There is something sacred about silence before the sun.
A hush so thin it feels borrowed from the afterlife—fragile, translucent, one breath away from shattering. I might've slept straight through it if not for the abrupt, impatient percussion of knuckles against my door. Sharp, authoritative. Like a pebble flung at a cathedral window.
"Time to rise~ The sun isn't up yet, but neither are our troubles."
A groan rasped from the floor. "Seungyong," Daeho mumbled, voice still hoarse with sleep. "It's not even six yet."
"No. It's five," Seungyong replied from the hallway, his voice neither loud nor soft—just irrefutably there. "You two have thirty minutes to be presentable. We're leaving the house."
I exhaled hard into my pillow. "For what?" I was still tangled in sheets. My mouth tasted like I hadn't spoken in days. My tongue felt dusted in regret and night terrors.
Next to my bed, Daeho was already pushing himself up from the floor, blanket falling from his shoulders. He looked ridiculous; this ex-soldier-turned-eternal-guardian, blinking through messy bed hair like a sleepy golden retriever discovering consciousness for the first time— And still, he sat up, stretched his arms, and looked at me.
He stretched, arms lifting, shirt riding up—exposing a sliver of tan skin and abs sculpted with the kind of geometry that suggested divine intervention. Damn, he was ripped. Unfair.
He didn't even notice my tired stare, just scratched his jaw and mumbled, "I'll use the bathroom downstairs."
I watched him go, the weight of his footsteps descending gently, never thudding.
Once the downstairs door clicked shut, I peeled myself from the sheets with the elegance of a dying insect.
The upstairs hallway was dim and cool, kissed faintly by the blue hush of dawn. The upstairs bathroom smelled like lavender and sleep. Someone had left the window slightly open, and the air blew at my ankles.
The shower warmed quickly. I pressed my forehead to the tile and let the water run down my spine, coaxing the stiffness out of my bones. Steam rose like ghostly silhouettes, softening the edges of everything.
By the time I was dressed—black slacks, white turtleneck, and a beige pullover with sleeves long enough to hide inside—Daeho had returned upstairs, damp-haired and slightly more alive.
Seungyong stood by the front door like a statue in a war museum. Still, sharp, immutable.
He had already dressed up, much nicer than his usual teacher fit; He wore a tailored wool coat, coal-gray and structured enough to intimidate God. Black gloves tucked in his pocket. Hair slicked back with careful intention. Thin-framed glasses made him look more like a verdict than a person.
"Get out losers, we're going shopping."
"The mall doesn't open until ten," I reminded Seungyong again.
"I know. But you need air. And the sound of other people's lives to remember yours."
"So, like, where are we going?"
We didn't speak. Not for a long time.
And then Seungyong murmured, "The flower market opens at sunrise."
He opened the door before either of us could object. The wind curled in like a sigh.
The drive was… an experience.
The sky was still dark when we pulled away from the curb. I sat in the backseat, hugging myself for warmth. Seungyong drove like he was auditioning for a Fast and Furious reboot. Every turn was taken with unsettling precision. Every yellow light was a personal insult he refused to acknowledge.
Daeho, strapped into the passenger seat, acted as his very necessary moral compass.
"Red light means STOP, Seungyong!"
"Yellow means slow down—slow down— SLOW DOWN!"
"I swear to god," Daeho muttered, gripping the seatbelt like a rosary, "if we survive this, I'm becoming religious."
"You already are," I whispered. "You pray every time he turns left."
"That's not prayer. That's bargaining."
Seungyong didn't reply. He just hummed under his breath, which made it worse somehow.
But the moment we stepped into the flower market, it was like someone had opened a door into another realm.
I didn't know where to look. Everything shimmered.
Fragrance everywhere—jasmine, lily, peony, soil, dew.
Colors bled into the air like watercolor spilled across canvas.
Vendors moved with practiced motions, arranging blooms, tying ribbons, trimming stems.
The early-morning quiet was a different kind of silence than dawn: alive, awake, breathless with beginning.
Seungyong walked ahead, movements slow, almost reverent. He paused by white lilies—pure, elegant. Then marigolds—warm, bright. Then a woman weaving jasmine into tiny wreaths. His gaze softened in ways I rarely saw.
Daeho lingered near me, fingers in his pockets, eyes soft and unsure. "It's kind of beautiful," he murmured.
"It is," I agreed.
Seungyong reappeared with a small bouquet in hand. Violet carnations, blue hydrangea, and trailing sweetpea like breath escaping.
He held them out to me. No words.
I took them, unsure what to say. "Thanks. They're… pretty."
He hummed softly, shrugging. "Even a room haunted by memory deserves something that lives."
By eight, we found ourselves tucked into a back-alley eatery. The kind of place with fogged windows and tin pots that never cooled. A tiny diner near the market with yellowed windows and an old ajumma who called us "pretty but too thin." The kind of place that made you feel like you'd stepped into someone's kitchen by accident.
The mall felt foreign after the market. Fluorescent ceiling lights hissed down in rigid grids like interrogators in a police room, illuminating every crevice with uncomfortable clarity. It smelled like new plastic and perfumed paper. I'd forgotten how loud it was until I stepped inside. Every echo of laughter, every footstep, every security chime from a boutique entrance folded into one another until the silence I'd spent so long cultivating cracked apart like sugar glass underfoot.
Too bright. Too clean. A shrine to things that glinted without depth. But Seungyong moved through it with the same composed grace. He didn't gawk. He didn't rush. He walked ahead like a man on a mission; sharp-eyed, calculated, utterly unbothered.
He passed me a coat from one rack. "Try this."
"You really think—?"
"It will fit you better than your guilt."
Yeah I had nothing to say to that. Daeho choked on his laugh behind me.
And annoyingly, the coat did look good.
I tried it on, and he was actually right.
Later, he handed Daeho a gray-blue sweater and said, "So you stop looking like someone's regret."
Daeho bought it immediately. Whispered in my ear that while Seungyong was "basically seventeen centuries old," his fashion sense wasn't.
I tried on the dresses he handed me. He didn't ask if I wanted to. Just passed them to me like a decree. Clothes I never would've picked for myself, like a high-necked blouse with pearl buttons like someone's antique memory, and a flowy skirt with embroidered clouds. He would hand them over wordlessly, occasionally squinting as if imagining my silhouette differently. Rewriting it in his head like a sentence that didn't sit quite right.
"It suits you," Seungyong said from outside the curtain, unprompted.
"You haven't seen me in it."
"I don't need to."
He wasn't flirting. Seungyong never flirted. His compliments were cold, framed, unyielding—like museum descriptions that told you what you were looking at instead of asking what you saw.
Daeho waited outside the fitting room with his usual patience. When I stepped out, he smiled in that slow way that didn't feel performative.
By noon, we'd bought nothing we needed— but I had a bouquet, new clothes, a pair of socks, and three kinds of tea. Daeho had left to fetch the car, mumbling about how he didn't want to be subjected to Seungyong's driving any longer than necessary.
…Leaving me alone with the menace.
"I keep thinking you're the mature, serious one," I said. "But Daeho's the one who slept on the floor like a worried parent."
Seungyong's mouth quirked. "I was the youngest. The only son."
"Ah." I nodded, gazing somewhere else as silence overtook us.
"When I was human," he continued, as if announcing something so old it didn't matter anymore, "I had six older sisters."
I blinked.
"Six?" I turned to look at him. He wasn't looking at me, gaze focused on a carousel. A little boy with a red balloon was crying beside a golden plastic horse.
Seungyong chuckled under his breath, the sound like silk dragged across velvet. "They taught me how to braid hair before I could write. How to tell which silk matched which season. My mother used to say that a boy who understands beauty will never let it be used against him."
"So that's where the fashion sense comes from. The eyebrow raises. The knowing when a top doesn't fit right before I even step out of the dressing room. You were raised by women." I teased, grinning.
He shrugged. "It was survival. In the palace, every glance was a war."
"Wait. Palace?"
Then it clicked.
"Mmmhm. I wasn't anyone important to history. Just the only son of a prince. I lived well. Got selfish in the end, though." He shrugged, like it was unimportant. Although after all these centuries, and even being given a new life in this modern era, it probably was, in his eyes.
He didn't want it to be made into a big deal, that much I could tell.
"It is kind of funny," I chuckled, tracing the seam on the bench with my thumb. "Daeho, who acts like a kid, was the eldest son in his family. And you, who acts like someone's disapproving uncle, were the youngest."
He looked at me then. Something slow and somber flickered behind his irises, like a candle reaching the bottom of its wick.
"You always act like you're above everything," I continued eventually. "But you have this... way of looking at the world, like you remember it better than it remembers you."
He tilted his head. A gentle, almost amused gesture. "Poetic."
"Don't be smug."
"You like it when I am."
"That's a bold assumption." I rolled my eyes, but smiled anyway.
He was quiet for a long time, I thought maybe we'd slipped back into that comfortable non-space again, the one where silence stretched like silk between us. Then he spoke.
"You are not a house that needs burning down, Aureal," he whispered quietly, but firm. "You are a door, and we will keep knocking. But for today, take your mind off of the world."
Then the car pulled up. Daeho waved from the driver's seat, grinning.
"And there he is, the first son; Our beloved golden fool." Seungyong sighed, standing as he dusted imaginary debris from his coat, and turned to me. "Ironic, isn't it? I was the babied youngest, and Daeho the hardened eldest. And yet he clings to softness, and I cling to silence."
I laughed at that. This time, without even trying not to.
"Come on," I smiled, swinging the bags into my other hand. "Let's go home."
Seungyong didn't reply. But he walked beside me, step for step, as we went.
────── ⋆⋅⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆⋅⋆ ──────
By the time we stumbled into the house—bags hanging from elbows, tired limbs dragging across polished floors—the afternoon light was already turning golden. Daeho, radiant as always, still had the energy of a puppy who thought we were heading to a second park.
"I'm gonna try these on!" he beamed, half-tossing a couple bags onto the floor and kicking off his shoes with the careless grace of a man who'd never experienced back pain.
"You literally could have done that in the store," I muttered, tugging my own shoes off and plopping down on the edge of the couch. "That's what dressing rooms are for."
Daeho just grinned, like the idea had never once crossed his mind. "Where's the fun in that? It's more exciting at home. Just us."
"How intimate," Seungyong raised a brow, clearly unimpressed. "You could at least buy us dinner first."
Daeho grinned. "But I did! Remember the pretzel stall? I fed you, now you watch me change."
"That's not how this works," I facepalmed, already regretting my life choices as I trailed after them.
Daeho didn't seem to notice—or more likely, didn't care. He was too busy juggling bags of clothes he'd refused to try on at the store, waving off the dressing room like it was offensive. Seungyong had tried to reason with him. I'd tried to bully him. But no, Daeho had insisted it would be "more fun this way."
Before I could say anything else, Seungyong swept into the entryway like some noir-era housewife, dramatically removing his sunglasses and shaking his head at Daeho's recklessness. "Besides," he added, "he doesn't need to try them on at the store when he's got me. My eye for fashion is infallible."
"Oh? So it's your fault if anything doesn't fit?" I said, raising an eyebrow.
Seungyong smirked. "Nothing I choose ever doesn't fit. I accounted for his… proportions." He gave a knowing glance toward Daeho's absurdly broad shoulders, which had strained against every shirt he tried to pretend was 'medium.'
The moment we stepped into Daeho's room, he was already stripping off his shirt. Just like that. No hesitation, no build-up. One second, he was a human golden retriever with retail excitement; the next, he was shirtless and sunlit, standing before us like a Renaissance sculpture come to life.
Daeho glanced at the mirror, turned side to side, checking the fit. "This one's a keeper."
He tossed off the shirt again.
One moment: golden retriever energy.
Next moment: Renaissance statue.
Sunlight hit him just right, turning his skin molten. His abs—god help me—tightened when he moved. His back muscles shifted like they were individually blessed by whatever deity sponsored physical perfection.
Seungyong let out a theatrical sigh. "Gods. I should've brought popcorn."
"I did not consent to a strip show," I muttered, covering my eyes with one hand, even as I peeked through my fingers. It was hard not to. His torso looked like someone had modeled anatomy textbooks after it. A human cheat code. No wonder Daeho didn't try things on at the store; every shirt either looked good or died trying.
He grabbed the next piece—a cream knit sweater with low-hanging sleeves and a collar that drooped slightly off one shoulder.
It clung to Daeho like it knew exactly what it was doing.
"Too soft?" he asked, holding it up like it was delicate.
"Seungyong bought that, didn't he?" I said.
"Of course I did," Seungyong smirked, smug. "If we're giving him sexy, we're also giving him soft aesthetics. Balance. Contrast. Drama."
Daeho shrugged and pulled it over his head. The cream color turned his skin to sun-warmed bronze, the soft fabric resting against him like some reluctant lover, revealing one bare shoulder and part of his collarbone. On him, it looked like the kind of thing you wear to seduce someone over hot chocolate.
"Oh, god~" I whistled before I could stop myself.
I regretted it the moment Daeho looked at me. "Oh?"
"No, nothing."
Seungyong smirked. "I heard the 'oh, god.'"
"Shut up."
Daeho grinned wider. "She likes it."
I didn't even look away when Daeho changed again, this time into the cursed cropped tank top with the mesh back. It shouldn't have worked. It shouldn't have. But there it was, clinging to his torso like a second skin, showing just enough of his waistline to be scandalous. His arms were glowing in the soft afternoon light, muscles coiled beneath skin that had known centuries of war and peace and too many protein shakes.
Seungyong said nothing for a moment. Then, calmly: "This is a crime against God and fabric."
Daeho flexed. "Ten out of ten?"
"Thirst trap," Seungyong replied. "And I say that as a connoisseur."
I let my head fall into my hands. "I'm going to need therapy."
Daeho threw himself onto the bed dramatically, arms flung wide, shirt still halfway up his chest. "I'm exhausted. Modeling is hard."
"You changed clothes five times," I deadpanned.
"And gave you everything," he said, eyes fluttering closed. "Angles. Emotion. Muscle tension."
"It was pretty hot." I admitted, then froze, realizing too late I'd said it out loud.
Both boys turned.
I cleared my throat. "For photoshoots. Not for, you know, public consumption."
Daeho's grin turned feral. Seungyong smirked. "Admit it. We've corrupted you."
I groaned, dropping my head back against the mattress. "I am so tired. Why am I here?"
"Because you love us," Seungyong and Daeho said at the same time. I could hear the smirk in both their voices.
I reached over and threw a pillow at both of them. "I cannot believe I got dragged into this. I came back from the mall expecting to nap. Maybe drink tea."
"But you got fashion, abs, and laughter instead," Daeho replied brightly.
"Unsolicited," I retorted.
He rolled to his feet, tousled and smug, then extended a hand toward me. "C'mon. You gotta admit, this was fun."
I took his hand, let him pull me up, and stared at him for a moment. Even with the dumbest smile on his face, there was a softness in his eyes. He was still reckless, still too golden for his own good, but he looked… at home.
Seungyong stood as well, stretching. "He is exhausting, but it's kind of charming."
"Like a golden retriever." I agreed, nodding.
"Wanna pet him like one?"
"You're devious."
Seungyong smirked, an evil glint in his eyes that made even Daeho shudder.
"You know what? I won't resist. Go ahead, take your fill." Daeho chuckled, laying back down onto the bed. "I like this," he said. "The three of us. Together. No drama. Just vibes."
"No drama yet," Seungyong said ominously.
"Oh shut it." I smacked Seungyong over from behind his head, before immediately reaching over the pet Daeho's.
Daeho didn't respond, just just squeezed us both into a tight hug, and for a moment, even I stopped pretending to resist.
The late sunlight slanted through the curtains, and the room smelled faintly of laundry detergent and fabric softener. There was laughter still echoing on the walls. And under it all, warmth.
Ridiculous, chaotic, bicep-wielding warmth.
And I didn't hate it.