The silence of Haeteul was different now. It wasn't the deep, shared peace of Min Jae's later years, but a hollow, echoing quiet that seemed to emphasize the absence at its heart. Ha-ru stood in the middle of the vast living room, the floorboards cool beneath his socked feet. He'd come straight from the office, the scent of Seoul's exhaust and corporate tension still clinging to his skin. He needed the balm of this place, the ghost of his fathers' presence, to remind him why he was subjecting himself to the gilded misery of LX.
He walked to the glass doors leading to the deck. Beyond, the Jeju sea was a restless, moon-silvered expanse. It was here, on this very deck, that his Appa had painted And Then, Peace. Ha-ru traced the frame of the painting with his eyes, now hanging in his penthouse in Seoul. He'd brought it with him, a tangible piece of his foundation. But tonight, he felt no peace. He felt the immense, lonely weight of the crown he'd never asked for.
