“And sometimes he was nice. After. He'd bring flowers. Books. Once he booked me a private rink for a whole day. That was the worst of it, because then I thought maybe I’d earned it.”
He looked up.
“I still don’t know what that makes me.”
Seungho’s voice, when it came, was low and unshaking.
“It makes you human.”
Haneul swallowed hard. “I thought you’d pity me.”
“I don’t.”
“Or get angry.”
“I am.”
“Or say I should’ve fought harder.”
Seungho stepped forward. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t know how to leave,” Haneul said. “And even after I did, I didn’t know how to be anyone but the thing he wanted. Even now—sometimes I wonder if I’m still that.”
“You’re not,” Seungho said. “And even if you were, I’d still stay.”
Something in Haneul’s chest cracked.
Like it had been held together by wire and willpower too long.
With a low, angry noise, he stepped into Seungho’s chest and smacked his shoulder once. Twice. Hard enough to make his hand tingle.
“Don’t you fucking say stuff like that.”
Seungho didn’t move. Didn’t block the blows. Just opened his arms and let them fall.
“You don’t get to make me soft,” Haneul snapped.
And yet—
He folded.
Mouth pressed to Seungho’s shoulder, braid curling down his back, hands fisting in the crisp cotton of his shirt.
Seungho held him. Steady. And then he shifted. Not away. Just enough to speak without letting go.
“…I need to say something,” he said.
Haneul didn’t answer.
Seungho let out a breath.
“I pulled back. I know that. I made you think I was…” He trailed off, jaw tight. “It wasn’t rejection. It wasn’t regret.”
Haneul still didn’t speak, but the way his fingers curled around Seungho’s wrist—he was listening.
“I was scared,” Seungho admitted, voice low. “Not of you. Not of us. Just—of how much I already care. Of what it would mean to lose you. Of what it would cost to protect you.”
He turned his face, barely brushing his lips against Haneul’s crown.
