Chapter Text
Youngwoo pauses outside the karaoke bar, listening to the music coming from within, wincing a bit when her friend’s off-key voice chimes in once again. She’d been somewhat relieved when they finally left just a short while earlier, and she doesn’t really want to go back inside. So why is she here? Shaking her head, a frown in place, she turns on her heel, and starts back off towards the house.
Minwoo is sitting on the balcony, a can in hand when she glances up from outside, but Suyeon is no longer in sight. Youngwoo lets herself into the house, and makes towards the room she shares with the other attorney, but a groan from down the hallway makes her pause, looking over at the room shared by Junho and Minwoo, hearing another groan and then a thud from inside. Taking a breath, she knocks before easing the door cautiously open, eyes closed as she counts down from five, and when she opens them, she blinks at the figure slumped over by the bed.
“Lee - Lee Junho ssi?” She says cautiously.
He turns his head, squinting at her in the light from the hallway. “Whaddyouwant?” He slurs. “I was just… bathroom.” He makes to pull himself to his feet, but staggers, crashing into the bedside table and Youngwoo gasps, jumping.
“I…” she hesitates, takes a step into the room. “The bathroom is down the hall.”
“I know where it is,” he snaps.
“Do you…” she hesitates. “Do you need help?”
“No.”
She watches him struggle to navigate his way to the door, clutching onto the bed for support, before she takes a breath and hurries over to him, taking his arm.
“I’m fine!”
“You smell very strongly of alcohol Lee Junho ssi. How much did you drink?”
“Go’way,” he slurs, but lets her help him to the door, and lead him down the hall, opening the door to the bathroom and pushing him inside.
“Please don’t lock the door in case you fall.”
He grunts at her, closing it behind himself. Sighing, Youngwoo turns and leans back against the wall beside the bathroom door to wait. She hears the sound of the toilet seat lifting, and wrinkles her nose as she listens to the splashing noise of him relieving himself. The toilet flushes, water in the sink runs, and then the bathroom door opens again and he stumbles out.
“Woah,” she exclaims, grabbing his arm before he can stagger straight into the opposite wall.
“What are you… what are you still doing here?”
“Making sure you get back into bed safely,” she replies, stumbling with him down the hallway and into his room.
She deposits him on his bed, letting him flop down with another one of his groans. She makes to pry her arm out from under him and push herself upright, but finds it clasped in his hand.
“Lee Junho ssi?”
“Why are you leaving me?” He says, and when Youngwoo looks with wide eyes into his own they are filled with hurt. She can’t always tell a person’s emotions by their face but… there was no mistaking the pain in Junho’s eyes at the moment. Guilt shivers through her. “Why… wasn’t I good enough for you?”
“I…” Her eyes dart around the room. She tries to twist her arm from his grasp again but he has a firm hold on her. “I don’t think this is a conversation we should be having when you’re drunk,” she says quickly.
“Then when? Huh? Not when you told me - no you just… just broke my heart and - and started talking about the damn case!”
She squirms in his grip. “Lee Junho ssi… you’re hurting me…”
“I’m hurting you?” He tugs her arm, yanking her closer, and she squeaks in alarm, nearly toppling down over him and having to catch herself on her other hand on the bed. “What, like you hurt me? You… you ripped my heart out Attorney Woo, all of that, letting me… date you, and kiss you and thinking you wanted to be with me - for you to just end it without even a reason! Damnit what did I do wrong!?”
His grip is still so tight on her forearm, and she’s off balance like this, leant over him where he’s sprawled on the bed, reeking of alcohol and slurring his words, and Youngwoo feels her breathing start to quicken, fingers flexing and hand squirming in his grasp.
“I… it -” she shakes her head, dark hair falling around her face, the room starting to feel hot and out of focus.
He gives her wrist a jerk in his grasp. “Why won’t you answer me!?”
“Why won’t you answer me!?” She blurts out back to him, voice high, and abruptly, he releases her, and she stumbles to her feet, backing up quickly away from the bed until her back hits to the wall, and she shrinks down, hands over her ears, his angry words still repeating in his head.
Why won’t you answer me!? Why won’t you answer me why won’t you answer me why won’t you -
“Attorney Woo - shit - shit m’sorry, I’m so sorry,” he’s saying and she feels hands on her shoulders, his heavy form leaning against her where she’s huddled up against the wall. He tries to turn her clumsily, hands tight on her upper arms. “Let me - let me hold you, like before? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
But it isn’t before, and Youngwoo doesn’t want him to hold her, she just… she just wants all of it to stop . She pushes at him, shaking her head.
“Attorney Woo it’s alright, let me make it alright, let me fix it,” he’s saying, trying to grab her hands, trying to pin her still in his arms but she fights him, desperate to get away. Her vision blurs, and she realises she’s crying, breath coming out short and fast and he won’t let her escape, his much larger form pinning hers easily to the wall, his huge arms around her tightly, the smell of beer and spirits overwhelming as he presses against her, fully inside of her space, and for the first time ever, Youngwoo fears him.
“It’s okay,” he’s still saying, voice slurred, but it’s not, it’s not . “I just wanted to love you…” His hands grasp her face, forcing her to look at him. He’s hazy, out of focus, flashing in and out of her vision as the edges of it blacken, and she tries to twist from his grasp. “I’d give you everything, anything you ask for…”
She inhales, breath catching on a sob, and then there’s a shout of ‘hey!’ and the next minute Junho’s overbearing form is gone from around her, and she gulps in air, leaning back against the wall and watching dazedly as Minwoo throws his friend down onto his bed.
“She’s upset man, and you’re drunk! Leave it!”
“Ah - y’don’t know anything!”
“Leave it, I said!” He shoves him back down when he tries to get up, and Junho slumps on his bed, throwing an arm over his eyes, letting out a choked sound that might be a sob.
“Attorney Woo?”
She blinks at the figure in front of her, vision still swimming.
“Uhh… you okay?”
She nods hastily, pulling herself upright, nodding and nodding, turning and hastening out of the room on legs that shake, and she’s still nodding when she huddles on her bed, legs up to her chest and arms around them.
She’s getting dizzy, and forces herself to stop bobbing her head, squeezing her eyes shut and focusing on breathing evenly. It was ridiculous, she could memorise every article of criminal law every written, but something as simple as breathing, which was a built in human mechanism, could be challenging for her. She wishes she wasn’t like this… she wishes she could deal with situations like this without breaking down, and she wishes… she wishes she hadn’t had to hurt Junho in the first place.
He’d scared her tonight; he’d been drunk and out of control and strong , but Youngwoo knows that’s all her fault. She’d hurt him. She never meant to… but she had. She understands that - more so since seeing him tonight, the man who was always cheerful and even tempered so broken down and angry. Geurami had wanted to go back to the karaoke bar and keep drinking after feeling rejected by Minwoo - it’s a safe assumption that Junho had drank himself to such a state because of her.
She wishes she’d never started dating him in the first place - maybe both of them wouldn’t be hurting so much now if she hadn’t.
She curls tighter into herself, and must fall asleep like that, curled on her side, because the next thing she knows someone is pulling the duvet gently over her, and she turns her head to see Geurami, smiling at her before she settles down on the floor next to her.
Youngwoo curls up under the covers, head and heart aching, and falls asleep thinking about empty oceans and pain-filled dark eyes.
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