Chapter Text
Jongwoo had stopped counting the days.
He sat stiffly at the edge of his mattress, hands limp between his knees, eyes locked on the cracked corner of the ceiling where the water stain bled like an ink blot. The rot of the room clung to him now. No matter how many times he washed his clothes or scrubbed his skin raw in the public showers, the smell stayed. Must and mold, and something sweet rotting underneath.
It was morning. Maybe. The window was thick with grime, and light came in the same no matter the hour. Dim. Sickly.
The walls were thin, and every sound from the hallway crawled in—footsteps too slow to be casual, too precise to be comforting. Breathing where no one should be. The soft creak of another door closing just as he opened his own.
He didn't leave his room unless he had to.
Jongwoo flinched when a light knock sounded at his door. He didn’t answer. He didn’t breathe.
“Jagiya,” came the voice, low and lilting, too soft for these halls. “You're going to be late again.”
His stomach turned. He stared at the water stain.
Another pause. He could hear the faint exhale of breath through the door, then the soft pad of retreating footsteps.
It had been three nights since the rooftop. Three nights since he’d woken up with the cold sweat of shame and nausea sticking to his neck and ribs. Since he'd sat hunched over the bathroom sink, trying to scrub the scent of Moonjo's cologne from the curve of his throat. Since the words "it doesn't mean anything" started playing on a loop behind his eyes, like a scratched CD he couldn’t shut off.
Moonjo wasn’t supposed to smile at him like that the next morning. He wasn’t supposed to act like nothing had changed.
But that was Moonjo, wasn’t it?
Always soft-spoken. Always watching. Always patient.
Jongwoo had started locking his door at night again. Not that he thought it would matter.
Downstairs, he could hear Miss Eom’s laugh. Sharp. Bright. A crack in the quiet. Something about it made his spine tighten.
He stood too fast, the floorboards creaking beneath his socks. His phone buzzed where it sat on the pillow. A message from Seok-yoon.
“Late again. Everything okay?”
Seok-yoon. Jongwoo chewed the inside of his cheek.
He hadn’t told him about the rooftop. He hadn’t told him about the way Moonjo lingered too close, or how the other residents never blinked at the stench of bleach seeping from Room 302.
Because Seok-yoon didn’t see it.
He was newer than Jongwoo. Barely two weeks. And still, he smiled like he believed everything was normal. Like Bok-soon’s staring wasn’t enough to make a man lose his appetite. Like the creep from 313 standing in doorways, just watching, just waiting, was somehow fine.
Jongwoo knew something was wrong. He knew.
But the worst part? He still couldn’t prove it.
Every time he tried to bring it up, Seok-yoon would laugh. Nervous. Dismissive. “It’s just an old building, man. You’re working too much. You’re sleep-deprived.”
And he was working too much. Sleep-deprived. Starving. He was unraveling. He could feel it.
But he wasn’t wrong.
He opened his door a crack and peeked out. No one in the hallway.
The air smelled like boiled meat and something bitter. He hated how quiet it always was. How every silence felt staged. Practiced.
He made his way to the stairs, keeping close to the wall. On his way down, he passed 307. The door was slightly ajar. A sliver of darkness inside. The laughter that drifted out wasn’t funny—it was too high, too clipped.
He hurried past it.
The kitchen was empty except for Bok-soon, her back turned to him, chopping something with slow, deliberate strokes. The knife hit the cutting board with the same rhythm every time, like a metronome ticking just for him.
She didn’t turn around.
He pretended not to notice when her hand paused mid-chop as he walked by.
His job had become unbearable. His boss didn’t even pretend to respect him anymore. Jieun—fuck, Jieun—barely answered his messages now. And even when she did, it was stiff, like she was afraid of what he might say.
There was a moment, a fleeting one, where he thought about the rooftop again.
Not Moonjo’s hands. Not the way he laughed, like he was always in on a joke no one else could hear. Just… the sky. The open air.
The only place in Eden where he didn’t feel like the walls were pressing in.
Moonjo had ruined that too.
He was halfway out the door when Miss Eom appeared from behind the kitchen partition.
“Off to work, Jongwoo-ssi?”
Her voice was always too sweet. Her smile stretched too wide.
He nodded. Didn’t meet her eyes.
She stepped closer. “You know, Moonjo-ya has been so worried. He hardly sleeps.”
Jongwoo stared at her.
She tilted her head. “It’s a shame, really. You two were getting along so well.”
He didn’t answer. Just walked out, skin crawling.
—
That night, he didn’t go straight to his room.
Instead, he lingered outside 304. Listened.
Silence.
Then a rustle of movement. A low grunt.
He pressed his hand to the door.
Why was he here?
He should’ve kept walking. But something—some sick magnetism—kept dragging him back.
He knocked once. Lightly.
No answer.
He turned the knob.
Unlocked.
Of course.
The room was dark, lit only by the flicker of the hallway bulb behind him. Moonjo was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, head lolling to one side.
Jongwoo froze.
Moonjo opened his eyes slowly. His face looked pale, too pale.
“You came,” he murmured, voice ragged.
Jongwoo’s throat felt dry. “You left the door unlocked.”
Moonjo smiled, slow and unfazed. “For you.”
There was a sheen of sweat on his skin. He looked… bad. Worse than Jongwoo had seen him before. His button-up was wrinkled, collar askew. Dark circles sat like bruises under his eyes.
“You’re sick,” Jongwoo muttered.
Moonjo’s eyes flicked to him, soft and unreadable. “No. Just tired.”
It didn’t make sense. The man was never tired. He was always alert. Sharp. In control.
Now he looked like he could collapse at any second.
And something in Jongwoo hated how that made his chest twist.
He should’ve left. Closed the door. Gone back to his own room.
Instead, he stepped in.
“Why did you come?” Moonjo asked again, quieter this time.
Jongwoo looked away. “I don’t know.”
A lie. He’d wanted to see. He needed to see for himself if Moonjo was still powerful. Still dangerous.
He wasn’t sure what disturbed him more—that he wasn’t, or that he still felt like he was.
Moonjo smiled, tilting his head. “Did you miss me?”
Jongwoo’s fingers clenched. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“You know what.”
Moonjo pushed himself upright. Wavered.
Jongwoo stepped forward before he could think, catching the man by the arm.
The contact made his stomach turn.
Too warm. Too human.
Moonjo’s breath hitched. Not from pain. From something else.
Jongwoo let go.
“I should go.”
“You won’t.”
And he didn’t.
He stayed, standing in the doorway while Moonjo sat there, watching him. That same look in his eyes—like he already knew what choice Jongwoo would make before Jongwoo himself did.
“You didn’t ask what I’m tired from.”
Jongwoo’s pulse ticked up. “I don’t care.”
Moonjo leaned his head back against the wall. His voice, when it came, was quiet. Frayed.
“It’s not just you unraveling, Jagiya.”
Jongwoo turned sharply. “Don’t call me that.”
“But you are mine,” Moonjo whispered.
Jongwoo’s heart thundered in his chest.
He didn’t leave that night.
And by morning, everything had shifted.