Chapter 65
The darkness of his bedroom wasn't just an absence of light; it was a physical weight, a thick, suffocating shroud that smelled of the lingering, spectral scent of cedarwood. Haru sat on the edge of his bed, his posture broken, shoulders hunched as if he were trying to fold himself into a space small enough to disappear.
The silence was a vacuum, and into that vacuum, the thoughts he had spent days suppressing and weeks ignoring - came rushing back with the force of a tidal wave.
He liked Raiven. That was the simplest, most terrifying truth. He liked the way Raiven's laughter sounded like a secret shared only with him. He liked the surprising softness of the man's hands and the fierce, quiet way he looked at the world. But as the shadows lengthened across the floor, that affection was eclipsed by a flood of corrosive guilt. It rose in his throat, tasting like copper and ash.
What have I done?
The question wasn't just about the last forty-eight hours; it was about the foundation of every choice he had made since waking up in this century. He had approached Raiven because of a look. A specific, haunting shadow in the eyes that had mirrored a tragedy from 1991. He had pursued him, charmed him, and eventually flown across a continent for him. He felt as though he were leading him on, a puppet master who had forgotten he was also tied to the strings.
But as he sat in the dark, the horrifying possibility crystallized: Was he actually in love with the man, or was he merely trying to save a ghost?
In the 90s, when the whispers had started about him and Yeon-woo, Sunghoon had brushed them off with the arrogant confidence of a man who believed he knew himself perfectly. He had viewed Yeon-woo as his 'dearest friend,' his sanctuary. But looking back from this new vantage point, he realized the whispers might have been right. He had felt nothing for the co-star he'd filmed that controversial gay cinema piece with? Why had those scenes felt like mere blocking and choreography, while a simple walk in the rain with Yeon-woo had felt like a special experience? Was that it was already anchored to the man with the androgynous grace and the tragic voice.
What of his lovers? He had loved them, hadn't he? The women he'd dated as Sunghoon - he had felt affection, he had felt the sting of breakups, and the love he felt for them had been true and genuine in its own way. But it had never felt like this. It had never felt like a frantic, desperate need to stop the clock.
And now, here he was, repeating the cycle.
A curse escaped his lips - not directed at fate, but at himself. He felt foolish, a man playing with lives as if they were scripts to be edited. If he truly understood ' that look' - the hollow, terminal exhaustion - in Raiven's eyes because of Yeon-woo, did that mean Raiven was nothing more than a phantom substitute?
What if he was incapable of loving the man for who he actually was? What if he was only ever chasing a phantom? What if his feelings of nostalgia and this primal hunger to save a ghost would never vanish, acting as a permanent barrier to something genuine?
The thought was a jagged blade. What if, in his desperate bid to pull Raiven back from the edge of the abyss, he ended up being the very thing that pushed him over?
Fear, cold and paralyzing, crept into his chest. His breath began to hitch, coming in short, shallow bursts. The air in the room felt used up, thin and devoid of oxygen.
Suddenly, a voice drifted through the fog of his mind.
"Sunghoon-ya..."
It was a voice from a lifetime ago. The voice was distant, melodic, and laced with that signature, ethereal sadness. Haru snapped his head to the side, expecting to see the pale, silk-clad figure of Yeon-woo standing in the corner. But the room was empty. He was alone with the echoes of a dead man.
His mind began to spiral, dissecting the intimacy of the past few days with clinical cruelty. When he kissed Raiven, was he imagining Yeon-woo's lips? When his heart sang in that suite, was it for the man in his arms, or was it a delayed resonance for a love he had been too blind to share in 1991?
The weight of it felt like millstone. He didn't want to hurt Jae-wook. He didn't want to be the reason another beautiful soul fell into the deep, endless cold of the abyss.
Ring.
The sound was like a bomb in the quiet room.
Haru flinched, his entire body jerking. He looked down at the nightstand. The phone screen was a brilliant, blinding white in the darkness.
CALLER ID: Jae-wook ✨️
His heart didn't leap with joy; it sank into his stomach. His hands began to tremble, fingers twitching as he reached out for the device. But halfway there, he recoiled, his hand snapping back as if he had touched live wire.
He couldn't answer. He couldn't look at that face or hear that voice right now.
The phone continued to ring. To his hyper-sensitized ears, it grew louder with every second, a rhythmic, mechanical shriek that demanded an honesty he didn't possess. His heart rate spiked, the thudding in his ears drowning out the ambient noise of the city outside. He gripped the sheets, his knuckles turning white, his chest tightening as if a giant hand were squeezing the life out of his lungs.
The world was becoming too loud. The ringing, the ticking of the clock, the sound of his own frantic pulse - it was all converging into a single, deafening roar.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound was distant, muffled, as if coming from another world.
"Haru!"
It was a name he had become used to, but in this moment, it felt like an accusation. A mask he was failing to wear.
"Haru, are you okay?"
He leaned forward, his forehead nearly touching his knees, his hands clutching the duvet as he fought for air. The constriction in his chest was absolute.
"I am sorry if I said anything to upset you!" Se-hee's voice called out from behind the door.
Only minutes ago, they had been sitting in the living room. She had been playfully teasing him about his "sugarbaby" romance, and he had been laughing. But then, a gate had opened. As he told her the news, the gravity of his actions had finally caught up to him.
The gravity had settled then, mid-laugh. The gates he'd kept locked had swung wide, and the daze he'd been in since telling Alice the news finally shattered.
But telling Se-hee made it real.
The reality hit him in a series of punishing waves:
He had asked Raiven to date him.
He had flown thousands of miles to ask him to date him.
He had kissed him.
He had let him kiss his body and dismantle his walls.
He had felt a part of him inside him.
Raiven had looked at him with so much care, softness, and trust that it hurt so much he wanted to suffocate.
Raiven had let him look into the opaque glass walls he had built around himself, somewhere no one else had seen.
He had held him in what felt like a promise.
They had seen each other in their most vulnerable state.
He had asked him to date him.
He had flown and asked him to date him!
With every repetition of the thought, the dread deepened.
What have I done?
Sunghoon, what have you done? he whispered to himself, his voice lost in the roar of his own panic.
The internal cinema of his mind flickered to life, showing him the memory he feared most. He saw Yeon-woo in the dressing room, the crimson blood seeping from his pale wrists, the smell of rain and iron filling the air. He felt himself screaming, clutching the cold body.
Then, the image shifted.
The person in his arms wasn't Yeon-woo anymore. It was Raiven.
"Sunghoon!" Raiven called out. His voice was weak, his lips torn and bleeding. He looked at Haru with a gaze of such profound betrayal and agony that it felt like a physical strike to Haru's soul.
The pain was too much.
Haru let out a choked sound and crawled backward on the bed, trying to get away from the hallucination. He fell off the edge, his knees hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The knocking at the door became more frantic. The phone was still ringing - a relentless, piercing sound.
Haru collapsed on the ground, his hands clutching his chest. He was heaving, his throat closing up. He was hyperventilating, the world spinning in a blur of dark shadows and white light.
The door burst open. The overhead lights flickered on, agonizingly bright.
Se-hee stood there, her eyes widening in horror as she saw her best friend struggling for air on the floor. She didn't hesitate. She had spent hours watching first-aid videos for a "Safety First" series on her channel, and she had researched panic attacks specifically after Haru's initial mysterious collapse months ago - before he ended up at the hospital. She hadn't thought she would ever have to use it.
"Haru! Look at me!" she commanded, rushing to his side.
She grabbed his shoulders, her grip firm and grounding. She didn't shake him; she simply held him, providing a physical anchor.
"Haru, listen to my voice. You're having a panic attack. You are safe. I am right here," she said, her voice low and steady, cutting through the static in his brain. "I need you to breathe with me. Slow down. In for four... hold... out for four."
She took his hand and pressed it against her own chest so he could feel the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing.
"Focus on my hand. Focus on the floor. Tell me five things you can see."
Haru struggled, his eyes darting around the room. "The... the lamp," he wheezed.
"Good. Four more."
"The... rug. My... phone. Your... shoes. The... the light."
"Good. Now four things you can feel."
"The... floor. Your... hand. My... shirt. The... air."
Slowly, the oxygen began to return to his lungs. The roaring in his ears receded to a dull hum. The phantom image of Raiven with torn lips faded, replaced by the concerned, face of Se-hee.
When his breathing finally settled into a shaky but consistent rhythm, Se-hee pulled him into a tight embrace. It was so warm, and so vastly different from the cold, silk-and-marble loneliness of his thoughts that he felt himself unraveling.
He didn't pull away. He sank into her touch, his forehead resting on her shoulder as the first true sob broke from his chest.
"What have I done, Se-hee?" he whispered, a whimper of pure, unadulterated pain leaving his chest. "What have I done?"
He recoiled into her touch, a man lost in time, haunted by the past, and terrified of the future he had just set in motion. He had tried to save a ghost, but in doing so, he had invited a Raiven into a haunted house.
And as he wept, he realized that the hardest person to save wasn't Raiven, and it wasn't Yeon-woo.
It was the man who was still trapped in 1991, refusing to let the dead stay buried.