We didn't get off at our usual stop.
I didn't notice it at first—not until the bus rolled past the sleepy subdivision gates of our village, past the convenience store where Seungyong once bought a six-pack of overpriced kombucha just to annoy me. Only then did I turn to Haneul, brows furrowing.
"We missed our stop."
He didn't look surprised. "I know."
"Did you fall asleep?"
"No."
I blinked. "You meant to miss it?"
A single nod. Calm, deliberate. Like this had been in his head since morning.
"I figured we could eat."
The simplicity of it rattled me more than any smirk Seungyong could ever throw across a faculty meeting. Just a quiet, matter-of-fact suggestion from a person who had known me since we were two snot-nosed kids fighting over a plastic shovel. Somehow that made it worse. Or better. I didn't know.
I stared at him for a moment longer. Couldn't decide if I wanted to argue or thank him. In the end, I said nothing.
He stood when the bus slowed again and motioned for me to follow. Gentle, familiar. Too familiar.
We ended up on a quiet block—one of those half-hidden pockets of the city where everything smelled like vanilla and new money. A café sat on the corner, its name scripted in gold leaf on the glass: Vienne's. Outside, lavender bushes bloomed in cracked terracotta pots, and the awning was a shade of soft blue usually reserved for heirloom teacups.
Haneul ordered for both of us. A croissant for him. Assorted macarons for me. He remembered my preferences embarrassingly well.
"Find a seat," he said. "I'll bring them."
I nodded and slipped into a velvet-lined booth at the back of the café. Sunlight spilled across the table in a warm, syrupy gold. For a moment, everything felt almost… peaceful.
That was, until I heard it:
"Daphne?"
My stomach twisted. I knew that voice.
She stood by the pastry shelf in a crisp cream blazer over a baby blue bustier top, lipstick the color of overripe strawberries, and her once caramel-highlighted hair now dyed a rich, dark blue that shimmered under the cafe lights. Expression caught between curiosity and satisfaction.
"Sadie Choi," I said flatly. "You're here. In Korea."
"I almost didn't recognize you," she sauntered closer, gesturing at my pink hair. "But then I saw the posture. You always did sit like you were ready to bolt."
"You always watched like you were waiting to catch me."
"God, you're still hot." She laughed. "I missed that mouth."
She slid into the seat across from me like she belonged there. Chin resting on her hand, bracelets clinking softly against the marble table. I ignored the heat crawling up my throat.
I watched her lean forward, her blazer gaping just enough to hint at skin. She rested her chin on her hand, eyes glittering.
"You look good, Daphne. Like... real good. Is that tinted moisturizer? Or are you just aging like you made a deal with something unholy?"
"Genetics." I muttered. I didn't know what to add to that. The table between us suddenly felt too small.
"So," she drawled, "what are you doing on this side of town? Don't tell me you live nearby. I'll have to start coming more often."
"Commuting," I said vaguely. "Mostly just writing manuals and subbing the occasional film. Nothing thrilling."
She tilted her head. "Always the clever type. Still hiding a soft center behind sarcasm?"
"Still pretending yours doesn't exist?"
"What are you even doing here?" I asked.
"Just wrapped things up with a client nearby, was heading out when I saw you." She grinned. "Didn't trust my eyes, but then you tilted your head like you always do when someone calls your name."
I didn't remember doing that.
I didn't remember doing that.
"You still memorize my tells?"
"You still have them."
She was still watching me too closely.
"You still single?" she asked, voice feather-light.
Before I could even begin to respond, Haneul arrived.
He set the tray down like he'd rehearsed the timing. Quiet. Controlled. Then—without looking at Sadie—he slid into the booth beside me.
Sadie blinked once. Twice. Then her expression morphed from confusion… to irritation… to something sourer.
"Oh," she drawled. "Of course it's you."
Haneul sipped his drink, unbothered.
She clicked her tongue. "Still glued to her hip after all these years, huh? Some things never change."
I felt him go still beside me—but only for a second.
"He your boyfriend now?" She asked it with forced casualness, but the edge in her voice was sharp enough to file nails with.
Neither of us answered.
He didn't nod, didn't shake his head, didn't even glance her way. He just sat there, calm as a pond in summer, which only seemed to annoy both her and me more.
Sadie huffed a laugh. "Wow. Still the silent type. Still following her around like a lost shadow. I swear, Daph, if you're still dragging him everywhere—"
"I'm not dragging anyone," I cut in.
"Oh please," she scoffed. "He's been orbiting you since high school. Everyone thought he was a phase. But you kept him. Like a pet."
Haneul's jaw tightened—barely. You wouldn't notice unless you knew him, which we did.
She held up her hands, mock-innocent. "I'm just saying—of all the people from high school, he's the one still glued to you? No offense, Haneul, but some people move on."
At that, he finally looked at her. Just one glance. Quiet. Flat. Devastating.
Sadie faltered—only for a heartbeat—but it was there.
She recovered with a thin smile. "Honestly, Daphne, you'd be better off with a woman than with someone who refuses to grow a spine."
My jaw tightened. "You don't get to comment on my relationships."
"Oh, sweetheart," she said sweetly, "I'm not commenting on your relationships. I'm commenting on your choices."
"That's enough," I snapped.
She lifted both hands in mock surrender. "Just saying. If he still can't speak up for himself after all these years, that's not loyalty, that's just dependency. Honestly, Daph, at that point you might as well be dating a houseplant."
"Sadie—"
"And you'd be better off with a woman than with that. At least then she'd actually talk to you."
I glared at her.
She was still angry. Still bitter, still competing. But for what?
I opened my mouth to answer—something sharp, something scathing—but before I could, Haneul finally moved, pulling me up with him.
Sadie got up and tried to follow, but he stood between us. Not loudly. Not forcefully. Just… placed himself there. Like a quiet wall.
Then he turned slightly, not to Sadie—but to me, and headed out the door.
The walk back was painted in late afternoon bruises, the sky swollen with colors that hadn't quite decided whether they wanted to burn or soften. Beneath it, we moved like figures in an old watercolor; edges damp, shadows long. Haneul walked beside me, a quiet rhythm in linen and bone, his steps slow enough to match mine without making a show of it.
I walked slightly ahead at first, unsure if he'd trail behind or vanish entirely. He didn't. But he also didn't speak, and somehow, that carved deeper than if he had.
The silence wasn't new. Haneul was made of it. Not the kind that throbbed with repressed anger or the kind that waited to be broken, but the kind that stood its ground. The kind that was comfortable with being misunderstood. The kind that didn't chase after clarification.
And now, he carried the takeout like it weighed nothing. Like nothing had happened. Like Sadie hadn't said what she said. Like I hadn't looked to him for something I couldn't name.
I felt ridiculous— For hoping, for caring, for feeling anything at all.
Half a block from the main road, just past the withered fence of a shuttered bookshop, I reached for his hand. It wasn't dramatic. No lingering glances, no trembling fingers. Just a soft reach, like a question in midair.
And he shifted. He raised the paper bag higher, adjusted his grip. Not enough to call attention, but enough to occupy the space where my fingers might have fit.
I let my arm fall back to my side like it had never moved.
The wind picked up, combing its fingers through the strands of my hair that had come loose. I felt small. No, not small. Just... unreturned.
Then I reached out again. Not for his hand, but for the bag.
"I'll carry it now," I offered, reaching for the takeout.
"No need to."
"I want to hold it because I want you to hold me."
But when I reached out, tentative and unsure, he adjusted the bag, placing it between us like a polite apology.
"Why do you do that?" I asked eventually. My voice was quiet. Careful. "You never…" I swallowed. "You never reach back."
He looked ahead, not at me. The streetlight gilded his lashes. "I didn't want the pastries to get crushed."
I laughed. It wasn't even funny, it was just so perfectly, stupidly him.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
His tone was even, measured, like he was offering me the honesty I asked for, but none of the vulnerability I craved.
I hated how he said things like that— like he was letting me down gently with words wrapped in silk, when all I wanted was something jagged and real.
"Back there," I started, "with Sadie, you didn't even say anything. She insulted you to your face."
"She wasn't worth answering."
"She insulted me, too."
He blinked, slowly. "And you needed me to defend you?"
I didn't know how to answer that.
No, maybe I did.
Maybe I wanted something ridiculous. Something dramatic. Something loud and obvious, like a line drawn in the sand. Because god knew I didn't know where his lines were. Or if he even had any.
"I just wanted you to say something," I muttered.
The wind tugged at the hem of my coat. A petal landed in my hair, stayed there.
"I don't need noise to prove how I feel," he said.
I turned away, teeth clenched.
"That's easy for someone like you to say."
"Someone like me?"
"Someone who never has to explain themselves," I snapped. "Someone who gets away with being quiet because it looks like mystery instead of avoidance. Do you know how exhausting it is trying to guess what you're thinking all the time?"
He didn't answer. And maybe that was answer enough.
I pressed a hand to my temple, breathed through the spike of frustration threading through my skull.
"I'm not trying to fight," I continued, quieter now. "I just… I don't get you. Sometimes I think I do. But then you say nothing. Or worse, you say almost something. And then nothing at all again."
Like one step forward, then one step back. In the end, we were always right back where we started.
He looked down at the takeout bag as if it were easier to hold than me.
And that stung.
We walked another block in the hush of streetlight halos before I stopped pretending.
"You know," I said, my voice low but steady, "I'm starting to think you don't like me."
He slowed, looked at me. The expression wasn't confused. Just... still.
"Or maybe you do," I continued. "But you're allergic to admitting it."
Still, he said nothing.
The dusk folded itself around us, quieter than his silence, louder than my thoughts. I turned to face him fully, planting my feet against the cracked sidewalk.
"Why don't you ever say anything? I'm not asking you to write me sonnets or kiss me under streetlamps. But just—" I stopped, breathing shallow. "Anything. Something. You just… let things happen. You show up, you carry things, you leave mango juice on my desk, but you never say anything. I don't know what you're thinking."
I didn't know what I meant to you. I didn't even know if I ever meant anything to you, more than just another ghost in your sketchbook.
Haneul was quiet. Of course he was.
But this time, it wasn't a cold quiet. It wasn't that hollow space I'd learned to walk around. No, this one felt heavy, like rain in a room without windows.
By the time we reached our subdivision, the sky had sunk past dusk and into something quiet.
The air was colder by the time we turned the corner home. Haneul didn't say a word, and I didn't either. It was a silence we shared often; thick as velvet, clean as snow, terrifying in its stillness. But tonight, it felt different. It felt like a silence with a question in it, or maybe a wound.
The porch light painted him in gold. Like always, he looked beautiful in the quiet, like he belonged only to nightfall. But the door opened before I even reached for the knob.
Seungyong stood there, arms folded across his chest like a storm wrapped in wool. His expression was an unlit cigarette; smoldering but not burning. I couldn't tell if he was going to sigh or bite.
I opened my mouth, but he was already rolling.
"No call. No message. Nothing. Do you know what time it is?"
Behind him, the light in the hallway revealed movement. Daeho's silhouette near the stairs, Sejun sitting cross-legged on the floor with his phone limp in his hands like he'd forgotten what it was for.
Sejun looked up at the sound of Seungyong's voice, and I saw his eyes soften with relief. Then worry. Then something tighter.
Seungyong stepped aside just enough to let us in, his gaze sharp on both of us like a blade held steady. "Daeho was two seconds away from filing a missing person's report," he said. "Sejun's been pacing for hours. I told them you were fine. But I was starting to doubt myself."
Then, quietly, he added: "Did something happen?"
"It's all fine," I mumbled in reply.
"You sure about that?" Seungyong asked, tone needling. "Because from where I'm standing–"
"She said it's nothing." Haneul stood behind me, and the room stopped.
Seungyong turned slowly to him, his expression unreadable now. "You speak?"
"I do."
"Good to know. Maybe next time you'll remember how to text too."
The silence that followed was too big for this house.
I kept walking.
The house was too bright, too awake. I wanted my room, my dark, my door.
Footsteps followed me anyway.
"Aureal—"
Sejun; Gentle like rain, constant like tides. Always the first to reach for me when I looked like I didn't want to be touched.
I never had to ask when it came to him. He just knew.
But I needed time to think things over. If here were with me, well, I didn't want to do anything with my poor emotional state to blame.
I turned at the top of the stairs. "It's okay," I smiled at him, softer this time. "I just need to be alone for a while."
And for a moment, Sejun actually stilled. He glanced at Haneul from the corner of his eyes before turning back to me and nodding.
But then another presence brushed past them both: Daeho, who'd been leaning by the banister like an idle knight. His footsteps were slow but certain, each one heavy with decision.
"Cool," he said to no one in particular. "Then I'll go cheer her up."
"Daeho—" Haneul started.
But Daeho was already following me up. He stepped in, shoulders broader than the threshold, but quieter than anyone that size had a right to be. Daeho didn't turn on the light. He didn't try to pull me from bed. Just walked across the room and sank into a crouch beside it.
He knew I wasn't in the mood to talk, so he did.
"I lost someone," he started. "A long time ago."
That made me turn, just slightly, cheek still pressed to the pillow.
"One of my sisters. Back when I was still… human."
It was strange to hear it said so plainly. I always thought of them—of us—as something in-between. Not quite angels. Not quite demons. Not quite dead, but not truly alive.
"She was the youngest. Stubborn like you. Loud like me." A soft chuckle escaped him. "She used to sneak out to the armory to learn how to throw a spear. My mother hated it. Said it wasn't proper. Said her only weapon should be her beauty. Since then, she dabbled in plants and herbs, learning to make incense."
He glanced at me then, but I didn't speak.
Daeho rubbed at the back of his neck. "Then the war came. We lost a major battle. And to stop further bloodshed, they forced a marriage."
His voice quieted like a storm that had run out of rage. "She was seventeen."
"She said she was okay," he murmured. "Strongest person I knew. She smiled when she said it. I believed her."
"They handed her off to the enemy commander like a lamb to a butcher. I wasn't able to stop it. I was injured, recovering in a field camp. But she didn't even last a month in that house." Daeho swallowed. "On their wedding night, both of them died. My family framed it as uxoricide and used it as an opportunity to obliterate his family in revenge. I led the attack. But when I was finally allowed to see her body, there were no wounds."
"She killed him. Then herself." Daeho's throat bobbed, like speaking about it physically pained him. But he continued anyway. "I should've protected her," he said, not bitterly, not in anger, just in truth. "And maybe I couldn't have. Maybe I wouldn't have made a difference. But she was probably lonely, and I wasn't there, and that's what eats at me."
He reached forward then, just enough to touch the corner of the blanket near my elbow. His hand didn't push. It just rested there, quietly.
"So I'm staying tonight. Not because I don't trust you," he said softly, "but because I'd never forgive myself if I left and woke up to something I couldn't take back."
The words shattered something inside me. Not from the violence of them, but from how gently they were delivered. Like he'd folded the pain so many times it had become something he could carry in his breast pocket.
"When you came home, you had the same expression she had when she was sent away. That was the last expression I ever got to see when she was alive." He whispered, his eyes flicking to mine. "That expression, like you were clearly carrying something heavy, but tried—and failed—to keep it hidden."
"So I'm staying tonight," he continued softly, "because I'd never forgive myself if I left and woke up to something I could have done something about, but didn't."
"You don't trust me not to do something." I mumbled. Not accusing, just honest.
"No," he admitted. "I don't. Not right now."
And that was Daeho for you. Soldier heart, boyish soul. Always trying to protect something already broken.
Upstairs, I lay in the dark while Daeho snored gently from the floor. He had insisted on staying with me the whole night to make sure I didn't do anything rash or harmful to myself.
Ever the gentleman, he was dead set on sleeping on the floor if he had to, so I brought out an extra mattress and blanket for him to sleep on instead of on the carpeted floor.
I had come to appreciate Daeho for just being himself. For keeping me good. When someone wraps you in gentleness, your sharp edges forget how to cut.
The house was quiet again, and I wondered if silence was all any of us ever really had, or if it was simply what we settled for when words hurt too much to wield.
────── ⋆⋅⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆⋅⋆ ──────
It was quiet downstairs. But the silence wasn't peace; it was the kind that buzzed under the skin. Like static, or the scent of rain that never fell.
"We're having a man-to-man," Seungyong said flatly, before glancing at Sejun who stood firmly with his arms crossed against his chest. "Man-to-man-to-man, then. Before you disappear into the shadows again or whatever it is you do when you're brooding."
He didn't wait for a response, just walked into the living room with the confidence of someone who'd been pissed off all day and finally had a target.
Haneul paused. Sejun made sure he followed.
Seungyong leaned against the hallway wall just past the kitchen, arms crossed, jaw tight, his patience strung thin. Haneul stood not far off; shoulders slack but hands fisted in the fabric of his oversized coat like he didn't know what else to do with them. Sejun leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, his jaw tight. He looked almost too still, the kind of stillness that only exists before the earth splits open. His usual warmth had thinned, replaced by something older, colder.
Seungyong's eyes flicked to Haneul, sharp. "What happened at that café?"
Haneul didn't respond. His jaw clenched, eyes turned inward like he was looking through the walls of this house to something farther, deeper. Seungyong hated that. That tendency Haneul had to withdraw when things hurt. To disappear inside his head where none of them could follow.
Seungyong's tone dropped. "Don't test me, man." He stepped forward, pressing a hand to the wall beside Haneul's head; not to intimidate, but to anchor. To remind him they were still here. Still choosing each other, even in this storm of emotion and memory and the ache of the damned.
"You let the world silence you," Seungyong said, softer now as he stepped back. "But if you let it silence you around her, she's going to think it means she doesn't matter."
Sejun let out a slow, exhausted breath. "You're an artist, aren't you?" he murmured. "You learn by breaking and erasing things. But she's not a sketch, Haneul. She's not your practice page. She bleeds real."
"You're the warm one," Haneul retorted, his tone tired. "She likes the warmth."
At his words, Sejun's voice dipped low. "Then move," he said. "So I can take your place."
The words settled between them like a match on dry grass.
Seungyong's gaze flicked up, sharp.
Haneul blinked, eyes narrowing.
Sejun didn't flinch. "You heard me."
Seungyong saw the way Haneul flinched—not visibly, not in any loud way—but in that quiet internal recoil of a man who knew he'd failed someone and had no defense for it.
But Sejun stepped forward again, past the kitchen threshold now, his shoulders set in a way Seungyong rarely saw. He wasn't just the warm, teasing Sejun at that moment. He wasn't the Gen-Z golden boy who made breakfast in house slippers and called everyone "bro."
"You think silence is the answer to everything?" Sejun asked, now pacing like his anger needed movement. "You think if you don't speak, you can't hurt her? No one ever means to hurt," Sejun replied, voice calm now, but brutal in its clarity. "But we still do. The difference is what you do after."
Haneul's voice came again, but it was more to the ghost of himself than to them. "She didn't want to be touched. And I've… made things worse before when I forced comfort."
"That's not an excuse," Sejun replied. His voice trembled for the first time, and it only made it truer. "It's a confession. And you think confessions make you brave. But real bravery is doing better before someone walks away."
Seungyong sighed. "And she will. If she hasn't already started."
At those words, Haneul went silent, his thoughts returning to when she didn't take his hand after confronting him for not holding hers.
"Let me be clear," Sejun said, standing up straighter to be eye level with Haneul, despite the latter being slightly taller. "I'm not stepping back. Not anymore. If she needs me, I'll be there. Even if it's just to sit beside her while she cries. Even if it's to make her laugh when you forget how. Even if it means I stand in your way."
The words weren't laced with threat. They were promise.
Haneul's hands loosened. He stared down at them like they weren't his. "I don't know what to say that won't ruin it."
"Then ruin it," Sejun said, voice firm. "Say the wrong thing, say anything. She's not asking for perfection, Haneul, she's asking for presence; and right now, you're giving her ghosts."
Seungyong simply glanced between them both, raising his arms as he turned away. "You two fight your quiet wars however you want," he said. "Just don't make her collateral."