Then he looked at the paper.
Messy numbers. Deductions. Ink stains on the edges. Probably written while chewing the pen.
“You don’t need to—” he started.
“I do,” Haneul snapped. Not loud. Just… firm. “I’ve had too many rooms I wasn’t allowed to touch. Too many hands that bought me things and expected obedience in return. You don’t get to be one of them.”
A pause.
Then, quieter: “If I’m here, I’m paying. That’s the only way it’s real.”
Seungho stared at him for a long moment.
Then, without a word, he picked up the slip. Crossed something out. Wrote a new number. Slid it back.
Haneul squinted.
“Fifty percent.”
Haneul’s eyes narrowed. “I said—”
“I heard you.”
“Then why—?”
“You’re not staying here out of debt,” Seungho said, calm as a blade. “You’re staying because I left the door open.”
Haneul stood there, breathing hard.
He didn’t take the paper.
Didn’t argue further.
Just grabbed the cereal box from the pantry—the stupid cartoon fox one—and stared at it like it had betrayed him by surviving.
“You bought it again,” he muttered, half-mocking, half-shaken. “You’re either a masochist or a sugar addict.”
Seungho didn’t look up from his tablet. “It’s your favorite.”
Haneul paused.
Then dumped half the box into a bowl. Poured milk like he was angry about it.
And walked away, mouth too full to say thank you.
But when he passed the counter again, he dragged his hand across it—just once, knuckles brushing the wood.
A silent, sideways touch. Like he wasn’t sure how to say I see what you did.
Seungho didn’t say anything.
But he watched the hand.
And kept the rent slip, still warm from Haneul’s fingers, tucked inside the back of his notebook.
??????
It was never spoken aloud. But suddenly, they shared air again.
