Seungho looked up from the bed where he sat propped against the headboard like a portrait of perfect masculinity, shirt loosened clinging to his ridiculously broad shoulders and chest, reading glasses perched low on his nose, dark hair brushed back messily.
The sight alone was enough to make Haneul’s pulse misbehave.
He’d shared a bed before—if you could call it that.
With Minseok, it had always been skin and friction, never quiet. No space for breath, no dawns, no pages turning beside him. Minseok never stayed; there had never been a night that ended in stillness.
But this… this was different. Domestic. Disarming. A man half-dressed and reading, a place waiting on the other side of the mattress, the sound of the wind outside.
It made him feel almost human, and that scared him more than any of the things he’d done in the dark.
“You planning a lecture?” Seungho asked without looking away from his screen.
“Planning a relocation,” Haneul said, walking in.
He dropped the book onto the nightstand, pulled back the blanket on the empty side, and slid in like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Seungho’s eyebrows lifted. “You have a room.”
“Had,” Haneul corrected, flipping open the bird guide. “Past tense. I’m upgrading.”
“You’re serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You look damp and uninvited.”
“And you look lonely but too proud to admit it.”
He settled against the pillow, lean legs bare, flipping to a page titled Migratory Patterns of the Snow Bunting.
“Don’t worry, skyscraper. I don’t snore.”
Seungho exhaled, long and slow. “This isn’t appropriate.”
“I’m twenty, not twelve,” Haneul said without looking up. “I cook, I pay rent in coin, sarcasm and groceries, and I’ve been living here for months. Appropriate left the building with your sense of humor.”
Silence stretched. The rain deepened outside, steady, rhythmic.
Seungho turned off the tablet, set it aside, leaned back.
“I suppose you’ll do whatever you want anyway.”
“Now you’re learning.”
The lamp cast soft amber over them. The bed felt too small for the quiet between them.
Haneul read for a while, the rustle of pages mixing with rain and the steady breath beside him.
But concentration was a myth. Every time Seungho shifted, the mattress dipped; every brush of fabric sounded too intimate.
He could smell the clean warmth of Seungho’s skin—cedar, soap, something that made his chest tighten.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did Seungho.
Somewhere around midnight, Haneul set the book face-down on his chest, eyes half-lidded.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’m not invading your personal space. Just… temporarily borrowing it.”
