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The best a man can get!
– Gillette, 1989 advertising campaign
—
As soon as the coma released him from its clutches, Choi asked for: a glass of water—lukewarm, not iced; a cigarette or two (“Please, Doc, just a puff, yeah?”) with the newest crossword to go with it; and a nice, close shave.
“You mean a razor?” Doc asked, bewildered. “We can’t recommend that you start walking yet, Agent-nim, even to the restroom.”
“Mm, no, I said a shave. I’m not about to do it myself. Tell Jaekwan-ie—Agent Bronze—to bring his cut-throat razor and that nice soap that smells like, uh, what’s-it-called, petrichor? Yeah. He’ll do it.” His voice was faint and raspy, whistling through the air like a reedy, slipshod clarinet’s notes.
Doctor Yoon was silent for a beat. He’d been told two things about this particular patient by the Bureau. Both seemed incongruous with the man laid prone in front of him.
—
ONE.
“He’ll fight tooth-and-nail to get out of there before he’s whole and healthy. It’s just how he is,” Agent Haegeum warned. “Like a cat that won’t quit, and he has no issue with using a little force to get his way when charm fails.”
Yoon Haebeom pushed his glasses onto his head and pressed one thumb into his aching eye. This guy would be a headache of a patient, clearly. Being a government doctor did not pay enough for Haebeom to have to manage chronic workaholics, too.
Agent Haegeum sighed. “I probably taught him a little bit of that, honestly.”
A soft clinking sound rose in the doctors’ break room. She stirred a mug of—tea, it looked like, pale and fragrant—gently, silver tapping against ceramic in an underwhelming cacophony.
“...I see,” Haebeom began, “but I assure you we’ll keep him in hospital as long as we deem necessary. One does not simply—shrug off a Disaster-induced coma. Especially not with a Disaster like—”
The clink-clink-clink ceased as Haegeum turned to look at him, sharp, accusatory. “Don’t say it.”
Ah. “...Right. At any rate, you have nothing to worry about.”
Her hunched shoulders unfolded, broad and relaxed once more. She smiled at him, eyes wrinkling despite the falsity of the grin. “Thank you for your hard work with my difficult hoobae, Dr. Yoon. How much sugar?”
“Sorry?”
“Your tea. One spoon? Two?”
Finally, Haebeom noticed the second ceramic mug on the counter next to the agent. “Oh, how kind! None, please.”
“Nonsense. Everyone needs a little pick-me-up when they’re dealing with a bastard like Choi. God knows I do. Two spoons?”
“...Three. Thank you.”
—
But when Choi woke up, after the initial grogginess, he’d been… docile. Polite. Asked for a smoke and soft-leaded pencil and water and help with shaving, and nothing else. Hadn’t raised even the slightest argument when Yoon prescribed one week’s bed rest. Hadn’t tried to ply him with snake-like words when the cigs were summarily refused, beyond a cursory objection.
If this is the Bureau’s tiger, Yoon thought, rather unkindly, he must have been declawed.
—
TWO.
Another warning had been paid to the harried doctor, entirely unsolicited, this time from a more junior Bureau employee.
“Excuse me, Dr. Yoon, but do you have a minute? I won’t take long.”
The blandness of the words, the hushed tone of the voice, the politeness of the request—these things were at odds with the forceful strength of the hand that gripped Haebeom’s wrist. Kids these days, he grumbled internally when he saw the face attached to the offending mitt.
It was youthful and tanned and had round, blue, button-like eyes shadowed by egregious eyebags. The man, who looked more like a boy with the logarithmic hunch of his posture, blinked at Haebeom’s gruff, “What is it?”
“Thank you. My name is Agent Bronze—Ryu Jaekwan. I was one of the individuals on Agent Choi’s team. If I may, I wanted to ask a small favor of you. I understand you’re his doctor.”
“I am, yes, but I’ve already been told the details of his care by your seniors—”
“Please. This is important.”
And Yoon Haebeom was not one for sentiment and bleeding hearts, really, but something told him Ryu Jaekwan was not used to begging. He didn’t want to be the one to make him.
“Well, alright.”
The agent visibly relaxed, exhaling harshly before saying, “Please remove any reflective surfaces from his vicinity before he wakes up.”
“Pardon me?”
“He’ll need it. It’s a remnant of contamination; sunbae can’t bear to see his reflection, sometimes, even if the scar isn’t visible. Just his own face will remind him.”
That wasn’t uncommon with agents who’d faced as traumatic an incident as Agent Choi’s brush with death. The event was infamous enough that Haebeom had known of it before ever seeing the man’s patient records.
“I’ll do what I can. It’ll be tricky, you understand, yes? It’s a hospital room, there’ll be metal everywhere.”
“Yes, I know. If that proves too difficult, blindfold him.”
Haebeom had ten years of Bureau work under his belt, which was just about the only thing keeping his jaw hinged and shut.
“... I’ll… take that under advisement. Good day, Agent.” His gaze flickered, pointedly, to where his wrist was still being accosted.
“Oh—I’m sorry. Doctor. I’ll take my leave, then. Thank you for listening.”
“Mhm.” He rubbed at the joint, where he could detect the faintest reddening. What a brute.
This Agent Choi’s guardian angels were awfully intrusive, really. He hoped that would be the last of their interferences.
—
So he had been prepared for Choi’s neck to be exceedingly sensitive, from a psychological standpoint, upon his waking. But nothing had stuck out to the doctor—the man didn’t even bat an eye when he felt the white bandages around his throat, nor did he seem alarmed when one foolish RN served his first meal on a reflective aluminum tray.
And that brought them here.
“When is Jaekwan coming? This stubble is a real pain in the ass.”
Choi had finished his weak seaweed soup with a loud slurp, and was now using that same metal tray to examine his burgeoning beard—short, spiky hairs with more than a little gray interspersed with the brown, Yoon was surprised to see.
He swiped one long finger over his jaw. “Ouch, that’s rough.”
“I’ve alerted him of your request. He said he would come down as soon as possible,” Yoon Haebeom lied.
In fact, Ryu Jaekwan had only sighed, loud and older-than-his-years, when the doctor relayed the request, in all its detail. And then he’d mumbled, “What the fuck is he playing at?” and pinched the bridge of his aquiline nose, quite harshly.
Well. That wasn’t Haebeom’s issue. His job was to somewhat placate the (apparently) volatile man in his care. Hence the white lie.
“Ack. Tell him to hurry up.”
“Yes, Agent-nim. Of course.”
Yoon Haebeom felt a strange urge to resign. These agents and their whims…
—
He was surprised when Ryu Jaekwan did, in fact, turn up—that very night, after visiting hours were unequivocally closed. Yoon was on his way out, himself, having popped his head into Choi’s room for one last check.
“You’re a dedicated physician, Doc. It’s late.” The man had smiled brightly, his eyes had glinted a neon blue, the shine of his white bandages had been near-blinding in the dim room. Haebeom had found himself blinking rapidly.
And then he’d left, and then he’d bumped into a hulking man.
“You’re awfully tall when you straighten your spine, Agent Bronze.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s almost midnight. I’m afraid I cannot, in good conscience, allow you into Agent Choi’s room.”
His eyes fell on the plastic bag held loosely by the agent. Through the translucent material, he could just barely make out the faint words—HWAYEON SOAP CO.
“You mean to shave him? At—” He checked his watch, an anniversary gift from his youngest daughter. “At 11:28? Even if I let you, it’d just grow back overnight!”
“...Please.” The words were quiet.
Again, Haebeom thought, This is a man unused to having to plead, and again, he thought, Well, what’s the harm?
Bronze’s eyebags seemed to have grown worse since their earlier meeting, a few days previous. Now they sunk low into his face, the color of the sky outside the hospital.
Ah. The harm was costing his patient—his responsibility—a night of sorely-needed sleep. “No. And that’s final.”
—
It was not final. Agent Bronze could be uniquely persuasive, Haebeom realized upon his elevator-assisted descent. The past few minutes had been a blur of haggling and earnest requests and just a little metaphorical arm-twisting, until Dr. Yoon Haebeom really had no choice but to give up.
Agent Haegeum could have warned me about this persistent bastard, too.
He left the hospital uncertain.
—
It was a rare thing for Agent Choi to ask for help.
Ryu Jaekwan had once witnessed the man carry three children in his arms and leave Jaekwan with only the jakdu. And, of course, he had objected, but it was too easy for Choi to speak over him, to usher away his protests with a winning smile and a low, hushed, Trust me, Bronze-ah.
So he did. Every time.
Until it landed his sunbae in the hospital.
Which was why, when that doctor told Jaekwan about Choi’s appeal, he had to ask himself, Why now? Why me?
Agent Choi was not a careless man. Jaekwan had no doubt that his every action, even the ones made from a hospital gurney, had some measure of calculus behind them.
He had a tentative hypothesis, then—one with little-to-no logic, only a gut instinct that had never failed him when it came to Choi.
How could it? Ryu Jaekwan lived and breathed the man.
—
All scientific inquiry begins with a question. Ryu Jaekwan had two.
—
ONE.
Why now?
Because Choi was spooked. Because the dangling nooses and the rush of strangulation had reminded him of how it felt to be helpless.
…Because he felt vulnerable.
Jaekwan was tempted to discard this hypothesis entirely. It was simply unbelievable.
—
TWO.
Why me?
Because Jaekwan was awfully good with a straight razor.
—
He remembered his father using one—that the man would grip the razor oddly, refusing to touch the given handle in favor of a ludicrous balancing act with the blade on his fingers.
Jaekwan used to make a mess of the soft, feathery brush and the butter-like soap—used to work it into a lather and dust clouds of foamed-up peaks onto his cheeks, still round with youth.
Later, in the orphanage, when he’d grown old enough: the memory of his father’s rain-scented shaving soap had become a distant memory compared to the rough rasp of stubble on Jaekwan’s jaw and neck.
Staring at the underside of the bunk above him, with his feet dangling off the edge of his cot, Ryu Jaekwan had thought, Might as well.
A similar thought process informed his decision to visit the hospital’s first-floor pharmacy. He asked, “Do you have any straight razors?”
They showed him their selection: cheap, brittle, dull blades. The kind that would break skin with the wrong sort of pressure.
He went home and freshly sharpened his own. Just practical, he told himself, and less expensive.
It was harder to justify his two-day search for soap that smells like rain, given Jaekwan’s own had been discontinued, but—nobody needed to know that part.
—
“Took you long enough,” Choi laughed when Jaekwan shadowed his doorway. “My cute hoobae doesn’t have time for me anymore?”
I wish.
The bag in his hand rustled obnoxiously, a crinkling that cut through the room’s air like the too-harsh air conditioning in the hospital’s fluorescent halls.
“Sorry.” He stepped in, fully, and the lights flickered on with his entrance. Motion sensors, then, that hadn’t been triggered by Choi’s presence.
Had he really laid there, so still? Unmoving?
Here, Jaekwan noted, there was no hint of the aircon—no whirring fans, no puffs of artificial cold. Thank God.
His sunbae waved off the apology like he waved off most of Jaekwan’s words.
“Don’t worry about it, hoobae. I’m glad I could get your help with this! You know, I’ve always been jealous of how close you get your shave… and the fact that you do it with a cut-throat…! It’s made me think, ‘Wow, my junior is so cool~!’ Like, a movie-star kind of vibe, yeah?” he rambled hoarsely.
“Mhm.” Jaekwan pulled the rolling stool near the door closer to Choi’s bedside. The bandage surrounding his scarred flesh was untouched, as though he hadn’t dared to even brush a finger over it. Like this, Jaekwan could see the smile pulling at Choi’s lips in all its insincerity much more clearly. Could see the IV lines feeding into his strong arms, threading his blue veins.
From the bag: a plastic bowl, cheap and with the barcode sticker still stubbornly gummed-on. A bottle of mineral water. The newly-honed razor. Two soft washcloths—a brand-new one, and the one Jaekwan had used that morning to wipe the soap and water from his own face, now cleaned and dried, in case his selfishness won out. A can of scrape-and-shave, just-add-water soap.
The mineral water was uncapped and emptied into the bowl, balancing carefully on the square table next to Jaekwan. It splashed near the rim but made no mess, he was glad to see.
Choi nattered on.
—
The soap’s scent was clear and unassuming, but the older agent straightened up as soon as Jaekwan unscrewed its tin lid. “That’s the one, Jaekwan-ah. Good boy.”
He couldn’t help it. “Why do you like this scent so much?”
“Hm? Well, it’s pleasant.”
“...Yes. But it’s so… faint.”
Choi fell silent. I messed up, Jaekwan thought.
For a long few minutes, as Jaekwan wet the soft-bristled brush and began working it into the soap tin, no words were exchanged. He had almost given up on receiving an answer when those rough impressions of a voice fell upon his ears once more.
“It’s your smell, isn’t it?”
His head shot up. His wrist stilled its movements. His eyes might have widened—he wasn’t sure—but he schooled his expression shortly after.
“Unassuming. Subtle. Like you, Jaekwan-ah.”
Oh. Choi didn’t think he had any presence at all, then.
Ryu Jaekwan had always suspected as much, anyways. It was less of a blow than it would have been even six months earlier. He set the soap and brush on the table, instead picking up the cloth soaking in the bowl.
“Right. Sunbae, can I touch you?” The words came out shockingly steady, considering the racing beat of his heart under his plain shirt.
“Mhm. How do you want me?”
Wow. Okay.
“I’ll just—” Jaekwan reached out and grasped Choi’s jaw between his thumb and middle finger, holding it still. Carefully, he adjusted his angle and wet the skin of his sunbae’s stubbled cheeks with a washcloth. His washcloth.
Its gentle fibers brushed against Choi’s lips and jaw, dampening the skin to ease the blade’s path.
His eyes were right there. Bright as ever, coy and sly and a little too knowing for Jaekwan’s peace of mind. He half-suspected that, any minute now, Choi would start cracking jokes about his—burst-open heart.
It was impossible for him to speak in this position. Small mercies.
—
The next step was the soap. He held that same grip on Choi’s face as he brushed the lather onto the lines of his sharp jaw, dusting the underside of his chin, almost wetting the bandages.
“Mmph… ‘Kwan-ah, ack, you’ll get soap in my mouth.”
“Ah… my apologies.” He had paid a little too much attention to Choi’s lips, letting the bristles encroach ever closer to the chapped, bitten skin. Nothing ever changed when it came to Ryu Jaekwan and his weaknesses.
—
It was past midnight, Jaekwan knew, by the time he finally withdrew the razor from its leisured soak. The blade glinted; he wiped it dry with the second cloth. Cornflower eyes reflected clearly in the metal.
His fingers were long and thick, bigger than his father’s as far as he could remember. Even so, Ryu Jaekwan was well-versed in handling a cut-throat—in resting his little finger on the cold, metal tang, wrapping his thumb underneath the blade.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll start now, sunbae.” The legs of the stool scraped harshly against the tiles as he dragged it even closer to the cot. He winced.
"Bronze-ah, careful you don't nick me, okay?"
The agent was facing him completely, now, legs folded criss-cross, like he used to do on the floor of the waiting room. Used to joke, The couch is more comfortable as a backrest than a seat, and Jaekwan would stolidly reply, We don’t have the budget to replace it.
"Wouldn't dream of it, sunbae."
With that, Jaekwan pressed the razor to Choi’s skin, a thirty-degree angle following the downwards grain of the stubble. Short, sharp, decisive strokes wicked away foam and roughness, left his sunbae’s skin smooth and cleanshaven, left Choi looking an inch closer to himself again.
In the instant that Jaekwan lifted the razor away, wiping it once more, Choi laughed, as though Jaekwan had made a joke. Really, he was rarely so relaxed around the man, and so was unsure what prompted Choi to think otherwise.
"Sorry, it's just—that's hilarious, hoobae. You dream of me all the time."
What?
His grip on the blade tightened and then faltered entirely, a smooth pass over Choi’s cheek jittering into nonexistence.
“After this, you should get some sleep.”
“Bronze-ah, don’t you think I’ve gotten enough of that?”
Of course he had. Jaekwan had seen him unconscious in this same bed for days on end, unsure when he would wake, unsure what the cost of a hanging death was. His brow had drawn tight in sleep. Sweat had beaded past his temples and slid onto the hospital’s flimsy pillowcases, saltier than tears.
Jaekwan had seen it all.
The razor sang a pretty tune as he scraped away the last of the stubble near Choi’s upper lip, thumb pressing harshly into his skin as he stretched it taut, to reduce the chance of cuts and bleeding.
He probably didn’t need to be so careful, actually. Choi had thick skin. Choi had been scarred a thousand times before.
“Tilt your head away from me, sunbae.”
Choi obeyed. For the first time since they’d begun this charade, his lips curved downwards.
—
He used the washcloth again, brushed it against the last vestiges of the clouds on Choi’s skin. His face was clear, his upper lip neat, and now only one area remained.
Jaekwan’s hand cradled the back of his skull. He couldn’t resist rubbing his fingers against the short strands, just a little.
It was time to approach his wrapped-up and shuddering throat. The razor drifted south, as did Jaekwan’s gaze, landing on Choi’s bobbing Adam’s apple. He was afraid.
What was Jaekwan doing?
“Hah,” he huffed out, the exhalation short and limited. “Sunbae. Why did you ask me to do this to you?”
The agent’s electric gaze flicked towards him and then far, far away, landing somewhere past the shut door and its rectangular window, past the now-dark halls, past even the Seoul cityline. “Just keep going. Not all clean, yet, am I?”
“No, I’m—worried. Shaving so close to your neck like this is…”
“Is fine. Because I said so.” Abruptly, Choi shook his head free of Jaekwan’s grasp, running a frustrated hand through his messy hair, ruffling the locks that his hoobae had lingered on just a moment ago.
Ryu Jaekwan kept his mouth shut. Sometimes, if he was a little luckier than usual, Choi would offer an explanation of his own.
The other man blew out a hot breath. Pulled at his already-loose hospital gown collar. Set his eyes on Jaekwan’s.
“Alright. I thought—I thought, if someone who loves me handles my neck, I can rest assured. I can be—relieved, for once, because even I’m self-aware enough to know that I’m still, you know, traumatized.”
“Sunbae—” Jaekwan started, foolishly, before snapping his jaw closed.
“And, Jaekwan-ah, you love me. Don’t you?”
The stool legs scraped their funeral dirge into the room’s still air once more. Jaekwan rasped, “O-of course. The team is a family. Y-you’re my family, too, Choi-sunbae.”
A wide grin cracked his face open, blinded the younger man. “Exactly. Exactly!” It was the loudest Ryu Jaekwan had heard him thus far. Even the hoarseness of his voice seemed to give way with the buttery vindication in his words.
He looked so… disarmingly happy. How could Jaekwan have said anything else?
Choi patted around his face—the smooth upper lip, cheeks, jaws, and finally the still-rugged skin of his throat.
“Now, how about you get the rest of this scruff off of me, hm? Don’t want our rookie to see me looking like some kind of vagabond.”
—
Jaekwan realized, belatedly, that he hadn’t brought a mirror with which to show Choi his handiwork.