Chapter 127
The remaining embers of the explosive confrontation regarding the agency and the casting of The Night of the Rose did not merely vanish; they were instantaneously crushed under the sheer weight of a much older, darker revelation. The space between them became terribly still. The ambient luxury of the penthouse, with its high ceilings and polished surfaces, seemed to contract, trapping them both in a suffocating bubble of absolute clarity.
"Raiven."
Haru's voice went entirely soft. The sharp,
baritone he had weaponized just moments before was gone, completely stripped of the fury, the outrage, and the calculated defense mechanisms that usually guarded his soul.
What remained was a terrifyingly quiet, raw stillness.
Raiven did not look up immediately. His long fingers remained tightly wrapped around the crystal decanter, the amber liquid inside sloshing unsteadily.
"It was long ago," he stated, his voice flattening into an unnatural rhythm as he poured a third glass. He was moving on pure instinct now, trying to drown out the sudden exposure of a secret he had kept buried beneath his public arrogance.
He lifted the decanter again, his wrist slightly trembling as he prepared to pour another measure. But before the rim could touch the crystal glass, a hand firmly but gently clasped over his own, freezing his movement in mid-air. The physical contact was solid, unyielding, and completely grounding.
"Look at me, Jae-wook," Haru called out softly.
The use of his given name acted like a physical command. Jae-wook looked up slowly. The burning urge to drink seemed to evaporate as he finally let go of the decanter, placing the bottle back onto the dark marble counter with a dull, heavy click. His sharp, eyes, usually so filled with fierce possession and untouchable pride, looked completely fractured.
Haru studied him, his gaze tracing the tight line of Jae-wook's jaw, the subtle tremor in his posture, and the heavy shadow that had descended over his features. The calculation in Haru's mind, the timeline of a sixteen-year-old heir and a twenty-eight-year-old struggling supporting actor began to form a horrific picture.
"Did he…" Haru started, but the words caught in his throat, tasting like ash. He had to force his airway open to ask the question that was tearing through his chest. "Did he do anything to you?"
Jae-wook blinked, genuinely puzzled by the direction of the inquiry. The defensive wall he had spent years building hadn't prepared him for this specific type of concern. "What do you mean?"
"Did he force you to do anything you didn't want?" Haru pressed, his voice dropping even lower, laced with a visceral, protective dread.
For a fraction of a second, the question hung in the air, a foreign concept that Raiven's brain struggled to categorize then a light bulb seemed to go off in Jae-wook's eyes as he finally processed the implication behind Haru's words. The sheer shock of realizing Haru was looking at his past relationship through a different lens caused a defense mechanism to fire instantly. "No. I loved him at that time. It was all that mattered."
"That was not the question," Haru countered. Step by step, he closed the remaining distance between them. He reached out, his warm palms gently but firmly cupping Jae-wook's face, forcing him to look directly into his eyes.
In that forced proximity, Haru saw it a deep, shame embedded so thoroughly within the dark irises of Jae-wook's eyes that it made Haru's heart frizzle with a sharp, burning ache. It was the look of someone who had rationalized a profound imbalance for so long that they could no longer distinguish affection from manipulation.
Feeling trapped by the intense tenderness of Haru's gaze, Jae-wook deflected, his tone hardening with a sudden flash of pride. "I was the top, of course. Nothing happened."
"You were sixteen, Jae-wook."
Haru whispered, his voice cracking with the absolute gravity of the statement. It didn't matter what physical roles were played; the reality of the age gap was a visceral, unalterable truth.
Jae-wook abruptly jerked out of Haru's hold, the intimacy of the touch suddenly feeling less like a comfort and more like a suffocating trap. He took a sharp step back into the open space of the living room, his chest heaving as the internal pressure built to a breaking point. Driven by panic and a desperate need to reclaim control, the words tumbled out of him with a crude, defensive edge: "When I fuck you, shouldn't I be the one making you do something you don't want to?"
Haru didn't flinch at the deflection. He stood his ground, his expression remaining entirely steady, though his eyes darkened with a profound sorrow. "It doesn't matter if you were top or bottom. You were sixteen. He was thirty-something."
"I loved him!" Jae-wook suddenly shouted.
The elegant, untouchable persona he projected to the world completely shattered, leaving behind a raw, wounded core. His hand was shaking noticeably now, his fingers curling into a tight fist against his side as the repressed emotions burst through his chest. "I still do!" he burst out, the admission tearing from his throat before he could stop it.
Haru felt his entire body freeze.
The air in the penthouse seemed to instantly turn to ice. For a single, terrifying heartbeat, his heart stopped dead in his chest. The soul within him that had already survived a lifetime of emotional wreckage and isolation, recoiled from the words. I still do. It was a lethal confession, a direct strike, tearing through the sanctuary they had spent months building behind closed doors.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Jae-wook's expression fractured into absolute terror. The defensive anger vanished instantly, replaced by a suffocating wave of immediate regret and raw pain. He gasped slightly, looking at Haru's frozen, marble-like posture as if he had just pulled a trigger he couldn't undo.
"I didn't mean that," Jae-wook whispered, his voice cracking, reduced to a rough, gravelly murmur of pure desperation. "I didn't mean that, Haru."
Haru forced his lungs to expand, his internal defenses instantly shifting to compartmentalize the blow. His voice was entirely flat, an emotional vacuum designed to protect them both from spiraling further.
"It's fine."
"I am so sorry," Jae-wook whispered, taking an instinctive, trembling step forward, his hands reaching out slightly before freezing in the air, terrified that another touch would cause Haru to vanish completely. "I am so sorry."
"I understand," Haru replied softly.
And he did. As Haru looked at the man before him his heart cried bitterly. The mind of Sunghoon, who had witnessed the darkest, most predatory corners of the entertainment industry, began to read between the lines of Jae-wook's past.
He understood the mechanics of what had happened with terrifying precision. Chang-seo hadn't just dated a young, rich heir; he had manipulated him. He had dangled his own precarious position, played with a sixteen-year-old's blooming emotions, and twisted Raiven's deep capacity for devotion into a shackle.
Chang-seo had spent five years as a nameless extra, waiting, plotting, and calculating until he found a ticket.
Haru had only seen a tiny fraction of Chang-seo's manipulation on the live broadcast today, and it had been enough to turn the studio air to ice. He couldn't even begin to fathom the sheer, suffocating level of psychological influence Chang-seo must have held over a teenage Jae-wook for three years.
"I am sorry," Jae-wook whispered yet again.
His sharp eyes were rapidly filling with moisture, the tears threating to spill over his long lashes. He looked utterly terrified, completely consumed by the fear that Haru would pack his things and walk out of his life simply because he couldn't hold himself together under the weight of his own past.
Haru didn't say another word. He stepped forward, closing the distance instantly, and wrapped his arms tightly around Jae-wook's trembling frame. The sudden movement broke the last of Jae-wook's physical strength; his knees gave out, and together, they collapsed onto the polished floor of the penthouse, locked in each other's arms.
Haru held him fiercely against his chest, holding him with a protective, grounded strength that refused to let him shatter. He kept one hand pressed firmly against the back of Jae-wook's head, burying the his face into the crook of his neck, while his other hand steadily rubbed soothing, repetitive circles against his rigid back.
Slowly, under the rhythmic warmth of Haru's touch, the frantic, erratic thumping of Jae-wook's heart began to steady.
"I didn't mean that! Please don't leave," Jae-wook cried into Haru's shoulder, his fingers clawing desperately into the fabric of Haru's shirt, clinging to him like a man drowning in an open ocean. "Please, Haru, don't leave me."
"It's fine," Haru reassured him, his voice a continuous, low murmur against Jae-wook's ear. "It's fine, Jae-wook. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
They remained on the floor for a long time, the silence of the penthouse wrapping around them as the emotional storm slowly spent its force. But just as the heavy, panicked breathing began to truly settle, Haru felt Jae-wook shift. The vulnerability that had entirely consumed him seemed to pivot into a sudden, frantic urgency.
Jae-wook pulled back slightly, his tear-stained face radiating a desperate, obsessive intensity. Before Haru could interpret the shift, Jae-wook cupped the back of Haru's head with a harsh, possessive grip and pressed his lips onto Haru's.
Haru was completely taken aback by the sudden transition, his mind still sorting through the conversation. Yet, feeling the raw, trembling need radiating from the lips pressed against his, Haru leaned into it, kissing back with a deep, grounding warmth. He wanted to offer comfort, to prove through touch that he was still there.
However, as the seconds ticked by and the kisses prolonged, the nature of the touch rapidly evolved. Jae-wook's movements became frantic, his hands moving blindly from Haru's hair down to the collar of his shirt, his fingers working with a desperate, clumsy speed to tear the buttons open. The kisses grew heavier, deeper, and tinged with a volatile desperation, an obvious, heartbreaking attempt to use physical intimacy as an absolute guarantee that they were still bound together, to drown out the memory of Chang-seo with raw sensation.
"Jae-wook!" Haru gasped out, forcefully breaking the kiss and pulling back. His chest was heaving, his shirt already completely unbuttoned down the center, exposing his collarbones, and his lips felt bruised and swollen from the intensity of the kiss.
He gripped Jae-wook's wrists, holding them firmly to stop the frantic hands from clawing at his clothes. "We don't have to do this now."
Jae-wook stilled instantly at the words. The rejection, no matter how gently delivered, acted like a freezing current through his veins. His posture locked up, his hands going completely limp within Haru's grip.
"Why not?" Jae-wook asked, his voice dropping into a dangerously quiet, hollow register.
"It's just…" Haru started, his eyes searching Jae-wook's face for a way to explain the emotional exhaustion of the situation without causing another fracture.
"You are disgusted by me," Jae-wook cut him off cleanly, his features instantly turning to stone as he physically retreated, pulling his hands out of Haru's grip and shifting back on the floor.
"No! No!" Haru refuted quickly, his voice rising with a rare touch of panic as he reached out to stop the physical withdrawal. He grabbed Jae-wook's shoulders, refusing to let him slide away into that dark, isolated corner of his mind. "Jae-wook, look at me. It's not that at all."
Jae-wook kept his gaze averted, his jaw clamped tightly shut.
"It's just that a lot has been uttered tonight," Haru said softly, his thumbs gently massaging Jae-wook's shoulders to ground him. "A lot of old wounds have been ripped open, and you are emotionally drained. I can see it. I think it's better if we just sleep for now."
Jae-wook remained still for a long, agonizing moment, analyzing Haru's face for any trace of lie or hidden revulsion. Finding nothing but an unyielding, protective warmth, the tight line of his shoulders finally dropped. A long, ragged sigh escaped his lips, the absolute exhaustion of the emotional rollercoaster finally catching up to his physical body. He nodded his head slowly, a silent capitulation to Haru's logic.
But as he looked at the open expanse of the living room and the lingering shadow of the minibar, a faint trace of his stubbornness flickered back to life. "How about a drink first?" Jae-wook countered, his voice rough and quiet. "Just one."
Haru looked at the empty crystal glasses on the marble counter, then back to the exhaustion written clearly in the hollows of Jae-wook's eyes. A small, incredibly gentle smile touched the corners of his lips.
"Sure," Haru murmured, his grip on Jae-wook's shoulder tightening reassuringly. "A drink first. Then we sleep."