Chapter 29 – Drunk Gods in June #2
It stirred something possessive in Seungho’s chest. Not sexual—not yet. Something more territorial. Unsettled. Like watching lightning jump rooftops and knowing the next bolt might land in your palm.
He wasn’t the only one watching.
At some point, Ji-ho—already flushed and loose—looped an arm around Haneul’s waist and murmured just loud enough for Seungho to hear, “You’re too pretty to be a man. Come sit in my lap.”
Seungho’s fingers tightened around his glass. Just slightly.
Haneul tilted his head, all teeth and dimples. “I’m too deadly to be your type.”
And yet he did sit—just for a breath. Just long enough to let Ji-ho smirk. Then he reached into a tray, pulled a shrimp, and dropped it down Ji-ho’s shirt like a grenade. “Oops.”
He flounced off, braid sparking, laughter trailing behind like fireworks.
Ji-ho howled. Haneul cackled.
Seungho didn’t move. But the whiskey burned less than the back of his throat.
Hye-jin saw everything. She didn’t comment. Just sipped from a glass of something that matched her dress—cool, periwinkle, quietly devastating. She didn’t belong here, not anymore. But she didn’t know how to walk away before saying what she’d carried for a decade.
She found him alone at the far window, gaze fixed on the skyline like it could answer for the boy who’d stolen every sound from the room.
“Is this your life now?” she asked.
Seungho blinked once. Then glanced at her. “It’s not a life yet,” he said, voice gravel-soft. “It’s a storm.”
She followed his gaze.
Haneul had his arms around two queens, shaking a tambourine, dancing like someone who had never learned the word shame. His shirt was mesh, sheer and clinging. His skin shimmered under the lights. Even now—laughing, stumbling, tipsy—he moved like choreography no one could replicate.
“He’s…” she began, but didn’t finish.
She didn’t need to.
“It wasn’t a betrayal, was it?” she said finally. “Just a reallocation of silence. You never said goodbye. You just… let the door close.”
He didn’t deny it. Didn’t apologize.
But something in the line of his shoulders shifted. Guilt, perhaps. Or memory. Or simply the exhaustion of knowing she was right.
“You started slipping away the day your father died,” she added quietly. “I thought I could wait. I really did. But I never learned how to be your pause.”
He turned to her then. Just briefly. Long enough to meet her eyes.
“You didn’t lose me tonight, Hye-jin,” he said. “You lost me ten years ago.”
Her nod was barely a motion. But her eyes stung.
And in the kitchen, Haneul cracked a glowstick with his teeth and held it above his head like a spell. “Whoever doesn’t eat cake in the next sixty seconds is homophobic!” he yelled.
Everyone laughed.
Seungho closed his eyes for just a breath.
He’d spent most of his life mastering control. Strategy. Containment.
But some things—like hurricanes and Haneul—weren’t meant to be managed.
Only survived.
??????
By 1 a.m., Seungho was drunk.
Not tipsy. Not loose. Gone.
Haneul had made sure of it.
Every time the glass emptied, he refilled it. Every time Seungho leaned back, Haneul handed him something—skewers, soju, his hand, a cherry he’d already bitten.
"Happy fucking birthday, skyscraper," he said at one point, crawling into Seungho’s lap. "You’re officially thirty-three and still incapable of joy."
Seungho looked at him, eyes glazed.
"That’s not true."
"Oh?"
"You."
Haneul blinked.
Seungho didn’t elaborate. Just leaned his forehead against Haneul’s collarbone.
"You smell like rain. And strawberries. And something I think I forgot."
Haneul exhaled. Carefully. Slowly.
"You’re drunk," he said.
"I’ve always been," Seungho murmured. "Since the first time I saw you. You just keep changing names."
Haneul froze and the unexpected confession.
But he didn’t move away, until someone yanked him towards the living room for “one last dance before the party is over”.
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The last of the glitter had settled.
It was nearly four in the morning. The fog machine had choked out its final hiss hours ago. Ji-ho had been peeled off the floor by Jaewan and shoved into a cab with two drag queens, still arguing about whether Haneul was a hallucination or a genderless prophecy.
Even Cha Yul had left, giving Haneul a subtle nod and mouthing “You did well” before disappearing into the elevator like a shadow that knew when to leave the stage.
The penthouse was wrecked. Not ruined—but reshaped. Skewers abandoned in a vase. Empty soju bottles lined up on the piano. A half-melted candle stuck to a tray of uneaten tteok. The whole space smelled like sugar, sweat, cheap perfume, and exhaustion.
And in the center of it all—
Seungho.
Slumped on the couch, shirt rumpled, tie discarded. Hair a mess. Eyes glazed with a softness that didn’t belong to him. Not in daylight. Not in boardrooms. Not in war.
Haneul moved carefully.
He was still humming under his breath, a lazy, unscripted tune that had no melody.
He walked through the space, braid unlit now, but damp from sweat and effort.
His eyeliner had smudged into a shadow that made his eyes look bruised, but he didn’t care.
He looked like a godling carved from hangover and mischief.
He leaned over the back of the couch.
“You alive, old man?”
A low sound. Half a growl, half a sigh.
Seungho turned his head. One crimson-gold eye found him.
“You threw a war,” he mumbled.
“I threw a party.”
“Same thing.”
Haneul grinned handsomely. “You liked it.”
Silence.
Then, hoarse: “I didn’t hate it.”
Haneul came around the side and sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing him.
“You’re drunk, which is... unusual.”
“I know.”
“You’re gonna feel like death in the morning.”
“Already do.”
A beat.
Then another.
Then—slowly, as if something had uncoiled inside his spine—Seungho reached forward. His hand landed heavy on Haneul’s knee. Big. Warm. Unsteady.
Haneul blinked. Looked down. Then up.
“Hey skyscraper,” he said cautiously, “you are about five seconds away from being wrestled into a cold shower.”
But Seungho wasn’t groping or leering. His fingers didn’t slide higher.
They just stayed there. Solid. Seeking something that wasn’t skin.
“I’ve never been in love,” Seungho said. Quietly. Like it hurt.
Haneul went still.
Not teasing or smirking for once.
Seungho’s gaze was distant. Not unfocused—just far. Like he was looking into a past no one else could see.
“I’ve fucked,” he said. “Fallen into beds. Slept beside people who wanted pieces of me. But it always felt like I was performing someone else’s script. Like I was mimicking hunger. Like the part of me that should’ve felt something was… sealed.”
Haneul opened his mouth. Closed it.
Seungho continued.
“But you… you make me feel like I forgot something. Not just a person. A sensation. Like my body remembers something my mind can’t.”
His hand tightened just slightly on Haneul’s knee.
“I see you. And I feel like I already lost you.”
That was when Haneul’s breath caught.
A sharp, unguarded inhale.
He didn’t flinch. But his whole posture shifted—less casual now, more grounded. His fingers curled against the edge of the table like he needed to hold onto something.
“You’re drunk,” he whispered. But his voice wasn’t mocking.
“I am,” Seungho said. “But it doesn’t make this less true.”
Another pause.
Then, raw: “I’ve been lonely for a long time. I don’t even remember when it started. Maybe always. Maybe since before I was born. But you—Sky—”
That name, “Sky” said by Seungho, landed heavy, like a memory Haneul didn’t know he had forgotten.
Haneul swallowed. Hard.
“You feel like a mistake I was supposed to make. Like something I lost before I ever held it.”
His other hand came up. Slid toward Haneul’s face.
Fingertips brushed his sharp cheekbone.
But Haneul leaned back. Gently. Slowly. He caught Seungho’s wrist before it could go further.
“Hey,” he said, trying to make it light. But it came out hoarse. “Stop before you ruin your whole reputation.”
Seungho blinked.
“I’m serious,” Haneul said, softer now. “You’re drunk. You probably don’t even know what you’re doing right now.”
“I know what I want.”
“That’s not the same.”
Seungho’s eyes narrowed. Not angry—confused.
“I’m a man,” Haneul said, voice sharpening again. “M.A.N. You’re not into that, remember? You do girls. Pussies and perfume and polite sex. You don’t know what to do with someone like me.”
Seungho didn’t argue.
But he didn’t move, either.
Haneul sighed. Tension broke with a long exhale.
Then, muttering: “Go to sleep, skyscraper. Before you say something that makes me stupid.”
He reached out, gently shoved Seungho’s shoulder. Tried to stand.
Seungho’s arm wrapped around his waist, anchoring.
His face pressed into Haneul’s flat belly. Warm. Heavy. Hair smelling like sandalwood and sweat.
“Let go,” Haneul mumbled. “You’re like a furnace.”
Nothing.
“Just five minutes,” Seungho mumbled against his stomach, voice half-buried and impossibly warm. “Then you can go back to hating me.”
“You weigh a ton,” Haneul muttered. “I’m not dying here on the couch like your personal cushion.”
No answer. Just the slow, steady drag of Seungho’s breath through his shirt.
Haneul stared down at the mess of raven-black hair against his ribs, exhaled through his nose, then grumbled, “Fine. But if you puke on me, I’m feeding you to Ji-ho.”
He hooked his arms under Seungho’s shoulders and started hauling.
A battle in miniature: five-foot-seven of lean stubbornness versus one exhausted, drunk monolith.
“Move, mountain. You’re supposed to walk.”
Seungho mumbled something that might’ve been “no.”
“Yeah, well, too bad,” Haneul hissed, dragging him anyway, half-lifting, half-cursing, inch by inch toward the open bedroom door.
By the time they reached the bed, Haneul was sweating, swearing, and laughing under his breath.
He shoved Seungho’s legs onto the mattress, kicked off his own socks, and dropped beside him with a growl.
“There,” he panted. “Horizontal. You are welcome.”
Seungho murmured something low, almost content, and rolled just enough to bury his face against Haneul’s chest again.
Heat bled between them; sandalwood and sweat and whatever it was that made the night heavy with almosts.
“Just five minutes,” Haneul warned, already failing.
He could feel the weight of Seungho’s arm sliding over his waist, the lazy gravity of it.
“Five minutes,” he said. “Then I’m gone.”
But the minutes stretched, blurred, folded into silence.
The hum of the city softened, thunder rolling somewhere beyond the glass.
When dawn finally lifted its pale face over the skyline, they were still there—fully dressed, unwashed, tangled in the sheets like the aftermath of a storm.
Haneul’s hand rested in Seungho’s hair, fingers absently combing through it as if the motion kept the world from tilting.
It was the first time they shared a bed.
And neither of them moved again until morning turned gold.
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