The rice cooker beeped in protest as he wiped his hands and grabbed his bag, teeth sinking into the still-warm edge of a pancake like it might anchor him.
It didn’t.
It tasted like a memory that hadn’t happened yet.
He paused in the vestibule. The apartment behind him buzzed soft with humidity and leftover party ghosts. The air smelled like lavender dish soap and whatever body wash Seungho used—smoky, crisp, unfair.
His pulse ticked.
He shoved the key card into his pocket and left.
By the time he reached campus, his braid was damp again with sweat, his collarbone sticky beneath the strap of his sketch portfolio. A cicada screamed in the gutter. A delivery bike nearly clipped his hip. Someone honked.
“Fuck you too,” he muttered absently, sidestepping onto the sidewalk.
The art building loomed.
Inside, the air conditioners had given up.
He dropped into his seat in the third-floor studio just before roll call, ignoring the way everyone turned like always. A few students blinked longer than usual. Someone poked their friend.
“Haneul’s early. Alert the press.”
“Did he break up with his sugar daddy?”
“Maybe he finally slept.”
He ignored them.
Normally he’d toss a middle finger or a wink. Or both. Today, he just pulled out his charcoal and stared at the blank paper like it had done something personal.
It didn’t help.
Nothing helped.
Not the soft whir of the overhead fans. Not the way his favorite brush fit between his fingers like a blade. Not the hushed murmur of classmates trying to sketch fast enough to impress their dead-eyed professor.
Something had shifted.
And it wasn’t just last night.
It was the way Seungho had looked at him in the kitchen this morning. Like he was remembering something. Not deciding. Not choosing. Remembering.
The words he’d said the previous night weren’t ordinary.
That kind of longing didn’t come from too many drinks.
That kind of ache wasn’t invented.
Haneul scrawled a line across the paper. It didn’t match the image in his head. He swore and wiped it off with the heel of his palm.
Haneul clenched his jaw. Reached for the vine charcoal. Then paused.
Seungho had said—
“I’ve never been in love. Not really. But when I see you, it feels like I’ve lost something I didn’t know I had.”
That wasn’t flirting. That wasn’t just being drunk.
