Didn’t reply.
He stepped to the glass wall. Leaned his forearm against it. The chill seeped through his shirt. The snow had begun falling again—soft, delicate, uncaring.
The first flakes drifted past the window like ghosts.
He whispered, “Sky.”
But the glass didn’t fog.
??????
Two days later, Jaewan brought him the file. He slid it across the table like it might detonate.
Seungho didn’t look up. Just rested a hand over the folder, fingers taut.
“I asked Yul,” Jaewan said finally, voice roughened by sleep or reluctance. “Didn’t want to, but—”
“And?”
Jaewan exhaled. “He’s twenty. Orphan. Art student. Lives alone. Place is a roach nest, west side, mold on the ceiling. Works four nights a week to pay tuition and possibly a debt from deceased parents.”
Seungho opened the file.
Jaewan didn’t stop. “He’s under Cha Yul’s eye. Which is... both good and bad. Yul likes him. Keeps him safe. But even Yul says the kid’s unpredictable. Slippery. Beautiful in that way that turns people into problems.”
“Is he in danger?”
“He’s danger. That’s the thing.”
Silence thickened.
Jaewan rubbed the back of his neck. “He scares easy. Bites when cornered. But the clientele love him. He draws crowds. Keeps distance. Like he’s half in this world, half out.”
“Yul said he sleeps like he’s guarding himself from war. Not people—war. You still sure you want to light a match to this?”
Seungho didn’t answer.
Just turned the photo over.
Bruises under a mesh shirt. Braid like a banner in the wind. His shirt barely qualified as clothing. But that wasn’t what caught Seungho’s attention.
It was the shape of him.
The tension.
A body built of resistance, not seduction. Every inch of him screamed do not touch. Every flick of his expression was coiled with fight or flight. A look in the eyes that didn’t belong to anyone born in this century.
Beautiful.
Not in the usual way. Not in the polished, symmetrical, curated forms of Seoul’s elite.
But in the way old gods were beautiful — terrifying, raw, unfinished.
Haneul was a prayer no one had finished writing. A body caught between winters. He looked like he could collapse into you or slit your throat and call it love.
“You’re not going to him?” Jaewan asked, quieter now. Not quite caution. Not quite hope.
“No.”
