic.

Or feared what she truly was.

Under the human name Park Eun-Ae, she looked like an ordinary seventeen-year-old trainee wearing an oversized hoodie and tired eyes. But beneath the illusion hid something ancient — a fairy born between life and death.

And tonight, she had only one goal.

Find the first member.

Inside a nearly empty convenience store, a tall young man stood silently arranging instant ramen cups back onto a shelf while listening to music through one earbud.

Kim Woo-Gyu.

Twenty-one years old. Calm. Observant. A grim reaper who had spent years hiding among humans.

Zumi watched him carefully.

Most grim reapers ignored emotions to survive.

Woo-Gyu didn’t.

He quietly paid for an elderly woman’s groceries when she realized she had forgotten her wallet. He stayed expressionless while doing it, but Zumi noticed the soft glow around his soul.

That glow meant one thing.

He still cared.

And that made him dangerous.

Or useful.

Woo-Gyu noticed her staring.

“You’ve been outside for six minutes,” he said without turning around. “Humans would be freezing by now.”

Zumi froze.

He knew.

Slowly, Woo-Gyu removed his earbud and finally looked at her with dark, unreadable eyes.

“You’re not human either.”

That night became the beginning of everything.

They sat on the rooftop of the convenience store while Seoul shimmered below them.

“I want to create a group,” Zumi admitted.

Woo-Gyu stared at her like she had lost her mind.

“A music group.”

“That sounds even crazier.”

“They’ll be grim reapers.”

“…You’re serious.”

Zumi nodded slowly.

“Humans are drowning in loneliness. Fear. Regret.”

Her silver eyes reflected the city lights.

“We guide souls after death… but no one saves them before it.”

Woo-Gyu stayed silent.

Then she whispered the sentence that changed his life.

“What if music could?”

At first, Woo-Gyu refused.

Then he watched her sing.

Not loudly. Not perfectly.

But when Zumi sang on that rooftop, the restless souls wandering near the city grew calm for the first time in years.

Even Woo-Gyu felt his heartbeat return for a moment.

And grim reapers weren’t supposed to feel alive.

So he agreed.

The second member they found was Min Seojun.

A college dropout producer who spent nights composing music in a basement studio no one visited anymore.

Humans thought Seojun was cold.

In reality, he simply heard too many emotions at once.

The moment Zumi entered his studio, every broken speaker suddenly turned on by itself.

Seojun slowly looked up.

“…Why are the dead following you?”

Woo-Gyu sighed.

“Great. Another sensitive one.”

Seojun joined after hearing Zumi hum a melody only grim reapers could hear — a melody called The Thread Song, said to guide lost souls home.

The next recruit was chaos itself.

Jung Ji-ho.

A street dancer.

A flirt.

A disaster.

Ji-ho accidentally discovered Woo-Gyu using reaper powers during a fight in an alleyway and responded with:

“THAT WAS SO COOL. DO IT AGAIN.”

Instead of fear, he felt excitement.

Which honestly worried everyone.

But Ji-ho danced like fire itself possessed him, and for the first time, Zumi smiled while watching someone perform.

The fourth member was Kim Jiwon.

The hardest one.

Unlike the others, Jiwon already knew about grim reapers.

Because he hated them.

Years earlier, he failed to save someone important to him. Since then, he blamed beings like them for standing beside death instead of stopping it.

When Woo-Gyu approached him, Jiwon nearly punched him.

When Zumi approached him, he listened.

Not because he trusted her.

Because she looked guilty.

And guilty people carried stories.

Jiwon became the leader not because he was the strongest—

—but because he understood pain better than the others.

Then came Kim Yeesul.

Elegant. Quiet. Strange.

Even among grim reapers, Yeesul was feared.

Flowers wilted whenever she removed her gloves.

Animals stared at her like they recognized death itself.

But around Zumi, she became softer somehow.

One night, Yeesul finally asked:

“Why do you smile so much?”

Zumi blinked.

“Because humans do.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

“…Because if I stop smiling, I might remember what I am.”

After that, Yeesul never left her side for long.

The final member arrived unexpectedly.

Jeon Jae-in.

Fifteen years old.

Too young.

Too bright.

Woo-Gyu immediately said no.

“He’s a child.”

Jae-in glared. “I’m literally older than all of you in reaper years.”

“…That somehow makes this worse,” Seojun muttered.

But Jae-in had something none of them did.

Hope.

While the others viewed humanity with distance, Jae-in loved humans completely — their music, food, laughter, stupid trends, everything.

And NV needed that light.

Because grim reapers surrounded only by darkness eventually disappeared into it.

Months passed.

Training began.

Dance practices until sunrise.

Vocal lessons.

Arguments.

Broken mirrors.

Inside jokes.

Late-night convenience store meals.

For the first time in centuries, the seven grim reapers stopped feeling like shadows.

They started feeling like a family.

Then came the name.

“NV,” Ji-ho announced dramatically.

“That sounds like a gaming company,” Seojun replied.

“It stands for Envy,” Zumi explained quietly.

The room fell silent.

“Humans envy each other every day,” she continued.

“Beauty. Happiness. Love. Time.”

Her voice softened.

“But grim reapers…”

She looked at the others.

“…We envy humans.”

No one argued after that.

Debut day arrived faster than expected.

Backstage lights glowed against black outfits stitched with silver details resembling wings.

Thousands of fans waited beyond the curtains.

None of them knew the truth.

None of them knew seven grim reapers stood only meters away.

Woo-Gyu adjusted Jae-in’s microphone.

Seojun bounced his leg nervously.

Ji-ho hyped himself up in the mirror.

Jiwon silently read the group introduction again.

Yeesul fixed Zumi’s sleeve gently.

Then the stage manager shouted:

“NV! You’re up!”

For one brief second, fear crossed Zumi’s face.

What if humans rejected them?

What if grim reapers were never meant to stand in light?

Woo-Gyu noticed immediately.

So he placed a hand on her shoulder and said quietly:

“You gathered us.”

The others turned toward her.

Seven pairs of eyes.

One family.

“You started this,” Jiwon said calmly.

“So finish it,” Seojun added.

Ji-ho grinned. “And try not to cry on stage.”

“I’ll cry if you cry,” Jae-in complained.

Even Yeesul smiled slightly.

And suddenly—

Zumi laughed.

A real one.

The stage doors opened.

Silver light flooded toward them.

And together, the seven grim reapers walked onto the stage for the very first time—

not as monsters.

But as NV.