Work Text:
Yeonjae had picked out a quiet restaurant to meet the prosecutor who she owed a meal to. It'd been the place she and Changjoon had enjoyed dining at during his days off, and she'd not visited since...she shook her head, viewing the menu quietly before she saw the lanky man walking towards her, giving her a wave with his good arm as he approached.
Dongjae obviously looked like he'd seen better days. He'd visibly thinned since his ordeal, his left arm having a brace to keep the healing bones in place while he sat down with a wince that translated through his minor flourish. Even then, he was still in a neatly pressed 3-piece suit, his emerald tie visibly gleaming in the lights of the chandelier. "Sorry I was late," Dongjae apologised, a smirk already playing on his lips, "Had to settle a rowdy fight at work before I drove over, and traffic was bad."
"I understand," Yeonjae smiled, before gesturing to the menu, "Take your pick. As I said before, it's my treat. How is your recovery? You seem to be in quite the rush these days. So hard to get a hold on you sometimes."
To that, Dongjae flashed a tired smile. "I had a lot of work piled up when I got kidnapped, so I had additional things to clear," he explained, before accepting the tea he'd been served, "Work doesn't stop for anyone...haha...I didn't think I'd come here again, though. It still feels the same as the last time I was here."
Yeonjae raised a brow. "Oh? Who did you come with?" she asked, suddenly curious.
"Lee Changjoon sunbaenim," Dongjae's reply felt like a brick had fallen into their laps, "He...brought me here once for a meal. We discussed a couple of work things over drinks, and then he sent me home." His eyes lowered quickly, examining the menu before putting in his order first, content to let the silence hang in the air for a few moments.
They were both quiet, and Yeonjae spoke up once more. "I remembered you came by a few times before, actually. Changjoon seemed to like you and Hwang Shimok quite a bit," she replied, managing to force a graceful smile despite her previous awkwardness, "He talked about you. It always seemed like he was frustrated with you two, and didn't know what to do a lot of the time around you both."
Dongjae perked at this, recalling that he'd heard something similar from Yeonjae before. "He mentioned me? To you?" he asked carefully, seeming more surprised than excited that his mentor had spoken about him even in private. He looked up to Changjoon greatly. He was the backing he didn't expect to have, but got, and his final words, clutching Dongjae's hand, still haunted him.
Yeonjae looked to her drink, slowly swigging the wine in her glass. "He spoke of work fairly often. With work, it meant that you both came up," she replied softly, her gaze following the motions of the liquid within, "He did value and like you quite a bit. Maybe it was his answer, for you to come back to me eventually."
To that, Dongjae raised his head, before wincing at his stitches moving underneath his shirt. This was not the impression he'd wanted to give the person he was both coerced and threatened to stay with. "I...was with him when he died, chairwoman," he began now, the facade of self-assuredness fading to reveal the awkward man underneath, "I was too late. He'd taken my hand that afternoon and told me that I still had a chance. I...think that you might've been that chance."
He watched Yeonjae's hand drop, placing the glass heavily on the table and causing the cutlery between them to jump. The thin stem snapped, spilling its contents over her hand and arm and sending splinters of glass all over the table itself. Dongjae jumped, before quickly offering his napkin to clean: but Yeonjae pulled away, dusting her arm off while cutting herself up even further. "You were with him when he died," she repeated, but her tone had now dropped from the veneer of cordiality to something that seemed more of icy malice, "You watched him die."
"I did," Dongjae's dark eyes met hers, realising for the first time how angry and hurt she was about the matter, "I didn't want this either. I don't...when I was locked in that closet, I kept seeing him chiding me for acting out. I wanted so desperately for him to come back, that this was all just a long dream and he was going to be at work tomorrow yelling at me about something I took initiative about." He cradled his braced arm, giving a slight exhale while he blinked furiously.
"My condolences," he finally managed, the usually boisterous man for once at a loss of words, "For everything that led up to this point."
Yeonjae didn't bother cleaning up the mess, resting her still bleeding arm on the table. By then, her eyes had rimmed red. "You don't have to," she replied, with a forced lightness that didn't translate from the snarl etched on her face, "It's been two years, anyway. He made the choice to let go. There's nothing to have condolences over."
Dongjae's fist clenched, and he ran his hand through his gelled hair nervously, ruining his style in the process. "Let's...not talk business for today," he managed, trying to keep his emotions in check after Yeonjae's outburst, "We have plenty of time for that. Hang on, let me just..." He waved down a waiter, who seemed horrified by the display but dutifully fetched him a rag, which he carefully swept the glass shards off the table and into his own glass.
"Trust is like glass," he began quietly now, more preoccupied with the motions than anything, "When you shatter it, even if you piece it back together, the relationship doesn't quite look the same anymore. Grief too, is like shards of broken glass. If you don't pick them out of your heart, they will always ache and hurt, and you will always bleed. They say time heals all wounds, but that...that's just a fucking lie. Nobody has a manual about how to deal with shit like that. Someone needs to step in to pick the shards out when it's obvious we're just letting it fester."
He looked to Yeonjae, giving her a nod. "May I?"
Yeonjae offered her arm to him, occasionally wincing as Dongjae extracted the shards and then wiped her arm off of blood and wine. She muttered a quiet "thank you" amidst her sniffle, though she'd turned her head so she wasn't facing the man. He released his one-handed grip on her, letting her rest her hands back in her lap while he drew away, putting the rag back on the table.
They were quiet for the longest time as their food was served, quietly eating with no words exchanged. Oddly enough, it seemed that they had communicated more than they'd had with words and side-stepping each other, a strange rapport built between them.