I hadn't meant to linger.
The hallway had gone still, except for the throb of my pulse.
His eyes were still on me. I could feel them like heat, like pressure against my chest. Not demanding. Not cruel. But so goddamn present. Haneul didn't question. He looked. And in looking, he peeled. Gently. Deliberately. Like someone stripping old paint off wood, revealing the grain beneath years of cover.
I didn't want to be seen like that.
Not again.
I had spent years building the lock on myself. Years tightening the hinges, polishing the bolts, hiding the key in the kind of darkness no one dared to reach into. Not because I didn't want someone to find it, but because I couldn't survive another person pretending to.
I'd been cracked open before. Not like a flower in bloom, but like a book people leafed through to pass the time. Flip. Flip. Toss.
"She's complicated," they'd say, like it was a compliment. Like it was an exotic spice to keep around the kitchen for when they were bored of their usual flavors.
But Haneul didn't read me like a book. He looked at me like he'd seen someone like me before in a dream that hadn't ended well. He looked at me like he could see the seams. The ones I'd hidden under sarcasm and concealer and pretty distractions. Like he'd spent the last ten minutes reading the footnotes of my soul while I was too busy pretending I had none left to annotate.
The worst part was that he didn't even mean to. There was no push, no prying. Just that steady gaze, heavy-lidded and unreadable, the kind that didn't knock at your door but stood there until you opened it just to make the staring stop.
It was unbearable, and yet I stood there, spine tight, shoulders burning, waiting for something—anything—to break the moment.
It came in the form of a throat clearing behind me. Deliberate, quiet, but not subtle.
I turned, grateful and ashamed in the same heartbeat.
Seungyong was leaning against the doorframe of his room, half-lidded eyes shadowed in the hallway light, hair still slightly mussed from his pillow. He looked better. Not well, but better. Less ghost, more boy. Less corpse, more ache.
The way he watched me and Haneul felt different.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, voice hoarse but laced with dry amusement.
My mouth parted, but no sound came out. I blinked. Shook off the haze of the moment and took a step back from Haneul. The weight of his gaze didn't lift, it just shifted, settling somewhere behind my ribs like a lingering warmth.
"No," I said, too fast. "I was just…"
Leaving? Running? bleeding?
"… you're out, looking better than yesterday." I muttered, changing the topic.
Seungyong arched an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. "And you're staring at Haneul like he's about to kiss you under the moonlight," he drawled. "So I guess we're both making bad decisions today."
I shot him a look that could've cracked marble.
"I wasn't—"
"Sure," he cut in, with that lilting tone that always made me want to throw things. "You were just standing two inches from his face for the vibes."
I didn't dignify that with a response.
Seungyong pushed off the doorframe with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck like the whole ordeal physically exhausted him.
He then looked pointedly at Haneul. "Did she corner you, or is this a mutual trauma-unloading situation?"
Haneul didn't answer. He just blinked once, slow as a cat. Then turned and walked back toward the hallway without a word, the echo of his footsteps soft but final.
Seungyong watched him go, then looked back at me, smug. "Man of many words, huh?" he mused. "I bet he's real popular with the ghost-of-your-past crowd."
I scowled.
Instead of pressing, he merely shifted his weight, subtly inviting me toward him. So I went. He stepped aside so I could pass into his room, and I crossed the threshold with a shiver down my spine.
Seungyong closed the door behind us, not fully, just enough to hush the outside world.
Seungyong's room was a mess of contradictions. Organized chaos, with books stacked like defense towers, and mismatched mugs abandoned near the bed. His blankets were kicked down to the foot of the bed like he'd lost a fight with them. He sank into the mattress with a huff, then slouched back against the headboard, exuding the kind of lazily seductive energy that made me want to punch him just to knock it loose.
"Morning," I said, strolling past him. "Or should I say, congratulations on surviving the night."
He didn't answer that. Probably thought ignoring me would rob me of satisfaction. Oh, sweet summer child.
"So," he said, patting the space beside him. "Tell me how badly you wanted to kiss Haneul."
"I will smother you with that pillow." I muttered, refusing to sit. I leaned against the wall instead, arms crossed, trying to remember why I bothered with him at all.
Seungyong tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly. "You're jumpy."
"I'm always jumpy."
"You weren't with him."
I looked away. "Haneul doesn't… talk much."
Seungyong shifted, pulling the blanket up lazily like it had betrayed him by slipping off. "You get weird around him."
I scowled. "Are you playing therapist now?"
"God, no," he said, nose wrinkling. "I'd rather swallow tacks. I just think you flinch every time someone sees too much."
I didn't answer. My fingers curled around my upper arms like I could hold myself together if I just squeezed hard enough.
"He's not trying to open you up," Seungyong added, quieter. "That's the worst part, huh? He just does." He sighed, letting his head fall back against the headboard. "Anyway. I came out here to interrupt your little moody hallway moment because it was getting depressing. You're welcome."
I narrowed my eyes. "Are you seriously trying to say you saved me from emotional intimacy?"
"Oh, no doubt," he said, smug as ever. "You were about two seconds from crying about your childhood or something. I spared us both."
Despite myself, I snorted.
He looked up at me, something smug and satisfied in his eyes again. "See? I'm good for you."
"You're terrible. I hate you."
"Only on weekdays."
"It's Saturday."
"Exactly."
I grabbed the pillow from beside him and threw it at his face. He laughed, low and delighted, the sound of it warming the edges of the room like a fireplace lit just to spite the cold.
"You're just tolerable when you don't have a stick up your behind." I muttered, heading for the door and slamming the door behind me.
The hallway was quiet.
It always felt like it held its breath in the moments between one boy's presence and the next. Seungyong's door had clicked shut behind me minutes ago, but I still wore his voice like residue on my collar. I hadn't laughed that easily in weeks. I hadn't been that lightly touched by someone's concern in longer. Then I heard a door open.
My heart caught. I didn't startle, but something inside me blinked wide awake.
Haneul stood there. His room was across from Seungyong's. I hadn't really noticed before—maybe because Haneul had a way of existing without drawing attention. He didn't move loudly. He didn't fill a room. He seeped into it.
He wasn't leaning in his doorway like Seungyong would've. No smug posture. No theatrics. Just… standing there. Quiet and bare in his black hoodie, one hand resting against the inside of the doorframe.
I expected silence. A nod. A ghost of a glance. But then—
"Do you want to come in?"
His voice was soft, angelic. He barely talked, but when he did, it was like I was listening to something divine. Of all of them, Haneul was the one I expected the least from in words. He gave them out like rare coins; deliberate, infrequent, and often worth more than their weight. But here he was, offering a full sentence, and something warmer inside it. An opening. A gesture.
I nodded. He stepped back, leaving the door open behind him.
I crossed the hallway like I was afraid it would vanish mid-step. Like the spell would break. But the door didn't close. It just creaked slightly as I pushed it open with my fingertips and slipped inside.
The lighting was soft. Amber from a single lamp on the desk, and bluer where the moon slipped between pale curtains. The air smelled like cedarwood and ink and something faintly herbal. Sage, maybe. Or peppermint. Something clean. Books stacked in uneven towers beside the bed. A digital tablet glowing low on a shelf. Watercolor tins. Graphite dust. A glass of still water, catching light.
The bed was low to the ground, the sheets an unwrinkled grey. Minimal. Tucked. Peaceful in the way monks arrange flowers.
He moved toward a speaker near his shelf and tapped something on his phone. A soft playlist filtered into the room—slow, ambient, barely melodic. It made me feel like the room had always had music, and we were only just now able to hear it.
"You don't usually talk first," I remarked, not looking directly at him.
He shrugged, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands. "Felt like you needed quiet company."
I didn't answer. Because how do you thank someone for that; for understanding that you didn't want to be alone, but also couldn't take any more noise?
The sketchbooks were stacked in neat piles. Some worn at the edges, others crisp and newly bound. I reached for one at random, the leather soft beneath my fingers. When I opened it, I felt like I was breaking into something private, but there was no resistance from him. No fear. Only quiet.
The pages held whole worlds; charcoal landscapes that bled into dreamlike faces, eyes that stared and never blinked, bodies mid-movement, arms reaching upward as if trying to pull down the moon. Some were messy, smeared with effort, others so detailed they looked printed from another life. And among them, faces. People I didn't know. People I did.
A boy with tired eyes and soft curls. A girl with her back turned, hair caught in a wind I couldn't see. Sejun with a coffee cup and a paper in hand. Daeho laughing with his head tilted back, frozen in time.
And then, me. Several times. Never posed. Always mid-motion. In the hallway. On the porch. And once, from back when we were in the veil. Even back then, he had seen me.
"You draw all of us," I mumbled, fingers brushing the edge of a page.
He didn't look up. "I draw what feels real."
"And that's… us?"
Another soft sound from him. A hum, maybe. Or the tail end of a breath.
"You especially." he added after a pause. "You're hard to capture," he said at last. "But I try anyway."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I didn't say anything. Instead, I watched him draw. His hands were gentle, precise. Not fast, but fluid. He didn't hesitate. Each movement was confident, even when it was quiet. I realized then, that he wasn't sketching me because I was beautiful, or sad, or new.
He was sketching me because I was real, at that moment. Because I existed without a performance. Because I hadn't armored myself in sarcasm or charm or anger. Not this time. Not with him.
The sketchbook in my lap slipped slightly, and I caught it by reflex.
"You're allowed to rest, you know." He chuckled, softly. It sounded almost ethereal. "You don't have to earn it. Or explain it. You can just… exist. Here."
The music shifted into something slower, more fragile. Like the soundtrack of a dream you only half-remember but still feel.
The quiet was soothing, the kind that peeled away layers you didn't know you wore. And him? He didn't rush. His strokes were steady, precise. Watching him draw was like watching someone translate the language of a soul into lines and shadow.
I flipped through more pages while he worked. Found pieces of himself in them; the way he understood pain, the way he painted silence, the way his figures always seemed just on the verge of motion, as if the moment before mattered more than the aftermath.
It made me wonder what he saw in me. What moment he was capturing. What emotion I wore that he found worth tracing.
I flipped a page. Another faceless portrait. Angular shoulders. Hunched posture. A mouth shaped like an apology. I found myself cataloging their expressions, wondering how many of them had been this peaceful with him. How many had trusted him with their stillness. With the soft, vulnerable thing that lived inside silence.
"You draw people like they're ghosts," I murmured, flipping a page.
Haneul didn't reply right away. The music dipped into a minor key behind us, piano surrendering to ambient strings. Then, quietly, "Maybe they are."
My hands stilled on the edge of the page. I swallowed something bitter and familiar. I didn't ask what he meant. Not then. I believed that some things weren't meant to be unpacked. They were meant to linger. Unsaid, unclaimed, floating like dust in lamplight.
I felt a heat bloom behind me, not from shame, but from the awareness of being seen again. Like I was something more than a body. More than a voice with barbs. I didn't know how to exist without weaponry. Without quips. Without my usual fortress of irony and brick-thick avoidance.
Eventually, I closed the book and just… watched him. The lamp beside his bed cast golden light along his cheekbone, catching the curve of his lip as he bit it in concentration. His eyes flicked between me and the page. Not lingering too long. Not hungry. Not cold. He intrigued me.
I got up from the carpeted floor, walking over and taking a seat next to him on the bed to watch him sketch. The tension between us had been building. Quietly. Slowly. Like fog slipping into a valley, unnoticed until it swallowed everything whole.
Now, it was here.
I watched him watch me. And for once, I didn't drop my gaze.
He placed the sketchpad down beside him, careful, reverent. Then his hands rested lightly on his knees. He didn't lean forward. Didn't reach. Just stayed there, steady, letting the moment decide its shape.
And I—like a fool, like something starved—leaned forward first. Not much. Just enough for the air to thin.
"You're hard to read," I mumbled. My voice came out lower than I meant it to, more vulnerable. "You always have been, but somehow you still manage to get in."
His hand reached out slowly, brushing hair away from my cheek. His fingers were calloused but warm. My body betrayed me. I leaned into the touch like a flower to sunlight.
His hand lingered, then dropped. But the ghost of it stayed, humming against my skin.
"I'm not trying to," he said simply. "I don't think you see yourself clearly." he said, voice barely more than breath.
And just like that, the air snapped. The words hit something I didn't know was still bruised.
I pulled back. "Don't." I muttered underneath my breath.
"I mean it."
"You don't know what you're talking about," I snapped. "You think you're being kind? You're not. You're trying to fit me into some box-! Some wounded, pretty thing who just needs someone to love her enough. That's not me."
His mouth opened slightly, but I didn't give him the space.
"You don't know me," I said, quieter now, more venom beneath the whisper. "You haven't in years. You think you do because you see something in my face or in my eyes or whatever poetic bullshit you like to project onto strangers, but you don't know what's in here." I tapped my chest hard enough to ache. "You don't get to say you accept me. You haven't earned that."
He sat up straighter, hands slightly raised like he was trying to calm a startled animal. "I wasn't trying to—"
"You were," I hissed, my voice tightening in my own throat like a traitor. "You were trying to fix something you don't even understand. And I've had enough of people trying to open me up like I'm some broken music box!"
The door was still ajar. That sliver of golden light still there. I walked out through it before he could say another word.
And this time, I didn't look back.
Because I knew that if I did, I'd end up crawling back like I always used to when it came to him. But I've gone long enough without, and I didn't plan on changing that.
My legs carried me down the hall without instruction, like some part of me already knew that I couldn't go back in there, couldn't linger in the heat of his words or the ghost of his hands on my skin. I felt weightless in the way a paper ash feels weightless after the fire's gone; a fragile, drifting remnant that could be crushed by the smallest touch.
The air in the corridor was cooler than it should've been, or maybe my skin was just burning. Either way, I needed to be anywhere that wasn't my head. Anywhere that wasn't the echo of accept you no matter what you think of yourself replaying in a voice that had meant to soothe but instead had ripped open a vault I kept bricked over.
That's when I saw it; the door to Seungyong's room cracked open like an invitation he'd never admit to offering. Lamplight spilled into the hall, a rich, golden kind of light that looked like it had been poured, thick and lazy, across the carpet. I might've walked past, I should have walked past. But his voice, which was unmistakable, smooth in the way sharp things sometimes slid into the air before I could escape.
"Well, if it isn't the princess, fresh from the tower."
I looked in to find him leaning against his wall, a thick book balanced casually in his hands. His hair was in mild disarray, shadows collecting at the corners of his face. He didn't glance up as he continued, "Let me guess—Prince Charming botched the rescue?"
I could have bitten back. I could have thrown the kind of words that would've left us both bleeding. But there was something in the precise, dry cut of his tone that anchored me. It wasn't kindness—not really. Seungyong didn't do kindness, not in the ways people expected. But it was familiar. A sharp edge I knew how to lean on without getting carved open.
"You always this charming," I snarked, glancing from the corner of my eye, "or is it just me?"
Seungyong didn't tell me I wasn't welcome. He just flipped a page and went back to reading, as if my presence was neither a surprise nor a disruption. The lamp cast an amber glow over him, softening the otherwise knife-like lines of his features. He looked less like a villain in that light, more like someone who'd been caught in a long conversation with himself and was content to stay there.
"Try to keep your crown on, sleeping beauty," he said, his tone dry as ever, but something just barely softer laced underneath. "It's crooked."
I didn't turn back. I didn't need to. The words lingered behind me, holding me together just enough to make it down the hall without shattering.
"You're pacing in your head," he said after a pause. "Loud enough I can hear it from here."
I stared at him blankly. "Not everything has to be dissected."
For a while, I stood there in a shared quiet that didn't feel heavy so much as stretched thin, like the fragile film over cooling coffee. Seungyong's laugh was low, almost pleasant if not for the way it curled at the edges. "Oh, I'm not dissecting. I'm just noticing. It's a bad habit of mine."
For the length of a breath, I was caught mid-step, the heat from his tone brushing the back of my neck. It wasn't sharp enough to wound, not soft enough to comfort, but it was the kind of remark that reached into you without asking permission, then had the nerve to sound like it was doing you a favor.
I still didn't turn around. Didn't give him the satisfaction of a full facing glance.
But my hand tightened around the hem of my sleeve as I kept moving, and I hated the fact that the echo of his voice followed me all the way to my door. By the time I shut myself in, the line had already burrowed deep, curling somewhere between my ribs like it belonged there. And maybe that was the worst part; how much it did.