Chapter Twenty-Five #9
I wander further in, my eyes darting everywhere.
The walls are barely visible. Stacks of canvases are leaned against the baseboards, some covered in drop cloths, others exposing flashes of charcoal sketches or bold, abstract oil strokes.
There are shelves built into the wall that stretch floor-to-ceiling, crammed with books that look like they’ve actually been read—spines cracked, pages dog-eared, sticky notes protruding from the edges like colorful feathers.
I run a hand along the edge of a massive mahogany desk that dominates the far wall. It’s a mess of papers—lecture notes from last semester mixed with crumpled sketches and loose sheet music.
"Damn." I pick up a piece of sheet music, noting the frantic scribbles in the margins. "This is a lot."
"I have a lot of hobbies," he says dryly.
I turn toward the bed. It’s a massive four-poster thing that looks like it was carved in the 1800s, draped in a heavy black comforter that is distinctly on-brand for him. But then my eye catches something draped over the back of a leather reading chair in the corner.
It’s a blanket. But not a designer throw or a cashmere blanket like the ones downstairs.
I walk over and pick it up. It’s old. The fabric is worn soft and thin in places, a faded pastel blue that clashes violently with the rest of the room’s dark aesthetic. In the corner, stitched in slightly uneven, hand-embroidered thread, are the initials K.D.H. followed by a tiny, lopsided tiger.
I stare at it. It looks like something a mom would make while watching TV, putting hours into every stitch.
"Put that down," Donghwa says, though there’s no real heat in his voice.
"Your mom made this," I say, running my thumb over the little tiger. It’s not a question.
"Yeah," he mutters, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge, watching me. "When I was born. I don't see any real point in getting rid of it."
"It’s soft," I murmur.
I look at the blanket, then at the imposing Alpha sitting on the bed, and the contrast makes my chest ache. I have baby blankets, sure. They were bought from high-end boutiques in Paris. They have designer labels. None of them have a lopsided tiger stitched by my mother’s own hands.
I carefully fold it back over the chair, treating it with more respect than I would a Gucci jacket, and turn my attention to a set of open boxes on the floor near the bookshelf.
"What are these?" I ask, crouching down.
"The archives," Donghwa sighs, flopping back onto the mattress. "My sisters were digging through them earlier looking for ammunition. They left them out."
I can't resist. I reach in and pull out a handful of glossy photos.
The first one makes me snort. It’s a group shot from a middle school swim meet.
Donghwa is standing in the back row, taller than everyone else even then, wearing a swim cap that makes his ears stick out.
But he’s smiling. A real, goofy, gap-toothed smile, his arm slung around a shorter boy next to him.
He doesn't look like a prodigy or a genius.
He just looks like a kid who likes the water.
"You had ears," I comment, holding it up.
"I grew into them," he calls from the bed.
I flip to the next one and actually laugh out loud.
It’s a Christmas photo. Donghwa and his sisters are lined up in front of a fireplace, all wearing matching, hideous red-and-green sweaters with reindeer on them.
Donghwa looks to be about twelve, and the expression on his face is one of pure, unadulterated teenage misery.
He looks like he’s plotting a murder. But his sisters are leaning in, kissing his cheeks, sandwiching him in love he clearly wants to escape.
"The sweaters," I wheeze. "Donghwa, the sweaters."
"Burn it," he says flatly. "Burn the photo."
I dig deeper, past a photo of him winning a piano recital, past a blurry shot of him painting on the patio, until I find a Polaroid at the bottom.
It’s a close-up. A gangly, awkward preteen Donghwa, sitting cross-legged in the grass.
He’s holding a tiny, black puppy in his lap—an old family pet long since passed, different from the one mentioned in the blue paint incident.
He’s looking down at the dog with an expression of such tender, quiet awe that it stops me cold.
He looks soft. He looks open. He looks like a boy who has never had to hide his feelings because he knows he’s safe.
I stare at the photo, my thumb brushing the edge.
This room... it’s not just a place where he sleeps. It’s a museum of a life I never got to have. Every item in here—the books, the art, the embarrassing photos, the handmade blanket—it all screams that he was seen. He wasn't a project. He wasn't an investment. He was just Donghwa.
"I’m going to shower," Donghwa announces, grabbing a towel from the back of a chair and tossing a change of clothes over his shoulder.
He pauses at the bathroom door, looking back at me with a smirk.
"Try not to get lost in the archives. If you find my middle school poetry journal, I’m legally allowed to kill you. "
"No promises," I mutter, though I’m still clutching the Polaroid of him and the puppy like it’s a holy relic.
The bathroom door clicks shut, and a moment later, the pipes groan as the shower turns on.
I’m alone.
I stand in the center of the room, turning in a slow circle. The silence here is different from the silence downstairs. Downstairs, it’s the quiet of a well-maintained estate. Here, it’s the quiet of a time capsule.
It’s overwhelming.
Every surface tells a story. There are shelves lined with model airplanes that look glued together by a clumsy child’s hands. There are trophies for piano and art and—I squint—a participation ribbon for a potato sack race pinned to a corkboard.
I walk over to the bookshelf and run a finger along the spine of a battered copy of Harry Potter.
My room back home doesn't look like this.
When I moved out for college, I came back two weeks later to pick up some winter clothes, and my bedroom was gone.
My mother had hired a decorator the day I left.
The posters were gone. The trophies were boxed up in storage.
The bed was replaced with a stiff, beige guest bed that nobody has ever slept in.
It’s a gym now. My childhood bedroom is a Pilates studio for my mother.
I look around Donghwa’s room—at the clutter, the dust, the sheer volume of memories his parents refused to erase—and I feel a hollow ache in my chest that has nothing to do with the bond.
They kept him. They kept every version of him.
The clumsy toddler, the sullen teenager, the arrogant artist. They didn't pave over him the second he wasn't in the room.
I turn away from the bookshelf, needing to look at something else before I start feeling sorry for myself.
My eyes land on the corner by the window, where the "organized chaos" is at its peak. Canvases are stacked ten deep against the wall.
I walk over, curiosity getting the better of me. I crouch down and start flipping through them.
It’s like watching a time-lapse video of a genius being born. The ones at the back are rough—acrylics smeared with more enthusiasm than skill, weird perspective, colors that clash. But as I move forward through the stack, the shift is terrifying.
The lines sharpen. The lighting gets moody. There’s a portrait of his sister Dohwa that looks so real I expect her to start yelling at me. There’s a landscape of the mountains outside that captures the cold, biting air so perfectly I shiver just looking at it.
He’s not just good. He’s insane.
I stand up, brushing dust off my hands, and turn to the drafting table set up against the wall near the foot of the bed. It’s messy, covered in charcoal sticks, erasers, and a fine layer of black dust. A large sketchbook sits open on the easel, the page weighed down by a heavy metal clip.
I shouldn't look. It’s probably private. It’s probably sketches for his final project or something pretentious about the duality of man.
I step closer anyway.
I flip the page.
It’s a study of hands. Veiny, strong hands gripping a steering wheel.
I flip again. A cat sleeping on a windowsill. The shading is exquisite; I can almost feel the softness of the fur.
I flip again.
I freeze. My hand stops mid-air, hovering over the paper. The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp, silent rush.
It’s me.
I stare at the charcoal drawing, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
It’s not a quick sketch. It’s detailed. Painstakingly, obsessively detailed.
It’s me, naked. But it’s not... it’s not like the way I look in the mirror at the gym. It’s not the "Oh Sihwan, Campus King" version of me that flexes and postures.
In the drawing, I’m asleep. I’m lying on my stomach, face turned into a pillow, one arm thrown carelessly over my head. The sheet is tangled around my waist, leaving my back and shoulders bare.
I lean in closer, my throat tight.
He drew the scar on my shoulder from his bite. He drew the mole on my lower back that I always forget is there. He drew the way my hair fans out on the pillow when it’s not gelled into submission.
It’s not lewd. There’s nothing sexual about the pose, nothing pornographic about the way the light hits my skin. It’s... soft.
It’s reverent.
The shading on my spine is so tender it looks like a caress. The way he captured the relaxation in my muscles, the unguarded peace on my face—I look vulnerable. I look safe.
I didn't know I could look like that.
I trace the edge of the paper with a trembling finger. He must have drawn this from memory. He must have studied me while I was sleeping in his bed, memorized the curve of my shoulder, the line of my jaw, and then come back here to this empty room and put it on paper.
I swallow hard, feeling a sudden, terrifying rush of heat behind my eyes.
I thought I was just a conquest. Even with the bond, even with the sex, part of me still believed I was just a challenge he enjoyed winning.