Chapter 29 – Drunk Gods in June
The party wasn’t planned. Not by the man whose birthday it was, anyway.
With a phone, a boy with too much eyeliner and too little sense of boundaries.
"Most used contacts," Haneul muttered to himself, squinting at Seungho's unlocked screen as if it were a battlefield he needed to decode. He sat cross-legged on the couch, Seungho’s phone cradled in one hand, a half-eaten peach dripping onto his thigh.
He licked the juice absentmindedly, then poked at the list.
"Jaewan... makes sense. Yul... wait, that’s Cha Yul, right? Oh, that shady fox is coming. Ji-ho, obviously. Hye-jin...? Pretty lady who was hanging off Seungho’s arm the night I showed up in here... Right. She can bring some estrogen to this testosterone pit."
He added them all to a message group, titled:
“GRUMPY MOUNTAIN’S SURPRISE DEATHDAY”
He hit send before giving it a second thought. Then he tossed the phone back onto Seungho’s bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen to steal more strawberries.
??????
Seungho found out two days later.
When Jaewan sent him a text that read:
"How drunk am I expected to be for this disaster?"
Followed by a sticker of a raccoon in a party hat looking haunted.
Seungho stared at it, one eyebrow rising in shock, and felt his heart rate skyrocket, but not from excitement.
Then another message came in. From Hye-jin.
"Is this a joke? I was under the impression your assistant was coordinating something formal. I already ordered a hanbok delivery."
And then one from Ji-ho:
"You’re turning 36? You fossil. Also, someone told me drag queens are coming? Can I wear leather or will your CEO friends combust?"
Seungho’s thumb hovered over his phone.
Then, from the kitchen:
"Do you have any candles? Not the boring white kind. Like... the dramatic ones. Birthday-shaped or maybe sword-shaped. Or beeswax if you wanna go all ceremonial."
Seungho turned.
Haneul was halfway inside a cabinet, braid swinging, ass in the air, mumbling about party logistics like this was the most natural thing in the world.
He stared. For a long moment.
Then:
"Haneul," Seungho said, voice low, almost calm.
Haneul popped his head out. "Hm?"
Seungho held up the phone. “Did you… really do this?”
Haneul blinked. “Do what?”
Seungho’s jaw ticked. He scrolled once, tilted the phone so Haneul could see.
The message thread.
The raccoon sticker.
The drag queen inquiry.
“Oh,” Haneul said.
Seungho’s eyes narrowed. “You invited Hye-jin?”
“Yeah. She looked like your… I don’t know, elegant arm candy? That night in February. When I showed up here for the first time. She was holding your arm like you two were married.”
“Haneul—”
“She adds visual balance,” Haneul added quickly, grabbing a strawberry like it was a shield. “I thought it’d be weird if the guest list was just dudes who’d all seen you naked in a bathhouse or something.”
Seungho stared at him. The silence stretched.
His chest rose once, sharply. “You used my phone?”
“You never lock it. That’s practically an invitation.”
“You titled it ‘GRUMPY MOUNTAIN’S SURPRISE DEATHDAY’?”
Haneul grinned, berry juice glistening on his bottom lip. “I stand by the branding.”
Another beat.
Then, Seungho scrolled slowly, like reviewing battle footage. He let the silence stretch until Haneul shifted, just slightly—off-balance, unsure. Good, he thought. Let the fox twitch a little.
And then—
He set the phone down.
Crossed the room.
Poured himself a drink.
Downed it in one go.
“You’re lucky I didn’t set up facial recognition,” he muttered, voice edged with dry ice. “It would’ve registered you as a security breach and triggered the silent alarm.”
Haneul’s eyes flicked to him.
A slow smirk spread over his face. “And yet here I stand. Unsilenced. Unalarmed. Still adorable.”
Seungho turned, glass in hand. Leaned against the counter. His gaze flicked over the boy—braid loose, lip stained, smugness barely masking his nerves.
“You invited drag queens,” he said flatly.
“Representation matters,” Haneul said sweetly.
A pause.
Then, unexpectedly—Seungho’s mouth twitched. A fraction. Dangerous.
“I haven’t had a birthday party since I was twelve.”
That stopped Haneul.
He blinked. “What?”
Seungho didn’t elaborate. Just reached into a drawer. Pulled out a small box. Tossed it lightly onto the counter.
“Candles,” he said. “Gold foil. You bought them last month. Said everything else was ‘austerity cosplay.’”
Haneul stared at the box. Then at him.
“You kept them?”
Seungho’s eyes met his. Steady. Unreadable. But warmer now—just barely.
“I kept you,” he said, voice like smoothed flint. “Don’t be surprised the candles made it too.”
Haneul blinked. A flush rose to his cheeks.
Then he smiled.
He grabbed the box and fled to the other room, muttering something about logistics and frosting, like he hadn’t just hijacked a CEO’s entire birthday
Seungho watched him go.
The ghost of a smile stayed on his lips a moment longer than usual.
??????
The 25th arrived hot and wet.
Seoul clung to everything. Skin, clothes, tempers.
The penthouse transformed. Not by decorators. By chaos.
Haneul had somehow convinced Cha Yul to lend him half the performers from Velvet Eclipse. Three showed up in full face, one in an 18th-century gown. There were feathers. Glitter. One brought a fog machine.
"To add mystique," she purred. "And conceal the awkward silences."
Haneul high-fived her.
Ji-ho arrived first—already tipsy, shirt unbuttoned, with two bottles of soju and a grin sharp enough to slice fruit. He kissed Seungho’s cheek, loudly.
"You look constipated, hyung. That's your party face?"
Seungho ignored him. Took the bottle. Drank.
Jaewan and Cha Yul came next—Jaewan in a linen suit that somehow looked both expensive and annoyed, like he’d been dragged here by reputation alone.
Yul paused in the doorway, surveying the scene like a war general assessing a poorly planned ambush.
“Sky” he said, voice smooth but firm.
Haneul turned, hands full of neon skewers and a stolen tambourine.
“Boss.”
Yul’s eyes flicked from the drag queens sword-fighting with parasols, to Ji-ho trying to open champagne with a spoon, to Seungho downing another drink with the expression of a man bracing for artillery fire.
“You’re using my club talent budget to fund this chaos?”
“No,” Haneul said quickly. “They’re here for moral support.”
One of the queens behind him blew glitter into the air and struck a pose. “Moral support, baby!”
Yul pinched the bridge of his nose.
Then—softening—he stepped forward and placed one hand briefly on Haneul’s shoulder. “If this turns into an incident, I will deny all knowledge of you.”
Haneul grinned. “Thank you, boss.”
Yul leaned in just enough to lower his voice. “Tell me if it gets too much. I still have that foldout couch in my office. No questions asked.”
“I’m good,” Haneul murmured. “For now.”
Yul nodded once. “Then don’t set anything on fire.”
He moved toward the drinks, already regretting not bringing his own bottle.
Hye-jin arrived last.
She wore periwinkle silk, tailored to heartbreak. High neck, delicate sleeves, hair pinned like she had somewhere more respectable to be.
The moment she saw the scene—drag queens arm-wrestling over macarons, Ji-ho sitting cross-legged on the floor with a cigarette behind his ear, Haneul in mesh and combat boots yelling about who finished the damn birthday tteok—her face froze.
“This... isn’t what I expected,” she said flatly.
“Welcome to the jungle,” Ji-ho drawled, patting the couch. “Sit. Have a drink. Watch the downfall of the King of Yeol Holdings.”
Seungho, from the corner, didn’t move.
Hye-jin’s eyes found him.
He hadn’t shaved. His shirt was half unbuttoned. His gaze was somewhere far away—and yet locked, unmistakably, on the equally feral and radiant creature in the kitchen, all mesh and menace, eyes narrowed as he lit gold-foil candles like a priest preparing for battle.
??????
Haneul was incandescent.
Not in the figurative way poets wrote about summer boys—they didn’t have the right voltage.
He was a walking riot of sensation and contradiction, lit from within by something too wild to be stage-managed.
By 9 p.m., he was tipsy. By 10, he was glowing like the chandelier had given up and passed its job to him.
His braid was threaded with LED lights—flickering in pink and gold and frost-blue—spun into itself like a celebration gone feral. His mouth glistened with peach juice and rice wine, and his laughter bounced off the penthouse ceiling like a dare to every architect who had ever built with restraint.
He didn’t walk through the room so much as commandeer it.
Tracing circles between the drag queens and Ji-ho, shouting over music, stealing appetizers off everybody’s plates.
He refilled people’s drinks with dramatic flourish, shoved skewers into mouths with chaotic hospitality, and loudly declared—at least twice—that this was the only real way to celebrate someone “so emotionally constipated he probably hasn't cried since birth.”
Seungho watched from near the windows, jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
He was on his fourth glass of whiskey. Or fifth. He’d lost count not long after Ji-ho tried to pole dance with one of the floor lamps and Yul threatened to leave.
Too many fronts. Too many eyes.
Jaewan looked bored. Yul was hiding behind a champagne flute. Hye-jin stood like a painting rendered in the wrong gallery—elegant, pale, quietly imploding.
And in the center of it all, his storm. Braid swinging. Mouth too red. Laughter too sharp. Beautiful in a way that made Seungho's spine feel brittle.
It wasn’t the outfit. Or the makeup. Or the way Haneul talked with his whole body. It was something deeper. Older. The way Haneul was seen by everyone who looked at him—and yet still walked like he owed them nothing. Like beauty had become a weapon sharpened through repetition.