Chapter Text
The first time Moon Hyeonjoon saw Lee Sanghyeok, he thought he was seeing a ghost. Not a real ghost, obviously—those were for horror movies—but the kind of beautiful, impossible ghost from the romcom manhwas he secretly read, or the breathless Kdramas his mother squealed over. The kind that stops the air and stretches a single second into something fragile and endless. It was that feeling, he decided. The ghost of a feeling he’d never had before.
It happened in the marble-floored foyer of the Lee mansion, a cavern of cold white stone and ceilings so high his own breath seemed to echo back at him. He’d never seen a house so big. It felt less like a home and more like a museum, or one of those castles from a historical drama, all imposing grandeur and silence. The staircase alone was a wide, curving monster of dark wood, something a prince might descend. Hyeonjoon, ten years old and swimming in a slightly-too-big dress shirt, clutched his mother’s hand like a lifeline, his knuckles bleaching white. He felt like a trespasser in a place where you weren’t allowed to touch anything, where even a whisper might shatter the perfect, sterile calm.
Then the boy appeared at the top of the curved staircase.
The boy—Sanghyeok—was fourteen, tall for his age but lean, dressed in a simple navy sweater and dark trousers. He wasn't smiling, but his face wasn't unfriendly. It was just quiet, like the surface of a lake at dawn. He was pale, Hyeonjoon noted, a stark contrast to Hyeonjoon's own sun-tanned skin, but Hyeonjoon still found the porcelain fairness beautiful. A pair of glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, and when his eyes met Hyeonjoon’s, the world seemed to pause. For one suspended breath, they just looked at each other.
"Sanghyeok-ah, come and greet our guests."
Junggyun ahjussi’s voice broke the spell. Hyeonjoon glanced at the man who was soon to be his stepfather, who was waving Sanghyeok down the stairs. Oh, Hyeonjoon realized with a jolt. This must be the son Junggyun ahjussi talked about when he visited Mom.
Then Sanghyeok descended. He didn't bounce or scamper, but moved with a careful, deliberate grace that felt older than his years. He stopped directly in front of them, and then, to Hyeonjoon’s utter astonishment, he knelt. Right there on the cold marble floor, he brought himself down to Hyeonjoon’s eye level.
"You must be Hyeonjoon," he said. His voice was softer, warmer than Hyeonjoon had imagined. "I'm Sanghyeok. It's nice to meet you."
He held out his hand. Not for a childish high-five, but a proper handshake, as if Hyeonjoon were another adult. Hyeonjoon’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He let go of his mother’s hand, his own fingers feeling small and timid as he reached out and took it. Sanghyeok's hand was warm and steady, his grip firm but gentle.
Something, in that moment, shifted deep in Hyeonjoon’s chest. It wasn’t a thought. Thoughts were things like I’m scared or this house is big. This was a feeling—a bright, warm spark that bloomed behind his sternum, flooding him with a sudden, shocking sense of safety. He didn’t have a name for it. He just knew that the boy with the calm eyes and the steady hand made the too-big, too-cold house feel a little less terrifying.
“You can call me hyung, if you want,” Sanghyeok added, letting go and standing up. He offered a small, genuine smile. It was like watching the sun come out from behind a cloud.
The early days were a shy, gentle weaving of two lives into a single home—a transformation that felt nothing short of miraculous.
Hyeonjoon's mother and Sanghyeok's father were awkwardly, visibly in love. It was in the way Junggyun ahjussi’s usually stern face would soften the moment he heard her laugh from another room. It was in the way she'd reach out and straighten his tie without thinking, her fingers lingering for a second too long. For the first time, Hyeonjoon could see a light in his mother's eyes that had been missing for years. The quiet loneliness that used to shadow their dinners in their old apartment, a sadness that had worried him deeply, had simply vanished. She was happy, truly happy.
It was the same for Sanghyeok's father. Sanghyeok watched, with quiet astonishment, as his father's rigid shoulders began to loosen. The man who used to dine in stern silence now asked about their days, told awkward jokes that made Hyeonjoon's mother giggle, and genuinely seemed to enjoy sitting at the table with them. They instituted a weekly "family day", started new traditions like movie nights and Saturday morning pancakes, and fell into a comfortable, bustling routine. Four people, all broken by loss in different ways, found themselves fitting together into a picture that was unexpectedly, unbelievably whole.
This newfound wholeness was the quiet backdrop to everything. It was the reassurance humming in the walls that this merger wasn't a transaction of convenience, but something fragile and real. It was the safety net that allowed two boys to tentatively reach out to one another.
And then there was Sanghyeok… Sanghyeok was the constant, gentle center of Hyeonjoon's new universe.
Hyeonjoon had not been sure about Sanghyeok at first. The older boy seemed like part of the mansion itself—polished, quiet, and somewhat untouchable. But certainty, Hyeonjoon learned, was built in the small, daily moments that followed.
The first brick was laid when Sanghyeok found him lost on the second floor, paralyzed before a hallway of identical dark-wood doors. Without a word, Sanghyeok had simply taken his hand—a gesture that was becoming familiar—and led him to the right room. “My room is just across the hall,” he’d said, his tone matter-of-fact. “If you get scared at night, or get lost again. Just come over.”
That open door became a symbol.
At first, Hyeonjoon drifted through it out of shy curiosity. Then, gradually, with the easy entitlement of a younger sibling. He learned early on that Sanghyeok hyung liked order—his books arranged by color and genre, his desk always cleared before bed. He liked classical piano, but never complained when Hyeonjoon blasted loud, brassy pop from his speakers. He was devastatingly good at strategy games, yet never made Hyeonjoon feel stupid for losing. Instead, he pointed out the clever moves Hyeonjoon had almost made.
“See?” he’d say gently. “You’re getting better. Your mind works quickly.”
Game nights became ritual. So did homework sessions at the kitchen table long after their tutor had left. Sanghyeok explained difficult math concepts with infinite patience, his voice a low, steady hum. Hyeonjoon, who was supposed to be watching the equations take shape, often found his gaze wandering instead—tracing the slope of Sanghyeok’s nose, the long lashes casting shadows against his cheeks in the lamplight. A strange warmth would bloom in his stomach, fluttering and unsteady, and he’d snap his eyes back to the page, heart skipping in a way that felt inexplicable and faintly alarming.
One afternoon, their stern economics tutor, Mr. Park, ended the lesson by clapping Sanghyeok on the shoulder.
“You have a first-rate mind, Sanghyeok-ah,” he said approvingly. “If you stay an extra hour, we could cover advanced theory. It would put you far ahead of your peers.”
Sanghyeok, ever dutiful, began to nod.
From his seat at the table, Hyeonjoon’s pencil stilled. A hot, prickling sensation crept up his neck. He watched the tutor’s hand resting too comfortably on Sanghyeok’s shoulder, listened to the praise that reached for more of his hyung’s time, and a single sharp thought split through him, sudden and unreasonable.
Why does everyone get to take him?
“He can’t,” Hyeonjoon said, his voice sharper than he meant it to be.
Two sets of eyes turned toward him. He faltered, then hurried on, grasping for something—anything. “We… we have that thing. With Mom. Remember?”
Sanghyeok’s brows knit slightly. There was no such plan. Still, after a moment, he smiled politely and declined the offer.
Later, he asked Hyeonjoon about the thing. Hyeonjoon only shrugged, cheeks warm with a confusing mix of shame and victory. Sanghyeok had stayed. That was what mattered.
Bedtime was always Hyeonjoon's favorite time of the day.
Every night, like clockwork, Sanghyeok appeared at the doorway of Hyeonjoon’s room, leaning against the frame as if it belonged to him, and asked, “All set?” It was a quiet handoff—from the shared world to the private one of sleep. Hyeonjoon lived for it.
His attachment took on physical form. He stood a half-step closer to Sanghyeok than necessary, a human satellite drawn into his orbit. In crowded rooms, his fingers would find the cuff of Sanghyeok’s sleeve or the strap of his backpack, a grounding touch—instinctive, unconscious—even after he’d grown tall enough to look Sanghyeok in the eye. It was dismissed as a younger brother’s reliance, and in part, it was.
But beneath it thrummed something quieter. More insistent.
Mine. My hyung.
Months in, a summer thunderstorm shook the mansion to its foundations. Hyeonjoon, who had always hated storms, jolted upright in bed, breath catching with each crack of thunder. Before the next flash of lightning split the sky, his door creaked open.
Sanghyeok stood there, backlit by the hall, a glass of water in his hand. “Can’t sleep?” he asked softly, though he already knew.
Hyeonjoon shook his head, fear knotting his throat too tightly for words.
Sanghyeok came in, set the water on the nightstand, and—without asking—sat on the edge of the bed. He didn’t lie down. He simply leaned back against the headboard, solid and present, a living barrier between Hyeonjoon and the storm.
“It’s just noise,” Sanghyeok said quietly, watching rain streak the window. “It can’t get in here.”
“Promise?” Hyeonjoon whispered. The word slipped out before he could stop it.
Sanghyeok looked down at him. In the storm-dark light, his face was all softened edges. He reached out and tucked the blanket more securely around Hyeonjoon’s shoulders, the gesture so gentle it made Hyeonjoon’s eyes sting.
“I’m here, Joon-ah,” he said, using the nickname for the first time. It landed like a vow. “I won’t leave.”
Hyeonjoon believed him.
He fell asleep to the sound of rain and the steady rhythm of Sanghyeok’s breathing beside him, that warm, nameless feeling glowing quietly in his chest—small, steady, and dangerous in the way only embers are.
That ember was carefully tended over the next years. It was fed by a thousand small pieces of evidence that Hyeonjoon collected and hoarded in his heart like precious stones.
He learned that Sanghyeok, for all his calm, had a sly, dry sense of humor that emerged only when they were alone, usually resulting in Hyeonjoon snorting juice out of his nose. He learned that Sanghyeok hated grape-flavored candy but would always accept the single purple jelly bean Hyeonjoon picked out for him from the pack. He saw the intense focus Sanghyeok applied to everything, from his studies to teaching Hyeonjoon how to properly throw a spiral with a football in the vast backyard.
When Hyunjoon turned thirteen and a group of older boys at his new private school decided “the charity case stepbrother” was their favorite new target, it was Sanghyeok who ended it. He showed up unannounced, a silhouette against the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway. He was seventeen, dressed in his academy uniform, his bag slung over one shoulder. He walked straight to Hyunjoon’s locker, where Hyunjoon was trying to look invisible as a semicircle of boys peppered him with “questions” about his mom’s gold-digging talents.
Sanghyeok inserted himself into the space, his back to the bullies, and turned to face Hyunjoon. “Forgot your history text,” he said, his voice perfectly normal, as if they were alone. “Mom said you’d need it.” The casual use of the word ‘Mom’ in that context was a first, deliberate strike.
Then, slowly, he turned his head to look at the ringleader over his shoulder.
It was the first time Hyunjoon had ever seen true fury on Sanghyeok’s face. It wasn’t loud or red. It was a cold, terrifying stillness. His eyes, usually so calm, had gone dark and sharp, boring into the other boy with a silent, promised violence that was far more frightening than any shout. He didn’t say a word. He just looked. The entire group seemed to shrink, the sneers melting into unease.
A frantic, protective instinct shot through Hyeonjoon. He’ll get in trouble. Because of me. He reached out and tugged urgently on Sanghyeok’s sleeve. “Hyung, it’s fine. Let’s just go.”
Sanghyeok held the glare for a second longer—a final, silent warning—before letting Hyeonjoon pull him away. His arm, when Hyunjoon’s fingers brushed it, was corded with tension, hard as stone. The bullies never came near him again. Rumor had it the ringleader’s father had received a very polite, very chilling call from the Lee family office.
At fifteen, Hyeonjoon broke his wrist during a misguided parkour attempt. Sanghyeok, home from his first year of university, canceled his weekend plans without a second thought. He spent the next six weeks as Hyeonjoon’s personal assistant, helping him with buttons and zippers, taking meticulous notes in class, and reading his textbooks aloud to him. His patience was bottomless. Hyeonjoon, hopped up on painkillers one evening, mumbled, “You’re too good to me, hyung.” Sanghyeok had just smoothed his hair back from his forehead, his touch lingering. “There’s no such thing,” he’d replied softly.
The dynamic shifted as they grew. Sanghyeok became a confidant. Hyeonjoon, at sixteen, could talk to him about his dreams of studying art, his anxieties about the future, even his confusing, brief crushes on classmates—crushes that felt like pale imitations of the constant, steady sun that was his love for Sanghyeok. Sanghyeok always listened, his gaze thoughtful, offering advice that was wise beyond his years, never dismissive.
Hyeonjoon’s love became the quiet backdrop of his life. It was in the way he’d memorized the exact sound of Sanghyeok’s footsteps, in the specific brand of tea he’d buy, in the secret sketches that filled his notebooks. It was also in the way he’d subtly shift his stance to block a classmate’s admiring gaze, or in the low-grade irritation that simmered when their father called Sanghyeok away. The feeling was never examined, never named. It simply was—a fundamental rule of his universe: Sanghyeok was his. His world had realigned itself around Lee Sanghyeok the moment he’d knelt on that marble floor. Every shared laugh, every quiet moment, was another thread in the invisible tapestry that connected them.
He existed in the warmth of Sanghyeok’s presence, and for those years, it was enough. It was everything.
The ember was snuffed on a Tuesday.
It was a day that began with perfect, ordinary light. Hyeonjoon’s mother had kissed his forehead, her perfume a soft cloud of jasmine. “Be good to your hyung,” she’d said, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. She’d turned to Sanghyeok, a playful glint in her gaze. “And Sanghyeok-ah, hit him when he’s too stubborn. This kid needs it sometimes, I swear to god—”
“Mom!” Hyeonjoon had groaned, his cheeks flushing, but he was smiling.
She’d just laughed, blowing them both dramatic flying kisses—a silly, cherished ritual that had followed them from their old apartment into this new life. “I’ll be back after my gallery meeting! Don’t burn the house down!”
They’d watched her go, the echo of her laughter still hanging in the foyer. It was supposed to be a normal day.
She never came back.
The call came in the late afternoon, its ring a shrill, metallic shriek in the quiet house. The voice on the other end was professional, detached, delivering words that were too brutal to comprehend all at once: a distracted driver, crossing the center line on a rain-slicked road… no time to react… we’re very sorry for your loss.
Their father took the call. Hyeonjoon watched, frozen, as the color drained from his stepfather’s face, leaving it the shade of cold ash. The man didn’t make a sound, but the phone slipped from his fingers and clattered to the marble floor, the crack echoing like a bone breaking.
After that, everything happened in a sickening, blurred rush—the arrival of official people, the hushed, terrible voices, the way the very air in the mansion seemed to thin and turn to ice.
The warmth of the house, the light, the joy she had woven into the home, of its very fabric… it died with her, all at once, in the space of a single phone call.
Hyeonjoon’s grief was a wild, screaming thing. It was tears that wouldn’t stop, nightmares that left him gasping, a hollow ache that made food taste like paper. He clung to Sanghyeok, the only anchor in the sudden, violent storm.
Sanghyeok’s grief was different. It was silence. It was a terrifying, controlled composure. Hyeonjoon didn’t understand it. He saw his hyung not crying, speaking in low, even tones to the adults, handling the dreadful logistics with a chilling calm, and a part of him felt betrayed. Why wasn’t he falling apart, too?
He didn’t see the way Sanghyeok’s hands would tremble when he thought no one was looking. He didn’t see him staring blankly at a wall for hours, or the way he’d flinch at the sound of a car door. Sanghyeok had simply folded his own pain away, sealed it in a lead box, and placed it on a high shelf. After all, he had a little brother to look after. A promise to keep. She had been his mom for seven years—the only one he’d ever really known.
Their father—for that’s what Junggyun ahjussi had become in all but blood—was broken in a third, more corrosive way.
His grief curdled. The profound love that had softened him turned inward, fermenting into a cold, hard bitterness before spilling outward. The man who had smiled at their mother became a ghost of stern expectations and icy disapproval. He became a man of coldness; everywhere he went, he made sure the chill was felt. His employees, who once respected him, now feared him. His old friends found themselves gently, firmly pushed away. He buried himself in the sterile, predictable world of business, becoming the ultimate professional in a world where he had once, foolishly he now believed, allowed himself to hope for light, for love, for a second chance at family.
He was utterly, incurably heartbroken. And his broken heart began to dismantle the home she had built.
“Lee Sanghyeok.” Their father’s voice was a low crack of thunder in the quiet study. He held a report card, his thumb pressing into the paper as if trying to erase a stain. “What is this? An 89 in Advanced Calculus? You are months from university admissions. Do you think they hand out seats to the ‘almost good enough’?”
Sanghyeok, standing at attention before the massive desk, didn’t flinch. Hyeonnjoon, hovering near the doorway, saw only the rigid line of his brother’s back. “I will do better, Father.”
“You will.” The paper was placed down with terrifying precision. “You are not a child playing games in the yard anymore. The world is a competition you cannot afford to lose.”
It was never just about the grades. It was the reason behind the demand, a desperate, broken love twisted into something cruel: If I can’t make you happy, I will make you untouchable. If I can’t protect you from grief, I will armor you against everything else.
The obligations became a relentless tide, sweeping away the remnants of their childhood. Endless meetings with tutors who spoke of futures Sanghyeok never chose. Preparatory courses on weekends, the names of elite universities becoming a dull chant. “Shadowing” at the company—less about learning, and more about sitting silently in cold meeting rooms, absorbing the weight of a legacy that felt more like a sentence.
The pressure was the new architecture of their home. Every expectation was another brick, every criticism another lock on the gilded cage. And with each turn of the key, their father sealed himself in his study, a wounded king in a fortress of his own making. Sanghyeok, in turn, began to disappear. Not physically, but piece by piece—the dry laugh at dinner became rarer, the light in his eyes during their games dimmed. He was shouldering expectations meant for two, and to bear the load, he had to bury his own heart deeper, where it wouldn’t get in the way.
One evening, a few suffocating months after the funeral, the pressure finally found its true target: Hyunjoon.
His mind, still a swamp of grief, had fumbled a complex science research paper. The glaring red ‘C’ at the top seemed to pulse in the dim light of the living room, a beacon of his failure.
Their father held the paper between his thumb and forefinger, as if it were contaminated. The silence stretched, thin and sharp.
“Is this,” he began, his voice the quiet, dangerous scrape of winter glass on stone, “the best you can do? How many times do I have to see this? When will you get it together?”
Hyeonjoon felt his mouth go dry. He couldn’t look up.
“Do you think the world will stop turning to coddle your sadness?” The question hung in the air, toxic. Then, the killing blow, delivered with icy precision: “Your mother would be ashamed of this… this lack of discipline.”
The air left Hyunjoon’s lungs in a single, soundless rush.
Mom.
It was the first time she had been spoken in the house by anyone but him or Sanghyeok since the accident. It hadn't been a whisper of grief, a shared memory. It had been yanked from her quiet, sacred place in his heart and sharpened into a blade by the one person who was supposed to guard it most.
He should be furious. White-hot, screaming rage should be boiling up in his throat. How dare you? How dare you use her to punish me? But the anger wouldn't come. All he could feel was a dizzying vertigo, as if the floor had just vanished beneath him.
Because in the wake of her name came her ghost—not the sad, distant ghost of the funeral, but the real, living her. The crinkle of her eyes when she smiled at his terrible drawings. The proud warmth in her voice when she bragged about him to her friends. The feeling of her fingers ruffling his hair. It was all so vivid, so alive in that instant, that the collision with reality was physical.
She was gone and he had failed.
The two truths slammed into him with the force of a truck. The grief was no longer a dull ache; it was a fresh, lacerating wound, salted with a shame so profound it burned. A violent tremor started deep in his core, rattling his ribs. His vision blurred, not with tears, but with a hot, mortifying haze. He couldn't look at his father. He could only bow his head, his cheeks flaming, wishing with every fiber of his being that the polished floor would crack open and swallow him into merciful darkness. Anything to escape the excruciating humiliation of failing her, and of having her memory used to prove it.
Before the first traitorous tear could trace a path down his cheek, a figure moved.
Sanghyeok stepped forward. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture. It was a subtle, definitive shift of his body, placing himself in the line of fire. Hyunjoon stared at the worn fabric of his brother’s gray sweater, at the tense set of his shoulders beneath it.
“The grade is my fault, Father.” Sanghyeok’s voice was eerily calm, a flat, still lake. “I was the one who told him what materials he should use and ended up following the wrong one. It was an error on my part.”
What? Hyeonjoon whipped his head to look at him.
How could you have helped me? You didn't even know about this paper in the first place.
Their father’s gaze shifted from Hyunjoon to his eldest son. The scrutiny deepened, the temperature in the room dropping another degree. “Your error?” he repeated, his voice dropping to a lethally quiet register. “Then the failure is twofold. You will both master the correct material by week’s end. And you, Sanghyeok, will submit a full strategic analysis of the company’s Q3 financial reports by Monday morning.”
“Yes, Father.” Not a flicker of hesitation. Not a hint of the exhaustion Hyeonjoon knew lived in his brother’s bones.
Their father left. The echo of his footsteps was a verdict in itself.
Silence, thick and cloying, filled the space he vacated. Hyeonjoon stared at the back of Sanghyeok’s sweater, at the proud, stiff line of his spine that now carried an extra, invisible weight. The old, warm feeling—he protected me—tried to ignite, but it was instantly crushed under a heavier truth: because of me.
Sanghyeok finally turned. The calm mask was still in place, but his eyes, when they met Hyeonjoon’s, were full of a deep, weary concern. “Hey,” he said, his voice soft. “You okay? You know he didn’t mean what he said, right? Not about that. Mom would be so proud of you, Joon-ah. She always was.”
The gentle assurance broke the last of Hyeonjoon’s composure. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he stumbled forward and wrapped his arms around Sanghyeok, burying his face in the familiar scent and softness of his sweater. He knew, with every fiber of his being, that he could count on this. On him.
Sanghyeok’s arms came around him, solid and sure, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Hyeonjoon’s head. The embrace was a sanctuary. For a moment, the hurt, the shame, the icy words—they all receded, muffled by the steady heartbeat against his ear.
Maybe this wasn’t so bad, Hyeonjoon thought, clinging tighter. He had Sanghyeok hyung, after all. Right? It was a desperate, fragile comfort. But even as he held on, the sour taste of guilt—the price of this protection—lingered on his tongue, a bitter counterpoint to the steady heartbeat in his ear, and to the fading echo of a vow made in another lifetime: I won’t leave.