It’s a close-up. A gangly, awkward preteen Donghwa, sitting cross-legged in the grass. He’s holding a tiny, black puppy in his lap—an old family pet long since passed, different from the one mentioned in the blue paint incident. He’s looking down at the dog with an expression of such tender, quiet awe that it stops me cold.
He looks soft. He looks open. He looks like a boy who has never had to hide his feelings because he knows he’s safe.
I stare at the photo, my thumb brushing the edge.
This room... it’s not just a place where he sleeps. It’s a museum of a life I never got to have. Every item in here—the books, the art, the embarrassing photos, the handmade blanket—it all screams that he wasseen. He wasn't a project. He wasn't an investment. He was just Donghwa.
"I’m going to shower," Donghwa announces, grabbing a towel from the back of a chair and tossing a change of clothes over his shoulder. He pauses at the bathroom door, looking back at mewith a smirk. "Try not to get lost in the archives. If you find my middle school poetry journal, I’m legally allowed to kill you."
"No promises," I mutter, though I’m still clutching the Polaroid of him and the puppy like it’s a holy relic.
The bathroom door clicks shut, and a moment later, the pipes groan as the shower turns on.
I’m alone.
I stand in the center of the room, turning in a slow circle. The silence here is different from the silence downstairs. Downstairs, it’s the quiet of a well-maintained estate. Here, it’s the quiet of a time capsule.
It’s overwhelming.
Every surface tells a story. There are shelves lined with model airplanes that look glued together by a clumsy child’s hands. There are trophies for piano and art and—I squint—a participation ribbon for a potato sack race pinned to a corkboard.
I walk over to the bookshelf and run a finger along the spine of a battered copy ofHarry Potter.
My room back home doesn't look like this.
When I moved out for college, I came back two weeks later to pick up some winter clothes, and my bedroom was gone. My mother had hired a decorator the day I left. The posters were gone. The trophies were boxed up in storage. The bed was replaced with a stiff, beige guest bed that nobody has ever slept in.
It’s a gym now. My childhood bedroom is a Pilates studio for my mother.
I look around Donghwa’s room—at the clutter, the dust, the sheervolumeof memories his parents refused to erase—and I feel a hollow ache in my chest that has nothing to do with the bond. They kept him. They kept every version of him. Theclumsy toddler, the sullen teenager, the arrogant artist. They didn't pave over him the second he wasn't in the room.
I turn away from the bookshelf, needing to look at something else before I start feeling sorry for myself.
My eyes land on the corner by the window, where the "organized chaos" is at its peak. Canvases are stacked ten deep against the wall.
I walk over, curiosity getting the better of me. I crouch down and start flipping through them.
It’s like watching a time-lapse video of a genius being born. The ones at the back are rough—acrylics smeared with more enthusiasm than skill, weird perspective, colors that clash. But as I move forward through the stack, the shift is terrifying.
The lines sharpen. The lighting gets moody. There’s a portrait of his sister Dohwa that looks so real I expect her to start yelling at me. There’s a landscape of the mountains outside that captures the cold, biting air so perfectly I shiver just looking at it.
He’s not just good. He’sinsane.
I stand up, brushing dust off my hands, and turn to the drafting table set up against the wall near the foot of the bed. It’s messy, covered in charcoal sticks, erasers, and a fine layer of black dust. A large sketchbook sits open on the easel, the page weighed down by a heavy metal clip.
I shouldn't look. It’s probably private. It’s probably sketches for his final project or something pretentious about the duality of man.
I step closer anyway.
I flip the page.
It’s a study of hands. Veiny, strong hands gripping a steering wheel.
I flip again. A cat sleeping on a windowsill. The shading is exquisite; I can almost feel the softness of the fur.
I flip again.
I freeze. My hand stops mid-air, hovering over the paper. The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp, silent rush.
