The cold winter air hit your face as you stepped out of the apartment. The street was washed in that dim bluish glow that only old streetlamps can make. Snowmelt clung to the pavement and the distant hum of cars blended with the occasional bark of a dog. Your breath came out in pale little clouds. For a moment the world felt clean and crisp, nothing like the tangle of panic clawing at your chest.
You didn’t even catch his name.
Yet here you were, heading to his place.
Your request. Your decision.
Your mother used to tell you that if something seems too good to be true, then it is. Free money for existing, no conditions, from a man you’d never met? With no expectations? Every warning sign in the universe should have been blaring.
You wished it came from someone who made sense. Some distant aunt who heard about what happened, someone who cared enough to lift a bit of your weight. Someone who had any reason to invest in you. This man had none. “Respect,” he said, as if that explained anything.
So your mind did what it always did when it lacked information. It filled the void with the worst.
It felt like being in school again. When the pretty girls whispered behind their manicured hands, when a teacher used the wrong tone, when a small shift in someone’s expression made you spiral. Back then, you worried they thought you were stupid or strange. Now your brain sharpened its claws and gave you darker images.
Maybe this was his scheme. Get women dependent on him financially, then corner them when they had no safety net. Make them repay their debt in ways they never agreed to.
Or maybe something worse. Maybe he collected people like pets. Maybe he chose girls without family, girls who wouldn’t be missed. Maybe he wanted to lock you in some polished apartment and convince himself you were grateful to be caged. Maybe he’d lie in wait until you owed him too much to claw your way out.
Maybe you were walking straight into the lion’s mouth.
Kept wanting answers, even if they scared you.
His apartment was huge. Not the glossy kind you saw in magazines, but the kind that feels curated in silence. Wide windows framed the city in cold blue light. The ceilings were high, the furniture minimal yet expensive. Every surface looked untouched, as if the space belonged to no one at all. No clutter, no warmth, just the faint scent of cologne and old books.
His voice was level, unreadable. His posture too straight, his shoulders square like he was bracing for impact. The sight of him made your stomach pinch. He carried himself with the quiet authority of someone who could end a conversation before it even began. Intimidation wasn’t something he tried for. It was something he was.
“Uh… yeah,” you managed, forcing your voice to sound steadier than you felt. “I have no friend with me this time.”
You hoped solitude might soften him, pry answers loose.
“So… maybe you can tell me more. Why are you doing this?” You tried to meet his eyes.
He didn’t return the gesture. His gaze stayed somewhere past your shoulder, like looking at you hurt too much.
“The plants are in the living room,” he said.
His tone held nothing—no hostility, no warmth. Just a cold, clipped efficiency. It made your skin prickle. You wanted answers, anything concrete, something to hold onto. Instead he gave you walls.
“Did you know my mom or something?” you asked, lowering your voice, trying to coax him into humanity.
“I never met your mother,” he replied. His expression didn’t shift yet he still felt harder to read than before.
“Then why? Why start sending me money right after she died?”
“You can get water in the kitchen,” he said. “And that written agreement you asked for is on the counter. Already signed.”
Then he disappeared down the hall without waiting for your response. A door clicked shut. You weren’t sure if it was his study or another boundary he didn’t want you crossing.
Annoyance crawled up your spine. Why couldn’t he just talk? Why go to such lengths for you, only to act like this? Why keep you in the dark?
You let out a shaky breath and stepped deeper inside, slipping off your shoes in the hallway. The living room felt uncanny. The plants-bright green, glossy-were still wearing their price stickers. New. Just bought. For you? The thought unsettled you more than the room itself.
The apartment around them was too perfect, too serene. A bookshelf lined with hardcovers arranged by height. A low sofa that looked sat on maybe once. Curtains tied back with surgical precision. It was like stepping into a display home where someone lived but never fully inhabited.
You made your way toward the kitchen. Marble counters. Chrome fixtures. Quiet. A single envelope sat by the sink. You opened it with a slight tremor in your fingers.
“Written agreement for services rendered,” you muttered, scanning the page. “Y/N will assist with domestic errands as repayment for transferred funds…”
The name settled in your chest like a stone.
You watered the plants in a loose rhythm, barely aware of your own movements. Your mind drifted with the lecture playing from your phone, the professor’s calm voice filling the cavernous living room. You shifted from pot to pot, tilting the metal watering can like you’d done it a hundred times, not really seeing the leaves or the space around you. Your body worked on autopilot while your brain floated somewhere above your head, absorbing half a sentence here and there. The monotony numbed you in a strangely comforting way.
“…in classical humanist thought, it is assumed that people possess an innately kind nature-”
A presence behind you cracked through your trance.
“Are you done?” he asked.
You startled violently, the sound cutting too close to your ear. The watering can slipped from your hands, hitting the floor with a metallic clang. Water splashed across your feet and soaked into your jeans.
“Oh-damn, shit, sorry,” you blurted, stepping back. Your pulse jumped. He didn’t move except for the lift of a brow, barely a reaction at all.
“…kind nature, though corrupted by circumstance, can still be rediscovered-"
You fumbled to silence it, nearly dropping that too. The screen went dark.
“Uh-yeah. I’m almost finished… let me just clean this up,” you muttered, crouching to wipe at the spill with the hem of your shirt.
“Inherently good?” he echoed. A twitch pulled at the corner of his eye, like the phrase was physically irritating.
“Well that guy didn’t stutter, did he,” you said, trying for humor that fell flat in the cold air. He didn’t even blink.
“Tough crowd,” you mumbled under your breath, heat creeping into your face. You hated awkward silence. It made you talk-anything to fill the void before it swallowed you.
“So, like, you send me money to help me out of the goodness of your heart,” you added, forcing your tone light.
His expression didn’t soften. If anything he went stiller, the muscles in his jaw tightening a fraction.
“I never said it’s out of goodness,” he said. “And you don’t know that.”
A slow, sinking chill threaded down your spine. Something about the way he said it-calm, empty, like a warning without tone-made the hairs on your arms rise.
“Well. I guess it keeps me afloat. So that’s good. Whatever your agenda is.” You straightened, wiping your wet hands on your thighs. “Unless you’re planning to murder or sell me.”
“If I had plans to do that, don’t you think the deal would be sealed by now?” he replied.
You blinked. “I don’t know. With the lack of information, I can make up whatever scenario and let my brain run with it.”
“You have enough information,” he said, as if that were obvious.
“Yeah, sure. Respect, whatever. It doesn’t tell me anything, you know.”
He stepped a little closer-not threatening, just enough that you could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the strict line of his shoulders, the restrained austerity he wore like armor. The apartment swallowed the sound between you. A soft hum from the refrigerator. The dripping from the knocked-over plant. His breathing, steady.
“You should study more and realize your belief in people is baseless,” he said. “Instead of investigating something not worth investigating.”
“Who said I believe in humanity?” you shot back.
He looked at you like you were a child making a naïve claim, his expression unimpressed and faintly disdainful.
“And stop trying to be so enigmatic,” you added, folding your arms. “It’s starting to annoy me.”
You stood facing him between the rows of newly bought plants. The city light framed his silhouette, turning him into something sculpted, distant. He towered above you in height and aura both, his posture unwavering while yours wavered between frustration and curiosity. His eyes-dark and sharp-held you without softness, but not without intention.
The air between you tightened.
Unspoken things simmered.
And the water spreading across the floor chilled your ankles as you waited for his next move.
Jiwon stretched out dramatically across your bed, limbs splaying like he owned the place. His head landed beside yours, tufted hair brushing your shoulder. The mattress dipped under his weight, sending a pulse of dull pain through your ankle, but his presence was comforting in the way only long-time friends could be.
Your room, small and old and a little crooked in the corners, felt warmer with him in it. The fairy lights you strung up three years ago cast a soft glow across the walls plastered with posters—your favorite bands, movie quotes, one you printed from Pinterest because it looked motivational at the time. Polaroids cluttered the mirror, and a framed picture of your family sat on your nightstand, the glass slightly cracked from when you dropped it last semester. The room was old… but it was yours.
“You’re always bored,” you groaned, nudging him with your elbow as you tried to distract yourself from the unmistakable rhythmic sounds coming through the wall.
Your roommate… again. And her boyfriend… again.
Jiwon’s ears perked. “Jesus, I’m so lucky I don’t share a wall with her nasty ass.” He scooted closer to the wall, cupping a hand behind his ear to listen. “Hold on, I wanna know what level they’re on-”
“Oh hell no.” You burst out laughing and smacked his arm. “Stop that.”
The moans shifted, dropping from high-pitched, borderline theatrical, to more breathy and staggered. You opened your mouth to say something, but Jiwon looked at you with a slow-growing grin.
“I think they finished,” he said, voice softening into mischievous smugness.
You didn’t even get a second of relief before the noises started again. Louder. More enthusiastic.
Jiwon snapped. He planted his palm flat against the wall and banged it three times.
“OH HELL NO. THAT’S JUST GREEDY. Fourth time?!”
You doubled over laughing, clutching your stomach. “Ew. Anyways-" You tried to compose yourself, wiping a tear from your eye. “I went to his place today.”
Jiwon raised a brow. “Is that a reference to what they’re doing right now?”
“Oh God, no-” You shoved him. "He still hasn’t told me anything.”
Jiwon rolled onto his side, expression shifting from playful to something almost gentle. “So? It’s free money. If I were you, I would”
“No. Please no.” You pointed at him.
He gasped dramatically. “Come on, I’m not THAT slutty.”
He blinked. “Okay, maybe I am. But that’s not the point.” He sat up slightly, resting his chin on his hand. “What I’m trying to say is… it’s free money. Maybe anonymous sugar daddy runs a secret charity or something.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” you deadpanned.
“And it’s not secret sugar daddy anymore.” He smirked. “It’s Hwang Inho.”
While your laughter shook the walls of your old apartment, while Jiwon sprawled across your bed like a smug housecat and the muffled chaos next door continued without shame, Hwang Inho sat alone in his silent living room.
The contrast couldn’t have been starker.
His place was vast, polished, curated. The kind of apartment where sound didn’t echo because everything was expensive enough to absorb it. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the Seoul skyline back at him in cold slashes of light. The leather sofa sighed under his weight when he leaned back, the whiskey in his hand untouched for so long the ice had melted into it.
And yet his eyes never left the plants.
The ones you overwatered.
Droplets clung to the edges of the leaves, tiny beads gathering in the soil trays. Some leaves shined with too much moisture. One pot had a small puddle forming beneath it. You had done it earnestly, clearly more worried about doing too little than doing too much. You even listened to a philosophy lecture while doing it, completely lost in your own world, barely noticing the man who towered silently behind you.
Such a small, laughable promise-watering a stranger’s plants. But it was something human trash never did. Human trash didn’t contribute, didn’t honor anything, didn’t give when they could take instead. Human trash bled others dry without hesitation.
Your promise, insignificant as it should’ve been, carried weight. An instinctive, almost naive decency. Something he hadn’t seen in years—something he thought didn’t exist anymore.
He felt that unease deep in his bones, like a buried instinct waking up. A feeling he hadn’t allowed himself to experience since before the games. Before the mask. Before he became a man who lived off calculation instead of conscience.
You weren’t supposed to matter.
You weren’t supposed to step out of the shadows he kept you in.
You weren’t supposed to speak to him with those frustrated eyes, demanding answers he had no intention of giving.
He took a slow breath, the whiskey glass warm now in his hand. The city lights bled across the polished floors like fractured stars. He sat still, posture straight, shoulders tense in a way that betrayed more emotion than he would ever voice.
But by existing exactly the way you did-honest, driven, stubborn in a way that didn’t make sense. He wasn’t used to someone meeting him without an angle. Without greed. Without schemes. Even now, when you accused him of having the darkest intentions, you still showed up. You still watered the plants. You still spoke to him with the same mix of fear and defiance that made him unable to look you in the eye for long.
Hated the stirrings of guilt, the subtle pull of curiosity. Hated the recognition flickering in the back of his mind-because he had seen that fire before. A long time ago. In a person who once mattered. A person who didn’t survive.
For a moment, the memory pressed so hard against his chest that he had to look away from the plants entirely.
Then he forced himself still again. Stoic. Masked.
Because this was the line he’d chosen.
Because you were not supposed to become anything more than a distant responsibility he would observe from afar.
And because breaking that distance came with consequences-ones he should’ve been strong enough to avoid.
Watching droplets slide down overwatered leaves, thinking about you.
Letting the past and the present blur in ways he refused to acknowledge.
You walked into his apartment again straight from class, still clutching your bag full of notes you’d never read. You always wrote them anyway-habits stitched into your bones, even though your handwriting crawled across the page like a dying insect and Jiwon always ended up handing you his pristine, color-coded notes anyway.
Your voice floated into the quiet space as you stepped inside and slipped off your shoes. Your ankle ached only a little today.
“Plant babysitter reporting,” you tried.
He sat stiffly on the couch, facing the wide living-room windows, posture perfect, hands resting on his thighs like he’d been placed there by careful fingers. Only when he finally turned his head did he acknowledge you.
“You overwatered them,” he said. “You’ll do something different today.”
“What exactly are we talking about? Just so you know, I already told my friend that if something happens to me, I did not kill myself, and my death was absolutely tampered with.”
A half-joke, half-plea, but mostly nerves.
Your eyes widened dramatically. “Wow. Congratulations. That was a whole… adjective. Next thing I know you’ll be saying ‘ha’.”
“...Anyway.” You exhaled. “So what’s today’s… task?”
“You’ll arrange some books in my study,” he said, finally rising.
He didn’t look back to see if you followed.
You ran your fingers along the spines, muttering letters under your breath, but the titles pulled you in before the alphabet could.
Almost every book was about human nature.
Not the gentle, hopeful side.
No—he collected the dark anatomy of the species.
Hobbes. Schopenhauer. Nietzsche. Han Byung-Chul. Erich Fromm.
An entire shrine to pessimism.
The handful of “optimistic” books sat exiled on the bottom shelf.
Cheap translations of Kropotkin, some shallow pop-psychology paperbacks with embarrassingly soft arguments about human kindness, written like self-help pamphlets.
You started comparing texts, reading passages aloud under your breath, scoffing at the weaker ones.
You sank to the floor without noticing—knees folded, bag tossed aside, your fingers tracing cruel theories about selfishness and decay. You were so deep in it you didn’t hear him return.
A shift in the air behind you.
“I know you’re standing behind me,” you said without turning.
“I was curious when you’d start sorting them,” he said, “instead of reading them.”
You gave him a side-glance.
“No wonder you’re so grim…”
He blinked-slow, almost offended.
“These books about people being evil are actually well-written,” you went on. “Solid arguments, sharp logic. But the optimistic ones? They’re like my essay drafts, and that’s an insult to my incompetence.”
“Pardon?” he asked, caught off guard.
“I mean-sorry, but this is garbage.” You tapped a pastel paperback. “You can’t compare Hobbes to… this. That’s like putting a wheelchair user in a race with a gold-medal sprinter.”
His expression didn’t shift, but something dark flickered behind his eyes.
“Keep reading Hobbes,” he said quietly.
“And go against your own arguments instead of making disabled people run marathons.”
“Unless,” he added, voice low and precise, “your arguments are too weak to begin with.”
The air between you thickened—philosophy disguised as combat, challenge disguised as chores. He wanted you to doubt everything. He wanted you to unravel. He wanted to watch you wrestle with the same bleakness that had eaten him whole.
And you-knees on his floor, surrounded by books about human corruption—weren’t sure if you were strong enough to stay untouched.
At first just a paragraph.
Then entire sections of chapters-kneeling on the floor with books scattered around you like fallen leaves. Your fingers brushed across highlighted sentences, your face pulled into tiny frowns or quiet disbelief, the kind of expressions you only made when you forgot someone could see you.
The room dimmed as the sun slid toward evening, but you didn’t look up. You were lost in an argument from some philosopher who seemed almost offended by the concept of kindness.
You muttered, “That’s not even a fair premise,” under your breath.
That was the moment he returned.
You didn’t hear him come back, but you felt the shift-the weight of his gaze settling on you like a silent hand pressing between your shoulder blades.
“It’s getting late,” he said, voice low and softened by the fading light. He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, head tilted slightly as he looked down at you-still kneeling on the floor, hair messy, surrounded by books in total disarray.
You blinked up at him, dazed.
“I didn’t even arrange them,” you admitted, pushing some hair behind your ear, your fingers smudged faintly with dust.
“I didn’t expect you to,” he said.
He stepped inside. His shoes didn’t make a sound on the polished wood. The lamplight cast him in sharp lines—jaw tense, brows relaxed, but his eyes fixed intently on you, like he was studying the shape of your thoughts as much as your face.
You looked around at the chaos you’d created—hardcovers scattered in every direction, some open, some stacked crookedly, some lying spine-up like wounded animals.
You hugged your knees lightly. “I don’t think all humans are inherently evil,” you said, your voice smaller now, yet firm. “I’m not evil.” You looked up at him with a kind of earnest confusion you didn’t show anyone else.
Not visibly-but something in him stilled, as if the air itself had to wait.
“Because you weren’t pushed to do evil,” he said, stepping closer, gaze steady, almost unreadable. “You haven’t been forced into a corner.”
You frowned, defensiveness flaring.
“So-what? If someone does something that could be seen as evil to survive, are they automatically evil? Does the act make them evil, or does the intention matter?” You ran your thumb along the edge of a page, grounding yourself. “Is it only evil if they enjoy causing harm? Or benefit from it? Or want it?”
He crouched down in front of you then-not too close, but close enough that the lamplight caught in his eyes. His posture was calm, but his words carried the same kind of heaviness as the books around you.
“The whole problem,” he said slowly, “is that human nature will justify anything for the sake of survival. People will do evil as easily as they breathe if it means continuing to breathe.” His gaze flicked to the books, then back to you. “Intention doesn’t absolve. The act does the damage.”
You shook your head. “That’s too black-and-white.”
“There is no white,” he murmured. “Just degrees of darkness. Some people stay on the lighter end until life drags them deeper.”
You stared at him, something unsettled churning in your chest.
“And what about you?” you asked quietly. “Are you evil?”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“That depends,” he said. “On who had to suffer so I could survive.”
Your fingers tightened around the book in your lap.
“You talk like you don’t deserve to live,” you whispered.
He looked at you with a strange mix of restraint and something almost like grief.
“And you talk,” he said, “like you don’t understand the cost of living yet.”
You leaned back on your hands, heart unsteady.
“Well… maybe I want to understand.”
That made him avert his gaze for the first time.
A small, silent deflection.
“You shouldn’t,” he said.
But his voice lacked its usual certainty.
And you weren’t sure if the warning was for you…
gracieabrams
prguitarman
gamechangershow
2087
yousharknotpass