Chapter 42 – Duck Socks & Dinner Debauchery
By the time they returned to the hotel suite, Haneul was half-melted.
He clung to Seungho like a sun-sick octopus, limbs flopped, shirt wrinkled, hat askew.
“If you die in your meeting,” he mumbled, eyes half-lidded, “I’m not paying your funeral fee.”
Seungho kissed his temple.
“I’ll survive.”
“Hmm. Cock demon immunity?”
“Something like that.”
Then Haneul melted across the couch like a defeated fox spirit, and was asleep before Seungho finished changing. He wore only Seungho’s white shirt now, long sleeves swallowing his hands, collar slipping off one shoulder as he dozed face-down into a silk cushion.
Seungho, watching him from the doorway, felt something crack.
He left quietly.
The sea hummed at the windows.
Haneul eventually stirred enough to shower, muttered curses at the sand, and then curled up on the hotel couch with damp hair and only one sock on—like a feral snow feline that had been tricked into summer.
Downstairs, it was all finance.
Seungho sat through hours of meetings—finance updates, logistics, reports. At some point, Jaewan called to report a move from Hye-jin’s father, a shift in the Jang family stocks, and something about a leaked procurement memo.
But Seungho barely heard it.
Because the image of Haneul—last night, mouth parted, legs trembling, voice shaking as he whispered his name—kept blooming behind his eyes.
He bit back a smile.
Pressed a hand to his mouth.
And wondered—quietly, wildly—if a man like him was allowed to keep something like this.
Not power. Not peace.
But joy, fragile and undeserved.
??????
The suite was quiet.
Not the kind of silence that meant calm—but the kind that made Seungho pause at the door, briefcase still in hand, wondering if the building had been evacuated without telling him.
Then—
A thump.
A crash.
And a sound like a drawer being yanked out of its rails, followed by an offended squawk.
Seungho stepped inside.
What he found was not a room.
It was a riot.
Haneul stood half-naked in the middle of the suite, wet braid dripping down his spine, one sock on, one leg tangled in a pair of trousers that could only be described as a crime against color theory.
His shirt was nowhere to be seen, though a pink scarf fluttered from the ceiling fan like a war flag.
A trail of shirts, towels, bracelets, and one bottle of cologne led from the bathroom to the desk.
The entire bed was buried under an avalanche of clothing.
And in the eye of the storm: Haneul, glorious and deranged, bent at the waist and rummaging through a suitcase with all the tenderness of a raccoon in a dumpster.
Seungho blinked.
“Oh!” Haneul popped up, triumphant and sweaty, holding what appeared to be one sock with little embroidered ducks. “Thank the gods! I knew you had good timing. I was just about to invoke the lost spirits of the laundry dimension.”
A beat.
Haneul froze. Caught Seungho’s stare.
Then grinned wide. “Oh, stop looking at me like a drunk daddy at pride night. I know I’m hot.”
“You’re—” Seungho tried, then gave up and set his briefcase down. “What exactly are you doing?”
“Getting dressed for our dinner date, obviously.” Haneul beamed, pulling the duck sock over his foot. “I told you I’d let you take me anywhere you wanted… if you helped me find these.”
“You could’ve just asked.”
“I did!” Haneul huffed. “Telepathically. Through the bond.”
Seungho didn’t even blink. “You left the bond on Do Not Disturb.”
Haneul gasped. “I would never!”
“You did it last night after the fourth round.”
“Lies and slander! I was unconscious from blissful trauma!”
He straightened up, grabbing a sheer navy shirt and shimmying into it backwards before yanking it around with a flourish.
His bare skin flashed through the fabric, collarbone glinting, hipbones sharp.
“Well, anyway—shoes. Where are the shiny black ones with the slight heel that make me feel like a cursed fairy prince?”
“You wore those to brunch with my brother.”
“Oh, so now I’m not allowed to seduce multiple branches of the Yeol family tree?”
Seungho crossed the room in three long strides, grabbed him by the waist, and kissed the madness out of his mouth.
Haneul melted for half a second, lips parting in instinct.
Then: “Waaaait—I haven’t found my star sticker yet!”
Seungho blinked. “Your what?”
“The little golden one. It goes right here—” Haneul pointed to his cheekbone. “It brings balance to the chaos. And mild terror to the patriarchy.”
“You don’t need a sticker.”
“I always need my sticker. I’m a delicate blossom of well-accessorized defiance.
“Come here, you menace,” Seungho growled, and kissed him again, deeper, hand cradling the back of his neck.
Haneul melted for real this time. Leaned into it. Grabbed his collar with one ink-smudged hand and tugged. “You know, this could’ve been a stay-in dinner.”
Seungho smiled against his mouth. “Not after what you did to the room.”
“Touché.”
??????
They left the hotel thirty minutes later.
Seungho looked as always: sharp, elegant, carved from restraint. Navy suit. Silver watch. Firelight in his eyes.
And Haneul—
Well.
He was art.
A walking contradiction of glitter, linen, and sin. His shirt billowed like a pirate in a boy band. His duck socks peeked out between ankle pants and dangerously expensive loafers.
Heads turned.
An old woman blessed herself.
A bellhop nearly walked into a fountain.
Seungho offered his arm without flinching.
And when Haneul took it, smug and glowing like a deity of joyful chaos, Seungho leaned close and whispered:
“Next time, I’m picking your outfit.”
“Sure,” Haneul said, winking. “If I can pick your underwear.”
Seungho didn’t reply.
But the tips of his ears went pink.
??????
They dined at a secluded cliffside restaurant perched above Jeju’s volcanic coast—candlelight, soft jazz, and a sea breeze that carried both salt and promises.
They didn’t talk about work.
They didn’t talk about danger.
They just… ate. Laughed. Drank wine and stole food from each other’s plates.
Haneul knocked over a tiny vase with a flamboyant hand gesture while retelling a story from middle school.
Seungho said “I told you not to gesticulate with both arms,” and Haneul replied, “I’m Korean, darling. My hands have a right to live.”
They kissed between dessert and tea.
They kissed again outside, as the moon climbed silver above the cliffs.
And when they returned to the hotel later that night, duck socks discarded at the door, laughter echoing between them—
Seungho thought:
So this is what joy feels like. Even here. Even now. In the middle of it all.
And
He’ll ruin me.
And I’ll thank him for it.
Then he kissed Haneul again—deep, hungry, grinning against his mouth as they stumbled toward the door, one beautiful disaster in technicolor and one suit-clad mountain with no hope of looking away.
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