Chapter Text
2032 (Present Day)
Han Joon-hwi marched through the quiet hallways of Seocho Elementary, brows knotted in worry. He had been in the middle of eating a quick lunch with his colleagues from the Seoul Prosecution Office, when a peculiar call made him hurry toward his 7-year-old daughter’s school: Han Ji-ah had been called to the principal’s office after one of her teachers caught her punching a classmate in the face. It was a little after the lunch hour now; Joon-hwi rapped his knuckles on the door, slightly out of breath.
“Come in,” he heard a firm voice say from the other side.
Principal Park Soo-min was a tall, middle-aged woman with a kind face that reminded Joon-hwi of his old law school mentor, Professor Kim Eun-suk. Upon his arrival, Principal Park smiled warmly at him, and Joon-hwi bowed his head low in greeting. His eyes fell on the little girl opposite the principal’s desk.
“Appa,” Han Ji-ah jumped out of her seat and into her father’s arms, burying her face in his coat.
Joon-hwi crouched so that his face was level with hers, then inspected his daughter for any sign of damage. Ji-ah’s eyes were rimmed with red from crying, but she looked otherwise unscathed. Breathing a sigh of relief, he lifted his hands to her head and fixed her long, dark hair, which had broken free of the French braid his wife had spent 30 minutes doing earlier that morning before leaving for work.
“Jiah-ya, are you okay? Why on earth were you fighting?”
A loud cough came from the corner of the office. Joon-hwi locked gazes with a stern-looking woman, who was sitting with her arms crossed and nose raised in the air.
“That’s an excellent question,” the woman sneered. Joon-hwi guessed this must be the mother of the classmate with whom Ji-ah had gotten into a fight.
Principal Kim chose that moment to fill him in on the matter at hand. Clearing her throat, she informed him, “Ji-ah abeojji, Kim Min-seo sonsaeng reported a fight between Ji-ah and Dae-hyun,” the other woman in the room huffed out loud but Principal Kim ignored it, “during the lunch hour earlier. Apparently, Ji-ah attacked Dae-hyun out of the blue in front of their classmates.”
Joon-hwi fixed his gaze on the messy-haired boy sitting next to his mother. Dae-hyun was about twice Ji-ah’s size, with a face as mean as his mother’s; an ugly, dark bruise circled around his right eye. His scathing eyes were trained on Ji-ah, looking very much like a cat enjoying the rat caught in his trap.
“Is this true, Jiah-ya?” Joon-hwi asked his daughter. “Did you attack your classmate unprovoked?”
Ji-ah opened her mouth to answer, but Dae-hyun’s mother cut her off. “Must that even be asked? Principal Park, the evidence is right here!” She furiously gestured at the black eye on her son’s face, which quickly schooled itself into a look of pain. “That—that delinquent assaulted my precious boy! I would expect nothing less from the daughter of a lawyer defending a murderer,” she spat, lips curled into a sneer.
“Dae-hyun eommoni—”
“I apologize,” Joon-hwi told the enraged mother, interrupting Principal Park with a calm smile. Then, he lowered his face once more to Ji-ah’s, saying, “Uri taal, you should apologize to Dae-hyun. Remember what I told you about responding with violence?”
Anger flashed in his daughter’s face. “Appa—” she began to protest, then faltered when Joon-hwi gave her a look that said just do it, we’ll talk later. Resigned, Ji-ah heaved a frustrated sigh, and bowed to Dae-hyun, though her fists were clenched at the sides.
“Dae-hyun, I’m sorry I punched your ugly—”
“Han Ji-ah.”
“Dae-hyun, I’m sorry for attacking you even though you deserved it—”
“Han Ji-ah.”
Head still bent low, his daughter gritted her teeth. “I’m sorry, Dae-hyun. This won’t happen again.”
The apology, however, seemed hardly enough to pacify Dae-hyun’s mother, who insisted that Ji-ah be expelled from the school. Principal Park looked cornered. Joon-hwi knew she and his wife were close; Ji-ah’s eomma once helped Soo-min’s father through a redevelopment project that threatened to close down the tteokbokki restaurant the Park family had been running for decades. She cast a resigned glance at Joon-hwi, to which he answered with a reassuring smile.
“We will accept whatever punishment is appropriate, Principal Park. I trust you will be fair and wise in your judgment.”
Joon-hwi held back a laugh at the exasperated look she gave him. Perhaps both the principal and Dae-hyun’s mother expected him to argue. After all, wasn’t Ji-ah’s father known to be a hotshot prosecutor in Seoul?
In all honesty, he just wanted to get this over and done with so he and Ji-ah could go home. Joon-hwi glanced at his watch: 01:28p.m. Today was the last trial for the Garak-dong Murder Case, of which his wife was the Defense Attorney, and Joon-hwi had neither the time nor the patience to be involved in petty power struggles such as this one.
It was clear to him anyway who was the real bully in the room. Kids like Dae-hyun were not new to him. Joon-hwi had met plenty of them in his lifetime—children from affluent families who believed they could bend the law to their will. He was willing to bet that Ji-ah was only a name in a long list of his victims, a list Principal Park must have memorized. Besides, as far as he knew, Ji-ah had no record of any misdemeanor prior to this one. His daughter embodied sweetness, but it was truly unfortunate that Ji-ah took after her mother’s temperament.
In the end, Principal Park settled for handing Ji-ah a demerit, on top of eight hours of community service. His daughter’s fists were clenched so tightly he was sure the nails were bruising her palms. If looks could light things on fire, Dae-hyun and his mother would be a pile of ashes on the floor at that moment.
Ji-ah sulked in silence throughout the car ride. She didn’t even notice when Joon-hwi pulled over at her favorite ice cream shop, until her father opened the door and flashed her his most winning smile.
“This is obviously a bribe,” he said sheepishly. “But we have some things to talk about, Jiah-ya, before we pick up your mother from court.”
Joon-hwi bought them the store’s signature banana split. Over the years, it had become a tradition of sorts for the father and daughter duo to order the banana split for two whenever they were here. Indeed, the ice cream seemed to cheer Ji-ah up a little.
“So,” Joon-hwi began, “care to tell me what really happened in school today?”
“Dae-hyun was being an idiot,” her father raised an eyebrow at the insult and Ji-ah quickly muttered an apology. “I was eating lunch with my friends at the table next to theirs. In peace, until Dae-hyun started talking about what an evil person eomma is for defending that… that man on the news.” Tears welled in her eyes; she hadn’t cried earlier in the principal’s office but now that it was just her and her father, she could freely let out her emotions. “Appa, Dae-hyun is wrong, isn’t he? But why did you take his side?”
“I didn’t take his side. I let Principal Park punish you,” Joon-hwi corrected her, “because violence is wrong, Jiah-ya. Your mother and I taught you better than that.”
“Even if somebody is hurting the people I love?”
Joon-hwi nodded, then leaned across the table. “You want to know why? Because when you hurt others, you end up hurting the people that you love, too.”
Her lower lip jutted out in a pout. “Did I hurt you today, appa?”
“I got worried, sweetheart, that’s all. I thought something bad had happened to you.”
“I’m sorry,” Ji-ah whispered, head hung low in shame. She blinked back a fresh wave of tears. “I didn't mean to hurt Dae-hyun, appa, I swear. I just couldn't stand by and let him say all those horrible things about eomma, you, and me.”
Reaching out his arm to swipe the back of his hand against her tear-streaked face, Joon-hwi told her in a much warmer voice, “You should always stand up for yourself, Jiah-ya. But never be so strong that you forget to be a good person.”
His daughter nodded in understanding. She lifted the corner of her mouth into a teary smile.
“Eomma is both a strong and a good person. Right, appa?"
“Aigoo, what a truly brilliant daughter I have,” Joon-hwi beamed. With his other hand, he scooped up a spoonful of vanilla ice cream and raised it to his daughter’s mouth. “Now, eat your ice cream. We still have some time before your mother’s trial finishes.”
“Ye,” Ji-ah cheered, then dug into the dessert with more gusto than she had earlier.
It was a little while later when Ji-ah spoke again.
“Abeojji, I’m curious…”
“You’re always curious, Han Ji-ah. It is both a curse and a blessing that you got that from me,” Joon-hwi chuckled at his daughter, dabbing the corner of her lips with a table napkin to remove the dollop of chocolate ice cream trickling down her chin. “What is it?”
“How did you fall in love with eomma?” she asked without preamble, training her innocent eyes on her father.
Taken aback by the suddenness of his daughter’s question, Joon-hwi sputtered, “Kapjjagi? Why are you asking me this all of a sudden?”
Ji-ah shrugged. “You and eomma have never told me. Byeol imo said the two of you met in law school.”
“Yeah? What else did Byeol imo tell you?”
“That you saved eomma from failing 1L and that eomma saved you from going to jail,” she frowned at the recollection. Her mother was one of the smartest people Ji-ah knew, and her father ran away at the mere sight of a poodle. Ji-ah could hardly believe the words that came out of her Aunt Byeol’s mouth.
“It’s a long story, Jiah-ya,” Joon-hwi attempted to dissuade her, but in vain. As a Prosecutor, it was rare for him to be robbed of speech. But his daughter never ceased to surprise him and left him wondering what to say. Truthfully, Joon-hwi did not expect that, at the tender age of seven years old, his daughter would be curious about his past. He had no idea where to even begin.
“You just said we have some time before we pick up eomma.”
Whoever said it was good for a Prosecutor and a lawyer to raise a child together needed a serious wake-up call, Joon-hwi thought. How could so much smartassery fit in such a tiny body?
“Appaaaaa,” Ji-ah sucked in her cheeks and stared at her father pleadingly, hands clasped tightly together, “can you please tell me the story? How did you and eomma fall in love?”
Flustered by the sudden ambush, Joon-hwi cleared his throat, cheeks coloring. He never could resist his daughter. Especially when she was being adorably persistent like this.
Joon-hwi chose his words very carefully, then answered, “Well, sweetheart, you said it yourself: Your mother is a strong and kind woman. It was… well, it was inevitable.”
A knot formed on Ji-ah’s forehead as she mouthed the word inevitable. She had never heard it before.
“Appa, what does that word mean, 'inevitable?'"
“It means that no matter how hard I convinced myself otherwise, I loved your mother anyway.”
"But why did you have to convince yourself not to love her, appa?" She scratched her head, a comically perplexed look on her face. Adults were truly so weird. Why would anyone not want to fall in love?
“Because she was my friend. My best friend, to be exact. And back then, that's all I was to her.”
“So, if you and eomma were only friends... how did you end up marrying each other?” Ji-ah asked, frowning.
Her father’s eyes twinkled. “Well, one night, Jiah-ya… suddenly we were something more.”
2023 (3L, Hankuk Law School)
By the time Joon-hwi arrived, with Ji-ho in tow, Ye-seul and Sol B were passed out with their heads leaning against each other on the bleachers, while Sol A popped open another can of beer. She acknowledged the new arrivals with a low grunt, then tipped the mouth of the can to her lips.
“Evening, boys.”
“Noona, what on earth happened to Ye-seul noona and Sol B?” Ji-ho asked, looking exasperatedly at the two unconscious girls next to Sol.
“Apparently, there is one thing Sol B can't do very well and it is holding her soju. And it seems that my sorrows over my cheating ex-boyfriend were enough to exhaust even dear, sweet Ye-seul.”
Joon-hwi fixed her with a disapproving scowl. “You’re drunk, Sol.”
“Not even close,” Sol snorted, as she took another long drink.
Ji-ho looped Sol B's arms around his neck, grunting as he attempted to heave her onto his back. “Seo Yi-jung cheated on you?”
“And you know what's worse?” Sol let out a huff of dry, humorless laughter. “Han Joon-hwi, my so-called best friend, knew about it... but didn't bother telling me!”
Joon-hwi protested, “Come on, it's not like I've known all this time.” He appealed to Ji-ho with almost desperate eyes. “Three days ago, I was at the mall buying… something, when I saw Yi-jung. I thought he was with Sol, but the girl I saw didn't look like Sol at all—”
Irritation flashed in Sol's eyes. “And it never crossed your mind to tell me?”
“It's not my story to tell, Sol—”
“For a whole week you let me believe that everything was fine, Joon-hwi, I feel like a complete fool—”
“Seo Yi-jung is the one who lied to you,” Joon-hwi argued fiercely. “Telling you that he's a lying, cheating bastard who took for granted a beautiful, brilliant woman like you, Sol, was his responsibility. Not mine. You're no fool, Kang Sol, he is.”
A tense breath of silence followed his impassioned speech, in which Sol’s eyes stared up at him with indecipherable emotion. Moments later, the two of them jumped as they heard the distinct sound of a throat clearing. They had completely forgotten the other three people around them.
“I should probably take Sol and Ye-seul noona to their dorms,” Ji-ho said awkwardly. “You two stay here and, ehem, sort out your issues.”
Nervously, Joon-hwi slid in next to Sol on the bleachers, though he kept a respectable distance between them. She had stopped drinking and instead looked intently at the beer can enclosed around her fingers, as though willing it to disintegrate before her very eyes.
“Look,” Joon-hwi began in a careful voice, “I waited for Yi-jung to tell you because you deserved to hear it from him. I didn’t realize it would take him so long.” He shook his head. “By the fifth day, I came to the conclusion that he had no plans of telling you or ending it with the other girl. So I confronted him; I told him if he won’t tell you, then I will. He didn’t like that very much.”
He reached for her hand, then delicately interlaced their fingers together. Sol sniffed; her body acted on reflex and rested her head on his waiting shoulder.
“Sol-ah, I’m sorry.”
“The thing is, I don’t know what I’m more upset about—that he cheated on me, or he had to be caught in the act and threatened before telling me.”
“He doesn’t deserve you, Sol-ah.”
“Joonhwi-ah,” Sol met his gaze, “do you really think I’m beautiful? And brilliant?”
His heart skipped a beat, and his mouth suddenly felt dry as he registered their proximity. She was close, much too close. For a fraction of a moment, his gaze fell on her lips; he blinked and somehow her face had gotten closer. There were no other sounds in the bleachers, save for the rustling of leaves against the evening breeze, the stammering of his heart, and his heavy breathing.
“Of course, Sol,” Joon-hwi answered in a whisper.
Joon-hwi wasn’t sure who closed the distance, perhaps both of them at the same time. Regardless, the scant bit of space between them disappeared and Joon-hwi was sitting out in the dark, cold night kissing his best friend.
It started as a slow, tender kiss. Feather soft, like a near whisper. Just a brush of his lips on hers, while he cradled her face in his hands.
Then Sol pulled back, a startled gasp escaping her mouth. But then something must have shifted within her because when she went back for more, this time, she returned his kiss with no sliver of hesitation. Her arms circle his neck, fingers tunneling through his soft hair, lips covering his mouth where not a molecule of moonshine could slip through. When Sol gasped against his mouth, Joon-hwi took that as his cue to fully explore her mouth with his tongue. His arms snaked around her waist, drawing her even closer to him. He would never let go if her kisses were going to be like this.
But what would come out of this kiss, the kind that lingered long after her lips no longer touched his? Joon-hwi had no answer and, for once, he didn’t care. In that moment, all that mattered was the girl in his arms and his heart in her heated trembling hands. And as they kissed, the endless sky glowed into the night.
In the morning, Joon-hwi asked Sol to meet him in the pantry. He had spent a good part of the night tossing and turning on his bed. At about four in the morning, he gave up on sleep altogether and busied himself with making hangover soup for when Sol woke up.
He fidgeted with the thin, velvet box in his pocket. A rush of thoughts flooded his mind: Had Sol been able to sleep? Or did their kiss haunt her through the night as it haunted him?
The walk back to their dorms had been wrought with uncomfortable silence. What did one say to one’s best friend after that thin, fragile line demarcating friends from… well, something more had been recklessly crossed?
Joon-hwi exhaled a frustrated breath as he poured soup into Sol’s bowl. He was normally so attuned to Sol that it felt as if he knew every thought she had before it could even cross her mind. But this time, he was at a loss. What on earth could she be thinking right now?
“Joonhwi-ah.”
He jumped at the sound of his name, sloshing some hot soup over the table and nearly scalding his fingers.
“Aish, be more careful, would you?” Kang Sol scolded him, rushing to his side with a wet piece of cloth. “Are you hurt?” she asked, grabbing his hand to inspect it closely.
“I’m fine,” Joon-hwi could feel heat rising to his cheeks, her touch reminding him of the way it had felt last night when her fingers were curled around the nape of his neck.
An almost deafening silence breached between them in the small space. Normally, Sol would be elated by the mere sight of hangover soup; she would pretty much inhale the bowl’s contents while Joon-hwi would spend a good part of ten minutes nagging her for drinking up a storm the previous night. This time, however, Sol took small steps toward the seat across from him before staring listlessly at the bowl of hangover soup in front of her.
“Listen, Joonhwi-ah…”
Joon-hwi’s hand stilled halfway between his jaw and mouth. He felt his heart sinking in that moment, but he forced a smile nonetheless. Kind, reassuring. As though the ache beneath his chest were a mere splinter and not an inexplicable pain that grew with each passing second.
“Eat first, Sol-ah,” Joon-hwi said. “You drank a lot last night.”
Surprisingly obedient for once, Sol tilted the bowl to her mouth. Joon-hwi took advantage of the momentary quiet to brace himself, before Sol asked him, “Joonhwi-ah… we’re friends, right?”
For a brief moment, he searched her face. Joon-hwi would recognize that look anywhere—half-hesitation and half-resolution, it was the same look she wore whenever she was especially determined to finish something particularly difficult.
That was when Joon-hwi knew.
He knew, while Sol struggled with the words that remained lodged in her throat, what she was going to say even before she could muster the strength and bravery to say them.
“We are,” Joon-hwi affirmed, though inwardly he swallowed a lump in his throat.
“And you know I’ll always be by your side, rooting for you. Right?”
“Of course, Sol.”
Sol chewed her lip, looking immensely conflicted.
“Do you… want that to change?”
“I don’t know,” Joon-hwi admitted. Then he sighed, “All I know is that I want to be in your life, Sol. I’ll be whoever you want me to be, for as long as you’ll still have me.”
“Joonhwi-ah, my feelings,” she inhaled sharply, before continuing, “my feelings are a bit complicated right now.”
Joon-hwi nodded, his gaze never wavering from hers. Of course, he understood. This was Kang Sol, his best friend; Joon-hwi understood her better than anyone else, and though she often tended to act on impulse, she always had everyone’s best interests at heart. And he knew she would never purposefully inflict pain on him like this.
“I just broke up with Yi-jung. And I have exams to think about. Not to mention jobs and the bar exam. I can’t… you deserve someone better, Joonhwi-ah, someone who can love you in the way you deserve to be loved.”
“So, what should I do, Sol?” Joon-hwi heard himself saying, before he could stop himself. Sol looked startled, like she expected him to argue. But Joon-hwi knew rejection when he heard one. “Should I apologize?” He hesitated, still clinging on to a spark of hope that he could be wrong, that she wanted this as much as he did. “...or should I confess?”
A heartbeat. Then, Sol told him, “Don’t confess.”
The corners of her mouth lifted into a small smile, one that did not quite reach her eyes. “I want us to stay best friends, Joonhwi-ah. You mean the world to me... I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if things get awkward. Let’s just pretend that last night never happened. We can do that, right?” Sol asked, her eyes pleading.
What else could Joon-hwi do but nod and smile through the pain, not wanting her to see how much this hurt him? This wasn’t any easier for her, he knew that. From the way she kissed and held him last night, it hadn’t been just a passing fancy for her either. They merely had awful timing.
“Sure,” Joon-hwi agreed after a few moments of wordless silence lapsed. He poured her more of the hangover soup he’d made just the way she liked it. “Let’s eat. We have a lot of studying to catch up on, especially since a certain someone spent the night nearly drinking herself to death,” he joked.
Relief broke across Sol’s face, then finally dug onto the soup with more enthusiasm—she didn’t even notice the thin, velvet box Joon-hwi quickly slid out of the table and into the pocket of his pants.
Perhaps some things, Joon-hwi thought in quiet disappointment, were just not meant to be.