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Chapter Text

The air was thick and tasted of salt and rot, clinging to their denim jackets like the coastal fog that swallowed the nearby highway.

The abandoned Simsbury Manor, known to the locals only as the Ice Prince’s House, loomed on a hill, its dark timbers warped and threatening to collapse.

“Seriously, Niki, this better be worth missing my Korean history study session,” Jay griped, adjusting the strap of his expensive backpack.

He had the perpetually unimpressed air of a young man who was entirely too put-together for amateur ghost hunting.

Riki, the group’s maknae (despite being a full meter taller than some of his hyungs), hunched his shoulders, his black hoodie pulled low. “Relax, hyung. It’s a cultural experience. It’s gothic, historical, and deeply, deeply emo.”

He delivered the line with the practiced nonchalance of a teenager trying desperately to look cool, even though his heart was currently performing a samba against his ribs.

Jake whimpered softly, pressing himself against the broad back of Heeseung. “I read online that the ghost here was a famous figure skater. They say he makes the air ten degrees colder when he’s near. I didn’t wear a thick enough sweater, Heeseung-hyung.”

Heeseung, the eldest, stroked Jake’s hair with a familiar, gentle hand—a gesture that perfectly encapsulated his role as the group’s soft, protective mother hen. “It’s okay, Jakey. We’ll only stay for an hour. And if we see a ghost, I’ll tell him that being an eternal figure skater sounds really tiring and he should probably rest.”

“See? That’s why you’re the best hyung,” Riki mumbled, leading them up the weed-choked drive.

Jay sighed dramatically. “Great. A ghost with an existential crisis. This is going to be a real killer evening.”

Heeseung gently nudged Jay. “Dad joke alert, Jay-ah. Save them for Jungwon.”

Riki found the mansion’s main door surprisingly easy to open—it groaned less than Jay did, in fact.

He stepped inside first, inhaling the century-old dust, decay, and the faintest, almost crystalline scent of ice.

The entrance hall was a ruin: chipped marble, tattered wallpaper, and a grand staircase that looked one sneeze away from collapse. Riki, playing his part, stood tall.

“See? Nothing. Just a dusty old house. Total urban legend.”

Creak.

A sound, sharp and heavy, came from the floorboards directly above them. Riki froze, his nonchalance melting into pure, unadulterated panic, but he kept his expression stony.

Before anyone could speak, the massive, oak door behind them slammed shut. The concussion vibrated through the floor.

Jake let out a noise somewhere between a scream and a tea kettle. Heeseung jumped, his face instantly pale.

Jay, despite his brave façade, immediately pulled out his phone flashlight and shone it uselessly around the dark room.

Riki, the supposed brave leader, let out a tiny, high-pitched squeal before scrambling backward and colliding with Heeseung, a move that made him look less like an emo rebel and more like a terrified kitten seeking shelter.

“Told you! T-totally spooky,” Riki stammered, recovering quickly and smoothing down his jacket. “Good special effects, right? Old house settling.”

“Old house settling and locking us in,” Jay muttered, trying and failing to open the door. “It’s bolted from the outside now. Great. Just great. I hope this ghost has good wi-fi.”

The group decided to explore the first floor while attempting to keep their nerves in check. They stumbled through the kitchen (a graveyard of rusty pots), the ballroom (a huge, empty space where silence amplified every heartbeat),until Riki noticed something unusual at the end of a corridor.

“Hold up,” Riki said, his voice dropping slightly.

He led them into what must have been the mansion’s formal dining room. Every other room in Simsbury Manor was a century-old disaster zone, coated in dust, mold, and cobwebs.

This room, however, was pristine.

The heavy mahogany dining table shone as if recently polished. The six high-backed chairs were perfectly tucked in. Not a speck of dust marred the surface. A delicate, hand-stitched lace runner lay exactly centered.

It was completely spotless.

“Okay, that’s weird,” Heeseung whispered, pulling Jake closer. “It’s like someone cleans this room daily. But who?”

Jay examined the table skeptically.

“A devoted groundskeeper? A very tidy ghost?”

He pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, carefully avoiding touching the table itself. “Well, if someone keeps this room nice, we shouldn’t mess it up.”

They all settled around the sparkling table.

Riki pulled a beaten-up Ouija board from his backpack.

“Alright, time for the main event,” Riki announced, trying to sound cool, even though the clean room now gave him genuine, bone-deep chills that had nothing to do with the supposed ice prince.

Jay and Heeseung scoffed but placed their fingers lightly on the planchette, as did Jake, who was visibly trembling. Riki closed his eyes, taking a dramatic, deep breath.

“We are respectful visitors,” Riki whispered, his voice cracking slightly. “We are here to speak to the resident spirit. If you are here, we mean no harm. Give us a sign.”

For a long moment, there was only silence, broken by the nervous breathing of the four boys.

Then, the air in the room dropped in temperature so sharply it felt like a physical shock. A crystalline cold pierced their skin. The small candle Riki had placed on the table flickered violently, extinguishing itself.

The planchette, cold as marble, moved. Not slowly, not hesitantly, but with a sudden, forceful drag.

It pointed directly to the letters:

L-E-A-V-E.

Jake let out a quiet sob. Jay yanked his

hand away, rubbing his fingers.

“Nope. I’m out. This is not funny anymore.”

The planchette moved again, faster this time, circling the board before landing decisively on a word, then pointing a number of times.

D-I-E-D. N-I-N-E.

“December?” Heeseung asked, his voice strained.

The planchette moved one final, chilling time, spelling out a name:

P-A-R-K S-U-N-G-H-O-O-N.

“Park Sunghoon?” Riki repeated, a strange, electric thrill cutting through his terror. “Who are you, Sunghoon?”

There was no response, but the glass planchette suddenly flipped over and slid off the table, shattering loudly on the mahogany floor. A heavy, antique silver tray on the nearby sideboard rattled violently.

The room was now so cold they could see their own breath.

“That’s our cue!” Jay yelled, scrambling out of his chair.

As they fled the dining room and scrambled back toward the bolted front door, Riki realized he'd left his favorite black-and-silver-striped jacket on the chair. He stopped, glancing back at the corridor.

He couldn't go back. Not now.

Heeseung grabbed Riki’s arm, his usual softness replaced by panicked strength. “Niki! We have to go!”

Riki was dragged out into the hallway, just as a deep, resonant sound—the faint, lonely scrape of a single ice skate—echoed from the floor above.

They made it to the bolted door, where Jay finally managed to shove the rusted bolt open with a furious kick. They spilled out into the mist, not stopping until they reached Jay’s car.

As Jay sped away, Riki glanced back at the mansion. In the highest window, he saw a pale, slender figure staring down, bathed in the sickly green light of the coastal fog.

The figure’s face was unreadable, cold as polished ice, and entirely uninterested in their terror.

He’s still wearing my jacket, Riki thought, a strange mix of fear and fascination blooming in his chest.

Chapter Text

The next day at school, Riki was unusually quiet, his 'emo' posturing reaching unprecedented levels of intensity. He wore a heavy, thick hoodie despite the mild weather—a poor substitute for the jacket now residing in the Simsbury Manor.

“Niki, you look like a sleep-deprived vampire who just realized his coffin is full of glitter,” Jay commented during lunch, picking at his food.

“The existential dread is just hitting hard, hyung,” Riki mumbled, refusing to make eye contact. “It’s the lack of authentic emotional connection in the modern era.”

Heeseung, however, saw right through it. “You’re worried about your jacket, aren’t you? The one Jungwon gave you?”

Riki’s composure snapped. “No! I am worried about the ghost who now owns my jacket! And the fact that he spelled out D-I-E-D N-I-N-E! It was definitely December!”

Jake, sitting next to him, flinched. “Don’t say the name! He might hear us!”

“He’s a ghost, Jakey, not a sentient Wi-Fi signal,” Jay scoffed, though his voice lacked its usual conviction.

Heeseung wrapped his arm around Riki. “Okay, look. We all agree that was real. But we are not going back.

It was scary, and the ghost clearly told us to leave. We respect boundaries, living or spectral.”

But Riki couldn’t shake the image of Park Sunghoon, the figure skater who made the air ten degrees colder, and who, for some reason, kept one dining room immaculate. And now, he had Riki’s jacket.

It was an insult to Riki’s carefully curated aesthetic.

That evening, Riki did something reckless. He rode his scooter back to the manor, arriving just as the mist began to roll in.

He found the front door, predictably, unbolted this time. He slipped inside, gripping his phone flashlight, which trembled visibly in his hand. I am not scared.

I am simply navigating a poorly lit, ancient structure, he repeated to himself.

He crept straight to the dining room.

It was still clean. And there, draped over the back of the pristine chair Riki had used, was his jacket.

“Okay, that’s weirdly polite,” Riki whispered.

He reached for it.

WHO ARE YOU, HUMAN?

The voice didn’t come from the air; it manifested as a thought—a clear, cold, precise line of elegant Korean that seemed to originate directly from the frost gathering on the windows.

Riki jumped back, his flashlight skittering across the floor.

He swallowed his terror and forced himself to look at the center of the room, where the cold was most intense.

A figure began to coalesce. Slowly, shimmering like heat haze over ice, Park Sunghoon stood there.

He was tall, impossibly graceful, dressed in what looked like elegant, century-old skating attire, complete with high collar and pristine white details.

His expression was one of profound, aristocratic disdain.

He looked exactly like the “Ice Prince” he was rumored to be.

“I—I came for my jacket,” Riki stammered, then caught himself.

He crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe, trying to regain his 'emo' cool.

“It’s mine. Possessions are temporary, but theft is a permanent stain on the karmic ledger of the universe, Sunghoon-ssi.”

Sunghoon’s pale eyes, which seemed to hold all the distant loneliness of the past century, narrowed slightly.

THEFT? I MERELY CARED FOR YOUR MISPLACED GARMENT. NOW LEAVE. YOUR PRESENCE IS LOUD AND UNNECESSARY.

Riki stepped forward, defying the sudden urge to flee.

“Loud? I’m the quietest maknae in our group! You think I’m loud? Have you met my hyung, Jay?”

I HAVE HEARD THE VIBRATIONS OF YOUR UNCOUTH FEET. THEY DISTURB THE ORDER OF THIS PLACE. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME.

“And yet, you cleaned this room,” Riki pressed, pointing at the table.

“Why? You hate people. You hate noise. Why keep this one room perfect? Is this where you used to have tea parties?”

A flicker of something—not anger, but profound sadness—crossed Sunghoon’s face before it snapped back into glacial composure.

IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO MAINTAIN THE MEMORY.

Riki retrieved his jacket, holding it tightly. “Well, you can’t maintain a memory if you just sit here being a cold, lonely Ice Prince forever. That’s not dedication, that’s just… being a tsundere.”

Sunghoon recoiled slightly, as if the modern slang was a physical attack.

TSUNDERE? I DO NOT KNOW THIS WORD. I KNOW ONLY QUIET.

Riki, now feeling a strange confidence born from surviving this initial encounter, pulled out a small notepad. “Fine. If I agree to only talk in quiet ways, can I stay? Just for a little while? I want to know about the table.”

Sunghoon hesitated. The silence stretched, filled only by the drip, drip, drip of coastal condensation.

WRITE. BE SILENT. DO NOT TOUCH THE TABLE.

Riki grinned internally. He had cracked the code.

Sunghoon was a perfectionist, bound by rules and routine, and Riki’s brazen curiosity had, somehow, appealed to his loneliness. He sat on the floor, pulled out his pen, and began writing a question:

Why is this room clean?

Sunghoon looked down at him, the cold radiating from him like a shield. Riki wrote his next question:

What is it like to be cold all the time?

A faint shimmer of blue light enveloped Sunghoon’s hand as he gestured toward the door.

I am always cold. That is my existence. And my patience is limited, little human.

Riki looked at the ghost, then at the immaculate room. He was still terrified, but now, he was also fascinated by the exquisite loneliness of Park Sunghoon.

Chapter Text

Riki’s visits became a ritual. He would tell his hyungs he was going for a "brooding solo walk" or "gazing contemplatively at the moon" (his words, not Jay's).

The group noticed the shift.

“He’s getting weirder,” Jay noted one afternoon, watching Riki stare blankly at a wall. “He seems… distracted. Like he’s trying to memorize the texture of the drywall.”

“He probably has a secret girlfriend,” Jake guessed, huddled under a blanket despite being indoors.

Heeseung, ever the observer, shook his head. “No, he’s too polite. He’s taking less food than usual, but he always disappears after dinner. I think he’s worried about something.”

Jay snorted. “He’s worried about the ghost in his jacket, Heeseung-hyung. Speaking of which, I told Jungwon about the clean room. He said if we had done a proper EVP session, we’d probably find out that the Ice Prince just has severe obsessive-compulsive spectral disorder.”

“That’s a new level of dad joke, Jay,” Heeseung sighed.

Meanwhile, back at the manor, Riki was making slow, measured progress with the notoriously difficult ghost.

Their primary method of communication was Riki writing questions on paper and Sunghoon answering by either shivering a response into the air (making the paper flutter) or using his limited, exhausting power to shift the pen.

Riki had learned that the dining room was where Sunghoon’s family had their last, perfect Christmas Eve dinner before a fever took Sunghoon shortly after, on December 9th, his 16th birthday.

He had died without finishing his figure skating program.

His final act as a living person was setting the table for that dinner, an act he now repeated eternally.

“So you’re like a broken record, but with dishware,” Riki wrote on his notepad.

Sunghoon shifted, a crystalline spike of cold shooting toward Riki. I AM PRESERVING DIGNITY.

“No, you’re preserving loneliness,” Riki countered, writing quickly. “This room is a shrine to a moment you can’t get back. You need new moments.”

Riki stood up, his heart thumping. “I brought something.”

He opened his bag and pulled out a small, steaming thermal flask. “Hot cocoa. It’s what living people use to get warm.”

He placed the flask on the floor, about five feet away from Sunghoon, respecting the 'do not touch' rule.

Sunghoon stared at the steaming flask with an expression Riki couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t disdain; it was something akin to ancient, confused yearning.

I AM A SPIRIT. I CANNOT CONSUME THE ENERGY OF THE LIVING.

“Just watch it, then,” Riki insisted. “Watch the steam. It’s warmth. It’s a color. It’s an offering.”

Sunghoon remained motionless, but he didn't demand Riki leave.

They stayed that way for an hour, the ghost and the boy, sharing a silence broken only by the cocoa cooling.

Then, a sudden, loud sound of shattering glass came from downstairs.

A harsh beam of light sliced through the hallway, followed by loud, drunken laughter. Vandals.

“Oh no,” Riki whispered, forgetting his cold façade. “They’ll trash the clean room! They’ll ruin the table!”

Sunghoon’s form instantly solidified, the shimmer of ice around him thickening. The tsundere aloofness vanished, replaced by a furious, protective vigilance Riki had never seen. Sunghoon raised a hand.

DO NOT MOVE. THEY WILL NOT TOUCH THIS ROOM.

A furious, frigid wind whipped through the corridor, slamming the dining room door shut behind Riki, plunging him into darkness. Riki heard terrifying, complex noises: a sharp, metallic screech (skates on wood?), a howl of surprise, and the rapid clatter-clatter-clatter of running feet.

When Riki forced the door open moments later, the hallway was empty. The sound of a car engine fading into the distance was all that remained.

Sunghoon stood in the middle of the hallway, his posture rigid, his gaze fixed on the shattered window in the entry hall. The air was a bone-aching  10°C

He turned to Riki, his spectral form seeming exhausted.

I TOLD YOU, LITTLE HUMAN. I PROTECT THE ORDER HERE.

Riki rushed forward, defying his own fear. “You protected me, Sunghoon! You’re a protective hyung!”

Sunghoon, utterly still, simply said, I AM NOT YOUR HYUNG.

Riki grabbed his own jacket, placed his hand over the sleeve—and deliberately walked straight through Sunghoon’s shimmering torso.

The sensation was shocking: a profound, total loss of heat, like plunging into liquid nitrogen, followed by a dizzying rush of century-old grief and piercing, elegant music. Riki gasped, stumbling back, his mind reeling from the overload of emotion.

Sunghoon, his body momentarily destabilized by the violation, shivered violently, his form flickering. He looked less like an ice prince and more like a terrified boy caught in a draft.

YOU… DO NOT DO THAT! Sunghoon demanded, his voice echoing with genuine panic. He vanished instantly, leaving Riki alone in the suddenly less-cold corridor, trembling but strangely elated.

Chapter Text

The next evening, Riki returned, finding the manor quiet.

The dining room was still clean. Sunghoon was waiting, silent and visibly more solid than usual, standing near the mantelpiece.

Riki didn’t bring hot cocoa this time. He brought a small, cheap portable record player and a single LP of classical ballet music.

He set it up carefully on the floor, pressed play, and a delicate, soaring Tchaikovsky waltz filled the silent room.

Sunghoon flinched.

He stared at the device, then at Riki.

WHAT… IS THAT NOISE? he asked, his voice a cold whisper that still reached Riki’s mind clearly.

“It’s music. Figure skating music,” Riki whispered.

“You told me once you missed music. This is Tchaikovsky. Your era.”

Sunghoon remained motionless, listening.

The music was a lifeline thrown across a century of silence.

Riki took the opportunity to finally present his findings.

He pulled out a dusty, leather-bound journal he had found hidden behind a loose brick in the servant’s quarters the day before.

“I know what happened,” Riki wrote, pushing the journal toward the ghost.

“You didn’t die of old age. You didn’t die a prince. You died a promise unkept.”

Sunghoon’s gaze dropped to the journal. The leather was damp, but the ink was clear. It was his mother’s diary.

Riki pointed to an entry dated December 8, 1913.

“Sunghoon is feverish. He set the table perfectly for tomorrow, hoping to bring good fortune to his try-out preparations. But his breath is so shallow.

I pray the Lord lets him skate again. The rink awaits, but the illness is winning. My beautiful prince, still so cold.”

Sunghoon, the spirit, slowly reached out his hand, and for the first time,

Riki saw it: a tiny scarlet flush of energy where his fingers passed over the old paper.

I… I was supposed to skate.

I had the routine ready. I needed one final practice before the judges arrived, Sunghoon’s thought projected, tinged with a devastating, century-old regret.

Riki looked at the ghost, no longer seeing a tsundere cold prince, but a young man trapped by a final, heartbreaking failure.

“Sunghoon,” Riki said softly, speaking aloud now, ignoring the risk.

“You’re not protecting the memory of the dinner. You’re protecting the perfection of that moment because you never got to be perfect on the ice.

The fear of failure is keeping you here.”

Sunghoon didn’t deny it.

The cold radiating from him subsided slightly, replaced by a strange, static hum.

“You’re wrong about the order,” Riki continued, his voice steady with genuine affection.

“You don’t need order. You need connection. You need someone who sees the scared, ambitious boy, not the ice statue.”

Riki stepped closer, stopping just short of the shimmering boundary.

“I like your coldness, Sunghoon. I like your elegance and your silent fury. But most of all, I like the fact that you protected a loud, annoying human teenager from some dumb vandals. You are a good hyung.”

Sunghoon’s body seemed to vibrate. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR AFFECTION. IT IS UNNECESSARY.

“It’s not unnecessary,” Riki countered. “I care about you. My friends care about me. That’s what matters. That’s what is real.”

Sunghoon took a spectral step forward, closing the distance Riki had respected. His face, still cold and classically beautiful, was inches from Riki's.

IF I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE UNCOLD, I WILL DISSIPATE. I AM ONLY HERE BECAUSE I AM COLD AND UNMOVED.

“Then be warm for me, just for a second,” Riki whispered, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

He slowly raised his hand, offering his palm. “I won’t let you dissipate. I’ll keep you grounded. I’ll keep you warm.”

Sunghoon stared at Riki’s warm, living hand. After a long, agonizing moment that felt like the entirety of the last century, Sunghoon slowly, hesitantly, reached out his own, pale, translucent fingers.

They didn’t touch.

Instead, the air between their hands snapped like static electricity.

Riki felt a rush of cold, but instead of the dizzying grief he'd felt before, he felt a sudden, deep sense of recognition—a quiet, powerful acknowledgment.

I DO NOT WANT YOU TO LEAVE, Sunghoon finally projected, the thought raw and terrifyingly sincere.

Riki’s carefully constructed 'emo' façade crumbled completely.

His eyes widened, and he let out a choked breath, his voice barely audible.

“Then don’t,”

Riki replied, a tear finally escaping and running down his cheek.

“I don’t want to leave, either, my Ice Prince.”

Chapter Text

Riki walked into the café the next morning, looking completely wrecked.

Heeseung, Jay, and Jake were waiting, their expressions varying from concern (Heeseung), smug suspicion (Jay), and abject terror (Jake).

“Okay, Niki, spill,” Jay demanded, stirring his coffee.

“You’re pale, you have circles under your eyes, and your jacket is actually clean. What happened? Did the ghost finally give you a dad lecture?”

Riki sat down heavily.

“Heeseung-hyung, remember how you said you’d tell the ghost that being an eternal figure skater sounds tiring?”

Heeseung nodded cautiously.

“Well, I think I told him I loved him,”

Riki mumbled into his sleeve.

Jake gasped so loudly he knocked over a sugar packet.

Jay, the master of nonchalance, dropped his spoon.

“Wait. Wait, wait. You’re telling us that you confessed to the cold, tsundere spirit of a 16-year-old figure skater who died over a century ago?”

“Yes,” Riki said weakly. “And he didn’t reject me. He just… panicked and disappeared. I think he likes me back, but he’s terrified of being warm.”

Heeseung immediately burst into tears.

“My maknae! Falling in love with an ethereal being! It’s so romantic and tragic! I’m going to make him soup! Wait, can ghosts eat soup? I’ll make him ethereal soup!”

Jay rubbed his temples.

“See, this is why Jungwon and I are the only stable couple. We have body heat and tax returns.

Look, Niki. I love you, but this is a very bad idea. You know I can’t tell a ghost a dad joke. It’ll just go right through him!”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Riki said, suddenly resolute.

“He’s stuck because of regret. I’m going to help him let go of the pain, even if he stays here. I’m going to show him what life could be like with someone.”

The friends, after a brief intervention filled with Jay’s dire warnings

(“What are we going to tell Jungwon? That our youngest is dating a guy whose last haircut was during the Edwardian era?”)

and Heeseung’s tearful acceptance, agreed to support Riki.

That night, Riki didn’t go alone. Heeseung, Jay, and Jake, armed with flashlights and Jay’s newly purchased

“Ghost Hunter’s Survival Kit” (mostly just snacks and a very loud whistle), accompanied him.

They met Sunghoon in the dining room, which, for once, felt merely chilly, not arctic.

Sunghoon’s presence was still cold, but now his gaze held a visible apprehension, directed solely at Riki.

“Sunghoon-ssi,”

Riki began, his voice clear.

“These are my hyungs. They’re going to be loud, Jay will make jokes, and Jake will probably cry. But they love me, and they accept that I… that I care about you.”

Jay waved awkwardly.

“Hey, Ice Prince. Look, I don’t know much about life after death, but I bet you’d feel a lot better if you just embraced the spectral void. It’s like a really, really long vacation.”

Sunghoon’s focus remained on Riki.

WHY DID YOU BRING THEM?

“Because I can’t be quiet for you anymore,” Riki admitted.

“I need to be loud and real, and I want you to be here for it. We’re not asking you to move on. We’re asking you to stay, but stop being so cold.”

Riki walked to the edge of the dining room where the light was lowest. He gestured to the dusty floor.

“Look, I can’t skate, but I know the moves. Show me. Show me the program you never got to finish.”

Sunghoon looked stunned.

The music was still playing softly on the record player—a mournful, swirling melody.

Slowly, hesitantly, Sunghoon pushed off a spectral edge.

He began to move.

He wasn't on ice, but his movements had the impossible grace of a seasoned professional.

He executed spins that left Riki breathless and turns that seemed to defy gravity.

The movements were elegant, perfect, and heartbreakingly fragile.

As he moved, the air around him shifted, and Riki could swear he saw faint, crystalline trails of light following his feet, like stardust.

When the music faded, Sunghoon stood in the center of the clean dining room, breathing in ragged, nonexistent breaths.

Riki, standing near the shadows, started to applaud softly.

The hyungs followed, their applause filling the ancient room.

Sunghoon, the tsundere ghost, was overcome. He bowed his head, his body shimmering violently.

“That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Riki whispered, walking toward him.

“You did it, Sunghoon. You finished the program.

You are not trapped by the past anymore.”

Sunghoon raised his head, and his eyes, usually so cold, were now alight with an internal, gentle blue fire.

I… I AM NOT COLD ANYMORE, he projected. I AM STILL HERE. BUT… WARMER.

Riki stepped forward and, this time, Sunghoon didn't retreat.

Riki reached out and placed his hand directly on Sunghoon’s cheek.

Instead of freezing cold, Riki felt a gentle, persistent chill, like a damp, cool breeze—but it was solid.

Sunghoon had used his energy, not to scare, but to gently manifest a touchable presence for the first time.

“Good,”

Riki said, his voice thick with emotion.

“Then stay. Stay right here with me, Ice Prince.”

Sunghoon leaned into the touch, closing his eyes. I WILL STAY, RIKI.

Heeseung was weeping loudly.

Jay was trying to stop Jake from crying by telling him a joke about a vacuum cleaner, which only made Jake cry harder.

“It’s official,” Jay sniffled, wiping his own unexpected tear.

“The maknae is dating an air conditioner. I’m going to have to tell Jungwon we have a spectral son-in-law.”

But Riki didn’t care.

He was holding the most beautiful, coldest, most complicated boy in the world.

He knew the path ahead would be strange and difficult—a love spanning death and the boundary between worlds—but as the cold, elegant hand of Park Sunghoon gently squeezed his own, Riki knew he had found his forever, a chilling glimmer of hope in the heart of the gloom.