The first night, he didn’t sleep. The hum of the mini fridge scraped down his spine like static.
By the second, he was wiping down the coffee table and leaving hot tteokbokki on Yul’s desk. When Yul asked if it was poisoned, Haneul muttered, “You wish,” and slipped downstairs.
By the third, Junseo had smuggled in an electric blanket—“For your sensitive frostbitten heart,” he’d said, kissing Haneul’s braid before vanishing back into the blur of the floor. That night, Haneul curled under the blanket and let it hum around his shoulders.
By the fourth, Haneul was at the window again, breath fogging the glass. Yul came back late, smelling like smoke and subway metal. “You like winter?” he asked.
“No,” Haneul murmured. “It just reminds me no one’s coming.”
Yul said nothing. But the next morning, the mini fridge had real milk instead of powdered creamer.
??????
YUL → JAEWAN : Boy’s sleeping in my office now.
JAEWAN → YUL: That’s how it starts. First it’s pity, then it’s loyalty.
YUL→ JAEWAN: And your friend?
JAEWAN → YUL: Already past pity. God help the rest of us.
??????
It was Tuesday.
Seungho never came on Tuesdays.
Haneul was brushing his teeth with one sock on, hair still damp from a sink rinse, when his stomach flipped sideways.
Acid. Pure and vengeful.
He made it down the hallway in a blur of bare skin and curse words, boxers twisted at the hip, foam dripping from the cornerof his mouth. The club was dark still—pre-open hush, lights flickering on.
He didn’t make it to Yul’s private bathroom. It smelled too good, like bergamot and eucalyptus and safety.
He couldn’t desecrate it.
So he bolted down to the club toilet and retched until his throat burned, chest heaving, half-naked and shivering under the flickering purple LED of the hallway outside.
When he finally wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up—
Seungho was standing in the doorway.
Black wool coat. Black turtleneck. A face carved from thunderclouds and restraint.
They stared at each other.
Haneul, flushed and blinking and half naked, slowly straightened up. Foam still on his lip. Knees wobbly. No shame.
Seungho blinked once. Then stepped aside wordlessly and held out a handkerchief. White. Silk. Monogrammed.
“You look awful,” Seungho said, low and dry.
Haneul spat in the sink, wiped his mouth, then muttered, “Can’t all be immaculate skyscrapers.”
Seungho didn’t move.
“You followed me down here?” Haneul said.
