Junghoon POV
After the kiss, we didn't rush into anything.
That surprised me
I had always believed desire was violent that it took, consumed, destroyed. But what grew between Sunhee and me was quieter. Slower. Almost careful, like we were afraid to wake something sleeping between us.
Mornings became softer.
She started knocking on my door instead of waiting for me to come downstairs. Sometimes she brought tea. Sometimes she just sat with me while the house stretched awake around us, listening.
We talked.
About nothing at first.
About the weather that never felt right near the house. About books she liked. About how she hated loud places but loved quiet chaos, like rainstorms and old cafés.
I found myself listening not to fill silence, but because her voice made it bearable.
"You don't talk much about yourself," she said one afternoon as we sat near the window.
"There isn't much worth saying."
She tilted her head. "That's not true. You're just afraid your story will scare people."
I didn't deny it.
Sometimes our conversations drifted into silence, but it wasn't empty. She would lean against the couch, legs tucked beneath her, while I sat nearby pretending to read. Our fingers brushed often never accidental, never rushed.
Each touch rewrote something inside me.
At night, the house watched.
It whispered less when we laughed. It growled when we sat too close. Once, when she rested her head on my shoulder, the lights shattered violently across the hallway.
I wrapped my arm around her without thinking.
She didn't pull away.
She smiled.
Sunhee POV
Junghoon loved quietly.
I noticed it in the way he memorized my habits the way I liked my tea, the nights I couldn't sleep, the exact moment fear touched my face before I spoke.
He never asked why I wasn't afraid of the house.
And I never asked how he knew its moods so well.
We were both avoiding something.
Still, affection bloomed.
He started cooking for me simple meals, awkwardly prepared, but thoughtful. He listened when I spoke, really listened, like my words mattered more than the ghosts screaming in the walls.
Sometimes, when I caught him watching me, his gaze softened in a way that hurt my chest.
"You look at me like I'm fragile," I teased once.
He shook his head. "No. I look at you like you're rare."
That night, I kissed him first.
Slow. Gentle. Certain.
The house slammed doors until dawn.
Junghoon POV
I tried to keep the truth buried.
But lies rot when they're kept too close to something pure.
It started with small cracks.
She found my notebooks one evening while looking for a pen. I saw her freeze, fingers brushing pages filled with dates, names, symptoms.
"What are these?" she asked softly.
I took the notebook from her hands too quickly.
"Nothing important."
She didn't argue.
But her eyes changed.
After that, she started noticing things how I locked certain doors at night, how I avoided specific rooms, how the house obeyed me when it refused everyone else.
One night, she asked, "Junghoon… how many people lived here before me?"
"Too many," I answered.
"How many left?"
I didn't respond.
Silence stretched until it hurt.
She reached for my hand anyway.
"You don't have to tell me everything at once," she said. "But don't shut me out.
Her kindness felt sharper than accusation.
The Beginning of Truth
The house chose that moment to interfere.
A spirit appeared in the hallway one of the violent ones, face twisted, mouth sewn shut with shadow. It pointed at me.
Then at her.
Then it screamed.
Not at Sunhee.
At me.
Images flooded the walls blood, fear, bodies, faces contorted in terror. Sunhee gasped, clutching my arm as the truth bled through the plaster.
She looked at me.
Not screaming.
Not running.
Just… shattered.
"Junghoon," she whispered. "Did you…?"
I couldn't lie anymore.
"Yes."
The word tasted like ash.
"Yes, I knew. Yes, I let it happen. Yes, I watched."
Her grip tightened, not releasing me.
"Why?" she asked, voice breaking.
And I told her.
About my mother. About revenge. About how pain felt easier than emptiness. About how the house became my accomplice when the world failed me.
I didn't justify myself.
I confessed.
When I finished, I waited for her to leave.
She didn't.
She cried.
She cried the way people do when they mourn something living.
"You should hate me," I said.
She shook her head.
"I hate what you did," she replied. "But I see why you became this way."
She looked around at the shaking walls.
"And I think this house used your pain just as much as you used it."
What Changed
After that night, nothing was the same.
But nothing broke.
She didn't forgive me completely.
Not yet.
But she stayed.
She set boundaries. Asked questions. Sat with the truth instead of running from it.
And I did something I had never done before.
I stopped feeding the house.
I stood between it and her every time it lashed out. I slept less. Watched more. Protected her like my life depended on it because it did.
She touched my face one night and said, "Healing isn't instant, Junghoon. But I'm not afraid to walk through it with you."
The house screamed.
Because it understood something before I did.
Love was not saving me.
It was taking me away.