Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life had been easy, once.
A normal home, two parents, school, the usual small-town rhythm. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing dramatic.
You had your struggles, every kid does- but from where you stand now, they feel tiny, almost embarrassingly so.
And maybe that’s the curse tucked inside the blessing: realizing, only in hindsight, how light the old burdens were.
It’s comforting to believe that a year from today, you’ll look back on your current problems and feel the same distance, the same smallness.

But some things don’t shrink with time.
Some things grow teeth.

This particular loss- this wound -never softened, not even a year later.
You told yourself you accepted it. You said the words out loud like an affirmation.
But grief doesn’t care about affirmations.
It ambushes you in grocery store aisles, on quiet train rides, in the middle of exams. It waits until you’re unguarded, then sinks its claws in again.
It was just so sudden.

You tried to make sense of it-God, karma, fate, whatever helped you stay upright for a few more hours at a time.

Your parents’ financial troubles weren’t exactly a secret.
You just never noticed when the debt went from manageable to inescapable.
Old medical bills. Loans that kept breeding. Rent, utilities, the price of simply existing.
A snowball turning avalanche.

And you were angry.
Angry at the world, at the bills, but mostly at your father-at how he coped, or didn’t.

He left.
Chose silence over struggle.
He went hiking, like he always loved to, and simply never came back.
No body. No goodbye.
His colleagues combed the mountain trails for weeks, then months.
When they finally ruled it a suicide, something inside your mother-already fragile, already cracked-just… stopped.
One heart failure later, both of them were gone.

Just like that.

And so you moved on autopilot.
You packed what was left of your life into three suitcases and moved into an apartment with two friends-your best friend, a loudmouthed, soft-hearted gay guy you met during freshman orientation, and a mutual friend who collected chaos like it was a hobby.

The place wasn’t fancy.
Uneven floors, peeling paint, a bathroom that groaned every time someone turned on the shower.
But it was yours. Unapologetically yours.
Crappy artwork you’d all made during drunken “art therapy nights” clung to the walls.
A graveyard of empty cheap-vodka bottles lined the kitchen counter like trophies from battles you barely remembered fighting.
It smelled like burnt toast and hair dye and the faint sweetness of incense someone always forgot to blow out.

Somehow, against all logic, it felt like home.
Or at least… close enough to pass for one.
◇
The apartment was loud in all the wrong ways—creaking pipes, humming fridge, a floorboard that whined whenever someone stepped near the couch. The “living room” was barely a room, just a slouching secondhand sofa shoved against a wall and a TV stacked on milk crates. It bled straight into the kitchen, where the counter leaned like it might collapse if someone breathed too hard on it.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was alive, lived-in, undeniably yours.

“I really don’t want to write that stupid assignment,” you groaned, collapsing deeper into the old couch until its springs complained.

At the stove, your friend Jiwon was busy preparing his daily ritual: plain rice, even plainer chicken. The smell of unseasoned poultry had become the apartment’s unofficial perfume.

“You’re the laziest person I’ve ever met,” he chuckled, flipping the chicken with all the enthusiasm of someone flipping a corpse.

“I prefer to call it the art of procrastination,” you said, dragging your fingers through your hair as you pushed yourself just high enough to peek over the couch’s edge at his cooking. “Jiwon, you do realize there’s no war going on anymore? You don’t have to eat like you’re preparing for famine.”

“You’re one to talk. You eat, like… one grapefruit a day.” He didn’t even look away from the pan, just lifted one unimpressed brow.

“That’s because I’m broke,” you huffed. “You, on the other hand—collecting disability checks for your tragic case of mildly-bad vision-can’t compare.”

“Broke?” he scoffed, plating his sad, beige meal. “Hasn’t your anonymous sugar daddy wired you money yet?”

You burst out laughing. “Stop. It’s creepy as hell. And no, he hasn’t. It's the sixth, remember"

Jiwon took a seat on the opposite end of the couch, crossing one leg over the other like he was settling in for a drama. “And you seriously have no clue who’s doing it?”

“I don’t. Really.” You wrapped your arms around your knees, chin resting against them. “It freaks me out. I can’t decide whether I’m more scared that it’s some creep, or that I’m getting money by mistake and one day some rich asshole will drag me to court to get it back while I’m sitting here spending it on rent and ramen.”

“I think it’s been going on too long to be a mistake,” he said through a mouthful of rice.

You didn’t reply-because he was right.
It had been happening since your mother died.
Every month.
On the seventh.
A transfer big enough to cover your rent, groceries, utilities. A lifeline you never asked for.

But also a chain.

You hated that you depended on it. You hated not knowing who was watching, who knew your bank details, who cared enough-or obsessed enough-to keep you afloat.

Your relatives were all broke or estranged. There was no insurance payout. No forgotten trust fund.
You even checked with Jiwon once, comparing his government support with your transfers.

His came with a sender, a department, a stamp of something official.

Yours came from the void.
Encrypted. Untraceable.
A ghost with deep pockets keeping you alive.

A number carrying your life. And nothing more.

◇

Enough was enough.

The constant pressure of being watched - or imagining you were -had begun to gnaw at you in places you didn’t even know anxiety could reach. Relying on money that came from nowhere, from no one, from nothing, felt like standing on a bridge made of mist: one day it might hold, the next it could vanish beneath your feet. You knew nothing about the source of the transfers. No sender. No explanation. No intention. Just numbers that arrived each month and kept you alive.

You needed out.
A job was the only path toward independence.

Today, after class, you had an interview. A barista position at a small, cozy, aesthetic café -the kind of place that felt like a haven when the world outside went cold and mean. You pictured it immediately: amber lights dripping warmth over shelves cluttered with mismatched teapots, tiny ceramic animals, and thrift-store frames filled with art that had probably been traded for a cup of coffee. Plants everywhere - drooping, climbing, spilling over the edges of clay pots. The smell of cinnamon, burnt sugar, and old books clinging to the air.
It was the perfect hideout during breaks between lectures, the place where you and Jiwoon sat pretending to study while actually gossiping about everyone but yourselves.

◇

“Oh my god,” Jiwoon said flatly, not even bothering to look at you. His voice had the emotional range of a dial tone. “I can’t believe you are going to be… employed.” He twirled his pen with the seriousness of a surgeon preparing for a heart transplant.

“I see you finally overcame your fear of saying the word ‘employment,’” you said, nudging his chair with your foot. He cracked a tiny smirk.

“Listen,” he sighed dramatically, leaning back, “I simply choose to embrace the benefits of exploiting an already rigged system. Not my fault you lack the necessary brain cells to do so.” He tapped his pen against your notebook. “I told you: just lie and say you have crippling migraines from the trauma of your parents dying. You’d be richer than me. And migraines are perfect - no one can prove you don’t have them.”

“You know I hate all that bureaucracy,” you muttered, scribbling nonsense in the margin of your notes just to look busy.

“Lazy,” he accused, rolling his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t fall out. “You just don’t want to file the papers.”

◇

Class ended at 6:00 p.m. The interview was at 6:10.

You shoved your notebook into your bag and bolted out of the building, half-jogging down the steps toward the bus stop. The early evening air was cold enough to sting, and your breath came out in short, frantic bursts. If you caught the right bus, you might make it with a minute to spare.

You sprinted the last few meters - and that’s when it happened.

Your foot landed wrong, twisting violently beneath you.
A sharp, wet crack echoed in your ankle, followed by a streak of white-hot pain that shot up your leg. You gasped, stumbling forward as your knee slammed into the concrete. The embarrassment hit just as hard -you could feel the eyes on you, the few people waiting at the stop looking over with that mix of curiosity and pity no one ever wants.

The pain pulsed, ugly and throbbing.
There was no way you were catching that bus now.

By the time you managed to stand, leaning heavily on the pole beside the bench, tears burned at the corners of your eyes , partly from pain, partly from humiliation, partly from knowing the interview was already lost.

You gave up and flagged down a taxi.

The hospital smelled like disinfectant and old air-conditioning. The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, like insects trapped behind plastic. After a short wait, a doctor confirmed it wasn’t broken, just a twisted ankle, swollen and angry but fixable with rest, ice, and a brace.

Relief washed through you… until the doctor mentioned the bill.
Your stomach hollowed out immediately. You didn’t have insurance. You could already feel the money you didn’t have slipping through your fingers.

Limping toward the reception desk felt like dragging a boulder behind you. The woman behind the counter looked exhausted in a way that went beyond her shift , her shoulders slumped, her hair pinned back messily, her eyes half-lidded as she clicked through tabs on her screen. Her nails were chipped. Her expression was a mixture of boredom and perpetual annoyance, softened only by the familiarity of routine.

“Uh… hello,” you started, clearing your throat. “I’d like to see how much my bill is. My intake number is 0432. I, um… don’t have insurance.” You gave a small, awkward chuckle, the kind meant to hide panic rather than humor.

She didn’t respond , not verbally, at least. Just typed.
A few seconds passed. Then she looked up.

“Then you’re lucky,” she said, in that flat tone of someone too tired to care but obligated to deliver news anyway. “Your bill was paid for.”

Your brows pulled together, confusion tightening your face.
“P-paid for?” you repeated, voice thin. “By who?”

“The payer didn’t disclose their name.” She reached into a small mail tray beside her keyboard. “But they left a card for you.”

She slid it across the counter.

A simple white card.
No name.
No message.

Just a phone number, printed in black ink like an answer you were never meant to like.

◇

Hwang Inho didn’t understand why he’d crossed that line.

He’d built the entire system so he would remain untraceable to you ,the encrypted transfers, the shell accounts, the careful timing. He’d even dealt with your landlord, quietly pressing until the man backed down from his plan to shove two more strangers into your apartment. You’d assumed it was a rare moral awakening from someone who counted coins like blessings. But no. That had been Inho too, just another adjustment made from the shadows.

All anonymous.
All distant.
All controlled.

That was how it was supposed to stay.

He was the watcher, not the participant , a presence that touched your life without ever brushing your awareness. That was the promise he made long ago. Quiet protection. Quiet atonement. Quiet everything.

But after he left that card at the hospital, after the moment the receptionist tucked it into the tray, a strange regret crawled up his spine. Sharp. Immediate. The kind that felt like he’d stepped over a boundary he drew himself.

He wasn’t meant to be seen by you.

He wasn’t meant to give you anything with edges or shape or trace.
Least of all a way to reach him.

Maybe it was self-punishment.
Maybe it was the reckless urge to let you look him in the eye one day , the eyes of the man who kept you alive, and the eyes of the man who took something.
Maybe he wanted to feel the weight of that truth long before you ever learned it.

Regardless of the reason, he knew it was a mistake.

A mistake he could correct in seconds.
Cancel the phone number.
Delete the line.
Disappear again.

But he didn’t.

Instead, when that unknown number finally lit up his screen ,your hesitant call, your confusion bleeding through the silence , he answered. Calm. Controlled. Like he’d been expecting it all along.

And then he did the one thing he was never supposed to do.

He told you to meet him.
◇

“Guess fucking what?” you burst into Jiwoon’s room, or as close to bursting as someone with a brace on their ankle could manage. No knock, no warning, just pure urgency. He lay sprawled on his messy bed, half-buried in blankets, watching some low-budget reality show where everyone was either yelling or drunk.

You plopped down at the edge of his bed and the old mattress dipped dramatically beneath you.

“What?” he said, dragging his attention from the TV. He gave you a slow once-over. “You got the job?” His eyebrows knit. “…And why are you limping like a Victorian orphan?”

“I didn’t even arrive at the interview.” You dropped your head back with a groan.

He burst out laughing,loud, delighted, zero sympathy. “So what, you gonna file the paperwork for grief migraines now?”

You nudged his leg with the good foot. “Be serious.”

“Fine, fine.” He sat up, pushing his hair back. “What happened?”

“I rushed for the bus, twisted my ankle, ate shit in front of like thirty people, and ended up in the hospital.”

“Damn. Did you even have money to pay the hospital bill?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Of course not.”

“So what, you cried and begged?”

“It was paid,” you said quietly.

He blinked, then smirked. “By anonymous sugar daddy.”

“Ew. Stop calling him that. And I guess… yeah.”

Jiwoon lit up, shoulders straightening like he’d been plugged into an outlet. Gossip was his drug. “And still no clue who this person is?”

“Nope.” You exhaled. “But he left me a phone number at the front desk. We… agreed to meet.”

Jiwoon froze. “And you want to go alone?”

“I mean… I guess? He sent an address. He wants to meet in Haneul Park tomorrow at 10 p.m.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Jiwoon pointed a stern finger at you, though he looked about as threatening as a wet cat. “I’m going with you. You don’t know this guy,he could be, like, a pimp or something. I don’t know.”

You snorted. “A pimp?”

“I’ll stand far away,” he continued dramatically, “far enough to intervene if anything goes down, but not close enough for him to see me.”

“Oh, sure.” You poked his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, tough guy. Your scrawny ass couldn’t fight off a housefly.”

◇

The next day came faster than you wanted it to. Classes blurred by. You limped home, made dinner, pretended everything was normal. The monthly transfer hit your account like clockwork.

But the closer it crept to 10 p.m., the heavier the air felt. Your stomach tightened. Your fingers shook a little. You were about to stand in front of the man who had been quietly shaping your life from the shadows.

You didn’t know whether to feel grateful, hunted, or both.

For Inho, the feeling was no different, if anything, worse. He knew you’d come. Curiosity would always beat caution in you. But he also knew he didn’t have to show up.

He could vanish again.
Slip back behind encrypted numbers and invisible transactions.
Pretend this contact never happened.

But he didn’t.

He splashed cold water on his face.
Put on cologne he only wore to look respectable, never sentimental.
Stepped out of his apartment.

He could stop walking.
Turn around.
Go back.

But he didn’t.

He moved on autopilot, driven not by desire but by something uglier, shame, maybe. The quiet, gnawing kind that whispered he deserved whatever came from meeting you.

Seeing you was punishment enough.

◇

The metro was nearly empty. Two elderly women sat across from you, whispering and glancing up every few seconds. Jiwoon bounced his knee, biting a thumbnail.

“I’m literally so excited,” he hissed, barely containing himself.

“Please shut up,” you muttered, staring at your reflection in the train window.

“What if he’s a serial killer?” Jiwoon asked, wide-eyed.

“That didn’t stop you from going to the apartments of old men you met online,” you said dryly.

He gasped theatrically. “That’s different. You just don’t get the aesthetic.”

One of the women clucked her tongue disapprovingly. The other elbowed her like they were watching a soap opera unfold in real time.

◇

At the park, Jiwoon kept his “distance”—which in his mind meant standing twenty meters away, half-hidden behind a lamp post, staring directly at you. To him, invisible. To everyone else, painfully obvious.

You limped forward, stomach twisting. The man stood with his back to you, posture straight, hands in the pockets of a long dark coat.

You swallowed.

“Uh… hi?” you managed.

He turned.

Hwang Inho’s expression was unreadable—still, stoic, controlled. Eyes dark, sharp, and absolutely emotionless. The kind of face that made you feel examined rather than seen.

“You’re the guy who’s been sending me money,” you said, throat tight.

He said nothing.

“Why?” you pressed.

Silence.

You exhaled harshly. “Well, why leave me a card if you’re gonna act like you’re mute?”

His gaze slid past you. “Is that your friend?”

You followed his gaze to Jiwoon, who was leaning against the lamp post like someone posing for a crime reenactment.

Inho’s voice didn’t change tone. “Next time, if you’re trying to hide, avoid light sources.”

You flushed. “Yeah, whatever. Noted.”

“So why?” you tried again. “Why send me money? You don’t know me.”

He finally answered. “I have reasons. Respect.”

“That means nothing to me. I don’t understand.”

A pause.

“I wanted you to see my face,” he said. “So you would stop imagining I had bad intentions. I don’t want anything from you. I expect nothing from you.”

“Oh, sure,” you scoffed. “You say that now, and then later you’ll drag me to court to collect. I’m not buying it. I hate scammers. I settle my debts.”

He looked at you for only a moment-really looked-before his gaze dropped again. Something like shame flickered across his features and disappeared instantly.

“I will repay,” you insisted.

“With money you don’t have?” he replied, tone flat.

You opened your mouth, closed it. “W-well—hell, I don’t know. I’ll water your plants or something.”

His lips twitched-almost a laugh.

“I don’t like being indebted,” you said quietly. “I won’t be indebted.”

He breathed out slowly through his nose, as if he’d seen this exact stubbornness before. “Fine.”

It wasn’t agreement-it was surrender. A battle too small for him to fight.

“And,” you added, “I want a written agreement. That this is our deal.”

He didn’t argue.
He didn’t question.
He just nodded once.

Like he’d accept any terms you gave him.

Even if they never balanced the real debt between you both.

Chapter Text

The cold winter air hit your face as you stepped out of the apartment. The street was washed in that dim bluish glow that only old streetlamps can make. Snowmelt clung to the pavement and the distant hum of cars blended with the occasional bark of a dog. Your breath came out in pale little clouds. For a moment the world felt clean and crisp, nothing like the tangle of panic clawing at your chest.

You didn’t even catch his name.
Yet here you were, heading to his place.
Your request. Your decision.

Your mother used to tell you that if something seems too good to be true, then it is. Free money for existing, no conditions, from a man you’d never met? With no expectations? Every warning sign in the universe should have been blaring.

You wished it came from someone who made sense. Some distant aunt who heard about what happened, someone who cared enough to lift a bit of your weight. Someone who had any reason to invest in you. This man had none. “Respect,” he said, as if that explained anything.

So your mind did what it always did when it lacked information. It filled the void with the worst.

It felt like being in school again. When the pretty girls whispered behind their manicured hands, when a teacher used the wrong tone, when a small shift in someone’s expression made you spiral. Back then, you worried they thought you were stupid or strange. Now your brain sharpened its claws and gave you darker images.

Maybe this was his scheme. Get women dependent on him financially, then corner them when they had no safety net. Make them repay their debt in ways they never agreed to.

Or maybe something worse. Maybe he collected people like pets. Maybe he chose girls without family, girls who wouldn’t be missed. Maybe he wanted to lock you in some polished apartment and convince himself you were grateful to be caged. Maybe he’d lie in wait until you owed him too much to claw your way out.

Maybe you were walking straight into the lion’s mouth.

Knowingly.

Yet you kept going.
Kept hoping.
Kept wanting answers, even if they scared you.
◇
His apartment was huge. Not the glossy kind you saw in magazines, but the kind that feels curated in silence. Wide windows framed the city in cold blue light. The ceilings were high, the furniture minimal yet expensive. Every surface looked untouched, as if the space belonged to no one at all. No clutter, no warmth, just the faint scent of cologne and old books.

“You came,” he said.

His voice was level, unreadable. His posture too straight, his shoulders square like he was bracing for impact. The sight of him made your stomach pinch. He carried himself with the quiet authority of someone who could end a conversation before it even began. Intimidation wasn’t something he tried for. It was something he was.

“Uh… yeah,” you managed, forcing your voice to sound steadier than you felt. “I have no friend with me this time.”

You hoped solitude might soften him, pry answers loose.

“So… maybe you can tell me more. Why are you doing this?” You tried to meet his eyes.

He didn’t return the gesture. His gaze stayed somewhere past your shoulder, like looking at you hurt too much.

“The plants are in the living room,” he said.

His tone held nothing—no hostility, no warmth. Just a cold, clipped efficiency. It made your skin prickle. You wanted answers, anything concrete, something to hold onto. Instead he gave you walls.

“Did you know my mom or something?” you asked, lowering your voice, trying to coax him into humanity.

“I never met your mother,” he replied. His expression didn’t shift yet he still felt harder to read than before.

“Then why? Why start sending me money right after she died?”

“You can get water in the kitchen,” he said. “And that written agreement you asked for is on the counter. Already signed.”

Then he disappeared down the hall without waiting for your response. A door clicked shut. You weren’t sure if it was his study or another boundary he didn’t want you crossing.

Annoyance crawled up your spine. Why couldn’t he just talk? Why go to such lengths for you, only to act like this? Why keep you in the dark?

You let out a shaky breath and stepped deeper inside, slipping off your shoes in the hallway. The living room felt uncanny. The plants-bright green, glossy-were still wearing their price stickers. New. Just bought. For you? The thought unsettled you more than the room itself.

The apartment around them was too perfect, too serene. A bookshelf lined with hardcovers arranged by height. A low sofa that looked sat on maybe once. Curtains tied back with surgical precision. It was like stepping into a display home where someone lived but never fully inhabited.

You made your way toward the kitchen. Marble counters. Chrome fixtures. Quiet. A single envelope sat by the sink. You opened it with a slight tremor in your fingers.

“Written agreement for services rendered,” you muttered, scanning the page. “Y/N will assist with domestic errands as repayment for transferred funds…”

You skimmed lower.

“Signed by Hwang Inho.”

The name settled in your chest like a stone.

◇

You watered the plants in a loose rhythm, barely aware of your own movements. Your mind drifted with the lecture playing from your phone, the professor’s calm voice filling the cavernous living room. You shifted from pot to pot, tilting the metal watering can like you’d done it a hundred times, not really seeing the leaves or the space around you. Your body worked on autopilot while your brain floated somewhere above your head, absorbing half a sentence here and there. The monotony numbed you in a strangely comforting way.

“…in classical humanist thought, it is assumed that people possess an innately kind nature-”

A presence behind you cracked through your trance.

“Are you done?” he asked.

You startled violently, the sound cutting too close to your ear. The watering can slipped from your hands, hitting the floor with a metallic clang. Water splashed across your feet and soaked into your jeans.

“Oh-damn, shit, sorry,” you blurted, stepping back. Your pulse jumped. He didn’t move except for the lift of a brow, barely a reaction at all.

Your phone kept playing:

“…kind nature, though corrupted by circumstance, can still be rediscovered-"

You fumbled to silence it, nearly dropping that too. The screen went dark.

“Uh-yeah. I’m almost finished… let me just clean this up,” you muttered, crouching to wipe at the spill with the hem of your shirt.

“Inherently good?” he echoed. A twitch pulled at the corner of his eye, like the phrase was physically irritating.

“Well that guy didn’t stutter, did he,” you said, trying for humor that fell flat in the cold air. He didn’t even blink.

“Tough crowd,” you mumbled under your breath, heat creeping into your face. You hated awkward silence. It made you talk-anything to fill the void before it swallowed you.

“So, like, you send me money to help me out of the goodness of your heart,” you added, forcing your tone light.

His expression didn’t soften. If anything he went stiller, the muscles in his jaw tightening a fraction.

“I never said it’s out of goodness,” he said. “And you don’t know that.”

A slow, sinking chill threaded down your spine. Something about the way he said it-calm, empty, like a warning without tone-made the hairs on your arms rise.

“Well. I guess it keeps me afloat. So that’s good. Whatever your agenda is.” You straightened, wiping your wet hands on your thighs. “Unless you’re planning to murder or sell me.”

“If I had plans to do that, don’t you think the deal would be sealed by now?” he replied.

You blinked. “I don’t know. With the lack of information, I can make up whatever scenario and let my brain run with it.”

“You have enough information,” he said, as if that were obvious.

“Yeah, sure. Respect, whatever. It doesn’t tell me anything, you know.”

He stepped a little closer-not threatening, just enough that you could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the strict line of his shoulders, the restrained austerity he wore like armor. The apartment swallowed the sound between you. A soft hum from the refrigerator. The dripping from the knocked-over plant. His breathing, steady.

“You should study more and realize your belief in people is baseless,” he said. “Instead of investigating something not worth investigating.”

“Who said I believe in humanity?” you shot back.

He looked at you like you were a child making a naïve claim, his expression unimpressed and faintly disdainful.

“And stop trying to be so enigmatic,” you added, folding your arms. “It’s starting to annoy me.”

You stood facing him between the rows of newly bought plants. The city light framed his silhouette, turning him into something sculpted, distant. He towered above you in height and aura both, his posture unwavering while yours wavered between frustration and curiosity. His eyes-dark and sharp-held you without softness, but not without intention.

The air between you tightened.
Unspoken things simmered.
And the water spreading across the floor chilled your ankles as you waited for his next move.

◇

“I’m bored.”
Jiwon stretched out dramatically across your bed, limbs splaying like he owned the place. His head landed beside yours, tufted hair brushing your shoulder. The mattress dipped under his weight, sending a pulse of dull pain through your ankle, but his presence was comforting in the way only long-time friends could be.

Your room, small and old and a little crooked in the corners, felt warmer with him in it. The fairy lights you strung up three years ago cast a soft glow across the walls plastered with posters—your favorite bands, movie quotes, one you printed from Pinterest because it looked motivational at the time. Polaroids cluttered the mirror, and a framed picture of your family sat on your nightstand, the glass slightly cracked from when you dropped it last semester. The room was old… but it was yours.

“You’re always bored,” you groaned, nudging him with your elbow as you tried to distract yourself from the unmistakable rhythmic sounds coming through the wall.

Your roommate… again. And her boyfriend… again.

Jiwon’s ears perked. “Jesus, I’m so lucky I don’t share a wall with her nasty ass.” He scooted closer to the wall, cupping a hand behind his ear to listen. “Hold on, I wanna know what level they’re on-”

“Oh hell no.” You burst out laughing and smacked his arm. “Stop that.”

The moans shifted, dropping from high-pitched, borderline theatrical, to more breathy and staggered. You opened your mouth to say something, but Jiwon looked at you with a slow-growing grin.

“I think they finished,” he said, voice softening into mischievous smugness.

You didn’t even get a second of relief before the noises started again. Louder. More enthusiastic.

Jiwon snapped. He planted his palm flat against the wall and banged it three times.
“OH HELL NO. THAT’S JUST GREEDY. Fourth time?!”

You doubled over laughing, clutching your stomach. “Ew. Anyways-" You tried to compose yourself, wiping a tear from your eye. “I went to his place today.”

Jiwon raised a brow. “Is that a reference to what they’re doing right now?”

“Oh God, no-” You shoved him. "He still hasn’t told me anything.”

Jiwon rolled onto his side, expression shifting from playful to something almost gentle. “So? It’s free money. If I were you, I would”

“No. Please no.” You pointed at him.

He gasped dramatically. “Come on, I’m not THAT slutty.”

You raised your brow.

He blinked. “Okay, maybe I am. But that’s not the point.” He sat up slightly, resting his chin on his hand. “What I’m trying to say is… it’s free money. Maybe anonymous sugar daddy runs a secret charity or something.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” you deadpanned.

“And it’s not secret sugar daddy anymore.” He smirked. “It’s Hwang Inho.”
◇
While your laughter shook the walls of your old apartment, while Jiwon sprawled across your bed like a smug housecat and the muffled chaos next door continued without shame, Hwang Inho sat alone in his silent living room.

The contrast couldn’t have been starker.

His place was vast, polished, curated. The kind of apartment where sound didn’t echo because everything was expensive enough to absorb it. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the Seoul skyline back at him in cold slashes of light. The leather sofa sighed under his weight when he leaned back, the whiskey in his hand untouched for so long the ice had melted into it.

And yet his eyes never left the plants.

The ones you overwatered.

Droplets clung to the edges of the leaves, tiny beads gathering in the soil trays. Some leaves shined with too much moisture. One pot had a small puddle forming beneath it. You had done it earnestly, clearly more worried about doing too little than doing too much. You even listened to a philosophy lecture while doing it, completely lost in your own world, barely noticing the man who towered silently behind you.

You kept your word.

Such a small, laughable promise-watering a stranger’s plants. But it was something human trash never did. Human trash didn’t contribute, didn’t honor anything, didn’t give when they could take instead. Human trash bled others dry without hesitation.

But not you.
Your promise, insignificant as it should’ve been, carried weight. An instinctive, almost naive decency. Something he hadn’t seen in years-something he thought didn’t exist anymore.

And it unsettled him.

He felt that unease deep in his bones, like a buried instinct waking up. A feeling he hadn’t allowed himself to experience since before the games. Before the mask. Before he became a man who lived off calculation instead of conscience.

You weren’t supposed to matter.
You weren’t supposed to step out of the shadows he kept you in.
You weren’t supposed to speak to him with those frustrated eyes, demanding answers he had no intention of giving.

He took a slow breath, the whiskey glass warm now in his hand. The city lights bled across the polished floors like fractured stars. He sat still, posture straight, shoulders tense in a way that betrayed more emotion than he would ever voice.

You disturbed him.

Not by confronting him.
Not by your questions.
But by existing exactly the way you did-honest, driven, stubborn in a way that didn’t make sense. He wasn’t used to someone meeting him without an angle. Without greed. Without schemes. Even now, when you accused him of having the darkest intentions, you still showed up. You still watered the plants. You still spoke to him with the same mix of fear and defiance that made him unable to look you in the eye for long.

And he hated that.

Hated the stirrings of guilt, the subtle pull of curiosity. Hated the recognition flickering in the back of his mind-because he had seen that fire before. A long time ago. In a person who once mattered. A person who didn’t survive.

For a moment, the memory pressed so hard against his chest that he had to look away from the plants entirely.

Then he forced himself still again. Stoic. Masked.
Because this was the line he’d chosen.
Because you were not supposed to become anything more than a distant responsibility he would observe from afar.
And because breaking that distance came with consequences-ones he should’ve been strong enough to avoid.

Yet here he was.
Watching droplets slide down overwatered leaves, thinking about you.

Worrying.
Wondering.
Letting the past and the present blur in ways he refused to acknowledge.

◇
You walked into his apartment again straight from class, still clutching your bag full of notes you’d never read. You always wrote them anyway-habits stitched into your bones, even though your handwriting crawled across the page like a dying insect and Jiwon always ended up handing you his pristine, color-coded notes anyway.

“Hey.”
Your voice floated into the quiet space as you stepped inside and slipped off your shoes. Your ankle ached only a little today.

“Plant babysitter reporting,” you tried.

He didn’t laugh.
Didn’t smile.
Didn’t even turn.

He sat stiffly on the couch, facing the wide living-room windows, posture perfect, hands resting on his thighs like he’d been placed there by careful fingers. Only when he finally turned his head did he acknowledge you.

“You overwatered them,” he said. “You’ll do something different today.”

You raised an eyebrow.
“What exactly are we talking about? Just so you know, I already told my friend that if something happens to me, I did not kill myself, and my death was absolutely tampered with.”

A half-joke, half-plea, but mostly nerves.

“Funny,” he said-

And you froze.

Your eyes widened dramatically. “Wow. Congratulations. That was a whole… adjective. Next thing I know you’ll be saying ‘ha’.”
Awkward laugh.
Silence.

“...Anyway.” You exhaled. “So what’s today’s… task?”

“You’ll arrange some books in my study,” he said, finally rising.

He didn’t look back to see if you followed.
You followed anyway.
◇

You ran your fingers along the spines, muttering letters under your breath, but the titles pulled you in before the alphabet could.

Almost every book was about human nature.
Not the gentle, hopeful side.
No-he collected the dark anatomy of the species.

Hobbes. Schopenhauer. Nietzsche. Han Byung-Chul. Erich Fromm.
An entire shrine to pessimism.

The handful of “optimistic” books sat exiled on the bottom shelf.
Cheap translations of Kropotkin, some shallow pop-psychology paperbacks with embarrassingly soft arguments about human kindness, written like self-help pamphlets.

You couldn’t stop.
You started comparing texts, reading passages aloud under your breath, scoffing at the weaker ones.

You sank to the floor without noticing-knees folded, bag tossed aside, your fingers tracing cruel theories about selfishness and decay. You were so deep in it you didn’t hear him return.

But you felt him.

A shift in the air behind you.
A presence.

“I know you’re standing behind me,” you said without turning.

He didn’t move.

“I was curious when you’d start sorting them,” he said, “instead of reading them.”

You gave him a side-glance.
“No wonder you’re so grim…”

He blinked-slow, almost offended.

“These books about people being evil are actually well-written,” you went on. “Solid arguments, sharp logic. But the optimistic ones? They’re like my essay drafts, and that’s an insult to my incompetence.”

“Pardon?” he asked, caught off guard.

“I mean-sorry, but this is garbage.” You tapped a pastel paperback. “You can’t compare Hobbes to… this. That’s like putting a wheelchair user in a race with a gold-medal sprinter.”

His expression didn’t shift, but something dark flickered behind his eyes.

“Keep reading Hobbes,” he said quietly.
“And go against your own arguments instead of making disabled people run marathons.”

A pause.

“Unless,” he added, voice low and precise, “your arguments are too weak to begin with.”

You stared at him.

He stared back.

The air between you thickened-philosophy disguised as combat, challenge disguised as chores. He wanted you to doubt everything. He wanted you to unravel. He wanted to watch you wrestle with the same bleakness that had eaten him whole.

And you-knees on his floor, surrounded by books about human corruption—weren’t sure if you were strong enough to stay untouched.

◇

You kept reading.

At first just a paragraph.
Then a page.
Then entire sections of chapters-kneeling on the floor with books scattered around you like fallen leaves. Your fingers brushed across highlighted sentences, your face pulled into tiny frowns or quiet disbelief, the kind of expressions you only made when you forgot someone could see you.

The room dimmed as the sun slid toward evening, but you didn’t look up. You were lost in an argument from some philosopher who seemed almost offended by the concept of kindness.

You muttered, “That’s not even a fair premise,” under your breath.

That was the moment he returned.

You didn’t hear him come back, but you felt the shift-the weight of his gaze settling on you like a silent hand pressing between your shoulder blades.

“It’s getting late,” he said, voice low and softened by the fading light. He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, head tilted slightly as he looked down at you-still kneeling on the floor, hair messy, surrounded by books in total disarray.

You blinked up at him, dazed.
“I didn’t even arrange them,” you admitted, pushing some hair behind your ear, your fingers smudged faintly with dust.

“I didn’t expect you to,” he said.

He stepped inside. His shoes didn’t make a sound on the polished wood. The lamplight cast him in sharp lines—jaw tense, brows relaxed, but his eyes fixed intently on you, like he was studying the shape of your thoughts as much as your face.

You looked around at the chaos you’d created—hardcovers scattered in every direction, some open, some stacked crookedly, some lying spine-up like wounded animals.

You hugged your knees lightly. “I don’t think all humans are inherently evil,” you said, your voice smaller now, yet firm. “I’m not evil.” You looked up at him with a kind of earnest confusion you didn’t show anyone else.

He froze for a second.
Not visibly-but something in him stilled, as if the air itself had to wait.

“Because you weren’t pushed to do evil,” he said, stepping closer, gaze steady, almost unreadable. “You haven’t been forced into a corner.”

You frowned, defensiveness flaring.
“So-what? If someone does something that could be seen as evil to survive, are they automatically evil? Does the act make them evil, or does the intention matter?” You ran your thumb along the edge of a page, grounding yourself. “Is it only evil if they enjoy causing harm? Or benefit from it? Or want it?”

He crouched down in front of you then-not too close, but close enough that the lamplight caught in his eyes. His posture was calm, but his words carried the same kind of heaviness as the books around you.

“The whole problem,” he said slowly, “is that human nature will justify anything for the sake of survival. People will do evil as easily as they breathe if it means continuing to breathe.” His gaze flicked to the books, then back to you. “Intention doesn’t absolve. The act does the damage.”

You shook your head. “That’s too black-and-white.”

“There is no white,” he murmured. “Just degrees of darkness. Some people stay on the lighter end until life drags them deeper.”

You stared at him, something unsettled churning in your chest.
“And what about you?” you asked quietly. “Are you evil?”

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

“That depends,” he said. “On who had to suffer so I could survive.”

You swallowed.
Your fingers tightened around the book in your lap.

“You talk like you don’t deserve to live,” you whispered.

He looked at you with a strange mix of restraint and something almost like grief.

“And you talk,” he said, “like you don’t understand the cost of living yet.”

You leaned back on your hands, heart unsteady.
“Well… maybe I want to understand.”

That made him avert his gaze for the first time.
A small, silent deflection.

“You shouldn’t,” he said.

But his voice lacked its usual certainty.
And you weren’t sure if the warning was for you…
or for himself.