His fingers had stopped.
His own pulse was in his throat now, rapid and unsure.
“What the hell…?”
The page stared back at him.
And in the middle of it—Seungho stared too, half-wrapped in myth and war and something older than both of them.
The air suddenly felt too warm.
Haneul shut the sketchbook.
But the image had already burned itself behind his eyes.
??????
Chapter 36 – If He Comes Back
The heat hadn’t quite left Seoul.
Even at night, the air clung heavy with the last breaths of summer—thick enough to weigh down the lungs, light enough to trick you into forgetting the storm that always came after a season refused to die.
At Velvet Eclipse, the AC sputtered in rhythmic bursts above the stage, battling the leftover warmth from a day that had peaked too hot for late September. Fans twirled lazily overhead, barely brushing the sweat from skin.
Haneul sat perched behind the bar, sleeves pushed to the elbows, sketchbook cracked open beside a half-drunk glass of barley tea going tepid. A soft, smudgy sketch bled across the page: a profile drawn from memory. Strong brow. Downturned mouth. Eyes he couldn’t quite finish.
His elbow left a faint damp mark on the paper. He didn’t care.
Somewhere behind the stage, a power ballad played on low. A regular laughed at something Hyacinth muttered from the wings. The velvet curtains twitched with the lazy movements of the room’s pulse.
And still—something felt wrong.
It didn’t slam into him. It seeped.
Like a door opening too slowly. Like hot breath returning to the back of his neck after months of absence.
“You’re slipping.”
The voice sliced clean through the thick air.
Haneul’s pen jerked.
Cha Yul leaned against the far end of the bar, arms folded, eyes unreadable as always—but tonight, there was something softer behind them. Not pity. Something colder.
“...You're slipping.”
The voice cut through the static like a knife dressed in velvet.
Haneul turned. Cha Yul stood behind the bar, impeccably dressed as always—silver jewelry catching the low light, sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark eyes watching him with the precision of someone who’d lived three lifetimes too many.
“You haven’t been looking over your shoulder lately,” Yul said, voice soft, almost sympathetic. “That’s either good… or suicidal.”
Haneul blinked, heartbeat spiking. “I—what?”
Yul didn’t repeat himself. Just gave a faint smile, all shadows and edges, before tapping the bar once with two fingers. “Delivery for you.”
He pointed toward the end of the counter, where one of the new staff had dropped a small box. Plain. Black ribbon. No return address.
