Arrange Devotion | SS

Chapter 53. Love is Red

"So he's your boyfriend?" Brandon tilted his head, legs swinging lazily as he lay on the bed, eyes fixed on Joshua who sat in the chair. His voice carried a soft teasing tone, but there was curiosity beneath it.

"Ex-boyfriend," Joshua corrected with a slow roll of his eyes, his tone sharp.

"Didn't I already tell you that we broke up?" His voice held a bite, as though he was tired of explaining the same thing over and over.

Brandon just sighed dramatically, drawing out the sound like a long breath before shifting to sit up.

"Shut up, that man looks like a dream, and you're telling me you're trying to break up with him?" There was disbelief woven into his words, his eyes widening as if the very idea was ridiculous.

Joshua raised an eyebrow at him, crossing his arms. "Did I not just tell you everything that he did?" His tone was defensive, sharp edges to his words.

"I know," Brandon said, voice lowering as he leaned in, his expression softening.

"But have you ever tried to think from his point of view? Joshua, that man craved love—he didn't even know what it felt like. How do you expect him to love when he’s never had it?" His words hung heavy in the air, deep and quiet.

Joshua blinked, his gaze shifting, staring into the void as Brandon’s words seeped in.

His thoughts spiraled, a darkness clouding his mind as the weight of everything that had happened began to settle in.

"From what you said, his mother hates him for being born, his father hates him because he reminds him of his drunk mistake, then that bitch Yeosang came into his life pretending to love him, only to betray him in the end." Brandon’s voice was low, cutting through the still air.

"All his life, he’s only received hate in the name of love. The only real love he got was from his brother, who sounds even more psychotic than Seokmin. Seungcheol loves him fiercely, but even then—how do you expect Seokmin to love?"

Joshua’s heart sped up, a strange ache settling in his chest as he absorbed Brandon’s words.

He had been so focused on his own sense of betrayal, his own hurt, that he never paused to think how it had all shaped Seokmin.

A man whose entire life had been a relentless search for love, only to be met with rejection and hatred at every turn.

Seokmin—who had prayed for love and found only emptiness.

And when he finally got a taste of it, he tried to protect it the only way he knew how, terrified that it too would prove to be fake, hollow.

It wasn’t Seokmin’s fault that life had carved him into something desperate, something sharp and raw.

He wasn’t a monster when he was a kid, begging his mother for love. He wasn’t a monster when his father beat him. He wasn’t a monster when he trusted Yeosang with everything he had.

No, he had been made into one—by a world that taught him, over and over again, that love wasn’t meant for him. That he didn’t deserve it.

And now, Joshua was staring into the void of that realization, wondering if he had been too blinded by his own pain to see the scars Seokmin carried with him.

Joshua's fingers tightened around the armrest of the chair, knuckles turning white as he stared at the floor, lost in the whirlpool of his thoughts.

Brandon’s words echoed in his head, each one unraveling something raw within him.

Seokmin—his Seokmin—wasn’t the monster Joshua had made him out to be.

He was simply someone who had been hurt too many times, someone who had been taught that love was nothing more than an illusion.