Chapter Text
“We’re near the end of the line, now,” she says.
They’re still on the balcony overlooking the Plaza's courtyard, hands side by side on the railing, pinkies almost touching. Touching feels dangerous, tonight. He shook her hand at the airport when he left and she held him when he fell over in his fight, but by some unspoken, mutual agreement, they haven’t touched again after that.
Well, she tugged on his sleeve to remind him of that night he threw a cultural party at the plaza. But that doesn’t count.
“Yes,” he agrees, though there’s something heavy in his expression. He hesitates, then, “We might... end up in legal trouble.”
“Only if we're not careful enough.”
“Still,” he insists, and there’s something dogged in his look, something almost scared.
She looks away from him, trains her eyes at the murky sky. “I guess we have been doing some pretty illegal stuff.”
“We might end up in court, or worse—”
“What are you getting at, byeonhosa-nim?”
He hums as he considers his words, and eventually says, “I have so much money.”
She snorts at that—he’s about eighty million euros poorer just so he could return to her, but then there’s a literal bed of gold at her place, so maybe he is that rich after all—but doesn’t say anything.
He continues, “If I die, my stupid brother who tried to kill me will inherit it.”
“That does seem inconvenient.”
“So, I would like to propose a solution.” Here, he turns; she hears it in the rustle of his clothes, the little step as he shifts his leg, but she doesn’t look back at him. His gaze is a heavy, warm thing, like a blanket, like a summer squall.
“To your own problem?” she asks, making a face, knowing he will appreciate it.
As she expects, he chuckles. “Our. But yes, fine, mostly mine.” His hand shifts on the balcony railing—a minute thing, his pinky over hers, a crossing of a chasm. “Byeonhosa-nim, let’s get married.”
It happens without fanfare, without advertisement. The required paperwork is arranged—forged—in record time, and by the next Friday they obtain their marriage registration certificate from the local district office.
It changes nothing. After all, it’s a purely practical arrangement. They continue their work. They drink until late at night. She has a drawer in his apartment and he has a shelf in her house, but they don’t sleep in the same bed, don’t touch more than what is appropriate, don’t put into words the heavy air that hangs between them when the silence stretches for too long.
It changes nothing. Jang Han Seok doesn’t even know that they’re married—no one does—and he kidnaps her anyway, because he doesn’t need a piece of paper to know her worth. When Vincenzo comes for her, he doesn’t come as a husband, but a supplicant. Kneeling, terrified.
And when she shields him with her own body, she doesn’t do it as a wife, but as Hong Cha Young, now-friend, now-partner, now-protector.
It changes nothing, the piece of paper.
It changes everything.
When they have to get her into emergency surgery to get the bullet fragments out, he signs the medical consent.
When later, they interrogate her about him, she cites spousal privilege.
When he leaves some of his assets in Korea, she exerts her legal rights, sorts the plaza ownership out, leases out the units in his name, becomes the de facto matriarch of the family he left behind.
A year later, when he invites her to a party, when he kisses her, when he tries to walk away, she exclaims, “Yah, you ungrateful husband!”
And so chastised by his wife, he stays.