Chapter 72
The word "deserve" hung in the freezing air like a physical barrier, sharp and jagged, but Raiven didn't flinch. Instead, he let out a short, incredulous scoff, sharp with disbelief that puffed into a white cloud in the freezing air. He looked at the man standing before him - the man who had, not so long ago, appeared unannounced in a Milan hotel suite, having flown thousands of miles across an ocean just to wish him a happy birthday. That same man had looked him in the eyes and dared to ask him to date him.
And now, under the golden glow of a thousand lights in a secluded Seoul sanctuary, that same man was uttering the most absurd, self-deprecating words Raiven had ever heard.
"What are you even talking about?" Raiven asked, his voice low but vibrating with intensity.
Seeing the haunted, watery depths of Haru's eyes, Raiven's frustration softened into a pained empathy.
Raiven didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned in, pressing a slight, lingering peck against Haru's lips. It was a grounding gesture, an attempt to anchor the spiraling man. As he pulled back just an inch, the worry in Raiven's eyes only deepened.
Up close, the reality was undeniable: Haru wasn't okay. The distance of the last few weeks, the refused video calls, the sudden silences during their late-night chats - it wasn't because Haru was losing interest. It was because he was struggling. Raiven realized with a pang of guilt that Haru likely hadn't wanted him to see him like this- withdrawn and fragile. He had chosen to hide behind the safety of a voice on a phone rather than let Raiven witness this breakdown. Raiven had probed, asking gently why the camera remained off, but Haru had always dismissed it with a practiced ease that Raiven now saw as a shield. It stung slightly that haru chose to hide this struggling side from him.
Seeing him now, shivering in the biting December wind, Raiven felt a surge of protective instinct that overrode his own concerns.
Haru instinctively leaned into the warmth Raiven radiated. He began to rub his hands together, the friction doing little to ward off the chill that felt as though it were coming from inside his own bones. Without a word, Raiven reached for his own scarf.
"Wait, no - you'll freeze," Haru protested weakly, his voice cracking.
Raiven ignored him, his expression set in a look of quiet determination. He unwound the expensive, heavy fabric from his own neck and draped it over Haru. He did it with such agonizing gentleness, tucking the ends in to ensure no stray draft could reach Haru's skin, that Haru felt the sting in his heart intensify.
He couldn't believe Raiven would give up his own warmth so easily; he couldn't believe a person could be this selfless when he himself felt like a thief in a stolen body.
Haru breathed out, the scent of Raiven's cedarwood cologne trapped in the fibers of the scarf, filling his lungs.
Raiven smiled, his face softening as he cupped Haru's cheeks with his still-gloved hands, holding him as if he were something precious and easily broken. His thumbs stroking the reddened skin of Haru's cheeks. He looked at the way the yellow petals of the scarf framed Haru's face.
"Better," Raiven murmured, more to himself than to Haru.
Haru felt as though his heart would literally burst if they continued like this. The kindness was more painful than any rejection could ever be. He felt himself on the verge of chickening out, the urge to run back into the darkness and the silence of his guilt becoming almost overwhelming.
He opened his mouth to say something - to perhaps deliver the speech he had rehearsed about needing space, about wanting to figure himself out first - but the words were ruthlessly cut off by a sudden, distant roar.
The silence of the secluded hilltop was shattered by the sudden, rhythmic hum of drones and the first thunderous boom of fireworks.
Their eyes were drawn simultaneously toward the horizon, where the neon grid of central Seoul lay spread out like a shimmering carpet. Far below, a massive crowd had gathered at the heart of the city, their tiny, distant cheers lost to the wind but their presence felt in the energy of the night.
The countdown was beginning.
Raiven's hand found Haru's, his grip firm and steady. He didn't say a word as he pulled Haru toward the high stone ledge of the pavilion, wanting him to have the best vantage point for the spectacle. Raiven was smiling - a wide, brilliant expression that reached his eyes and stayed there.
He loved this. Usually, the turn of the year was a lonely affair for him, spent in hotel rooms or practice studios, far from the family he rarely saw and isolated by the very fame that defined him. But today, he had someone special by his side. He wasn't just Raiven, the idol, in this moment; he was Jae-wook, a man standing in the cold with the person he loved.
Haru looked away from the fireworks and watched the person beside him. His heart swelled, a painful, rhythmic thumping that made his vision blur. Seeing the pure, unadulterated happiness radiating from Raiven - seeing the way the light of the distant pyrotechnics reflected in his dark, hopeful eyes - Haru felt a wave of protective agony and it paralyzed him. He knew that if he broke the news now it would shatter that happiness. It would leave Raiven heartbroken, submerged in the same kind of devastating loss that Haru lived with every day. He couldn't bring himself to do it.
Not tonight.
"I can't believe you actually came," Haru whispered, his voice almost lost to the wind.
Raiven's hand squeezed his lightly, his gaze shifting back from the horizon to lock onto Haru's. The gentleness in his eyes was shimmering, a soft, translucent vulnerability that Haru had never seen from any of his lovers. In his previous life, love had often been about passion, or image, or temporary comfort. But this? This made his knees want to melt into the frost.
"I didn't want to be upstaged," Raiven joked, a playful glint in his eyes. But as he continued to look at Haru, the playfulness faded, replaced by a shimmering gentleness.
Moved by an impulse he couldn't control, Haru reached out and pulled Raiven in for a kiss. This kiss was different from the one before; it was heavy with the sediment of his pain and the frantic energy of his longing. It was the kiss of a man who felt like he was drowning and had finally found a piece of driftwood. He felt himself melting into the careful, gentle manner in which Raiven held him, as if he were something precious.The walls of Sunghoon and Haru blurring until there was only the sensation of Raiven's lips and the heat of their shared breath.
They pulled apart just as the countdown reached its final, deafening stage.
5
4
They leaned their foreheads against each other, breathing in unison. The world around them was a blur of golden light and freezing wind, but in the small space between them, there was only warmth. Haru relished it, even as the dread in his stomach curdled.
3
Haru opened his eyes, staring into the dark, liquid depths of Raiven's. His breath caught in his throat. He knew he was walking into something dangerous. He knew that by staying, he was complicating the feelings rumbling inside him , but the pull of the man in front of him was stronger than he could have immagined . He needed to sort himself out, he needed to deserve the way Raiven looked at him.
2
In that split second, Haru's thoughts performed a dizzying, chronological leap. His mind raced back to New Year's Eve in 1999 - the last time he had felt this exact sensation of a year turning. He remembered the smell of the cigarette he had just put out, the way he had turned to look back at someone walking toward him, his own eyes shining with an ignorant, warmth and the misplaced confidence of a man who thought he had more time.
1
"Haru… be my boyfriend," Raiven whispered.
The whisper was so close, so intimate, that it felt as if the words had been spoken directly into his bloodstream. Haru froze. His heart stopped, the rhythm of his life skipping a beat.
In that exact moment, the secluded clearing they stood in erupted. Raiven hadn't just relied on the city's display; he had organized his own fireworks to go off nearby. Brilliant bursts of violet, silver, and gold tore through the darkness, illuminating the wooden pavilions and the frost-covered trees. It was a proposal set against a backdrop of manufactured stars - a serious, public-yet-private declaration of intent.
Haru felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the world.The air felt thin, devoid of life. Raiven had done it. He had moved past the "dating" ambiguity and asked for a commitment.
The fireworks continued to run through the air, their thunderous reports echoing the frantic beating of Haru's heart. Raiven stepped back just an inch, his face glowing in the light of the explosions, his expression a portrait of raw, terrifying anticipation.
Haru didn't know what to do. His mind was a battlefield. He could say something logical. He could say it was happening too fast, that they were in over their heads, that he needed to step back. He could save Raiven from the getying even more attached and spare the both of them hurt by leaving now, while the year was still new and the slate was technically clean.
But he stood there, silent.
His eyes grew distant, reflecting the colorful explosions in the sky but seeing only the wreckage of two different lifetimes. And yet, beneath the terror and the crushing weight of the past, he felt a small, traitorous spark of happiness ring in the hollow of his heart.
He wasn't supposed to feel this. He was supposed to be devastated. He was a man who had lost everything—his career, his body, his family. He could feel the devastation in his very marrow, a cold ache that never truly left. But here, in the arms of a man who looked at him as if he were the sun, the happiness was there anyway, unbidden and terrifying.
"Haru?" Raiven called his name again, his voice cracking slightly with the first hint of doubt. The hope in his expression was so fragile that Haru realized he held the power to destroy a man's world with a single "no."
He could turn around and walk down that mountain, leaving the lights and the silent promises behind. He could choose the cold safety of his secrets. But as he looked at Raiven, he found himself paralyzed by the sheer force of his devotion.
When Haru finally opened his mouth, the words that came out shocked him. They left him perplexed.