Screeching brakes.
??????
Velvet Eclipse was already chaos when Seungho arrived.
He run through the front door crowd.
No one stopped him. They parted—horrified, breathless, stunned—because he was flame incarnate and his eyes were made of death.
Smoke. Screams. A woman crying.
Security rushing too late.
And at the center of it—through the double glass doors—
A figure in white. On fire.
Something broke in his chest. Not a sound, not a thought—just a violent snap deep in the sternum, like the cracking of a seal that had held for centuries.
He didn’t think.
He ran.
Charged inside—elbowed through drag queens and bouncers, shoved a body aside—
Not again. Not again. You will not burn.
And there he was.
Haneul.
On the floor.On fire. Wings melting into skin. The braid—half gone, half melted into a curl of scorched beads and tokens and burnt ribbon.
Seungho’s lungs seized. The heat hit him like a wall and still he didn’t stop. He tore his jacket off, dropped to his knees, felt the skin of his palms sear as he wrapped Haneul up—arms, chest, body—anything to smother the light devouring him.
“I will save you this time,” he gasped. Voice shredded. “I will save you. You will not burn. Not this time. Not this time—”
The words came from somewhere below thought, dragged up from the bones. He could feel his heart convulsing, every beat a hammer against his ribs. The smell of hair and smoke and burnt fabric filled his mouth. He pressed Haneul tighter, coat smoking, his own chest burning and screaming in pain, breath breaking against the boy’s throat.
Haneul screamed once—raw, unholy—and Seungho’s body convulsed in answer, as if the sound had reached through him. He looked around for the source, for flame, for something to fight, but there was nothing left except the wet hiss of extinguishers and his own voice begging.
Cha Yul came barreling down the stairs, screaming for security, for ambulances, for blood.
“I VETTED THE GUEST LIST,” he roars. “I VETTED IT. THEY USED SOMEONE’S NAME—FUCK—I DON’T KNOW HOW—”
One of the queens was crying. Another praying. Another trying to tear the melted wings off Haneul’s back, only to sob at the skin they take with it.
Seungho cradled him now, half-burned himself, crying openly. Blood streaked his face, not his own. His hands trembled where they held the boy’s shoulders. He couldn’t stopchecking—palms sliding up to Haneul’s sternum, pressing, searching for the heartbeat, for that pulse that shouldn’t feel so familiar under his skin. His fingers dug into his own chest in the same place, the phantom heat blooming there again, like his body remembered a fire that never happened.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Sky, I’ve got you, please—”
Haneul’s eyes were open.
But he wasn’t there.
Tears streaked his face. His lips trembled.
He was whispering something. Over and over.
