Running to You | Park Han + JL + Steven | Haneulz + Stejay AU

Chapter 42: Flower Petals and Revelations

The Zhang family's spa wing was not a room. It was a wing.

Polished bamboo floors. Fragrant steam drifting from open cedar doors. Enormous hot stone beds, deep-soaking tubs, and silent attendants dressed in traditional gray linen with embroidered silver dragons. There was a carp pond inside the massage corridor. JL was still dizzy.

Jeongwoo lay face-down on a heated table, arms slack, while a very polite man exfoliated his back with sea salt and something that smelled like chamomile blossoms.

Juwon was laughing at nothing in particular, high off life and the cucumber water someone had infused with actual gold flakes.

Shuaibo, in the middle of a body scrub, sat upright and scolded the attendants for scrubbing his calves "too peasantly."

"You're in my father's employ," he said gravely. "Scrub with more dignity."

Woongki had already stolen an extra robe and towel-wrapped his head like he was on the cover of a Vogue editorial. "I'm never going back to campus," he sighed, dipping his feet into a milky foot bath. "I belong here now. Call me Princess Catherine."

Kyungho, deadpan, mumbled, "Prince, at least. Your abs don't lie."

"Don't be shy, Kyungho my darling," Woongki cooed. "We can rule side by side."

Then a phone pinged.

Chih En, lounging in a recliner with cooling eye patches and a robe that somehow made him look even more like a manhwa character, lifted his phone with one hand. He blinked. Scrolled once.

Then again. "...Shuaibo."

"Hm?"

"I think you should see this."

He tossed the phone onto a bamboo tray between them. Woongki leaned in.

Then screamed.

"WHAT IN THE SWEATY KDRAMA IS THIS?"

The whole spa fell silent.

Juwon lifted his head, eyes covered with cucumber patches. "What? What is it?"

Woongki clutched his towel like it was a lifeline. "THIS -- IS A VIDEO OF JL AND STEVEN -- KISSING. LAST. NIGHT."

Shuaibo, halfway through a jade gua sha facial, sat bolt upright. "You lie."

"DO I LOOK LIKE I WOULD LIE IN FRONT OF THE ZHANG ANCESTORS? IT'S ON TWITTER. IT'S A 7-SECOND VIDEO. YOU CAN SEE STEVEN'S HAND SLIDE UP JL'S BACK LIKE IT'S A FREAKING BL MANHWA PANEL."

Steven, entering late in a white robe and damp hair, holding an apple slice, stopped in the doorway.

Everyone turned to him. Even the spa attendants.

Steven blinked. "...What?"

Woongki launched the phone toward him. Steven caught it. 

JL shuffled in two seconds later, putting an arm though the sleeve of a plain white tee, hair still a little damp from his shower.

He stopped. Saw Steven. Saw the room.

Everyone was staring at him.

He took one step back.

"You're trending," Chih En said calmly, sipping ginseng tea.

Steven glanced at JL, who was mid-turn in an attempt to flee.

"I swear to god," JL muttered, "if this gets turned into a slow-mo fan edit with background IU audio--"

"TOO LATE," Juwon howled from behind a cucumber eye patch. "THERE'S ALREADY THREE VERSIONS."

Kyungho cracked a smile. "Someone already started a poll asking which ship is now canon."

"#SteJay is running wild," Jeongwoo added softly, sitting up and letting the towel slip from his neck. "It's anarchy out there."

Steven looked at JL. JL looked at Steven.

Shuaibo, having fully risen from the massage bed in a dramatic display of rose petals and peppermint oil, declared, "We must address the court. The people demand a statement."

Woongki bowed deeply in his towel wrap. "All hail the new power couple. Now please tell us everything."

JL sighed, resigned. But he laughed for the first time that morning.