A silence. Gentle.
Outside, the city murmured low and far away—cars in the distance, a dog barking two blocks down, the whisper of wind against glass.
Inside, they breathed. Just skin, and skin.
The ache of being held, not consumed.
Of being seen without demand.
Seungho didn’t know when his hand had begun stroking slow circles along Haneul’s back.
Didn’t know when Haneul’s fingers had found the inside of his wrist and held it like a tether.
But they stayed like that. Long after the thoughts stopped spinning.
Long after the past stopped echoing.
Just two bodies remembering how to rest in the presence of someone who didn’t flinch.
??????
By mid-October, Jaewan’s office had turned into a one-man crisis management center.
The Jeju retreat was coming up—a mandatory event for Yeol Holdings’ top executives and several major shareholders. Three days of networking, golf, and speeches by the sea. The kind of event that looked polished on paper and felt like purgatory in real life.
Seungho loathed it. But this year, he found himself doing something he hadn’t done in a decade.
He was… planning for it.
Not for the board. For Haneul.
Theidea began as a half-formed impulse—a need to get him out of the city for a while. Away from shadows, burned letters, from Minseok’s reach. He remembered how Haneul had said, months ago, “When in my life do you think I had time or money to go to the damn beach, skyscraper?!”, eyes rolling but voice cracking just slightly around the edges. And the words had stuck.
So now, Seungho was trying to engineer a miracle: sneak one uninvited chaos god onto an exclusive corporate roster without the board—or Jaewan—setting themselves on fire.
??????
“Absolutely not,” Jaewan said, flipping through the attendee list. “You’re not bringing your… whatever he is.”
“My assistant,” Seungho said smoothly.
“You mean the one who threw wine at the logistics director last spring, at the infamous shareholder’s party event?”
“He deserved it.”
“And then physically assaulted Mr. Kang?”
“He touched one of his host colleagues. Haneul was protecting an employee and a friend.”
“You’re calling the Glitter Apocalypse protection?”
Seungho’s expression didn’t change. “I’m calling it justified.”
Jaewan stared at him for a long moment. Then sighed, pressing a palm to his forehead. “Seungho. That party almost gave HR a collective stroke.”
“Which is why he’s not under HR,” Seungho replied, calmly stamping the final itinerary. “He’s under me.”
“That’s… somehow worse.”
