Chapter Text
“Yeo-jin, open up please. I… should be in there with you,” he says as he quietly knocks on the bathroom door.
The voice that answers is too cheerful - too loud - to be sincere. “No need! Only a minute more. And I’m sure there is nothing to worry about!” Her reply is then immediately followed by the very recognisable, and definite, sound of the door being locked from the inside.
Si-mok stares at the closed door with bewilderment, wondering how exactly he ended up being shut out by his girlfriend in the almost 7 minutes that he has been back in Seoul for his usual weekend visit from Wonju. It had started out quite normally, with Yeo-jin greeting him with her glowing happiness and embraces that had, in the last six months, turned every constant in his life upside down in the best possible way. It hadn’t taken him long however, maybe just the time for a deep kiss and a stolen peck or two, to realise that her eyes were a little too bright, shining with something that was not completely made up of her usual pleasure at seeing him. It was also very noticeable that she was holding onto him a bit too tightly.
All it had taken was a questioning look from his end.
“My period is a bit late. I got a test. I’m sure it’s nothing. Just in case!” she had explained, speaking her short sentences very rapidly, and blinking just a little bit too fast as she laughed nervously.
He is not sure how he had reacted to those words. A feeling - something - had come over him for a second, like a sharp spark, before it disappeared again under the stoic composure that made up everything about him. It had fizzled over too fast for him to be able to fully decipher what feeling it had actually been, but it seems that, for once, his face had made it all easy for Yeo-jin to discern. Her face had fallen as she had stared at him and, after a few seconds of terrible silence, she had picked up the test from the kitchen table and closed the door of the bathroom behind her with a quiet click.
Si-mok thinks that it would have been better if she had slammed the door, because at least that would have been a very clear sign of anger that he can recognise and understand. That sad look, and the forced cheerfulness with which she answered him when he asked her to open for him, is completely unchartered territory.
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They had been figuratively inseparable, or as figuratively inseparable as they could be with him living two hours away for most of the week, since that first kiss that started all others in a dingy parking lot in Seoul.
The start of their relationship was not really the most romantic of stories to share, had they had the inclination, or an audience, with which to do so. Back in summer, he had texted to ask her how she was, and her answer had led him to take the rest of the day off to drive to her without really knowing why. Dinner, lots of soju and his awkward confession that he had left his wallet behind because he had driven from Wonju in such a rush had somehow opened up Senior Inspector Han’s floodgates. She tearfully elaborated on her morning text and confessed how things were not well, how she missed him, and how dreadfully unhappy she had been without him. Maybe it was the soju, or the way in which she had finally admitted her vulnerability to him, but something caused a yearning in him, the likes of which he had never felt before for anyone or anything. So in that nondescript parking lot, next to his car, and under the dying embers of a summer sun, he had kissed her until the tears stopped and he could feel her smiling lips against his own. It had been rather dark when they had finally pulled away from each other.
“Senior Inspector Han, I will be so bad at this. You need to know.”
“We’re both going to be horrible at this, I’m sure, Prosecutor Hwang. But we’ll learn together.”
At his rather troubled silence, Yeo-jin had kissed him again and had given him a reassuring smile.
“But luckily for you, Prosecutor Hwang, my face is an open book. And I’ll make sure to let you know when you piss me off.”
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He continues to stare at the closed door that blocks his access to her open face, and wonders why it remains closed, even though that goddamn minute had already passed two minutes and thirty-seven - eight - seconds ago. Without her face showing him how he had fucked up, he feels helpless, and maybe angry? Scared? He cannot tell.
Finally, at three minutes twenty-four, Yeo-jin slides the door open and walks to him with the same fake, wide smile.
“Negative! False alarm! What a relief huh?” She laughs and avoids his eyes. “My period is so irregular, I don’t even know why I was worried! Sorry for the unnecessary scare!” She casually throws away the stick in the trash can, and fills the kettle with slightly trembling hands.
Si-mok closes his eyes and exhales in what could only be relief, and it is in that exact, unlucky moment, that Yeo-jin sneaks a look at him. That same look returns to her face, and she wordlessly walks past him to go out to the balcony, where he finds her, her hands clutching the railing tightly.
He looks at her in concern, automatically shrugging off the coat that he has still not removed and covers her shoulder with it, not failing to miss how she flinches at the contact.
“Are you ok?” he asks quietly.
It takes a few seconds for her to answer.
“I can’t breathe very well,” she finally admits, in a tone that is measured, soft, and low and definitely not Yeo-jin-like.
Si-mok stares at her in helpless silence, trying wordlessly to will her to look at him, so that he could put his six months of practice to use, and understand.
“I think we need to be more careful from now on,” she adds after a while, still staring into the distance.
“That’s my responsibility,” he replies quickly. “I’ll make sure to not put you in this situation again. I’ll go to the convenience store and deal with it”. Practical solutions, he could handle well. If buying condoms will make all this go away, he would just go now and be back before dinner. Maybe he could cook dinner too. He has been practicing that too.
Yeo-jin shakes her head slightly and finally turns to face him. “Or maybe… we should just stop for a bit,” she says quietly.
To his dismay, Si-mok finds that he cannot read her face, and suddenly feels like he cannot breathe very well either. “What are you trying to say, Yeo-jin?” he asks, rather sharply.
She shrugs off his coat and hands it back to him with more sadness than he thinks such action warrants. Her tone continues to be measured as she replies, but it somehow adds a hint of finality to her words that makes his stomach clench. “Si-mok, I thought I was pregnant. That was enough for your face to actually betray you, for once. I saw absolute panic at the thought of you having a child with me, and relief when you found out that you were not. I need to think about what I’m going to do with the knowledge of those reactions from now on, and you… you need to think about why you had them.”
She draws in a long, deep breath and turns her gaze away from him again. “We both need to think about how what happened will affect our relationship”, she adds as Si-mok stares at her impassively. She crosses her arms in front of her, as if seeking protection from the heaviness that mists around them.
“The problem is that I think this place is too small for us to think together.”
That definitely seems to seal the deal, and he nods slightly.
“Clear,” he murmurs. He goes back inside, grabs his overnight bag, and closes the door behind him.
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He has already been thinking for two hours, very very thoroughly, before he sees her again.
Even though the heavy rain makes visibility difficult, he immediately recognises her as she rushes down the street towards her parked car, the downpour making quick work of her trench coat and jeans before she can even manage to reach the vehicle. She cuts a forlorn figure with her soaked clothes and matted hair, looking completely miserable as she struggles to find her car keys in the oversized messenger bag that she always loves to carry.
Si-mok gets out of his car, ignoring the cold and the icy sleet that immediately hits his face as he crosses the road blindly to reach her.
“What the hell are you doing Yeo-jin?!” he yells, trying to make his voice heard over the rain.
She startles and turns around once or twice, trying to follow the direction of his voice before catching sight of him and staring at him in disbelief.
“Where do you think you’re driving to, in this rain?” he demands as he grabs her arm and drags her under a balcony in the hope of some shelter.
“To Wonju! To you, you idiot!” she yells. “I feel bad for what happened and I've thought myself out and the weather is shit and I thought you were driving back and you - you wouldn’t pick up the phone! Why the fuck don’t you pick up your phone, ever??”
The speech itself is delivered at such a high speed that Si-mok needs a second to catch up. But the last part was so unfair, so untrue, that he stares at her in disbelief for a full moment before turning away and pinching his nose in frustration. Honestly, being in a relationship was a goddamn mindfuck sometimes. “Yeo-jin, I always answer the phone. Always. My battery is dead. You kicked me out of your apartment and I had no way of charging it,” he explains with forced patience.
“Oh. Oh ok. Damn it. I’ll buy you a powerbank tomorrow,” she replies with what seems to be a half snort, and half sob. “But wait a minute - why aren’t you in Wonju?”
“Why the hell would I be in Wonju?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but gapes at him for a second or two, before closing it again with a tilt that seems to say fair point. They stare at each other in silence for a while. The balcony does not provide much shelter, but the ridiculousness of them arguing in the rain while her apartment was less than ten metres away hasn’t yet dawned on them.
“Were you in your car the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“Doing what?”
“I was thinking, Yeo-jin.”
“Where were you going to sleep?!”
“I didn’t think so far ahead. That would have been phase two.”
Something in the way he says it, or in the way his serious, earnest face looks while saying it, is Yeo-jin’s undoing. The laughter with which she wraps her arms around him soon turns into sobs and he crushes her to him, while rubbing her back soothingly. She cries openly and loudly, processing their fight, but mostly her disappointment of losing, without ever having it in the first place, what she thought might have been.
“Can I come home?” he asks softly after a while. The rain shows no signs of letting up, and their wet clothes and shoes are starting to get seriously uncomfortable. She nods silently in his shoulder and they seal their reconciliation with a soft kiss. Hand in hand they run towards his car to grab his things. Yeo-jin reaches at the back for his overnight bag, and his immediate mental reaction is to stop her and tell her that she shouldn’t be carrying heavy things in her condition. Just in time he remembers that she is not in any condition that precludes her from carrying his things, and a lump forms in his throat. He swallows back his words, and with it, that annoying lump.
And fails.
A long and hot shower later, Si-mok enjoys the feeling of comfortable, dry clothes and of the electric heater that gives the small living room a warm glow. Dinner consists of potato chips, instant ramen and far too much chocolate because they are too exhausted to make any further effort. He places their two mugs on the coffee table while Yeojin stares sleepily at him from her curled up position on the couch. She sits up to reach out for her mug and winces slightly.
“Cramps. I got my period while we were both thinking,” she explains. “Talk about unnecessary drama,” she adds sadly.
Si-mok looks at his mug thoughtfully in silence for a few seconds before staring at her seriously. “It wasn’t unnecessary, Yeo-jin,” he replies. “I have things to say, and I guess so have you. Am I right?”
She nods and reaches for her bag, taking out her notebook. “I made some notes,” she announces with a smile that is half teasing, half shy. As he scoots closer to her to look at them, he finds that the “notes” are a list of emotions, and insults directed to him that are accompanied by a mix of doodles of their faces in various states of tears or anger.
He instinctively pulls her towards him and kisses her forehead, feeling her sigh softly as he then laces his fingers with hers without hesitation. “Can I go first please?” she asks. “If we’re going to do this, I want to make sure to say everything before I forget.”
He nods, her hand in both of his, and listens.
“It was unfair of me to be upset at your first reaction, especially since I had the same look on my face three days ago when I realised just how late my cycle was. I had time to come to terms with the possibility of having a baby, while I expected you to do the same in two seconds. It was selfish and insensitive, and I’m sorry. And you have my permission to call me out on that should such a situation arise again.”
She sneaks a glance at him, but his only reaction is a slight upturn of his lips, and a nod for her to go on.
“I admit that after the initial shock, I had started to like the idea of having your - our - child. Actually I started to love it. And while the negative result hurt me more than I could ever imagine, the relief that I saw in your face… that was far more painful to process,” she admits, her voice shaking slightly.
“I never really thought about having children, and I chose my career, and I guess I subconsciously chose you as my partner, because I was fine - I am fine - with being committed to both without the added complication of raising little humans, and keeping them alive and happy until adulthood. But the possibility of having a baby with you made me think that somehow we could manage it. Then… I guess your reaction hammered the nail straight into that coffin.”
From the corner of her eye, she could see Si-mok staring intently at her but she could not find the strength to look at him right now. It was imperative for her to finish telling him what she needed to say.
“Having said that… I loved - and still love - the idea of having a baby with you, but I love you more. And I don’t want you to go all noble idiot on me and tell me that I should find someone who could give me a child and make me happy, because no one can make me happy, if not you.”
Yeo-jin shifts in her seat, a little uncomfortable, but powers on. “I chose you a long time ago without even realising it, I chose you again six months ago, and I will keep on choosing you every minute of every day because I love you.” She gives him a shy smile at this and squeezes his hands. “I love and notice every single thing you do for me. I love your micro-expressions and your head tilts and your blinking, and the only kind of baby that I want is one who blinks and head tilts and is half of me and half of you.”
The expression on his face which she sees when she looks at him again makes her bottom lip tremble. Goddamn period hormones. “I do want your child, Si-mok, but I want you more. So if we decide that it’s going to be just us two, then I want you to know that I’m all in, happily and without regrets, for as long as you will want me.”
There is nothing micro-emotive in the way he kisses her in reply. It is soft and deep and earnest and all she feels is warmth, reassurance and love, so much love, that when he is first to break the kiss, she instinctively whines in protest.
“Just a minute Senior Inspector Han, I have something to say as well,” he whispers, with a tone that, had it been anyone else, might be considered as teasing. “I also made notes,” he admits, and Yeo-jin’s mouth drops when he sees that he’s actually smirking.
He walks to his backpack and brings out his laptop, placing it on the coffee table and looking as if he was about to make an opening statement at the Supreme Court.
“Si-mok, is that an excel sheet ?”
“It’s easier to make a list on Excel than on Word.”
“Those are a lot of … thoughts, Prosecutor Hwang,” she observes rather incredulously.
He frowns a little as he stares at the screen, scrolling down until he comes to three rows that are highlighted in bright yellow. “That was the brainstorming part,” he explains seriously. “What counts are these three rows.”
Yeo-jin stares at him expectantly, and makes a gesture for him to go on.
He taps on the first highlighted row which says baby in pain? and zooms in it with his fingers . “I’m sorry to have given you the impression that I do not want to have a child with you, or that I have never considered it. I did consider it in the past months, more than you may think,” he admits, with a hint of a rueful smile. “But I’m scared Yeo-jin. What if our child is born… broken like me? How can I wish my childhood, and all that pain, on my child? How can I wish the hell I made my mother pass through on the woman I love?”
He then taps on row 2, and Yeo-jin realises that her boyfriend is actually giving her a presentation and wonders, for the upteenth time this evening, how and why on earth is she so ridiculously in love with him.
“Because I do love you Yeo-jin. And it’s not a feeling that comes quickly and turns into a muted something like everything else that I occasionally feel. I love you and I feel it all the time, and I think it’s how love should really feel... because it’s feels huge and bright and ... loud in a beautiful, perfect way that doesn’t hurt my head.”
That is why, she thinks.
She knows he cares for her, of course, but she always thought that, with him being as he is, she would always be the one to feel more, to love more openly and strongly. Never - never in a million years - had she imagined that he could feel the same way as she did and express it so beautifully. What is this extraordinary creature that is Hwang Si-mok?
Yeo-jin is openly crying at this point, and seeing her like this, he abandons his Prosecutory-like list and turns to her again.
“Sometimes what I feel for you seems so big that I don’t know what to do with it,” he continues before she can react verbally. “So I am not only terrified of having a baby who will be like me, I’m also scared of feeling what I feel for you, but multiplied by two.” He pauses for a moment. “Also, it works both ways. The hurt I felt when you told me to leave earlier today would also be multiplied by two. And I don’t know how to handle that. So I’m sorry Yeo-jin for hurting you. Truly.”
The hands that brush away his hair from his forehead are soothing, as is the feeling of the light kisses that Yeo-jin is trailing down his cheeks. She places her head on his shoulder and sighs happily when he takes her cue and places his arm around her to bring her closer to him. He's come such a long way.
“Shall we rationalise?” she asks with a little smile.
“Yes please.”
“Your condition, is it genetic?”
He thinks a little and shakes his head. “No, my parents were just unlucky,” he replies evenly.
Yeo-jin raises her head and looks him straight in the eye. “You were the unlucky one, Si-mok. No one suffered as much as you. And you are extraordinary, and wonderful, and that is what is genetic … and what you will pass on to our child, should we decide to have one.” She speaks slowly making sure he understands what she is saying. “Is that rationalised?” she asks seriously.
He rewards her with one of his rare, crinkly eyed, smiles. “Rationalised,” he confirms.
“Good. Tomorrow, you will explain your condition to me, and I will google about it all week while you’re away to make sure to help you in every way possible,” she promises earnestly. “But, now I feel that it is more important to also rationalise part two,” she continues with an encouraging smile and kiss.
“So listen to me very carefully. I love you in the same exact way that you love me, and if we have a baby, it will be all doubled. That I can confirm,” she jokes. “But it will also be shared, because we will be loving our child together. You and I are a team, have always been, and will always be.”
His smile becomes even wider. Yeo-jin stares at him to memorise it. There will be so many doodles coming his way after tonight. “Rationalised too?”
“Yes. I think so.”
"As for your fear of me leaving you, ever, can we agree that that point is moot after my very moving declaration of love and commitment?"
He nods a little self consciously at that, and point three seems to be successful rationalised too.
“You know that this is just the first of many conversations that we will have on this topic, right?” she asks, searching his eyes and still finding some shreds of self doubt. She knows that it will take some time.
“Yes, yes I know,” he replies with a nod.
“We will be ok though.”
“I think we will be more than ok, Yeo-jin.”
“Perfect. I love you.”
“Excellent. I love you too." He pauses before adding seriously, "very loudly.”
She beams at him in happiness, before leaning back into his arms, exhausted. They lie in comfortable silence for a beautiful, warm minute. “Maybe we should get a cat,” she suddenly suggests as she twists in his arms to look at him.
He considers her words for a moment, before nodding.
“Two cats. And a bigger place. And maybe we should get married.”
Silence.
“Is that a proposal?”
“A suggestion.”
She gapes at him for a full five seconds.
“We work long hours, so we need two cats to keep each other company,” he explains patiently. “And I don’t want to have to think in my car the next time we argue. If not an extra room, I need at least a corner to stay out of your way.”
“Right. Fair enough,” she exhales, still looking rather dazed. Maybe she had misheard?
“As for our marriage, shall we register it next Friday? We can call HR and make a day out of it.”