“You’re what’s for dinner.”
Their mouths clashed again—open, gasping, reverent.
A pan hissed violently on the stove, steam rising like war banners.
The curry was absolutely burning.
Neither of them looked, but Seungho switched off the vitro with a flick of a finger.
Haneul let out a muffled snarl of protest, fists curling in Seungho’s shirt—not to push him away, but to pull him deeper. His legs locked around Seungho’s waist with practiced familiarity and fresh need.
“I didn’t know you had such a possessive side” he breathed, head tipping back as Seungho kissed down his throat, tasting skin still warm from the shower.
“Only with you.”
And it was true.
He would let the city burn.
He would let the past rot.
He would let the curry catch fire and the smoke alarms scream.
But he would never let another man carry his Sky’s bag without consequence.
They didn’t make it to the table.
??????
The apartment had grown quiet.
The kind of silence that only follows heat—not absence, but aftermath.
Outside, November rain whispered against the windows, faint and irregular, like a memory trying to come back in pieces. The kind of weather Seoul wore when it forgot itself. When it blurred, and a city became a dream again.
In bed, Haneul sat cross-legged, sketchbook braced against his thighs, headphones loose over one ear. His braid swung gently with each motion of his pencil. He was humming to himself—some indie tune, barely audible, all vowels and sky.
The lamplight pooled warm around him, softening the shadows. He’d pulled on an oversized tee and nothing else—legs bare, knees marked from their earlier kitchen antics, skin flushed in places Seungho still wanted to bite.
Seungho came from the shower, towel slung over one shoulder, hair damp and messy, the kind of messy that invited fingers. He was shirtless, pajama pants slung low, collarbones still glistening from steam. And still, somehow, his eyes looked tired.
But then he saw the sketchbook.
Not the one Haneul was working on.
The one just beneath it. Peeking out. Folded corner. Familiar scratch of pencil.
Without a word, he reached down and slid the page free.
He’d seen it before. Versions of it. Tucked into books. Slipped between bills. Crumpled in coat pockets. Whispering at the edges of this new life.
A rooftop, empty and grim.
A man with a knot of black war-hair, clothed in crimson and darkness, blade at his back.
Smoke curling behind him. Ash in the air.
A chest cracked open—not bleeding, but glowing. A core of something brighter than fire.
