“What is with this ring? Why are you reacting like that? And how the hell did you know it was here? Have you been to this mansion before?”
Lee Haru, who had looked completely vacant as if his soul had left his body, only met his eyes properly after he fired off those blunt questions.
“Ah… Can I explain later? I’m feeling really dizzy right now…”
“Haru…!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Lee Haru’s upper body crumpled forward. Yu Je-hyun caught him instinctively, pulling him into his arms.
Warm breath fanned across his neck. Yu Je-hyun pressed his palm against Haru’s forehead.
“What the hell were you doing, letting yourself get this bad?”
He had not noticed anything was wrong. Only now did he see that Haru’s forehead and the back of his neck were drenched in cold sweat. The fact that it had gone unnoticed until now felt absurd.
“He seemed totally fine just a little while ago.”
But the more he thought about it, the more he was sure—Haru had not been like this before touching the ring.
Even unconscious, Haru clutched the ring tightly in his hand like it was some priceless treasure.
Yu Je-hyun felt a flicker of curiosity toward the ring, but it faded quickly.
“Pathetic little bastard. And why the hell is he so light?”
He lifted Haru and stood, but the weight was disturbingly light.
Honestly, it felt like Haru weighed barely half of what he should.
They had not been living together that long, but Haru always seemed to be eating whenever he saw him.
Where the hell had all those calories gone?
Chuckling at the thought, Yu Je-hyun carried Haru up the stairs. That was when he saw a tall figure standing at the entrance to the hallway that led to Haru’s room.
It was Hong Seong-jun, his expression soft and smiling.
“You really do keep showing me sides I never expected.”
But Yu Je-hyun immediately recognized that while Hong Seong-jun’s mouth was smiling, his eyes were icy cold.
Hong Seong-jun’s gaze slowly swept from Yu Je-hyun to the unconscious Haru in his arms. Even while passed out, Haru furrowed his brow as if he could sense the weight of that stare.
A subtle wave of killing intent leaked from Hong Seong-jun, and Yu Je-hyun’s lips twisted into an irritated smirk.
“What are you doing here?”
To him, that hostility was nothing more than a nuisance. But for Haru, it was a legitimate threat.
Watching Hong Seong-jun radiate bloodlust just because he was in a bad mood—completely disregarding whether Haru was hurt or not—Yu Je-hyun found himself thinking back to how he used to act.
He had done the same thing. Every time Haru clung to him like an annoyance, he lashed out. Even the day Haru entered the mansion, he had not held back his aggression.
He had seen Haru’s already pale complexion turn ashen, and still he had not cared.
So why was it so infuriating now? It felt like someone was eyeing something that belonged to him.
“I needed to talk to Haru. What about you, hyung? Why are you always glued to him these days? Weren’t you the one who hated him the most out of all of us?”
He had been. All three of them disliked Haru, but Yu Je-hyun had been the most blatant, the most openly hostile.
Yu Je-hyun let out a long sigh. Whatever the reason, he hated how it felt like he was being interrogated by Hong Seong-jun.
That steadily growing hostility was also starting to seriously get under his skin.
“Did you not know? I have always been fickle. Whatever is going on between me and Haru is none of your business, so butt out. And do not act like you are some coach giving commentary.”
With a cold glance, Yu Je-hyun looked Hong Seong-jun up and down, then brushed past him and headed for Haru’s room.
The piercing gaze drilling into his back made him pause halfway down the hall.
He turned his head slightly—and there was Hong Seong-jun, expression wiped clean, staring at him and Haru.
Hong Seong-jun had told him he was the one acting strange, but from Yu Je-hyun’s perspective, the one who had changed the most since Haru arrived was undeniably Hong Seong-jun.
Yu Je-hyun expressed his emotions openly and without hesitation. In contrast, Hong Seong-jun always kept his feelings hidden behind that gentle smile.
But now, whenever Haru was involved, that mask slipped too easily.
And the face beneath that smile—strangely bleak. Almost haunting. Just like Haru’s expression in the past.
“Oh, and Haru’s not doing well right now, so do not even think about Guiding. Wait until he wakes up.”
It was obvious that Hong Seong-jun had come here for Guiding, so Yu Je-hyun cut him off preemptively.
Beads of cold sweat still dotted Haru’s forehead.
He did not know exactly why Haru had collapsed, but just imagining Hong Seong-jun trying to make Haru guide him while he was unconscious made Yu Je-hyun’s stomach twist.
Having said his piece, he turned his back again without hesitation. The stare felt even sharper than before, but he ignored it.
At the end of the long hallway, he opened the closed door to Haru’s room—and the scene that greeted him was completely different from what he remembered.
White, natural wood, and sky blue—an odd but soothing blend of colors filled the space. Strangely enough, it matched the current Haru perfectly.
He had been here earlier too, but at the time, his mind had been full of kimchi stew. All he had noticed was that the room seemed brighter than before.
“When did he even decorate all this?”
Then he remembered—just recently, Haru had come back to the mansion carrying a mountain of luggage.
The loud doorbell had made him head to the wall pad, and seeing Haru’s face filling the entire screen had nearly given him a heart attack.
Those huge eyes, the edge of his nose, the lips hanging just below—it looked exactly like one of those deep-sea creatures he had once glimpsed in passing.
“What a ridiculous guy…”
Yu Je-hyun let out a breathless laugh. The guy who used to piss him off just by existing—somehow, somewhere along the line, he had become… amusing.
He walked over to the bed and gently laid Haru down, almost like dropping something delicate. Haru frowned, his lips twitching slightly in response.
“Ugh… Don’t do that…”
Was he seriously protesting the way he had been dropped just now?
Seeing Haru’s tightly knit brows, Yu Je-hyun found himself absently scratching at his own eyebrow with his fingertip.
The room was not cold in the slightest, yet Haru was curled up tightly, his already slender frame appearing even smaller and more fragile.
“This should be enough, right?”
After a brief moment of hesitation, Yu Je-hyun pulled out the blanket Haru had been lying on. He spread it wide and carefully draped it over him. As the warmth settled in, Haru’s furrowed brow slowly relaxed.
“Mmm…”
“Was that sleep-talking, or are you actually answering me?”
The timing of the groggy mumble was so on point it almost sounded like a reply. Yu Je-hyun let out a dry chuckle.
It was oddly fascinating how Haru’s expression kept shifting even while he slept. His face looked even younger asleep—almost childlike.
“I thought there wasn’t that much of an age gap between us…”
Yu Je-hyun was not the type to keep track of other people’s details, so Haru’s age did not come to mind immediately. After thinking for a bit, he remembered Haru was about two years younger.
But watching him sleep now, with that soft, peaceful expression, he looked like he was five or six years younger.
“Anyway, I’ve done my part for today. So I expect another delicious meal in return.”
He knew Haru could not hear him, but Yu Je-hyun still felt oddly satisfied. He had, after all, saved Haru from Hong Seong-jun’s grasp.
He had even gone down to that creepy basement like Haru asked and found that strange ring.
Given all that, he figured it was perfectly fair to expect a well-cooked meal tomorrow.
Yu Je-hyun chalked up his changed attitude entirely to Haru’s exceptional cooking skills.
***
“…I wish he felt the same way I do.”
In a dimly lit room, illuminated only by the soft glow of a bedside lamp, a gloomy voice quietly filled the air.
At that moment, he realized he was watching one of Lee Haru’s memories. The now-familiar voice echoed in his ears without warning.
What is this…?
What entered his field of view was a small white hand tightly gripping a tiny notebook and pen. On the index finger of that hand was a silver ring—one he instantly recognized.
A thumb with pale pink nails slowly stroked the surface of the ring wrapped around the index finger.
That’s the ring I picked up earlier.
The silver ring had a simple, modest design. Aside from its decent thickness and subtle sheen, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it.
But the moment his hand had brushed against it, a torrent of memory had surged in, shattering the boundary between reality and illusion.
Yu Je-hyun’s voice reached him as if from underwater, muffled and distant. His vision had already been swimming, and now large hands were waving in front of his face—it became impossible to endure.
The world faded. He faintly realized that he had lost consciousness.
The blurring of lines between Haru’s memories and reality was so seamless, it felt almost natural.
“…Are you busy again today? I heard a really good Korean beef place opened near the Association.”
Once again, Haru stood behind someone, cautiously suggesting they get a meal together.
The faint tremble at the edge of his voice made Yu Je-hyun’s chest tighten painfully.
You could tell, just by his voice—how delicate, how heartbreakingly gentle Haru truly was.
Why had everyone been so quick to tear someone like that apart?
