“Y/N!” Eric cried, shaking your lower arm about. “How do we always end up here?!”

“At the quarry house?” you wondered, and your best friend nodded, then shook his head.

“Working for free!”

“It’s not exactly for free. Think about the business we’ll receive after this. If we can restore this home to what it once looked like, others will take us on for their renovations. It’s going to make business boom.”

“Our bank account is in poverty as it is,” Eric reminded, and you shrugged his concern off. “If we’re paying for new materials-”

“Actually, I’ve organised a sponsor.”

“Jerry from the hardware store downtown is so not going to help here. He’s always telling me about how this place gives him the heebie-jeebies.”

“Isn’t it a good thing I spoke to people outside of this town? I still have connections through university.”

“No way. You hit up that big-time investor Yoo Kihyun, didn’t you?”

“He invests in the future for a reason, Eric.”

“Now he invests in the past too? Face it, Y/N, this place isn’t going to stop being the creepy quarry home with a of paint and new varnish on the hard floors. Kihyun is only doing this because he wants to get into your– good morning, Hyunwoo! How pleasant it is to see you again. So suddenly.”

Hyunwoo shared a grin with you over your conversation the other day about his silent arrivals before shrugging at Eric. “I did wait for more than long enough at the front door. Didn’t you see me there?”

“Maybe he thought he saw a ghost,” you teased, and both men looked at you weirdly before you cleared your throat. “Guys, it was a joke.”

“You’re hilarious,” Eric said dryly, whilst Hyunwoo brooded.

“Well, shall we get started? Kihyun needs a provisory list of supplies by tonight.”

After the first batch of supplies arrived, your days blurred into one endless restoration project. You woke up early and worked long into the night, sometimes being gently stirred awake by Hyunwoo or the moonlight shining inside the windows.

However, even in your dreams, you weren’t free from the quarry home, fragments of nightmarish events occurring whenever you walked inside the front door in your slumber.

You had endured the most exhausting one yet, and when you stepped inside the home the following morning, even the coffee in your hand held little effect on perking you up.

“Woah there!” Hyunwoo exclaimed, pulling you back from the direction you were blindly walking towards.

Glancing up at him and then the staircase banister you almost smacked into, you smiled distantly. “Thanks. Hey, is it cold outside? Your hands are freezing.”

“Huh?” Removing his grip immediately, Hyunwoo rubbed one of his wrists with the other hand. “It’s early, and I’ve been planing some wood.”

“You smell good,” you admitted and then realised what you said when he arched an eyebrow. Chuckling awkwardly, you waved it off. “I meant because the wood-”

“I’m teasing you. Where’s your head this morning?”

“Still in my nightmares,” you admitted with a heavy exhale, sitting down on the bottom steps. Hyunwoo moved in beside you.

“Nightmares? Are you not sleeping well again?”

“I keep going inside this house in my dreams. You know, back when it was first finished. I get fragments of images now and then, but last night it scared me for the first time.”

“How come?”

“I uh… I heard a gunshot. And when I turned around…”

Hyunwoo waited with bated breath, watching you as you swallowed it down and shook your head. He sighed. “I told you this house didn’t come without darkness, Y/N.”

“I guess I’m a step away from witnessing Michael’s death,” you told him, and Hyunwoo’s eyes flashed with confusion before growing hard.

You had seen who you assumed to be Michael in your dreams last night. The difference, however, he was the one holding the gun. You didn’t want to buy into the unsettling thoughts that surrounded your dream.

Or the man beside you.

Jumping to your feet, you smiled. “So, where should we start today?”

You continued to face the nightmares and the cold seeping throughout your body over the next three months of work. Each day you grew closer to the completion of your project, the more your feet dragged.

You were convinced that the answers to several questions would come to fruition then.

And there was one that you didn’t want to acknowledge yet, either.

Hyunwoo placed down the roller he had using to paste the adhesive onto the wall and turned to you. “Y/N, I’m ready.”

“I’m not ready,” you replied quietly, sitting on the stool near the wall you were wallpapering.

“You’re holding the next strip,” he mentioned, coming over to your side. “You’re ready.”

“Am I?” you asked, glancing up at him with tears in your eyes.

Blinking several times and seeing past the situation at hand, Hyunwoo sighed. “Let me do it then.”

“No, I don’t want you to do it before I’m ready to hear it.”

“I know. But—”

“The wallpaper. The paste will dry if I don’t hang this now,” you said quickly, getting down off the stool awkwardly and tripping over the end of the wallpaper you held.

Losing your footing, you stumbled into Hyunwoo, who righted you immediately, his strong arms going around your waist.

Staring at one another for an immeasurable time, you then stretched up towards his face. He grew cautious, biting his bottom lip. “You shouldn’t.”

“I want to.”

“Before you know?”

“I already know,” you breathed, meeting his lips with a sudden demand.

You had taken Hyunwoo by surprise despite your words, the man frozen in time as you pressed into his cold skin. Stepping back down when you realised he wouldn’t kiss you back, you stared up at him sombrely. “Won’t you allow me this?”

“If I do, who knows what it’ll do for us both. I’ve held back for so long.”

“How long?”

He smiled softly. “Since you broke into my home a second time.”

“I called you handsome that day.”

“You did.”

“You’re still handsome right now,” you offered, and Hyunwoo smiled sadly.

“I don’t change much.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“If you could do everything you wanted to right now, a free pass in life, what would it be?”

Hyunwoo stared at you for a moment, shaking his head with a soft chuckle. “You’re a true temptation.”

“I’m persistent,” you corrected with a grin, and Hyunwoo nodded.

“That too. You’ve been like a strong wind that drove into this house one night. Shaking its foundations to the very core.”

“Yet the house still stands. It must be strong enough to handle me.”

Hyunwoo swore under his breath before capturing your lips in a slow, lingering kiss. “Everything I want?”

“All of it,” you confirmed.

“Well, first, I want to hang up that strip of wallpaper—”

“Honestly!” you interrupted as Hyunwoo stepped away from your side. Placing it up and smoothing it out, you watched his return to work with a troubling expression on your face.

And then he returned to your side, swiftly picking you up in his arms. You gaped at him.

“Now that work is done, you’ll have to come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my second favourite room in this house.”

“The kitchen?” you guessed, and Hyunwoo laughed.

“My hunger isn’t for food right now, Y/N.”

You shivered in delight as he climbed the staircase slowly, his gaze not once leaving yours. And when he finally stepped into one of the bedrooms where you had finished renovating and had begun to decorate with furniture, you looked at Hyunwoo for an answer. “Was this the master bedroom?”

“No. It was once the music room.”

“Then why have you let me turn it into a bedroom?” you asked with disappointment, Hyunwoo kissing it away before laying you gently on the bed.

“Your envision is just as great, if not better than the original idea. This room was made for sounds. Let’s see how many we can make together now.”

Reaching out for the man above you, you closed the gap, singing out his praises over and over.