Love.

Love, Daniel had learned, was pretty much toxic sugarcoated in lies and deception. Love was either an everlasting joy, or a fleeting ethereality- ephemeral, like stardust. Love stole one's breath, made them vulnerable to their knees, and when it abandoned them, only darkness would be inked in the once radiant cavity of their heart, filling up the void with negativity and despair.

When love shed its outer layers of faked joviality and assurance, there would be nothing but heavy, bitter angst in the core. Polluting, manifesting fear in all of its sinful beauty.

Daniel was once curious, wanting to taste what love was like, whether it would be sweet like fondue, or enthralling like anaesthetised high. He had a spoonful, a spoonful too much to step back and regret his decisions, before it was ripped away from him- slowly, like ice-cold water inching up his lungs the more he struggled, the more he breathed. It was painful -almost unbearable- and it had only taken a spoonful for the side-effects to start kicking in his systems.

Kang Daniel was seventeen when Ong Seongwoo left him.

Kang Daniel was seventeen when Ong Seongwoo disappeared from his life and from the city of Busan, leaving behind only the warmth of his kiss and the ghost of his touch.

Kang Daniel was seventeen when he had first learned of love and heartbreak, the most beautiful yet devastating combination that injected nothing but hopelessness in him.

Love was, indeed, scary.

~

"You have a total of three meetings today. You will be meeting Kim Jaehwan later in the morning at nine o' clock for the partnered charity ball event-"

"Can't we postpone the meeting to tomorrow? Tell Jaehwan I really can't stand looking at his face so early on such a fine Monday morning."

"Daniel," Jisung frowned, his hands immediately coming to rest on his hips, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "You're just making up excuses. Don't be such a kid and go attend that meeting. And he's your friend too, for God's sake."

Daniel groaned, slapping his cheek on the surface of his desk, a flair of his habitual dramatics, and proceeded to whine out loud in a high-pitched tone, voice unknowingly hitting a perfect soprano, to which Jisung winced.

"He's my friend, yes, all the more reasons for him to understand. It's just the discussion for the venue selection of the charity ball and how much is to be invested in the props. No biggie, right?"

Jisung sent Daniel a contrite gaze his way. The younger knew he was not going to be the one to behold the triumph in the argument, but he was stubbornly recalcitrant, and one might even say he was childish.

"Nope. You actually have to transfer the payment by the end of this week to the supplier for the props, and you have yet to even go through the list." Jisung stated in a clipped tone, if not slightly irritated.

", fine. Show me the list."

"Language, honey," The scowl etched on the ridges of Jisung's lips deepened, and Daniel could even see a prominent vein on the latter's forehead bulging. "And I've already sent you the list via email a couple weeks ago, you just didn't bother checking it in favor of watching cute cat videos on YouTube. Don't think I don't know. I always know."

Daniel pouted. "But cats are love, cats are life! They are the only reason of my sole existence right now."

Jisung rolled his eyes, his knuckles gripping the stack of notes and files whitening. He honestly didn't get paid enough to babysit Daniel's whining , if he may say so himself.

Daniel was a fine man, with killer looks and perfect body proportions. He was one the most wealthiest and well-known bachelors in the whole of Korea, females and males alike swooned and lusted over him. He had everything he could have at just a sheet of signed cheque; loaded bank accounts and uncountable estate properties; yet Jisung knew his most desired wish couldn't be fulfilled despite his glamorous riches and enticing luxuries.

A lover, perhaps. A high school sweetheart that got away and never to be found again, to be more accurate. A love story gone tragic, very sadly so.

Beneath his carefree attitude and easygoing personality, Jisung knew Daniel was hurting inside. For four years already, four agonizing years. Jisung had stuck with Daniel like glue ever since high school, moved to the heart of Seoul with him, and he was now his personal secretary after his abrupt rise to the limelight- a bond of loyalty no one even dared to question.

Jisung didn't like admitting it, but he cared deeply for the younger. It was crazily unfathomable how much so, but he knew he would always be by Daniel's side, call him a protective mother hen or not.

"Whatever. Go through the list first and then meet up with Jaehwan at nine. There would another meeting at two in the afternoon with Kim Corporations, and right after that, your presence would be needed to sort out the contract of the newly-built grand hotel in Itaewon with Jonghyun at five. You are free for the rest of the evening then."

Daniel slumped his back, unbelievably bored out of his mind, and propped his feet up on the edge of the table. "Jisung hyung. You know that I really love you, right?"

"Goddammit, Kang Daniel. You don't get to bribe me with all your plastic compliments, Jesus. And don't forget, I'm already taken. I'm deeply apologetic to say that it is beyond my capacity to return your confession." Jisung replied, sarcasm heavy in his intonations. He then wiped an invisible tear away from the corner of his eye and started to weep, very much exaggerated.

"Gosh. Get out of my office, you bastard," Daniel moaned in defeat, sending a manila folder that was perched atop his desk amongst the messy piles of crinkled paper flying in Jisung's direction. The rectangular item chucked Jisung square in the face and he yelped, to which Daniel smirked haughtily, taking joy in his friend's sufferings.

"I'm going to Sungwoon now then," Jisung announced after, a smile naturally winding on his face, stretching till it reached his cheekbones- no doubt fantasizing about his boyfriend. "I'll have your assistant on standby at nine to accompany you to Jaehwan's. Better make sure to read through the list, or I'm having your head."

"Is that the way to be talking to your boss?"

"Oh Daniel," Jisung batted his eyelashes like a damsel in distress, his hand clutched over his heart. "You know I love you too, honey. Don't get too hung up on it."

"Go away already before I fire you myself!"

A cacophonous howl of echoing snickers was what Daniel heard last before the door slammed shut. He sighed once, before reaching for his tablet, resuming the cat video he had previously watched before Jisung's unannounced entrance.

And skimming through the list? Hell no.

~

Ong Seongwoo was everything Kang Daniel wasn't.

At a mere age of fourteen, a couple handful of years shy from being an adult, Seongwoo had the possession of all commodities desired on his very fingertips. Popularity, breathtaking looks, a genius mind with an IQ of a hundred and fifty, and a good-natured personality.

Everyone adored him, loved him. He was the golden child of the Ong household, ever so kind and generous. Always smiling with full buttercream cheeks of unmatured puberty and eyes curved into lunette slits. His very being brought the pledge of success and red A-pluses on all exam papers for his future to come, one that was so bright that it lured all the moths to be attracted at such a dazzling promise.

Seongwoo was Daniel's new neighbor.

The vacant single-storied house that was furnished with a Victorian flair of jagged rooftops and lifeless grey walls had been empty for almost five months before Seongwoo and his family accommodated the space. The previous owner had been a bitter old woman, nasty and churlish, thorns adorning her words whenever she opened her thin lips that was weathered with wrinkles. Daniel wasn't fond of her, and was glad when she moved away to reside with her daughter in the countryside.

In the span of the five fugacious months, he would frequently stare out the window from the small of his room, bored whenever his mother confiscated his phone- ordering him to do something productive instead.

The gleaming rays of the sun drowned the empty house with its golden warmth adjacent to his own, outlining the sharp edges that was embellished with threads of silvery cobwebs and peeling paint. It wasn't for another week, a small family of three was seen lugging bags and belongings to and fro from the once desolate house.

"Hello, my name is One Seongwoo. I'm your new neighbor!"

Daniel didn't like Seongwoo when they were first introduced. At all.

He was too optimistic, too cheery for his liking. It was a vast contrast to the almost emotionally-detached character of Daniel's. Seongwoo's constant jubilation was what made his childish loathe for him augment.

Gunmetal hue tinted in his hair and irises a shade darker, Seongwoo donned an easy smile on his full pinkish lips. He wore an oversized knitted cardigan with stone-washed jeans and worn, blue Converses.

His features were soft- almost feminine. He looked as if he had never been tinged by the evildoings of the unjust world, only purity and innocence screaming from just his seraphic face.

A sliver of Daniel wanted to ruin that, tarnish the radiance and let depravity and darkness consume Seongwoo whole. Let him have a slight flavour of the evil, and make him bend at the very cusp, to the point of breaking.

Seongwoo didn't know about Daniel.

Dark, dark Daniel.

Daniel's life was a concoction of sordid shambles, the light in his eyes snuffed out already from a very y