He was circling.
Still.
??????
The door clicked shut behind Seungho with a quiet finality.
He set his keys down. Toed off his shoes. The penthouse was still and dim, and yet the air felt crowded—as if it was holding its breath.
Water was running.
He walked toward the sound without urgency at first. But something in him was already bracing.
The hallway light glowed faintly. A trail of droplets marked the floor—small, chaotic, rushed. Not the kind of water left by a leisurely shower. No—these were shaken off. Flinging themselves to the tile like they couldn’t stand the body they clung to.
The bathroom door was slightly ajar.
Steam poured out in lazy whorls, gilded by the light overhead. But it wasn’t the warmth that stopped Seungho at the threshold.
It was the sound.
Or rather, the lack of it.
No singing. No humming. No swearing at shampoo bottles. Just the relentless pound of water and the kind of silence that screamed.
He stepped in.
Haneul stood under the spray, unmoving. Hair soaked and clinging to his back. Head bowed. Hands splayed flat on the wall in front of him like he was bracing against something heavier than gravity.
And even from here—Seungho saw it.
The tremor.
Not a shiver. Not from cold.
A tremble that started in the wrists and radiated outward. Like voltage under skin.
He stepped closer. Quiet, but not hiding.
And then—he noticed the braid tie.
It was curled by the sink in a damp heap, the same black ribbon Haneul used every day. Abandoned. Soaked through. Like it had slipped from fingers too numb to care.
His shirt—crumpled in the corner. Unworn. As if he hadn’t bothered.
The curve of his shoulder was bare, pale in the light, with faint pressure lines across the skin. Not bruises. Not from injury. Just the kind of marks left behind when someone’s been gripping themselves too tightly, too long.
Something coiled low in Seungho’s gut.
“Sky,” he said softly.
Haneul didn’t answer, nor turn.
Just let the water crash over him, like he was trying to drown something under his skin.
Seungho stepped closer.
“Was it him?”
