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The clouds cover the sky in Seoul.
Dongsik walks down the sidewalk and watches the throngs of people walking on the other side of the road. It isn’t like this in Manyang. At this time of the day, late in the morning, everyone would have made the walk or drive to work and the streets would be empty save for a couple of trucks passing by. It’s what he used to like about Seoul. When Dongsik had been assigned to the RIU, he loved watching the never-ending crowds of workers and students alike who took over the sidewalks. It had been a delight to disappear in the crowds, to forget himself, to pretend for a moment that he was someone else. He could have been born and raised in Seoul, with a father who worked in a university, a sister as a lawyer, and a mother who managed a shop at the bottom of their apartment building. He could have been a country man, moved to Seoul for an education, his future of marriage and kids within reach before him. He could have been just another police officer in the streets of Seoul, no tragic backstory behind him. No one would ever know. No one would ever care.
That had been him about eight years ago: weary, jaded, hoping that in his next life, things won’t go wrong as early or at all. It was odd, what had changed in eight years. Now, he browses storefronts in the streets of Seoul, hoping to buy fresh fruit for an Inspector working in Gangwon-do.
Jihwa had come to his house earlier that morning.
It was unlike her. It was around 7, perhaps 8 in the morning when she came by. Usually, she should have been at work by then. But she had sent him a text and he prepared coffee for two instead of one, though Jihwa hadn’t ended up drinking the coffee he prepared for her.
“Halmeoni!” Dongsik calls. His hands are in his pockets as he breaks away from the pedestrian crowd and over to the fruit stand.
“Yes, yes.” The old woman hobbles to the front of the stand, and from where Dongsik stands, he sees a couple of neighborhood elders sitting in the store behind the fruit stand. “What is it?”
Dongsik picks up a tangerine. It is early spring, nearly the end of the tangerine season. He had tasted out-of-season tangerines a few times in his life, and often they had been too sour for his taste. He smacks his lips. He hopes the season for tangerines has not ended yet, and that some if not all of these are still nice and sweet. “How much for a bag of tangerines?”
He leaves the stand with a bag of tangerines and walks back in the direction he came from.
Jihwa had come to his house earlier that morning with an odd look on her face. He had expected an easy kind of expression, a happy kind of smile. Instead, her lips were pulled taut together and the faux joy did not reach her eyes. The expression on her face was only there for a second before she let it fall.
She said that she had heard from a colleague that the Women and Juvenile Division of a station in Gangwon-do had an accident recently. They were investigating a report of a missing dementia patient. It had been raining, and they had found her on a mountain. It was unclear how things unfolded, as the visibility had been low. But the old woman had slipped.
There was an officer nearby who tried reaching for her as she slid down the mountainside. He had been too far, and the rain had been too strong.
They were unable to save her.
Dongsik stares up at the officetel. It is a menacing building, all glass and steel, full of glares on a sunny day. Today, the clouds cover the sky. The glass windows reflect the clouds over Seoul as Dongsik stares up at them. He hasn’t been here in a while. He walks into the lobby with a bag full of tangerines and makes his way to the elevators.
He had asked Jihwa if she knew any fruit vendors in Mapo-gu. She had asked him why he would go through all the trouble of buying fruit there when there were fruit stands nearby in Manyang. Dongsik had shrugged, saying he should get to know that neighborhood too.
The elevator opens on the twenty-seventh floor.
Dongsik steps out. Room 2701 is only a few strides away, and soon, Dongsik is standing in front of the door. He thinks about ringing the doorbell. That would’ve been the more polite thing to do. Instead, he stops himself when his finger is an inch away from the doorbell and decides to key in the passcode instead. Han Juwon is the type of person to hear his doorbell ring, then brush under the rug anything that had been going on with himself before he opens the door—if he lets on that he heard the doorbell ring at all.
The passcode beeps and the door unlocks. Dongsik is surprised to find the passcode unchanged. It has been a while, after all. Then again, Dongsik thinks, perhaps Han Juwon hadn’t had any time to change it—between changing stations, looking for missing people, and dealing with his father’s appeals, Juwon probably had no time to change the code on his lock. That is, if he changes his lock at all. Though, he should.
Dongsik lets himself into the apartment. He expects complete darkness apart from the light from the window. He finds that there is light, at least, in the kitchen.
It is half past nine in the morning.
He balances himself against the wall as he slips his shoes off. He doesn’t change into indoor slippers; he didn’t the last time he went here. The last time, Juwon hadn’t either. Dongsik was the one who carried Juwon’s discarded shoes from the hall outside the bathroom to the small space at the door.
The bag of tangerines rustles in his hand. When he rounds the corner from the front door to the kitchen, the first scent he smells is alcohol. Whiskey, to be exact.
And there, on the couch in front of the coffee table, Han Juwon sits with his head in his hands and a bottle of whiskey at arm’s length. The shot glass is empty; the bottle seems three-quarters of the way in.
Dongsik crosses the space between the kitchen and the coffee table.
He is sure then, that had he not stayed to look after Han Juwon the night of Jung Cheol-mun’s death, Juwon would have broken into a similar bottle of whiskey and drunken himself through the dawn and into the morning, through the afternoon straight into night. And it doesn’t look like Juwon is new to the idea of drinking whiskey at his coffee table. In fact, it seems like the shot glass in front of him has seen a great many nights and days of service to its young master. Perhaps Juwon’s alcohol cabinet is as stocked as it seems from the outside—with more than just that expensive wine Juwon had offered Dongsik that one time.
Dongsik sets down the bag of tangerines in front of Juwon.
That, at least, gets him to look up.
Dongsik watches as Juwon slips his hands out of his hair. Juwon’s eyes gain focus on the bag of tangerines in front of him. His mouth relaxes from a thin, frustrated line into a slight gape, and his jaw goes slack after being squared and tense. Juwon eyes the tangerines, some of them rolling off the top of the pile, some of them falling on top of the others. Reddened eyes peek behind Juwon’s bangs. Dongsik’s throat tightens; he swallows, pushing down the worry and fear. He forces a smile on his face and feels the corners of his eyes get damp.
“Eat.” Dongsik says. His voice is too loud in the small apartment and perhaps too soft to be heard by the man in front of him. “You can’t drink while eating nothing.”
Juwon’s eyes gleam with unshed tears.
Dongsik motions to the pile. “I’ll peel some for you.”
Juwon only stares at him.
The usually pristine hair is out of sorts; Juwon’s hair sticks out at odd angles, some bunches stuck together with grease. Juwon’s eyelids are swollen, and his eyes and nose have turned red. Dark shadows paint the underside of Juwon’s eyes. His cheeks look hollow. His lips are cracked.
Dongsik is reminded of late autumn, when the cold begins to bite and he has to bring out the heavier blankets in his house. He is reminded of October mornings in a holding cell; of weekdays spent on his living room couch; of Sunday nights with a broken boiler and no one else home.
He wonders if Juwon might cry. He wonders if he might wipe Juwon’s tears away, and if Juwon might let him.
If he were to cast a line into the waters behind Juwon’s eyes, would he be allowed to see beneath the surface?
“Lee Dongsik.”
Juwon’s voice is soft. He sounds like he is dreaming. He looks up at Dongsik like he cannot quite believe what he is seeing, and Dongsik stares into dazed eyes. He waits for tears to fall, readies his hand. They do not fall. They only gleam in Juwon’s eyes.
Dongsik looks down and digs his hands into his pockets.
“I’ll peel, you eat. Does that sound good?”
Dongsik peeks from beneath his fringe to see Han Juwon’s small nod.
Dongsik smiles.
“Good.”
Dongsik pulls his hands out of his pockets and turns around. He walks to Juwon’s desk and—he remembers this from his first visit to Juwon’s apartment—takes the chair from behind and carries it to the coffee table. He sits down facing Juwon. He takes a tangerine from the plastic bag and punctures its skin with his thumb, and begins to peel.
He does not have to look up from the tangerine to know Juwon is still watching him.
Dongsik doesn’t bother to call Juwon out on it, nor does he want to. He just peels the tangerine; the citrus scent of the small, round fruit fills the space between them and it lingers with the smell of whiskey. He lets the peels settle on the table. He makes sure they don’t scatter. He takes care not to puncture any slices, and cradles the tangerine in one hand as he peels with the other. When all the peels have fallen to the table, he halves the tangerine and pulls away a slice. He extends the hand holding the slice across the table; he looks up.
Juwon still looks at him in disbelief.
Dongsik gives himself a lopsided smile. He pulls the tangerine slice back towards himself—and eats it. He chews as he pulls away another tangerine slice from the fruit. This time, when he hands it to Juwon, Juwon takes it.
Now, Han Juwon only stares at the shot glass of whiskey. Dongsik is careful to notice how Juwon keeps his hands dangling at the edge of the table, far from the glass.
“What are you doing here?” Juwon asks. His voice has the lightest edge of insinuation: the same edge it used to have every single time Juwon said Dongsik’s name when he had first been transferred to Manyang substation. Below the surface, though, it’s just a question. A genuine question.
Dongsik lifts another slice to his mouth, then hands another slice to Juwon. Juwon accepts it. “Do I need a reason to visit my partner?”
Juwon’s eyes light up. Then, there , Dongsik thinks. The playful irritation Dongsik has become familiar with returns to Juwon’s eyes, albeit only a shadow of it.
“I’m not your partner anymore.” Juwon says. He doesn’t mention how he has a new partner now—just that he isn’t Dongsik’s partner anymore. Dongsik chews on another tangerine slice before handing Juwon another one.
“Hm?” Dongsik says. “I remember you being told partners are supposed to stick together all 365 days of the year. I don’t remember you ever being told that it stops.” At that, Juwon shuts his eyes. He holds out his hand for another tangerine slice; Dongsik pretends he doesn’t see the small smile Juwon tries to suppress. Dongsik huffs, then hands Juwon another tangerine slice.
Juwon lifts the tangerine to his mouth. He chews. He swallows. Dongsik notes that Juwon seems to do it with a level of difficulty; he is reminded of himself back when Sangyeob had died, when his father had died, when his sister had died. Juwon tries, anyway, and that is enough for Dongsik.
Juwon opens his eyes. “Really, why are you here?” Juwon asks again. Dongsik eats another slice of the tangerine.
“I wanted to check up on you.” Dongsik says.
Juwon does not ask for another slice, so Dongsik chews on the next one. He waits—and watches as Han Juwon looks at him with those swollen eyes. The tangerine is sweet on Dongsik’s tongue: just sour enough to taste like citrus, just sweet enough to drown out the bitter smell of whiskey.
Juwon’s mouth opens, but for a while, nothing comes out of it. He closes it, swallows, then tries again.
“Do you not have somewhere you need to be right now?” Juwon asks.
“No, not really.” Dongsik says. He slips another slice of the tangerine into his mouth. Tries to hand Juwon another one. “Nothing much for me these days.” When Juwon does not take the slice, Dongsik eats it instead.
Juwon’s hair sits messy on his head, and Dongsik thinks of how this is nothing like the Juwon he had met over two years ago. Han Juwon back then would have never let himself be caught out of sorts, unkempt. Dongsik stares at him. How far he has come, from the cheeky little prince, to kneeling in the rain, to this. He traces Juwon’s face with his eyes.
Juwon frowns. “Have you eaten?”
Dongsik juts out his lip in mock-contemplation. He nods.
He watches the crease between Juwon’s brows deepen, those eyes grow alive with confusion.
“Have you?” Dongsik asks.
The question gives Juwon pause for a moment.
“No.”
Dongsik extends the hand holding the rest of the tangerine to Juwon, and Juwon eyes it. It takes a moment for him to reach out and take the remaining tangerine slices, and when he does, Dongsik pushes himself off the chair and stands.
“It’s not good to have nothing but whiskey and tangerines.” Dongsik says. He buries his hands in his pockets, holds Juwon’s gaze. “It’s too late for breakfast, so I’ll make some lunch.”
Juwon blinks. His eyes grow wide.
“Don’t worry about your kitchen.” Dongsik says. “I’m not as much of a mess as you might think.”
Juwon opens his mouth to say something, but before he can say anything about that being unnecessary, about being able to cook or order for himself, about Dongsik not needing to worry about Juwon and that Juwon would be fine even if he was left alone, Dongsik cuts him off.
“It might take a while since I’m not used to your kitchen. So just finish that tangerine for now. You can eat the others if I’m still not done by then.” Dongsik points to the bag of tangerines on the table. He watches Juwon’s gaze follow his finger. “You can peel your own tangerines, can’t you, Inspector Han Juwon?”
Juwon sighs. Huffs, more like. He looks up at Dongsik in the mock of a glare—but behind brown irises, Dongsik thinks he sees shy gratitude.
“Of course, Mr. Lee Dongsik.”
Dongsik smiles. “That settles it then.” Dongsik holds Juwon’s stare for a moment more, watching the growing unrest in those brown eyes. The whiskey has done its job to hold Juwon down for the night, but alcohol can only keep things at bay at night. In the morning, it is different. Dongsik leaves the bottle and glass of whiskey on the coffee table when he heads to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, he opens the nearest cupboard for a pan. To his dismay, he finds bottled spices and cooking wine, but no pan. He checks the cupboard beside it, and the one beside it.
“The pans are in the rightmost cupboard.” Juwon says. “And the cooking utensils in the topmost drawer in the middle.”
Just as Juwon had said, the pans are in the rightmost cupboard and the cooking utensils in the topmost drawer in the middle. Dongsik takes out a pan and a spatula. He peeks out of the kitchen and into the living room where Juwon sits on the couch, staring at the remaining slices of tangerine in his hand.
Dongsik waits. He watches Juwon from behind the refrigerator door as he skims through the contents.
Dongsik finds a container near the bottom shelf that he thinks might be useful. He takes it out then shoulders the refrigerator door closed. In the living room, Juwon peels a tangerine slice away from the bulk. Juwon slips it into his mouth. He chews it. Dongsik’s shoulders relax, and he goes about with ease preparing the ingredients for their lunch.
The apartment smells of a soft, tangy, citrus scent.
Juwon turns the tangerine in his hand. The peels sit discarded on the far side of the table, where Dongsik had been sitting. When was the last time someone peeled him a tangerine? When was the last time someone peeled him fruit? He tries to recall a time, with no strings attached and no unspoken requests toward his father, but recalls nothing.
Perhaps his nanny had, when he was younger. But she always looked at him with a kind of pity, and she was paid to take care of him rather than did it of her own accord.
Juwon peels a tangerine slice off of the bulk and slips it into his mouth. It is not too sweet, nor too sour. It is just right, and it washes away the bitterness of the whiskey. How much had he drunk last night? He is not sure, but one look at the bottle tells him it is more than he thought. He had just filled and filled his glass, over and over again.
It was harder to see how much he’d poured out of the bottle in the dark.
Now, he stares into the amber bottle. More than half—no, a little over three quarters of the bottle is gone. That was a newly opened bottle. He had slipped it out of his alcohol cabinet as soon as he got home last night, at 10 in the evening.
It is now nearing 10 in the morning.
Juwon sighs. He slips another tangerine slice into his mouth. He used to be colder, not letting anything get to him, gritting his teeth through the failure and the guilt when he ended up with a mess in his hands.
No. That’s not right.
He thinks back to an early morning in March, two years ago. He had scrubbed his hands raw until they threatened to cover themselves with blood that was his own. Underneath his nails, he had kept seeing dried flecks of Jung Cheol-mun’s blood. The water in his sink had turned pink, so there had still been blood on his hands, hadn’t there? He remembers looking into the mirror and seeing his wide eyes. Panicked. Fearful.
Guilty.
Death has always been such a terrifying thing to him, especially when he could have kept it from happening with his own two hands. That had been the case before, and that is the case now.
From the kitchen, the smell of vinegar and chili powder waft into the rest of the apartment.
Lee Dongsik had been here then, and Lee Dongsik is here now.
Something sizzles in the pan. Juwon listens to the sound of steel on steel. Dongsik seems to be frying something, spatula in hand, dispersing it into the pan. A pause—then a new wave of loud sizzling fills the atmosphere of the apartment in a staticky sort of noise.
Lee Dongsik.
Juwon breathes in deep.
In the kitchen, Dongsik hums. Juwon turns his head to watch Dongsik. It is not an image Juwon thought he would ever see: Lee Dongsik, in his kitchen, one hand on the handle of a pan and the other hand holding a spatula. A container of kimchi sits half-closed on the counter by the stove. Dongsik mixes the contents in the pan, which from a glance, Juwon sees is rice.
He had not been able to imagine life beyond catching Lee Dongsik. If anything, he had no longer imagined a life where he put handcuffs on Dongsik. Perhaps he had imagined them going on as partners in the GIU, or transferred to the RIU, or some other unit where they would keep working together, as partners. Before that, and before Manyang, he had only imagined being applauded and upheld in glory by his former colleagues in the Foreign Affairs Division. There was never a future for him outside of police work. Juwon never dreamed of a future outside of it, either.
He wonders, now, what that would look like. Wonders if his future might have Dongsik in his kitchen again, cooking another meal for him.
There is the house in Manyang. The country house in Oksan.
Dongsik hums. The spice and sourness mingle in the air. Juwon wonders if he is allowed to have this, and more of this, whenever he is not wearing his uniform.
Dongsik turns off the stove and searches the cupboards. He takes out two bowls and transfers the contents of the pan into them. The reddened rice falls into the bowls with a flourish, and Juwon watches Dongsik clean the kimchi fried rice out of the pan.
Just as Juwon wonders if he should say something, Dongsik glances in his direction and smiles.
Dongsik leaves the pan on the stove and sticks a spoon into each bowl. He brings the bowls of kimchi fried rice to the coffee table. He sets it down, and Juwon watches as Dongsik’s growing fringe falls in front of his eyes.
The scent dances itself up Juwon’s nose and into his stomach.
“I made kimchi fried rice.”
Juwon feels his hunger for the first time that day and lets a small smile pull his lips up from its corners. In front of him, Dongsik smiles. The corners of Dongsik’s eyes crinkle, just like it did that day when they met again for the first time.
“Thank you.” Juwon says.
Dongsik laughs. He looks embarrassed, somehow, perhaps abashed—and it fills Juwon’s chest with a warm feeling as he looks down at the kimchi fried rice.
“If you’re really thankful, you should finish your bowl.”
Juwon pulls his bowl toward himself. In front of him, Dongsik takes a seat.
“It’s a good thing you had kimchi.” Dongsik says. “You don’t have anything in that big refrigerator of yours.”
Juwon frowns. “I just bought groceries.”
“Yeah, well…” Dongsik says, trailing off. “There’s no meat in there. If Jaeyi knew what your fridge looked like, she’d force your pockets clean from all the meat she’d make you bring home.”
Juwon digs his spoon in the bowl of kimchi fried rice and scoops some in his mouth.
Dongsik does the same.
“And you, Mr. Lee Dongsik,” Juwon says, taunting. “What does your fridge look like?”
Dongsik looks up at him. He maintains Juwon’s stare as he scoops another spoonful into his mouth, chews, and swallows. “I’m surprised you don’t know that yet, given how many times you’ve invited yourself into my house.”
Juwon nods. “I’m only familiar with your basement. I’ve never even been up to your second floor.”
Dongsik laughs. Juwon thinks it’s one of his favorite sounds in the world.
“I didn’t think there were still things you didn’t know about me.”
Juwon glares at him. The glint in Dongsik’s eyes is playful, and in there, Juwon sees his own playful glare reflected back at him. He lets a corner of his mouth curve up.
“And why would I know everything about you?”
“Don’t you remember, Inspector Han Juwon,” Dongsik says between spoonfuls of kimchi fried rice, “that you used to stalk me?”
Juwon huffs. “And you didn’t?”
“Well,” Dongsik says, looking innocent. Trying to look innocent. Purposefully making himself guilty by trying too hard to look clueless. “What was your partner supposed to do? Leave you to go searching in Busan alone?”
Juwon chuckles. Dongsik smiles at him. It is a warm, happy thing, out of place on that face had it been back to the first time they had met. So much has changed since then. Juwon watches Dongsik dig into his bowl of kimchi fried rice; back then, Han Juwon would have not accepted any sort of familiar company. Now, he finds himself easing into it, welcoming its presence.
“What don’t I know about you?” Juwon asks.
“Hm.” Dongsik says. Juwon waits for the teasing, the joking, the poking fun at such a direct question that Juwon wouldn’t usually ask. Nothing comes. “I can cook.”
Juwon chews the kimchi fried rice. It is good. But is that not more because of the kimchi than the cook?
Dongsik takes the silence in stride.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Mr. Lee Dongsik, instant ramen does not count as cooking.”
Dongsik huffs. “I’ll have you know I cook more than just instant ramen. I even cook good rice. I cooked better rice than Yuyeon.”
A flash of grief. Just a flash, so brief that had Juwon not been watching, he wouldn’t have caught it.
He thinks of the old woman.
He grinds his teeth together.
“Our Yuyeon always made rice that was just a tad bit undercooked. Not really undercooked, not the type that’s really hard and rubbery. But not particularly soft. I, on the other hand,” Dongsik says, dramatically flipping his fringe away from his face, “always made the softest rice.”
The old guilt comes surging up Juwon’s throat. He gulps it down. He tries to focus on the man in front of him, smiling at him, having cooked for him.
“That’s barely anything to brag about.”
Dongsik scoffs. “Do you know how hard it is to get the perfect, soft rice?” Dongsik’s brows raise, and he looks ridiculous like this: outraged for something so small as cooking rice. He pouts as he puts another spoonful in his mouth. “Put a little too much water and it’s too mushy, put a little too less, and it’s too dry.”
Juwon grins. “Isn’t that the point of measuring the water?”
“But,” Dongsik says, still arguing his point, “even if you measure the water, you can still put in too little or too much.”
They finish the kimchi fried rice like that, exchanging snarky remarks and teasing each other. Juwon thinks he would not mind spending more days like this, in his apartment or even in Dongsik’s house. He imagines them in Dongsik’s living room, eating tangerines on the old couch while talking about everything and nothing. He could make tea for them. Dongsik could give him a tour of his refrigerator.
When they finish washing the dishes and putting them away, Juwon watches Dongsik walk out of the kitchen and, to his surprise, head to the bed.
Dongsik falls back on the bed with a huff.
“Such a comfy bed and you’re not sleeping on it yet.” Dongsik meets Juwon’s gaze at the foot of the bed. Juwon crosses his arms over his chest. “Inspector Han Juwon,” Dongsik pats the spot beside him, “would you like to join me on your soft bed?”
Juwon walks over to the bed. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“So?” Dongsik says. He pushes himself up, braces himself on his elbows. “Do you have anywhere else to be, Inspector Han Juwon?”
Juwon shakes his head. “No.” He says. Dongsik laughs, and that warm feeling fills Juwon’s chest again. It feels like one night in February, Dongsik teasing him for being worried; it feels like seeing Dongsik again after a long year in the streets of Manyang.
Dongsik pats the spot beside him again. “If you’re so against sleeping in the middle of the afternoon, we could make use of your modern TV. You’ve seen my TV before, haven’t you? Nothing like yours.”
Juwon follows Dongsik’s request and takes the place on the bed beside him. “Fine. We can watch whatever movie’s on.”
He turns the TV on.
Dongsik tugs at his sleeve as he lies with half his body on the bed. Juwon follows; he lets his back fall onto the bed while Dongsik lies beside him on his side.
Some action movie plays, all guns drawn and dark halls. On Juwon’s clock, the numbers show that it is 3:45 PM. His apartment has brightened up since Dongsik had come here, owing more than just to the sun. Juwon watches Dongsik, head propped up on an arm with his eyes on the TV. His hair is tousled, messed up, as if he hadn’t bothered with a comb.
Juwon is drawn to a stray part of Dongsik’s fringe that has fallen over Dongsik’s brow.
He is brought back to the morning of Jung Cheol-mun’s death. Dongsik had driven him home, walked him up to the apartment, ushered him into the bathroom. Juwon expected him to leave. Juwon thought he wanted Dongsik gone. Then Juwon had opened his bathroom door to Dongsik on the couch, half-asleep. Dongsik got up as soon as Juwon opened the door, shook the sleep from his eyes and plastered on a cocky smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, but it was enough.
That morning, the light from outside had bathed Juwon’s apartment a deep, cold blue. Dongsik’s eyes, however, were a warm brown, like a hearth, like a bonfire.
How did that happen? Juwon wonders. When did Dongsik start looking at him like that? Juwon sighs. He used to feel such hatred at the sight of Lee Dongsik. Now, he watches the TV light play around on Dongsik’s face.
Juwon’s apartment darkens. Outside, the clouds turn gray.
Juwon is on a mountain.
He is in his police uniform and has draped a raincoat over himself. The rain has been falling for a while, but just now, it begins to fall harder. Little can be heard over the patter of raindrops on leaves and branches.
He tries to shout, but he cannot hear his own voice in the din of the noise. He tries again, only to find he has lost his voice, and that he opens his mouth to no avail.
He is looking for someone. That is all he knows.
He pushes past bushes and scrambles over shrubs, holding on from tree to tree to keep his balance. He opens his mouth. No sound comes out. He becomes more frantic, more panicked. He is afraid. Of what, he does not know.
Just as he lodges his foot by a rock, something slides past him. He hears a cry rip itself out of his throat. It is the first thing he has heard above the noise of the rain. He thinks he sees the body of an old woman, neck broken, limbs sticking out in the wrong angles, then his vision focuses, and it is a young woman in her early thirties, blood pooled around her, her eyes wide but lifeless.
It is his mother.
In a panic, he turns, stumbles, scrambles. He digs into the earth, clawing at rocks and roots to get away. It is a dream—he knows it is a dream because his mother has been dead for years. Still, he drags his way away, away, and when he glances back it is the old woman again, staring up at him, asking him in death why he is running away. Why would he run away? Why did he fail?
He cries, apologizing over and over again, the rain and mud seeping through his clothes past the raincoat.
Behind the old woman, his mother stares at him. Behind her, Superintendent Jung Cheol-mun and Chief Nam Sang-bae. Behind them, Lee Geum-hwa. Behind her, Lee Yu-yeon.
The dead are lined up amongst the trees and they watch him. He cries, apologizing over and over again, but the rain drowns out his apologies. They do not hear him. They cannot hear him.
It is just a dream. He knows this. But his lungs constrict and he finds it hard to breathe. He shuts his eyes, punches at his chest to let him breathe. When he opens his eyes, he is in Lee Dongsik’s garden, stumbling out of the basement. When he turns back around, the dead watch him from behind the basement door. Juwon trips, face hitting the concrete. It is just a dream. But perhaps he does not deserve to wake up.
He shuts his eyes and forces himself to breathe. He counts: one, two, three. He brings himself back to the memory of Dongsik in his apartment, and of a plastic bag full of tangerines.
Juwon wakes up with a start.
His heartbeat thunders a rhythm in his ears. He forces himself to breathe through his nose, and as he does, the scent of flower buds fills his nose. He knits his brows. He is at home, in his apartment; he lies with half his body on his bed. He squints his eyes open to see Dongsik’s hunched back silhouetted against the dim TV light. The volume is soft, softer than he remembers setting it. Dongsik continues watching the movie that is on, unaware of much beyond it.
Juwon breathes deep, into his nose, into his lungs.
The memory of the nightmare quickly leaves his mind, replaced by the guilt he had tried to drown in whiskey.
“She had a son.” Juwon says. It takes less than a moment for Dongsik’s attention to shift to him—if Dongsik had been paying attention to the movie at all.
The distant thunder rumbles.
Juwon pushes himself up. He sits. He lets his gaze fall to the floor the color of the soil on the mountainside.
“He was the one who reported her missing. He’d been coming back to the station every day to see if we'd found her yet.”
Juwon thinks of Dongsik’s mother, Kim Yeonghui, and the first time he had seen her. He had wondered if that was what a son’s love looked like in families that were not like his.
“He joined us on the search that day. I drove him to the mountain.”
They had received a tip from the local substation that an old woman with dementia had been seen wandering close to the mountain trail. Juwon had received the call just as the son of the old woman came into the station for the third time that week. He begged Juwon to let him come with them, and while Juwon tried to persuade him otherwise, relented in the end. He drove the police car to the mountain. The son sat in the backseat while Juwon’s partner sat in front.
“The forecast said it was going to rain. We didn’t believe it would. It was too sunny. How could it rain?”
Juwon’s partner had turned the radio on to a news station. The forecast had been on, and talked about localized thunderstorms within the next couple of hours. The sun had been blazing, and the old woman was still out there. Juwon hoped it wouldn’t rain. The old woman’s son prayed for blue skies for the rest of the day.
Neither of them were answered.
“She was… on the trail.” Juwon says. He gulps down the lump in his throat. He breathes through the tightening of his sinuses. “She was… far up into climbing when we got there.”
The rain had poured. The lightning had struck. The wind had begun buffeting the trees this way and that, and the trail had grown darker than it should have been in the middle of the afternoon.
“Her son said she used to love hiking. She was a hiker when she was younger, and that’s how she and her husband met.”
Juwon had done his best to sprint through the trail the harder the rain fell. He had even cut corners on the path a few times, risking his own safety on the slippery stones and loosening mud.
He would have slipped, he thinks, had he still been wearing his leather shoes like before.
“Then she…”
It happened fast. A gust of wind. A blur in the mud. A trail down the mountainside path. Then a thud, nearly inaudible in the thundering storm.
Juwon had tried to grab her. He had thrown his body over the rail, reached his hand out as far as it could reach.
She was only an inch away. Only an inch.
Juwon sucks in a breath as his vision blurs. He feels Dongsik’s hand on his shoulder. He blinks, and the floor below him gains two puddles at his feet.
The thunder claps. Outside, the first sounds of rain come falling down.
Dongsik tightens his fingers on Juwon’s shoulder. Juwon curls his hands into fists—and punches at his leg.
“I should have driven faster.” He punctuates his words with a punch. And another. And another. “I should have hurried. I should have—” Juwon gasps for breath. Tears lodge themselves into his throat. He thinks of the old woman. Imagines grabbing her arm in his hand, pulling her out of the mud and onto the path.
He had soiled his arms in mud once, on a reed field in another town far from Seoul.
Juwon tries to hold back his sobs. Still, he hears himself choke on tears.
He feels Dongsik’s hand covering his fist. He raises his face to find Dongsik leaning close to him.
“You did what you could.” Dongsik says. “You did everything you could do.”
Juwon shakes his head. No, he did not. He could have done more. He could have done enough .
Dongsik brings Juwon’s fists together and holds them both in his hands. He looks down at their hands, takes a deep breath.
“You can’t do anything more for the dead.” Dongsik says. Juwon heaves through his sobs. Beside him, Dongsik is quiet, calm. Somber.
Juwon wonders what it would have been like for Dongsik to find his sister’s bones in that basement wall, hands clasped together in prayer.
In Dongsik’s eyes, Juwon sees regret.
“You can turn back time in your mind. But you can’t help them anymore than you did. You can wish to have done more or tried harder. But you can only really repent by doing more for those who are still alive.”
Dongsik peers up into Juwon’s eyes, tears shining in his own.
Outside, the rain falls in earnest.
“Do you understand, Juwon-ah?”
Juwon falls onto Dongsik’s shoulder and cries.
He cries. He cries for the old woman who would never again be reunited with her son. He cries for the son who had hoped to bring his mother home again. He cries for the mother he did not look for, for the boy he had been when she left. He cries for Lee Yuyeon, Kim Yeonghui, for their family that had been wrecked by a sin he inherited in his blood. He cries for Nam Sang-bae, their gentle Chief, who had only ever wanted what was best for them yet ended up thrown into the sea. He cries for the trail of corpses he has left in his wake, the people who he could not save, the people he should have tried harder to keep from harm.
He cries for Lee Dongsik, who holds him in his arms, whose gentle hold Juwon does not know if he deserves, who soft curls tickle Juwon’s cheek.
Dongsik’s hands soothe circles into Juwon’s back. When Juwon’s cries grow hoarse, Dongsik pulls Juwon closer to him in the dim light.
By the time the tears leave Juwon’s eyes, the storm falls in an angry downpour.
Juwon burrows his face in the crook of Dongsik’s neck, as if perhaps hiding from the world might make his sins less damning. He curls his fingers into Dongsik’s shirt, begging for the pain in his chest to go away. Dongsik rubs his back as his sobs begin to subside.
“Do you want soup for dinner?” Dongsik asks him.
Juwon can only mumble a response.
The rain drums a rhythm on the windows.
Juwon stirs to the feel of fingertips on his forehead, combing through his hair. He breathes in. It smells of eggs and green onions. When he cracks his eyes open, the darkness of night answers him.
The only light in his apartment seems to come from his kitchen.
He lifts his gaze away from the palm in front of his face to Dongsik’s gentle gaze. Dongsik sits on his bed, one hand braced at the side, watching Juwon wake. Dongsik smells like earth and budding blossoms. He smells like the rain that pours in early spring.
Dongsik nudges his head to the side.
“I made egg drop soup.”
Juwon lets a small smile grow on his face.
He does not tease Dongsik. Instead, he scoots up in bed, leaning his back against the headboard. On his bedside, the egg drop soup sits on a tray. Beside it, a glass of water.
“Have you eaten?” Juwon asks Dongsik.
Dongsik chuckles. In the dim light, his eyes look like stars peeking through clouds in the night sky.
“No, I haven’t.”
Juwon opens his mouth. Eat with me .
Without so much as a word, Dongsik pats Juwon’s knee.
“I’ll get my bowl from the kitchen. Anything else you want me to get?”
Juwon thinks back to crying in Dongsik’s arms. He thinks back to the feel of Dongsik’s curls on his cheek: soft and gentle.
In front of him, Dongsik looks at him the same way.
“The folding tray,” Juwon says. “It’s beside the other trays.”
He watches Dongsik get up and go to the kitchen. Dongsik opens the leftmost cupboard and takes the folding tray out, then shuts the cupboard closed.
He brings his bowl of egg drop soup in one hand and the folding tray in the other. Juwon lifts his soup and water away from the tray on his bedside table and lets Dongsik set up the folding tray on his lap.
Only then does Juwon notice the chair by his bedside table.
Perhaps the soup had been cooked for a while now, and Dongsik had let Juwon sleep a little more. Though the soup is still hot, it does not seem to have been newly boiled. Outside, the rain falls. Juwon shivers. He brings his spoon to his lips and takes a sip of Dongsik’s egg drop soup.
It is warm, and it is delicious.
At his bedside, Dongsik eats his own bowl in silence.
The light from the TV eases some of the dimness of the apartment. The color of the LEDs shift as the scenes change; the dark apartment is cast in muted hues of red, green, and blue. Outside, the rain blurred the city lights so they looked like little more than interference on an old video tape.
Juwon notices that, now, the TV has been muted.
“What time are you leaving?” Juwon asks. His voice, softer than usual, fills the silence as if in a vacuum.
Dongsik hums. “It’s late. I’ll leave in the morning.”
As if in answer, the rain drums on the windows.
“You should stop sleeping on the couch.” Juwon says. He remembers the first time he found out that Dongsik had slept on the family’s living room couch for the past seventeen years. He remembers Dongsik refusing to meet his questioning gaze.
“Inspector Han Juwon,” Dongsik says. There is a teasing note in his voice. Juwon feels the amusement paint a smile on his face before Dongsik continues the question. “Are you inviting me into your bed?”
A pause of steel on ceramic. Juwon turns to his side.
Simply, he says,
“Yes.”
He meets Dongsik’s eyes for a moment, and there is a warmth there, a softness. Juwon wonders how many times in Dongsik’s life have people offered him anything, be it a warm bed or a warm meal. He wonders how many times Dongsik has declined, had retreated into the home he made for himself, with a broken boiler and dusty rooms. He wonders if he could ever understand, if he could ever truly comprehend the loneliness it takes to turn a bright-eyed twenty-year-old boy into the man at his bedside.
Dongsik chuckles. The TV’s light casts a faint pink over his cheeks.
“Can’t say anyone’s been that forward with me before.” Dongsik says.
The TV shifts into a bluer light. On Dongsik’s cheeks, Juwon can only barely see the lightest blush.
Dongsik smirks. “I hope you don’t mind me hogging space in your bed.”
Outside, lightning flashes.
“I’d prefer it over you complaining of backaches.”
Dongsik laughs, and the sound eases the pressure off of Juwon’s ears.
They finish their soup in silence. As Juwon lifts the folding tray off of his lap, Dongsik takes the bowl off of it and whisks their dishes away into the kitchen.
“I’ll take care of the dishes.” Dongsik says. “You should go and take a bath.”
So, Juwon obliges.
The water is warm on his skin. He realizes then that he has not changed out of the clothes he came home in last night, and that his last shower had been at the police station after the failed rescue.
The failed rescue.
Juwon presses a palm on the cold, tiled wall of the shower. He shuts his eyes closed. He breathes deep in through his nose—then out.
He thinks back to what Dongsik had told him earlier.
‘You can only really repent by doing more for those who are still alive.’
Hasn’t he heard that from Dongsik before?
Juwon lets the warm water wash over him. That’s right. That’s what Dongsik had told him that night in his father’s house. Juwon had told Dongsik he would leave the police force. He was going to resign from his post to make up for his sins. Then Dongsik told him off for it. Told him that the only way to make up for it all is to stay and do good.
Juwon shuts off the water and dries himself off. He sighs. The clothes he pulls over his skin are soft, warm, and gentle. He is reminded of Dongsik’s fingers in his hair, pushing it off his forehead.
He comes out of the shower to Dongsik already in bed. The kitchen light has been turned off, as well as the TV. The only light left on is Juwon’s bedside lamp.
In the living room, the empty glass and the bottle of whiskey are gone from the coffee table. In the kitchen, the tangerines have been put in a bowl.
Dongsik smiles at him.
“You look much better now. More pink to your cheeks.”
Juwon pulls back the covers. “Are you sure it’s not the egg drop soup?”
Dongsik raises a brow. “Are you complimenting my cooking?”
Juwon rolls his eyes. He does not suppress the smile blooming on his lips. “Good night, Mr. Lee Dongsik.”
Juwon turns off the light. The room is plunged in darkness.
“Good night, Juwon-ah.”
Juwon falls asleep to the sound of rain on his window and Lee Dongsik breathing.
The room smells like fabric conditioner and disinfectants.
Dongsik furrows his brows. His house had never smelled like that before. And the bed—at home, he slept on the couch, and even if he had slept in his bed, it would have been tougher, dustier, hardened with age and lack of use.
Then he remembers.
He opens his eyes to the gentle light of morning. Outside, the gentle patter of a drizzle against the windows. He lies in bed in Room 2701, and across from him, Han Juwon is still asleep.
Juwon’s hair falls over his face. Dongsik wants to reach out, brush them away, trace the lines that go down from Juwon’s forehead to his cheeks.
But Dongsik’s hands are held in between Juwon’s, just like they were that night of the arrest.
Dongsik smiles.