“You think I don’t know how you get?” he growled against Haneul’s ear, hot breath licking over bruises. “You freeze up like a good boy, but your cock always tells the truth. How many nights did I make you come with your teeth buried in my shoulder, sobbing like you hated it? Huh?”
Haneul writhed, tried to push him off, but Minseok caught both wrists in one brutal grip and slammed them above his head. Hisother hand slid down, fingers curling under waistband and pressing tight against the seam of Haneul’s boxers. He groped, impatient and smug. “You’re hard,” he whispered against his neck, tongue brushing just under the ear. “You fucking like this.”
But he wasn’t.
Not really.
Not the way he used to be, those first months when fear and desire blurred into the same heat. His cock twitched under the pressure, sure—but there was no pull, no pulse, no hunger. Just… noise. Confusion. A dull throb, like a wound reopening.
He felt something, yes, but it was cold. Numb. Automatic. Like his body was trying to imitate arousal because Minseok expected it. His body didn’t understand the difference yet. It had learned him in violence.
He yanked his hips back, breath short, fury swallowing the shame. “I’m not hard,” he spat. “And even if I was, it wouldn’t be for you.”
Minseok’s fingers slipped further between waistband and skin, palming him through underwear. “Yeah, baby. That’s it. That’s the brat I trained.” He leaned in closer, breath hot, lips brushing the corner of Haneul’s mouth. “Did he see you like this? Shaking and soaked, grinding against a bastard who hurts you right?”
Haneul turned his head and sank his teeth into Minseok’s forearm — deep. Blood welled up. Minseok cursed, jerked back. The taste was metallic and bitter on his tongue.
“You fucking animal—”
Haneulkicked open the door and bolted.
Minseok followed.
They collided in the alley behind the club, shadows thick and wet with grease and frost. Minseok caught him by the arm, twisted, shoved. Haneul crashed into a dumpster, shoulder first, sneakers skidding on the grime-slick ground. His braid caught on a rusted nail — skrrk — tearing skin in a hot, wet sting. Blood dripped, hot against the cold.
“You little fucking cocktease,” Minseok growled, breathing hard. “Think you can run? Huh? Think your new sugar daddy’s gonna lick you where I marked you?”
He slammed a hand across Haneul’s face — crack. Blood sprayed. A tooth might’ve loosened.
But Haneul didn’t fall.
He pushed forward, spat blood right at Minseok’s chest, eyes blazing. “I’m not yours. Not now. Not ever.”
“You were mine the first time I made you scream,” Minseok snapped. “When you begged me with your thighs shaking and your cunt dripping—”
“I don’t have a cunt, you stupid piece of shit,” Haneul screamed. “And I never begged you. You made me believe pain was love. That’s all you ever were. Filth.”
They stood there, panting, two beasts from different cages. Haneul bleeding, wild, one sneaker half-off, braid hanging like a noose behind him. Minseok with blood on his mouth, teeth bared in something like arousal, something like hatred.
From the street, a woman screamed. A dog barked. The night pulsed with neon and gasoline. Still, they didn’t move.
Minseok finally stepped back, spit thick in his mouth, voice shredded. “You’ll come back. You always come back.”
He left Haneul there — mouth full of grit, braid shredded, a bruise rising like dawn along his cheekbone, and that long red wound burning at his neck.
Haneul didn’t run far. He staggered through the city like a ghost rediscovering its body. Found a bench with a slatted back and curled into it, pressing a trembling hand to the blood at his neck as though he could stitch himself closed by will alone. The air smelled of car waste and rain.
He chewed the inside of his cheek until he tasted iron again, because he couldn’t let himself think about what came next.
When he finally stood up, the streets were thinning, lights dimming one by one as if the city were holding its breath. He walked the last blocks to Seungho’s penthouse as though the distance itself were a sentence handed down by some indifferent god. Every step had been an argument with gravity.
The lobby attendant greeted him softly, not noticing the dried smear at his jaw. The elevator’s mirrored walls made him look like a stranger — face mottled, eyes too bright, braid a tangle of blood and silk. He leaned against the glass as the numbers climbed.
When the doors opened, he had stumbled into the penthouse’s silence — a silence so complete it hummed. The place was dark except for the faint blue wash of the city beyond the windows. The marble floors glowed faintly, that familiar, cold white that made him feel both protected and exposed.
He had called out Seungho’s name once, quietly, knowing there would be no answer. The echo had come back hollow.
It was the kind of emptiness that punished you for hoping.
