Work Text:
1.
“It’s gonna rain.”
“Will you shut up about the rain already ?”
Yihyun shakes his head with an exasperated sigh, but takes another ball anyway. 60 feet away, Saebom stands at the ready, looking frightening as ever wearing that determined expression, but even more so with a baseball bat in hand.
It’s quite simple, really, although quite blunt, as all things seem to be with Saebom : she turned up at his apartment out of nowhere with a six pack, and then insisted he taught her the basics of baseball. When he tried to tell her it’s kind of more complicated than that, she just glared until he gave in and agreed to take her to the baseball field 15 minutes away. That was one of his requirements to get an apartment, and he was grateful for it when he felt Saebom walking at his side, a lightness to her step he rarely got to see.
But they’ve been shooting balls back and forth for around an hour now, and Yihyun can feel the weather turning, in the air and the shifting light; Saebom doesn’t seem to give a damn though.
“Throw the damn ball, Yihyun.”
He barely resists an eye-roll, draws his arm back, and focuses.
Throwing the ball is as familiar as enjoyable, a comfort he has taken a very long time re-accustoming himself to without getting lost in dark thoughts of his aborted career and blurry future.
Her very ugly and unsteady swing sends the ball only a few feet from him. The string of curses that follows urges him to go pick it up quicker.
“Can we go now, before we’re drenched ?” He asks, but he’s having fun, he can’t lie.
Saebom asking to learn about baseball, trying do discover that huge part of his life, it can’t be anything other than fun (and touching, in a very vulnerable way that he’s tried to push back this whole time). She huffs at him, so loud he can hear it from where he’s picking the ball up, which makes him think she did it on purpose.
“I’m not going anywhere until I hit that ball.”
“You hit it.”
“Until I hit it well,” she adds with a pointed glare.
This time, Yihyun does roll his eyes.
“Ok,” he relents before making his way to her.
“What are you…”
“I’m showing you how to hit so we can go before it starts to rain.”
“What is your obsession with…”
Saebom cuts herself off as he places a hand on her arm, swiftly positioning himself behind her. He pauses at her silence, realizes how close he brought them. In a second, he decides to ignore it, play it off as he usually does when a touch or a glance lingers too long.
“Move your elbow back,” he says, guiding her as he talks, “so that your arm forms a V when you want to strike, ok ?”
When she nods, Yihyun glances down and pushes his foot against hers, urging her to move.
“Wider stance will give you more power. When you strike, keep your arms close to your body, otherwise you’ll lose that power.”
Saebom hums again, hands flexing on the bat as she changes her posture to his advice. Only once he’s satisfied does he nod and walk back to his own spot. And, alright, the sight of Saebom actually looking more than focused, a baseball bat in hand, her legs flexed and eyes intent on winning this ? It does things to him, things that add to other things he can’t allow himself to acknowledge right now.
So Yihyun bites the inside of his cheek as he gets into the familiar position. The ball flies from his hand directly to her bat, and her strike is powerful enough to send it all the way across the field. The resounding hit echoes in the thunder, and right when Saebom flings her hands up in victory, the skies split open to let out a pouring rain.
Saebom throws her head back and laughs, boisterous and unapologetic, rendering Yihyun dumb at the sight.
The words are there, stuck in his ribcage, blooming like flowers in spring; he tries to resist, has tried for a long time, but he has learned by now that it is hopeless. He’s in love with her, has been for ten years, and there’s no denying it now, when the rain soaks her hair and clothes, when she stretches her arms to the sides, eyes closed at the heavens, bat hanging uselessly from her hand.
“Yah,” he exclaims, as much to distract himself from the painful tug at his stomach as to gain her attention. “Don’t get my bat wet.”
He only realizes the double-entendre behind his words when she wiggles her brows at him, and then he has to laugh as well. The rain wakes him up some, allows his thoughts to refocus on something other than Saebom, than her lips and her voice and her eyes and her fierce determination, and the way he loves her so much sometimes he thinks he can’t contain it.
But he can. He has to, because he will never put what they have in jeopardy.
When he drops his head back, she’s looking at him, parted lips taking on a purple hue from the cold, eyes a bit wide with something he can’t place. Smile still firmly set, Yihyun crosses his arms on his drenched shirt, and jerks his chin towards her.
“What ?”
She’s shaking her head before saying anything, and when she does, it’s a under-encompassing “Nothing.”
2.
“You’re getting married ?”
For the tenth time in as many minutes, Yihyun sighs and nods, still not glancing up from his papers.
“To Saebom ?”
Another nod.
“How did you even…”
“It’s for the apartment,” he cuts off under his breath before his friend can launch back into a rant.
But leaned on the wall of their joint cubicle, Jung-Kook doesn’t look ready to rant, on the contrary. His face looks oddly sad, a bit pitying, which is all kinds of unsettling.
“And you agreed to it ?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m getting married,” he says slowly, raising a brow.
“I mean… Don’t you think it’s a bad idea ?”
“No more than any other. We won’t get caught for faking it, we have the right background…”
“No,” Jung-Kook cuts him, wearing this sad expression again. It makes him uneasy. “I mean for you.”
Oh.
Oh, so that’s where he was going. Heart in his throat, Yihyun looks away, right hand clenching harshly around his pen before he releases the tension. Once his arm has gone loose again, he quietly asks :
“How did you know ?”
“Are you kidding me ? I’ve always known. Since that day I watched you two talk on the rooftop.”
Yihyun sighs, drops the pen to pass a hand on his face. He’s been so careful, too, especially in front of other people. But he supposes it’s not that surprising from his partner. He is quite the observant one, when he wants to be, and is a good detective. Still, it catches him off-guard.
“Am I that obvious ?”
“You both are,” Jung-Kook mutters.
Yihyun turns to him, frowning deeply, mouth already open to ask about that when a hand drops unceremoniously on his shoulder. Startled, he jerks up to glance at the newcomer.
Saebom stares back.
“Yah, I brought the papers.”
“I told you I had work,” he says apologetically, heart beating too fast with the risk that she heard their conversation. But given the look on her face, all casualness, it settles back down to his usual rhythm.
“I know, that’s why I dropped by. And got this,” she adds as an afterthought, lifting the bag so he can see the promise of dinner in it.
“You’re getting married,” his friend interrupts them, earning a very unimpressed glare from Saebom.
“So ?”
As he gets up from his chair, Yihyun bites back a laugh.
“Come on,” he tells Saebom, pressing his hand against hers in a signal to follow him as he exits the bullpen.
Kim Jung-Kook is still gaping at them in a disturbingly funny way.
They settle on one of the tables outside, taking advantage of the fact that no one is around to freely discuss their business. She drops a thick stack of papers before him, a mix of a wedding contract and documentation of the lease; the sight makes his eyes widen. It’s not like paperwork is anyone’s hobby, and let’s just say that he has enough as it is as a cop. But it’s for a good cause, he tells himself with a glance up at her.
“What do you need me to sign ?” Yihyun asks while she lines up the enormous amounts of food she brought.
“The first three pages, and then seventh and ninth.”
He hums in agreement, pen already in hand as he starts reading. The first page is signed quickly enough, just a few minutes, but in the second one it gets more complicated.
It’s only on reading this that the sheer enormity of what they’re doing dawns on him without notice. They are actually getting married, in the eye of the law; they’ll be husband and wife. They will be evaluated, will live together, will have to act as a couple. Will have to discuss topics that might come up, like children or a honeymoon.
It’s… A lot to take in, right now. Especially given those feelings currently tearing at his insides. There’s no doubt, really; Yihyun knows he wants to do this, for her. But Jung-Kook’s words are turning in his head over and over, and he thinks… He thinks he might not come out of this unscathed.
How would Saebom react, if he told her ?
Yihyun shakes his head at himself; it doesn’t matter, how she would react.
What matter is if he is going to tell her. He probably should, given what they’re throwing themselves into without a second doubt, given that she should know what she is getting into. He should be honest and say it, so as not to say it later, when she’s stuck with him by law.
Or maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe it’d be better to keep it close, keep it in, and never say it; or not say it until the opportunity arises. If it ever does, that is.
“You ok ?” She abruptly prompts, her tone heavy with a very uncharacteristic concern.
“Yeah, sorry,” he answers, focusing back on the papers and chasing all other thoughts away.
He’s gotten good at that. He manages to read a whole paragraph before she speaks up again.
“Are you sure about this ?”
Again, her tone is what startles him the most, urges Yihyun to look at her immediately.
“You’re the one who asked,” he smiles at her remaining worried frown.
“I know,” she says, but doesn’t look reassured one bit, on the contrary. “But if you’re not comfortable with it anymore, if you want to retract, I won’t blame you. You can stop right now if you…”
“Bom-a,” he interrupts, sounding way too affectionate for their own good, but it’s not like he can help it.
Yoon Saebom makes it a point not to rumble, to remain blunt and bold and curt, but here she is now, stumbling over her words in her haste to reassure him.
Now that her focus is solely on his eyes, he makes it a point to sign the paper extra-slowly. He does the same for the next pages, the seventh and the ninth, and then places the pen down on the table.
“Here. I’m sure.”
Though she fights to bite it back, there’s no denying the smile that’s pulling her lips up.
“Well, good. It would have been a pain to re-do all the paperwork,” she taunts, already picking up her chopsticks in one hand and pushing a bowl in his direction with the other.
Yihyun chuckles, accepts the bowl gladly, as well as the chopsticks she hands him without another look, now all-engrossed in her well-deserved food.
I love you, he thinks, knows, feels, but doesn’t say.
3.
Seo-Yoon told her “he’s handsome” in the elevator, and she just smiled.
It’s not like she wasn’t aware of it. It’s not like anyone is unaware of it. It’s simple common knowledge, that Jung Yihyun almost made it to Major Leagues, and he’s handsome, always has been. Knowing it and noticing it are two different things though, but Saebom can state confidently that she has noticed it many times before, as well. When he laughed with his head thrown back in the rain, when he woke up all soft and sleepy, when he got a little too touchy with alcohol in his system, when she glanced at him shirtless, when he smiled and made those dimples appear.
Anyway, it seems Seo-Yoon has a thing with the truth.
“Do you find her pretty ?” She is asking now as they play cards, Yihyun stifling a laugh in his palm rather indiscreetly.
Saebom rolls her eyes at the question.
“Of course he does.”
“Of course I do,” he repeats obediently, glancing at her and back at Seo-Yoon with amusement.
“Is that why you married her ?”
That gets them both to snort, and she’s glad she’s not on the receiving end of that question. Instead, she just raises a provocative brow at him, shrugs like it’s not her problem. She has no qualms throwing him under the bus.
He rolls his eyes, but turns back to Seo-Yoon without delay, stack of cards now forgotten.
“No, it’s not.”
“Then why ?”
It’s Yihyun’s turn to shrug, while Saebom looks on, biting the inside of her cheek to contain her laughter. She can admit to her curiosity, though; with the pandemic and all, they haven’t had time to come up with a good background story for these types of questions. The truth will suffice to explain their wedding, but such questions might put them in jeopardy.
“Do you love sunsets ?” He asks the girl, who frowns in answer.
“Well, yeah.”
“Can you explain why ?”
“Because it’s pretty,” Seo-Yoon shoots back, forehead crinkling where her eyebrows pull down in an effort to understand. Saebom, too, is trying very hard to follow his train of thoughts while looking impassive.
“Is that it ?”
“No,” the girl amends, squinting her eyes in concentration. “It makes me feel things inside.”
“Can you tell me what these things are ?”
“Sometimes it’s a bit sad, but not the bad kind. And sometimes it makes me happy.”
“There you go. It’s the same thing for Saebom.”
The girl’s eyes light up like it’s Christmas, and she looks at Yihyun, visibly starstruck.
“Oh,” she breathes out, and then turns towards Saebom. “I want to be in love too.”
Saebom smiles, unable to do anything else with how tight her throat feels. Her eyes jump from Yihyun’s undisturbed face to Seo-Yoon, struggling to focus on a sole thing. Her heart is racing, as well, though she couldn’t really say why.
(she has an inkling, one that’s born from the few times he’s looked at her too long and she was expectant, wanting him to say or do something she could never pinpoint). The simplicity with which he’s answered strikes her mercilessly, and she focuses back on Seo-Yoon and Seo-Yoon only.
During the next hour, she barely meets Yihyun’s gaze, though she can feel his attention on her more than once. It’s a presence, hot as a kiss, that makes her cheeks heat incomprehensibly, his words echoing through her head like so many warning bells.
Eventually, he announces he’s going to shower before making dinner, to which both Seo-Yoon and Saebom clap -if they share one thing, it’s their love for food. Once he’s gone, all the things bubbling inside rise incredibly high, and the safety of their shared apartment spurs her to lean towards Seo-Yoon.
“You wanna know why I married him ?” She asks, playfully tilting her head towards her.
The girl nods, enthusiastic, eyes wide and hands grabbing her arm in anticipation.
“I love him. But it’s a secret,” she adds under her breath, heart beating insanely fast in her chest at having said the words aloud. “You can’t tell him.”
“But you’re married,” Seo-Yoon laughs at her ridiculousness.
Her smile, this time, feels a little sad around the edges, and Saebom can only hope the young girl doesn’t notice.
“I know. But I’ll tell him myself, ok ?”
She will, she promises herself when Seo-Yoon nods with a smile brighter than the sun. She will tell him.
4.
“Are you sure you’re alright sleeping alone ?”
The words are quiet, barely a whisper, but they still cut harshly through the silent apartment.
It’s the slight hesitation before he nods that convinces her. Before he can even try and say yes, of course, he’s alright, he’s always alright, she grabs his upper arm and tugs him through the door to their room, where Seo-Yoon sleeps soundly.
“I don’t…” he starts to say under his breath, but Saebom simply shushes him with a glare.
Probably aware that it is useless to resist, he follows her lead seamlessly, and soon they’re climbing into bed together. His hands are still warm from all the scrubbing, Yihyun having spent more than thirty minutes in the bathroom washing his hands clean before she finally tore him away from his obsession.
They each lay on their sides, facing each other like there’s nothing else in the room. She expected him to bury his face away, but apparently he’s as much in need as she is to be reminded that they escaped the infected, that they didn’t get scratched.
“You did good,” she repeats, because he saved them.
No one died outside, despite some of the residents’ best efforts. Just because he was human for a split second and let his anger get the best of him does not mean he’s a bad person all of a sudden.
His features don’t hold any of the resentment from before, nor any trace of the guilt she saw in the bathroom as he apologized. Still, he doesn’t look appeased in the slightest, even if she can only note so many things in the dark. Saebom knows his face, though, knows his voice and his smiles and his kindness, and now she knows his rage as well. She could pick them out blindfolded, would know them by touch and intonation only.
She almost tells him, right there, the things that have been growing inside since he agreed to marry her. Since he did her that amazing, bathshit crazy favor. He just flipped out, gave in to the most hated part of himself, animalistic rage that led him to plaster his bloody hands on Joo-Hyeong’s screaming face.
Saebom almost tells him because of that, to show him that she loves him in spite of his inherent fear of those sides of himself, loves him through the trials and the nightmares. Despite his best attempts at concealing his negative traits, she has seen him at his worst multiple times before. She has also seen him at his best, fighting for others, rarely for himself, fighting for her, for their home. She loves it all.
“Are you ok ?” She says instead in the silence.
Though his eyes are darker than onyx, she can still see them open, can feel their attention on her face.
“I don’t know.”
His breath brushes her cheek, the words an honest caress that comforts her some. Saebom is helpless when he pretends to be alright, when he holds it all in until it pops. So his admission is a big deal, and says a lot.
“I feel like this place is trying to kill the best parts of us,” he tells her in a thick voice.
Saebom can’t well deny it, with those insane residents, each more selfish and self-centered than the last. Although she has always been brash, impulsive, and unapologetic, even she has trouble keeping face nowadays, keeping all the violence inside. Even she feels worn down, on the verge of snapping at every turn.
But Yihyun has never been like her. Though she loathes it sometimes, he is always in control, always composed. He sees the best in people no matter how hard they try to change his mind. Sometimes, it’s like his kindness and optimism know no bounds. Saebom is annoyed by it as much as she respects it. This ability to see the world brighter, kinder than it is, has always amazed her. Because Yihyun is a detective, he witnesses the worst of it and still believes in the best. No matter what the world throws at him, what he goes through, he keeps his empathy and altruism intact.
She has never been able to do that. Will never be able to do that, no matter how hard she tries.
That’s one of the reasons she needs him. And he needs her as well, to unwind and remember he’s not responsible for every little thing going wrong.
“They can try,” she tells him, daring to lift a hand so that her fingers can brush the side of his face.“We’re going to be ok. I promise.”
Yihyun exhales shakily, tilts his head so his lips brush her wrist.
They’re going to be ok.
5.
Making the video is not a burden, far from it. It’s not even an insurance policy, not really. Yihyun supposes he has always known he wouldn’t necessarily make it out of here.
The scratch on his collarbone only fleshed out his worst fears.
In that way, making the video is an insurance for and against himself. So that he is certain, no matter what happens, that Saebom will get out, that she will be alright and able to open her phone, and watch his confession. That, even if he doesn’t make it, if he dies before she can come get him -because he knows, without a doubt, that she will unfortunately whirl on her heels and come drag him out of this hell, whatever the price is-, she’ll know how he feels.
She’ll know she never had to ask for anything, that he would have given all he could to her, and that marrying her wasn’t a burden, but the farthest thing from it.
She’ll know most of it.
“Hey,” he says to the camera lens now.
Oddly enough, it’s easy to say the words he hasn’t even rehearsed. He just knows how to talk to Saebom, he guesses, how to tell her his dreams and fears and all the things he’d never unveil to anyone else.
(He really, really hopes they can watch it together, when they finally make it outside)
And when Jung-Kook and Seo-Yoon appear in the picture, his only thought is that this is his family, and no matter where they go, as long as he’s with Saebom, it’ll be home.
He tells her that. He tells her that the place you are doesn’t matter, but the people you’re with do. And he means it wholeheartedly.
No matter what happens from now on, Saebom will always be his home.
“I like you,” he says, though it feels like a lie.
+ 1.
“When is she coming ?”
Saebom adresses him an unimpressed look, and he tightens his hold on her shoulders in retaliation.
“Give me one example of a time she gave us an hour ?
“Fine,” he huffs, a laugh restrained in his throat.
She’s not wrong, though. It’s not like they have a schedule to look after Seo-Yoon, she just appears whenever she wants. Be it in their apartment or on the playground where they currently are sitting on a bench, she’ll just come running without a word of warning. Not that it bothers either of them.
Seo-Yoon couldn’t do so many things for so long, it’s a pleasure to watch her run and jump and laugh as loud as she dares, not an hint of the worry that used to weigh on her shoulders and smiles visible. It is more than that, really; it’s incredible to witness the hope that survived through the hell that was last year. With all she has been through, no one could blame her for being angry at the world, but Seo-Yoon isn’t. She’s just happy to be here, to have had a surgery that went well, and to be able to run as fast as she can.
Yihyun lets his attention drift to the children playing, their parents all standing in various stances denoting a certain level of awareness regarding their child. One father is almost crouching, arms regularly spasming as his daughter runs around, almost colliding with bars a few times.
It ineluctably rises a few thoughts within, this picture of parents and their children, his wife sitting next to him.
“Do you ever want children ?” He suddenly asks Saebom, who remains oddly calm at his sudden question.
She hums thoughtfully beside him, the sound reverberating everywhere they touch.
“Maybe. I haven’t really thought about it, with my job. Do you ?”
Yihyun takes a second to truly think about it, about her answer and the repercussions of such a decision.
“Yeah,” he finally settles on. “If you do, too, and when the time is right.”
Saebom nods as he tightens his hold on her, presses a kiss to her hair.
“Our lives are a whole mess right now, aren’t they ?” She sighs, leaning more heavily against him.
He buries his face deeper in her hair, reminding himself that the nightmare is finally over, that a vaccine was found for the disease and that they’re all here, alive, if not unscathed.
“You love it,” he says once he’s pulled away, arm back at his side.
His wife sighs, but there’s a smile on her face as she gets to her feet, stretching her arms above her head. Yihyun is content with just watching her, the calmness to her features a newfound one. She wasn’t always on edge like him, during the lockdown, but the toll it was taking on her was visible in the tightness beside her eyes, in her increasingly scarce smiles, in her jaw. Nowadays, she’s softened some, and he has no doubt Seo-Yoon has been a huge reason as to why. She’s let herself be kinder, less on the defensive, though she remains as blazing as ever.
Yihyun is afraid the pandemic had the opposite effect on him, rendered him less trusting and harsher. He doesn’t mind it, though, not when his wife guides him into the room and tells him to leave decency at the door, not when she looks so pleased when he lets his control slip, wether through anger or laughter. She told him, once, that she was grateful he stopped containing himself, grateful he didn’t let the world trample all over him.
When she arrives, Seo-Yoon doesn’t bother saying hello, simply barrels into Saebom without a care.
“Yah,” Yihyun greets her with a smile, getting up to stand behind Saebom and look down at Seo-Yoon. “Don’t steal my wife.”
As sole answer, the girl sticks her tongue out at him.
“She already has,” Saebom teases, smiling down at the girl with this joy that makes everything feel brighter.
“I think she likes you more than me,” he whispers to the girl while leaning down, bumping her nose.
Seo-Yoon giggles, grabs his wrist in both hands.
“No, she doesn’t. She loves you.”
“Yeah,” he answers with a smile, looking up and meeting Saebom’s eye. “I know.”