Chapter 48 – Let Me Love You
The first time Haneul saw the scars, he didn’t cry.
He just stared at his reflection in the hospital mirror—shirt off, back stiff, fingers curling on the sink—and let the silence carry the weight.
Two wings.
That’s what the burns looked like. Not medical, not clinical.
Wings.
Charred at the tips.
Arcing over his shoulder blades.
Like something had tried to rise.
He traced them with shaking fingers.
Each scar still fresh, still healing. Pink and silver in the shape of pain and rebirth.
“They look like yours,” Seungho said, softly.
He stood behind him. Shirtless. Bare-chested. Quiet.
And when he turned just enough—Haneul saw it.
The burn over Seungho’s heart.
Not large. Not deep.
But perfect.
A flame-shaped imprint, healed like old magic, like the fire had curled around him and recognized him.
Thedoctors couldn’t explain it.
No grafts. No nerve damage. Just a bloom of scar tissue shaped like a sealed vow.
Seungho met his gaze in the mirror.
“I would’ve burned through every bone in my body,” he said, “if it meant you lived.”
Haneul didn’t cry.
But he reached for him.
And they stood there—scar to scar, chest to back, fire to frost.
Alive. Together.
??????
The room was quiet, save for the low, metallic groan of the elevator doors as they shut behind them. Discharged at last. No more antiseptic, no more blinking machines. Just the slow hush of night folding over the city, and the weight of the world tucked under Seungho’s arm.
He carried Haneul like something sacred, even though the younger man could walk now—could stumble down a hallway, chin lifted, eyes proud, back straight despite the pain.
But Seungho insisted. Said nothing, but held him.
