Chapter 2: First Ritual
The silk of the nightgown was cooler than he’d expected. It whispered against his thighs as Hyukjae shifted on the enormous bed, the sheets a stark, high-thread-count white against the room’s gray shadows. Dawn was just a suggestion at the edges of the cityscape, a faint blush behind the skeletal skyline.
A hand settled on his waist.
Hyukjae went still. The touch was through the lace, deliberate. He could feel the heat of it, the slight pressure of each finger.
“Our first Sunday starts now.”
Donghae’s voice was a low rasp, sleep-rough and too close. Hyukjae turned his head on the pillow. In the half-light, Donghae’s profile was all sharp lines and subdued intensity. He wasn’t smiling. His gaze tracked over Hyukjae’s face, down the column of his throat, to where the lace edge of the gown met his collarbone.
“It’s barely light out,” Hyukjae murmured. His own voice felt unfamiliar.
“It’s light enough.”
The hand moved, not away, but up, tracing the intricate pattern over his ribs. Hyukjae’s breath hitched. This was protocol, he told himself. A clause in the fine print. The consummation of a business arrangement. His sister had signed the contract. He was just the substitute ink.
Donghae leaned in. Hyukjae caught the scent of him—clean, expensive soap and underneath, something darker, like sandalwood and yesterday’s whiskey. He closed his eyes a second before their lips met.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t the chaste, dry brush of the chapel. This was possession. A firm, searching pressure that demanded a response. Hyukjae’s hands came up, flattening against Donghae’s bare chest—he was shirtless, skin warm and firm under Hyukjae’s palms—to push him away, to create space. He meant to.
He didn’t.
A sound escaped him, muffled between their mouths. It sparked something. Donghae’s control splintered, just for a heartbeat. His other hand came up to cup Hyukjae’s jaw, his thumb brushing the corner of his mouth, and the kiss deepened, turned hotter, wetter. Obligation melted, for a terrifying second, into something raw and reciprocal. Hyukjae’s fingers curled against Donghae’s skin.
As suddenly as it had deepened, it ended.
Donghae pulled back, breathing uneven. He searched Hyukjae’s face, his own expression a conflicted storm. The tenderness from the chapel was gone, replaced by a frustrated hunger that seemed to alarm even him.
“Get up,” he said, the command softened by the gravel in his voice. “Put on something else. That… isn’t you.”
He swung his legs out of bed and walked naked to the en suite bathroom, closing the door without looking back. A moment later, the shower hissed on.
Hyukjae lay there, staring at the ceiling, his lips throbbing. The taste of Donghae—of coffee and mint and that underlying darkness—was still on his tongue. He touched his mouth with trembling fingers. That wasn’t you. Was it the kiss he meant, or the nightgown?
He climbed out of the vast bed, the marble floor icy under his feet. His suitcase, a modest, beaten thing, looked absurd next to Donghae’s minimalist wardrobe. He found jeans and a soft, faded gray sweater. He shed the lace nightgown like a skin, letting it pool on the floor, and dressed in his own clothes. The normalcy of the fabric was a relief.
He wandered out into the main living area. The penthouse was silence and gleaming surfaces. It felt like a museum, or a very high-end prison. He stopped before the floor-to-ceiling window, the entire city laid out beneath him in a diorama of steel and light. He could see the thin ribbon of the river, the ant-like crawl of early morning traffic. It was a view designed to make you feel powerful.
He felt insignificant.
“Coffee?”
Hyukjae turned. Donghae stood in the doorway to what Hyukjae assumed was the kitchen. He was dressed now, in dark trousers and a simple black knit sweater, his hair damp. He held two mugs.
“Please.”
Donghae walked over, handed him a mug. Their fingers didn’t touch this time. Hyukjae took a sip. It was perfect, rich and bitter.
“You don’t have to stay in that room,” Donghae said, leaning a shoulder against the window. “The whole place is yours. In the contract.”
“Right. The contract.” Hyukjae looked at him over the rim of his mug. “Which you wrote. Which my sister agreed to. Which I know nothing about, beyond the fact that I’m her replacement.”
Donghae’s jaw tightened. “The terms are simple. Two years of public matrimony. Discretion. Appearances at certain functions. In return, your family’s debts are cleared, and their standing is restored.”
“And the private terms?”
“That’s private.”
Hyukjae laughed, a short, sharp sound. “I’m wearing a wedding ring for you. I think I get to know the private terms.”
Donghae studied him. The morning light carved planes into his face, making him look both older and more vulnerable. “The private term is you,” he said finally, his voice low. “You’re here. In my space. That’s the term.”
“As what? A hostage? A trophy?”
“As my husband.” Donghae pushed off from the window, closing the distance between them. He didn’t touch Hyukjae, but his presence was a physical thing. “You felt it in the chapel. You felt it ten minutes ago. This isn’t a one-way transaction.”
Hyukjae’s heart hammered against his ribs. “You wanted her.”
“I wanted the alliance.” Donghae’s gaze didn’t waver. “I got you instead.”
The words hung there, charged and ambiguous. I got you. Was it a complaint? A revelation?
Before Hyukjae could dissect it, a key turned in the front door lock. It opened, and Mr. Kim, Donghae’s secretary, stepped inside. He was impeccably dressed, a leather folio under his arm. He stopped short, taking in the scene: the two of them standing close by the window, the tension palpable, Hyukjae in his casual clothes.
“Sir,” Mr. Kim said, his voice a neutral, professional baritone. He gave a slight, respectful nod to Hyukjae. “Ma— Sir Hyukjae. My apologies for the intrusion. I have the papers for the Singapore merger, and the press release regarding the marriage requires your final approval.”
Donghae didn’t move his eyes from Hyukjae’s. “The release can wait.”
“The Chosun Ilbo is holding the front page, sir. Until noon.”
“Let them wait.” Donghae finally looked at Mr. Kim. “Give us the day.”
Mr. Kim’s expression remained perfectly smooth, but something flickered in his eyes—surprise, concern. “Sir, the board—”
“Can manage one day without me. We’ll be at the house by the lake. No calls unless the building is on fire.”
A beat of silence. Mr. Kim bowed his head. “Of course.” He placed the folio on a sleek side table. “Will there be anything else?”
“No. Thank you, Heechul.”
The use of the secretary’s given name seemed significant. Mr. Kim—Heechul—gave another nod and left as quietly as he’d arrived.
“The house by the lake?” Hyukjae asked.
“It’s quieter. No windows for photographers to use long lenses.” Donghae finally took a sip of his own coffee. “We need to talk. Without all this…” He gestured vaguely at the sterile grandeur around them.
“You read the situation wrong,” Hyukjae said, setting his mug down on a coaster with a precise click. “I don’t need a romantic getaway. I need answers. Why was my sister so desperate to run from this? From you?”
Donghae’s face shut down, the vulnerability from moments ago sealed behind a wall of impenetrable calm. “Your sister,” he said slowly, “made a choice. She chose her freedom over her duty. You chose differently. That’s all that matters now.”
“It matters to me.”
“It shouldn’t.” Donghae put his mug down next to Hyukjae’s. “Get a coat. It’s cold by the water.”
The drive was silent, the interior of the black sedan smelling of leather and Donghae’s cologne. Hyukjae watched the city give way to bare trees and frosted hills. After an hour, they turned down a gravel drive flanked by pines, leading to a modern, glass-and-cedar structure perched on the edge of a vast, slate-gray lake.
It was nothing like the penthouse. It felt organic, built into the landscape. Inside, it was warmer, filled with books and worn leather furniture. A fire was already laid in the hearth.
Donghae went straight to it, striking a match and touching it to the kindling. Flame caught, curled, began to crackle hungrily at the logs.
“This was my parents’ place,” he said, not turning around. “Before everything.”
Hyukjae stood in the middle of the room, unsure. “Before what?”
Donghae stayed crouched before the fire, watching it grow. “Before my father lost his mind and his fortune. Before I spent ten years rebuilding it, piece by bloody piece.” He stood, finally facing Hyukjae. The firelight danced in his dark eyes. “Your family owed money to the people who destroyed mine. It’s poetic, in a vicious sort of way. Acquiring you was the final piece of the puzzle.”
The air left Hyukjae’s lungs. Acquiring you. He was an asset. A final trophy of vengeance. The warmth from the fire couldn’t touch the cold settling in his bones.
“So that’s it,” Hyukjae whispered. “I’m… reparation.”
“No.” The word was sharp, immediate. Donghae crossed the room until he was right in front of him. “You are not. That was the reason for the contract with your sister. A final, symbolic victory. But you…” He lifted a hand, his fingers hovering just beside Hyukjae’s cheek, not touching. “You were never part of the calculation.”
“Then why am I here?”
Donghae’s hand dropped. A profound exhaustion seemed to wash over him, stripping the billionaire away, leaving just a man standing in a lonely house.
“Because ten years ago, at your father’s sixtieth birthday party, you were hiding from the crowd in the library,” he said, his voice barely above the sound of the fire. “You were nineteen, in an ill-fitting suit, and you were reading a book of poetry. You didn’t see me. I was there with my father, watching him beg yours for a loan. I saw you instead. You looked up at one point, right at the window where I was standing. You smiled. Just a small, polite thing to a stranger. Then you went back to your book.”
Hyukjae stared, memory stirring—a vague impression of a tense, gloomy party, a quiet room, a dark-haired young man with a severe face across the garden.
“I bought that book the next week,” Donghae continued. “I still have it. I built everything back, and the entire time, that stupid, quiet smile was the only clean thing I could remember. When your father came to me, desperate, offering a marriage alliance… I asked for your sister because it was the obvious, sensible choice. But it was always a way to get close to the boy in the library. And then she ran, and you…” He finally reached out, his thumb brushing the line of Hyukjae’s jaw, a mirror of his touch from that morning. This time, it was reverent. “You walked down that aisle instead. In her dress. Looking like a sacrifice and a miracle all at once.”
Hyukjae couldn’t move. The confession was too huge, too unexpected. It didn’t align with the ruthless man from the business pages, or the controlled stranger at the altar. This was a raw, painful truth, offered like a fragile gift.
“You don’t know me,” Hyukjae breathed.
“I know enough. I know you have a quiet heart. I know you put your family before yourself. I know the light from those stained-glass windows made you look like you were made of gold.” Donghae’s thumb stilled. “The contract is real. The obligations are real. But this… this is real, too. And I don’t know what to do with it.”
Outside, a cold wind whipped across the lake, rattling the glass. Inside, the only sounds were the fire and the shaky rhythm of their breath.
The momentum of the confession hung between them, a live wire. Donghae had laid himself bare, and now he waited, his imposing frame somehow braced for a blow, for rejection. The billionaire was gone. In his place was just a man who’d clung to a memory for a decade.
Hyukjae took a half-step back, breaking the contact. He needed air that wasn’t filled with the scent of him, with the weight of this confession. He turned towards the window, hugging his arms around himself, watching the dark water churn.
“You bought me,” he said, his voice flat against the
“I bought a solution. You were the surprise inside.”
“Don’t.” Hyukjae shut his eyes. “Don’t make it sound charming. It’s not. You planned a transaction with my sister to settle a personal score with our fathers. My life, her life… they were just moves on a board to you.”
He heard Donghae move behind him. “Yes.” The admission was quiet, stark. “At first. That’s the truth. I am not a good man, Hyukjae. I’ve done worse things for less reason than a memory.”
“Then why tell me this? To make me feel sorry for you? To make this… whatever this is… easier?”
“No.” Donghae was closer now, his reflection ghosted in the window beside Hyukjae’s. “I told you because you asked. And because you deserve to know what you’re really dealing with. Not a contract. A man who’s been obsessed with a ghost for ten years, who now has the living, breathing person in his house. It’s messy. It’s unfair. It’s probably a little deranged.”
A startled, almost-hysterical laugh escaped Hyukjae. He turned around. They were inches apart again. The firelight caught the gold in Donghae’s eyes, the uncertain tension around his mouth.
“A little?” Hyukjae echoed.
The faintest hint of a smile touched Donghae’s lips, gone as quickly as it came. “Considerably.”
Hyukjae studied his face—the hard-earned lines, the wary hope buried deep in his gaze. This was the vulnerability from the chapel, amplified, explained. It didn’t excuse anything. It complicated everything.
“What now?” Hyukjae asked.
“Now,” Donghae said, his voice dropping to something intimate, meant only for the space between them, “we have two years. We have a contract that says we share a name, a home, a public life. And we have this… private term.” He didn’t move to touch, but his entire being seemed focused on Hyukjae. “We see what it becomes.”
The wind moaned outside, pushing against the house. The fire popped, sending a spiral of sparks up the flue.
Hyukjae thought of the ring on his finger, heavier than it had been that morning. He thought of the spark in the chapel, the dangerous heat of the kiss at dawn. He thought of a lonely young man in a library, and another lonely young man watching him from the dark.
“I don’t know if I can give you what you’re looking for,” Hyukjae said honestly.
“I’m not looking for anything,” Donghae replied. “Not anymore. You’re already here.”
He did touch him then, just a hand on Hyukjae’s shoulder, a brief, grounding squeeze. Then he turned and walked towards the kitchen. “I’ll make us something to eat. There’s food here. Explore, if you want. The house is yours, too.”
Hyukjae listened to him go, the sounds of cupboards opening, a pan being set on the stove. Normal, domestic sounds in a profoundly abnormal situation.
He looked back out at the tumultuous lake, at his own haunted reflection superimposed on the gathering storm. He was trapped in a gilded cage built from old debts and older obsessions. But the door, he was starting to realize, wasn’t locked from the outside.
It was locked from within, and the key was a memory, a spark, and the terrifying, unexplored territory of a man’s confessional gaze. The two years stretched before him, a long, uncharted road starting in this quiet house by the angry water.