For Haneul, it meant the start of the new academic term. Placement work, portfolio reviews, critiques that went longer than the sun.
He had returned to campus with the dull edge of someone trying not to be brittle?—?after everything that had happened, after the bruises faded and the nights grew longer in Seungho’s apartment.
Sometimes he still woke to the smell of coffee he hadn’t brewed, the low hum of Seungho’s playlist drifting from the kitchen. It wasn’t caretaking anymore; it was rhythm. Familiar, but not yet steady. Close, but not yet home.
He saw Seungho mostly at night now.
The week before, Seungho had gone back to work at Yeol Holdings.
Haneul had watched him knot his tie, fingers steady, eyes half-tired.
“Don’t forget the thermos,” he’d muttered, sliding it across the counter.
“Since when do you drink green tea?” Seungho had asked.
“Since you forget water when you worry.”
The corner of Seungho’s mouth had curved — that fractional, private smile he never showed the world.
Seungho hadn’t wanted to leave. But Jaewan had insisted. There were meetings. Public investors. A board presentation on the 26th. “The company can’t run on concern alone,” Jaewan had said, clapping Seungho on the back like a man giving him permission to be human again.
Seungho had only agreed when Haneul told him, flatly, “I’m not a patient. You’re not my nurse.”
But the nights felt longer since. They texted. Sometimes a call during his lunch break. A picture of Haneul’s coffee cup, paint on the rim. A voice note from Seungho, hoarse, asking what he wanted for dinner.
They were still tethered,?not by words, but by the small domestic ghosts they left in each other’s hours.
??????
He found Minseok on the steps like a wound that refused to clot: black leather jacket zipped halfway down, jawline tense, mouth curled into a cruel promise. There was nothing neutral about his stance. Everything in him radiated that hungry, angry swagger of a man who’d jerked off to the idea of revenge.
It was Wednesday. The air reeked of old smoke, melted ice, blood under fingernails. Haneul still smelled faintly of ice skating rink chill, a trace of lavender and exertion clinging to his collar. His braid swung in the night air like a pendulum, ticking, measuring the moment before the storm hit.
He saw Minseok and froze — no, coiled. Every muscle in him drawn tight, the animal in his spine bristling, teeth bared. Buthe didn’t flinch. He never did. He lifted his chin, defiant, eyes slicing the darkness.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, sharp and unrepentant, frost laced into every syllable. “Did you finally come out to your daddy and now you need to blame me for being the boy-kisser you’re too scared to admit you are?”
Minseok didn’t flinch either. His eyes were cold, but not dead — they gleamed. The kind of gleam a wolf gets just before it bites. His hand shot out, latched onto Haneul’s forearm, fingers sinking deep like he wanted to imprint himself onto skin. His cologne was thick with something spicy and mean, the kind of scent you wore to bed someone you hated.
“You think you can hide from me?” he said, low and shaking with control. “Cha Yul kicked me out of Velvet because of you. Your little tantrum. Your fucking attitude. And then I hear you’re shacked up in some rich bastard’s apartment, probably letting him fuck that tight little body like he bought you.” He leaned in, voice thick with contempt. “I don’t remember signing off on you leaving me, Sky.”
Haneul yanked his arm back, teeth bared like a feral fox. “You lost every right to me the moment you brought a fake Barbie doll home to parade for your mommy.”
That struck bone.
Minseok’s face cracked open with fury, raw and red in the way only hatred made it. “Did you fuck him?” he spat, stepping in. “Suck him off with those lips you used to cry into my cock? What was it, huh? You open your legs for a better view? Let him fuck you raw while you call him daddy? You always were a whore waiting to be bought.”
The word struck — whore — and Haneul didn’t hesitate.
The first punch was awkward, all wrist and rage, but it hit. Minseok grunted, teeth clicking. He lunged. Fists flew — not brawling, not self-defense, but a frenzy that could only come from two people who’d kissed and fought with the same mouth.
Minseok’s knuckles slammed into Haneul’s cheek, splitting the skin. Haneul clawed at his collar, nails catching on the metal chain around Minseok’s neck. The world blurred into punches, hot breath, the crunch of bone on pavement, a rib struck hard enough to steal Haneul’s breath.
“Fucking slut,” Minseok snarled, breath panting, voice guttural. He slammed Haneul against the hood of a parked car, pinned him by the braid, yanked so hard the ribbon ripped and snapped. “Mine. You don’t get to pretend you’re clean when I’m the one who broke you in.”
“Let me go,” Haneul hissed, but his voice trembled — not with fear, but with something sick, something that tasted like memory, like arousal tainted by pain. He hated that part of himself. The part that responded to rough hands and filthy mouths. The part Minseok knew too well.
Minseok shoved him into the passenger seat of his car like a ragdoll. Haneul struggled, twisted, his knee hitting the console. But Minseok was already on him, hand fisted in his braid, the other splayed wide on his thigh, squeezing through denim like he owned what was underneath.
