Chapter 28 – Things With Teeth
The air was thicker now. Not quite summer, but close enough that it flirted with discomfort—moisture sticking to windowsills, heat pooling under light switches, the breath of the city like a sleeping animal pressed against the glass.
Seungho’s penthouse carried it all quietly. The breeze from the open windows barely stirred the curtains. Somewhere in the distance, traffic whispered its lullaby.
Haneul was in the kitchen, barefoot, shirt and boxers hanging off his lean frame like sin wrapped in sleepiness. He stood at the stove with a pan of scallion pancakes, brow furrowed, flipping with reverence and sarcasm.
Across the apartment, the light under Seungho’s office door glowed.
He wasn’t working.
Not really.
He hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes. He was listening. Pretending not to. Letting Haneul’s voice drift in when he started ranting about color theory or supply prices or some professor who “draws like a raccoon with arthritis but still gave me a B.”
Seungho hadn’t spoken much lately, he never did.
But he knew every word mattered.
??????
The envelope arrived on a Tuesday.
No return address. No postage mark.
Just… placed.
Inside: one of the old bracelets. The kind Minseok used to give him after fights. Cheap braided leather, twisted now, broken, frayed. Slightly charred. Burned like it had been held over a flame until it curled inward like a scream.
Wrapped in a page torn from a book. One Haneul had lent Minseok once. A poetry collection he couldn’t find in stores anymore.
No note.
No signature.
A threat shaped like memory.
Haneul didn’t tell Seungho.
He tucked it into the back of his sketchbook. Between pages he hadn’t dared to draw on yet. And didn’t touch it again.
??????
Jaewan leaned in the meeting room doorway the following Tuesday, arms crossed, blazer slung over one shoulder. “The Jangs have been too quiet.”
Seungho didn’t look up from his tablet. “They’re regrouping.”
“No, they’re retreating. That PR consultant disappeared last week. Their statements dried up. We’re in the eye.”
Seungho nodded once. “Let them wait.”
“Corporate silence is a warning. Not a gift.”
Another nod. A flicker in Seungho’s jaw. “I’m aware.”
??????
Sunday.
Haneul had said he was “meeting a friend.”
That was all.
By noon, a text came in from one of Seungho’s executive aides. Short. Dry.
“Saw your brother with your Sky friend at the Han River. Looked friendly.”
Seungho stared at the message longer than he should have and didn’t reply.
But later that night, when Haneul strolled in with sand still between his toes and the smell of street coffee on his shirt, he paused in the doorway.
“Why are you staring like I kicked your dog?”
Seungho looked at him from the armchair.
“Did he touch you?”
Haneul blinked.
Then barked a laugh and flipped onto the couch. “Why, you jealous?”
Seungho didn’t answer.
Just stood. Walked into his office.
And shut the door.
Hours passed.
The apartment felt stretched thin. Like it was holding its breath around them.
Haneul paced once. Then stopped. Then threw himself onto the kitchen stool and glared at the vitro like it had offended him.
He didn’t know what pissed him off more: the question. Or the silence that followed.
Or how much he’d liked being at the Han River, letting Ji-Ho talk his ears off about his brother’s grumpy ass and how “he’s been a cryptid since birth but he actually eats better now that you’re around.”
Or maybe how much he had hated how Seungho’s eyes didn’t soften. Not even a little. Not even when Haneul laughed.
It wasn’t flirting. Not really. Haneul didn’t know how to flirt. He just radiated—honest and unfiltered, painfully bad at social nuance. Loyal to the bone.
He wasn’t aiming his charm. It just… happened. Ji-Ho enjoyed the sparkle, sure. But Haneul wasn’t trying to dazzle anyone. He’d already set his heart down—without realizing it. And in Haneul’s world, once you did that, it was forever.
This wasn’t betrayal. This was silence colliding with a boy who never learned to dim.
He stayed awake past 2 a.m., sketchbook open, not drawing.
And Seungho never left the office.
??????
Haneul stood outside the closed office door for a minute. Mug in one hand. Sticky note in the other.
He didn’t knock.
Just stared at the grain of the wood like it could answer all the things Seungho wouldn’t say.
Then, he crouched. Set the mug down—lotus tea, still hot—with a quiet clink.
Uncapped his pen with his teeth, scribbled fast on the pink square, and slapped it onto the door just above the handle.
“Good night grumpy mountain bear.
I don't know if you’re angry or tired or hungry.
whatever.
suit yourself.”
Then he padded back to the couch and flopped down dramatically, braid falling over one shoulder.
Under his breath, he muttered:
“asshole.”
But his face stayed turned toward the door, eyes heavy, waiting for a sound that never came.
When Seungho opened the door an hour later the tea was already cold.
He drank it in silence.
And left the note stuck to the edge of his monitor — the only color in his entire office.
??????