underneath the blue sky 💙

Chapter 3: what the night knows.

The apartment was still, wrapped in the velvet hush of post-midnight Seoul. Outside, the amber glow of streetlights cast shifting shadows against the frosted glass of Hanam Apartment's windows. Inside one of the rooms, Hwang Min Gul lay sprawled across his bed, still fully clothed in his black turtleneck and sweats, the faint hiss of white noise leaking from his earphones.

His breathing was steady, but his brows twitched, lips pressed into a tight line. The rhythm of his chest grew uneven — the nightmare had begun.

The old dining room of his childhood home appeared first, eerily still. The wooden table, long since sold off, was polished to a dull shine. The wallpaper, once pale blue, is now cracked and yellowed like old teeth. The room was drenched in a sepia glow, but something was wrong. The air was too still. Too silent. Like the house itself was holding its breath.

She was sitting there.

Jae Yi.

His little sister. Sixteen forever. Her petite frame hunched slightly over a tattered book, lips softly moving as she read. Her jet-black hair fell in a curtain over her face.

Blood.

So much of it.

Crimson soaked the hem of her school blouse, smeared across her cheek like a handprint. It dripped from her fingertips, staining the pages she once loved. A grotesque halo of red framed her as if death itself had painted her into this memory.

Suddenly, her head turned—unnaturally slow, neck creaking like a strained rope.

She smiled.

Eyes wide and glassy, but her mouth… her mouth stretched far too much.

“Oppa… you’re back home?”

The room pulsed. The walls warped. Her smile grew. And then—

Min Gul jolted awake.

He gasped as if yanked from underwater, tearing the earbuds out as his chest heaved. The room was dark, save for the soft blue light from his phone screen still playing a lo-fi playlist on loop. Sweat clung to his skin. His shirt was damp at the collar.

He sat still for a moment, hand pressed against his pounding heart. He didn’t scream. He never screamed. Only breathed. Shakily. Quietly.

Reaching over to his bedside drawer, he pulled out a thin black notebook. Carefully tucked between its pages was an old, faded photograph.

A girl — maybe sixteen — stood in front of a flowering tree, beaming like the sun had spilled into her. Jae Yi, with her sparkly eyes and bunny grin. Her hand was looped through his arm, her head tilted toward him, her cheeks round with laughter. Min Gul beside her looked… warm. Younger. Real.

He stared at the photo for a long time.

“You never smiled like that in the end,” he whispered.

Then, without another word, he lay back on the bed, the photo resting on his chest like a ghost, eyes still wide open — sleep a thing he no longer dared return to.

Tying into Min Gul’s lost memories and the unresolved mystery around Jae Yi’s death:

He stared at the photo for a long time, his thumb gently brushing over her smile as if afraid it might fade.

Then, in a voice barely louder than the hum of the air conditioner, he murmured:

“You were smiling that day too… Weren’t you?”

His voice caught at the edge of something—a memory he couldn't reach.

He lay back, placing the photo on his chest like a weight, eyes wide open in the darkness. As the lo-fi playlist played on, a question echoed in the silence that followed :

Was it an accident…?

The moon hung low and soft, a pale wafer against the indigo sky. The streetlamps of Hanam district bathed the quiet roads in golden haze, and the distant hum of traffic gave the evening a gentle pulse.

Three figures walked side by side on the narrow footpath—Do Yun, his tall frame bouncing with energy even after a long day; Seo Rin, smaller and quieter, tucked into an oversized sky-blue hoodie that nearly swallowed him whole; and Tae Yi, messy-haired and barefoot in his sneakers again, holding his cone like it was a fragile artifact.

Do Yun took a huge bite of his mint chocolate ice cream and winced dramatically. “Why does this taste like toothpaste and regret?!”

Tae Yi nearly dropped his strawberry cone laughing. “Because you have no taste buds left, Mr. Gym-Bro Protein-Shakes-for-Breakfast.”

“Excuse me?” Do Yun huffed. “Protein shakes build discipline. Unlike you, who eats like a six-year-old on a sugar rush.”

“I am on a sugar rush,” Tae Yi grinned, pink already on his cheeks. “That’s the point of ice cream, dummy.”

Do Yun nudged him with his elbow. “You're just bitter ‘cause I didn’t invite you in the first place.”

Tae Yi dramatically gasped, pretending to clutch his heart. “The betrayal! Is this how you treat your favorite roommate?”

“You’re not my favorite.”

“Excuse me?” Tae Yi narrowed his eyes. “I let you borrow my limited edition Totoro socks. That makes me at least the top two.”

Do Yun smirked. “They didn’t even fit me.”

“They were vintage! Not everything is made for tree trunks like your legs!”

“Maybe if you worked out once in a while instead of doodling me with giant forehead chibis—”

Seo Rin blinked out of his thoughts as their voices echoed around him.

Do Yun glanced sideways and raised a brow. “Hey, Ice Prince. You good?”

Seo Rin blinked. “Huh?”

“You’ve been walking like we dragged you into a funeral procession.”

Seo Rin licked his vanilla scoop absentmindedly and replied dryly, “Just enjoying the two of you flirting.”

Tae Yi choked. “Flirting?! I would rather date a sock puppet.”

Do Yun burst out laughing. “Honestly, a sock puppet would probably understand your sense of humor better.”

“I will murder you in your sleep,” Tae Yi deadpanned, then turned to Seo Rin with a fake-teary voice. “He used to be nice to me, you know? Once offered me hot chocolate.”

Seo Rin shrugged slightly, a subtle smile tugging at his lips. “Must’ve been expired.”

Tae Yi let out a dramatic wail. “Why is everyone in this house so mean to me?”

Seo Rin’s smile lingered a second longer, then faded back into a dazed silence. He walked ahead a little, quietly savoring his ice cream while the bickering faded into background noise.

Behind him, Do Yun watched for a bit longer.

He didn’t say anything. Just walked in step beside Seo Rin, closer than usual.

And as Tae Yi ran ahead, yelling about needing to pee and whether ice cream had caffeine, Seo Rin let his eyes drift sideways.

Do Yun’s profile caught the glow of the streetlamp—soft eyes, playful lips, messy hair from the wind.

Seo Rin looked away quickly.

But not before smiling to himself, just a little.

He’s... warm, he thought, almost like it was a secret.

The cheerful chaos of the apartment faded into the distance as Do Woo Young sat hunched over a low desk in their shared bedroom, the soft yellow light of a side lamp throwing long shadows across his usually bright expression.

But now, there was no smile.

His brows were furrowed, eyes scanning documents inside a worn grey folder marked in faded ink:

Dahyun Holdings: Private – Confiscated 2009.

Dahyun Holdings. A subsidiary company long since buried in layers of shell corporations—secretly owned and operated by Jung Myung Soo, the father of Haon Atelier’s current CEO, Jung Hwan Soo.

The papers inside weren’t just reports.

They were silent screams.

There were lists of offshore transactions connected to abandoned factories in Germany—illegal labor practices, under-the-table pharmaceutical testing, money laundering, and property fraud. Attached were grainy photos of scarred workers, old machinery stained with chemicals, and handwritten testimonies from survivors who’d escaped only to be silenced with threats or money.

Victim testimony excerpt – dated 2007, Hamburg:

“They promised us visas and shelter, but instead locked us in for twelve hours a day. I saw a boy faint from fumes. He never woke up. They took his body away like trash. No report. No name.”

Another – Berlin, 2009:

“They changed company names every six months. My sister still has rashes from the chemicals. She was sixteen.”

Do Woo Young’s jaw clenched. Beneath all the color and warmth he carried, a fire burned fiercely—and tonight, it burned for Seo Rin.

This wasn’t just a matter of past crimes.

Jung Hwan Soo had inherited his father’s darkness, nd he had set his sights on Seo Rin.

Woo Young flipped the page to a list of companies under Dahyun Holdings. One name glared back at him: Velten & Morell GmbH – Registered 2020

A new face for the same monster.

He circled the name with a red pen just as Tae Yi’s voice echoed faintly in the hallway.

“Hyung, can I paint on the fridge if it’s washable?”

Woo Young jumped, heart thudding, and quickly gathered the papers into the folder. He shoved it under the bed, along with a small flash drive tucked beneath the cover sleeve.

He barely sat up straight when the door creaked open and in stepped Seo Rin, quiet as a drifting cloud.

The soft click of the door behind him sealed the world away.

“Hyung,” Seo Rin said gently, his voice barely above a whisper, “you didn’t go to sleep yet?”

Woo Young looked up, instantly putting on a faint smile, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah… was just cleaning up some studio paperwork.”

Seo Rin didn’t press. He simply walked over to his side of the room and sank onto the edge of the bed, curling his knees up slightly. His damp hair stuck to his temples, and he hid in his giant sky blue hoodie.

Woo Young glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

“…Long day?”

Seo Rin hummed. “Mhm. My boss is being himself.”

“Want me to break his knees?”

That pulled a soft chuckle from Seo Rin, faint but real. “You’d need to stand in line.”

There was a beat of silence, comfortable and familiar.

Then Woo Young added softly, “You don’t have to talk about it. But just know… I notice. Even when you try to hide it.”

Seo Rin didn’t answer at first. Just lie back, staring at the ceiling.

Then came a quiet, rare confession:

“Sometimes I feel like I’m shrinking. Like if I get any smaller, I’ll disappear.”

Woo Young turned to him, eyes warm now, all traces of the earlier fire softened.

“Then we’ll wrap you in oversized hoodies, steal all the stars, and stitch you into the sky so you’ll always be there—even if you disappear.”

Seo Rin blinked. Then smiled faintly. “That was poetic.”

Woo Young grinned. “I read too much fanfiction.”

They both laughed lightly, and with that laughter, the heaviness melted—if only for a while.

The folder remained hidden beneath the bed.

The truth unspoken.

But in that quiet room, a moment of peace bloomed.

The apartment had finally settled.

Beyond the hallway, laughter echoed faintly as Tae Yi argued over paint privileges with Do Yun. Somewhere in the kitchen, Hae Jin was likely rearranging the spice shelf again. But here, in the calm hush of their room, Woo Young and Seo Rin lay side by side, eyes open, not needing words.

Between them, the silence wasn’t empty.

It was filled with unspoken worries. Secret pasts. Glances too brief, feelings too heavy.

One of them was holding onto a storm.

The other was quietly drifting through one.

And above them, the ceiling fan spun in slow circles, like time waiting patiently.

Outside, the moon cast pale light across the city’s rooftop edges. The world remained unaware of the secrets buried in forgotten files… of a girl with blood on her smile… of a name circled in red beneath a bed where hope and truth wrestled in the dark.

But for now, the night offered them a pause.

Soft. Temporary. Safe.

And they took it.