ONE LAST SUPPER IN THE DARK
(A "CODENAME ANASTASIA" FANFIC
After twenty years, Hotelier Yevgeny returns to Seoul-a city transformed-only to find the past waiting for him in a decaying boarding house. There, he reunites with Taekjoo, the beautiful, unaged lover he abandoned decades ago.
What begins as a nostalgic visit spirals into something darker. As old desires resurface, so do the ghosts of betrayal. Taekjoo hasn't aged-and he hasn't forgotten.
By the end of the night, Zhenya will learn: some promises bind beyond death. And some lovers never truly let go.
(A 'CODENAME ANASTASIA' FANFIC. THIS STORY IS A PRODUCT OF THE WRITER'S IMAGINATION. READER'S DISCRETION IS ADVISED)
MANXMAN LOVE
GOTHIC FICTION
MORALLY GREY CHARACTERS
CHARACTERS ARE CREDITED TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.
The air was wet and sour with the breath of spring rain. The smell was unlike that of Hamburg's gentle drizzle—it was not subtle or clean. Rather, it was heavy with the scent of wet cement and the sterile breath of the airport. Seoul had changed. Its skyline now stood like a cathedral of steel, an angular monument to ambition and memory. But the shadows between its buildings had not changed. They still whispered, still moved when no one looked.
It had been around twenty years since the blond-haired man had stepped onto South Korean soil. And yet, everything in the airport brought forth a nostalgia he did not remember locking in his heart.
The sky, grey and bruised, loomed low. The glow of airport lights bathed the tarmac in an artificial warmth that did nothing to quell the odd, hollow feeling in his chest. Seoul was busier than he remembered—agile, efficient, like a snake circling its prey, swift and silent.
The blond-haired man stepped off the airport limousine and pulled his coat tighter, his eyes tracing the lattice of glass and steel that scraped the heavens. It had been twenty years. Twenty years since he last walked the cracked spine of Seoul.
He looked younger than his forty-two years, but something in him seemed unnaturally preserved. His skin—pale, almost waxen—stretched tightly over high cheekbones like yellowed parchment. The humidity brought a faint sweat to his brow, but his posture remained unnervingly rigid, precise, like a doll that remembered movement. He had not come across continents for sightseeing. He had come for work. Or so he told himself.
The taxi driver made a valiant effort at small talk in fractured English.
"You Russian? Welcome back to Korea. Long time?"
Yevgeny ignored him, nodding slowly, his gaze unmoved. The skyline faded into a wall of fog, and the Han River shimmered with a cold, reptilian glint—almost accusatory, as if it remembered.
He had felt more at home here, once. Back in the summer of '99, when he had arrived as a student, the city had wrapped around him like a warm secret. Now, he realised it wasn't that Korea had changed. It was him. He had travelled too far, worn too many faces, lived too many lives to remember what home was meant to feel like.
The driver chuckled, sensing the tension, and turned up the radio.
When they neared the hotel—the sterile, polished five-star he had booked—the driver prepared to turn off. That was when Yevgeny moved.
It was sudden, unnatural.
His hand shot forward, tapping the old man's shoulder. The driver startled, nearly veering into the next lane.
"Cheogiyo," Yevgeny said, voice dry and toneless. "Could you take me to Nowon-gu instead?"
The driver blinked, confused, then cursed under his breath and nodded. Yevgeny saw the way his aged hand quietly adjusted the meter—subtly, but not subtly enough. They took a U-turn, then a long left, and finally a narrow, winding right.
Summer of '99 had been the year everything changed for Yevgeny Vissarionovich Bogdanov.
The youngest heir to the sprawling Bogdanov hotel empire, his future had been set before he could walk. Graduate from an Ivy League school, join his elder brother Vladimir in the family business, and inherit what was his by birthright.
But Yevgeny had defied the script.
Back in the days of dial-up internet, he had fallen in love—with literature, with East Asia, with the strange, aching beauty of stories that spoke not of wealth or legacy, but of longing. Korean fiction, Japanese cinema, Chinese philosophy—he consumed it all. It spoke to the darker places in him.
And so, after graduating high school, he rejected his Ivy League scholarship. Packed a suitcase. Vanished from his family's expectations. He flew to South Korea and wandered across East Asia, a golden-haired ghost in foreign streets, absorbing stories and truths.
But reality has teeth. Vladimir died in a car crash. Yevgeny, now the only heir, returned to Russia. He wore the suit. He married the Prime Minister's daughter. He became everything they had always wanted.
And in the decades that followed, he never returned to Korea.
But because there were things better left buried.
Every now and then, a memory would surface—the old boarding house, the curve of a mouth, the echo of a scream turned inward. Every now and then, he would wake in cold sweat, someone's name on his lips. Every now and then, he would remember that soft, dark-skinned body—how it had tasted like something forbidden, the kind of hunger that made one weep when it was gone.
He had buried those urges. Buried them deep.
And yet... something had called him back. Something old. Something unforgotten.
Back before smartphones and GPS, Yevgeny had found himself lost in this very city. He had stepped off a silver metro train in the heart of Seoul and wandered for hours, pride dissolving with each wrong turn. Eventually, drenched in frustration and rain, he'd used a grimy PCO booth to call home. His father had screamed at him for not contacting the boarding house in advance. What kind of fool assumed he could just know a foreign city?
He had just begun to cry when he saw him.
A man in a checked shirt and joggers running across the square, shielding himself with a flimsy umbrella. His eyes darted like a frightened animal's until they landed on the pale, blond-haired foreigner standing under the station sign.
"Yevgeny Bogdanov?" he'd asked, thick Korean accent wrapping awkwardly around the name.
Yevgeny had chuckled through his frustration.
That was the first time he saw him—Kwon Taekjoo.
The Kwon boarding house still stood—tucked away in a forgotten alley behind a shuttered tofu shop and a salon whose cracked mirror reflected nothing but rot. The sign had faded into illegibility, its wooden slats curled inward, weeping moss like open wounds. He stared at the door—a swollen, rotting thing with one hinge sunk low like a dislocated limb. No one would call this place home anymore.
A car, or what was once a car, sat crookedly in the alley like a discarded relic—its rusted bones swallowed by vines and moss. Nature had claimed it as her own, growing into the frame as if to erase all trace of its function. It was no longer a vehicle, just an artefact from another life.
He paid the driver—an elderly man whose expression hovered between confusion and fear.
"You sure you want to stay here?" the old man asked, his voice brittle, eyes darting to the derelict boarding house. Even the signage next to the taxi seemed ready to fall apart—clinging to its last nail against the warped wooden gate.
"Give me your number," Yevgeny said in Korean, the accent stiff, his fluency dulled by time. "I'll call you when I'm done."
The driver nodded slowly, as though hoping he wouldn't actually receive that call, and drove off without another word.
Yevgeny stood alone. His legs moved on their own, drawing him toward the house. The closer he stepped, the heavier the air became—thick with rot, with memory, with something unspeakable. What had once felt warm and lived-in now recoiled from him, its very walls whispering leave. And yet—something pulled him in.
He wanted to see that face again.
He wanted to taste that body again.
He wanted to own that soul... again.
Kwon Taekjoo must still be here.
But as he reached the door, a tide of guilt surged through his gut. He had ruined the man before he left Korea. A sudden, vivid image struck him—those dark, tear-glossed eyes, the trembling hand reaching out as the young Russian turned away and disappeared into the terminal light.
Would he forgive him?
Was he even still here?
After the fourth knock, silence answered. He sighed, already turning back toward the alley.
Then, the door creaked open.
A man with dark hair, skin the colour of sun-warmed bronze, not a day older than twenty years ago. A pair of joggers hung low on his hips—precariously so, as if a breeze might undo him. His torso was bare, sculpted, exactly as Yevgeny remembered it—lean, muscular, drawn with God's cruellest precision. He looked like temptation itself.
But the innocence was gone.
A smirk painted across his lips as he narrowed his eyes with something between amusement and accusation.
"Zhenya," he said, voice like velvet—sweet, too sweet. Music that had once lulled him to sin.
How long had it been since someone said his name like that?
Yevgeny smiled, involuntarily. Every fibre in his body wanted to touch, to taste, to consume the man before him. But there was a line now. An invisible one. Taut. Fragile.
And the house exhaled with them, as if waiting to see who would cross that line first.
CHAPTER 2: GHOSTS OF THE PAST
The boarding house creaked with age. Each floorboard beneath the heavy leather soles groaned like brittle bones, as though the house itself resented his return. The corridor stretched ahead, dim and narrow, lit only by the bruised light that filtered through warped panes of glass, casting long, uneven shadows along the peeling walls. The wallpaper—once a soft shade of blue—had browned with time and moisture, curling at the edges like old scabs flaking from skin. It smelled of mildew—and something else. Something metallic. Something like memory.
Yevgeny instinctively reached for the handkerchief tucked into his coat pocket, tempted to staple it to the bridge of his nose. The air was thick, stale, almost putrid—as though something were decaying just out of sight. It clung to the walls and floor and ceiling, a presence rather than a scent. Yet, the man walking ahead of him didn't flinch. With his hands buried in his pockets, Taekjoo moved like a serpent—fluid and sinuous, each step calculated, seductive. There was an ease to his grace that had always unnerved him. He wondered briefly if the smell was just in his own mind. A trick of nostalgia laced with guilt.
He thought back to all the hotels he'd stayed in over the years, scattered across the globe. Five-star accommodations, suites meticulously arranged by his secretary. Yet, regardless of the luxury, there would always be an odd, signature scent that lingered—sometimes sweet, sometimes damp, sometimes clinical. But never like this. Never like rot that curled in the lungs and threatened to bring bile to his throat.
He swallowed hard. The memory of Taekjoo's obsessive cleanliness made the present even more grotesque. The young man he once knew had been a perfectionist. The smell of bleach and lavender used to linger on his skin and the corners of his room. Every surface scrubbed, every item placed just so. The boarding house, then, had reflected his fastidiousness.
Yevgeny had once lived here, a foreigner tucked into the comfort of routine, in a house run by the quiet yet perceptive Mr Kwon Taeha. A man of few words, Mr Kwon had treated all seven boarders like his own sons. He remembered everyone's quirks—who preferred early baths, who left for class before dawn, who liked runny yolks, who couldn't handle chilli. He was silent in his care but meticulous in his attention.
To the reckless Russian, Kwon Taekjoo had been more than just the owner's son—he'd been a servant, a shadow, a soft-spoken constant. At first, the care he offered wasn't love; it was a transaction. His father paid generously, and in return, his son was treated like a prince. Boiled water at dawn, three eggs fried just so, lunchboxes packed with effort disguised as duty.
But something shifted in the silence between them. It wasn't in words but in the glances exchanged over shared breakfasts and lingering nights. Their relationship grew behind doors closed to the world. Love—or perhaps something darker—bloomed in those stolen moments.
Taekjoo had run after him with lunchboxes more times than Yevgeny could count, always blushing, always breathless. And when their fingers brushed or their eyes met too long, those small touches fermented into something heady. Lust became the language they spoke in secret.
Yevgeny remembered the morning showers—steam curling around naked bodies, lips brushing wet skin, hands exploring familiar curves with greedy reverence. The moans that worshiped the reckless foreigner. The heat of the water blurred with the heat between them, and for those few minutes, nothing else mattered. Not the expectations, not the fear, not the future.
He had everything he could have ever asked for back then.
The only thing was—Yevgeny never truly loved the man. Not in the way Taekjoo had loved him, not in the way that could weather storms or stitch broken pieces together. For him, it had been a phase. A fleeting indulgence. A delicious secret wrapped in the hustle bustle of Seoul nights. Something wild and reckless to savour before life demanded seriousness.
Kwon Taekjoo had the kind of body that tested patience and faith alike—sleek, defined, lithe. But more dangerous than his body were those eyes: wide, dark, brimming with a childlike earnestness that clashed beautifully with his knowing smile. Those eyes had a way of making you feel seen. Truly seen. And he would always look into Yevgeny's stormy blues with the same gentle inquiry:
The Russian never flinched. He would kiss that warm forehead with a practised tenderness and reply, "I do. More than you can ever imagine."
A lie, of course. But a convincing one.
The Russian had learned that people didn't fall for truth. They fell for comfort. For illusions. Show them affection, make them feel irreplaceable, and the world would open like a flower at your feet. It had worked then. It still did.
Now, the ghost of his lover walked ahead of him, barefoot and silent, like a memory unfurling in real time. His joggers clung low to his hips, revealing just enough skin to bring old urges to the surface. That same body—tight, lean, carved like art—had somehow resisted the pull of time. No wrinkles. No weight of years. Not even the softening of age. He looked like he had stepped out of a preserved dream.
"You haven't changed," Yevgeny said, his voice lower than intended, thick with a longing he hadn't planned on feeling.
The naked man turned his head just slightly, enough for his lips to pull into a smirk, his eyes unreadable pools of shadow. "Haven't I?"
Yevgeny swallowed. The taste in his mouth was sharp—guilt or desire, he couldn't tell. His hands stayed buried in his coat pockets, where the pressure of his wedding ring dug into his skin like a punishment. He had come for closure. That's what he'd told himself. One final meeting to make peace with the past, to burn it into ashes and scatter them quietly.
But as his gaze traced the shifting muscles of Taekjoo's back, Yevgeny knew that was a lie too.
And worse—he wasn't ready to let go.
"You look older, Zhenya," He murmured, not unkindly. "But... less sure. Marriage will do that."
Yevgeny huffed out a humourless smile. "And you? What's happened since I left?"
The air between them thickened. The silence that followed wasn't just uncomfortable—it was telling.
Taekjoo stopped in front of a door. His fingers grazed the frame, lingering. "Eomma died two years after you vanished. Heart failure. Just like that." His tone was too even, too rehearsed. "Appa had a stroke. He's still upstairs. Doesn't speak much anymore. But when he does... well, you won't like what he says."
"I'm sorry," The Russian offered quickly. Too quickly. And it rang hollow even to his own ears.
He stared at Taekjoo's back and felt the weight of time press in around him. Back then, he had been certain that the boy he left behind would flourish. Taekjoo was made for success—sharp, dedicated, brimming with ideas. He had dreamt of joining a top multinational company, gaining experience, and eventually launching an app that would revolutionise how people found and managed boarding house tenants.
He had everything mapped out.
Until Yevgeny shattered it.
Until he became the fork in Taekjoo's road—the sweet, poisoned detour that derailed everything.
And now, all that promise was rotting beneath damp walls and broken dreams.
Yevgeny wondered, as the door creaked open under Taekjoo's touch, whether the ghost of the life he ruined was watching them even now.
He remembered the day everything changed.
They had been lying on the bed, limbs tangled, hearts beating in the quiet aftermath of stolen pleasure. For a fleeting moment, they were untouchable—young, bold, and foolishly safe. But that moment shattered when Kwon Taeha burst through the door, his face lined with age and disbelief. The question he meant to ask hung unsaid in the air, disintegrating the moment his clouded eyes registered what lay before him: his son, bare and vulnerable in the arms of a foreigner.
There was no chance to explain.
Kwon Taekjoo bore the brunt of it—slippers raining down upon him with the sharp rhythm of betrayal—while Yevgeny tried, in vain, to shield him. It was over within moments, but the damage was permanent.
That night, the hurt lover slipped into Yevgeny's room through the window, shoulders hunched, face hidden in the shadows. They sat without speaking, the silence between them a kind of mourning. Then, softly, came the sound of sniffles.
"Zhenya... you won't leave me, will you?"
"Will you take me with you? To Russia, I mean."
And in that instant, Yevgeny knew.
He had ruined something precious—something good—with nothing more than lust and careless charm. Taekjoo, for all his innocence, had fallen too deep. And Yevgeny had let him.
The next morning, Yevgeny had packed his bags before dawn. His lover still slept beside him, face serene, trusting. He didn't wake him. He just left.
Now, twenty years later, that memory hung between them like fog.
"No, you're not," Taekjoo said, his back still turned.
Zhenya's throat tightened. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Things were... complicated."
"You said you'd come back."
"I had to take care of family matters," he replied—too quick, too rehearsed. "There were obligations—"
Taekjoo let out a dry, hollow laugh. "No. You got bored. And you married a Prime Minister's daughter."
Zhenya flinched. "You've done your research."
Taekjoo turned then, and his face was unreadable. "You were the most interesting part of my life. Of course, I kept track."
Something flickered behind his eyes—something bruised and brittle. And for a heartbeat, the Russian felt it again: that same raw, urgent hunger. The one that once made him press kisses to the man's spine and whisper beautiful lies into his skin.
"Do you want to see him?" Taekjoo asked, his voice suddenly calm. "Appa. He's upstairs."
Yevgeny nodded—anything to escape that gaze.
He turned toward the staircase, but as he did, his eyes caught on the back of Taekjoo's body. Now, the man had grabbed a robe from the wall and started putting it on. The action was slow, as if he wanted the foreigner to watch him. Something was so reckless about the action, like a stone that was enough to disturb the still water. He was beautiful then, he was beautiful now. Yevgeny wanted to have him then, he wanted to have him now.
Just for a night? Wouldn't that be okay?
Besides that, Yevgeny Bogdanov had never cheated on his lovely wife, but the sex after children could never satiated his hunger.
And the man, tying the knot in such a seductive way, would be enough to calm the storm brimming within him.
He hesitated, then climbed.
The image of his smiling wife had appeared in front of his eyes.
The house groaned beneath his weight, each step an echo of guilt. From below, he heard Taekjoo begin to hum—a tune soft and lilting, yet full of unease. Yevgeny couldn't place the song, but it filled his stomach with dread. That was ominous—the tune it seemed, like a secret message wanting to be unfurled like the robe that hid that dark body.
Upstairs, the hallway was colder. Damp. The shadows pressed in, clinging to the walls like damp mould. At the end, a door stood ajar.
Inside, Kwon Taeha lay like a broken marionette beneath thin blankets, skeletal and silent. His eyes fluttered open—cloudy, distant. But when they landed on Zhenya, they burned. The room felt like a disgusting remnant of its past—loose curtains, hanging low, dust had covered the tables and every other furniture and the book in the bookshelf boasted more cobwebs than books.
"Hello, Mr. Kwon Taeha!" Yevgeny tried to put a ting of optimism in his tone.
The old man did not reply, causing the man to wonder if he died or something. But a line of groans brought a sigh of relief.
"Mr. Kwon, I am Zhenya!" He reiterated, "Do you remember the boy from Russia? I was here for four years! You loved cooking eggs for me!"
"You," the old man rasped, voice dry and cracking. "You're the one who cursed us."
Zhenya took a step back, his heart lurching. "What?"
"Leave," the man growled. "Before it's too late."
Yevgeny stumbled into the corridor. Shocked and furious by the sheer disrespect. The door slammed shut behind him, though no wind followed. He rushed downstairs, breath short, skin damp with sweat. The air felt thicker now, cloying and warm like the inside of a fever.
At the bottom, Taekjoo sat lounging on the sofa, wrapped in a thin robe, his hair still damp. The scent of green tea drifted through the room.
"I see he remembers you," he said, smiling over the rim of his cup. "You left quite the impression."
Taekjoo patted the seat beside him.
"Sit," he said gently. "There's so much to catch up on."
CHAPTER 3: THE WAY WE USED TO BURN
They sat across from one another at the small table in the sitting room, a pot of hot tea between them and years of silence folded into the distance that stretched between their knees. Candlelight flickered in pools across the warped wooden floor, casting their shadows long and strange on the peeling wallpaper. The silence hung heavy—too full to be comfortable, too familiar to ignore.
The blond Russian's blue eyes roamed the room, slowly, pausing on the man opposite him. Taekjoo sat like he belonged to another century—one leg crossed over the other, his posture effortless, regal even. His fingers curled lazily around the teacup, but he hadn't taken a sip. His head was tilted slightly, watching Yevgeny with an expression that was neither welcome nor rejection—just... curious. As if examining an artefact returned after years lost at sea.
It was almost evening now. Outside, the sky burned violet through the warped windowpanes. Inside, the candles flickered low, their glow soft but unsettling. The blonde's gaze kept drifting to the shadows that danced in the corners. It wasn't quite fear. It was discomfort—like something he couldn't name was breathing just over his shoulder.
Taekjoo must have remembered. Zhenya never liked the dark.
Not because he feared monsters. No. It was because darkness stripped away the distractions. In the dark, all you could see were the things inside yourself.
"You're uncomfortable?" Taekjoo asked suddenly, his voice warm with mock concern, laced with the same kind of venom that made children poke wasp nests just to see what would happen.
Zhenya hesitated, caught off guard. "Not really..." he said, and it was a terrible lie. "I'm old enough now, you see."
Taekjoo smiled. A slow, cruel smile. "Age doesn't cure fear. Just makes it quieter."
The words sat between them like coiled rope. Zhenya cleared his throat, trying to push back the tension with something ordinary. Something safe.
"How's your wife?" Taekjoo asked. The question was too casual. His tone didn't match his eyes, which remained cold and unreadable. "Got any kids?"
Zhenya shifted again. "Yeah. She's... she's fine. And children, yes—two. Thirteen and ten."
Taekjoo let out a breath through his nose. Not quite a sigh, not quite a laugh. "Well. At least one of us got a 'happy ending.' I'm happy for you."
The words fell like stones.
Neither of them touched the tea.
Zhenya glanced around again, trying to escape the pressure gathering in his chest. The house smelled like old air, like dust and rot and something just beneath the surface—like grief kept on a leash too long.
He heard the wood groan above them, felt the weight of the building pressing down.
"W–what happened to the lights?" he asked.
"Well," Taekjoo said, calmly, "I don't live here anymore."
Taekjoo shrugged. "Just my father now. He rarely leaves the bed. There's no point lighting up a house meant for shadows. And besides—" he turned his head, lips curving again—"we already lost our lights, didn't we?"
Zhenya felt his breath catch.
There it was again—that gleam in Taekjoo's voice. That edge of beautiful cruelty. He had every right to it. Every reason.
The Russian clenched his jaw. "I was young. I didn't know what I was doing."
"You knew enough to pack and leave without saying goodbye," Taekjoo replied, still not raising his voice.
Zhenya leaned forward. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"No," Taekjoo said softly. "But you did it anyway. And that's the thing, isn't it? I didn't matter enough for you to stay, and I mattered too much for you to forget."
Zhenya opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Taekjoo tilted his head again, his voice dipping. "You're married. You've moved on. But look at you." His eyes flicked over the Russian, slowly. "You're staring at me like you did that first night in the kitchen, when you thought I couldn't see you hard under the table."
Zhenya's face darkened with both anger and arousal. His breath was short.
"You want to fuck me, don't you?" Taekjoo asked bluntly, the smile never leaving his lips. "Even now."
The hotelier looked away. He hated how accurate it was.
Taekjoo leaned in, voice suddenly quieter. "You know the part that always makes me laugh, Zhenya?" His smile faded just enough to reveal something sharp underneath. "You thought you were the one in control."
"So... are you going to cook something for me now that it's nearly dinner?" Yevgeny asked, his voice falsely light, forced into playfulness. His eyes, however, betrayed him—roaming unabashedly over Taekjoo's chest, half-illuminated by the flickering candle on the table. The shadows licked at his skin like sin. The robe hung loosely from his frame, revealing more than it concealed.
Oh, how he wanted to run his fingers across that chest again. To taste the sweat at the hollow of Taekjoo's throat. To press him down and worship the body he'd once possessed without understanding its worth.
Guilty of not savouring him one last time that night, of choosing fear over fire, of throwing away something incandescent for the sake of a name and a future carved in cold stone.
Taekjoo let out a long, slow sigh. "You still like your eggs in threes. Runny, spicy, loads of butter?" A flicker of something crossed his lips—an old, private smile that vanished almost as quickly as it came. Like a ghost brushing past in the dark.
Zhenya felt the blow of memory as though someone had struck him in the chest.
Late nights in a cramped kitchen, the Korean bent over the stove, tongue poking from his mouth in concentration as he practised the art of breakfast. The scent of garlic in oil. Zhenya, shirtless, arms wrapped around his waist, pressing kisses to the nape of his neck, teasing him for being such a perfectionist. Whispering things that tasted like forever.
"I used to watch you cook," Zhenya said quietly, barely above a whisper. "You'd hum while peeling garlic. Always that same melody."
Taekjoo glanced up, the candlelight catching the wet sheen in his eyes. "You remember that?"
He nodded. "I remember everything."
Taekjoo's smile was slow, sharp. "Shame. You always acted like you'd forget me by morning."
The words slid into him like a knife between the ribs. Zhenya didn't flinch. He let it wound him. He owed that much.
He had been alert—more alert than Taekjoo—because he had to be. Because he couldn't let Moscow know who he really was beneath the tailored suits and the diplomatic ties. Because inheritance, legacy, reputation—all of it required denial. Required sacrifice. And Taekjoo, beautiful, soft-hearted Taekjoo, had been that sacrifice.
"I don't cook much anymore," the Korean man murmured, lifting his teacup though he didn't drink from it. "No one left to spoil. No one to wake up early for. No one to burn my fingers on the stove for."
His voice was steady, but it shimmered with a weariness that the Russian hadn't noticed earlier. Not bitterness—no, Taekjoo was too elegant for that. It was more like grief polished into civility, sorrow trained into composure.
"You're... not married?" Yevgeny asked.
"Well," Taekjoo said, the smile returning, brittle and perfect, "let's just say I couldn't get married." He placed weight on the modal, the impossibility of it. "The whole neighbourhood wanted me gone."
He stood then, beginning to clear the table. As he turned, the robe shifted against his hips, revealing the dip of his waist and the start of a pale hipbone. The candlelight played across his body like a lover's hand.
Zhenya's eyes followed instinctively, heart pounding.
That same body. That same lithe form that had once writhed beneath him in the dusky hours of dawn. That skin, flushed and dewed, moaning his name like it was a prayer and a curse all at once.
He hated how much he still wanted to touch him.
"Still looking?" the seductive lover asked, not turning around.
Zhenya looked away quickly. "I didn't come here for that."
"No," Taekjoo said, his voice gentle with venom. "You came to see what you ruined."
The doorbell rang. A delivery. A salvation.
The Korean returned a few minutes later with two boxes of takeaway. He didn't cook. He didn't even pretend. He carried them into the living room and sat on the floor, legs folded to one side with the same grace he'd once moved with onstage. Like nothing had been said. Like nothing had ever happened.
They ate in silence. Zhenya chewed dutifully, the food turning to ash in his mouth. Taekjoo picked at his, eyes distant. The candle flames danced between them, casting shadows on the cracked walls, their silhouettes flickering like old memories in a fading reel.
Then Taekjoo spoke, so softly Zhenya almost missed it.
"Do you remember our promise?"
"I asked you if you'd take me to Russia. I was so sure you'd say yes." He smiled again, painfully. "I had it all planned. I'd learn the language. Get a job. We'd find a flat near the sea. I even looked up visa requirements."
Zhenya closed his eyes, the memory crashing through him like a wave through a rotted hull.
"I loved you," Taekjoo said. No flourish. No tremor. Just the fact of it. "That was the first time I ever said it, even if it was only in my head. And you... you were already halfway packed."
"I was scared," Zhenya said. "I didn't know how to—"
"You didn't care," Taekjoo cut in. Calm. Precise.
He stood abruptly, unable to bear the weight of himself. "I did care."
The Korean's gaze lifted to meet his, slow and unreadable. "You wanted to fuck me. That's not the same."
Zhenya stood frozen. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, feel the heat crawling up his neck.
And the worst part—the worst, most shameful part—was how the cruelty of it aroused him. How the hurt lover's disdain curled in his gut like longing. How his breath hitched despite himself. Because yes, he still wanted him. Even now. Especially now. The rage, the ache, the distance between them—he wanted to bridge it with flesh.
"I never stopped wanting you," he whispered, raw. Exposed. Disgusting.
Taekjoo let out a breath of laughter, low and cold. "Of course you didn't. I was your favourite toy. The one you broke and tossed aside—but kept checking on, just in case someone else picked it up."
Zhenya's fists clenched. The air felt thinner now, the house too warm, too damp. The candlelight warped the room like a fever dream. A labyrinth of guilt and old hunger.
Everything about Taekjoo was unbearable.
And he had never been more beautiful.
CHAPTER 4: SINS BREED GHOSTS
"So, tell me, Mr Coward," the hurt lover murmured, his voice a smooth, slow drawl, like honey laced with venom. The silence that had long since curled itself around the room stretched a little more, taut as thread ready to snap. The timbre of Taekjoo's words echoed, slithering through the candlelit parlour like smoke from an old incense burner.
Zhenya's throat dried, his breath catching somewhere beneath his ribs. In that quiet, he had already considered fleeing Seoul a hundred times over. A thousand. The thought came like a mantra now: leave, leave, leave. But his legs, traitorous and stiff, remained fastened to the worn wooden floorboards beneath him—as though the very house itself had latched onto his bones.
He opened his mouth. Then closed it. Again. He was the silver-tongued devil once, the one who had charmed his way through boardrooms and bedrooms alike, spinning guilt into gold. Yet now, facing Taekjoo—this version of him, so composed and cruel—Zhenya found his voice collapsed under the weight of its own cowardice.
How ironic, he thought bitterly, that the sweet-talker couldn't sweet-talk himself out of guilt.
Taekjoo's gaze didn't blink. He looked at him like one might look at a specimen under glass—curious, a little bored, and vaguely disappointed. And then, as though savouring the tension now coiling like smoke between them, he tilted his head and whispered, silk-soft and serpentine:
"Are you not going to leave?"
The seduction in his voice was unmistakable. Deliberate. His eyes—those long-lashed, midnight-black eyes—swept slowly down the length of Zhenya's body and then leisurely back up again, dragging their weight like fingers across bare skin. It sent a cold thrill shivering down the Russian's spine, settling somewhere low in his abdomen like a hook being pulled.
This wasn't the Taekjoo he remembered.
The old Taekjoo—the Taekjoo from two decades ago—had been quiet and stiff, his posture always rigid with the weight of duty. He had been so shy, so polite, so full of stifled breath. Touching him had often felt like caressing a coiled spring, taut and ready to strike. Their first kiss had tasted of fear and regret; their first time, of hesitation and heat tangled like thorns.
Zhenya remembered how long it had taken to coax the Korean into relaxing, to unfurl his shame like petals in the dark. It hadn't been easy. Taekjoo had always been worrying—about his father, his mother, the damned boarding house with its endless creaks and leaks. Always apologising. Always deferring. Always trying to be good.
And perhaps that was what had drawn Zhenya to him like a moth to a flame.
He had wanted to ruin him. To conquer him. To stain that pristine sense of virtue until it could never quite shine the same way again. There was a twisted pleasure in dragging purity into the dirt, in seeing the guilt bloom like bruises on porcelain skin.
And when Taekjoo had finally broken, when he had crumbled into moans and whispered pleas, when he had grabbed Zhenya's shirt and begged him not to leave—he had become the most intoxicating thing Zhenya had ever tasted.
And now, sitting opposite him in a faded robe and bathed in candlelight, Kwon Taekjoo looked like the very embodiment of that corrupted fantasy. No longer shy, no longer rigid. His gaze was hungry and clinical. He exuded a confidence that came not from peace, but from pain polished until it gleamed like obsidian.
He leaned forward now, resting his elbows on his knees. The soft rustle of his robe offered the barest glimpse of smooth brown skin beneath—his chest, the ridge of a collarbone, the ghost of a scar near his ribs. His voice dropped, low and dangerous.
The Russian flushed, caught. He dropped his eyes, ashamed of the arousal prickling beneath his guilt. But Taekjoo didn't let up.
"You always were the sort who wanted what you couldn't have. What you shouldn't have. Isn't that right?" he continued. "Tell me, when you fucked me the first time—was it love, or was it just the thrill of turning a saint into a sinner?"
Zhenya clenched his fists. He wanted to deny it. To scream that it had meant something. That he had meant something. But the words tasted bitter in his mouth. They felt cheap. Tainted.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said at last, quietly, childishly.
Taekjoo chuckled, a low, humourless sound. "But you did. And that's the thing about people like you, Zhenya. You never mean to. You just take, and take, and when you're full, you leave."
Zhenya raised his head, desperation flashing in his eyes. "And what are you doing now, hmm? You sit there like some goddamn executioner. You dress like a lover but speak like a judge. You think I deserve this?"
Taekjoo leaned back again, his robe parting just slightly at the thigh, a flash of pale skin visible in the flickering candlelight.
"Deserve?" he mused, thoughtfully. "No. Deserving's got nothing to do with it. This is just... balance."
The silence returned. Dense. Suffocating.
Outside, the wind pressed its palm against the windows. The house creaked like a throat full of secrets. And in that moment, Zhenya knew that no apology would save him. Not anymore.
This was not a place of forgiveness.
This was a place of remembering.
He was no longer the one being haunted.
"I want to stay tonight," Zhenya said suddenly, the words tumbling from his mouth before reason could catch them. They sat in the dim hush of candlelight, the air thick with memory and tension, and now—desire, like smoke curling between them.
Taekjoo blinked slowly, as if surprised not by the sentiment, but by the audacity of it. Then he leaned back in his seat, spine arching gracefully, the thin robe slipping from one shoulder like a curtain revealing a sacred relic. His collarbone caught the glow of the flame, sharp and pale like moonlight on snow.
"You'd really betray your lovely wife," he said softly, voice curling with silk and venom, "for someone like me? Someone you left like waste in a rainstorm?" His voice was low, amused, but something older churned beneath it—something vast and cruel.
The words stung, but the Russian barely heard them. He was already moving—reaching, compelled. His hands found Taekjoo's arms, and in that instant, the spell should have been complete. But the moment he touched the warm brown skin he remembered too well, his breath hitched.
The flesh beneath his palms was cold—not cool, not indifferent, but piercing, glacial, the kind of cold that lives in grave-soil and forgotten ruins. The shock seared through him like a jolt of winter wind straight into the marrow of his bones.
"Wh—why are you so cold?" he gasped, yanking his hands back as though burned. He stumbled backwards and fell against the old sofa, the leather creaking beneath him.
Taekjoo only tilted his head.
"Am I?" he asked with a feline smile.
He did not walk—he slid, gracefully, effortlessly, like a shadow loosening from the wall. In a blink, he was over the table, robe fluttering behind him like a ghost's veil, and before Zhenya could draw breath, he was straddling the Russian's thighs, as his back stuck against the old sofa.
It was not human, the way he moved.
It was too smooth, too silent. Unreal.
And yet, the weight of him was very real. His knees pressed on either side of Zhenya's hips, his thighs warm where they touched. His arms slipped around Zhenya's shoulders, the candlelight dancing across his cheekbones, the shadows deepening the curve of his throat.
They were eye to eye now.
The Korean's breath brushed against his lips—icy, sweet, and just wrong enough to make the Russian shiver.
The smile on Taekjoo's lips didn't reach his eyes, which now gleamed like onyx, rimmed in shadows. When he leaned in, their noses nearly touched. Zhenya could smell nothing. No warmth, no musk, no breath. Just silence, thick as dirt in a grave. But the way he looked at him now was nothing like the boy Zhenya had once held in trembling arms.
There was something cruel behind the smirk on his lips. Something ancient hiding behind those beautiful eyes.
"You used to beg to stay," Taekjoo murmured, leaning closer, his lips grazing the corner of Zhenya's mouth without quite kissing him. "Back then. You'd whisper it against my neck like a confession."
"You did not like it whenever our kisses ended," The korean's eyes had a mystical feeling to them—like sirens trying to woo their prey, "Zhenya. You're still an asshole, aren't you? Betraying whoever comes close to you." The words were filled with anger and disappointment, yet the voice and tone were like honey, dripping into Zhenya's ears, hypnotising him.
Zhenya's hands had found Taekjoo's waist, instinctively—hungrily—but they trembled. Because again, that cold was there. Beneath the silk of the robe, beneath the supple skin, it bled through like frost under thin glass.
"You're not real," Zhenya whispered, but the words sounded feeble. Unconvincing, even to himself.
Taekjoo smiled wider, and pushed his forehead against Zhenya's. "Then why are you hard?" he whispered.
The Russian gasped softly, the words scraping down his spine like fingernails. He was. God help him, he was. His body knew no better. His mind screamed, but his hands clung to the hips above him, desperate and ashamed.
Taekjoo's fingers threaded through his blond hair, gently pulling his head back, exposing his throat.
"Tell me," he said softly, lips brushing his jaw, "how many nights did you lie beside her, thinking of me?"
The Russian clenched his teeth, his head swimming. His pulse thundered beneath his skin. "Too many."
Taekjoo's tongue touched his throat, cold and slow. "Say it."
"Too many," Zhenya repeated, voice cracked and hoarse.
The Korean lover's mouth moved to his ear, lips grazing the shell of it. "Did she ever touch you like I did?"
Zhenya's head fell back against the sofa, a breath escaping him like prayer.
Taekjoo ground his hips against him then—slow, deliberate. Zhenya's fingers dug into his sides, helpless, desperate. The robe had slipped even further now, exposing the line of his back, the curve of his shoulder.
But the chill was unbearable.
His skin was like marble left out in moonlight. No matter how close Zhenya pulled him, no matter how hot the room became, Taekjoo remained cold. Frozen. Beautiful. Unreachable.
"Make me warm," Taekjoo whispered against his lips.
Zhenya's eyes snapped open, meeting the other's.
And in that moment—just for a heartbeat—he saw something else behind those eyes.
Something old and unspeakably sad.
Zhenya's breath hitched. The body above him was beautiful, yes—but all wrong.
Too light. Too hollow. Too dead.
"You're not him," Zhenya whispered.
Taekjoo's grin widened—too wide. "But I am. Or what's left."
CHAPTER 5: HE REMEMBERED IT ALL TOO WELL
It began in the chest—soft, low, a mocking chuckle. But it spread like rot, echoing through the room in jagged bursts. A hideous, manic sound that multiplied, fracturing as if from several mouths at once. The walls groaned. The candles snuffed themselves out in bursts of smoke. All at once, Zhenya was plunged into a nightmare womb of darkness.
Taekjoo's body—no longer bound by bone or breath—floated inches above Zhenya, limbs swaying as if suspended in water. His eyes rolled white, his face slack with something like ecstasy.
Zhenya scrambled back, bile climbing his throat.
Then, another form took shape across the room.
Or... something wearing him.
He was drenched, as if pulled from the Han River, hair clinging to his hollow cheeks, lips split down the middle, eyes black as pitch. He hovered just above the ground, neck bent at an unnatural angle, as though it had once been broken.
"You promised to return," the ghost said, its voice a ruin of ice and dirt and nails.
Zhenya shook his head, fingers clawing at the wall behind him.
"I waited," it hissed. The walls around them began to bleed—long, weeping trails of tar-like liquid dripping down the faded wallpaper.
"Now," the ghost whispered, voice inside Zhenya's head, behind his eyes, in the marrow of his bones, "you'll stay."
Zhenya screamed—or tried to. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The room warped, spinning slowly. The very air thickened into syrup, pressing against his lungs, his ears, his sanity.
The floating Taekjoo began to weep, but his tears were black and oily, steaming as they touched the air. The candles reignited all at once—blue flames—casting the room in a sickly pallor. The furniture twisted grotesquely, as though animated by unseen strings. Portraits on the walls melted, revealing eyeless faces underneath. The house groaned again—but now it was moaning.
Zhenya turned to flee. He could barely stand. His legs dragged through molasses. Every breath burned.
He ran toward the corridor—but the door had disappeared.
The walls shifted as if mocking him. He stumbled sideways into a side table, his temple cracking against the wood. Blood. A flash of light.
As he collapsed, his final vision was a perfect symmetry: two Taekjoos, one floating above, one crouched beside him, both smiling with the serenity of saints.
But there was no mercy in their gaze.
And the cold promise of eternity.
The world returned in fragments—shadows first, then the muted hum of distant voices, and at last the smell of iron and damp wood. Zhenya blinked, but his eyelids no longer felt real. The light overhead was strange—flat, grey, not candlelight, not sunlight. Just light, as if conjured by memory rather than nature.
He looked down, eyes glassy with something like relief. Or maybe it was pity. Behind him, a sliver of the world opened wide—the foyer, the stairs, the wide front doors thrown open to a grey dawn. Rain murmured softly against the roof.
And two men—uniformed, faceless—were dragging something between them.
He watched it limp and lifeless, soaked in blood at the temple, a trail of red blooming across the floor like a funeral blossom. One arm twisted unnaturally behind its back. The eyes—his eyes were gouged out of the sockets—clinging to the nerves.
"No," Zhenya whispered. Or tried to. No breath came. No sound. Only the echo of thought, weightless and untethered.
His hands trembled. Or would have, had they not passed through the cracked wooden floor like smoke. All he could see was a smoky left over of himself—his naked body glowing, but not enough to get noticed by the police men and forensic doctors around.
"W—what's this!" He looked up at Taekjoo, fearfully hoping it to be a dream—hoping to wake up beside his wife and children and forget about this nightmarish time.
"W—what's happening?" he mouthed.
Not kindly. Not cruelly. Simply... knowingly. As if he'd seen it all before. As if this moment was fated, inevitable—a line in a script the house had always meant to see performed.
"You weren't supposed to come back," Taekjoo said softly. "But you did. And now. . . you stay."
Zhenya backed away, but his feet no longer met the ground. The house had swallowed him whole. He could feel its walls pulsing now, like a throat—its hunger sated for the moment, yet always watching.
Outside, the city breathed. Cars passed. Dogs barked. Somewhere, someone laughed. Life rolled on with indifference, never noticing what the house had taken back into its crooked bones.
Inside, the past began again.
"You promised to take me, didn't you?" The voice no longer belonged to one man. It echoed like a chorus—two tones, fractured and layered over each other, both snarling with rage and despair. The eyes of the lover—of Taekjoo, or what was once him—began to bleed, red rivulets trailing down pale cheeks as if the house itself were weeping through him.
"You used me!" the voice howled, warped and wounded. "You said you loved me! And not once did you return! Not one letter. Not a call. Not even a whisper across the years!"
The house responded in kind. The floorboards trembled. The walls groaned like an ancient throat clearing to speak. And still the voice rose, splintering into shrieks.
"After you left, we were shunned! My family thrown to the gutter! I was cast out, Zhenya! Like filth. Like rot. Just because I dared to love you."
Zhenya staggered backwards. But there was nowhere to run. The walls were too close. The air, too thick. And the presence before him, too vast. It was no longer just Taekjoo. It was the house. It was the memory of a life torn apart. It was the ache of love curdled into vengeance.
"My mother—she took her life. Did you know that? She swallowed sleeping pills in the rain and no one found her until the foxes had chewed her hands. My father lost the business. He drank. He screamed. And in the end, he hung himself in this very room."
A choked, wet sob twisted into a hysterical laugh. "So tell me, Zhenya. Where were you then? Off playing the perfect husband? Fucking some cold, useless wife who never even touched your soul?"
Zhenya collapsed to his knees, clutching his head. His thoughts unravelled like silk burnt at the edges, thoughts splitting, spinning, collapsing into whispers.
"You ruined me," the voice accused, now calm again, almost gentle. "And all because you were afraid. Because you couldn't love me in the light."
And then came the softest words of all—whispered like a prayer, like a curse.
"So now, you'll stay here. With me. Tortured by our past. Trapped in every room where I waited, in every bed where I cried. Look at yourself. Still a manwhore. Still running. But now, you've run too far."
Zhenya tried to speak, but no sound came. His throat was dry, his chest no longer rose with breath. When he looked down, he saw his hands glowing faintly in the candlelight—translucent. Unmoored.
"This is all you have now," the voice continued, lovingly cruel. "These broken walls. These ruined floorboards. And me."
Taekjoo stepped forward, his body now whole again—serene, beautiful, terrifying. His robe trailed like smoke behind him, his eyes no longer bleeding, but glowing dimly in the dark.
"Won't you stay with me?" he asked. "Won't you love me again?"
Then he turned, like a priest finishing a ritual, and drifted down the hallway. The lights flickered back to life—not electricity, but something more primal. A golden, flickering glow like gaslight, drawn from the bones of the house itself. It illuminated the corridor in sepia and sorrow.
From the parlour, music began once more. The melody. That same haunting, unchanging tune. The one he had hummed while peeling garlic in the golden mornings of their youth. Before the fall. Before the ruin.
Zhenya stood, unable to move, unable to weep. His body, now a shell of mist, hovered above the floorboards. There was no heartbeat. No breath. Only memory. And regret.
Its creaking bones stretched with pleasure. The wallpaper, curling like dead petals, seemed to sigh. It had fed. It had taken. And now, it was full—content, for a little while.
Outside, dawn broke over Seoul like any other day. The traffic murmured to life. People bustled to cafés, students shuffled to schools, and the world spun on in its careless rhythm.
But inside—inside the boarding house, the world did not turn. It circled the same wound, the same ghost, again and again.
Zhenya wandered the halls now. A new presence. A new echo.
The door remained unlocked.
And Taekjoo—Taekjoo still hummed, a soft lullaby of eggs and butter, of kisses stolen in the dark, of vengeance that bloomed like mould in old wood.
And Zhenya?
He remained by his side.
Alone together in the house that forgot nothing.
And somewhere, just beyond the veil of sound, the house whispered:
"I remembered all too well to let you go, my love."
