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Han Juwon tries, he really does.
But it’s hard when seeing him reminds Juwon of everything he’d tried to push past.
It leaves him breathless most nights, sweat dripping down his temple and staining the muted bed sheets as he tries to heave the rotten images out of his mind. They paint his dreams in blue and purple and they frequently shine like a diamond coruscating under the sun. They cut him like thin reeds sliding across his skin until he is torn open and the rawest of truths bleed out of him so he is naked and ashamed, and utterly pathetic.
Sometimes, he would find a scar in the shape of a letter Y on his chest that extends all the way down to his abdomen, and beneath the skin, all he feels is an emptiness that echoes as it searches for a purpose besides simply being. In these dreams, Juwon wonders if the reeds had truly cut him open that night and if everything within him has been fleshed out to be put under the scrutiny of his sins as if they wish to find which part of Juwon had been the source of all the rotting.
And sometimes, when he awakes, his palm settles against his chest to search for the scar, only to find a flat surface littered with sweat and the angry thrashing of his heart resting right below.
Because seeing him, or simply thinking of him, sinks Juwon’s heart down to his feet and gravity constantly pulls at him as if he was to kneel again.
As if Dongsik weakens his knees but for all the wrong reasons.
It certainly didn’t help when he was transferred back to Manyang and had to be partnered up with Dongsik again for most of his shifts. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve joked about how nothing has changed in the town besides Dongsik’s fresh haircut. But Han Juwon doesn’t joke, and he most definitely knows better. So he sits in the passenger seat of the patrol car pretending as if he’s alright and smiles when he has to and answers when he’s asked a question. Dongsik notices, of course. And maybe Juwon should’ve learned to lie better when he had the chance.
“Are you okay?” Dongsik once asked him during their lunch break.
Juwon had merely blinked at him and considered not replying because he simply didn't know the answer to such a question, but after putting down the sandwich he’d been holding and wiping his mouth clean with a napkin, he said, “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
To this, Dongsik pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, there’s nothing. I was just asking. As your partner.” And he’d smiled, and Juwon was glad his heart was sitting at his feet at that moment, or else he would’ve dug it out of him and held it in his palms right there, right before Dongsik.
Han Juwon is also a man of answers who believes the universe is not as mysterious as it ought to be, and how he's always searching for ways to solidify the world and break it down into something comprehensible. It's why he never took the art course, why he joined the police force because he didn't like the subjective answers that art provided. He didn't like that one image could elicit several different perspectives. Han Juwon wanted answers, and answers were what he sought when he graduated university at the top of his class and earned a respectable position in the force.
But lately, Han Juwon also tends to do things without ever questioning why, almost as if he's afraid of confronting the intentions behind his own actions. He's a coward in that way. He's not terrified of facing monsters coated in human skin but he is afraid if given the chance to look within himself. Because what was he to find in it? Would he find traces of his father inside, following crumbs of soot where his blood is supposed to be. Or would he find his failures fossilizing themselves into his skeleton, decomposing like rotting flesh until mold scatters all across his bones and he is unable to find the elemental ways he's built himself up throughout his life. Would everything just be that? Boiled down to Han Kihwan and Juwon's blindness by justice? Would he be nothing but a man who’d spend his life begging for forgiveness? Was it all for nothing?
No, it isn't. Not when Dongsik is walking out of the car next to him, his eyes squinting against the harsh beatings of the sun in mid-July. He got tanner at some point and his hair grew out faster than Juwon had expected. Despite his struggle to look up the hill where the sun sits over the horizon, Dongsik appeared harmonious with the surroundings, unlike Juwon. His skin is scintillating in bright yellow and it slides across his face effortlessly as Dongsik sighs and turns to Juwon. The trees seem yellow under the afternoon glare too, and they greet Dongsik like a friend as they sway behind him with the wind.
"You heard the report, right? About the 73-year-old woman who got lost in the hills?" As he said this, Dongsik started to roll his sleeves up to his elbow and even unbuttoned a couple at his collarbone. Juwon can see faint signs of sweat glistening on the older man's forehead. This isn't the hottest day of the month but the heat definitely is a lot to take in.
Juwon merely nodded to Dongsik's question instead of answering because he was too distracted by all the skin he's suddenly seeing. The tan lines and the constellations of freckles littering all over the man's skin bore into his mind as if they held the uttermost significance.
Once Dongsik is content with his buttons, he walks ahead to the mouth of the hill where Juwon follows right behind and reaches him shortly. Both of them stood there for a moment completely lost in their own thoughts; Dongsik wondering which directions they should proceed with, Juwon worrying if something had happened to the old woman. It wasn't until Dongsik's eyes wandered down to Juwon's shoes that their train of thoughts screeched to a halt.
"Those shoes look new. Will you be okay?"
He's been asked this a lot recently. Whether he's okay or not.
Juwon frowns and follows Dongsik's gaze down to his black sneakers. He clears his throat when he notices how shockingly neat they appeared next to Dongsik's despite the requirements of his job and all the dirt that comes along with it. "Yes. I'll survive."
Dongsik breathes out a laugh. "Don't look so offended, Inspector Han. I was just wondering if I had to carry you up the hill in case you didn't want to spoil your brand new shoes."
He would've laughed. Or smiled at least at the idea of Dongsik's shorter figure carrying his broader length up the hill. Then carry me, is what he would've joked back.
But instead, he swallows and points to the hill. "Let's just find her before anything happens."
Juwon walked on without waiting for a response because he didn't want to see the disappointment on Dongsik's face. This is also something that had been happening a lot recently; Juwon turning down jokes and allowing an unnecessary tension to slip between them again except this one's worse than when they'd met, this one curls around them like a twenty-foot long snake and squeezes them tight because this one feels like a punishment. As if Juwon is unintentionally tormenting himself by not joking around with Dongsik. Why was he doing this to himself?
And why does Dongsik keep asking if he's okay? Is he not okay?
Juwon's body feels heavy as he climbs up the hill. He's aware he'd been indirectly hurting himself and how, in a way, it's not exactly accidental. He knows that internally or subconsciously, even though the latter is a concept that deeply terrifies him, he feels deserving of not being at ease when spending time with Dongsik. Juwon is also mindful of how it's a stupid thing to feel but it's tough not to when every corner of the town does nothing to alleviate his need to condemn himself for everything he's done here.
Especially Lee Dongsik. His partner, the personification of his failures, his constant reminder that he exists with labyrinthine thoughts and emotions and that it wears him down a lot. He wishes he could be the Han Juwon from four years ago again, thriving in his department, infamous for his cold solitude and how he didn't have space for anything besides solving a case.
But the Han Juwon from four years ago doesn't know what beef tastes like when it's grilled by people who found comfort in others, enclosed within the tiny space of a butcher shop by the corner of the street. He doesn't know that, in a sick, twisted way, the will to ruin himself for someone makes him feel more alive than he'd ever felt during his entire life. He doesn't know what it means to have his hand held as though in prayer, to have all the answers he'd been seeking wrapped up within the hold of a man he damaged himself inside out for. And the Han Juwon from years ago doesn't know what it means to be ready to do it all over again. Just for Lee Dongsik, his weak point.
Juwon had been so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even process everything that happened. He recalls finding Mrs. Jang cowering by a tree, the shade thankfully keeping her from having a heat stroke, but he doesn't remember how exactly she'd pushed him so hard out of terror that he fell on his knees and bruised it against a rock he'd overlooked. Juwon definitely did not scream despite the pain that quivered through his knees but Mrs. Jang did, and it was what made Dongsik run over in no time.
What he wasn’t prepared for at all was Dongsik's fear-stricken face. It tore through his chest and ripped out his vessels until it left him frozen on the ground. The last time he saw that face he'd walked out the door with bloody hands, or he'd been holding a gun with a trigger finger that trembled as it breached past the point of rationality. It's been a long time since he saw Dongsik's face twist into panic as palpable as that, and it burns him that the face was directed towards him and not the flailing old lady.
Once Dongsik took in the situation he rushed to the woman and gently calmed her down. Eventually, she stopped shaking and settled in his arms, appearing ten times smaller now. Dongsik sighs and slowly guides her down the hill but before that, he turns to Juwon and says, "Don't go anywhere. Wait until I come back."
Juwon wouldn't have gone anyway. He would've waited even if Dongsik never came back.
-
The skin is torn at his right knee and it looks worse than he'd imagined. He didn't break his knees, fortunately, but it is hard for him to walk around feeling the skin fold over the wound and sending sharp jabs of pain down his leg.
Juwon turned down the hospital because he didn't think it was serious enough. Dongsik, though, was furious.
"What if you broke it?"
"I didn't. It feels fine."
"How do you know? Are you a doctor? I had a friend who broke their arm but didn't get it checked out until two weeks after the incident because it got too painful to do anything. They almost had to amputate the arm! How do you know it won't happen the same to you, you stubborn punk?"
Juwon sighs and closes his eyes briefly. He reopens them when he calmly says, "It's not broken, Officer Lee. I know it isn't. I just need to treat the wound."
He nods to the first aid kit and hints at Dongsik to help bring it to him. Dongsik's shoulders were tight with tension and his eyes were hardened with worry. He made Juwon feel small then, sitting in the lockers like a football player being sidelined.
Finally, Dongsik sighs and his head hangs low as he acquiesces to Juwon's stubbornness. He nods and quietly says, "I'll help you.” And crouches down so he’s level with Juwon’s knees.
And perhaps Juwon should've declined that too. Perhaps he'd been too greedy with the idea of Dongsik touching him that he didn't consider the possibility of how overwhelming it might feel to the point it leaves him dizzy.
Because suddenly, Dongsik's fingers are everywhere on his leg.
Juwon's trousers were already rolled decently above the wound but Dongsik, for some reason, found it necessary to push it further up, his knuckles sliding across his skin as he exposed more of Juwon's thigh. He appeared so unfazed by it that Juwon wants to scream but he also can't breathe. He'd never been touched, not since that night. Not since a long time. When Dongsik left he hadn't found it in him to let anyone come close because he desperately feared that no one’s skin would feel the same as when Dongsik touched him, that no one would be able to answer all his questions with one single hold. And so he simply never tested that theory and lived in stinging isolation.
But Juwon wants to tell him to stop. Dongsik's warm breath falls over the wound and it burns him as if he poured alcohol over the torn skin. He wants him to stop but he's not sure what exactly, because Dongsik hasn't done anything yet. Everything from Dongsik’s eyes wandering over his bare skin to the silence that rang through the locker room was inundating. He can hear the older man’s composed breathing, and he can hear how his raging heart knocking against his ribs contradicts such silence. It's too loud but not as much as when Dongsik abruptly curls one of his hands around the back of his knee and pulls Juwon closer to him. It's a slight pull but it tilted Juwon's balance so much he'd closed his eyes so he doesn't see stars.
Dongsik hears him shakily breathe and worriedly asks, "Oh, does it hurt? Sorry."
Juwon shakes his head, "No, no…" He has to breathe, he needs to breathe.
Dongsik frowns but he doesn't take his hand away. If Juwon isn't as light-headed as he feels he would've noticed the thumb stroking his knee as if to rub the pain off, or how Dongsik had leaned so close his lips are atoms away from feathering his skin.
Han Juwon has forgotten what it means to be touched, but he’d especially forgotten how it feels to be touched by Lee Dongsik.
The cold towel that Dongsik uses to wipe the dried blood off the surrounding skin is soothing and it settles Juwon’s nerves until he’s brought back to reality. His ears are drumming and his skin is still sensitive to Dongsik’s slightly calloused fingers but it’s a bit bearable now that the wound doesn’t burn as much.
“It’ll hurt a bit,” Dongsik warns but his voice is quiet and subdued. He wipes the wound with an ointment but it doesn’t hurt like he said it would be. The crowding of his skin on Juwon’s is already overwhelming and it blocks out other sensations. Along with that, Juwon finds himself staring at the top of Dongsik’s head, his thick hair dancing as he moves around to treat the wound.
In the midst of it all, between Dongsik shifting so he’s kneeling on one knee and his fingers that slip across his skin every now and then, Juwon’s hand had slowly moved towards Dongsik’s hair until his fingers slid through the strands and settled in it. His fingertips disappear among the dark tamed curls, and Juwon finds it amusing yet damaging to his own self-control.
“Your hair grew,” Juwon says quietly.
Dongsik had stopped moving, and his grip on the younger man’s leg tightened when Juwon’s fingers combed through his hair aimlessly, as if in a trance. Juwon almost smiles at how soft Dongsik’s hair is and thinks about how he should’ve touched it sooner.
As he plays with the strands, he doesn’t notice Dongsik’s trembling shoulders until he brokenly utters out, “Han Juwon.”
Juwon blinks and pulls his fingers away once he realized what he'd been doing. He’s instantly aware of it all now; Dongsik’s hardened grip on his knee, the rough bandage wrapped around the wound, the stillness of his lungs. He doesn’t breathe when he says, “I’m sorry.”
Without giving a chance for Dongsik to say anything, he mumbles out, “It’s done, right? I think we can continue with our patrol.” The hand on his leg slips away, and the absence of his skin is so damning and haunting. It’s frightening how quickly Juwon’s body had gotten used to being held by him in such a short time.
Juwon tries to not think about it and gets up, slightly embarrassed by how fragile he is to such trivialities.
“Continue? With your leg like that?” Dongsik remains kneeling to clear up the kit. But as he stands, Juwon’s faced with his furious eyes. “Are you crazy? Go home, I won’t let you work in that state.”
“But I’m-”
“I don’t care if you’re fine,” Dongsik cuts him off and brushes past him to store the box in its original place. “I’m telling the chief so I better not see you here when I’m done.”
Juwon stands there for a whole minute before he sighs and starts changing out of his uniform.
-
They don’t talk about that day again. The only time Dongsik acknowledges it is asking about the condition of Juwon’s wound, and for the next two weeks, life resumed the way it did. Juwon tries to not think about it either because he knows it’s nothing big enough to change the course of his life, but he does think about getting hurt on the job and what it meant.
Han Juwon is rarely so careless when working. He’s focused and never wavers when approaching a panicking elderly who has zero to no clue on where they are and who they were. But that day, he’d been thinking about Dongsik, about his reason for staying in Manyang, about his constant need to torment himself for all his wrongdoings as if God’s judgment isn’t enough to punish him for a lifetime, and how when Mrs. Jang pushed him he never once resisted and simply let it happen as if he wanted to fall and get hurt.
This thought leaves Juwon awake most nights because he’s afraid of the nightmares getting more aggressive now that it leaped from the enclosure of his mind and out to the world. He’s getting weaker the more he stays here and sees Dongsik, and he’s afraid he’d never put his heart back where it belongs.
Who knew he’d be using his work to ruin himself for all the guilt that had accumulated over the years? He feels pathetic and small, and suddenly he’s seven years old again and watching his mother disappear before his eyes, with her outstretched arms mercilessly extending into reeds, and he’s no longer home, and everything is dark and blue and the reeds grow taller until it slips around his ankles. Juwon feels his entire world tilting then but his screams are muted because all he hears is Han Kihwan’s voice fighting against the cacophonous platter of rain, did he see me, did he see me, and Juwon feels warm liquid trickling down his ears. It’s blood, it’s red, and sticky, and hot. It boils on his fingers and when he looks up, he finds Dongsik’s pale face.
That wakes him up in a bed soaked with sweat.
-
He doesn’t sleep after that. He showers before the crack of dawn and walks outside until it’s time he gets ready for work.
He spends the rest of the day in a faze and this time it’s worryingly perceptible to everyone instead of just Dongsik’s scrupulous eyes. When someone asks if he needs a day off, he simply smiles and shakes his head before walking away. Thankfully, the day is also as mundane as it can get and trouble sits still within the town. Juwon doesn’t know what he’d do if they had to run to the fields again, especially after last night’s haunt. He doesn’t think he would walk away without feeling the mud sucking him in like quicksand, paralyzing him until he’s the one needing help.
Dongsik hovers by a lot for this reason alone and Juwon hates that he genuinely looks concerned. It makes him want to say sorry again, just sorry, sorry, I’m sorry you’re worried because of me, I’m sorry, I’m just stupid. I’m sorry.
Han Juwon feels thoroughly broken in between the crevices of his life. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, why he’s here, why everything Dongsik does makes him want to run away and leave as if he doesn’t deserve to see any of it. Why there is this bottomless pit of guilt inside him that leaves him hollow most of the time, and how looking at Dongsik makes him want to go on his knees before falling into the pit.
Is it guilt, then? The reason why he’s still here?
There’s something else when Dongsik is there, but most of the time it’s overshadowed by guilt and more guilt. By the memories of his cruelty when he first arrived in town, by his persistence in throwing Dongsik behind bars because he’d been so blinded he never noticed how the madness in the older man’s eyes was rooted in nothing but decades of trauma.
By the end of the day, as Juwon stands before his locker after changing out of his uniform, he stares at himself in the little mirror on the inside of the locker door. His eye bags are close to appearing purple, and his face has visibly shrunken that some part of him worries as well. He looks desolated, is what he is. As if he'd been standing in front of a black hole and allowed every last bit of vitality to be sucked away from him.
Juwon got so sick of seeing himself in the mirror that he clenches his jaw and slams the locker door shut. But not without the sharp, inundating pain that suddenly jabbed through his fingers. He bends over the pain, gripping his hand tight and holding it close to his chest. He didn’t realize he’d left his fingers curled in the locker when he closed it.
Juwon must’ve also screamed because the other officers rushed in, but none of them checked up on him when Dongsik ran through and reached him before anyone else could.
“What? What’s wrong?” Dongsik asks, his body curling in towards Juwon.
Juwon shakes his head frantically. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing, my ass! Stop bullshitting me before I lose it,” Dongsik’s sudden loud voice shook the room until everyone murmured to each other to leave. It’s now just them again, in the locker room, one in pain just like before.
Juwon exhales heavily and holds his pounding hand out. “I accidentally hurt my fingers when closing the locker. That’s it.”
“That’s it…? You-!” Dongsik sighs, exasperated. “Let me see it.”
Juwon could barely react before Dongsik wraps his fingers around his wrist and pulls his injured hand towards him. Juwon’s lips part but no air leaves or enters. Dongsik’s fingers are firm yet they’re delicate against his skin, his thumb resting right above his pulse point.
He must’ve felt it then, the rapid beatings of his pulse. It sings against the press of his thumb and Dongsik smiles a little. “Why is your heart beating so fast, Inspector Han?”
Juwon heaves out a breath through his nose, hanging his head low as he mutters, “It hurts.” And Dongsik lightly laughs as if he believes it. Juwon hopes he does.
Dongsik brings his other hand up to support Juwon's injury and inspects his fingers better. He’s cradling Juwon’s hand now, with both of his, holding it as if he’s palming a pot of flowers. Juwon feels treasured within his hold and it makes him want to pick his heart up now, it makes him want to tell himself, that’s enough, stop hurting. He knows Dongsik isn’t holding his hand for the sake of looking at his bruised fingers, because there’s nothing to see, really, and Juwon doesn’t know what he should do now. He wants to live here, in this spot, where it feels like Dongsik is whispering prayers into his skin as he sighs, his thumb brushing over his pulse like he’s flipping the pages of a holy book, and Juwon thinks he can die at this very moment with no regret. He thinks this is what forgiveness feels like.
But it doesn’t last long. Juwon remembers forgiveness, which leads to repentance, shame. He remembers guilt. He remembers his abandoned heart and his haunting nightmares.
Juwon slowly pulls away and tells Dongsik he’s heading to the hospital to have it checked out, and that he shouldn’t worry. He leaves before the older man can say anything else.
Later, Juwon breaks apart at the hospital and when asked if his fingers hurt that much, he says yes.
-
“Hey, Han Juwon, are you listening to me?”
A slender hand waves in his face. Juwon looks up to find Jae-yi staring down at him, a huge knife in her hold that’s just hovering way too close to him. He slightly moves away in fear and she notices it, eyes flickering down to the knife, and smiles. “Aigoo, our Inspector is afraid of a knife now? How did you even become a cop?”
Juwon scoffs and turns away, offended. He realizes that he’d been thinking deeply when Jae-yi talked to him about her day and instantly feels bad, so he clears his throat and says, “Sorry, I must’ve zoned out. What were you saying?”
Jae-yi’s lips press into a thin line as she looks at him for a while as if to figure out what exactly he’d been thinking to completely zone her out. She ends up sighing and starts all over.
Juwon listens closely now when she starts gathering the plates and rice bowls while simultaneously telling him about going to the market earlier. “I met a girl there,” she says with a smile and Juwon looks at her then. He wasn’t expecting that. She continues on about the conversation they had while picking out vegetables, about the girl’s ambition of opening up a restaurant, and how that excited Jae-yi to tell her that she has a butcher shop herself.
“Anyways, she said I looked pretty even while smelling like raw fish, can you believe it? I think that’s what made me give her my number,” Jae-yi laughs then, and it’s truly one of the happiest Juwon’s seen her. He can’t help but smile too and offers her help as a way to congratulate her for finding someone nice.
Jae-yi holds her hands out to stop him and scrunches her face. “Sorry, as much as I appreciate the offer I don’t really trust you with these.”
That really offended Juwon, more than her comment earlier.
“Go easy on him, will you? He’d just hurt his hand yesterday,” Dongsik laughs as he slides open the door. Upon hearing his voice, Juwon's breathing is cut short and he tries to make himself look composed as Dongsik approaches him from behind. He can feel him before the man could even take a seat.
Jae-yi retorts with something but Juwon’s too focused on trying to feel okay he blocks her out again. He still feels Dongsik’s hands around his and that fragile space between them in the locker room, how if he didn’t think at all he would’ve done something that night. Just something. Anything.
But he didn’t, and now Dongsik’s sitting next to him laughing, and his seat is too close so his shoulders are brushing up against his.
It’s a terribly hot summer night and Juwon wills himself to breathe.
“Oh, how are your fingers?” Dongsik’s voice is distant but it’s enough to bring Juwon back to where he is.
He looks at the bandaged hand. “It’s a lot better now.”
“Really? That’s a relief,” Dongsik smiles at him. His face up close feels a lot to take in so Juwon fixes a tight smile and looks away immediately. They’re sitting really close but Juwon can’t find it in him to shift his seat away. He feels holed up within this proximity, and how Dongsik smells like he’d just showered, his skin glistening under the dim lighting of the shop. Juwon hates that he has a strong need to press closer so he can take it all in better despite how weak it makes him feel.
Lee Dongsik, his downfall.
“It’s okay, Jae-yi, I can cut those for him.”
Juwon turns to find Dongsik taking the beef himself. He sits straighter. “No, you don’t have to. I’ll do it myself.”
Dongsik holds the plate away from him as he frowns. “You hurt your hand. Just let me do it.”
“I can use my other hand.”
“Hey, you use two hands to cut this up! How are you going to do that when your fingers are—” he nods to Juwon’s injured hand. “—bandaged together like that?”
Juwon sighs and tries to reach out for the plate but Dongsik lightly pushes him away. He looks at him threateningly, and maybe it's why he then says, “If you say another word I’ll cut your fingers so you can’t touch the beef at all.”
Silence hangs over the three of them once they realize what Dongsik had said. The air feels humid and rampant with tension and regret, and frustration. Dongsik stares at the plate for a second before slamming it on the table and sighing heavily. Jae-yi flinches from the loud clatter yet she continues to fill the bowls with rice silently. She needs to do something with her hands. The atmosphere is suffocating and Juwon feels sick to his stomach.
He feels like throwing up when he blurts out, “I’m sorry.”
And Dongsik snaps his head to face him, his eyes hard and unnerving as it breaks through Juwon’s defenses. “Why are you sorry? I was the one who said it.”
“I’m sorry,” Juwon doesn’t look at him. His eyes are fixed on the metallic surface of the table.
“For what?” Dongsik’s voice starts to rise, and Jae-yi tries to speak up but she doesn’t seem to know what exactly she’s supposed to say right now.
Juwon can’t answer him. He can’t, he doesn’t know. He wants to say everything because that’s the only truth but everything means saying sorry for how he put his life on the line for Dongsik, and he doesn’t think he can ever be sorry for that.
“Han Juwon, you…” Dongsik’s voice is growing smaller, and it is wavering, trembling in the hollowness of his throat. “Why do you keep getting hurt lately?”
Something cracks.
Somewhere. Inside Juwon, maybe. Or maybe Jae-yi dropped something. But she’s quiet and still, and nothing breathes as Dongsik lets the question hang between them.
Juwon can’t even feel his body anymore. It’s numb to the touch and his head is fogged up. He just shakes his head but no word falls out of him, and he desperately wishes something pricks his skin so he knows he can still feel but that’s all he does. Wishing, hoping, thinking. Everything lives in his mind, too much of a coward to ever manifest itself in the real world.
Dongsik tries to say something else but Juwon’s silence prevents him from doing so. He stares at the younger man’s profile for a bit longer before standing up and turning around to leave. Jae-yi calls after him but he's already left, and Juwon kicks his heart away from his feet.
-
The rest of the group arrived long after what happened and inevitably questioned Dongsik’s absence. Jae-yi makes up some excuse but Juwon had forgotten what it was. Throughout the entire dinner, he wasn’t entirely in the room. He hadn’t even noticed Jae-yi leaving cut-up pieces of the beef on his plate or how her worried eyes lingered over him even as she engaged in the group’s conversations.
Once it hits thirty minutes past eleven and everyone’s left, Jae-yi holds a plastic bag to Juwon. She smiles but it’s sad, and Juwon wishes he never saw it. “What is this?”
“Leftovers. Give them to Dongsik for me, he probably hasn’t eaten since afternoon.”
Juwon sighs as dread fills him up. “It’s late, I have to get home. Can’t you give it to him yourself?”
Jae-yi rolls her eyes. “Did you forget what I said? No, never mind. You must’ve zoned out again,” she nods as she muses to herself. “I’m meeting up with the girl tomorrow so I have to get to bed early. The girl? From the market? Surely, you didn’t forget that. Anyways, it’s Sunday tomorrow, don’t tell me you have plans as well.”
Juwon opens his mouth to argue because it sounded as if she’s calling him out for not having a life, but closes them back when he realizes she’s right. In the end, he doesn’t reply to the comment and reluctantly takes the plastic bag.
-
The gates aren’t locked when he arrives but it isn’t as surprising. It never is. Juwon wonders if it’s always been that way before it all happened but he doesn’t dwell on it too much. He’s just glad he doesn’t have to wait out here for Dongsik to unlock it.
The plastic bag swings by his leg as he walks up the front door. It’s silent out here and he can hear crickets in the distance but that’s all there is. The plants around him fill the air with a tired, dry scent of death, a gnawing declaration of abandonment, of how blood has stained its roots until it’s unable to live anymore. Juwon finds it hard to walk through the yard sometimes knowing it’s where the tragedy had grounded itself over twenty years ago.
Yet he persists in the dark, to give Dongsik these leftovers, that’s all.
The front door isn’t locked either and that’s when Juwon starts getting concerned. He’s aware of how Dongsik believes no one would try to rob a house where such ordeals had occurred but the chances are never zero. He thinks of bringing it up to Dongsik at some point but he’s also afraid of how their relationship would go from tonight if he’ll even get the chance to speak to him at all.
The house is even quieter inside, as still as the depths of an ocean. It’s dark and Juwon half-heartedly expects to see Dongsik’s figure on the couch but he isn’t there. Neither is he in the kitchen or anywhere in the house from where Juwon’s standing at least. He isn’t sure if he’s relieved or disappointed.
He walks over to the kitchen and sets the plastic bag down before staring at it. Should he leave a note? Maybe that’s not necessary since Dongsik would find it on the table in the morning anyways, but he would also be startled by realizing that someone had entered his house last night without his knowledge. Juwon stands there motionless, contemplating, before deciding that he would just text Dongsik later.
Juwon sighs as he turns to leave because he's instantly troubled with questions. Why is Dongsik not asleep on the couch? His shoes are there so he’s definitely home, and it’s too silent for him to be showering. Juwon hates that he’s bothered by such trifling matters but he can always narrow it down to curiosity. The Han Juwon from three years ago would not hesitate to search for Dongsik so why wouldn’t he now?
He feels out of place as he walks deeper into the house. There’s dust on the walls but the hanging framed pictures are clean as if nothing else mattered to be seen beside the photographs. Juwon feels his stomach stinking while he observes the photos.
As he passes by the doors, he peeks in only to find empty rooms until he gets to the last one in the hall. His throat closes up when he finds Dongsik’s body curled up on the bed, his shoulders still and hunched in. Juwon pushes the door open and flinches from how both the floor and the hinges creak as he steps in. Yet Dongsik doesn’t move. His breathing is so shallow Juwon might have not noticed he’s breathing at all if he doesn’t look close enough.
It's easy to figure this was Dongsik’s old room with the band posters and the guitar sitting by the corner. Everything is coated with thick layers of dust and he frowns as he sees Dongsik laying on a bed that probably had never been cleaned in decades.
“You’ll get sick from all the dust, Lee Dongsik,” and that’s the first thing he says since his apology in the butcher shop. “I can clean it up for you, if you want,” Juwon offers but it’s empty. Both of them knew nothing is as simple as him cleaning up a bed just so Dongsik would lay back down and Juwon would leave right after.
Dongsik doesn’t respond. Juwon knows he’s not asleep because every muscle in his body appears tense and full of discomfort, but the silence is so stretched out that he wonders if the man is actually asleep and he’s just wasting his time here.
Not until he hears a small, shattering call of, “Han Juwon.”
Juwon’s lips are dry as he parts them to breathe. He feels numb like all his nerves had decided to finally cut themselves free from his body. He wants to say yes? but nothing comes out. Nothing within him moves.
He hears Dongsik sigh as he says, again, “Han Juwon.”
Juwon wants him to stop saying his name as if he’s reciting a verse from the bible, where every syllable is so carefully uttered out, as though it’s a sin if his name was mispronounced. Dongsik speaks like that most of the time with his words calculated and justified through his tongue that it makes Juwon hear him in his head late at night when he’s in bed and breathless from another stream of nightmares. Never did he think, though, that it would apply to his name.
Dongsik lying there with the blue and golden wash of midnight falling over him through the dirty window, his back facing Juwon, his voice low and tired as he says his name over and over. He doesn’t want Dongsik to say anything else. He knows it’s selfish, but he wants his name to be the last thing Dongsik utters before the night ends.
But it doesn’t work that way, because Dongsik then says, “I need you to be honest.”
Dongsik shifts to sit up. As he does so, Juwon cringes from all the dust flying around him, dancing in the single ray of moonlight shooting through the room. Dongsik appears small in the dark, his shoulders slouched over as he sits on the bed and looks up at Juwon.
Despite the dark, he can still feel the weight of Dongsik’s unyielding stare. He can still feel the ache in Dongsik’s voice as he asks, “Why did you come back to Manyang?”
It’s a question that has been hovering over Juwon ever since he returned and a question he’s yet to find the answer to. He has all the possibilities written down but nothing feels right enough to deem it the proper answer.
So Juwon doesn’t reply, because that’s as honest as he can get.
“Why are you here?”
I don’t know. Jae-yi sent me. But he knows that’s not what Dongsik is referring to.
“Alright,” Dongsik nods. “I’ll spell it out for you then.”
Juwon wishes he can walk out right now. He doesn’t want to do this. But the man sitting before him is relentless when he can be, and tonight was the last straw.
“Is it because you feel sorry?” Dongsik asks. Juwon feels his knees weaken over the question. “Is that all that’s keeping you here? Guilt? A sense of responsibility? Making amends for your wrongdoings?"
The questions suffocate him. They surround him like the reeds, twisting around his body so he can’t escape. Everything starts to corner him until Juwon feels as though he’s being interrogated right now, trapped within the decisions to either never speak or confess everything to him.
“Inspector Han. You didn’t answer me.”
Inspector Han.
Juwon wants to beg him to not ask any more questions because the honest truth is he doesn’t know. He wants to know as much as Dongsik does, that’s all there is to it, but he’s too choked up by the questions he’s forgotten how to physically speak.
Juwon is sure the distraught on his face is visible even in the dark, yet Dongsik never surrenders. He wants Juwon to break and that’s simply what he did.
“Han Juwon."
No, no, stop.
"What am I to you?”
Juwon’s exhale is loud and it cracks through the dust-filled air. He starts shaking his head, uttering the word no over and over in his head but what was he even disagreeing to? He’s painfully aware that Dongsik is just watching him from the bed, how Juwon’s body starts to crumble within itself, self-destructing, his skin tearing down until he’s naked and ugly, and his fears of what Dongsik means to him brimming at the surface until it bleeds out of him.
Lee Dongsik, his undoing.
Han Juwon stands there as everything he’s tried to contain leaks through the pores of his skin. His chest rises and falls unrhythmically as his lungs try to keep up with all the damage he’s done to himself. It pounds through him; the emotions, the thoughts, the worries, the unanswered questions and the unsaid words, the bitten tongues and the tired heart that he longs to bring back into his chest.
Everything rushes through him until he shatters.
Dongsik sits there and watches as the man who’s knelt before him comes close to kneeling again. But then he recalls the wound on his knee, and worries that it might sting if it comes into contact with the ground so without thinking, he says, “Come here.”
Those two words tear through the panic until Juwon’s breathing slows down. It’s such a simple request but Juwon looks at him as if he’s asking him to cross a line between life and death. And maybe in a way it is. Maybe Dongsik doesn’t care anymore because it hurts him just as much to watch Juwon's emotions disintegrate before him.
Juwon’s stopped shaking by the time he walks over to him. Dongsik has to bend his neck now to look up, and although it aches his spine, he also needs to see Juwon’s face, or whatever it is that’s lit up in the strained lighting.
He smiles up at him, the young prince, and asks, “Does it hurt a lot?”
Juwon closes his eyes and nods, his youthful face shadowed by a pain that has clearly been haunting him for a while. Dongsik has seen what being in this town does to him and he knows that while Juwon was busy bringing justice for him, he’d been destroying himself in the process and all this is just the inevitable repercussion. Dongsik just wishes Juwon hadn't been going through it alone.
Dongsik sighs and reaches up, his hands curling around the back of Juwon’s neck. He feels the younger man’s body shudder by the sudden touch and pulls Juwon down until their foreheads rest against each other and the air between them trembles. His thumbs stroke Juwon’s jaws as if to brush the fatigue off his skin.
Nothing really mattered then. Not the guilt, or the fragility of the moment. Dongsik’s forgotten how to do anything else besides breathing him in as hot air slips past Juwon’s lips, and he knows the man standing before him mirrors his own actions. It was just his hands that are now sliding up into Juwon’s hair, and Juwon’s hands that are now settling on his shoulders to stabilize himself as they weaken into the other’s hold.
Dongsik wants Juwon to be held because it’s his turn now. He’s drenched in the agonizing aftermath of his father’s actions and Dongsik knows he can’t do anything about it except hold him and pick his pieces up when Juwon starts to break.
But he’s not prepared for the sudden drop of tear that fell down on his cheek, and the defeated tone in Juwon’s voice as he calls out, “Hyung.”
Dongsik swallows. He feels the word press on his chest until his heart panics and tries to leave the cage of his ribs, pounding against the inner bones, rapid, frantic, and Juwon’s Hyung plays in his head over and over like a broken vinyl. He thinks he'd whimpered because the word feels so heavy on him because it means so much, it means more than Juwon might think, and he wants to dig through Juwon's skin and live within the man's body until the world slips away because this is all he needs now. Hyung. Dongsik wonders when his life had gotten so spectral yet beautiful with Juwon in it, with the simple call of Hyung quiet and frangible in this debilitated night.
Juwon breathes out, and the air is warm, and Dongsik opens his eyes to find Juwon’s lips trembling inches away from his own. He watches the lips move as it utters, “Hyung, I don’t know.”
“What do you not know?” He exhales faintly. If his voice gets any louder it might break something.
"I don't know…if I love you or not. If all I'm feeling is guilt. I…I've never felt like this before. Sometimes it makes it hard to breathe—" Juwon tries to hold back a sob so his voice grows thick instead, the lump in his throat choking him. "Looking at you makes it hard for me to breathe."
Dongsik thinks he’s the one falling apart now. He tries to breathe steadily because he knows Juwon can feel him slightly quivering from what he’d said, and because he’s supposed to be solid against Juwon’s instability. But God, it hurts.
“I’m sorry, Hyung.”
“You… didn’t I tell you to stop saying sorry?” Dongsik hates how unsteady he sounds.
"But I'm sorry."
"For what? What are you sorry for?"
"That I can't tell you if I love you or not."
Dongsik closes his eyes and lets the words sit in his head. He doesn’t say anything for the longest of time, partly because Juwon’s silently crying now, and his tears drip and slide down Dongsik’s face until it slips past his lips. He can taste the salt and the sorrow, and he wants to lick it off Juwon’s lips, wipe his face clean of any tears because enough, no more hurt, no more, I love you, and I want you to love me too, but you’re so lost and pained by the uncertainty and I don’t know what to do about it.
Dongsik hates guilt. He despises it. He doesn’t think Juwon should’ve ever known what it means to feel such a thing because he can see how much it’s ruining him. But the world doesn't work that way, and Dongsik’s painfully aware of that.
Juwon’s saying sorry again. The words are a blur and they reverberate in his pounding head and this empty room. Dongsik sighs and finally brings himself to say, “Han Juwon.”
He pulls Juwon’s head away so he can see his face and forces the younger man to look at him. His palm squeezes Juwon’s neck as he gently calls him, “Juwon-ah.” And another tear falls. Dongsik smiles and wipes it away with the back of his hand.
“I—” He starts, and breathes out a laugh. “I’m going to do something if you keep saying sorry.”
He can see confusion take over Juwon’s pretty face and as if to answer his question, Dongsik’s eyes fall down to his parted lips. He wonders, then, if it would taste as salty as his tears. If it would be warm or slick against his own. They look pale and leaden, just exhausted from all the sorrys, and Dongsik wants to kiss it all away.
But he doesn’t. He smiles again but it’s smaller now, hesitant and repressed. “Juwon-ah, breathe. Can you breathe for me?”
Juwon nods and inhales deeply, his chest fluttering against the thin fabric of his shirt. It’s shaky but it’s something, it’s better than when he first entered the room. Dongsik pulls Juwon towards him again but this time it’s all the way down to his neck, letting Juwon bury his face in it and away from the world.
There’s a stinging ache in the way Juwon gasps as he breathes Dongsik in as if he’s finally being pulled out of the water after drowning for so long. He’s grasping at Dongsik then, his lips thrusting into his collarbone, leaving trails of saliva and tears wherever it headed and Dongsik feels dizzy from the sudden burst of signals that his nerves are sending. Juwon’s frantic in needing to touch and be touched, and for this, he presses his face further into Dongsik’s neck, his hands that were on his shoulders now curling around Dongsik until he has the older man utterly within him.
Dongsik thinks this is what it means to live inside of him. To feel nothing but his warmth, to see nothing but his skin. He’s calling his name, Juwon-ah, but it is muffled and vaporizing into this humid room. Juwon is everywhere, and he didn’t think it was possible to get any closer until Juwon moves into him and his legs climb on the bed, both on either side of Dongsik’s hips so he’s straddling him now until there is no division or border, no space between their bodies.
Juwon’s embracing him like Dongsik’s the one who had been breaking. He’s inhaling every last bit of him, everything that Dongsik’s made of, every cell that dies on his skin.
Dongsik also thinks this is what rebirth feels like, and he knows Juwon does too.
-
Afterward, they go on shifts with different officers.
Dongsik made the suggestion to Juwon one late night as they laid on his old bed (it was thoroughly clean then) that perhaps the best way for Juwon to figure things out is by getting space. And he hesitantly agreed, because he always would.
They don’t do anything besides sleep on the bed and it’s alright, it’s okay because Juwon doesn’t get nightmares anymore and Dongsik doesn’t have to worry about dust collecting on the other side. Not to mention how it’s a lot more comfortable than the couch. He likes being held as he sleeps, or having Juwon’s face embedded into his chest with his fists clenched around Dongsik’s shirt. And sometimes, when the summer night gets too hot to bear, they both sleep without their shirts on, and perhaps it’s when holding back becomes overly difficult.
Everyone notices how they’d been spending less time with each other but no one asks, only because they also notice how Juwon’s face isn’t as shrunken as it used to be. He lets Dongsik cut beef for him during dinners, and Jae-yi hands them both a single plastic bag of leftovers once everyone leaves because she knows they wouldn’t go their separate ways later.
And Dongsik waits patiently. He doesn’t ask Juwon if he’s figured it out yet. He just lets the man sleep in his bed every night, and sometimes worries if he’d wake up to an empty spot next to him. Although, it’s been over a month and the only reason why some mornings he doesn’t find Juwon next to him is that the kitchen would be occupied instead.
Dongsik doesn’t ask because at some point he starts to think that maybe it’s okay if Juwon doesn’t love him back, and how he’s already content with what they have.
But September 23rd, 05:02 am.
Dongsik stretches his back as his eyes acclimatize to the blue greeting of dawn through the window. He finds Juwon facing him, staring, and Dongsik laughs. “Why are you looking at me like that? Did I drool…?” He wipes at his cheeks but finds them dry instead.
“Hyung,” Juwon calls. His voice is thick with sleep but his eyes are wide, the brown in his iris clear and bright.
“Hm?”
“I can breathe now,” he says. “When I look at you.”
And Dongsik doesn’t ask anymore because he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t.