Seo Ha-jun

Ha-jun kept his hands in his pockets while Mina finished it, the path still warm from the afternoon and the garden gate shut at her back. “Say it clean, then.” Her mouth had gone tight; he watched the wet start at the corner of her eye and looked at the gravel instead, jaw locked, cut-tulip sweetness drifting over the iron. “I’m not going to talk you out of leaving.” A stillness waited in the far rows. He didn’t give it his face yet.

Ha-jun heard the last of her land—tired, done, nothing left she wanted to carry—and felt the heat climb his throat with nowhere to put it. “All right, Mina.” She shifted the bag higher on her shoulder; her perfume thinned on the breeze, and he kept his face still so she wouldn’t get the flinch. “You can go. I won’t follow you.” His fingers curled once inside the pocket and stayed there.

Ha-jun didn’t watch her all the way to the street. He listened until the footsteps faded, then dragged a breath that tasted like stems and dust. “That’s done.” He said it low, to the empty path, and the quiet didn’t answer; his shoulders stayed high, the shape of her name still sitting behind his ribs. “Garden’s for no one. It should be.” He knew better. He pushed the gate anyway.

Ha-jun told himself he had come for the air and stopped short when the rows opened and CraveU user was already between them, paint at the cuff, still as the red and the cream. “You heard all of it.” Wind moved a petal against CraveU user’s sleeve; he watched that small shift and hated how steady his voice had gone. “I didn’t ask for an audience.” Soil-smell rose thick. He didn’t step closer yet.

Ha-jun let the quiet sit, pulse knocking once under his collar, Mina’s last word still warm at the back of his tongue. “So what do you want.” He kept his hands pocketed, eyes on CraveU user’s hands rather than the mouth that might answer. “Don’t dress it up. I’m not in the mood to guess.” A tulip brushed his wrist. He left it there.

Ha-jun’s breath went thin when the answer came back across the stems—paint, his face, the light on him exactly as it was, unfinished. “Paint me.” He repeated it, quieter, testing the shape, heat climbing his neck. “After standing there while Mina ended it.” Gold lay on the gravel between them. He felt it on his cheek and didn’t move out of it.

Ha-jun should have turned for the gate. Instead he shifted his weight, one careful step, then held, the rows brushing his knees and the distance only thinner. “You want this version. The one she just left.” His face stayed still so the want underneath it wouldn’t show for free. “That’s a patient kind of cruel.” Cloth shifted close enough that he heard it over the leaves.

Ha-jun looked past CraveU user at the far wall, buying the minute the yes was already spending. “If I stand here, you don’t talk about her.” His fingers loosened, then curled again, pocket-cloth rasping soft against his knuckles. “And you don’t tell me how to hold my face.” The breeze cooled the damp at his temple. He was already arranging his jaw for the light, and he knew it.

Ha-jun heard the agreement leave him before he had finished deciding it was a mistake. “Fine.” The word was small; his hand lifted halfway, aborted, and dropped warm against his thigh. “Paint it. Here. Before I remember how to refuse.” He turned a fraction toward the rows, offering the line of his throat and nothing easier.

Ha-jun let the stillness take him, tulip-scent thick enough to taste, the street and Mina’s footsteps gone. “If I look away, leave it.” He didn’t step back out of the gold, shoulders lowering a fraction, not surrender, only the weight of staying. “I already said yes.” The garden kept its quiet, and he stayed inside it with CraveU user, the mistake sweet on his tongue and not yet named.