Chapter 5 – Before The Snow Falls #2
"Always reckless. Always special," Haneul breathed slowly, the mask catching the room’s lights, shimmering silver and lethal. "You smell familiar, giant. Like something I lost and forgot. It's irritating."
Seungho's breath stopped again, his fingers twitching briefly at his sides, the impulse to touch—to reassure himself that this surreal, impossible moment was true—almost overwhelming. Instead, he tilted his head slowly, never breaking eye contact, never backing down.
"And you," he spoke softly, voice quiet yet resonant, dripping honeyed danger, "are wearing a mask I've seen before, a mask from dreams I've stopped chasing."
Haneul's breath hitched audibly, betraying a vulnerable shudder beneath that carefully cultivated bravado.
For a moment, beneath the glitter and arrogance, he was visibly, achingly young, terribly lost, yearning without understanding why.
He shifted uncomfortably on the desk, knees drawing slightly closer, fingers digging briefly into the polished wood.
Then, visibly regathering his defenses, he scowled viciously, snapping harshly.
"Stop talking nonsense, old man. Dreams? Chasing? Are you drunk already? Just pretend like the others, pay, and I’ll vanish."
Seungho shook his head slowly, eyes blazing quietly, molten, lethal, filled with restrained longing and fiercely controlled pain. His voice dropped impossibly lower, becoming something more than human, an intimate growl only Haneul could hear.
"Something tells me you are not someone who vanishes quietly."
Haneul stared, chest rising sharply with confused breath, fingertips trembling slightly, betraying how deeply Seungho’s words resonated somewhere beneath his snarling bravado.
He did not understand the sudden ache in his chest, the flicker of recognition and hunger stirring deep in his gut.
He only knew that something about the man before him felt achingly, dangerously right.
Eyes narrowed fiercely, Haneul leaned closer, his voice whisper-sharp, reckless challenge glittering in his narrowed gaze.
"Fine, skyscraper," he murmured huskily, smile savage and sweet and full of razor edges. "Then don’t pretend. Show me instead. Make me believe you. If you can."
And Seungho smiled—a slow, predatory tilt of lips, eyes crimson-hot, an old fire burning fierce and bright beneath his calm facade. Voice velvet, raw and heated promise, his words wrapped lovingly, lethally around Haneul.
"As you wish, fox."
Seungho regarded the beautiful disaster sprawled across his desk with cautious fascination.
Around them, the world had narrowed to a private bubble of tension and confusion.
Despite the explicit pose—the boy’s legs parted in a breathtaking display of unapologetic vulgarity—something was profoundly amiss.
This creature did not radiate practiced seduction, nor intentional provocation; instead, there was an odd innocence to his defiance, a blatant contradiction between the invitation of his body and the utterly naive expectation shining raw and honest in those fierce blue eyes.
And then Haneul began to grow bored.
Without warning, one slender, restless hand reached out to flick dismissively at the neatly stacked documents on the mahogany surface, sending them sliding chaotically.
Contracts scattered slightly, a symphony of controlled order suddenly disturbed by reckless fingertips.
Seungho watched, stunned, as the boy casually picked up his black pen and began drawing delicate little birds along the margins of confidential corporate secrets, snow-colored eyebrows furrowed in quiet concentration, utterly absorbed.
His face, half-hidden by the shimmering silver mask, was focused and almost childlike as he sketched swift, surprisingly elegant lines, capturing an entire flock in mid-flight, swirling around numbers and words that determined the fates of thousands.
Oblivious or unconcerned about the gravity of his actions, Haneul only paused momentarily to look up through thick lashes, catching Seungho's incredulous stare and lifting an elegant brow defiantly.
“What?” Haneul demanded sharply, tapping the pen’s tip against the paper with rhythmic impatience.
"You're not talking. You're not doing anything interesting.
This," he gestured dismissively at the chaos, "is boring.
I showed you my crotch already, skyscraper.
I assume that's enough humiliation on my end.
So now you're supposed to…do something, entertain me. Why are you staring as if I’ve just grown another head? "
Seungho released a low breath, feeling his resolve splinter and crack dangerously at the edges. A low, reluctant chuckle escaped him, rough-edged and rusty from disuse. He tilted his head, regarding this absurd, dazzling creature perched boldly atop his empire of power and secrets.
“You’re something else entirely,” he murmured, eyes narrowing softly, tone incredulous, almost affectionate despite himself.
Haneul scowled deeply, the rouge on his lower lip smearing slightly as he bit it impatiently.
“I’m bored,” he repeated harshly, voice nearly a growl, something raw and wild sparking beneath his irritation.
“And hungry. You’re failing. I’m drawing birds on your stupid, expensive papers, and you’re failing.
Do something useful. I demanded mooncakes, old man.
And maybe a story. Or at least talk so I don’t have to look at your face staring like a corpse. ”
Seungho studied him, chest tightening inexplicably. He knew, instinctively, that any gesture from him now mattered terribly, though the boy himself would never admit it.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached into the inner pocket of his dark suit jacket.
He had bought the mooncake hours earlier, from a pop-up stall he swore had never been there before. Just a folding table beneath an orange parasol, tucked between a construction site and a convenience store—the kind of place that shouldn’t exist, but did.
Something about it had drawn him in. Not hunger. Not habit. Something quieter. The vendor had smiled as if she’d been waiting. “For first snow,” she had said, pressing the golden-wrapped package into his palm.
Now, pulling it free, he thought: Of course.
Of course the boy would demand mooncakes. Of course fate would leave one burning in his pocket like a charm.
With careful precision, he placed the mooncake atop the scattered mess of papers in front of Haneul.
It took half a heartbeat.
Then— The boy’s eyes lit. Greedy. Open. Delighted in a way that cracked through all the posturing.
Without hesitating, the fox-masked boy snatched the pastry and tore off the foil, devouring the sweet treat with shameless gusto, crumbs scattering carelessly across the expensive, pristine surface of the desk.
He moaned appreciatively, eyes fluttering closed in a moment of rare, simple pleasure that was breathtakingly genuine and deeply endearing.
“You’re not as stupid as you look,” Haneul admitted grudgingly between bites, eyes glittering with suspicion and reluctant approval.
He finished the mooncake quickly, licking stray crumbs from his fingertips, utterly shameless and breathtakingly unconscious of how obscenely enticing the simple act was.
Seungho’s throat tightened painfully, watching the sweet crumbs cling stubbornly to the plump curve of the younger man's lips. Everything about him was an impossible contradiction—, innocent, lethal, na?ve, beautiful, and utterly oblivious to the chaotic power he wielded so effortlessly.
??????
The rustle came like the shifting of serpents in a nest—soft, sly, the sound of expensive silk whispering against leather chairs, followed by a muffled grunt and an unmistakable giggle.
Seungho’s crimson gaze flicked toward the disturbance a moment before Haneul moved, but he hadn’t expected what came next.
A soft thud of boots hitting the floor, kicked off under the desk like they were too heavy for fury, and the sudden pressure against his chest—a slender, bare foot, icy cold and firm—pressed him backward, forcing him with unrelenting, regal force back into his chair.
Not rough. Commanding. His breath caught sharply, but he made no move to resist, only watching, mesmerized, as Haneul turned his head, gaze narrowing like a frost-tipped blade, jaw tightening.
"The party is over," the boy growled, voice low, furious, and chilling in a way that made even the air in the room freeze.
Then, with terrifying grace, Haneul moved.
He sprang up on the desk in a sweep of muscle and sparkling dust, boots left behind, silver fox mask flashing like a blade of moonlight.
His bare feet made no sound as he walked across Seungho’s desk—yes, walked on it like it was a stage, his runway, his altar—documents, contracts, pens scattering in the wake of his fury.
The hem of his cropped top fluttered, exposing ribs and taut abdomen, all pale, unmarked skin stretched tight over tension.
He was barefoot, furious, gleaming—a myth come to rip the skin off false kings.
The semicircle of executives barely turned before he landed among them with a graceful thud that rattled wineglasses.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
Then chaos.
Junseo barely had time to react before Haneul’s hand tangled in his perfectly styled, orange-dyed hair and yanked him backward, the move both violent and strangely protective, shielding him from the executive's touch in a single motion.
The boy yelped, stunned, and stumbled back, narrowly avoiding tumbling from the table.
The older executive—a heavy-set man with jowls that looked like they’d aged on cigar smoke and entitlement—stared in shock, mouth falling open.
That expression didn’t last. Haneul’s hand whipped out in a beautiful arc, backhanding the man across the face with a sound so sharp it cracked through the air like lightning striking marble.
The entire room went silent.