Chapter Text
As far as cases go, especially those which other Prosecutors wouldn’t touch, not even with a flaming pole, Prosecutor Hwang thought that this one was pretty okay.
A few months back, a hugely unpopular Junior Minister had been outed on social media for having bagged - quite literally bagged - sixty million won in unmarked bills as part of a brokerage fee for a sale of a penthouse in one of the city’s most highly sought residential areas. What compounded matters further was that this penthouse was owned by a known conglomerate heir who was currently held in preventive custody while awaiting trial for having ordered, on behalf of persons unknown , the murder of an investigative journalist (and mother of three), who had been getting too close for comfort to uncovering an explosive truth that could bring the whole political system down.
Si-mok was well aware that the investigation and prosecution of that case was something that he could only look at with longing, and ultimately with disillusionment at the inevitable acquittal. However, the general public outrage at the Junior Minister’s latest exploit had led the Prosecutor General to decide that this was the case that could bring back some modicum of trust in the Prosecutors’ office. His reputation for being incorruptible, unapproachable, highly recognisable, and one of the best litigators amongst Korea’s prosecutors, had resulted in Hwang Si-mok being the most obvious choice to ensure that Junior Minister Cho would metaphorically “take one for the team” and divert public attention, with his conviction, from the more serious problems the Government was facing.
It was against this background that Si-mok had been recalled with urgency in Seoul, and found himself, for once, in a position where he could negotiate his transfer to the capital to last for the foreseeable future. While his work and life in Wonju had not been too bad, perhaps uneventful at best, he was also aware that there were things from his life in Seoul that he was okay with returning to, like his apartment, the libraries, the restaurants...
Senior Inspector Han.
Si-mok was not exactly sure what missing someone felt like. He had lived as a solitary wolf pretty much all his life following the surgery that had stopped his pain and everything else. He was easily able to spend months not speaking to his mother before actually wondering how she was. He held no meaningful relationships, or any relationships at all, which went beyond professional cooperation, and even those were an uncomfortable and awkward burden that he sought to avoid where possible.
However, with Senior Inspector Han, things had always felt different. It had been three years since he had last seen her, just before having left Seoul again. They had texted and emailed for a few weeks after his move to Wonju, until she had suddenly stopped answering his calls. And his texts. And his emails, and the messages he sent to her through the internal system within the public service.
He had surprised himself when he had kept trying to reach out to her for a few months after that, blaming it on his innate curiosity at wanting to make sure that she was doing a good job within the National Police Agency. Because why else would he care? After all, Han Yeo-jin was just a colleague, a smart, brilliant colleague, with whom he worked in the past.
Still, he wondered a lot about her. He wondered if she still worked with the Agency, whether she had advanced in her career. He sometimes wondered whether she had got married in the past three years, but those were thoughts that he usually dismissed quickly because it was not something that he wanted to think about, for reasons that he did not really understand.
Was that what missing someone felt like? He wondered whether he should tell her that he was back in Seoul, but seeing how she had just disappeared abruptly from his life years before, it was very probable that she wouldn’t really care either way about his whereabouts.
He didn’t like that thought.
Si-mok was pulled back from the unpleasant direction his thoughts were going, by the announcement of the return of the Judge to the courtroom, following his deliberations. It took one look at said Judge’s face to realise that this was going to be yet another win to add to his list of successes. He didn’t care that much either way, and it had been one of his easier wins, but it would make his superiors happy, and keep them off his back for the rest of the week.
If he was lucky.
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He was still in his robes, walking out of the justice building, when he saw her walking briskly towards him, eyes glued to her phone. Her dark hair brushed her shoulders now, and she looked fuller, maybe softer? , but there was no mistaking her purposeful stride and the aura around her that Si-mok suddenly found to be completely fascinating.
“Senior Inspector Han?” he called, wondering why his voice did not seem to sound at all like his.
Han Yeo-jin stopped abruptly in her steps and looked up from her phone, taking a split second to locate the source of the question and meeting his eyes. Her eyes widened, and she gaped at him with an expression that her open face could not hide - a mix of shock, astonishment, and dismay.
“Prosecutor Hwang? Is it really you?” she breathed. She walked slowly to him and smiled. A real and genuine smile that did funny things to his chest that he did not like, but also made him wonder whether he had imagined the look that he had seen on her face just a few seconds before. “Look at you, in your pretty robes.” She continued looking at him up and down with an expression that he could not quite read.
“What are you doing here?” he asked abruptly, clutching tightly the legal books that he was carrying, not really knowing why.
“I could ask you the same thing now, couldn’t I?” she retorted with a chuckle. “I’m here on official business, as are you, I see”, she added with a teasing look that reminded him of their interactions, years back
Si-mok gaped, and blinked rapidly. A few moments of awkward silence followed.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I am, Prosecutor Hwang?”
“I tried to ask you many times in the past, but you never answered,” Si-mok snapped, immediately wincing when he saw her flinch. He hadn’t meant to bring that up so quickly, but it seemed to him that his mouth was acting independently from his brain, because this was really not how he wanted this conversation to go. Far from it.
Yeo-jin looked down, shaking her head slowly, but she did not reply. “I’m back in Seoul,” he added lamely, for want of anything better to say.
A weak smile was the immediate answer to that from her part. “Will you be staying here long?” she asks, her voice not quite steady.
“Indefinitely.”
She blinked at that, and a shadow once again darkened her face in an expression that he could not read. He didn’t like the fact that three years apart had set him back so much when it came to reading her. Ms Han’s candid, expressive and bright face had been the one constant thought that had refused to leave his mind when everything else in his life seemed to live in dusk. And it now felt all different.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she finally said softly. “Welcome back home, Prosecutor Hwang.”
“Can I offer you a coffee?” he asked before he could chicken out.
For one, very happy, second, it seemed like she was going to say yes, before she suddenly looked at her watch and jumped. “Goodness, it’s late! I need to rush, but maybe another time?” She nodded and bowed apologetically before turning away and dashing down the stairs to the parking lot.
Hwang Si-mok knew next to nothing about the subtleties of human interaction, but he could recognise a very clear rejection when he saw one.
Even though it was probably medically improbable, seeing the back of her as she ran away from him, once again blowing him off as she did years ago, actually hurt.
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Back in Wonju he had discovered that the rhythmical pace of running helped to clear his head of thoughts that were too confusing for him to handle. And since it seemed that there was, once again, one big Han Yeo-jin-shaped dust ball that was persistently stuck in his mind, he had taken up to doing a lot of running since his return to Seoul.
And this was how he ended up, as a result of a Universe that seemed to conspire against him, randomly meeting her for the second time in as many weeks.
After a run that had perhaps been too strenuous for his current fitness levels, and the eternal certainty of an empty fridge back home, Si-mok found himself breathlessly walking towards one of the pop-up, cheap eateries that he and Senior Inspector Han had favoured in the early days of their collaboration. And of course, as his luck would have it, she was also there.
His chest once again started acting funny as he looked at Han Yeo-jin’s profile, and he debated with himself whether to just go and spare himself yet another humiliation and the onslaught of unfamiliar emotions that felt mostly bad. The desire to take off was exacerbated by the fact that she was sitting there, smiling widely, as she looked at her dinner companion with a soft look that he had never seen on her countenance before.
A sharp pang of something hit him when he looked at her face, but it quickly dissipated into astonishment when his eyes fell on the person that was sharing the table with her.
It was a very tiny person, a little girl, playing happily with what looked like an inordinately large amount of small toys that took over most of the table. She could not have been more than two or three years old, with short wavy hair and what Si-mok could not deny were Senior Inspector Han’s smile and eyes.
Han Yeo-jin seemed to sense his eyes on her, and turned to look at him, her face once again taking on the same expression of shock and dismay as when they met at the Courthouse. The little girl turned to look the same way as her, tilting her head curiously, and somewhat suspiciously. She was obviously not too impressed with the sight of him.
“Prosecutor Hwang, hello,” Yeo-jin finally said, swallowing nervously. They stared at each other in silence for what seemed a very uncomfortable amount of time before the girl piped out a loud “Hello!”
Si-mok stared at the girl, and rather pathetically, bowed down politely in reply, a reaction that seemed to amuse her greatly.
Senior Inspector Han’s eyes shifted from him to the girl helplessly for a number of times, before she finally sighed loudly.
“Prosecutor Hwang, please sit down,” she said in the end, pointing to an empty seat at their table. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
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