He chewed, face twisted, then declared, “Could use more filling again. Your clan truly cooks like shit.”
Seungho almost laughed—almost. Instead, he watched, eyes burning, as Haneul wolfed down half the tray, oblivious to etiquette, crumbs scattering over his knees, licking cream from his fingers, scowling all the while.
“Slow down,” Seungho rumbled.
“Or what?” Haneul snapped through a mouthful of rice, crumbs stuck to his lips, voice too quick, too bright. “You’ll spank me?”
Seungho leaned closer, voice rough with hunger and the kind of warning that promises a thousand consequences. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Snowdrop?”
Haneul choked, coughed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You wish. And stop calling me Snowdrop. I’m not your lover”
But there was a flicker in his eyes—fearless, wild, the kind of challenge that builds legends.
Seungho sat beside him, not touching, not crowding, just there. “Eat. Then sleep. If you collapse again, I’ll drag you to bed myself.”
“Try it,” Haneul muttered, but he was already on his second bowl, hunger and pride at war in every bite.
The food disappeared, and silence grew—a different kind, thicker, full of heat and things neither dared name yet.
“Why aren’t you eating too?” Haneul demanded, the words thick with rice,sugar flecked his mouth like specks of gold. Hismouth was full but he scowled fiercely anyway, suspicion burning brighter in those wide, winter-bright eyes.
Seungho only watched him. Too closely. Too intently. He could feel himself staring—he could feel Haneul feel it too, the way a wolf knows the moon is staring, indifferent and inescapable.
Haneul’s brows knit. “You don’t eat because you’re made of fire…?” He cocked his head, genuinely considering it, as if a king might subsist on smoke and magma, not just pride. “Do you eat… magma and smoke? Or do you just… glow and scare people until they feed you?”
Still nothing. Seungho held the silence, savoring the way it made the boy shift and fidget, the way Haneul could not let a question go unanswered, even when it was a riddle no one else would dare speak aloud.
Haneul’s frown grew petulant, his cheeks flushed. “Wait… are you on a diet? Because of your age?”
That did it. Seungho’s mouth twitched, the first real crack in his stoic mask since before the battle. He pressed his lips together, fighting a smile, letting it simmer in the corner of his mouth.
“What is your favorite food, huh?” Haneul persisted, squinting suspiciously. “Or do you just—ugh—sustain yourself on the souls of people you annoy to death?”
Still nothing. Seungho’s eyes gleamed, hungry, quiet.
Now Haneul was fuming—both indignant and a little flustered. “Why are you looking at me like that?!—you’re making me nervous!!” He barked the last part, crumbs scattering, hand waving as if to shoo off a dog, the other clutching a second rice cake as if it were a shield.
He bit into it, jaw working in sullen, sulking rhythm, chewing and glaring in equal measure.
And then, without warning, he rose.
In two quick, stumbling steps—hips swaying with that unconscious, half-feral arrogance—he marched over to Seungho, towel riding scandalously low on his hips, chest bare, skin still pink from the bath. He shoved the remaining half of the rice cake at Seungho’s mouth—not gently, but as if punishing him for the crime of being unreadable.
“See?” Haneul huffed, cheeks puffed in righteous offense. “It’s sweet and yummy. You’re not special, old man.”
Seungho blinked—genuine surprise flickering across the planes of his face—then chewed slowly. Honey melted on his tongue, but it was nothing compared to the heat running up his spine, the sweet ache behind his ribs at the strange, intimate violence of being fed by a storm-cub too proud for words.
Haneul grinned, utterly smug. Triumphant, even. He wiped his sticky fingers on Seungho’s towel without permission, leaving a streak of honey across the king’s thigh, then flopped back onto the bed, sprawling with the undignified grace of a snow leopard cub half-wrapped in a towel
“You’re the worst,” Haneul announced, as if it were a compliment, and chewed his last bite with a haughty flick of his braid.
For the second time in years, Seungho laughed—a real laugh, not a bark or a snort, but a warm, rich, full sound, echoing in the high-vaulted room. It tumbled out, alive and sudden, as if the winter in his bones had cracked all at once.
Haneul froze, mid-chew. He blinked, startled by the thunder, as if Seungho had just split the world in half.
Seungho wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and met Haneul’s eyes, voice pitched low, almost rough: “My favorite food…”
Haneul blinked, cautious, as if expecting a riddle.
