Archive of Our Own

1. Loss

“You ok ?” She asks, earning a bitter scoff. 

Yihyun rarely lets others see him in his worst state, but this is… 

Well, this sucks. 

Saebom doesn’t take offense at his obvious dismissal, slides down the wall beside him. He’s grateful for that, at least, that she didn’t choose to sit across from him and forced their gazes to meet. 

As it is, Yihyun thumps his head back against the wall, in its original position. 

“Yeah, stupid question,” she mutters, seemingly more to herself than to him. 

That reminds him of his manners, and of who is there right now, buried deep inside the locker rooms instead of in the bleachers, like everyone else. Even so far, they can still pick up wild cheers and exclamations, which makes him want to thump his head even harder against the wall. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“Don’t say sorry,” she snaps back. 

It’s funny, really, how she’ll brush aside the times he’s rude to her but be utterly offended when he tries to apologize to her, or say he’s ok when he’s anything but. Which is why he didn’t lie now. 

Not that he could, anyway. 

“This really sucks,” he admits to the opposite wall. 

A clink makes him look down at her, at the way her lips are slightly tilted up and the two bottles held up in her right hand as an offering. 

“I don’t know if it’ll make it suck less, but we can try.”

This time, Yihyun’s smile, though barely there, is genuine. He accepts a bottle, uncaps it. He has a mind to propose to uncap hers, but knows better from experience. Indeed, Saebom deftly hits the the cap against the wall in such a way that it flies off. Then, she clinks the neck against his own, and doesn’t wait to take a gulp. 

He follows her too easily. 

This is the first game his team participates in since he was hurt. Since he was told he couldn’t make it to Major Leagues, couldn’t play baseball anymore, could barely run on his bad knee. He accepted the team’s invitation to tag along, because it was born of a kind feeling, and because he’s an idiot like that. Saebom yelled at him when he told her, grumbled that he always put himself through things he didn’t have to just because he was too nice, and too well-versed in the art of putting up a good front. 

It’s not like she was wrong, as attested by his miserable state, by his shying away from the game.
His bad leg is spread before him, the good one bent at the knee like he can’t do with the other anymore, and that makes him even angrier. 

It’s a lot of negative emotions for someone who’s used to reining them in mercilessly. 

“How you holding up ?” Saebom asks when their bottles are already half empty, having given him enough time to at least compose himself. 

Not that she wants him to; she’s always been very clear about that. 

“Not good.”

“Does it feel weird ?”

Yihyun lets out a heavy, heavy sigh, his anger subduing to take on hues of sadness. He leans his bottle on his thigh, just above the injury, plays with the label. 

“It… It’s awful. I’m not used to… not be on the field. And I thought I could encourage them, but it’s… They’re running around and making calls and playing, and now that I can’t do any of that…”

He sighs again, feeling her gaze on the side of his face, as hot as a touch. 

His chest feels too tight, overcrowded by emotions he doesn’t want to feel, doesn’t want to work through. He wants this feeling to pass. 

“You told me once it’s all over, it’s just a bad memory.”

When Saebom shifts, she ends up closer than before, shoulder pressed against his. Yihyun’s attention is drawn to her shoes, formerly white worn-down sneakers moving in time with the rhythm she often plays in her head; one, one, two, one. He tries to count with her. 

“It is,” she says quietly. “But until then it… it sucks.”

“Great.”

“But,” Saebom starts again, pressing her side harder against his, “you’re not alone.”

Normally, he would tease “wow, that’s sappy,” or an equivalent, but he has no energy to do so now. He simply takes her words, holds them tight, and breathes out. 

2. Memories

It’s raining when they go out, climbing into his car with already wet hair and clothes. 

“Where do you want to go ?” He asks her, and Saebom immediately jumps at the occasion to direct him towards her favorite restaurant. 

Yihyun shakes his head with a laugh, but doesn’t complain; he rarely does. Yihyun is like that, unbothered by everything, always finding the bright aspect of a tragedy. It’s even more impressive given that he went through some tough shit, especially with his injury. 

She glances at it now, in the car. He’s wearing jeans, but there’s still a brace around his knee. He told her the doctors don’t know how long he’s going to need it for. He told her he hated it. He told her that sometimes, he has to bite his cheek until it bleeds as not to tear it off. 

Saebom resists laying her hand there, just above the brace. 

“Is that new ?” He asks out of nowhere, dragging her out of her thoughts. 

She looks at him for a second, then follows his line of sight to a small shop on the street. 

“How would I know ? It’s your neighborhood.”

“Please,” he scoffs, his thumb tapping idly on the steering wheel, “you almost live here with how often you barge into my place.”

Saebom hums, but doesn’t retort. It’s not like he’s wrong. 

Her attention now outside, she can’t help but notice how strong it’s raining. Not enough to obstruct the view of the road for a driver, but enough to make memories rise to the surface, rise into her throat in an unwelcome wave of nausea. 

Her hands feel cold in her lap, and so she crosses her arms on her chest, trying to contain the shivering born from something much more dangerous than the weather. 

It’s dark out, dark and pouring, like it was that night, like it is in her nightmares. It’s dark and pouring and she can’t see. 

Saebom plays a rhythm in her head when she wants to calm down, ground herself. 

One, one, two, one. 

She does it now, tapping her fingers on her arm. She notices Yihyun’s glance being drawn to it, the emergence of his little frown, but there’s no way he knows what it means. Yihyun, she tells herself, focus on Yihyun. His strong hands around the wheel, testifying of his status of professional baseball player. His arms, flexing as he turns the car, muscles evidently drawn like a fantasy under his long-sleeved shirt. He hasn’t lost any of his muscle mass or stamina during his months of recovery, even though he can’t run, and she makes a mental note to ask him how he does it later.

His face, illuminated intermittently by passing cars, streetlights, the right half kept in the shadow in a way she finds eerily indicative. His knee brace, his warmth, his pain, his dark eyes. Saebom feels like she’s slipping anyway, feels her breath become shallow in her chest, the rhythm of her fingers getting lost in a frantic tap. 

“Can you stop ?” She asks, voice tight and strained, throat just as tight and strained. 

As always Yihyun hears it instantly, despite how calm she’s trying to appear. It never takes with him, though.

He slows down, pulls up the car next to the sidewalk, and she’s already unbuckling her seatbelt, already scrambling for the handle. 

“Wh- Bom-a !” He yells as she throws the door open and jumps out, gasping. 

Immediately, the rain is welcome. It soaks her through, makes her feel alive and breathing, outside. Not stuck under a car roof, not stuck in a hospital bed, not stuck at home for months on end, a year, every nerve wrecked and every limb hurting, the memories a hell loop she couldn’t escape. 

“Saebom !” Yihyun yells as he rushes after her, and only then does she realize she’s crying. 

The tears come easier than air, it seems, and she has trouble breathing, has trouble remembering where she is. The rain makes it all blurry, the passing cars’ headlights sending her back there, in the cold, trapped. 

She slaps a hand against her mouth to try and stifle her sobs, but it’s no use, and he reaches her just as she topples forward. Without question, he brings her to his chest, wraps her in his arms and holds her tightly. 

The rain falls on them, unrelenting. The coldness of her skin being met with Yihyun’s warmth anchors her, though, keeps the demons at bay for an instant at least. 

“Here.”

She glances back at where Yihyun is crouched before his closet, sweater in the hand outstretched towards her. They’re both completely soaked, her hair dripping on his floor, and have completely abandoned the idea of eating out. Yihyun has been more than understanding though, and as always he hasn’t pushed. He waited in the rain until she could breathe again, and then he said into her ear : “Come on, we’re going to get pneumonia standing there.” 

He led her back to the car, gave her his jacket and turned the heat on all the way. Her teeth still chattered, her skin was still freezing, but it felt better with the weight of his jacket on her shoulders and her hands buried in the pockets. 

The jacket is still on her, now, smells like him and she hates herself for noticing it, even more so for its ability to make her feel safer. 

Saebom shakes herself, takes the sweater he’s offering her, placing it on top of the sweatpants he has given her. 

“Thanks,” she says quietly. 

While he doesn’t answer, he does stand up, and jerks his head towards the bathroom with a little smile. 

“Go on.”

She fights the urge to just lean forward to feel his warmth again, aware that it’d just make things more complicated and that, once she starts touching him, she won’t be able to stop. 

So Saebom just nods in answer, closes the door of the bathroom behind her without a sound. 

Here, safely tucked away in a pocket of the world, with Yihyun in the next room, her breakdown seems very far away. But she’s still shaking slightly, and she hates it, hates all of this so much. 

Saebom is in control of herself; sure, she gets angry easily, doesn’t contain emotions like Yihyun does. But those memories ? The fear ? Oh, she has learned to ignore the fear, to squash it down and act as if nothing can touch her. 

That’s why it hits her so hard. It has been some time, since she has had a panic attack, or had such a surge of bad memories. Even more time since she broke down in front of someone. She supposes she must be grateful that it is Yihyun, of all people, and yet… 

Yet, she always liked how Yihyun sees her. How fearless and fierce she is in his gaze, how sometimes he looks at her like she’s his indestructible pillar. She guesses that’s over now. 

Saebom quickly changes into his clothes, dumping her soaked ones in his hamper. His sweats are soft and warm and all the things she associates with Yihyun, which is why she doesn’t let herself wait too long before she exits the bathroom. 

(the jacket is already hanged on his front door, and she has missed its weight since she took it off)

A sliver of skin flashes at her, Yihyun letting his shirt fall on it just as she halts in her tracks. His other hand is drying his hair with a towel, many strands falling into his eyes when he drops his head back. 

That’s… Uh. 

“I..”, she starts, clears her throat when it comes out rough with the remnants of sobs and disuse. “I left my clothes in the hamper.”

He turns towards her, a smile ready on his face. It’s small, but it still makes his dimple appear, and still makes her knees feel a little weak with the vulnerability of the night. 

“Come here,” he tells her, and she’s unable to resist the pull. 

Once she’s but a few inches away, he lifts the towel and starts rubbing her hair with it. He does it so gently, slowly sliding it down so he can dry the length of her strands, she almost forgets how powerful his upper body is. Her glance at his arms is quick to remind her, which is the only reason she blurts out : 

“How are you still so muscular ?” 

Yihyun snorts, between amused and bewildered. 

“What ?”

“I mean,” she tries to explain, starting to shake her head but stopping when he tuts her,  “you can’t practice now, so just… How do you train ?”

“You do know there are sports other than baseball, right ?”

“Do you ?” She snaps back, a bit annoyed, slapping his wrist.  

His answering smile is absolutely incomprehensible, softening his face even more, his eyes heavy-lidded as he looks down at her. It’s so easy to get lost in that, easier still when he brushes a stray lock away from her forehead and whispers : 

“There you are.”

The sheer affection in his touch, the support he’s shown her tonight, it’s a bit too much paired with the way he’s watching her. Saebom lets herself tilt forward until she can lay her forehead on his chest. Yihyun seems to freeze beneath her. 

“I’m sorry for freaking out,” she tells him once his movements have resumed, though way slower than before. 

“It’s ok,” he replies, chest moving with it, and yeah, she’s pretty sure he’s stopped drying her hair and is just stroking the back of her head now. Not that she’s complaining. His palm is broad and warm, a reminder of his being here through this. 

“Will you tell me what it was about ?” 

Saebom huffs, feels the air collide against his shirt. 

“You know I was in an accident.”

His hold tightens harshly before relaxing again, a very rare display of being caught by surprise. 

“Yeah,” he answers after a moment. 

“It was raining that day,” she starts to say, mouth a bit dry. “And this car just came out of nowhere while I was crossing the road. It hit me full force.”

This time, when his hold tightens, Yihyun doesn’t relent. His hand stops moving on her head, simply pulling her as close as possible. It’s not hard, to talk about this. She’s been through it with her parents, the doctors, the nurses, the police, the school, the administration, multiple times. Telling the story again, step by step, is something she is used to by now. 

Not after a breakdown, though. Not while being held by the person that’s most precious to her, in the safety of his shitty apartment. Not after they changed because Yihyun stood in the rain with her, hugging her, refusing to move until she felt better, despite their clothes getting drenched and his bad knee requiring to stay out of bad weather. 

“I went straight through the windshield. The guy panicked, turned the wheel, sent the car toppling over. They told me I was stuck under the roof for an hour, at most, but it felt like days.”

Yihyun doesn’t say anything to that; there’s nothing to say. 

He just allows her to breathe, supporting her relentlessly. 

3. Symptoms 

There is blood on the counter. 

There is blood on the counter, and Yihyun can’t stop watching it. He’s waiting for the feeling in the back of his throat, the helplessness, the pure thirst driving him forward to lick the few scarlet drops splattered on the white canvas. The anticipation is the worst, really. 

He stands there, waiting, every nerve wracked and every muscle tensed, eyes fixated on the incriminating drops. He stands there, fear kicking in his guts. 

There’s no way to know how long he remains still. 

“Yihyun-a !”

The exclamation startles him out of his odd trance, tears his attention away from the blood to the woman looking worriedly at him. His mouth doesn’t seem to work when he tries to soothe her, and so Saebom’s eyes are naturally drawn to his hand, to the counter. 

“Yah !” She exclaims at the sight, already moving to take a look at his injury, “What did you do ?”

She’s too close, he realizes the moment she takes his hand in her smaller ones. She’s too close, and there’s blood on the counter, and he’s gonna….

Yihyun pushes her back with too much strength, sending her careening in the table as he jerks away, the counter digging painfully into his lower back. 

She just watches with wide eyes as he extends his arm before him, gesturing for her to stay back. His jaw hurts, a sharp pain that courses all the way to his teeth, the reminder of Andrew’s neck breaking beneath his mouth unwelcome and suffocating.
“Yihyun,” she calls, softer than he deserves, soft like when he was fighting against himself, against the disease, and she promised to remain by his side anyway. 

He’s struggling not to let his gaze drop back to the counter, so it’s easy to let it be captured by hers. 

Still, he notes the initiation of her movement to get closer, her foot coming forward. 

“Don’t,” he orders, voice croaky, strained, everything he loathes. 

Action aborted, Saebom settles for looking at him head-on, lips into a thin, concerned line he wishes he could smooth with his own right now. But he can’t. He might… He might hurt her, and it’s not… 

“Don’t get too close.”

He repeats what he said that time in the elevator, when they were in a similar position, when he was just as scared as he is now. 

“You’re not going to hurt me,” she says now, pinpointing his fears exactly, like she always does. 

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do,” she retorts with a voice hard as steel. “You didn’t even hurt me then.”

“You can’t…”

“You’re cured, Yihyun,” she interrupts, taking a step forward. 

He plasters himself harder against the counter. She doesn’t stop until his injured, outstretched hand is a breath away from touching her chest. 

“You’re cured,” she repeats. “It’s over, you won’t have to go through that ever again.”

Her words are true, he knows, he remembers the injections and the tests and the blood being put in front of his face, but in that same apartment, he turned, he growled and almost lost himself and…. 

Her fingers lift to his, cold and refreshing against his palm when she turns his hand over, traces the lines surrounding the thin cut. Only when he has released a heavy, frightened breath, does she allow her eyes to inspect the slash. Her lips purse, and she tugs at his hand gently. 

“It’s ok,” Saebom tells him with a small smile, and… 

Yihyun believes her. After a glance at the counter, where blood still stands out like stains, he exhales shakily and follows her directions. She’s cold, Saebom, often cold where he’s hot and feels the blood coursing through his veins, demanding more, a remnant of the virus that annihilated his control. 

She leads him to the couch, where he sits without thinking, his attention now on the slash in his hand. 

It’s small and thin, nothing that will scar or need stitches. Elbows resting on his knees, he opens his left hand palm up, and looks at the broad scar there. It’s healed, of course, but still looks pink and striking against his darker skin. The two injuries are almost perfectly mirrored, differing only in size and meaning. 

“I hate this scar.”

Once again, Saebom startles him. She lowers herself on the low table, the first aid kit next to her, and it’s a sight that has become worryingly too familiar during the pandemic. She sprays antiseptic on a cotton ball, and starts cleaning his wound. 

“I hate this scar,” she repeats, eyes on his left hand where the testimony of his impulsivity is displayed. “Every time I look at it, I remember why you have it and it… I hate it.”

Yihyun looks at her hands, then, at the fingers that are currently treating his wound. They are so much smaller than his, if just as powerful. Saebom has callouses and rough skin due to training, to unorthodox activities as well, some he was a part of. But he’s glad she doesn’t have the scar that marks his own skin. As much as she hates it, he was trying to protect her during the lockdown, to make sure she’d manage to hold onto her humanity and not get out of this with a hundred sequels and scars to prove it. 

“I don’t,” he manages to say. 

It’s always easier to focus on Saebom instead of the tightness in his jaw, the irony taste in his mouth, the blood on the counter and in his hand. 

“You have to stop hurting yourself,” she speaks again as she sets the cotton down and picks up a bandaid. “I told you before, it makes me sick.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“Well,” she sniffs, applying the bandaid easily, “stop doing it.”

When his cut is finally treated, she throws what remains in the kit, and turns back to him. Her eyes won’t cross his. Without thinking, Yihyun cups her cheek, heart soaring a little when she leans into the touch immediately. 

“It kills me to see you like this,” she whispers. “It kills me that you don’t believe in your own strength, in your own kindness.”

He’s the one at a loss for words this time, her breath hitting his wrist in a grounding manner, a way to realize those are true. This is how Saebom sees him, even after his turning, after his killing someone, after all the things he’s done locked up in Le Ciel. 

“Stop pushing me away,” she adds, meeting his gaze dead on this time. “I told you I’m here, no matter what. So let me see the ugly and the fear. I won’t run.”

The only answer he can give her is rushing forward to kiss her. She’s rightfully surprised, if the noise she makes is anything to go by, but she kisses him back with just as much passion. Yihyun leans over her, both hands cupping her face to tilt her how he wishes, her lips parting under the attention to let his tongue in. 

They kiss until the iron taste is out of his mouth, until all he can taste is Saebom, all he can feel is her, all he can see is black hair and ivory skin unmarred by blood stains. 

“I love you,” Yihyun says when they come up for breath. 

Saebom smiles, fingers pressing into his cheeks. Her echoing sentiment passes through his lips when she gets closer again, murmurs : 

“I love you.”

4. Family issues 

“Your mom called.”

Saebom freezes, hair halfway through the ponytail she was tying. Yihyun’s look in the mirror tells her everything she needs to know, but still, she focuses back on her face and pretends not to understand.

“Ah ?”

“Apparently, she hasn’t had news in a while.”

Goddamnit, her mother and Yihyun’s close relationship makes her go crazy sometimes. Since she has introduced them, years ago, her mother has made it very clear that Yihyun is her favorite boy / friend Saebom has ever brought home, and they’ve stayed in contact ever since. 

And, alright, maybe she loved it at first, still loves it sometimes, how Yihyun fits into her life like no one else ever has. And it’s useful, as proved by the time she was scratched and tucked away by Teo-Seok and he warned her mother she wouldn’t be able to contact her for a while. Or the (multiple) times in high school and the academy and training where he managed to give an excuse for them going out, for them being drunk off their asses, for her not going home at night. 

Anyway. 

This is a bit of a problem. 

“No news is good news,” Saebom mutters now, tightening her ponytail once. 

“I agree.”

That surprises her into turning around. There’s a smile on his face, half-amused half-cheeky, and she does not like where this is going. 

“She called to set you up.”

“Say what now ?” 

Yihyun hums at her utter bewilderment, still smiling, arms crossed on his chest. 

“I’m pretty sure she was just trying to get a rise out of me so I would finally confess my undying love for you…”

“Already did that.”

“But just in case she wasn’t, you have a hot date Saturday night.”

Saebom worries her lip, a bit unsettled by his calm. 

“You’re not mad ?”

His eye-roll is answer enough, but he still straightens up, uncrosses his arms and walks to her. She has to look up to meet his gaze, which she sometimes hates, sometimes loves. 

“Of course not. I have to admit though,” he amends, “I was very confused when she started talking.”

Saebom drops her head to his shoulder, muttering in his shirt. 

“Sorry I didn’t tell her.”

“Why didn’t you ?”

She sighs, throwing her head backwards to stare at the ceiling instead of his constant indulgence. It’s a bit hard to find the words, to verbalise the feelings stirring in her insides, the ones that are carved in her bones and the one that emerged after her accident and her parents’ permanent fights. 

“I guess I was… protecting myself.”

She feels him stiffen, so close to her, but he doesn’t speak up. 

“I… It’s complicated, with my parents, you know that,” she adds, waving a hand around as if to brush aside the importance of the matter. “I know they loved -love- me. I know that, but after I got my accident…” 

Saebom exhales slowly, being reminded of memories she’d rather stay buried, deep down under the ones where she locked herself in the car just to find some solace from her parents’ fighting and the overwhelming guilt; or the ones where she called up Yihyun, asking a simple “are you free?” just so he’d come running and take her mind off things. 

“It’s like I told you,” she starts again, looking at him again and being taken aback by the sheer kindness on his face all over again, “the fear of death itself, it becomes just a bad memory. And you forget what it was like, what it felt like. So then all that is left is the consequences you have to deal with.”

Comforting, he wraps his arms around her waist, just enough to pull them closer together. Just enough so she can lean on him, know he’s here and listening. That’s what gives her the strength to go on, to utter all the things that have been kept festering inside for years. 

“There were so many bills and we didn’t have much money, and at times I was just… I was just a burden.”

Saebom feels her features tighten with seriousness. She’s never said such things to him, but there’s no way she won’t say them now, when he asked. Yihyun never asks, never pushes, and she has learned to give ground. His hands are hot on her waist, splayed on her skin like it’s their rightful place. 

“But you never made me feel like that,” she starts, making sure to sound as sure as she feels. 

His eyes widen some in surprise, or in whiplash, she has no idea. 

“Whenever I am with you, I feel at peace, I feel like myself. And maybe that’s why I asked you to marry me. So that I would get somewhere to belong.”

Saebom lifts herself up, until she can slide her lips against his sweetly. She will be the first one to admit she rarely does things sweetly, but Yihyun has softened her edges, and… and he’s always been the exception. Plus, Saebom does not make it a habit to apologize for her behavior and her desires, so if she wants to be soft with Yihyun, to leave her usual intensity aside for now, she will do so. He kisses her back, keeping it chaste until she drops back down. Her fingers have found their way to his neck, pressing into his skin and keeping him close so that they share the same air. In that same breath, she tells him : 

“This apartment, and you, that’s home; that’s where I belong.”

“Won’t disagree there,” he murmurs. “But why…”

“Cause I was never a first choice,” she cuts him off, anticipating his question, “until you came around. Maybe I wanted to keep you for myself for a while, and… It freaked me out, how unapologetically you liked me.”

“I thought I was discreet,” he grumbles, spurring a chuckle out of her. 

“Not really, no. But I was very blind.”

“Or in denial.”

That gets a small laugh out of her, one that is soon smothered by his lips once again. 

“You’re my home,” he admits in her mouth, and although she already knew that, it sill makes something climb, vines trimmed with flowers in bloom. 

She loves this man so much, his ability to comfort her with a word, with his mere presence. His nightmares and his trauma and his strength, his laughs and his stupid politeness in society, his awful singing voice and his bashfulness when he receives a compliment. She loves him, she loves him, and it feels like it’ll never stop growing. 

“We can call my mom together,” she tells him. “She has been rooting for you for ten years, anyway, she’ll be over the moon.”

5. Nightmares 

She wakes up silently to tears on her face. 

Saebom is not one to cry often. She’s not one to have nightmares often. Unfortunately, the two go hand in hand, almost every single time. 

She wakes up to her body shaking like a leaf, cold sweat matted at her temples and nape of her neck, tears rushing down her cheeks. The worst ones, the ones that make her stifle sobs in the meat of her hand, that make her plaster herself to Yihyun in the hope of hearing his heartbeat, of his body warming her to her core, are the ones drawn from memories. 

A few memories, in particular. 

Yihyun closing the door behind her, blood running like a river down his arm, Andrew shooting another bullet, him falling where she cannot reach. Yihyun, laying on the floor and telling her he’ll be the bad cop, that she has to be the good one, when it’s clear he’s always been the best of them all. 

Except this time, he never wakes up. Except this time, there’s no Tae-seok to carry him out with her, to order he be treated and receive the vaccine. Except this time, she remains crying over his lifeless body, and she’s alone. 

In bed, Saebom desperately counts one, one, two, one, desperately counts the rhythm, but it doesn’t help. She reaches back for Yihyun. He’s laying on his back, and the despair is too great, the need to feel alive and to feel him alive too overwhelming, and so she frantically climbs in his lap. 

The breath knocked out of him at her movement doesn’t deter her from leaning down and pressing her face in the crook of his neck. 

“Bom-a ?” He mutters sleepily, struggling to sit up. 

Saebom buries deeper into him, and his slowly awaking brain seems to catch on a few things, notably the feel of her tears on his skin and her body shaking endlessly. Yihyun lifts a hand to the nape of her neck, the touch extremely warm where she feels cold with sweat, and the other grips her thigh. 

“Yah, what-”

“You’re the good cop,” she mutters in his neck, hearing how rough and ragged it sounds but unable to stop it. “I… I’m the bad cop, you get it ? You’re the good cop. You’ll always be the good cop, you can’t help it.”

“Ok, ok,” he soothes her, fingers now massaging the back of her neck. 

Saebom pulls away to kiss him, too abrupt. He makes a startled noise in the back of his throat, breaking the kiss just as abruptly. She chases his mouth, being stopped only when he holds her head back and whispers : 

“Hey, hey, slow down.”

But she can’t… she can’t really slow down, lest she thinks of her nightmare, lest he, and everything good in her life, disappear in the blink of an eye. Before she can bury her face back in him though, his hand lifts from her thigh to cup her cheek, thumb catching on her tears. 

“What is it ?” He asks softly. 

The night helps with confessions, if nothing else. She isn’t like him, declaring her love in sunlight, admitting she relied on him on a balcony, calling him her home on a roof under blue skies. She needs the blanket of the night, needs to feel safe, although safety has become so intricate with Yihyun lately that she confesses everything he wants to whenever he asks. 

Now, she’s grateful for the dark that hides her tears. Her hands clench at his shoulders, nails digging into his back probably painfully, but he does not say anything else. 

“I’m right here,” he assures, pinpointing her fears as always. “I’m right here, Bom-a.”

“Don’t leave,” she asks, still frantic, aware of her nonsensical request. 

“I won’t. I promise I won’t.”

He pulls her closer, lays back down on the bed with her flush against his front. The steady, regular rhythm of his chest’ rise and fall lulls her into the same rhythm. Her breathing slows down to match his, and even though tears still run down her cheeks, the terror has subdued to a thin layer of fear crawling on her skin. 

Eyelashes still wet and heavy, Saebom takes what seems like hours to fall back asleep. When she does, the last thing she feels is his lips pressing a kiss to her temple, and the last thing she hears is the promise he whispers in her ear. 

“I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”