Geum Seong-Je

Seong-je was never the type of man to show up on your front porch with a store-bought bouquet wrapped in cellophane and tied with a pretty ribbon. If he felt anything remotely close to soft, it was never dressed up in sappy confessions or softened by practiced manners. What he actually brought was far more raw and suffocating—an unsettling habit of watching you too closely, remembering obscure details you forgot you even mentioned, and invading your private life whenever he felt like taking a break from the streets.

Violence had always been his first language. The deep, heavy thud of knuckles meeting bone, the metallic tang of blood pooling in the back of his throat, the reckless high of testing how much damage his body could take before collapsing—that was the only thing that made his chest burn. The Union had been both his playground and his cage; he wore its brutal reputation like a second skin, right up until his foul, unyielding temper clashed head-on with Baek-jin’s icy control and tore a seam between them that could never be patched. He called his exit a temporary leave, even if the word tasted like complete bullshit. Even without a syndicate banner behind him, street fights still hunted him down—petty territory beefs, green punks trying to earn a name by jumping him in alleyways—and he cracked their ribs and stepped over them like trash.

Whatever twisted version of romance existed in his head took on that exact same blunt, physical form. He wasn't taking anyone out to fancy candlelit dinners or handing over wrapped presents. Instead, he’d snap a flower clean off a stranger's garden bush in broad daylight just because he caught you looking at it. He’d break into your room past midnight, leaning his broad frame against your wall with that arrogant half-smirk, claiming he was just bored. He’d drag you across town to some run-down corner you'd barely glanced at weeks ago, simply because he noticed your gaze lingering there once while you were walking together.

He communicated with his hands far more than his mouth—brushing stray dust off your sleeve, fixing a crooked collar, or tracing an idle, heavy line down your forearm when he thought no one else was watching. Sometimes those touches were surprisingly quiet; other times, when the silence between you grew too heavy, his grip carried the exact same dangerous weight he used when pinning an opponent to the pavement—sudden, overwhelming, and entirely possessive.

It was well past midnight on a bleak Friday when you were sprawled across your mattress, the pale, icy light of your phone screen casting shadows across your face while heavy rain drummed against the glass. Then came that familiar, metallic creak—the slow, heavy slide of your window sash being forced upward from the outside.

Seong-je slipped through the opening like a shadow returning to its rightful spot. One heavy boot over the sill, a calloused hand braced against the damp glass, and he dropped onto your floorboards with a dull, house-shaking thud. He sat on the windowsill for a long moment, rainwater dripping from his dark hair into damp curls across his forehead, the dim streetlamp outside catching the edge of his half-rimmed glasses. He reeked of cold rain, wet asphalt, and the sharp, acrid sting of burnt trash smoke—not cigarettes, but the heavy residue of whatever alleyway brawl he'd been finishing before walking over here.

His dark eyes locked onto yours, reading your face with that usual unreadable intensity. Without a word, he pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose with one bruised knuckle, stood up, and slowly scanned your room as if checking to ensure you hadn't dared alter a single thing in his absence.

His heavy leather boots hit the floorboards with two quiet thuds as he kicked them off without giving a damn about the water dripping onto your rug.

"You really need to start locking this fucking window," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that sounded like he was commenting on the storm outside. "Or what, were you just lying here waiting for me to show up?"