Haneul stood outside the closed office door for a minute. Mug in one hand. Sticky note in the other.
He didn’t knock.
Just stared at the grain of the wood like it could answer all the things Seungho wouldn’t say.
Then, he crouched. Set the mug down—lotus tea, still hot—with a quiet clink.
Uncapped his pen with his teeth, scribbled fast on the pink square, and slapped it onto the door just above the handle.
“Good night grumpy mountain bear.
I don't know if you’re angry or tired or hungry.
whatever.
suit yourself.”
Then he padded back to the couch and flopped down dramatically, braid falling over one shoulder.
Under his breath, he muttered:
“asshole.”
But his face stayed turned toward the door, eyes heavy, waiting for a sound that never came.
When Seungho opened the door an hour later the tea was already cold.
He drank it in silence.
And left the note stuck to the edge of his monitor — the only color in his entire office.
??????
Chapter 29 – Drunk Gods in June
The party wasn’t planned. Not by the man whose birthday it was, anyway.
It began three days before the 25th.
With a phone, a boy with too much eyeliner and too little sense of boundaries.
"Most used contacts," Haneul muttered to himself, squinting at Seungho's unlocked screen as if it were a battlefield he needed to decode. He sat cross-legged on the couch, Seungho’s phone cradled in one hand, a half-eaten peach dripping onto his thigh.
He licked the juice absentmindedly, then poked at the list.
"Jaewan... makes sense. Yul... wait, that’s Cha Yul, right? Oh, that shady fox is coming. Ji-ho, obviously. Hye-jin...? Pretty lady who was hanging off Seungho’s arm the night I showed up in here... Right. She can bring some estrogen to this testosterone pit."
He added them all to a message group, titled:
“GRUMPY MOUNTAIN’S SURPRISE DEATHDAY”
He hit send before giving it a second thought. Then he tossed the phone back onto Seungho’s bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen to steal more strawberries.
??????
Seungho found out two days later.
When Jaewan sent him a text that read:
