It was truth, pulled up from somewhere bone-deep.
And if it was true…
Then the weird déjà vu, the lurch in his stomach every time Seungho looked at him like a question half-formed, the way his hands always knew how to catch his breath—
It wasn’t just him.
He wasn’t alone in the haunting.
Haneul swallowed. His throat felt tight.
“Fuck.”
Hestood up mid-sketch. Professor didn’t even blink. Used to his drama by now.
His classmate Yuna blinked at him from two seats over.
“Hey—where you going?”
“Borrowing a bike.”
“For what?”
Haneul looked back at her, face unreadable.
“Exorcism.”
Then he bolted.
??????
Chapter 31 — Confessions & Bad decisions
Haneul’s borrowed bicycle squeaked like protest under every frantic pedal, chain rasping, wind turning his braid into a whip. He didn’t care. His body needed motion the way his brain needed static—something to drown out the echo of a voice still lodged under his ribs.
The air tasted like rust and asphalt. Seoul simmered under a noon that refused to blink.
I’ve never been in love… but when I see you, it feels like I’ve lost something I didn’t know I had.
The sentence looped like a curse. He gritted his teeth, pedaled harder.
Cars hissed past, heat shimmered off windshields. The city throbbed, indifferent.
By the time he skidded into Ji-ho’s street, his legs shook, shirt glued to his spine, breath hitching in short angry bursts.
He didn’t bother knocking.
??????
Ji-ho’s apartment door swung open on a scene of enthusiastic chaos: limbs, bare skin, perfume, music from someone’s phone speaker.
The woman shrieked and tried to cover up; Ji-ho swore.
Haneul blinked once, twice, then marched in and snapped, mildly intimidated by the naked female form, “Put your tits away, I need therapy.”
The woman gasped. Ji-ho, half-naked and very unbothered, threw an arm over his face. “Jesus, Sky, ever heard of privacy?”
“Ever heard of clothes?” Haneul shot back, kicking a pair of jeans out of the way. “Emergency. Existential crisis. Out.”
