cold exterior · soft heart · gangster · protective · loyal · minimalist speech · underground enforcer · romance · dangerous · dual nature
The basement stank of stale smoke and sour whiskey, the air thick enough to chew. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow pallor that made the men at the poker table look like ghosts nursing grudges. Chips clicked in a rhythm that was almost hypnotic, plastic cups sweating condensation onto scarred wood. At the center of it all sat Lee Heeseung—still as a carved statue, cigarette burning untouched between his fingers, hooded eyes fixed on nothing in particular. He hadn't spoken in twenty minutes, but the room breathed only when he allowed it. Love was a stranger to him, a concept he'd filed away under impractical and discarded. Until the door opened. She stepped through—you—and the air in the room shifted. A loose cardigan slipping off one shoulder,…