Chapter 79
The silence of the room was a vacuum, sucking the very air from Haru's lungs. He stared at the phone screen, the words No Answer mocking the frantic beating of his heart. He began to pace, his bare feet slapping rhythmically against the cold floorboards, a frantic, caged animal circling a territory that felt increasingly alien.
The sweat from the nightmare had turned ice-cold against his skin, sending shivers through his frame that had nothing to do with the winter air outside. He swallowed hard, his throat feeling as though it were lined with sandpaper. He called again. And again.
Four missed calls. Each one felt like a tether snapping, dropping him further into the dark water of his subconscious. The logic that people have busy schedules, that phones go on silent, that Japan was an hour aheaddid not exist in this moment. To the soul of Sunghoon, silence only ever meant one dreadful thing.
The trembling started in his hands and moved inward, settling into a deep, bone-shaking marrow chill. He felt the fear enveloping him tenfold, a suffocating shroud of "what ifs" that tasted like the metallic tang of blood from his dream. Finally, on the fifth try, the call connected.
"Hello?"
The voice was familiar, resonant, and most importantly, vibrant. It wasn't the thin, fading whisper from the opera house floor. Haru didn't even realize his legs had given out until he felt the hard impact of his knees hitting the floor. He collapsed there, clutching the phone to his ear as if it were a physical lifeline. He listened to the sound of Raiven's breathing - it was fast, ragged, as if he had been exercising or rushing toward something. It was the most beautiful sound Haru had ever heard.
"Hello?" Raiven called out again, more urgently this time. "Haru? Is everything okay? You've called five times."
Haru couldn't find his voice. He sat on the floor in the dark, his forehead pressed against his knees, listening to the static and the sound of Raiven's life. The relief was so sharp it was painful. He was alive. He was breathing. He was real.
"Why... why didn't you pick up?" Haru finally managed to choke out. His voice was a jagged ruin of its usual self, trembling so violently that the words almost lost their shape. All of his carefully constructed poise, the mask he wore to protect himself, had vanished into the night.
"My phone was on silent," Raiven said, his tone initially casual, the sound of him walking or moving equipment audible in the background. "I was in the middle of an extra choreo run-through and didn't notice the call until --" He stopped abruptly. The silence on the other end wasn't empty; it was filled with the hitching, ragged sounds of a man trying but failing to suppress a sob. "Haru?"
The dam finally broke. Sunghoon realized the tears were falling, hot and thick, splashing onto his cheeks and the floor between his knees. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, but they were relentless, fueled by unshed grief and one night of terrifying premonition.
"I..I… I am fine…" he stuttered, but the lie died in his throat. His voice was a wreak.
"You're not fine," Raiven said, his voice dropping into that low, grounding frequency that always felt like a warm hand on Haru's shoulder. "Haru, talk to me. What's wrong?"
Haru couldn't speak. He just leaned into himself, letting out a long, shuddering sob. The sound of Raiven's voice was an anchor but almost too much to bear.
"I'm sorry," Haru whispered, his breath hitching. "I'm sorry I worried you. I just... I needed to hear your voice."
"You're fine? You're safe in the apartment?" Raiven pressed. Haru could hear him shifting, the sound of a heavy door closing and the squeak of a chair. Raiven had clearly walked away from someone - haru recognised the voice in the background asking where Raiven was going it was Suho - to give him his full attention.
"Yes, I'm safe. I'm just..."
"Tell me what happened, Haru."
Haru closed his eyes, seeing the red floor of the opera house again. "I just had a dream," he finally gasped out. "It was... there was so much blood, Jae-wook. You were there, and I couldn't reach you. You were turning white, fading away right in front of me. And I was back in the water... I was so scared. I just....."
This was the first time Haru had been truly, dangerously vulnerable with Raiven. Revealing that he was a broken man, showing the deep, jagged cracks in his foundation. He was admitting that he was haunted.
"Breathe. Just breathe for me," Raiven said. His voice wasn't just comforting; it was a command, an anchor. "Follow my voice. I am right here. I'm sitting in a dressing room in Tokyo. I'm wearing a sweaty tank top, I have a bottle of water in my hand, and I am perfectly, annoyingly fine."
Haru focused on the rhythm of Raiven's speech. He inhaled, held it, and exhaled, following the instructions like a man following a light through a fog.
"It's fine. Everything is fine," Raiven repeated, his voice a steady, rhythmic mantra.
As Haru's heart rate began to settle, a sense of exhaustion washed over him, replacing the sharp edges of the panic. The room felt smaller now, less like a cage and more like a shelter.
"I'm sorry," Haru whispered again, the guilt of interrupting Raiven's night finally seeping through. "The universe feels... wrong tonight."
"Then the universe is wrong," Raiven countered immediately. Haru could hear his breath hitch, as if he were trying to reach through the thousands of miles of signal to physically touch Haru's face. "Look at the time. It's almost 4:00 AM in Seoul. You're exhausted, your blood sugar is probably low, and your brain is playing cruel tricks on you. I'm not hanging up until you fall back asleep. Do you have water next to you?"
"Yes..." Haru whispered, reaching for the glass on his nightstand with a hand that had finally stopped shaking.
"Drink some of it," Raiven commanded gently.. Haru obeyed, the cool liquid soothing the raw ache in his throat.
"You have rehearsals," Haru whispered, feeling a pang of guilt. "The concert starts soon. You need your sleep, too."
"Rehearsals can wait. You can't," Raiven said. The sheer, unyielding devotion in those words acted as the final anchor. "Now, tell me what you had for dinner. Start from the beginning. Don't stop talking until I tell you to."
Haru lay back on the bed, his phone pressed to his ear. In a low, tired voice, he began to give Raiven a mundane rundown of his day. He spoke until his words began to slur, drifting into a deep, dreamless sleep, tethered to the world by the sound of Jae-wook's steady breathing on the other end.
The next day, Haru woke up feeling as though he had been hit by a freight train. His head throbbed, and his eyes were swollen from the middle-of-the-night breakdown. He checked his phone; the call had lasted over four minutes. He didn't know when Raiven had finally disconnected, but the gesture felt like a warm blanket.
He sent a quick text to Mrs. Kwon, telling her he wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be coming into the restaurant. He needed a day to reconnect his soul to his body.
He sat at his desk and sent a quick embarrassed text: [I'm fine now. Thank you for last night. Kick ass at rehearsals. I'll be watching.]
Haru sat at his small desk and opened his laptop.
He needed a distraction. He began scrolling through the morning's industry news. The Re-Draft concert in Japan was trending, - clips of soundchecks and fans gathering outside the arena. But as he scrolled through his feed, a thumbnail caught his eye that made his blood run cold.
It was a video from a day ago, an interview with the President of TRace Entertainment, Re-Draft's parent company. Haru's curiosity won out. The video had over six million views. He clicked it and leaned back, his heart beginning that slow, heavy thud again.
The man on the screen was older. He had deep-set wrinkles and silver hair, but he still wore the same flamboyant, high-fashion outfits he had favored in the 90s. He sat with a cane between his knees, his hands folded over the handle with a calculated elegance.
Myeon-gu.
Haru clicked play, his breath hitching.
The interviewer was asking about TRace's recent success and the strategic shift they had made after their top girl groups CaNDYcane disbanded. Myeon-gu spoke with a practiced, oily charm, mincing his words to sound more like a visionary.He talked about "nurturing talent" and "protecting the legacy of Korean entertainment."
"How did you seamlessly shift the company from being talent-focused to occupying so many entertainment spaces?"
Myeon-gu smiled, the mask firmly in place. "I worked tirelessly to ensure that each talent was taken care of. At TRace, we believe in the individual."
Then, the tone of the interview shifted. The journalist, looking for a "human interest" angle or perhaps a hidden scandal, leaned in.
"Mr. Chairman, there have been long standing rumors in the industry, claims that the late actor Sunghoon was a major, silent contributor to the very foundation of TRace Entertainment. Would you care to comment on that legacy?"
Myeon-gu's face didn't change, but his grip on his cane tightened. A microscopic flash of annoyance crossed his features before the mask of professional nostalgia slid back into place.
"Sunghoon and I were very close," Myeon-gu said, his voice straining for a sentimental tone. "He was a dear friend. But to say he established the company is a stretch of history. He was an artist, a dreamer. He didn't have the mind for the... administrative complexities of establishing a firm like TRace."
Haru swallowed a lump in his throat. It was a half-truth. He hadn't been there for the final paperwork, but the ideas, the branding, the very soul of the agency had been born in late-night conversations between the two of them.
The interviewer wasn't backing down. "What about the claims that you used his assets to fund the initial launch of the company shortly after his passing?"
Myeon-gu stared at the interviewer with a cold, predatory intensity that made Haru shiver.
"The funds used in the establishment of TRace are a matter of public recordI took out significant loans," Myeon-gu snapped.
"Mae-rin - Sunghoon's sister - has recently renewed her claims to a stake in the company," the interviewer persisted. "She alleges that the assets used were far beyond what was agreed upon. In her words, Sunghoon didn't just inspire TRace; he paid for it with his life's work, and you took advantage of his death to seize it."
Myeon-gu shifted in his seat, his mask finally slipping. "Mae-rin is a grieving woman who has struggled to move on. We had shared assets, yes. Business is complicated. The courts cleared these claims decades ago. To bring this up now, in the wake of our current success, is nothing more than a hit piece."
Haru stared at the screen, his breath hitching. The room seemed to grow cold. It wasn't just a nightmare anymore. The man who had been his best friend, the man who had stood by his side , was the same man who he now realised had more secrets than Sunghoon knew.