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The baby had finally fallen asleep, clutching the ragged corner of a blanket that smelled like old motel soap and dead skin. She looked peaceful, which felt illegal in a room like this — a cheap box of full of ghosts, one bathroom, two mattresses, and three ruined lives.
Gihun was sitting stiffly on the couch, empty mug clutched in both hands. He didn’t even like the tea. It tasted like roots and burnt wood. Inho had said it was calming. He always was a liar.
Inho sat across from him, not touching, just close. They’d been sitting like this more often lately - not because of anything said or done, no bridges gapped or wounds soothed over - but merely because there was so little left that felt solid. Inho was the rotten and splintered piece of driftwood that Gihun had clung onto in the face of the crashing waves - preferable to drowning, but only by a margin.
They didn’t talk much in the evenings anymore. The baby had just gone down, which meant there was a chance — a slim, impossible chance — of two straight hours of peace. Though, they weren’t the kind of men that peace seemed to stick to.
At some point during the night, Inho rose and wandered into the kitchenette and began fussing over a chipped enamel kettle. Gihun could hear the faint clink of porcelain against porcelain, like a lullaby just out of tune.
“Would you like some more tea?” Inho’s voice came soft, casual — as if offering tea could solve any problem. He appeared doorway-wide, holding two cups. The steam curled up, blurring his features like a memory.
Throat tight, Gihun nodded.
Inho set the new mug in Gihun’s hands, then took the other and perched on the couch’s armrest. He sipped thoughtfully, eyes tracing Gihun’s profile. Inho had always been good at watching people — trained for it. Now, he watched without agenda.
They sat in silence, rain rapping softly against the window. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. The baby shifted but didn’t wake.
“She’s dreaming.” He nodded toward the crib. “Sometimes I try to imagine what she sees.”
Gihun frowned. “And?”
“Nothing good, I suspect. But maybe things get brighter in dreams.” Inho’s gaze flicked back to Gihun. “Do you dream?”
“Not lately.” Gihun’s voice was a whisper. “Or I don’t remember.” That was a lie. He did remember. He remembered everything.
Inho half-smiled, as though he recognised an old joke. He reached out, not too quickly, and folded Gihun’s hand around the mug, steadying it. The touch was light — so light it might have been the breeze from the open window. Gihun’s heart thudded like a warning bell. He wanted to pull away. He didn’t. Inho’s thumb brushed Gihun’s palm, and he hesitated, waiting for Gihun to close the gap or strike the hand away.
When nothing happened, Inho shifted even closer, enough that Gihun could smell the starched cleanliness of Inho’s shirt — the faint whiff of whisky.
Then, Inho did something smaller. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind Gihun’s ear — slow, almost apologetic. It was the kind of a gesture you gave a cat learning to trust you, or a friend who needed proof that you were still human.
And then Inho leaned forward.
Toward Gihun’s face.
Toward his mouth.
It wasn’t desperate or demanding, as befitted his character. It was more the kind of kiss someone gives in lieu of a question. A tentative, gentle thing that flew in the face of everything Gihun had ever known about Inho. If he ever did know anything about him.
Gihun’s pulse raced and he felt the room tilt. The faint glow of the lamp painted Inho’s skin gold. He swallowed.
“I—”
Inho paused, as though suspended by a single heartbeat. Then he leaned in, eyes soft and unreadable, and brushed his lips across Gihun’s own — no more than a whisper of a kiss.
Gihun jerked backwards, his spine rigid against the couch’s cushion. His chest heaved with a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Inho sat back, gaze steady.
“Sorry,” he said, voice low and rough with uncertainty.
Gihun’s mouth opened and closed. He managed, “It’s not that.” His own words tasted strange, almost bitter. Inho waited. Gihun closed his eyes, feeling every scar and expectation shift beneath his skin. “I don’t… want that,” he said, voice breaking. “Not that way. Not ever.”
Inho’s expression flickered, though with what, Gihun couldn’t quite figure out. He pulled back, eyes wide but unreadable. Like a man surprised to find a trap where he thought he’d laid down a gift.
“I understand. I’ve…done things to you.”
I’ve done things to you.
As if everything that happened could be so easily summed up.
Gihun wanted to laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was pathetic.
That was the thing about guilt — it always came late and dressed like humility. Like a man showing up to your funeral with flowers he forgot to water so that they’d browned and wilted at the edges. A facsimile of an apology. Inho had been the face behind the gun, the voice in the walls, the hand that pulled the trigger and sent Jung-Bae to the floor like a broken toy. And yet here he was, blinking at Gihun like a kicked puppy.
The problem wasn’t that Gihun didn’t care. It was that he cared too much and in the wrong ways — ways that didn’t come with heat or hands or hunger, but with ache. Rage sat under his ribs like a second heart, and sometimes it beat louder than the first. He wanted to scream at Inho, You killed people and I still look for you when I’m scared. Love — or whatever this was — didn’t make sense. It never had. But it curled up next to hatred like twins in the womb, and Gihun didn’t know how to separate them without cutting out a piece of himself.
Gihun loved Inho the way a soldier might love the landmine that didn’t kill him. There were mornings he’d wake up and forget, just for a second, that this was the man who gave the orders that put bullets in people’s skulls because society had failed them. Then he’d remember. Funny how the brain does that — throws you a blanket, then lights it on fire.
Sometimes he’d watch Inho feed the baby, cradling her like she was some fragile egg, and Gihun would think: You’re not supposed to be good at this. You’re supposed to be the villain. But villains make warm tea too. Villains wipe down counters and hum lullabies they don’t quite remember the words to. Gihun hated him, sometimes. Fully and thoroughly. The kind of hate that eats at you like rust. But under that was something uglier: understanding. And maybe something worse than that.
What a stupid thing to feel for a man in a dead man’s coat. What a sick, stupid thing.
“You didn’t do those things to just me. You did them to everyone.”
Inho didn’t respond. He was good at that — the silent type of guilt. The kind that was to be endured. And endure he would.
Gihun went on, because he had to. Because stopping meant feeling it all.
“You shot Jung-Bae in the chest like he was a - a problem. A loose thread you needed to cut. You stood behind that mask as you murdered people by the hundreds as if - as if it could shield you. Make you exempt,” He hissed, acrid spit flinging from his mouth as if to make physical the hatred that boiled and churned in his throat, like lava spewing from a volcano, “As if you could fucking hide from it.”
Still no answer.
“And then you come here. You change diapers. You make porridge. You warm bottles thinking it makes up for everything you’ve done.” His voice cracked like an old cup. “But it doesn’t.” The silence cracked open like a fault line.
“I want to hate you,” Gihun whispered. “I try. Every day. I look at you and remember the island, and the guns, and Sang-woo choking on his own blood. I remember what you did to those people. What you did to me.” He turned now, finally, and met Inho’s eyes. There was no heat in them. Merely exhaustion. A grief that had nowhere to go.
Inho looked down, jaw tight. He expected pushback. A flagellation, perhaps. Instead, Inho just nodded once.
Gihun looked at him — really looked — and he couldn’t make sense of what he saw. This was the man who watched people beg for their lives through a two-way mirror. And yet this was also the man who now fell asleep sitting upright to keep the baby from rolling off his chest.
Two different people with the same face.
He was the worst thing of all: human. Achingly human.
Gihun pressed his fingers into his temples. “I don’t know which version of you is real.”
“I don’t either,” Inho said.
Gihun looked back down at his hands. “It should be easier to hate you.”
“I know.”
“You know I’m not going to fall in love with you, right?”
“I know.” Inho repeated.
“It’s not — well, it is you. You’re fucking awful. But I meant what I said when I said I don’t want that. Not just with you. With anyone. Not my style.” Gihun bit out, giving Inho a pointed look.
“Oh.” Inho breathed, eyebrows raising in slight surprise, “I thought you had a daughter?”
“That’s not how that works and you know it.” Gihun deadpanned.
Silence fell for a beat, neither knowing what to say.
“I just - I need you to know that before we go any further into…whatever this is.” Gihun said after a while, voice soft as if anything louder would bring the walls crumbling down around their ears.
“What do you want it to be?”
“I’m not sure,” Gihun answered, “Does it have to be anything?”
“Do you ever wonder,” Inho says, voice rough like gravel, “if we’re… stuck together because we don’t know how to be alone?”
Gihun’s eyes flickered — a storm of emotions masked by tired resignation. “You were the center of my universe for three years. In the worst way possible, mind you. Like a black hole.”
Inho snorted.
Gihun turned his head to stare at the mug still clutched tight within his hands. His chest felt tight, like there was a massive stone pressing down on it. “I hated you so much I thought I’d explode. Every memory was a knife twisting, and every time I thought I was done bleeding, you showed up again — like some cruel punchline.”
Gihun ran his hand through his hair, frustration seeping from every pore. “I don’t know what I want anymore. You’re this… constant.”
The silence grew thick, the kind that swallowed whole conversations and left only echoes. “You need me.”
Gihun’s laugh was dry and brittle. “Yeah, well. You need me too. Or you wouldn’t still be here, breaking your back over baby bottles and clean laundry.”
“We’re good at needing each other,” Inho said, voice low. Gihun didn’t answer. He knew it was true. They were like two halves of a broken mirror — jagged, sharp edges, but somehow still reflecting the same world.
“But I’m not going to pretend this is anything like normal,” Gihun said. “I don’t lean in. You know that. I can’t. It’s not easy to…forget.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Inho reassured, “Not anymore.”
“I haven’t forgiven you,” Gihun said. “Maybe I never will. But I’m willing to make this work. For her, if nothing else.”
“I don’t expect that,” Inho said. “All I want is for you to let me be here. To be enough.”
Gihun nodded slowly, the weight of the years and the wounds settling inside him.
The room didn’t change. The wallpaper still curled at the corners like it was trying to get away. The fan still spun on the ceiling with all the lazy dignity of a creature who had stopped pretending to be useful. The baby was still asleep, snoring lightly, her tiny fingers curled into fists. And Inho was sitting there, still. Waiting for Gihun to come to him.
That was the trick with Gihun. He didn’t move toward people. Not naturally, anyhow. He’d been chased his whole life, and he knew how to run better than anyone. But staying? Moving toward someone instead of away from them? That was something else entirely.
Gihun looked down at his hands. His knuckles still pink from the cold. There were scars there, quiet and deep. “You’re a bastard,” Gi-hun said, tone not quite harsh but not quite soft either.
“Yeah,” Inho replied. “But I’m your bastard now.”
“Hah! Didn’t take you for the corny type.”
They sat there, bodies not quite touching, like two tectonic plates holding very still because any shift might cause another disaster.
And then Gihun moved.
Not much but enough.
He let himself lean, a few degrees off centre. His shoulder touched Inho’s.
It was nothing, and it was everything.
“I don’t know if this is healthy.”
“It’s not,” Inho said. “But it’s us.”
That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? What they had wasn’t designed to be beautiful. It was stitched together from ruin, fragile trust and bad history. It was a ship patched with duct tape, sailing on a sea of ghosts. But it floated. If only just.
“You’re not a safe person,” Gihun murmured, more to himself than anyone.
“Neither are you,” Inho replied. Gihun closed his eyes. Let his head tilt — not much, just a lean — against Inho’s shoulder.
“Alright,” he said. And that was it. That was the agreement.
And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.