He pushes the door open and flips a switch.
I step inside, expecting... well, I don't know. Maybe a minimalist shrine to brooding? A sleek, black-and-chrome dungeon befitting the "Prince of Darkness" persona he wears at school?
What I find is a disaster zone. A very expensive, very large disaster zone.
The room is massive—easily twice the size of my apartment’s living room—but it feels small because every available inch of space is occupied. It doesn't feel empty or sterile like the guest rooms in my house. It feels like someone has been living, breathing, and creating in here for twenty years.
"Jesus," I breathe, stepping over a stack of art books. "Do you ever throw anything away?"
"It’s organized chaos," Donghwa defends, shutting the door behind us and leaning against it.
I wander further in, my eyes darting everywhere. The walls are barely visible. Stacks of canvases are leaned against the baseboards, some covered in drop cloths, others exposing flashes of charcoal sketches or bold, abstract oil strokes. There are shelves built into the wall that stretch floor-to-ceiling, crammed with books that look like they’ve actually been read—spines cracked, pages dog-eared, sticky notes protruding from the edges like colorful feathers.
I run a hand along the edge of a massive mahogany desk that dominates the far wall. It’s a mess of papers—lecture notes from last semester mixed with crumpled sketches and loose sheet music.
"Damn." I pick up a piece of sheet music, noting the frantic scribbles in the margins. "This is a lot."
"I have a lot of hobbies," he says dryly.
I turn toward the bed. It’s a massive four-poster thing that looks like it was carved in the 1800s, draped in a heavy black comforter that is distinctly on-brand for him. But then my eye catches something draped over the back of a leather reading chair in the corner.
It’s a blanket. But not a designer throw or a cashmere blanket like the ones downstairs.
I walk over and pick it up. It’s old. The fabric is worn soft and thin in places, a faded pastel blue that clashes violently withthe rest of the room’s dark aesthetic. In the corner, stitched in slightly uneven, hand-embroidered thread, are the initialsK.D.H.followed by a tiny, lopsided tiger.
I stare at it. It looks like something a mom would make while watching TV, putting hours into every stitch.
"Put that down," Donghwa says, though there’s no real heat in his voice.
"Your mom made this," I say, running my thumb over the little tiger. It’s not a question.
"Yeah," he mutters, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge, watching me. "When I was born. I don't see any real point in getting rid of it."
"It’s soft," I murmur.
I look at the blanket, then at the imposing Alpha sitting on the bed, and the contrast makes my chest ache. I have baby blankets, sure. They were bought from high-end boutiques in Paris. They have designer labels. None of them have a lopsided tiger stitched by my mother’s own hands.
I carefully fold it back over the chair, treating it with more respect than I would a Gucci jacket, and turn my attention to a set of open boxes on the floor near the bookshelf.
"What are these?" I ask, crouching down.
"The archives," Donghwa sighs, flopping back onto the mattress. "My sisters were digging through them earlier looking for ammunition. They left them out."
I can't resist. I reach in and pull out a handful of glossy photos.
The first one makes me snort. It’s a group shot from a middle school swim meet. Donghwa is standing in the back row, taller than everyone else even then, wearing a swim cap that makes his ears stick out. But he’s smiling. A real, goofy, gap-toothed smile, his arm slung around a shorter boy next to him. He doesn't look like a prodigy or a genius. He just looks like a kid who likes the water.
"You had ears," I comment, holding it up.
"I grew into them," he calls from the bed.
I flip to the next one and actually laugh out loud. It’s a Christmas photo. Donghwa and his sisters are lined up in front of a fireplace, all wearing matching, hideous red-and-green sweaters with reindeer on them. Donghwa looks to be about twelve, and the expression on his face is one of pure, unadulterated teenage misery. He looks like he’s plotting a murder. But his sisters are leaning in, kissing his cheeks, sandwiching him in love he clearly wants to escape.
"The sweaters," I wheeze. "Donghwa, thesweaters."
"Burn it," he says flatly. "Burn the photo."
I dig deeper, past a photo of him winning a piano recital, past a blurry shot of him painting on the patio, until I find a Polaroid at the bottom.
