Chapter Text
“Journeys end when lovers meet.”
William Shakespeare
Seoul
Christmas Eve
Until tonight, Kim Seokjin loved this job. Capital L loved it.
As Features Editor for the Seoul Century News, he gets to share happiness with his readers: wedding announcements, fundraisers, upbeat theater reviews. Often he writes in-depth, heartfelt pieces about influential public figures, or hot, new musicians, or a high school kid who won the national science fair. Seokjin prides himself on coaxing the sincerest answers from his subjects, because he has a gift for setting people at ease.
Seokjin cherishes the smell of his freshly-printed section each Sunday, the bold, splashy photos dominating the page. It’s similar to the scent of books, but fresher, more crisp, and he will freely admit to putting his nose to a press-warm print at the start of every day.
Because he loves his job, people like him, despite his aloofness and quirky sense of humor. His work ethic has never been a joke though, and that’s something corporate headquarters appreciates, too.
For example, now…
It’s Christmas Eve, and the office holiday party churns outside his door. While his coworkers gyrate along with someone belting Twice in karaoke, while they hobnob and sip eggnog, Seokjin is still working, filing a past-deadline submission for an engagement.
He gazes wistfully at the couple as they smile from their submitted photograph: Kang Jungwoo and Kim Bonwha, early 30s, nice family, solid education. The announcement is cheerful, bordering on proud. They plan a spring wedding in Chuncheon, followed by a honeymoon in Bali.
Looking at them, Seokjin wonders, Where has the time gone? His thoughts flit to the thin, wrapped parcel in his desk’s lap drawer, and he marvels at his senselessness. The recipient of this gift probably won’t even be here tonight. As a field reporter, he is most likely on assignment. Seokjin hasn’t even seen him in weeks, despite working in the same building, though admittedly on separate floors. He is a busy man, Seokjin reminds himself, an important man, someone who is as ambitious as he is handsome...
And then, speak of the devil, there comes a tap on Seokjin’s door.
Heart lurching, Seokjin swivels to find Choi Haneul leaning on the frame, looking as though he’s just stepped from a page in a magazine. He’s dazzling in his silk Armani suit with a narrow gold tie slung loose at his collar. Seokjin has to tell himself not to fixate on that throat, into which he has pressed ten thousand kisses over the last four years. But as Seokjin lifts his gaze, he crosses into even more dangerous ground. Haneul’s eyes glint with flecks of gold behind his glasses, which add an air of rakish sophistication to his already chiseled face.
“Thought I’d find you here,” Haneul purrs. “Still hard at work.”
“Ah, you know. These engagement notices won’t file themselves,” Seokjin says, a flush slowly creeping up the back of his shirt.
Haneul peers at him, a smirk in the corner of his mouth. Then he steps forward, heeling the door shut behind him. “You know, we should take a break. Go somewhere warm, someplace with sand.”
Seokjin reels. It seems to take forever for his mouth to catch up to his brain. “Yeah? I still have those sites bookmarked. Aruba. The Maldives.”
Haneul perches on the edge of Seokjin’s desk. He crosses his legs toward him, partially pinning him in. “Clothing optional,” he whispers. “Like last time.”
“Yes.” Seokjin’s head rocks back, his eyes slipping involuntarily closed. “Yes, I’d like that.”
“Make the arrangements, love, and I’ll follow,” Haneul says, muttering the words against Seokjin’s ear.
Outside, a balloon bursts and they spring apart, laughing nervously at their skittishness. As Haneul moves away, tugging his suit coat surreptitiously over his groin, he mumbles, “Why does this always happen to us?”
“Because we’re powder kegs set to ignite,” Seokjin says and Haneul’s face splits into a grin.
“That must be it,” Haneul laughs. “Powder kegs, you and me.”
There’s a moment of tension. If they were anywhere else – the love hotel around the corner, for instance – they would have already ripped off half their clothes. Haneul would have his eager hand thrust down Seokjin’s pants, and Seokjin would be hungry for his touch.
Seokjin shakes his head. He says, “You’ve been busy lately. Feels like I haven’t seen you for days.”
“On assignment in Incheon,” Haneul muses. “Tracking a drug cartel. Only got in this morning.”
“Oh,” Seokjin exhales. “Haneul, that's terrifying, but also… brave. And your memoir?”
“On hold,” Haneul answers, quietly, “Real life got in the way of real life.”
Seokjin nods. “Right.”
“Got you something though,” Haneul says, leaning forward, his face hovering centimeters from Seokjin’s nose.
“You did?” Seokjin can hardly contain his excitement. “I got you something, too.” He scrabbles behind him, reaching into the desk to fumble the package into his lap.
“Silly goose, I haven’t brought it with me. Though I must admit,” he drawls, his voice dropping an octave, “the idea of you opening it here, the risk of us getting caught, that does have a certain appeal.”
Seokjin’s grateful for the package in his lap, which, thankfully, hides the package in his lap, when Haneul unceremoniously plucks it from his grasp.
“You mind?” he asks, fingers poised to rip into the wrapping.
“Please,” Seokjin shifts deliberately forward. “It’s yours.”
Haneul tears the paper to reveal a book inside.
Not just any book, but a signed copy of All of My Life, which Haneul once confessed was his all-time favorite novel.
“No way! You didn’t?”
“Found it months ago, actually,” Seokjin explains, breathless as he prepares to recount the steps he took to track it down and the strings he pulled to find the author and ask her to sign it. “Remember that sweet little antique shop in Insadong, the one with all the rare first printings?”
Haneul cocks his head toward the door. “Dumpling, I think the music stopped.”
Seokjin pauses. Then his heart sinks. The music has stopped, and the voice of their publisher, Bang Shihyuk, is booming something unintelligible over the mic.
“That sounds important,” Seokjin says, hoping to mask his disappointment.
“I should go, I think,” Haneul says. He bends to press a kiss to Seokjin’s lips. “Thank you for the book. Can you hang onto it for me? I’ll come back to collect it after.”
“Uh. Sure.” Dazed, Seokjin touches his mouth, his only thoughts on after, and what he will let Haneul do to him. “I, um. I’ll just wrap up this announcement and…”
Haneul’s already halfway to the door. On his way out, he says, “I’ll be dreaming of you in Aruba.”
“Merry Christmas,” Seokjin says. Then he returns to his screen and the smiling couple, wondering why only a few moments ago, he had felt so melancholy.
Sure, he and Haneul weren’t in the open. No one even knew Haneul was gay. If word got out, it would wreck his career, and Haneul had clawed his way too high in the reporting game to let anything spoil it.
Whereas everyone knew Seokjin was gay. They didn’t come right out and say it, but they knew.
So he and Haneul remained secret.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was his. Of that, Seokjin felt certain.
He finishes typing the announcement. He presses a hand to his heart, which still feels somewhat unsteady. As he cycles down his computer, he checks his reflection in the screen. Despite looking owl-eyed from a long day’s work, he decides he looks alright.
Seokjin folds into the back of the crowd that has gathered around the karaoke stage. Most of his coworkers are several drinks in, so they laugh at everything their publisher is saying.
“It’s been a banner year here at Century News,” Mr. Bang says. “We’re sure to sweep the design categories at the awards this year, and our features, Kim Seokjin, wherever you are—”
One of his cartoonists nudges Seokjin forward. Shyly, he calls, “I’m here!”
“Ah!” Bang Shihyuk beams. “Everywhere I go, someone’s got a kind word for you. You’re readable, dear man, and that sells papers!”
Everyone cheers, and several people pound Seokjin’s shoulders in congratulation.
Through the crowd, Seokjin finds Haneul, left of the stage, standing with Hwasa, Mr. Bang’s sharp-tongued, no-nonsense daughter. Haneul locks eyes with him. Then Seokjin feels a pinprick of alarm as Haneul looks away.
“On the surface, that’s what we’re all about, isn’t it? Selling papers,” Bang Shihyuk bellows on. “But we’re more than that, always have been. It’s what sets us apart from other newspapers. Because here at the Seoul Century News, we’re about people. In fact, I like to think of us all as family.”
Haneul moves forward, Hwasa at his side. The crowd parts to let them onstage.
Seokjin can hear his breathing. This afternoon’s coffee tastes bitter on his tongue. Bang Shihyuk is still talking, but it’s as though he’s underwater and everything is moving in slow motion as Haneul’s hand falls to the small of Hwasa’s back.
“And so,” Shihyuk goes on, “it is my pleasure to announce the latest addition to my family. Our intrepid news reporter, the illustrious Choi Haneul, has asked for my daughter’s hand, and I am pleased to say that I proudly grant it.”
Seokjin falls back one step.
And catches himself. He can’t storm out like some lovelorn fool. He cannot. He won’t.
So he eases back, ducking between half-drunk editors and ad execs, to his office where he calmly collects his coat, his scarf, and his gloves. Then, with stiff fingers, he slips the half-unwrapped copy of All of My Life into his pocket. He slides down the back steps to the loading dock, where he disappears without notice.
Seokjin doesn’t remember the three-block trek to the train station. He doesn’t remember boarding the train. Robotically, he takes a seat in an almost empty car and watches the city streak by.
At the stone façade of Rosehill Cottages, his Gangdong apartment building, Seokjin pauses, one hand on the copper gate. A few more steps, he thinks. Only a few more to go.
He thumbs in his key code and shambles through the toast-warm solarium, ignoring the green-smelling succulents that crowd into the cozy room. In the elevator, he props against the gleaming bronze wall, numb to the tinny Christmas music piped in overhead.
In his apartment, he peels off his coat and toes from his shoes. He slips the partially-unwrapped package from his pocket, tossing it to his kitchen island where the title glares at him from beneath its strip of reindeer wrapping.
“Engaged?” Seokjin mutters aloud, tasting the word for the first time and finding it sour.
He sets a kettle to boil, mumbling to himself, chiding himself for his foolishness, for his willingness to believe…
His thoughts meander to his job and all the things he loves about it: the lifestyle columns, the crosswords, the inky scent of newsprint. But really, a sizable chunk of why he loved it was the dashing lead reporter Choi Haneul who was now, somehow, engaged to their boss’s daughter.
Why didn’t he tell me? Seokjin numbly wonders. His stomach twists because he already knows the answer. What’s even worse, he understands it.
Hot tears spill from his eyes as Seokjin slumps in his kitchen and quietly lets himself weep.