chapter 154
Raiven caught up with him before Haru could reach the other side of the apartment.
His hand closed around Haru's wrist.
"Haru, wait."
Haru stopped so abruptly that Raiven nearly collided with him. For a moment, neither of them moved. The apartment, which had once been filled with the small, ordinary sounds of their life together, suddenly felt unbearably quiet. The only thing Haru could hear was the uneven sound of their breathing and the faint hum of the city beyond the windows.
Raiven slowly turned him around.
Whatever he had been about to say disappeared the moment he saw Haru's face.
He had expected anger. Perhaps shouting, accusations, or even violence born from the shock of what Haru had just witnessed. He could have prepared himself for any of those things.
He hadn't expected this.
Tears had streaked down Haru's face, leaving his skin flushed and his eyes red. His hair was disheveled, and his breathing remained uneven from how quickly he had run from the bedroom. There was something almost vacant in his expression, as though his mind was still trapped in that room, desperately trying to understand what his eyes had shown him.
Raiven's grip loosened around his wrist.
"Haru…"
Haru looked at him.
There was so much hurt in his eyes that Raiven found himself unable to hold his gaze for long. His stomach twisted with a sickening realization of just how badly this looked, how much damage a single moment could cause when there were already weeks of silence and unanswered questions between them.
His heart dropped.
"Please," Raiven whispered.
Haru stared at him as though he were trying to recognize the person standing in front of him.
The sheet wrapped around Raiven's body suddenly seemed unbearably conspicuous. Haru's eyes dropped to it, and the sight made something inside him twist painfully. It was the same sheet from their bedroom, the same one he had chosen and bought because he liked the way the fabric looked against Raiven's skin.
Something so ordinary had suddenly become unbearable.
His gaze returned to Raiven's face.
Then to the hand still loosely holding his wrist.
Something in him recoiled.
Haru shoved him away.
It wasn't particularly hard, but Raiven stumbled backward a step.
"Don't touch me."
His voice was hoarse, almost stripped of emotion.
Raiven froze.
Haru immediately turned away, pressing the heel of his hand against his mouth as another wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm him. He had spent days avoiding Raiven because he hadn't known what to say, convincing himself that distance would eventually make the confusion easier to understand.
Instead, it had only given him more time to think.
And now that he had returned, he couldn't find enough words to describe what he was feeling.
His mind kept returning to the same image.
The bed.
Raiven.
Chang-seo.
He closed his eyes tightly, trying to push the image away, but it remained there, cruelly clear.
"How…"
The single word came out broken.
Raiven remained where he was.
"Haru, I can explain."
Haru let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh.
"Explain what?"
Raiven opened his mouth, but the words failed him.
"I—"
"What am I supposed to think?"
"I know what it looks like."
"Do you?"
Haru turned toward him.
His eyes were still wet, but the grief that had consumed him moments ago was beginning to harden into anger. It was easier to be angry than to stand there feeling completely shattered. Anger gave him something to hold on to.
"Because I don't think you do."
Raiven swallowed.
Haru shook his head, struggling to keep his voice steady.
"I left because I thought I needed space from you. I thought maybe if I wasn't here, I could stop thinking about everything that was happening and figure out what I was feeling."
His voice faltered, and he looked away.
"I came back because I missed you."
Raiven's expression tightened with guilt.
Haru had imagined coming home so many times during the trip. He had imagined walking through that door and finding Raiven waiting for him. He had imagined complaining about the flight, showing him the gifts he had bought, teasing him about how much he had missed him and perhaps pretending he hadn't missed him nearly as much as he actually had.
Instead, he had opened the bedroom door and watched everything he thought he knew collapse in front of him.
"I didn't even enjoy the trip as much as I thought I would," Haru continued quietly. "Because I kept thinking about you."
Raiven lowered his gaze.
Haru looked toward the hallway, unable to bring himself to look at the bedroom again.
"And then I come home and find…"
The sentence died in his throat.
There was no need to finish it.
Raiven took a cautious step toward him.
Haru immediately stepped back.
"Don't."
Raiven stopped.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
"I didn't know you were coming back tonight," Raiven said quietly.
Haru looked at him.
"Does that make it better?"
"No."
The answer came immediately.
Raiven lowered his eyes.
"No. It doesn't."
Haru's hands trembled at his sides. He curled them into fists, trying to keep himself together.
"Then what happened?"
Raiven said nothing.
Haru stared at him, waiting.
"Tell me."
"I don't know how."
"Try."
Raiven finally looked up.
He seemed exhausted. His hair was disheveled from sleep, his face pale, and the sheet remained clutched around him as though he had barely remembered to cover himself before following Haru from the room. There was something painfully lost in his expression.
Haru hated that part of him still noticed those things.
Even now.
Even after what he had seen, some part of him was still worried about whether Raiven was okay. Whether he had eaten. Whether he had slept. Whether he had been taking care of himself.
That was the worst part.
He still loved him.
His anger didn't erase it.
His hurt didn't erase it.
If anything, the fact that he still loved Raiven made everything hurt more.
"Was it him?" Haru finally asked.
Raiven's eyes lifted.
"Chang-seo."
The name seemed to hang between them.
Haru's voice became quieter.
"Did he come here because of you?"
Raiven hesitated.
That hesitation made Haru's stomach twist.
"Answer me."
"He contacted me."
"You said that before."
"I know."
"And I asked you what he wanted."
Raiven looked away.
"I wasn't ready to tell you."
Haru laughed bitterly.
"You weren't ready."
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing away some of the tears that had remained against his skin.
"I gave you space."
Raiven looked at him again.
"I didn't ask you every day. I didn't force you to talk. I still made your breakfast. I still made sure there was food here. I still came home and acted like everything was normal because I thought maybe you just needed time."
Raiven's eyes lowered.
"And this is what you did with that time?"
Raiven flinched.
The words landed harder than Haru intended, but he couldn't take them back. There had been too much building inside him for too long. Every unanswered question, every strange silence, every time Raiven had told him he needed space had gathered inside Haru until he no longer knew where concern ended and resentment began.
He turned away.
"I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel right now."
"Please, Haru…"
Raiven's voice cracked with desperation.
Haru stopped but didn't turn around immediately.
"We can figure this out…" Raiven pleaded. "I wouldn't… I couldn't…"
The words caught in his throat as he struggled to explain something he barely seemed capable of understanding himself. His hands tightened around the sheet, and for a moment he looked as frightened as Haru felt.
But Haru couldn't fill in the blanks for him.
He couldn't keep being the person who understood what Raiven meant when Raiven wouldn't say it himself.
That somehow made Haru angrier.
He wanted Raiven to fight for him.
He wanted him to tell him that what he had seen wasn't what it looked like. He wanted an explanation that would make sense of everything, something solid enough to hold on to when the image in his mind refused to disappear.
Instead, Raiven stood there, looking at him as though he knew he had already hurt him and had no idea how to undo it.
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
Raiven's expression tightened.
"Because I'm scared I'll make it worse."
"It already is," Haru seethed.
The words landed heavily between them.
Raiven looked down.
For several seconds, Haru watched him in silence. The anger that had carried him through the confrontation slowly began to drain away, leaving behind something much heavier.
Exhaustion.
He was tired of wondering.
Tired of being afraid.
Tired of pretending that giving Raiven space didn't hurt him too.
Most of all, he was tired of feeling like he was standing outside a part of the person he loved most, waiting for Raiven to decide whether he was allowed inside.
"I am tired, Jae-wook."
His voice was broken.
Raiven looked up.
Haru stepped farther away, creating a distance between them that felt far larger than the few feet separating their bodies.
Raiven's heart pounded as he watched him turn toward the exit.
"Haru…"
Haru didn't stop.
He walked toward the door with slow, unsteady steps, his shoulders heavy beneath the weight of everything he had been carrying. Raiven remained where he was, unable to find the right words quickly enough to make Haru stay.
He could only watch.
The man he loved was walking away from him.
And behind Raiven, in the bedroom they had once shared, the shadow of his past had returned.
Chang-seo was still there.
And for the first time, Raiven understood that the past he had spent so long trying to bury had not only found its way back into his life.
It had found its way between him and Haru.