A choked sound escaped Seungho’s throat.
Jaewan didn’t even look up. “I’m not asking.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to. Your ears turned red.”
Another pause.
Then, without lifting his eyes from the spreadsheet:
“If you need date ideas, go ask Ji-ho. I’m not qualified to plan chaos-proof evenings for two emotionally damaged goblins.”
Seungho muttered something unintelligible and dragged a hand down his face.
“Also,” Jaewan added, “make sure your PR team is ready if the Jangs retaliate. Or if Hye-jin’s father decides to rattle sabers tonight at the gala. I’m not saying don’t love him, hyung. I’m saying if you do, you’d better be ready to burn things down. Because they will come.”
Silence.
Seungho tapped the table once. Then again. His voice was low when it came:
“Then let them come.”
??????
The sun filtered through the classroom windows like it had no shame.
Haneul stared down at his sketchbook and tried to remember what the assignment was.
Was it anatomy? Perspective?
All he knew was that page after page had been overtaken by long fingers and broad collarbones. By heavy-lidded eyes behind dark eyelashes. By a stupid smirk that had no business living rent-free in his skull.
One doodle had Seungho mid-growl. Another had him reading the bird guide, hair a mess, one knee drawn up like he’d just rolled out of bed. Which, he had.
From Haneul’s arms.
Haneul made a strangled sound and slapped the sketchbook shut.
“Everything okay?” asked the classmate beside him, eyeing the smoke wafting from Haneul’s ears.
“Fine,” he croaked, picking up a charcoal stick and snapping it in half.
Class lasted forever. Or five minutes. He couldn’t tell. Time had melted sometime between 6:00 a.m. and Seungho’s rumble-laugh shaking under his spine.
He couldn’t stop thinking about that laugh.
Or the way Seungho had wrestled him half-naked across the sheets just to grab his ankle and say—“You’re gonna pay for that.”
God.
By the time 6pm came and he staggered into Velvet Eclipse, he’d already walked into two poles, missed a train stop, and sent Ji-ho twenty voice notes consisting mostly of stammering.
Inside, the club was still in prep mode. Floor glitter being vacuumed. Lights half-dim. Hyacinth sat at the bar in rollers and a leopard robe, sipping black coffee like a queen before coronation.
“Well well well,” she purred without turning. “If it isn’t our radiant sky fox.”
“Don’t,” Haneul warned, eyes narrowing. “I’m in emotional recovery.”
