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zerocoded · 10 days ago

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summary: your estranged grandmother left you exactly one thing in her will: a sprawling luxury apartment in the heart of seoul — the kind of place that could singlehandedly cover your entire college tuition if you ever decided to sell it. now you had a penthouse all to yourself, a pink-tiled kitchen you weirdly adored, and a hopeless, slow-burning crush on the absurdly attractive neighbor who barely looked your way.

authors note: here i am uploading this big ass story when i should be totally studying for my finals next week. well, i can't help but be obsessed with these vampire ahh cuties. stream desire unleashed everybody! it is a good ass album. i changed and this is the second prologue of the story. don't ask me why, but i think this one suits better as a prologue and not a chapter.

warnings and tags: sfw content but suggestive • niki is our bestie and i hope we're ok with that • dark themes such as depression, melancholy, killing • landlord!sunghoon x reader • vampire!sunghoon x collegestudent!reader • gore, mentions of violence and blood • description of violence• HEAVY ANGST • poor attempt at comedy • fluff if you squint • bad writing • reader's dad has cancer • complicated mom and daughter relationship • family drama.

word count: 10.2k (pls someone sedate me)

previous chapters: series masterlist.

you should’ve known this was exactly how your mother would reach out for the first time in seven months — not a call, not a text, not even a passive-aggressive emoji reaction to your instagram story — but a forwarded email from a lawyer with the subject line "regarding the inheritance of han ok-ja's estate."

no context. no greeting. just a pdf attachment and the words: "at least your grandmother left you something useful. don’t waste it."

that was it.

your mother, ever the poet.

and by good thing, of course, she meant a multi-million won apartment unit in seoul’s most absurdly exclusive building — a place you’d only ever seen from a bus window once during a high school trip, the kind of place you thought only politicians and pop idols lived in.

you hadn’t even known your grandmother owned an apartment in the city. hell, you hadn’t known she was still alive until she wasn’t anymore.

but that was the han family legacy, wasn’t it? generational silence, weaponized inheritance, and the occasional real estate windfall.

you grew up in boseong — land of green tea fields, gossiping neighbors, and a high school with a graduation rate that would make your seoul classmates flinch. your entire life had unfolded in two rooms above a butcher shop, where the ceiling leaked every spring and the walls knew too much about your parents’ divorce.

turns out college plans were ruined when you were only 12 and discovered your father had cancer — stage 3 colon cancer, to be exact.

you remember the way your mom said it like she was announcing a sale at the grocery store. no softness, no warning. just facts over kimchi stew. your dad, on the other hand, had tried to smile through it, like he was the one who should be comforting you.

you kind of always thought you would forever be taking care of him in boseong. after your parents’ divorce — at thirteen —, you knew no one else would be on your father’s side to fight cancer, so you only imagined that would be your legacy forever. no big dreams, no neon skylines, no designer buildings with their own saunas and private libraries. just him, you, and the rice cooker that only half-worked in the winter.

he was your best friend. he let you paint his nails when you were five and cried with you when your hamster died. he showed you how to ride a bike, how to swear in three different dialects, and how to make the best damn doenjang jjigae in the province. you would’ve done anything for him. and you did. you sacrificed your future before it even had a chance to form. quietly, without question. like it was just part of being alive — giving up everything for someone you loved.

and for years, he let you. even when the chemo worked, even when he got stronger, even when the worst passed and the only thing left was exhaustion and silence and the scent of hand sanitizer still soaked into the kitchen tiles — he let you stay.

but then you graduated high school, and he started asking. don’t you want to go? aren’t you curious about life beyond the fields? you’re too smart to stay here forever.

and by “smart” he meant that you had great communication skills and were part of the very small chess community of boseong — it consisted only of you and two old ladies.

you pretended not to hear him sometimes. because the truth was, you didn’t want to leave. not him. not your routine. not the only person who made life feel even slightly manageable.

it wasn’t until your mother’s email — short, cold, weaponized — that everything shifted. she hadn’t even mentioned the death, just the logistics. how your grandma died three months ago. how your mother and her brothers were waiting for legally open her will, how some of them took advantage, how they fought. and still, she had left something for you. her only granddaughter.

and when you told your dad, expecting him to scoff or curse or at least roll his eyes, he’d only smiled. that soft, sad smile that meant he’d been waiting for this moment longer than you had.

“go,” he said. “your life isn’t here. it never was.”

at first, you fought. seoul was never your main goal, you never dreamed of getting out of boseong and going to college. you were content with your two part time jobs at the local bar and at the grocery store. you always had good grades in school, good relationship with your neighbors and a great money reserve.

so you told him that you would never leave him and that you were content with your ok life in boseong.

but one night you got weak and searched about college applications just right after your shift. you could say the curiosity got the best out of you, and there you were perching in your bed with your laptop in hands in your dirty waitress uniform and greasy hair. at first, you really didn’t found anything interesting, until you decided to search up the address of the building your mother sent you.

you were surprised, to say the least. and for someone who shared the same bathroom with your own father for 10 years and cleaned tables as a way of living, your temptation to got to seoul changed a bit after that.

on the same night, your father told you to go. to let him go. let boseong go and live a life.

your life.

you talked to him all night, telling him about how you felt about studying topics you never heard of and living in a too spacious environment when all you have ever wanted was to take care of his sickness. he cursed at you so many times that night about your stupidity that you felt obligated to go and get a life beyond the fields.

so you packed. and cried. and pretended you weren’t terrified of being alone for the first time in your life. you moved into a stranger’s home — one who just happened to share your blood — in a building that felt like a five-star hotel married a haunted mansion.

seonghyeon jaega.

a building that at first made you feel too small, too out of place — all clean marble floors and echoing hallways and neighbors who looked like they’d stepped out of a luxury catalog. the hundreds of pictures of the place on the internet couldn’t get close to how the building was terrifyingly aesthetic inside and out.

and when you said terrifying, you meant it.

the lobby alone had three chandeliers, a grand piano that no one touched and a concierge desk staffed by a man who looked like he hadn’t blinked since 2003. the elevator played classical music, but not in a comforting way — in a this-is-the-last-song-you-hear-before-disappearing kind of way.

there was a koi pond in the library for no reason at all, a fully operational greenhouse on the rooftop that smelled like lavender and secrets. the gym was nicer than most hospitals. the sauna had eucalyptus-infused steam and, somehow, free chilled grapes. and you swore one of the mirrors in the hallway moved half an inch every time you looked away.

luxurious, yes. but also deeply cursed. like a rich aunt who only gives you money if you promise not to ask what’s in the basement.

you were so scared your first night here that you called your dad before even unpacking, crouched on the pristine floor of the guest bathroom because it was the only place that didn’t echo like a murder documentary reenactment. he didn’t know how to work his phone most of the time — had once accidentally live-streamed himself peeling an orange for nine minutes — but somehow, that night, he figured it out. he stayed on the line with you until you fell asleep, whispering his arsenal of stupid dad jokes like it was a bedtime ritual.

“what’s a vampire’s favorite fruit?” he asked, barely holding in his own laughter. “a blood orange, obviously.”

you groaned. he continued. “why did the skeleton break up with the ghost? … because he could see right through her.”

“dad,” you warned.

“okay, okay, serious one. what’s dracula’s least favorite dentist?”

“dad—”

“you. because you’d stake him for his plaque.”

somewhere between his third and twelfth pun, you stopped noticing how unfamiliar the apartment smelled or how quiet the building had become after sunset. it was just his voice in your ear, warm and ridiculous, reminding you who you were when everything else felt too big, too expensive, too not-you.

he kept talking even after you stopped answering, just in case you were pretending to sleep but still needed to hear him. he told you a story about the time he got kicked out of a supermarket for trying to haggle over cabbages, then promised to teach you how to cook galbijjim in an electric pressure cooker “once you stop being a fancy city girl.”

he called you that — fancy city girl — like it was both an insult and a title you’d earned.

and eventually, in that bathroom that smelled like foreign air freshener and existential dread, you fell asleep to the sound of his voice calling you brave in between bad puns about ghosts with dental insurance.

you hated every second of your sleep that night until you started decorating the next morning. with unpacked bags, you left your clothes in a sad little pile of indecision and focused on the real priority: comfort. not survival comfort — emotional comfort. aesthetic comfort. petty, personal, i-will-make-this-haunted-barbie-dream-my-home kind of comfort.

you didn’t have much, but what you did have mattered. mismatched frames, old polaroids, that ugly rug your dad swore was a “family heirloom” (you were 90% sure it was from a garage sale in 2007), your chipped mug with the cartoon bear that looked perpetually anxious — each item slowly carved a space for you inside all the clean, terrifying luxury.

and then there was the kitchen. the pink-tiled kitchen.

you’d thought it was a visual hallucination at first. a fever dream from sleeping on marble and grief. but no — it was real. baby pink tiles from floor to ceiling, gold handles on every drawer, and a retro mint-green fridge that looked like it belonged in a movie about a rich housewife who poisons her husband with artisanal arsenic.

the oven was smarter than you. the faucet lit up in LED colors when you turned it. there was a built-in coffee machine you accidentally worshipped for three full minutes before realizing it also made espresso martinis.

you’d never had your own kitchen before. not really. in boseong, the stove had to be turned on with a butter knife and a prayer, and your dad’s idea of spice organization was “vaguely the same shelf.”

but here, in this edible-looking kitchen that screamed chaotic heiress with secrets, you felt something shift. you didn’t belong here — not even close — but you could pretend. you could make it yours.

starting with the bear mug. front and center. because if the ghosts were going to haunt you, they were going to have to look at his anxious little face first.

you didn’t know much about your grandmother — except that she hated your dad, apparently tolerated your mom, and once sent you a birthday card with your name spelled wrong and five thousand won tucked inside like a truce. growing up, she was more ghost story than family member. the kind of woman who existed only in bitter phone calls and family reunions no one ever enjoyed.

so the fact that this pink kitchen — this frosted, weaponized femininity — had belonged to her was confusing at best and mildly horrifying at worst. did she choose this aesthetic? were the gold swan-shaped drawer pulls intentional? did she wake up one day and think, “yes, i want my home to look like a macaron opened a credit line”? and if so — who the hell was han ok-ja, really?

you were still staring at the gold-rimmed stovetop on your second night here, trying to decide if it made you feel rich or nauseous, when you heard it.

voices.

the first sound of life outside your apartment since moving in — and not the unsettling creak of old pipes or elevator music that sounded suspiciously like a dirge. actual human voices.

you froze, mug in hand, heart thudding like you were the one trespassing.

you crept toward the door and peeked through the peephole like a responsible citizen-slash-nosey neighbor. and there they were: two of them.

two men.

not delivery drivers. not maintenance workers. not the faceless ghosts you’d imagined floated through these halls at night. these guys looked like they’d walked off a K-drama set about billionaire assassins. tall, sharply dressed, effortlessly serious. one had that slicked-back hair that screamed “i own three nightclubs and a moral dilemma,” and the other looked like he could command a room without saying a word. they spoke low and fast — something about “containment” and “asking jake later” — before disappearing around the corner like this was all completely normal.

you didn’t breathe until the hallway was empty again. and even then, only because your bear mug was fogging up the peephole.

you didn’t know who they were. hell, you didn’t know anyone here. the one person who’d helped you move in was the doorman with serial killer energy and an unsettlingly strong grip — and even he disappeared the second your last box was through the door, like helping you was part of some cursed blood oath he had to fulfill.

your college classmates weren’t much better. your entire winter prep course so far had consisted of awkward breakout rooms, muted mics, and staring at floating letters in google classroom. no faces. just ominous little circles with initials like “K” and “Y,” as if you were being haunted by the world’s most boring ghost cult.

so yeah. no friends. no neighbors. no idea if anyone in this building was even real. and you were introduced to the concept of “other residents” in the most dramatic way possible — via hallway mafia cosplay and mysterious murmurs about something that definitely did not sound legal.

you did what any mentally stable person would do: took a shower. hot water. calm nerves. fake a sense of control.

four minutes in — conditioner still in your hair, face mid-existential crisis — the doorbell rang.

you stood there frozen, water dripping down your back, just staring at the tiled wall like maybe you’d imagined it. maybe the building was playing tricks. wouldn’t be the weirdest thing.

but it rang again. twice this time. like whoever it was had the audacity to be persistent.

so you grabbed a towel, cursed under your breath, and padded across the marble floor like the world's angriest wet ghost.

and when you opened the door —

sunghoon.

you didn’t know his name at the time. you only knew he looked like someone who didn’t need names. the kind of face that belonged on perfume billboards and moody vampire dramas. sharp jaw, colder eyes, all cheekbones and contempt. holding your mail like it had personally offended him.

“your delivery,” he’d said.

two words. no emotion. no explanation. just a stack of envelopes addressed to han ok-ja and a stare that nearly short-circuited your brain.

you stammered. tried to say thank you. dropped your conditioner on the floor like a dramatic prop.

he didn’t flinch. didn’t blink. just placed the mail in your hands and turned around, disappearing down the hallway like a final boss retreating after a tutorial level.

you shut the door and immediately collapsed against it, half-naked, half-mortified, fully confused.

you told yourself it was just a fluke encounter. he probably didn’t even live on your floor. maybe he was visiting. maybe you hallucinated the whole thing and the envelopes were cursed.

but then you started hearing more voices in the next day. always calm, always composed — unnervingly so, like they were narrating a documentary or conducting a negotiation instead of, you know, talking like regular people. they were different voices, too. distinct. male. low. not loud enough to catch the words, just the rhythm. steady. practiced. like they knew someone might be listening.

they came from the only other apartment on your floor — the one directly across from yours, the only other unit tucked into this absurdly private corridor. at first, you thought it was just the acoustics messing with you, echoing from the floors above or below. but no. the timing was too perfect. the pauses too measured.

so you pieced it together: those voices, the ones that made your skin prickle and your heartbeat speed up for no logical reason, belonged to your neighbors.

whoever they were. whoever he was.

so, naturally, you started stalking him.

you called it “gathering intel,” but really it was just you loitering in the hallway and pretending to take out the trash three times a day. you even got fake-lost once, wandering to the rooftop and pretending to marvel at the view — only to find him elbow-deep in a planter box in the greenhouse.

you tried to play it cool. like you just happened to stumble upon this botanical mysteryland by accident. he didn’t buy it. you knew because he didn’t say a word. just looked at you, one eyebrow raised, dirt on his hands, like really?

and yes, really — you made yourself a fool. not even the endearing kind. the talks-to-flowers-to-fill-the-silence-while-your-hot-neighbor-ignores-you kind.

you replayed every second of that encounter at least seventy-two times on your walk back to the apartment.

you, standing like a lost sims character in his private garden.

you, talking about hydrangeas like they personally offended you.

you, saying “are you deaf?” to a man who could probably hear a moth sneeze through a concrete wall.

he’d told you his name. sunghoon.

no last name. no polite small talk. just sunghoon — like it should’ve been obvious, like he assumed his name carried weight in ways you were too human to understand. and maybe it did. maybe that was why it stuck with you so easily.

after that, you told yourself you’d avoid him. let the awkwardness fade, let time cover the whole thing in dust like everything else in this building.

but curiosity’s a bitch.

and so were you, apparently, because you started noticing things.

all the other residents vanished during the day — ghost cars coming and going at strange hours, silent hallways, apartments that never flickered with light. seonghyeon was supposed to be the pinnacle of luxury, and yet sometimes it felt like a very expensive haunted house. a place for the rich and restless to disappear.

but his apartment — the penthouse — that one was never truly still.

the door was always closed, always locked, always giving you shall not pass energy. but something about it pulsed with life.

sometimes, if you stood still in the stairwell long enough (not that you did that on purpose), you could hear it — laughter. deep voices. music, faint and classical one day, low and thumping the next. the clink of glass against glass. sometimes even footsteps pacing, like someone arguing with the walls.

and they weren’t ghost sounds. they weren’t echoes. they were unmistakably human.

which confused the hell out of you.

sunghoon didn’t seem like the hosting type. he didn’t seem like the talking type, honestly. and yet… those voices.

you tried to rationalize it. maybe he had roommates. maybe he had a large, weirdly formal family. maybe he was running a strangely attractive cult and no one had noticed because they were all too hot to question anything.

you figured those two men from your second day here — the ones who looked like they belonged in a noir film or an underworld fashion spread — lived there too. the timing made too much sense. the way they moved, too — like the building was theirs.

and that made everything worse.

because, really — why were hot men living together in a penthouse?

not just hot. alarmingly hot. HD-ready, slow-motion-walk-through-the-smoke hot.

either they were in a boyband you’d never heard of, or something weird was going on. and the more you thought about it, the less it felt like a fantasy and the more it felt like the start of an expensive psychological thriller.

you’d moved here thinking the biggest threat was going to be loneliness.

now you weren’t so sure.

between the mysterious roommates, the suspiciously symmetrical garden, and the fact that your neighbor might be the living embodiment of a victorian fever dream — things had shifted. subtly. quietly. but still.

which brings you to the present.

two weeks in. january air pressing sharp against your windows. your heating system suspiciously temperamental. your prep course schedule eating your sanity one unread syllabus at a time.

it was friday — the day after the greenhouse incident. or, as you now lovingly referred to it in your mind: the day you decided to mortify yourself in front of a hot cryptid.

you were doing your absolute best to pretend like it never happened. which was hard, considering the mental reruns your brain insisted on playing every time you so much as walked past a plant.

also, the silence. the kind of silence that felt too big, even for a place this large.

you missed your dad.

you missed the way he knocked on your door every morning even when you weren’t home. you missed how the house always smelled like burnt rice or old coffee.

here, everything smelled like luxury cleaning products and echoes.

you still didn’t know how to use the guest room bathtub.

you still hadn’t figured out which switch turned on the weird chandelier in the hallway.

you were still trying to remember what it felt like to not be new all the time.

which meant: staying indoors, drinking your weight in instant coffee, and trying to finish your college assignment like a normal, functioning member of society.

outside, seoul was a frozen postcard — january at its peak, all gray skies and the kind of wind that made your building moan like it was haunted (which, honestly, wasn’t out of the question). inside, you were wrapped in a giant hoodie, sitting cross-legged on your overpriced sofa, staring at a half-finished document titled “attachment styles and their long-term impact on adult relationships.”

it was due in four days. you’d written seven words. two of them were your name.

“jesus,” you muttered, dragging a hand down your face as your laptop fan whined like it too wanted to give up.

your textbook lay open beside you, unread. you kept glancing at the clock, at your phone, at the kitchen — literally anywhere that wasn’t your word doc.

you’d already cleaned the counters. twice. rearranged the spice rack. googled “can someone have both avoidant and anxious attachment or am i just doomed.”

now you were debating whether “take a nap” qualified as productive.

and yet, no matter how hard you tried to focus, your brain kept looping back to one very specific visual: sunghoon. crouched in the dirt. sleeves rolled. that voice. those hands.

you groaned, flopping backwards like gravity owed you a favor.

this was a nightmare. or a romcom. except instead of falling in love you were just… spiraling. academically. emotionally. thermally, because your heater was already acting up again.

it was the end of your second week in seoul.

your father had called that morning, asking how you were adapting to the city’s temperature.

you hadn’t had the heart to say that you missed his jokes the most, that you felt embarrassingly late starting a winter prep course at twenty-three, and that you hadn’t made a single friend over winter break because you were too busy staying inside.

not studying. not exploring. just… existing.

you told him everything was fine. you laughed at his dumb pun about kimchi being your emotional support food. you pretended the loneliness didn’t cling to you like an oversized coat you couldn’t quite shake off.

you were about to post a photo of your aggressively pink mug sitting next to your aggressively pink kettle when the doorbell rang.

you froze.

not because doorbells were inherently threatening, but because in seonghyeon, they kind of were. no one visited you. no one should be visiting you.

you tiptoed to the door, peeked through the peephole �� and blinked.

hoodie. messy hair. the boy who fixed your heater on your third day here.

niki.

leaning casually against your doorframe like this was his fifth reincarnation and he was bored of them all. black sweatshirt, slightly messy hair, and a lopsided grin that made your anxiety spike for no reason you were ready to admit.

“hey,” he said smoothly. “sorry for the weird drop-in, but… do you have a printer?”

you blinked. “what?”

“a printer.” he nodded toward your apartment like this was totally normal. “ours died. jake forgot to refill the toner and now it sounds like a dying cat every time we try to use it. i have to print something urgent for heeseung before he gets back from god-knows-where, or i’ll never hear the end of it.”

he gave you a sheepish smile, like he was just another poor man, a humble victim of modern technology. “you’d literally be saving a life. maybe mine.”

“you don’t have a backup printer?”

“we have centuries of accumulated knowledge,” he said, deadpan, “but apparently none of it covers basic office supplies.”

your brows lifted.

niki smiled like he was proud of himself — then added, “also, you kinda owe me. remember the tragic heater incident of last week? i saved your toes. seems only fair you save my social standing with heeseung.”

somehow, niki was the only neighbor who actually talked to you. he sometimes sounded oddly flirty, in that way that made you question if he was joking or just naturally like that, but still — he was the only constant you’d had all week.

like that first night in the elevator.

you’d gone out to take the trash in your sad-girl uniform (read: mismatched socks, your dad’s hoodie, and the kind of messy bun that was less “carefree” and more “actively falling apart”).

the elevator doors opened and there he was. leaning against the mirrored wall like the ride was a runway.

he looked at you, at your tragic ensemble, and without missing a beat said, “rough night or bold fashion statement?”

you almost dropped the trash bag.

then there was the gym.

which, in your defense, you thought would be empty at noon on a tuesday.

you walked in ready to attempt some kind of fake cardio — only to find niki mid-rep, shirtless, earbuds in, glistening with the kind of sweat that looked like it came with a lighting crew.

you stood frozen like you'd just walked in on a pagan ritual.

he noticed you instantly — of course he did — and pulled out one earbud with a grin.

“didn’t take you for a gym rat,” he said, not even out of breath. “what’s your workout plan? anxiety and instant noodles?”

you left seven minutes later, sweating from embarrassment.

another time, you tried to sneak out for a night walk — hoodie on, playlist blasting, full stealth mode — only for the lobby door to swing open and reveal niki… balancing a tray of banana milk, three convenience store bento boxes, and what appeared to be a single lemon.

he blinked at you.

you blinked back.

“don’t judge me,” he said, as if you were the one caught mid-snack run with a lemon like it owed him money.

you weren’t sure if he was teasing you or had the personality of a teen movie star.

but either way, he was a puzzle you couldn’t quite solve — half charming, half cryptic, entirely unpredictable.

and now he was standing at your door, asking for a printer, like that made perfect sense.

niki’s company wasn’t uninvited, just oddly strategic sometimes, like he’s been waiting for tou to open your apartment door for him to leave his.

you raised an eyebrow as he leaned casually against your doorway, still holding the suspiciously printer cable he claimed had “glitched” on him. you stepped aside anyway, motioning him in with a sigh that was more performative than annoyed.

not that you two were friends, exactly. but he made you feel comfortable — or at the very least, not like you were one bad decision away from becoming a true crime podcast episode. he seemed decent. normal-ish. like someone who held doors open and actually texted back.

so maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to give him a chance. you guys already had a decent amount of stupid hangouts. maybe he could be your friend in this giant, freezing city. maybe you wouldn’t have to do this whole alone-in-seoul thing completely alone.

so you let him in.

“you know, most people text before showing up,” you said, stepping aside.

of course, niki had asked for your number last week — for safety purposes, whatever that meant. so you weren’t crazy for demanding him an explanation of why he just didn’t text you first.

“most people don’t fix heaters for free,” he shot back without missing a beat.

“oh my god,” you muttered, closing the door behind him. “you’re gonna milk that forever, aren’t you?”

niki grinned like a fox. “absolutely. you gave me banana bread and now i’m emotionally invested.”

you gestured toward your sad little work desk in the corner, where your overpriced student printer sat in all its barely-functioning glory.

“knock yourself out. just don’t ask me for help if it starts blinking at you.”

“don’t worry, i know how to handle old tech.” he crouched down, already plugging things in like he’d done this a thousand times. probably had. you watched him for a second — black hoodie bunched at the elbows, dark hair falling into his eyes, expression a little too pleased with himself for someone who broke his own printer.

“so,” you said, arms crossed as you leaned against the kitchen counter. “what are you printing that’s so life or death?”

niki didn’t look up. “building schematics.”

“schematics,” you repeated. “for, like… a building?”

“yeah. stuff heeseung asked for.”

you blinked. “okay, wait. which one is heeseung again?”

niki whipped his head around like you’d just insulted his bloodline. “wow. wow. you’ve lived here two weeks and you still don’t know our names?”

you raised an eyebrow. “should i?”

he leaned back on his heels, hand over his heart like you’d wounded him. “unbelievable. and here i thought we had something special.”

you rolled your eyes. “you literally showed up at my door because your printer broke.”

“and you let me in,” he said, finger pointed dramatically. “which means something.”

“uh-huh.”

he turned back to the printer, smug and all too pleased with himself. “anyway. heeseung. red hair, tall, stares like he’s reading your thoughts. very expensive skincare routine. kind of terrifying if you don’t know he listens to city pop while painting model trains.”

you blinked again. “he dyed his hair red?”

niki snorted. “see? this is how i know you only remember my name. scandalous.”

you opened your mouth to argue — and promptly closed it, because… he wasn’t exactly wrong.

niki grinned wider. “it’s okay. i get it. i’m memorable.”

“you sound like we’re actually friends,” you said, eyeing him. “which we’re not, by the way. i barely know you. and i barely see your friends — they’re like never here. or they vanish when i’m around. which makes you suspicious, you know that? because the only one i always see is you.”

niki didn’t even flinch. just kept clicking through printer settings like you hadn’t just accused him of being a walking red flag.

“of course i’m the only one you see,” he said. “i’m the most charming. obviously.”

you opened your mouth, probably to insult him, but were cut off by the sudden whirr of your printer coming to life. he looked genuinely pleased, like he’d just hacked into nasa instead of hitting ctrl+P.

“and voilà,” he announced, as the first sheet fed out. “proof that i am both useful and handsome.”

you blinked. “wow. incredible. now take your stuff and go.”

but niki — who apparently had zero intention of leaving — wandered away from the desk like he owned the place.

“nice place,” he said, inspecting your sad plant in the corner. “what’s this one’s name? depression?”

“that’s literally a peace lily.”

“ironic.” he flopped onto your couch, limbs everywhere. “is this real leather or vegan sadness?”

“niki—”

“oh, are these cookies?” he reached for the half-eaten pack on your coffee table.

you lunged. “those are mine! you can’t just— you’re not even invited!”

“i was invited by the owner,” he said through a mouthful of cookie. “and also, by the universal law of ‘i fixed your heater.’”

“that is not— that’s not how anything works!”

he stretched out like a cat, one arm thrown dramatically over the back of the couch, like he was settling in for a netflix binge. “this is nice. i feel very welcomed.”

you stared at him. “you’re a menace.”

“a charming one.”

“i should start charging rent.”

“sure. just add it to the list of things you pretend you don’t want from me.”

you threw a pillow at his face.

niki smirked, returning to the printer like he hadn’t just gone through your entire life via interior design. “just doing my neighborly due diligence.”

you rolled your eyes. “do you talk like this with all of the other residents?”

“only the pretty ones who lend me banana bread and let me into their apartment without asking questions.”

you blinked at him. he didn’t flinch.

“you’re lucky my pepper spray’s buried in my tote bag.”

“you’re lucky i’m charming enough to take that risk.”

you shook your head, but your lips twitched despite yourself.

a few more pages printed.

“met any of the other neighbors yet?” he asked, still fully sprawled across your very recently cleaned sofa like he paid rent here.

you sighed. apparently, this was your night now — your other cute neighbor (not the one you preferably wished was in your home but still cute, unfortunately) lounging in your living room and asking you questions like this was some kind of casual interrogatory.

you dropped into the only other chair — the one beside the shelf where a TV should be, but you still hadn’t figured out how to afford one when you were barely making your ramen-to-days ratio work.

you glanced over at him and answered. “not unless you count the old woman on the third floor who yells at the mailman in jeolla dialect,” you said. “i think she has a shrine to her cat in the stairwell.”

niki laughed at that.

“ah, mrs. cho. the patron saint of passive aggression.”

you grinned. “and then there’s the guy with the black porsche. not korean. definitely not even asian. i swear to god i’ve seen him in a movie before.”

niki lifted a brow. “short, built like a villain, always wears sunglasses?”

“yes!”

“that’s theo.”

you blinked. “you know him?”

niki shrugged. “he owes me two shirts and a very expensive wine opener.”

“…you hang out with western celebrities and still have to print engineering data on your neighbor’s shitty printer?”

“i’m humble like that.”

you gave him a long look. “so what’s the deal? why is this building full of ghosts and runway models? i thought this was just gonna be me and a bunch of rich divorcees. picking from my late grandmother's profile, this place was supposed to be crawling with silver-haired women named eun-sook and their lapdogs.”

niki just grinned, the kind of grin that made it very clear he wasn’t going to give you a straightforward answer, but he was absolutely going to enjoy not giving it.

“maybe you’re just circulating in different areas,” he said, casual as ever. “there’s also mr. park on the 10th floor. passionate filmmaker. made millions in the '70s. he talks to plants and wears velvet robes. iconic, really.”

you blinked. “…he’s real?”

“very.”

you squinted at him. “and what are you, then? the building’s unofficial tour guide?”

“resident heartthrob,” he replied without missing a beat, smirking. “printer technician. heater fixer. emotional support neighbor.”

you gave him a dry look. “you’re impossible to age, you know that? your face screams ‘freshman orientation,’ but you talk like you’ve been through at least two divorces.”

niki leaned forward, propping his chin in his hand. “i’m twenty-two.”

the way he said it was too smooth. too clean. like it had been practiced.

you stared at him for a second too long. “…sure you are.”

“what, you don’t believe me?”

“i believe someone is twenty-two,” you muttered. “i’m just not sure it’s you.”

he laughed, and you sighed. god, you just wanted to finish your essay before your stomach started announcing its abandonment issues. you’d eaten nothing but cookies all day. even your blood sugar was judging you.

niki’s papers were finally done printing, but he made no move to leave. instead, he wandered back to your couch like this was a regular hangout — like you didn’t have academic deadlines and a deeply tragic pantry.

“do your roommates also pretend to live here,” you asked, “or is that just your thing?”

niki hummed, flopping onto the cushions again. “depends. jungwon’s usually busy running the world, sunoo only leaves for beauty products, jay’s emotionally allergic to sunlight, and heeseung…” he paused. “well, heeseung’s redecorating his room again. new hair, new furniture. guy’s going through his third identity arc this year.”

you blinked. “he really dyed it red?”

“like full villain arc. he stood in front of the mirror for two hours yesterday practicing his ‘you dare betray me’ face.”

you snorted. “i should’ve picked him to develop a weird crush on.”

niki looked at you slowly. then grinned. wide. evil.

you realized, too late.

did you just… fully expose your newly developing crush to a guy who lived with him? really?

sure, niki wasn’t a stranger exactly. but he was also someone who very clearly lived off blackmail energy and chaos. someone who probably kept a mental folder labeled “leverage” with a subsection titled dumb stuff neighbor girl says.

and worse — he was sunghoon’s roommate. as in: shared a home. a kitchen. probably towels. probably saw him shirtless. daily.

your soul briefly tried to evacuate your body.

“you are very unique, you know that, right?” niki said, and for once, his voice wasn’t just joking. it was low, like he meant it. or at least like he was thinking about meaning it.

you raised an eyebrow, trying to play it off. “so you were the girl sunghoon-hyung was muttering about all morning. i thought i was going crazy.”

you blinked.

“what?”

niki didn’t move. didn’t even try to soften the blow. just looked at you like you were the one being slow.

“sunghoon. pale skin, cute moles, nice fashion sense. he was relentless this morning,” he repeated. “a lot, actually. and he doesn’t do that. ever. not unless something’s bothering him.”

you sat up straighter, suddenly hyper-aware of every heartbeat in your body. “and you… came here to print. not to spy. right?”

niki gave you a flat look. “i came here to confirm a theory.” he waved one of the printed pages like a prop. “the printing was just an excuse. i don’t actually care about heeseung’s floor plans. the guy’s redecorating again — it’s like watching a pinterest board have a breakdown.”

you stared. “so you think… sunghoon’s spiraling? and you came here to see if i was the reason?”

niki tilted his head. “he didn’t go out with the rest of us today. jay’s out. jungwon too. even jake finally left the building. which means whatever got him all twisted up happened here.”

you opened your mouth, but your brain hadn’t caught up yet.

niki crossed his arms. “so i asked myself: what changed yesterday? and then i remembered our neighbor,” he said, gesturing around your apartment like it was a crime scene. “who decided to play dumb in his private greenhouse.”

you groaned, dragging a hand over your face. “i didn’t decide anything. i got lost.”

niki raised both brows.

“sure.” he smiled. “you really thought he wouldn’t notice you wandering into his favorite place in the entire building?”

“i thought he was going to throw a rake at me.”

“nope. just internalized it and started spiraling like a man in a period drama.” niki leaned in slightly, eyes twinkling. “which, honestly, is kind of flattering. he usually skips the spiraling and goes straight to brooding.”

you buried your face in your hands. “i’m going to die. i’m going to be haunted by this for the rest of my life. tell no one.”

“too late,” niki said. “i’m emotionally invested now. this is my entertainment.”

“i was such a weirdo,” you groaned, hands still covering your face. “and—how do you even know? don’t tell me he’s the type to talk shit about women around his guy friends. please.”

niki scoffed. “sunghoon-hyung? no. he doesn’t talk bad about women. he doesn’t talk about women. or people. or, like, at all most days. that’s why when he started pacing the kitchen and cleaning the already cleaned counter like he was trying to hex himself, i paid attention.”

you peeked at him through your fingers.

“it wasn’t mean,” niki added. “just... restless. confused. like you short-circuited something in him and he couldn’t figure out why.”

you groaned again and let your head fall back against the chair. “great. amazing. so i’m haunting him.”

“you’re interesting,” niki corrected, sounding way too pleased about it.

you sat up, arms crossed. “okay. fine. i admit it. he got my attention on the first day. but i didn’t know anything about him, so i went up there to check. just... to see.”

niki raised an eyebrow. “and?”

“and i made a fool out of myself,” you muttered. “i insulted his hydrangeas. i accused him of spray-painting flowers. i basically loitered in his personal sanctuary like some floral cryptid. it was a disaster.”

niki was grinning. “a disaster he’s still thinking about, apparently.”

you glared at him.

“what?” he said innocently. “he spirals, you spiral. soulmates.”

“get out of my apartment.”

“rude. but fair.”

“i’m sure you’re wrong,” you said, waving a hand like that would physically shoo away the entire conversation. “he’s probably trying to figure out how to get me evicted. he looked very not thrilled to see someone new, now that i think about it.”

niki raised both brows but said nothing.

“actually,” you went on, like a woman possessed, “he’s so fine it’s probably safer for me to just move back to boseong. honestly. for my health. for public safety. i might actually die if i see him again.”

niki blinked. once. slowly.

then: “you’re unwell.”

you pointed at him. “you started it.”

“and i regret nothing,” he said, positively beaming now. “this is the best entertainment i’ve had all week. please spiral more. i’ll bring popcorn next time.”

you dropped your head onto the arm of the chair and groaned into the fabric. “please let the floor open and take me. right now. just swallow me whole. the guy i found cute is exposing my terrible flirting techniques with his roommates.”

niki reached for one of the last pages still sitting in the printer tray, casually flipping it over like you weren’t mid-self-destruction. “nah. sunghoon-hyung would probably just water your ghost like a houseplant.”

you didn’t even have the energy to respond.

“did you come here to see my suffering? okay, maybe i am crazy. i’m having a mental crisis over a neighbor i barely know and who doesn’t even know my name.”

niki didn’t blink. didn’t smirk. just looked at you, completely serious for once.

“oh, he does,” he said. “i told him.”

your brain short-circuited for a beat. “you what?”

he shrugged, standing to gather his pages like this was a totally normal development. “you were spiraling. he was spiraling. i connected the dots. you’re welcome.”

“you’re— you’re insane.”

“you say that like it’s news.”

he tucked the last paper under his arm, then glanced around your apartment like he was memorizing it — or maybe checking to see if he missed anything fun. “don’t overthink it too hard,” he added, turning toward the door. “it’s not like you’re the only human who’s ever made him spiral.”

you froze. “wait— the only what?”

niki paused with his hand on the doorknob. then smiled. slowly. too slowly.

“neighbor,” he said, completely deadpan. “human neighbor. obviously.”

he opened the door. “night, mystery girl.”

and then he left.

you stood there for a long moment, staring at the door, trying to decide if you were hallucinating or just missing something very obvious. your heart was still racing, though you weren’t sure if it was from embarrassment… or something else.

and maybe that was what made you do it. maybe that’s why, ten minutes later, you were zipping up your coat, stepping into your sneakers, and making your way back upstairs — toward the one place that still didn’t make sense.

the greenhouse.

you weren’t sure if you were looking for closure, dignity, or just proof that this sunghoon guy wasn’t currently chanting your name into his camellias. you just knew you had to go.

because something was off. and maybe, just maybe, you were finally ready to find out what.

——

you didn’t really have a plan. just your coat half-zipped, your phone shoved into your pocket, and a fuzzy memory of the stairwell leading to the rooftop.

by the time you reached the greenhouse, the wind had started howling louder, curling around the marble like it had claws. the door creaked as you pushed it open, hesitant — not quite sure what you were hoping to find. not even sure you wanted to be seen.

but no one was there. not yet.

instead, there was… stillness. eerie, clean stillness. the kind that didn’t feel empty, just waiting.

the lights were dimmed to that soft, golden low — like the whole place was stuck between late evening and a dream. the air was warmer here than in the rest of the building, humid and filled with the scent of damp earth, jasmine, and something vaguely sweet you couldn’t place. like something had just bloomed, or was about to.

you stepped forward carefully, eyes flicking from one corner to another. there were plants you couldn’t name — some domestic, some probably illegal, some tall enough to have a personality. there were shelves of tools that looked antique, a misting system that hissed like a sleeping cat every few minutes, and in the far back — the camellias.

you didn’t know much about flowers, but those had been the ones the cute neighbor was tending the last time you embarrassed yourself in here. they looked too perfect to be real now. which somehow only made you more nervous.

you walked slowly, brushing your fingers over a leaf here, a petal there. something about the place made your heartbeat slow down — not relax, but drag, like time was thicker here.

you reached the camellias. stared at them. quiet. then:

“if you start talking, i swear to god i’ll scream.”

no response. which was good. you weren’t ready for enchanted flora just yet.

you leaned against the nearest wooden post and let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding.

“i’m not crazy,” you told the flowers. “i mean, maybe a little. but he’s just a guy. a really… visually jarring guy. with plants. and beautiful hands. and maybe cult energy. but still. a guy.”

actually, now that you thought about it, your father would be losing it if he saw you right now — probably wheezing from laughter, maybe texting you articles about urban hallucinations, and definitely threatening to drag you back to boseong before you joined a handsome, plant-worshipping cult.

you never been in love before, hell, you only felt attraction through tv shows and social media platforms. boseong didn’t have actual boys your age to fantasize about. so you felt stupid for being so new to all this experience. hell, you only found him hot, it’s not like you have already fell for him.

or so that was what you were willing to admit right now.

and of course — because your life was a joke — that was exactly when the door creaked open behind you.

you turned. slowly.

sunghoon stood in the entrance, hoodie pulled over his head, face unreadable under the warm light.

he was dressed so casually compared to the last time you saw him — exactly here, probably twenty-four hours ago to the minute — when he looked like he’d stepped out of a noir film in that trench coat that probably cost more than your tuition and shoes you were too scared to breathe near.

now it was just a hoodie. black, like niki’s. sleeves pushed to the forearms. sneakers.

he looked… human. more human than yesterday.

still, hot as fuck.

but you controlled your thoughts. barely.

“sorry that i’m trespassing again,” was your first move — because, naturally, you led with self-incrimination.

great. amazing. full confession. this man was definitely going to start locking the place now. maybe even file a restraining order.

honestly, you wouldn’t blame him.

he didn’t answer right away. you could feel his gaze, though — heavy, unreadable, like he was trying to decide if you were a threat or just stupid.

your embarrassment arrived a second too late. you turned your back to him, pretending you weren’t mortified and that the night view just happened to be that interesting.

and to be fair, it kind of was. this part of the greenhouse stretched farther than you realized — glass walls curved outward, revealing the full sprawl of the city below. lights blinked like dying stars. rooftops dusted with frost. your own reflection faint in the glass, barely outlined by the soft yellow glow inside.

you exhaled.

“i hadn’t seen this part yesterday,” you said quietly to no one exactly. “was too busy making a fool of myself in the front.”

you didn’t turn around. just kept your eyes on the skyline. “it’s pretty,” you added. “i mean—i guess you know that. you live here. obviously.”

you heard movement behind you. quiet steps on stone. then his voice — calm, low.

“most people don’t notice this part. too bright during the day.”

you blinked. “well. i only trespass at night, apparently.”

there was a pause. not awkward — just… full.

“you can keep coming here, if you like,” he said finally, gaze fixed on the orchid. “it’s nice during winter.”

you blinked. “is this special treatment because i became friends with one of your roommates?”

he glanced at you. “are you talking about riki?”

“riki? i swear it was niki.”

he laughed. and you absolutely weren’t prepared.

it wasn’t loud — just a quiet, breathy sound, like something slipped out before he could stop it — but it lit across his face in this rare, startling way. his lips parted slightly. you caught the sharp glint of his canines.

and for one irrational second, you felt your blood run cold.

those were long ass canines, my lord.

“yes, niki,” he said, finally looking away. “he goes by that too, apparently. he’s… troublesome. don’t fall for his traps.”

you smiled before you could help it. “thanks for the concern, but i think it’s too late. he literally invaded my apartment earlier today.”

sunghoon raised a brow.

“printer emergency,” you added, like that somehow justified it.

his mouth twitched. “sounds like him.”

you nodded, trying not to feel weirdly proud that this sunghoon guy didn’t seem annoyed. that he was still standing there. that he hadn’t told you to leave.

did niki say anything to him? god, if he did…

until then, sunghoon had kept a good distance between you both — a few careful feet, a plant or two, like the space between you was intentional. personal. you let it slide, thinking maybe he still thought you were unstable. (which, fair.)

still, you figured you shouldn’t push your luck. shouldn’t linger long enough to ruin the first actually peaceful moment you’d shared with him.

so, with slow steps, you began walking further into the greenhouse, fingers brushing gently over the edge of a planter, letting the silence settle.

the warmth of the space, the smell of wet soil and night-blooming flowers — it all pressed around you like a soft blanket.

you let yourself breathe.

“do you all live here? for how long?” you couldn’t help but ask, voice low, like the plants might tattle.

sunghoon didn’t answer right away. you glanced back at him — he hadn’t moved from his spot, still half-shadowed by a curtain of ivy, the soft yellow light outlining the curve of his jaw.

“a while,” he said finally. vague. noncommittal. ancient-sounding.

you waited for more. didn’t get it.

“like... years?”

he tilted his head. “give or take.”

you squinted. “that’s not an answer.”

“it’s the only one you’re getting.”

you exhaled, half amused, half suspicious. so mysterious. so nonchalant. so suspiciously good at evading direct human timelines.

“you’re worse than niki at evading questions, god. are you all like this?”

sunghoon almost smiled — almost. just a flicker at the corner of his mouth, like he was debating whether you were worth the truth or just another nosy neighbor with too much curiosity and too little survival instinct.

“maybe it’s a roommate requirement,” he said.

you narrowed your eyes. “what, like a quiz? ‘how mysterious are you on a scale from 1 to dramatic rooftop monologue’?”

this time, he actually smiled. just a little. but it was there.

“you’d fail,” he said simply.

you gasped. “rude.”

“you talk too much.”

you grinned. “and you brood too much. balance.”

“actually, you’re the one who should be asking questions,” you shot back, turning to face him fully. “i got here first.”

sunghoon blinked, like he was momentarily stunned by your logic.

“trespassing doesn’t count as arrival,” he said flatly.

“semantics.” you waved a hand. “i was emotionally distressed. that grants me squatters’ rights.”

he let out a quiet breath — not quite a sigh, not quite a laugh.

“you’re unbelievable.”

“and yet, here you are,” you said, gesturing between you. “still talking to me. maybe you’re the crazy one.”

he didn’t deny it. just glanced away, like maybe you were onto something.

“do you always go out with your pink phone case?”

you froze. blinked. stared. how did he—

“wait, you noticed that?”

sunghoon didn’t even blink. “hard to miss.”

your mouth opened, then closed. “it’s for the aesthetics. i like pink.”

he hummed, like he was storing the information away for later. or judging you. or both.

you crossed your arms. “don’t make that face.”

“i didn’t make a face.”

“you did. it was very i-expected-black-but-of-course-it’s-pink.”

he looked at you, gaze steady. “i expected lavender, actually.”

“do i give off lavender vibes?” you asked, genuinely confused.

sunghoon didn’t answer right away — just tilted his head slightly, eyes trailing over you in that unreadable way of his, like he was assessing your soul for color palette accuracy.

“sometimes,” he said. “but mostly… chaotic rose gold.”

you squinted. “that’s not a real vibe.”

“it is now.”

“you just made that up.”

“it’s a pretty color,” sunghoon said.

you blinked at him. “are you calling me pretty?”

“no.”

“that’s rude.”

“you should be at your apartment.”

you narrowed your eyes. “are you saying i’m ugly, then?”

he didn’t flinch. “beauty is about preferences. you can think a flower is pretty, but someone else might think it’s not the best.”

you stared. “are you a walking inspirational monologue coach? is that your side hustle? why are you always showing up late at night like some poetic batman?”

sunghoon looked off toward the glass ceiling like he was considering whether to dignify that with an answer.

“plants prefer quiet,” he said finally. “and so do i.”

you crossed your arms. “you’re so weird.”

and cute, you wanted to add, but decided against giving him that satisfaction. instead, you walked further into the greenhouse, letting the soft hum of warmth and the faint scent of soil wrap around you like a blanket.

you couldn’t believe you were actually talking to the cute neighbor. like really having a conversation, not just a one sided talk. you think you could count this as a good win for today.

the camellias were everywhere — climbing the trellises, tucked into carefully sculpted beds, blooming in quiet defiance of winter. pale pink, deep red, soft ivory. some petals curled like folded silk, others stretched wide like they had something to prove. you could tell someone tended to them with care. the kind of care that didn’t just water plants but listened to them.

tiny ceramic pots lined the shelves, holding herbs you didn’t recognize, some with tags written in what you swore wasn’t korean. there was a cluster of hanging plants near the center — spider plants, trailing vines, a few that looked carnivorous — and nestled between them, a tea set. just… sitting there. like someone had once hosted a garden party and forgot to clean up.

you weren’t sure how long you wandered, fingertips grazing leaves and petals, occasionally pausing to mutter something dumb like you guys get more affection than i do. it felt sacred in a way. not holy, but intentional. lived-in. like it had memories.

eventually, you saw him again.

sunghoon.

he was standing by the far end of the greenhouse now — in the same spot you had been earlier, overlooking the city through the large arched window. the skyline shimmered under the frostbitten night, a painting of silver and cold light. he was still. too still. hands in the pockets of his black hoodie, shoulders drawn back, head tilted just slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear.

you didn’t think. just moved. quietly, carefully, like your slippers might betray you.

he didn’t turn. he didn’t seem to notice you at all — until you got too close.

you were maybe two steps behind him when it happened.

his body stiffened. violently.

his shoulders tensed first, like he’d been punched in the spine, then his head turned just enough for you to see it: the way his eyes had gone wide, pupils blown open like ink on paper.

then the wince.

his nose twitched, and in the span of a single breath, he stumbled back.

three steps. four. too fast. like he’d touched fire.

his face wasn’t angry. it wasn’t surprised, either. it was… pained.

like something disgusted him. or worse — tempted him.

you stood frozen between the camellias and the windows, confused and small.

he was staring at you like you were the ghost.

you stepped back too, instinctively — as if your retreat might undo whatever invisible boundary you’d just crossed.

“are you okay?” you asked, voice soft, the question half-caught in your throat.

sunghoon didn’t answer right away. he was still staring. still breathing like he’d run here instead of just been standing still.

his jaw flexed once, then again. you could see it — the way he was trying to keep his composure, to collect himself into something human, but failing spectacularly.

his tongue darted out to wet his lips, slow, distracted, and for a second you could’ve sworn you saw it — the glint of a canine too long, too sharp.

his eyes, dark and wide, flashed. not red. not exactly. but something burned behind them, low and glowing.

he took another step back.

then another.

“you should go,” he said finally. voice low. hoarse. like the words scraped on the way out.

you blinked. “did i… do something wrong?”

he shut his eyes for a beat too long. shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“no,” he said, forcing a breath through clenched teeth. “it’s not you.”

and then, quieter — barely audible, like a confession he didn’t mean for you to catch:

“it’s me.”

you hesitated, your fingers curling slightly at your sides.

“do you want me to call niki? or a medic? are you sure you’re alright?”

his eyes snapped shut again. his voice was rough when it came out — like it hurt.

“please. you can leave already.”

you took a cautious step forward anyway. “should i go find one of your roommates?”

that’s when he flinched — visibly, violently.

“fuck—just stay right there. don’t move.”

it wasn’t anger. it was something else. desperation. restraint.

you froze.

his pupils were blown wide now, his chest rising and falling too fast. his hands trembled where they hung by his sides, like he was holding himself back from something.

“please,” he said again. this time quieter. almost a whisper. almost a plea.

you didn’t say anything. just nodded, slowly, and backed toward the door — one careful step at a time.

and the moment you were out, you heard it.

not footsteps.

not words.

just the slam of a side door somewhere deeper in the greenhouse.

like he needed distance. fast.

like he needed saving from something only he understood.

you didn’t look back.

but you didn’t stop thinking about it, either.

not even once.

author's note: i swear the more vampiric side of this story WILL GET HERE, just wait a bit more. i know this is fast paced, i know this is rushed and chaotic, but bear with my little time to plot everything and proofread it. i hope we see each other in the next chapter. send me a request • my masterpost

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