Work Text:
Han Joo Won presses his forehead against the mirror and breathes out, trying to clear the fog from his head. He plunges his hands in the sink and the water turns red. A stranger eyes him through the glass. He looks tired; he looks lost. He looks a mess of a man, but his face is still that of Han Ki Hwan’s son. The fact that he has come so close to destroying a creation of his father, moulded in his image and polished to perfection, gives him a perverse sense of comfort.
He feels heavy, like his legs cannot support his own weight. It has been that way ever since he learned about Lee Geum Hwa; ever since he transferred to Manyang. Lately, he dreams about sinking. Not drowning, submerged in water; in his dreams, he sinks into the ground- into the earth itself. It doesn’t feel like he is dying; he knows full well that is something a dream cannot convey. The sleeping brain cannot create novel experiences, it only uses what one has already encountered- he read as much on an article once. That is why, instead of dying, he finds himself buried alive, alone in the darkness. His grave is a quiet and solitary place and though Joo Won craves silence and thrives on solitude, he doesn’t find it a pleasant experience at all. It makes him think of Min Jeong, the girl with crystals on her nails.
The person waiting for him outside is another victim of his father’s ambition- or rather, a casualty. The misfortune visited upon him was unprovoked, arbitrary. Unlike Chief Jung, Lee Dong Sik has always been innocent.Through twenty years of turmoil, his heart remained steadfast and his purpose clear and now at long last, he had his sister’s murderer within his grasp. What a cruel twist of fate it was that the culprit had turned out to be Joo Won’s own father. How hilariously ironic it was that the one person he longed for was the one person that could destroy him.
He asks Dong Sik to leave and receives some witty retort about his habit of waltzing into his former partner’s house uninvited. When he thinks back to that time, it feels like a lifetime ago. The Lee Dong Sik in his memory is an entirely different person- an elusive figure shrouded in mystery. The Han Joo Won from back then is an idiot; a poor clueless bastard who thinks too highly of himself.
‘I won’t do anything on my own’ he promises. ‘Please leave’
Dong Sik gets up from the couch and walks over to him with the same air of nonchalance that always marks his step, no matter how grave the circumstances. He comes to stand close enough to touch, the way he used to do when they first met. He hasn’t done that in a while; he has kept his distance since that night in the rain.
‘Are you ready to corner that rabbit now, Inspector?’ Dong Sik asks, his voice low and inviting.
Joo Won feels a tightness in his throat. He swallows and hopes Dong Sik doesn’t notice, but of course he does. He always does. He watches as Dong Sik takes another step towards him and before his brain has the opportunity to process the situation, he is leaning forward, his lips impulsively seeking out the other man’s. There are fingers running the length of his back; fingers combing through his hair. Dong Sik’s breath is rough and shallow and hot against his mouth. Joo Won holds his face in his hands, runs his thumb across his cheek to find it wet with a wayward tear. They move together, in sync and somehow Lee Dong Sik ends up with his back against the wall, Joo Won’s lips hungrily trailing the curve of his neck. He tugs at Joo Won’s belt, fumbles with the buttons of his shirt, like a child eager to unwrap a present. As the sun steadily rises in the background, Joo Won feels like he is soaring. He pictures himself emerging from the dirt; rising to the surface and higher still; high above the ground. As he soars up in the sky, the world below becomes small, insignificant. Down there, nothing matters any more.
----
Han Ki Hwan looks at his son as he presses the barrel of his gun against Lee Dong Sik’s forehead. His eyes speak a question; the question bears a challenge.
‘If he dies, what will you do then?’
Joo Won knows that in his father’s brain, any sense of affection is readily quashed by purpose. That includes any love that he may have had for his wife and even his son. Han Joo Won is not like his father. He promised he would dive into hell for Lee Dong Sik, and he intends to fulfil that promise.
With a steadying breath he seals his fate. It all happens within the blink of an eye, but he still manages to catch the look of abject terror on his father’s face as he pulls the trigger. The sound is deafening; it bounces off the walls of the study and echoes all around the house. Joo Won wonders how loud it can be heard in his old bedroom. He imagines his seven year old self closing the door to shield himself from it, the way he did whenever his parents were having one of their squabbles downstairs. Han Ki Hwan’s body lies behind his desk, out of sight, like he has simply vanished from the world; an actor who’s left the stage. The blood on the wall, on Lee Dong Sik’s face and clothes paints a grim memorial to the man who, just moments ago, existed in the room with them.
Han Joo Won has killed his father. He has delivered justice for Lee Dong Sik, for Nam Sang Bae, for himself. Reluctantly, he meets Dong Sik’s eyes. Is it sympathy he hopes for? Gratitude? Love even? He finds none of those things- he finds nothing at all. Dong Sik’s gaze is blank as he bows down, takes the pistol from the former Commissioner General’s hand and points it towards Joo Won.
‘What are you doing?’ Joo Won asks.
‘I am arresting you’ Dong Sik replies, in a voice that doesn’t falter.
Joo Won laughs. This is just another one of their games; Dong Sik likes to rile him up like that. He moves to close the distance between them but freezes in place when he sees Dong Sik’s finger press lightly onto the trigger.
‘Don’t move’ Dong Sik warns him. ‘I’ve already tipped off the RIU. They should be here any minute now’
‘What?’ Why would he call the RIU? It doesn’t make any sense. ‘Why?’
‘You killed a man, Han Joo Won’ Dong Sik says dispassionately. He points to the CCTV camera mounted on the ceiling. ‘And it’s all on camera’.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Joo Won demands. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he yells.
‘What did I do? Did I do something?’ Lee Dong Sik returns the question with a slight tilt of the head. ‘It is Han Ki Hwan who fucked up here. He ruined his son to the point that he turned on him and put a bullet in his brain’. He grins, but there is nothing warm and kind about his smile; it is gleeful- it is sharp and dangerous. ‘Do you think he understood in his final moments how miserably he failed?’ he asks. ‘How everything he built, he built on sand? I sure hope he did’
Joo Won doesn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth. It is another limitation of the human brain. When something is too painful, when it is simply unfathomable, it tends to shut down. He finds himself on his knees, and he is not sure how or when it happened. He feels the pressure around him building, the way it does in the deep sea,with every metre of descent. He hears someone burst into laughter, in the same maniacal way Dong Sik so often does; it’s him, he realises- he is the one laughing. In the twenty seven years in his life, he only dared to reach out once; he should have expected that no one would take his hand. He wants to get up, he wants to go to Dong Sik, but his legs won’t hold him. He hears the distant wailing of the police sirens heralding his downfall. They are the soundtrack to the final act of Lee Dong Sik’s masterpiece, starring him. Will he be happy now? Joo Won wonders. Will this be enough for him?
—
‘If you are curious, you can see what happens’
The voice of the recently deceased Commissioner General sounds one last time in one of the many interrogation rooms on the sixteenth floor of the Seoul Metropolitan police building. The man sitting opposite Dong Sik pauses the recording, takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. He looks like he wants nothing to do with this case, and Lee Dong Sik can’t blame him.
‘Han Ki Hwan didn’t exactly force his son’s hand’ he says, thinking out loud, ‘but it sure looks like he armed it’
Dong Sik nods solemnly in agreement, even though he knows the officer is wrong; it was he who armed Han Joo Won’s hand, not his father. People will easily make grand declarations, solemn vows but when push comes to shove, they will swallow down their words and deny their commitments. Han Joo Won was not like that; Joo Won promised to dive into hell for him and when the moment came, he took the plunge without a moment’s hesitation.
‘It’s truly a tragedy, what happened to that family’ he tells the officer. It truly is - just like what happened to his own family, twenty years ago. The difference being, his family did nothing to deserve such fate.
‘Well, you did the right thing giving us a call when he went to his father. Good instincts’
‘I’ve been in the force for a long time now’ Dong Sik responds,‘If there is one thing this job has taught me, it’s to always trust my gut. The way Joo Won-ah was acting that day-’
Joo Won-ah? No- no, it was Inspector Han, Han Joo Won, sometimes plain Joo Won, but never Joo Won- ah. He’d never called him that. The name left a bitter taste in his mouth.
‘Are you alright, Inspector Lee?’ the officer asks.
He doesn’t answer yes or no. ‘I am…a little tired’, he sighs, and the man nods in understanding.
‘You are free to go’ he tells him, gesturing towards the door. ‘We’ll be in touch later today’
The building has five garages, five basements. Four of them were full when Lee Dong Sik arrived so he had to park his car in the very last one. There is classical music playing in the elevator. Dong Sik recognises the piece as Chopin’s ‘raindrop’ prelude. He hits the button; the sliding doors close and the descent begins.
Two years ago, Han Joo Won and he both worked in this building, without ever running into each other. Dong Sik imagines the elevator coming to a stop; the doors opening to allow a young man with a rigid expression on his face inside. The heir of the future Commissioner General has a well-groomed appearance; everything on him, from his sleek dark hair to his fingernails, is polished to perfection. He stands as far apart from Dong Sik as possible, but every now and then he steals a glance at him, his eyes, sometimes harsh, sometimes vulnerable darting back and forth. There are physicists who say that with every single action a person makes a new universe is created; an entire universe. People sure are self-centred bastards to think they have such power, Dong Sik muses. Still, part of him likes to imagine that in another universe, he turns around and greets the young officer.
‘I am Inspector Lee Dong Sik of the RIU’ he introduces himself, extending his hand.
Han Joo Won doesn’t take it, but that’s okay- he will, eventually. Dong Sik knows he will.
The elevator sinks below ground level.
First basement; at this depth is where they bury the dead
Second basement; here lie the ruins of the cities of old.
Third basement; Subterranean rivers travel the expanse of the city, of the world.
How much further down, Dong Sik wonders, until he starts feeling the heat?