Work Text:
Woo Tak says “I like you. Both of you.”
***
Jae Chan’s head ached. He hadn’t been able to go back to sleep since –
The thing was, Woo Tak had never changed his phone’s background. Or maybe the thing really was that Jae Chan had never asked him to.
“Does your stomach hurt?” Hong Joo asked, standing in their bedroom doorway.
“Mm?” Jae Chan said in reply, landing somewhere near a noise that could be a question.
“You’ve been rolling around and groaning for ten minutes.” Hong Joo said, a little too sweetly.
Jae Chan froze, finding he was no longer facing Hong Joo but the other side of the room entirely. Taking stock of the situation, he also found his arms were wrapping tightly against his chest and if his legs tucked in any further he was getting dangerously close to human ball territory.
Not good. Think, think, what’s the best way to get out of this situation without talking.
Before he’d even had the chance to conjure up something resembling a good thought, he found himself on the floor doing pushups.
“Totally fine! Absolutely nothing wrong.” Jae Chan said, aiming for enthusiastic but ending up, he feared, somewhere near crazed.
“Right,” Hong Joo said. Jae Chan kept his eyes firmly glued on the floor, now fully committed to the exercise routine as though that would make the situation any less ridiculous. He could feel her gaze though, that particularly skeptical thousand yard stare she levied at him when he’d long since been caught in a lie. He never knew when she’d had a dream about something, but he usually erred on the side of assuming she had.
He hoped she hadn’t this time. Not yet.
“Really,” he said. “You know I’d tell you if it was something serious.”
***
On his desk, Jae Chan had four cases of armed robbery, seven cases of assault, three cases of public indecency, and two homicide cases. Not to mention the pile of cases looming behind him, some of the stacks getting so high he woke up every now and then to nightmares where he’d literally drowned in paperwork. Hong Joo had assured him they definitely were just nightmares, and not that type of dream, but sometimes when a pile looked particularly looming he wasn’t so sure.
He had to focus. People’s lives depended on him focusing.
“I like you. Both of you.”
“Yes, the amount of unprocessed cases is upsetting,” Hyang Mi said at her desk, making no effort to not be heard.
“Excuse me?”
“If I were you I’d be tearing my hair out too,” she said.
Jae Chan immediately put his hands onto his desk, ignoring the trailing pieces of hairs gathered between them.
“Let’s work hard, everyone,” he said, clearing his throat. Seasonal allergies were really starting to hit him hard. He definitely, absolutely, was not choking on his embarrassment.
“ Someone needs to work hard,” Hyang Mi muttered, barely under her breath. Jae Chan in his infinite generosity let it go. Besides, having a fight in the office would really undermine his plan to sink into the floor and never be seen again.
***
They met Woo Tak for dinner, because they always met Woo Tak for dinner these days. Because they wanted to meet Woo Tak for dinner every day. Without ever questioning it. And every time Jae Chan and Hong Joo sat on the same side of the table, and Woo Tak sat across from them. Because that’s how it was supposed to be.
Jae Chan looked at the food, at his glass, at the ceiling, at everyone else sitting at tables around the room. He didn’t look at Woo Tak. He couldn’t. He also didn’t look at Hong Joo because somehow that almost felt worse than looking at Woo Tak.
“So how was school today?” Hong Joo asked.
“Whenever you ask that, I feel like I’m out with my parents. Am I thirty, or thirteen?” Woo Tak teased.
Jae Chan had worried, initially, when Hong Joo had proposed that Woo Tak pursue a law degree that even if he had an aptitude for it, it would never replace what Woo Tak had lost. (For him, Jae Chan’s mind traitorously added). But ever since he’d started classes, there was a lightness to Woo Tak. Even when he’d been buried under a mountain of work for his first round of midterms, he’d been quick to a smile, thriving far more than Jae Chan ever had in school. (There was a small part of Jae Chan, just a small one, that was already worried about what it would be like to meet him in court some day.)
“Someone’s ducking the question. Spill, or I’ll be forced to go interview your classmates,” Hong Joo said, though if she was aiming for a joke she missed by a mile and landed squarely in threat territory.
“It was fine,” Woo Tak said.
“Fine,” Hong Joo repeated.
“One of my classmates asked me out for drinks,” Woo Tak said casually.
Jae Chan dropped his glass, beer spilling all over the table and showering down onto his lap. Both Hong Joo and Woo Tak started, immediately trying to contain the disaster. Jae Chan mumbled something about going to the bathroom to clean up and ran away without so much as a “sorry.”
Mercifully, the bathroom was empty.
“What are you doing?” he asked his reflection, gripping the edges of the sink like he needed it to steady him. “Get it together.”
A mountain of paper towels later, his pants were less wet, but he couldn’t get the splotch out entirely, and underneath his legs were beginning to feel sticky. And despite that, he still didn’t want to have to go back to them and admit it was probably time to go home. He didn’t know exactly what sign he was waiting for, but it hadn’t come to him yet.
“I like you. Both of you.”
Jae Chan inhaled sharply. He couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever, so with one last pat down done, he headed back.
“I’m not sure now’s the time to be dating,” he overheard Hong Joo saying as he approached the table.
“Jae Chan, you good?” Woo Tak asked, catching sight of him first.
Hong Joo narrowed her eyes, as though she wanted to peel back all of Woo Tak’s layers and find the answer she was after.
“I don’t think there’s any saving it,” Jae Chan admitted, not even bothering to sit down.
“That’s fine. We can call it a night.”
“Think about what I said,” Hong Joo said to Woo Tak as they parted ways outside. Jae Chan had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to hear.
***
Hong Joo drifted off almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, as though she hadn’t spent the entire time they were getting ready for bed fake dropping toothpaste, face wash, and of course, her cup.
Jae Chan laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. How long had Woo Tak –
He never acted like they were anything other than friends. There were no lingering touches, no moments of tension where maybe something would happen if someone just leaned a little farther forward. But then again, he never treated Hong Joo like that either. It was always just easy between the three of them. Comfortable, Jae Chan might even go so far as to say. Like coming home after a long day.
It could have just been a normal dream. Jae Chan mostly still had those. But if it was, what did that say about himself?
Eventually he noticed the room getting lighter and lighter. If he’d managed to fall asleep at any point it hadn’t been long enough to register.
***
Kang Cho Hee always gave them an extra big smile when she saw them together now. It didn’t happen every day, because there was no predicting how their schedules would align some weeks, but Hong Joo had taken one look at Jae Chan that morning and informed him that not only was it a coffee shop kind of day, she was going to see him off at work for a change. Jae Chan’s protest had died in the middle of a particularly long yawn.
“Is it something at work that you can’t tell me about? I promise, I can shut off my professional ears for a few minutes if you need to talk.”
“What do you think about Woo Tak?” Jae Chan asked, not even registering that Hong Joo had spoken. Her eyes widened, just a little, and he wished he could shove the words right back into his head where they belonged.
Then she smirked and said, “I’d leave him for you in a heartbeat.”
Jae Chan dropped his coffee cup.
“Should we bring you back to the doctor? Is this a new hand tremor? You’re lucky it was empty this time.” She sighed. “What do you want me to say, dear husband? He’s our friend. Our best friend.”
“What do I want you to say,” Jae Chan mumbled to himself. Hong Joo squeezed his hand briefly.
“Let’s get you another coffee. You look like you need it.”
***
No one ever called Jae Chan while he was at work, outside of his brother, and even then it was only when Seung Won was trying to get some money for something he was hoping Jae Chan would be too busy to dig into before approving. (Jae Chan was never too busy.)
So when Woo Tak’s name lit up the screen, Jae Chan was out in the hallway and heading toward the elevator before he’d even picked up, sure he was going to have to go to a hospital, or worse.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded when he picked up. “Is Hong Joo–”
“No! No. Shit, I’m sorry. Nothing’s wrong,” Woo Tak said immediately.
“Then what–” Jae Chan slumped back against the wall beside the elevator. The quick rebound between extreme anxiety and relief left him feeling shaky.
“Sorry,” Woo Tak said again, now sounding embarrassed. “I guess I’ve been out of work too long, I didn’t really register what time it was. Robin just finished up his annual check up and I thought you’d want to know he got a clean bill of health.”
Jae Chan groaned, leaning his face into one of his hands.
“I did,” he admitted.
“Mostly clean bill of health,” Woo Tak said, and it could have been ominous but Jae Chan had been on the receiving end of Woo Tak’s teasing too many times to not recognize this particular voice of his. “Turn’s out he’s getting a little heavy these days. Almost like someone is giving him too many treats.”
“Maybe such a good boy deserves all the treats he wants,” Jae Chan said.
“Maybe,” Woo Tak said, amused. “But maybe you could learn to be a little stingier with gifts every now and then.”
“I give the appropriate amount of gifts to those who deserve them,” Jae Chan said in return.
“Right,” Woo Tak said, a beat late. “Well, I should let you go back to work. Talk to you later.”
Jae Chan knew getting glimpses of the future was already more than most people could wish for, but he thought if the universe was going to be doling out gifts he should get the ability to turn back time by about five minutes or so as well. He wondered how often he had accidentally said unkind things like that to Woo Tak and never realized.
***
Yoon Jin Ah had been booked on charges of domestic violence after an altercation at the household escalated and she threw a teapot in her husband’s face, which resulted in both burns and facial lacerations. Yoon Jin Ah did this because she had recently learned that her husband had gambled away their entire life savings behind her back, and had gone so far as to leave them in debt to a loan shark in an effort to hide that fact from her.
People hid all kinds of things. Small things like the time Hong Joo had wanted to see V.I.P. in theaters, saying she liked the look of one of the leads on the poster, and Jae Chan didn’t tell her that he’d rather naw off his arm than see that kind of movie on his day off from work. Big things like the fact that he’d actually spent a little bit of the money that Choi Dam Dong had sent them because Seung Won never needed to know how close they’d come to getting evicted before he’d finally gotten hired at the prosecutor’s office.
In Jae Chan’s experience, people hid things mostly to save their relationships, which always made the fallout from the lies being exposed that much more painful for everyone involved. And most people weren’t very good at keeping secrets, so that was an all too common outcome. People’s tells were pretty obvious if you knew what you were looking for.
Things like calling someone instead of texting them, when that was entirely out of character. Or telling someone they were ostensibly not interested in romantically that they shouldn’t go out on a date.
Or even telling someone they couldn’t speak casually to each other, when there was no good reason to not do so.
“You’re actually reading that case file, right?”
Jae Chan startled, not expecting Hyang Mi to be standing right beside him.
“You wouldn’t be daydreaming and dooming us all to working over time again, right?” she asked, leaning in far too close.
“Who wants coffee? I need to stretch my legs so my treat,” Jae Chan said, jumping to his feet. “Iced Americanos all around?”
“Finish your work on time or don’t bother coming back,” Hyang Mi said. Her piercing gaze followed him all the way out of the room. He patted the back of his neck in the hallway to make sure there hadn’t been any poisonous darts shot into it – which sure, was unlikely, but then again who knew what Hyang Mi would do when she finally snapped.
***
Woo Tak isn’t alone when he enters the restaurant. The woman beside him looks young, and like life always treats her fairly.
“This is Kim Ha Na,” Woo Tak says.
“Oh,” Hong Joo says softly, looking just as crestfallen as Jae Chan feels.
“I hope it’s okay that I’m joining,” Kim Ha Na says.
“Of course! We’re happy to meet you,” Hong Joo says.
Lies, Jae Chan wants to say. It isn’t okay. They couldn’t be less happy.
“Say hello,” Hong Joo says to him, quietly, so only they can hear. “We can talk about this later.”
***
This time Jae Chan didn’t spend the rest of the night lying wide awake by himself. Instead, he rolled over and shook Hong Joo, not nearly as gently as he usually did on mornings she threatened to oversleep. When she stirred, opening her eyes blearily, he said, “You know already, don’t you. About Woo Tak.”
She groaned pitifully, and even as annoyed as he felt, he couldn’t help the almost pavlovian guilt that washed over him.
“Can’t we talk about this in the morning?” she asked, pulling the covers over her face.
But no matter how guilty he felt for waking her up, he wasn’t going to let this go.
“I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this from me,” he said. “I thought we promised that we wouldn’t keep important things from each other anymore.”
“I was wondering when this one would finally happen,” she mumbled, just loud enough that Jae Chan could hear it through the blanket still over her face.
“Look,” she said, pulling the covers back down, just enough for part of her face to peek through. “You needed to figure some things out before there was any point in talking about this. Have you?”
And the truth was no matter how much Jae Chan had worried and struggled these last couple days, he wouldn't have woken up Hong Joo if he hadn’t.
“I think – I think we’re already acting like we’re dating Woo Tak, in a lot of ways. And I think I want more than that,” he said. But he’d just scolded Hong Joo for not being truthful with him, so he added, only a little quieter, “I know I want more.”
“Okay, then we’re on the same page. And now we just have to find the right time to talk to Woo Tak.”
“That’s it?” Jae Chan spluttered. What about the late night heart to heart he’d been expecting? Where they both said their all their feelings out loud, and assuaged each other's worries about the future?
“Jae Chan,” she said, fully removing the covers from her face then, and reaching out to hold his hand. “If we're going to do this, it can’t be you and me the same way anymore. It’s unfair enough as it is that we’re married and we’re going to ask this of him anyway. If we’re going to discuss this, we’re going to discuss it with all three of us. We don’t get to do prep work ahead of time and spring it on him.”
“He’s going to go out with that girl he mentioned,” Jae Chan said, fully aware he sounded like a petulant child.
“Well, then, we’d better not waste any more time.” Hong Joo yawned. Jae Chan tugged on her hand a little, like a dog asking to go on a walk.
“Not right now,” Hong Joo said, and even though it was dim he could still see her rolling her eyes. “Go back to bed, Jae Chan. What we like about you sometimes, a real mystery.”
***
Woo Tak was outside their door the next morning, about to ring the doorbell, when they stepped outside.
“Good timing,” he said, grinning.
“Woo Tak,” Hong Joo said, voicing both of their surprise. “What’re you doing here?’
He gestured behind them and said, “I had a few dishes to return to your mother, and I figured since I have a morning class today and can’t use my car why not walk with you to the bus as well.”
There was no way there were any dishes that had to be returned at this time of day.
“This works out, though,” Hong Joo said. “I wanted to invite you over to our place for dinner tonight.”
“Sounds great,” Woo Tak said easily. “Anything you want me to bring?”
“Just yourself,” Hong Joo said, smiling. Apparently finding the right time was out, creating the right time was in. Jae Chan wasn’t opposed.
****
By the time Woo Tak buzzed to be let in, Hong Joo and Jae Chan had managed to set off the fire alarm, both burn and undercook the fish, and discovered no one had set the rice to cook at any point that day. Meanwhile Woo Tak showed up with an entire grocery bag, and an offer to cook them dinner.
“I had a feeling we’d be ordering out otherwise,” he said, that look in his eyes that said he was laughing at them, but he found them charming anyway.
“If that’s what you want to do,” Jae Chan said, like there was any other choice.
Woo Tak didn’t even need to ask where they kept any of their utensils or dishes. He seemed to know their kitchen better than they did. He was beautiful, standing in front of their stove, sauteing vegetables Jae Chan couldn’t confidently identify.
“I love you,” Jae Chan said.
Woo Tak laughed.
“I promise cooking isn’t as hard as you two make it,” he said, not turning around.
Jae Chan was nothing if not a man willing to crash his brand new car on the off chance he could change something for the better.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I love you.”
Woo Tak still didn’t turn around then, but his hand stilled, as though time had paused around him.
“Woo Tak,” Hong Joo said. “Please.”
At that, he finally did turn to face them. His expression reminded Jae Chan of the day in court, as though he was prepared yet again to break his own heart.
“Have you thought this through?” he asked too calmly. “Don’t you want kids? Hong Joo, haven’t you already dreamed of exactly what your future’s going to look like? Let’s be honest, I’m not in it. Not like that.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, and her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, as though she wouldn’t be able to help but reach out if she let them loose. “You’ve been in so many of my dreams ever since our wedding night, Woo Tak. And you know my dreams always come true.”
“It can’t be so simple,” Woo Tak said, shaking his head.
“We all dream about the future. What can’t we do together?” Jae Chan asked.
“We love you. I love you,” Hong Joo said. “And I know you love us too. Woo Tak.”
Woo Tak closed his eyes, and Jae Chan wanted to gather him up in his arms and hold him until he confessed. He wanted to hold them both, and let the tension in the room turn into something pleasant, instead of continuing this atmosphere like something important was about to explode.
“I need time to think,” Woo Tak said eventually.
“Okay,” Hong Joo said.
“Okay,” Jae Chan echoed.
Jae Chan and Hong Joo watched him leave quietly. There was no point in saying some platitude about how nothing was going to change no matter what he decided. They’d rolled the dice and no matter how it landed it wouldn’t be in the spot it started.
***
Woo Tak rubs Robin’s side, and clips his leash onto his collar.
“If we’re not careful, Jae Chan might spoil you even more,” he says.
“If I’m not careful, we may never see them again,” he says. “What do you think, Robin?”
Robin wags his tail.
***
A week passed without a word from Woo Tak. Jae Chan investigated every case that came across his desk three times more than most of them deserved. If things carried on that way too long, the next big case the prosecutor’s office took on was going to be his murder, for which Hyang Mi would never apologize.
Hong Joo’s mother had also started looking at them suspiciously, so without ever even saying it out loud they’d started doing their best to avoid her. They could get her an apology gift later, but they absolutely could not explain themselves now.
“We just have to be patient,” Jae Chan said every night before they went to bed. “He’ll be back.”
Hong Joo never said anything in reply, but every night the space between them in the bed grew just a little.
***
Hong Joo was waiting outside when Jae Chan got out of work.
“Did you have a dream about tonight?” Jae Chan asked, trying to sound level headed about it. Hong Joo slipped his hand into hers.
“Only that you’d get out of work a little early today,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
The bus ride home was quiet , but she never let go of his hand. No matter what, we’ll always have each other, she seemed to be saying.
“Should we order fried chicken for dinner?” she asked, as they turned the corner onto their street.
“Sure, why – look!”
Just ahead of them, standing in front of their house, was Woo Tak. He was rocking back and forth a little, clearly waiting – not just waiting, anticipating. He didn’t even have his phone out. And he saw them almost as soon as they saw him. He could have just waited where he was, and they could have just continued walking along at their normal pace.
Instead, like the string of fate between the three of them was actively pulling them together, they all broke into a run, and nearly crashed into each other halfway between.
“Woo Tak,” Jae Chan tried to say, breathing harder than he should have been given the distance. But then, maybe it wasn’t the distance but Woo Tak that was taking his breath away.
“I like you,” Woo Tak said. “Both of you. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with anyone else but you.”
If anyone looked out their window, Jae Chan was sure they all looked insane. Standing too close, smiling too much.
“Move in with us.” Hong Joo said, reaching out to take Woo Tak’s hand.
“Don’t people usually date for a while before they do that?” Woo Tak teased.
“Haven’t we been?” Jae Chan challenged.
“No, if we’d been dating, then –” and with no warning, Woo Tak clasped Jae Chan’s face with his other hand and kissed him.
It was nothing like kissing Hong Joo. His lips were a little chapped, his stubble a little pricky. Woo Tak felt solid against him, strong and like he hadn’t slacked off working out at all. Jae Chan had a thought that he wanted to lick those abs, desperately.
It was exactly like kissing Hong Joo. Jae Chan thought his heart might explode because it shouldn’t be possible to have this many feelings so strongly all at once. He felt the future settling around them. That forever was possible together.
It was perfect.
“Then we would have spent a lot of time doing that,” Woo Tak finished, when they pulled away from each other.
Hong Joo tugged on the hand she still held captive in hers, and Woo Tak understood immediately, leaning in to kiss her as well. Jae Chan had never seen something so beautiful.
“Fine, we can discuss moving in again later,” she relented, when they too pulled apart. “But give me your phone.”
“Why?” Woo Tak asked, sounding indulgent in a way Jae Chan was sure he’d never allowed himself to before.
“Because we have to take a new picture for your background. I don’t want some other girl’s picture on your phone.”
All it took was accidentally catching each other’s eye, and Jae Chan and Woo Tak were down for the count, laughing so hard they both had tears in their eyes.
“What?” Hong Joo demanded. “What’s so funny?”
Jae Chan thought they’d probably explain it to her later (probably) but for now he wrapped them both in his arms. In the end the thing was that the three of them completed each other.
(“I told you,” Woo Tak said later, “we’re the three dragons. Not the two dragons and their friend.”)