Each morning, when he stood before the mirror — his reflection always immaculate, tie always crimson, cuffs always sharp against the bone — he hesitated. The movements were rote: fingers to silver, wrist to collar, tug, fold, knot. But there was a moment. A breath. The split second before the tie cinched closed where his hands trembled, not visibly, but rememberably. As if his body recalled something the rest of him had no right to.
A flicker of bone-pale braid. Flickers of silk ribbon. A cheekbone cutting light beneath a silver fox mask.
Sky.
The name lived behind his teeth like a secret prayer. He did not speak it aloud except once — on Christmas Eve, when the city below his penthouse window glittered like a dying hearth.
He had not decorated.
He never did.
The office lights were too bright. Or perhaps the problem was the darkness behind them—the shadow clinging to his spine, the one shaped like a braid he’d never touched. The boardroom was quiet now, only Jaewan shuffling papers at the end of the table, silent, cautious.
Seungho signed the merger agreement. He signed the Q4 audit clearance. He signed away a piece of his humanity with every initial. The pen had glided like a blade.
“Do you need anything else, boss?” Jaewan dared, voice respectful but laced with something tighter. Bracing.
“No,” Seungho said. Then, without thinking: “...Unless silence counts.”
Jaewan stiffened. A beat.
Then: “Understood.”
It wasn’t until Jaewan was gone that he exhaled—sharply, like a wound bleeding between breaths.
He shouldn’t have snapped yesterday. Jaewan had only asked about the Christmas itinerary. Not even rudely. Just asked—and Seungho had turned, frost-eyed, voice hard as sword-edge, andsaid, “Why the fuck would I celebrate an arbitrary calendar excuse for indulgence?”
The silence afterward had been unbearable.
Seungho still hadn’t apologized.
??????
That night, the city burned with light.
It was Christmas Eve.
Below his feet, Seoul glittered like someone had scattered a million broken diamonds across black velvet. Golds and reds and cold artificial blues. But none of it touched him there, high above it all, wrapped in a glass tomb of his own making.
He poured whiskey into a crystal glass. Neat. Didn’t drink it.
On the table: his phone.
Twenty-six unread messages. Four of them from names he recognized. Names with perfect lipstick and pedigrees. Old lovers. Occasional companions.
One glowed white-hot.
Shin Hye-jin.
The only woman he’d ever let through the doors of his family home. Once the favorite of his mother’s social circle. Impeccable lineage. Smooth talker. Sharp mind. Unshakeable poise. The kind of woman who didn’t wear perfume because she didn’t need to. Her silence spoke in contracts and silk.
Her message had read:
“You still like walnut mooncakes? My driver has a box. Consider it a peace offering—and a reminder.”
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then placed the phone down, face-down.
