“Did you know he’s married to a man?” one murmured.
“A CEO, apparently. Twelve years older. Started seeing him when the boy was barely twenty.”
“I heard the ceremony was hidden away in some mountain monastery—north of Seoul, up on that old peak where the frost never melts. The monks warn people not to wander too far. Something about a grave no one remembers.”
“And the husband commissioned a shawl of real snow-fox fur to cover his lover’s scars. You know how much that costs?”
A soft, delighted gasp. “How romantic. Or insane.”
Their laughter glittered, brittle as glass.
Haneul passed just in time to hear the last line.
He paused, smile carved too sweet. “Insane,” he agreed. “Butthe fur’s fake.”
Then—an art-gallery miracle—he tilted his wrist, and an entire tray of anchovy-stuffed olives slipped sideways.
The splash landed with surgical precision down the neckline of the loudest woman.
“Oops,” he said, deadpan, and kept walking.
The caterer nearly choked trying not to laugh.
On the other side of the room, Cha Yul leaned on the bar, sipping whisky older than the twins he’d helped deliver into the world.
“I raised that little bastard into a goddamn oracle,” he muttered, eyes soft.
Nearby, Jaewan hovered in clean navy, arms crossed, face stoic—except the smile pulling at the corners like a man watching a house he built finally stop burning.
And then—
“Sky ojisaaaaan!!”
Two shrieking toddlers erupted through the crowd like guided missiles, one still chewing a gallery label, the other clinging to a purse shaped like a frog. They hurled themselves at Haneul like his aura was magnetic.
He caught them both, wild and shrieking, one arm each.
“Sugar or chaos?” he asked.
“STORY!” they screamed. “Tell us the one about the Fire King and the Sky Warrior!”
He spun them in a circle so fast one of them screamed and the other puked laughter.
Ji-Ho, panting, arrived seconds later, trailing a wife who looked like she could command naval fleets and was currently nine months pregnant with what might be triplets.
“Oppa,” she said, voice too calm to be safe, “You said ten minutes. It’s been forty. The smaller one bit a sculpture and the larger one’s trying to steal the cheese knives.”
“I’m sorry,” Ji-ho said, already ducking.
“You married a general,” Haneul whispered.
“I married Karma,” Ji-ho hissed back.
And still winked. Still kissed her hand. Still smiled like he’d do it again.
??????
The crowd thickened.
