Later, long after Jaewan left and the storm had turned the skyline white, Seungho sat in the dark with a pencil in hand.
He hadn’t sketched in years. But now, his fingers moved before his mind caught up.
A mouth. A sharp jaw.
Eyes—frost-blue, wide, a little wild, a little haunted.
He froze.
Looked down.
There, in the center of the page, was a face he couldn’t name but his bones recognized.
Soft mouth, scarred lip.
Head shaved sharply on the sides… and a Long nape braid slung over one shoulder, half-unraveled. Something glinted in the braid—a safety pin? A red thread? He didn’t know why his throat burned.
The pencil fell from his hand.
He stood. Walked to the window again.
Seoul glowed beneath snowlight.
And this time, the name came not as a whisper.
But as a vow.
Sky.
No idea who.
No memory why.
But his soul flinched like it had been struck.
And outside, the snow kept falling.
??????
Chapter 3 – The Neon Beneath the Snow
Velvet Eclipse, the host bar where Haneul worked four nights a week, didn’t open until sunset. The lights were always set to twilight—violet, gold, a kind of permanent dusk that clung to skin like perfume.
Haneul moved through it like he’d been carved for the stage, all shoulder angles and sharp lashes, shaved sides gleaming under the halogens. His braid was wrapped high tonight, half held by a blue wristband and two safety pins he hadn’t bothered to match. The mesh shirt he wore dipped low across one collarbone, a bruise barely hidden beneath foundation, faint green turning to yellow.
He didn’t fix it.
He liked the way it made people nervous.
"Cheonsa," someone called from the VIP corner.
He smiled with only one side of his mouth. Let them wonder what it meant.
Behind the bar, Junseo was already two drinks behind and one insult deep into a customer he probably shouldn’t have looked at twice. He leaned over the bar like a dog too friendly for its own good, grinning wide, hair bleached nearly white and dyed back in orange, shirt unbuttoned one too far.
“You’re late,” Haneul said, dropping two trays onto the counter.
“You’re always on time. It’s annoying,” Junseo shot back, reaching for the wrong bottle with absolute confidence.
