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Her head felt lighter. The late afternoon sky felt brighter. Her mind felt less burdened. Was it just because she decided to chop off her hair, and with it the heaviness and the curtain of disillusionment that, in the last few days of her investigation, had shrouded her innate sense of trust in the structure to which she had dedicated all her adult life? Or was it because, with all the heartbreak and anger that it brought with it, she had decided to stick to her true self, and do the right thing in exposing the rotting roots of the justice system?
Or was it just because even with their work concluded, and with no notes to share and bosses to expose, Prosecutor Hwang had asked her to meet for dinner?
She wasn’t sure, it could be all of those things, or none of them. But all she knew was that when she saw her colleague - friend? - meticulously set up a plate and cutlery on her side of the table with the earnest seriousness that he usually reserved for bringing the whole damn system down, she felt something, a warmth, that made her feel that to hell with work and hostile colleagues, she still had him. And also, the open-mouthed stare he gave her as he noticed her haircut made her impromptu decision to barge into that salon completely worth it.
“Is it weird?” she asked, knowing, but also hoping, that that was not what he was thinking. The lipstick, which had fallen in that category during that dinner a few years ago, she could easily do without. The short hair situation, however, she was not that willing to compromise.
“It’s different. It’s like when we first met,” he explained, staring at her as if she were an Italian legal text that had not been translated in a manner that he deemed acceptable.
His face looked tired, gaunt, and if it were a face that could show emotions easily, one would have said that it looked sad. She wanted to make him feel better, remind him to take his meals, fill in those cheeks, take away the pain. But all she could think of was to make a joke about not changing at all in the past years. A joke that fell flat, crushed by that serious head tilt and dark eyes that politely let that falsehood slide.
And then it came, the reason why he wanted to meet her. He was going to be transferred to the Gangwon Province, once again sent away by the Higher Ups he had angered, and inconvenienced. Out of Seoul and out of sight, sent away to a place where he could do no damage, kept at arm’s length by a bureaucratic monolith that failed to understand him, and which refused to try to do so.
Prosecutor Hwang, her prosecutor Hwang, was once again leaving, in the latest revolving loop of separation and reunion that seemed to be the only constant in their relationship, no not relationship , partnership, if that. They kept sending him away because they couldn’t understand him, but she could. She could. She was learning to decipher every grimace, every head tilt, every rapid blink that proved to the world, should it have cared to notice, that Hwang Si-Mok was not a robot, but a steadfast and honourable man, friend, partner that she was ready to hold and protect and explain if only she was given the opportunity.
They didn’t have to send him away. She could write a user manual on how to decipher him if that was what it would take. She could hold briefings, draw illustrations, act it out.
She didn’t know how long she stood there in silence looking at him, but from his slight head tilt to right (confused curiosity) and three blinks (worry) she realised that she had to pull herself together. Things did not seem light any longer. Her hair, which merely brushed her jaw, still managed to shroud her hearing somehow, because suddenly everything seemed to happen under water. Her lungs continued to breathe, but physically it didn’t feel like it. Her mouth continued to speak, but she was not sure if someone else had taken over that faculty from her, because she had no idea how she was managing to sustain a coherent conversation.
They spoke about the transfer of the investigation to the Central Office, they spoke about a dream he had, in which Chief Prosecutor Lee, Chief Kang, Prosecutors Young, Yoon and Seo all appeared before him before disappearing in the different directions that life, and death, had taken them.
“They were heading somewhere together,” he explained thoughtfully, “and Prosecutor Seo stopped on the way, while Chief Kang went somewhere else”. She wondered why she wasn’t in the dream, and felt an irrational stab of anger at that thought. Then she poured more soju and he reached out his hand in that formal and silly and adorable way of his and she downed the shot just to stop herself from saying too much. Or from saying anything really.
“I will be ok,” the entity that was controlling her mouth said.
She was answered by a few nods and a head tilt to the left (disbelief) and a look which she refused to examine. Nothing good would come out of it anyway.
“Is there a chance that you won’t be ok?” he asked softly.
More soju, more pain, a shake of the head and a wide smile that replied that of course not. There was no chance that she wouldn’t be ok. She would be fine. And she hated herself for lying to him after she had told him that she wouldn’t keep things from him again.
Take care and goodbye and good luck Prosecutor Hwang. Again.
She was not sure what happened after. She forced shrimp after shrimp in her mouth with strained cheerfulness. Spoke about nothing, smiled a lot, and refused to meet his eye. She could feel his eyes on her, but refused to engage. It did not matter any longer. She almost ran out of the restaurant and focused on her breathing in the taxi ride home, trying to fight the nausea that hit her stomach, full of unwanted food that was eaten too fast, and willing herself not to unravel before reaching the comfort and solitude of her messy apartment. Behind her closed doors, Senior Inspector Han would then take a step back to allow Yeo Jin the freedom to mourn the missing part of her incomplete puzzle.
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Prosecutor Hwang left over the weekend. At least she surmised that he had, since she did not text him and he didn’t text her. A week passed, and then another, and another. The mental demands of what she wanted from life, what she wanted from him, started scaling down from irrational mental fantasies to more rational wishlists that somehow allowed her to function during those long days in her cubicle whilst being pointedly ignored or glared at by her new colleagues.
Let’s go to Paris Prosecutor Hwang!
The beach, let’s drive down to the beach.
Maybe I could visit you in Wonju? See the suspended bridge?
Will you visit Seoul?
Be with me Prosecutor Hwang.
Let’s have dinner, Prosecutor.
A coffee?
Until finally, it had scaled down to one recurring wish that refused to go away. Ask me how I am Hwang Si-mok. Ask me again.
Ask me again became a sort of mantra that got her through the day. She now knew how to answer his question of whether there was a chance that she would not be ok. She would not lie to him. Yeo Jin would admit that she was not ok, will not be ok, without her best friend - her partner - there to support her. She would tell him that it was not fair that she was left behind without him, alone to do a job that seemed far too huge for her, with colleagues who resent her, and that following Marvel fan accounts on instagram in her free time does not cut it for her anymore, when the alternative could have been learning to know Hwang Si-mok, and being rewarded - rarely, very rarely - with his smiles.
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Then one summer day, on the day she met her new boss and realised that work may eventually, one day in the distant future, get better, Han Yeo-jin sat at her desk, feeling slightly lighter, and released a breath that she had not realised that she was holding.
Ask me again Si-mok.
A light blinked on the bottom right corner of her screen. A notification through the internal messaging system signalled that Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok, Wonju District Office, had sent her a message.
Good morning Senior Inspector Han. How are you?
Yeo-jin blinked. She smiled. And started typing her reply.
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Later. Quite some time later ...
Chief Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok could never relate to people who said that they could not understand their wife, or children. He never had anything to add to these conversations because he could not understand how people could be married to partners whom they could not read, or talk with, or even understand.
It had taken some time for him and Superintendent Han to decide to start a shared journey together, but once that decision was taken, their steps fell into place with a steady and onward pace that seemed completely natural. Yeo Jin understood him, embraced him and loved him in a way that he never believed he could deserve, let alone find. She made it seem so easy, that sometimes he wondered whether the problem did not reside solely in him, but also in the dull world that was made up of everything and everyone apart from his home. From his end, he constantly made sure to try his damn hardest to make her happy and, perhaps because he had unwittingly set the bar so low for him with their earliest interactions, it took really little to make his Superintendent happy. A peck on the lips every time he left the house earned him a beaming smile, an embrace led to a glow in her face that he carried with him throughout the day, and reaching out for her hand, as they walked in the park with their two year old daughter, inevitably resulted in doodled pictures of the three of them that continued to sprout in the most unexpected of places, including in a case file of a murdered conman which he carried with him during a televised press briefing. He hated the doodles, and loved them with all his being, and hoped that they would never stop appearing.
His precious Chun Hei, or little Empress Hwang, as he and his wife jokingly referred to her, because her vocabulary consisted basically of orders that she gave mostly to her appa, also learnt to read him like an open book. Tantrums turned into silent pouts when appa pursed his lips, a squeeze of the hand while walking in the mall translated into less squirms and attempts to explore and investigate, and a smile resulted into kisses, so many kisses, because appa is pretty.
He smiled a lot at home.
Of course Chun Hei also knew already that she had managed to succeed where the Korean justice system spectacularly failed in all his years of service. Hwang Chun Hei made Chief Prosecutor Hwang cooperate - obey - with one look of her bossy little face that was such a perfect mix of him and Superintendent Han that sometimes he would still look at it in awe.
So Chief Prosecutor Hwang could not relate to conversations that centred around marital misunderstandings and complaints. Thus, when Deputy Chief Prosecutor Sae Dong-jae was rambling on and on, during a routine briefing about the latest high profile case that his division was following, about how his wife was giving him the silent treatment for reasons that he could not understand, he looked at a framed picture of his Yeo Jin and Chun Hei and sighed.
“You need to ask her.”
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Sae, and all the section Chiefs stopped their conversation and gaped at their boss.
“You need to ask your wife if she is ok,” Chief Prosecutor Hwang explained with the patience and tone he used for his daughter when explaining why she can only have chocolate after finishing all her vegetables.
“And if her answer does not convince you, you let some time pass. And then you ask her again.”