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Tae-eul woke up as she felt Lee Gon sit down carefully next to her on the hospital bed. When she half-opened her eyes she felt his, quite cold, hand carefully cradle the left side of her face.
He was finally back.
She knew that he had just been outside the hospital and she had trusted that he wouldn’t leave, but she couldn’t deny the relief which came over her at feeling him actually there. Beside her.
She had missed him so much.
”Sleep, it’s still late,” he told her. The hand, and his words were quiet and gentle, but Tae-eul could still hear the very slight uneven tone in his baritone voice.
”Lee Gon?” She said as she opened her eyes fully to look up at him. At the sight of him sitting on her bed, looking at her wistfully with those dark tired eyes, all of the sleep-induced groggy-ness quickly left her.
Something had happened since he left to meet Yeong. She was sure of it.
She made an attempt to sit up. Gon, worried, quickly leaned forward to help her, chiding her softly for being reckless, “You have to be careful”. She didn’t respond and instead took hold of his cold hands.
Firmly. She was not going to let go.
”What’s wrong?”
Gon blinked a few times, seemingly surprised over her sudden question. Then as understanding sank in at what she must’ve been seeing in his face, his eyebrows furrowed. Tae-eul could literally see the conflict in his face.
”Gon, tell me. What happened just now?” She asked softly but intently “Where did you go?”
At her words he sighed heavily and looked down at their intertwined hands. His hands were shaking, almost imperceptibly. She squeezed them tighter, to reassure him, but also because she was suddenly overcome with the fear that he was about to leave. He looked up at her in response, with that small adoring smile she still couldn’t quite believe she deserved, but as she met his gaze she realized that his eyes were slightly red.
”Yeong found Song Jeong-Hye,” he finally said quietly, as he averted his gaze from hers again, looking instead intently down at her thumbs which were softly brushing over his.
Tae-eul felt her stomach drop at his words. And she just knew.
His heavy expression. The red puffiness around his eyes. His cold hands.
The stark survivor’s guilt in his eyes.
Song Jeong-Hye had blamed him for her son’s death. Gon’s mother’s face had held him responsible for the death of her child.
”Tae-eul?”
She realized that her distress must have been visible in her face. She looked up and met his worried eyes. His hand came up to her forehead to carefully brush aside a strand of her hair. He smiled gently at her, that reassuring smile, which normally never failed to make her feel better. She didn’t know why but now the gesture almost made her tear up.
She had missed him so much.
She suddenly recalled how he had worn a similar expression when he had come to meet her on Election Day. How he had gazed at her with determination and promised her that he would return to her soon. That he was almost there. She had during these last few days thought a lot about his almost melancholic expression from that meeting. About that lingering look he had shot her when he had said goodbye. She had almost gone after him.
Back in the present day, worrying about him, she had clung to his words for comfort.
She realized that even now, after everything he had been through, he was focusing on making sure that she was okay. Looking into his gentle but slightly broken expression, an irrational and suddenly upset part of her wanted to scold him for it. Another wanted to pull him closer and never let go.
She made herself take a deep breath, to collect herself.
From the little she had seen of the Kingdom and from what she knew about him, she had realized early on that he was more than prepared - he was ready, to do anything to protect his people. He saw it as his duty. The memory of him in front of her in his navy uniform about to go into what could, quite possibly, become an active war zone flashed before her at the thought.
She squeezed his hands a little harder.
She had been impressed by his sense of responsibility. While it had been startling to see him in uniform preparing to leave, and she had worried a lot back in the Republic, she had understood him. Recognized the decision to take responsibility, to choose to do something which was necessary, and which not everyone had either the ability or courage to do.
She had understood it almost too well.
One of the few memories she had of her mother had been from when she had sneaked into and hid during one of her classes at the Taekwondo club.
She could still remember how much in awe she had been at seeing her mother instruct her students, some of which were almost twice as big as her, and to young Tae-eul frankly quite scary-looking.
Her mother hadn't batted an eye however, and if anyone caused a commotion, whether in class or outside in the neighborhood, she would always intervene without hesitation.
Tae-eul couldn’t recall her mother ever looking scared. And that day she had simply stood in front of her class and emphasized to them that strength meant nothing if it wasn’t used to stand up for those who couldn’t. That bravery was pushing through the fear and not letting anything or anyone intimidate you from doing what was right.
A few months later she’d been gone.
When her father had come to pick Tae-eul up at kindergarten, a couple of weeks after the funeral, he had been brought to the school’s director’s office. He’d been informed that his daughter had tackled one of the older kids to the ground, after the kid in question had pushed Eun-sup into the sandbox.
The kid had then retaliated by subsequently grabbing onto her hair. It had all ended very quickly when the teachers in charge had separated them by simply lifting each of them half a meter above the ground and apart. They had both kicked their feet as they dangled in the air shouting at each other, as not to lose face.
Her father had looked very stern as he’d listened to the director, but back in the car he had laughed his typical bumbling laugh. It had been so long ago she’d heard at that point that she had almost been startled by it. He had then told her that she’d done well, but promptly made her promise to tell her teachers if a student was being bullied, before taking matters into her own hands.
They'd invited Eun-sup and his mother for dinner that evening, they had eaten pizza while Eun-sup had, even more animated than usual, told them all in great detail about how Tae-eul had defeated the bully. Some details might have been added, such as the fact that the bully had a tail and that his mother was a witch who lived under a bridge and ate frogs, but no one could bring themselves to question the zeal of a four year-old’s deepest convictions.
Tae-eul had before falling asleep that night stared up at the plastic stars on her ceiling and told her mother about what she’d done. Asked if she was proud.
Earlier than she'd cared to admit it, even to herself, she had recognized it in Lee Gon as well. That desire to live up to someone who was gone. That need to fill a void, to connect to something which wasn’t there anymore. She had seen it when they’d talked in the bamboo forest. Been taken aback at his earnestness and had not been fooled by his light tone when he’d reassured her that his parents passed away a long time ago. His emphasis on his duties as King and his insistence in telling her of the history of the Kingdom, the story of his family, had suddenly become a lot more understandable. It had all suddenly felt much more real to her.
It hadn’t surprised her later to observe how he was beloved by his people and she had appreciated reading about how he had spoken out harshly against corruption the few times it had occurred in his country, as well as how he had made sure to support real measures to curb it. She wouldn’t easily admit it to his face, but she admired how seriously he took his responsibilities.
Sitting here in front of him and seeing how it all weighed on him made her heart hurt however.
And his hands were so cold, even though it was a warm spring night outside.
She had been told by Chief Park that incredibly stressful situations, not only physical but also emotional, would cause the blood to rush from the hands and feet to the heart. That the body would freak out and act as it was under attack. It had happened to her and several of her colleagues, especially during their first year on the job, when they had gone through particularly dangerous or horrifying situations. Be it a tense shoot-out or having to deal with something heartbreakingly tragic, like arriving at the scene of a car accident with fatalities and hearing a survivor crying out in horror. It was this latter incident which had led to Chief Park afterwards handing her a cup of hot tea before he calmly asked her how she was and explained, when she’d deflected to instead comment about her cold hands, why that was.
His hands were freezing cold, and she could almost see the crack in his normally firm and determined expression. She didn’t believe he realized, but he had also been avoiding holding prolonged eye contact with her during the time he had been here at the hospital.
She didn’t even need to be a half-competent detective to connect the dots.
He blamed himself.
She suddenly pulled him close. Borderline roughly. He was surprised by the sudden embrace but seemed to welcome it, softly cradling the back of her head. He smelt of the mint shampoo from her hospital bathroom. Her tears were threatening to resurface but she pushed them down. She was still so relieved that he was there with her. That he had managed to come back.
Holding onto him tightly she said,
”It is not your fault.”
The effect was immediate. Gon tensed up. And he tried to lean back, probably to reassure her that he was fine, but Tae-eul adamantly held onto him and refused to let him break up the embrace. Feeling her resistance, and she suspected worried for aggravating her injury, he went still.
“I know that you know this…” She began before he could say anything ”But I need you to hear that nothing about all of this is your fault. Not Lee Ji-hun. Not Song Jeong-Hye… And not Prince Buyeong.”
Her voice was lighter than it should have been. She wished, not for the first time, that she was better at this. Her words felt clumsy. But she had met too many people in her job who had blamed themselves for others’ actions. For others’ greed and darkness and even sorrow. And she couldn’t let him do that to himself. She desperately wanted to lessen his heavy expression. The expression she had seen at times overtake his face before he made a joke to lighten the atmosphere, before that spark in his eyes which she loved so much would return.
After a few seconds of holding onto Gon, Tae-eul realized that she could hear how the rain had started to fall as it was smattering hard against the window. Gon was still tense in her embrace but had made no further attempt to disentangle himself.
She suspected that he was trying to keep himself together. She knew he could, had even admired him for it.
But she didn’t want him to have to.
A few more rain-filled seconds passed.
”I love you.” Tae-eul just managed to keep her voice from wavering. She had suddenly realized that there was nothing more important than telling him that. That she needed him to know that.
As soon as the words had left her lips Tae-eul felt him break. She felt his hands tightly grab onto her back, as if desperate to hang on, and when she pulled him closer into an embrace she could feel how his shoulders were trembling. He barely made a noise and so she felt rather than heard the broken sob which finally managed to escape him. She grabbed onto his back tighter, feeling her own tears which were threatening to fall burn on her eyelids. Her shoulder muffled most of the sound of his sobs but she could still discern the stark anguish in them.
It broke her heart.
And she suddenly felt how her own tears ran down her face as she hugged him even closer. Her heart ached, not for the first time, for the orphaned, brave and ridiculous man in her arms.
Holding him close she remembered how light and peaceful his sleeping face had looked that night in the palace. A night which felt achingly long ago. His ridiculously handsome face asleep had made him look so unburdened, the heavy and worried expression he’d worn during the day, when he thought she couldn’t see him, having given way. A fierce protectiveness had emboldened her back then as she had carefully stroked her fingers over his fringe.
She loved him so much. His stupid over-the-top romantic lines. His unapologetic firmness. The way he would somehow smile and laugh despite it all. The spark in his eyes when he went on about something ridiculous and impossible. She had almost been a bit frightened by how deeply connected she had felt to him early on.
Now with him heavy in her arms she felt, not for the first time, that she wanted to simply grab onto and run away with him. A selfish part of her brain wanted to tell him ”screw the universe”. That it had taken so much from them already.
She thought that she had managed to at least somewhat process his identity, as a real King of a very real country. This despite her early utter disbelief of the notion of what sounded to her like an insane fairytale. There had been something about him however. And his seriousness and that earnestness, which she now thought typical of him, with which he had made his claims had managed to sway her. When she had visited and experienced the Kingdom of Corea, she had finally been able to truly understand him. She had been able to allow herself to no longer deny what she had been seeing in him all along. He had finally made sense to her, she had understood who he was, when his role and responsibilities as the King of the Kingdom of Corea became real to her. It was perhaps only now though, with him here next to her, that she was really starting to understand the weight he had carried and the sacrifices he had made. How it had shaped him into the man before her. He had lost his entire family. And despite it all, she knew deep down, he was ready to go even further. Her heart ached and she tried to somehow hold onto him even closer. She needed him there. She had never before allowed herself to put that thought into words, but she wanted to ask him to stay.
Fate seemed to her, more than ever, cruel.
It shouldn’t ask her to let him go.
Then another part of her brain, which suspected what he was planning to do, would force her to remember the horrifying scope of their situation. She’d had nightmares of a frozen world with him completely alone in the middle of it. And a traitorous part of her heart couldn’t help but ache for the little boy with Lee Gon’s face who had never gotten to grow up, and even, despite her harsh and unfair words, for the mother who had been forced to live with her son’s murderer.
Could he save them? And how could she stop him if that was the case?
How could she let him go?
After a while his sobs died down and his shoulders had relaxed. His breathing was calm and to her relief it even seemed lighter. She found herself running her hand through his hair, while still keeping him close. It was comforting feeling him there, next to her.
The rain was still smattering hard against the window.
Just a few hours earlier he had fussed over her injuries and made her laugh with his ridiculous demands of how she should be kept under better supervision. He had been horrified to hear that she had left the hospital. She had rolled her eyes at him and told him he was being an idiot and that she was fine.
The nurse assigned to her had felt very vindicated by his reaction and had seemingly decided that Lee Gon, whom she’d assumed was Tae-eul’s husband, was a very good and reasonable person. The two of them had almost teamed up in expressing their views on patient safety, but when Gon had caught Tae-eul’s decidedly unamused, borderline threatening, face he had very quickly changed the subject. The nurse had later come by a couple of times with increasingly flimsy excuses and had tried to engage him in more conversation. Lee Gon had politely made small talk while Tae-eul might have been petty enough to very visibly hold onto his hands during their whole interactions. He had been incredibly amused at this and had even teased her about it afterwards. She had subsequently simply wacked him in response.
She involuntarily winced when she suddenly felt her injury throbbing, the painkillers starting to wear off, and Gon quickly leaned back to look down at her still healing injury.
”Are you alright? Are you hurting?” The worry was stark in his tear-stricken face.
She had just shaken her head, even smiled while bringing up her hands to his face. She used her thumbs to wipe away his remaining tears. He just looked at her softly in return, and after a few seconds he even chuckled wetly.
“Shouldn’t I be the one looking after you?” He asked her almost teasingly, and she was relieved at seeing the spark return to his eyes. How his face wasn’t as overcast with guilt anymore.
“No.” She simply replied as she continued to wipe away his tears. “Didn’t you know? Apparently science majors are all quite fragile,” she continued in a very matter-of-fact tone. She couldn't maintain her attempt at a nonchalant and stern face when he laughed in response however.
She loved him so much.
They managed to fit back onto her bed. He put the covers over them and she nestled into his chest. It was warm. He was there, beside her and she couldn’t help but feel a little better. Despite what tomorrow might bring.