Chapter Text
Hyunjin liked the silence of Saturdays. He had a strict routine, wake at seven, run a few kilometers (he decided to swap it with morning schedule whenever he has other plans that will hit his run at 8-9p.m.), make coffee exactly the way he liked it, and finish whatever responsibilities lingered from the academic week. By noon, he had already checked all the final-year thesis drafts stacked on his desk, answered emails from the department, and double checked his lecture schedule for Monday. Even his refrigerator was spotless. Wiped clean and reorganized, minimalist like everything else in his condo.
He had nothing left to do except wait. By 6 p.m., the doorbell rang, and as expected, it was Chan, holding a six-pack of beer in one hand, wearing that relaxed grin like he’d been waiting for this moment all week. They did this occasionally, shared drinks and quiet company. Hyunjin liked that Chan didn’t expect too much from him. He just existed there, grounding him in a way few people could.
Chan lined the cans neatly on the dining table like little soldiers. “You seem off,” he said casually, cracking one open. “Is something bothering you?”
Hyunjin stayed quiet, taking a long sip from his own can. He didn’t like to be asked questions he couldn’t answer. Not because he didn’t have words. He just didn’t trust them to come out right. Especially now. Felix kept flashing through his mind. Felix, his student. Felix with the honeyed voice and quick smile. Who looked like he might cry last night after accidentally locking eyes with Hyunjin in the amenity area.
Hyunjin felt the memory stab at him again. Felix had looked betrayed, even scared. Like being seen by Hyunjin was a threat. The image haunted him, Felix stepping back like a frightened animal, lips parting, not saying anything, then rushing away. And Hyunjin hadn’t moved. Hadn’t said anything. He just stood there, as if guilt were a coat he could shrug off later.
Felix was younger by eight or nine years, new to the university, and helpless, clueless. Hyunjin adored him for that. But somewhere along the line, admiration twisted. He started making unethical requests. Nothing innocent. Kissing him first. Then harder-to-justify things like asking directly for a blow job. It was always framed as a command, and Felix never said no. But Hyunjin hated how easy it was for him to make Felix do shitty things in his advantage.
The imbalance was real, and it festered in him like something rotten. He didn’t know if Felix noticed from the beginning that he was lusting over him. Or worse—if Felix did and tolerated it out of fear. That thought made Hyunjin sick. And he couldn’t even tell Chan. Not the details. So he drank more instead, like it could flush out the weight sitting in his chest.
Chan didn’t press. Just sipped his beer slowly, his eyes calm but observant. He could tell Hyunjin wasn’t ready to talk. Not fully. Not yet. “You can say it when you’re ready,” Chan said eventually, voice low and steady. “You know that, right?”
Hyunjin stared at the condensation on his can. His fingers were cold, but his throat was burning. “What if I already made the mistake?” he murmured, more to himself than to Chan. “What if I did something… that questions morality?”
Chan leaned back slightly in his chair. He wasn’t surprised, he knew Hyunjin well enough to expect philosophical anguish hidden beneath every silence. “You?” he said with a quiet huff of disbelief. “You live like some kind of modern day monk. Even as an atheist, you live more righteously than most people I know.”
Hyunjin shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand.”
“Maybe not,” Chan admitted. “But I know you. You hold yourself to impossible standards, Hyunjin. So whatever you did, I’m sure it’s not the catastrophe you think it is.”
But Hyunjin wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t implied. It was the very act itself. That he had failed to recognize the power he wielded. That he cearly crossed a line with someone too gentle to say no. And worst of all, that his guilt didn’t come with a solution. Just silence, shame, and a young student who now avoided his gaze.
He didn’t say that part out loud. Instead, he poured himself another drink. Let it settle in his mouth like penance. And let Chan sit there, steady as always, beside him in the quiet wreckage of a Saturday night.
The beer was starting to seep into Hyunjin’s bloodstream. Not enough to make him slur, but just enough to blur the edges of his thoughts. He leaned his head back on the wall, letting the coolness of the paint soothe his scalp. Chan was still nursing his second can, spinning it absently on the table.
“You excited for tomorrow?” Chan asked, casually. “That forum with Brian Greene is kind of a big deal, right?”
Hyunjin blinked, as if pulled from underwater. Of course. The Brian Greene. Renowned theoretical physicist. Columbia University. Author of The Elegant Universe. A man whose work on string theory and quantum mechanics had practically reshaped how popular science was consumed in the west. And Greene was scheduled to host an international hybrid forum on quantum determinism Sunday morning, a rare opportunity for academic institutions to engage with him live.
“Yeah,” Hyunjin said. His voice was hoarse. “I’m the head of the department. I should be thrilled.”
“But?” Chan prompted.
Hyunjin stared at his halfmempty beer can. He should’ve been preparing. Reviewing Greene’s latest papers, finalizing the introductory remarks he’d been asked to deliver, coordinating the students attending the live stream. Instead, all he could think about was Felix. Not his notes. Not the equations. Just Felix with his boba sweet eyes and delicate mouth, the way he’d looked up at Hyunjin like he wanted to speak but had decided not to.
It was the memory of that expression, obedient, hesitant, and fragile, that wouldn’t let Hyunjin go. Felix had been kneeling by his office table, holding the stack of paper clips, his hands trembling slightly as he extended them. Hyunjin had been sharp-edged, coldly ordered, "give me a blow job.” He had guided when Felix didn't know how to hold his shaft. He guided a student for his own pleasure instead of guiding him for better grades.
And Felix had nodded. Just nodded. That’s what broke him now. How quietly he accepted it. How his eyes had filled, glassy and red-rimmed, and how Hyunjin didn’t say anything. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t ask if he was okay. A professor should never let things get that far. Felix was too soft for someone like him. Too kind. Too breakable.
Hyunjin exhaled, stood up abruptly, and walked toward the wide, ceiling-to-floor curtain that draped the living room window. He grabbed it in one sharp movement and pulled it aside.
Chan choked. “Whoa. Wait, wait! Are you okay?” He sat up straighter, blinking at the sudden flood of city light pouring into the room. “You never open your curtains.”
Hyunjin didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed, burning through the glass toward the residential building across from his. Eight floor, Felix’s unit. It was dark. No lights. No movement. The city felt colder than usual. Inside his chest, something tightened.
Now the absence was a void. Empty windows. Curtains drawn. No shadow of movement. Felix had vanished into that cold summer night and hadn’t returned. Had he gone to clear his head? Drop his class? To leave the city entirely? Hyunjin had no idea. He had no right to ask.
Chan followed his line of sight, brow furrowing. “What’s over there?”
“Nothing,” Hyunjin said too quickly, blinking. “Just… there’s usually a cat on that ledge.”
Chan gave him a look. “A cat.”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin muttered, taking another sip of his beer. “Orange. Fat. Has this dumb, judgmental stare. Makes me feel seen.”
There was no cat. There had never been a cat. But Chan accepted it with a raised brow and a small laugh, shaking his head like he knew better than to ask too many questions. Still, Hyunjin kept staring. His eyes were dry, chest tight. The window across from him remained dark. Still no sign of Felix. No glow of warm light. No shadowy movement. Not even the shape of the desk Felix used to sit at sometimes, illuminated by his little desk lamp. Gone.
Chan wandered back toward the couch, muttering something about how weird Hyunjin was acting. Hyunjin didn’t respond. His throat felt tight. He could feel the beer in his bloodstream now. His arms and feet buzzing faintly, head swimming just enough to lower his guard. His hand gripped the curtain, knuckles white, as he leaned forward like being closer would summon Felix back.
But there was nothing.
Just that same hollow ache in his chest, the one that opened up when Felix flinched at his voice, when those wide, innocent eyes brimmed with tears. He hadn’t meant to. But Felix didn’t deserve it. And now he was gone.
Hyunjin’s heart ached as if someone had taken it between their fingers and pressed. Just enough to remind him how fragile it was. How much he didn’t know what to do with this kind of feeling. Unprofessional, overwhelming, and entirely unwelcome. Still, he stared across the gap between buildings, silently begging for a sign that Felix had come home. That he was still there. That maybe it wasn’t too late.
But the window stayed dark. Chan glanced over his shoulder again, then said casually, “By the way… I heard she might be coming.”
Hyunjin didn’t move, still staring at the dark window across the gap. The word she barely registered until Chan added, “Your ex. The one from high school. She RSVP’d last night.”
Hyunjin blinked slowly, the heaviness in his chest deepening. “Then I’m not going.”
Chan snorted. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” Hyunjin said, voice flat, fingers tightening around the cold aluminum in his hand.
“Minho will be pissed,” Chan added, now sitting up properly, facing him. “You know how long he’s been organizing that reunion? He even pulled favors to book the auditorium and coordinate alumni invites. You backing out is like... God, it’s like pulling a foundation stone from a house.”
“I don’t care,” Hyunjin muttered. “Tell Minho I hope the house collapses.”
Chan gave him a long stare. “Why are you so affected with her? After you broke up with her, you never changed and remained cold. While she had to beg you over and over again. And it’s more than a decade now. For sure she’s no longer mad at you. Also most importantly… You already put it in your calendar.”
“I’ll scrap it out.”
That made Chan go still. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll delete it.”
“No, no, no. Wait—Hyunjin , you don’t scrap things out once they’re in your schedule. That’s, like, one of your core rules. I once watched you attend a lecture you hated just because you’d slotted it a week before and felt it was ‘disrespectful to time’ to cancel.”
Hyunjin didn’t reply. He drained the entire can in one slow, heavy pull. Tilting his head back and letting the bitter fizz run down his throat like a punishment. When he finally set it down on the table, the metallic clink sounded final. Heavy. A full stop.
Chan leaned forward, now completely serious. “You have something going on. Really.”
Hyunjin groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. His vision blurred for a second—not from the alcohol, but from the weight pressing in on his temples. “Don’t start.”
“I’m already starting,” Chan said, brows furrowed. “You’re skipping the reunion. You opened your curtains. You stared at a window for ten minutes. And now you’re breaking your own system.”
Hyunjin didn’t respond. His fingers picked at the beer label until it started peeling off in strips. Everything about him looked tense, wound, like something coiled tight and ready to snap. But there was no visible anger. Just fatigue. Something in his eyes that looked more like grief than frustration.
Chan sighed, quieter now. “Is it about someone?”
Silence.
“Someone new?” he pushed gently.
Hyunjin didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not when Felix’s name sat like broken glass on his tongue, too sharp to speak, too dangerous to touch. Not when the memory of those trembling lashes, that tear filled glance, made him want to rip the words out of his own mouth in shame.
Chan exhaled deeply, sensing the wall. He didn’t ask again. Just sat back with his own beer, cracking the tab, the hiss filling the silence between them like static.
Hyunjin turned back to the window. Still dark. Still empty. It was ridiculous how much he wanted the lights to flicker on. How much he wanted to believe Felix would return like nothing had happened. That the pain in his chest wasn’t guilt but something easier to dismiss. But it wasn’t. It was sharp and real and eating away at every corner of him.
So he drank again. The bitterness didn’t help. But at least it numbed.
The egg carton almost slipped from Jeongin’s grip the moment he opened the door to his apartment. “What the hell are you doing here, Felix?” he blurted, voice half a gasp, half a scream as he fumbled to catch the groceries in his arms.
Felix, casually sitting on Jeongin’s couch with his legs up and a half-eaten peach in hand, gave the most nonchalant shrug. “Told you to change your door passcode. It's still my birthday.”
Jeongin dropped the groceries on the counter with a loud thud, one of the eggs cracking in the process. “Are you actually serious right now?” His eyes were wide, fury barely held back by confusion. “You ghosted me. Without warning. Just said you were transferring schools and then radio silence. No messages, no calls. And now, four months later, you’re suddenly here in my apartment like this is some kind of rom-com comeback moment?”
Felix took another bite of the peach, his expression unreadable. “I just needed somewhere to stay until Tuesday afternoon. Seungmin kicked me out after Friday and Saturday night.”
Jeongin froze. “Wait, Seungmin? Isn’t he your best friend?”
“Yeah,” Felix muttered, licking juice from his thumb. “Apparently, I’m a ‘toxic source of distraction.’ His words, not mine.”
Jeongin slammed the fridge shut, his face flushed red with anger. “We already broke up, Felix. You don’t just barge in here whenever the hell you want to. This isn’t a pitstop for your rejection tour.”
Felix set the peach aside, standing slowly and walking toward him with that same soft, calculated expression Jeongin used to fall for and now wanted to rip off his face. “Shut up, Jeongin,” he said quietly. “You still want me. You know you do.”
Jeongin recoiled like he’d been slapped. “You’re the reddest flag I’ve ever waved in my life,” he snapped. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you, period. And aren’t you somehow rich or something? You have your siblings all in thirties and funding you and your bullshit. Your sister or... brother. I don't know. They let you do things your way because you're what? Their baby? Go stay in a hotel. Or hell, or rent a penthouse. Don’t crawl back here.”
Felix laughed. An amused, high pitched sound that had no business being charming but somehow still was. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Jeongin stared at him like he was staring at a ghost. Because in many ways, Felix was one. A beautiful, well-dressed, emotionally reckless ghost with a habit of showing up where he didn’t belong and acting like nothing ever happened.
“You know what your problem is?” Jeongin said, stepping forward now, chest rising and falling rapidly. “You think affection is some infinite bank you can withdraw from whenever you’re low. Like people are just safe houses. Seungmin, me, whoever else you’ve latched onto lately.”
Felix tilted his head. “And you think I’m wrong?”
“Yes!” Jeongin shouted. “Because at some point, you have to ask what it costs people to keep forgiving you.”
The room fell into a tense silence.
Felix looked down for a second, as if considering something. Then he muttered, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Jeongin’s voice dropped. “Don’t say that. Don’t try to pull sympathy out of me with half truths.”
Felix looked up again, but something flickered behind his eyes, briefly, something raw. “It’s not a lie. I burned too many bridges. And some of them were on purpose.”
“Yeah, I noticed, you do everything on purpose,” Jeongin replied coldly to Felix's narcissistic ass.
Felix stepped closer, close enough that Jeongin could smell the faint scent of expensive cologne mixed with peach. “Just until Tuesday,” he said again. “Then I’ll disappear. I swear.”
Jeongin held his ground. “You already disappeared, Felix. You’ve been gone. This version of you… showing up with luggage and no warning? That’s not love. That’s intrusion.”
Felix didn’t argue. He just walked past Jeongin, sat down again, and propped his feet on the couch like nothing had happened.
“I’m still not okay with this,” Jeongin said, arms crossed, heart hammering.
“You’re not okay because you know I won’t let you fuck me,” Felix said while grinning. “Because you know you’re no longer my obsession.”
The cold water ran over Hyunjin’s skin like ice slicing through fog. It should’ve jolted him awake, but it didn’t. Nothing did. The entire forum he’d attended yesterday, the one hosted by Brian Greene, the world renowned physicist whose theories once made his heart race was now a complete blur. He remembered taking his seat. Remembered nodding during Greene’s opening remarks. But after that, it was all static. He had been there, physically present, but mentally lost somewhere between shame and regret.
He stood under the shower longer than necessary, water cascading over his broad shoulders, dripping off the ends of his dark hair. The fog in the mirror only reflected his blurred outline. Tall, sharp-jawed, too perfect in posture to look as wrecked as he felt. His skin was pale against the steamy backdrop, eyes red from another sleepless night. He looked exactly like the man in the mirror always did: pressed, polished, composed. Except he wasn’t. Not inside.
He was unraveling.
He had been losing sleep for nights now, thoughts spiraling endlessly around Felix. Around the look on Felix’s face. Those round, soft eyes glistening with tears. Hyunjin’s stomach twisted. He touched him. Authority. He used it. And it made him sick.
He dried himself off with a mechanical efficiency, dressing in a crisp white shirt, perfectly ironed, buttoned all the way up. His black tie was symmetrical, his Versace glasses spotless. Hair styled back just enough to look effortless. Everything about him, the structure, the appearance of a man in control, was a lie today.
He checked the window again.
Eighth floor. The apartment across. Still empty. Curtains unmoved. Lights off. Felix hadn’t come back.
He swallowed thickly, his eyes burning as he stared longer than he should have. “Please,” he whispered under his breath, knowing there was no one to hear it. “Come back.”
But the silence of the building answered him like it had all weekend.
By the time he reached campus, his chest felt like it had been cored. Hollow. He walked through the halls like a ghost in dress shoes, students offering polite bows as he passed, unaware of the storm in his ribs. He reached his lecture hall, the one he taught advanced quantum mechanics in, gripping the steel handle before stepping inside.
And then, it hit.
Felix wasn’t there.
Hyunjin had half expected him to be. He didn’t know why. He thought, or hoped , maybe stupidly, that Felix would still show up. That he hadn’t vanished entirely. That he hadn’t given up on everything between them.
But every empty was an aching void.
He stood at the podium for several seconds too long, the class watching him quietly, waiting for him to begin. He opened his mouth, but his throat closed. He looked down at his notes. They were unreadable. Symbols and words meant to explain the unexplainable, wave functions, uncertainty principles, decoherence, but his mind was not there.
It was still in his office, outside the gym, inside that dim apartment. With Felix. With the moment he shattered someone too soft for the rigid world he ruled.
Hyunjin swallowed again, tightening his grip on the podium. He wasn’t afraid of being fired. If anything, part of him wanted to be punished. Terminated. Stripped of the title and power he had wielded so carelessly. But it wasn’t about professional consequences.
It was about hurting someone who didn’t deserve it. Someone who looked at him like he was a safe place, and left looking like he’d been betrayed.
He glanced at the door. Still no Felix. He would bend his rules as long as he needed to for Felix. He would welcome him even if he's late or what. And just like that, Hyunjin, dressed in ivory, draped in authority, and framed by the sharpness of gold-rimmed glasses, felt his whole world quietly collapse inside his chest.
It was starting to take a toll on him, this silent, maddening routine. Tuesday, by his schedule, was supposed to be perfectly timed. Dinner by 6:00 p.m., gym by 8:00, then one hour of reading and note consolidation before bed. But at 6:10, Hyunjin was still seated at his immaculate dining table, staring blankly at a plate of untouched food. Cold rice. Grilled salmon now drying under the overhead light. Miso soup gone lukewarm. He hadn’t taken a single bite.
The guilt was unbearable. He didn’t know why it was hitting harder today. Maybe because he was starving and yet couldn’t stomach anything. His body rejected it. His chest twisted like it was full of something rotten. The heaviness of regret sat on his gut, and he felt physically sick with himself.
He hadn’t changed much in his condo. The books were still stacked in vertical precision, the sofa throw still folded at a 90 degree angle. But one thing had changed. The curtain that normally remained tightly drawn had been left slightly open, like a confession. He told himself it was to let in air. But he knew the truth. It was in case Felix came back. In case the apartment across from his balcony lit up again.
And just when he was about to give up, when he pushed back his chair, resigned to go to the gym on an empty stomach to burn off the anxiety even if his schedule was still at eight. Then at 6:30 exactly, a flicker.
A light.
Hyunjin froze. His heart jumped to his throat, and he turned his head sharply toward the window. There it was, warm, golden light filtering through the sheer curtain across the building. Unit 818. Felix’s unit. He was back.
Hyunjin slowly lowered himself back into the chair, breath shallow, eyes locked on the glowing square in front of him like it was sacred. Through the gap in the curtain, Felix came into view. He was setting down his bags, moving slowly, almost heavily. He looked thinner than before. Tired. His face carried the kind of loneliness that hung in the air even after a person left the room. His shoulders slumped as he walked around the space, like whatever happened over the weekend had carved him empty.
Hyunjin’s chest constricted.
He watched in silence, guilt swelling like a tide. He didn’t deserve to be watching, didn’t deserve to long the way he did. But there it was, the ache. The way his stomach curled at the sight of Felix biting his lip in thought, the way his hands carefully arranged a new vinyl player on the table near the window. He looked fragile. Intimate in his solitude. And it made Hyunjin ache with a kind of hunger that had nothing to do with food.
God, he missed him.
He missed the way Felix spoke in a higher tone when he was excited. The way he’d look up with those wide, pleading eyes like he was always on the verge of asking permission, even for air. He missed the accidental brushes of skin. The way Felix had tasted when he dared to lean to kiss, thos small trembling hands, like he didn’t know what to do next. And now, Hyunjin wanted nothing more than to rewind everything. Yet also erase everything.
Felix pulled the curtain aside slightly, letting more of his room show, and Hyunjin instinctively leaned back into the shadows. The music player turned on, something soft, analog, nostalgic. A low hum. Then Felix lit a few scented candles, their glow flickering along the window frame. Hyunjin watched him move gently, like someone trying not to break in his own home.
Then Felix reached for a towel and disappeared from frame.
A moment later, his shirt dropped to the chair.
Hyunjin’s breath caught. Not because of lust, not now, though Felix’s bare back had always stirred something visceral in him. But because this felt too close. Too private. He looked away immediately, face hot, heart rattling against his ribs. You shouldn’t be watching. But still, part of him waited. An instinct he couldn’t kill.
And then, just as Felix vanished from view and the sound of running water probably filled the apartment, Hyunjin saw it.
The flame of one of the scented candles flared too high. A loose napkin from the unpacked bag fluttered off the edge of the table and landed against the wick. The fire spread fast. Paper curled black, and the flame licked up the corner of the curtain.
Hyunjin’s blood ran cold.
He jumped up, nearly knocking over his chair. Grabbed his phone and called Felix immediately. Once. Twice. Three times. No answer.
“Shit, shit, Felix ,” he hissed, sprinting to the door. He didn’t even stop to change, just bolted for the elevator with house slippers, phone in one hand, panic rising in his throat.
The elevator was full. Of course. Packed with residents on their way down, no space, no time. The next one was still stuck at the penthouse, floor 35.
Hyunjin didn’t wait.
He turned and ran for the stairwell, bursting through the fire exit, his breathing loud and ragged as he flew up the concrete stairs from Tower A to Tower B, skipping every second step, lungs burning. His legs felt like stone but his adrenaline didn’t let him stop. Eighth floor. Come on, come on, faster.
He burst through the door of the hallway, not caring about the stares from other residents. “There’s a fire!” he shouted. “Unit 818! Fire!”
He dialed emergency 911 as he pounded his fists against Felix’s door, yelling his name, harder and harder, his voice cracking. “Felix! Open the door! Felix!”
No answer.
>>>>>>>>