Respair

Funny, how things and life worked – months ago, Eunbi barely tolerated her father, and if someone told her before that one day she’d sit hours beside his bed and only feel truly safe when his ex-convict pseudo-son was in close vicinity, she’d laugh and tell them to fuck off with their bullshit.

(Or, alternatively: 'Five times Noh Yong Sik was asleep and one time he wasn't'.)

Notes:

Respair: a somewhat archaic English word meaning fresh hope, or a recovery from despair, essentially the opposite of despair itself, signifying a return to optimism or a renewed spirit after hardship, derived from the Latin 'respirare' (to breathe again).

It's a powerful word that highlights the cyclical nature of emotions, emphasizing that even after deep sadness, renewal and hope can return.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The hospital had fallen into its usual evening hush, the kind that made one feel like walking around other than on tiptoes was a serious offense. Outside, countless city street lights dotted the horizon, the faint sound of traffic bleeding through the quiet. Eunbi stood in her father’s room looking out the window absentmindedly, hugging herself, standing up a bit after sitting in the quite familiar hospital chair for hours.

Her father lay still, breathing evenly, his face pale under the cuts and bruises in the dim glow of the light. Machines blinked and beeped beside him in a way that Eunbi understood after days spent in the hospital as normal and usual. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing new. She exhaled through her nose, relieved and aching in equal measure.

Taejung wasn’t there yet.

He usually appeared sometime not long after visiting hours for the public ended. Which should have made it impossible for him to stay with her father through the night but Taejung was nothing if not a stubborn man who made things work out somehow.

(Eunbi didn’t know what exactly he told them, but the nurses whole-heartedly believed that he was family – her father’s son. Or, more like son-in-law. Eunbi didn’t correct them, even if the assumption made her ears warm.)

They kind of had an understanding between them, even though they didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t planned that she took the day and he took the night – it was just the way it had happened since day one because Taejung had always had somewhere to be during the days now that an actual investigation was taking place.

It was a strange kind of schedule formed in crisis and necessity that neither of them questioned because it worked. Both of them were reluctant to leave her father unattended; both of them were still waiting for the other shoe to drop, unwilling to believe that the nightmare really ended and it was safe now. So they took turns watching over someone that was important to both of them.

They could fully trust only each other.

(Funny, how things and life worked – months ago, Eunbi barely tolerated her father, and if someone told her before that one day she’d sit hours beside his bed and only feel truly safe when his ex-convict pseudo-son was in close vicinity, she’d laugh and tell them to fuck off with their bullshit.)

Eunbi settled back into the chair beside her father with a sigh, tucking her feet up just a little. She clasped his hand lightly – it was thankfully warmer than a few days ago but still felt fragile.

“Appa, you really have to wake up,” she murmured, voice barely disturbing the quiet. “I still need to chew you out properly.”

A faint smile ghosted across her lips at her own weak joke and imagining how it’d go. He’d just try to calm her, saying ‘Arasseo, arasseo’ or apologize as if he’d never do stupid things anymore – like trying to give her time to run by holding off an assassin for her sake, while dying – when both of them knew he’d do it again in a heartbeat. But still, Eunbi had to scold him for it at least – and he needed to be awake for that.

She checked her phone with her free hand, scrolling through social media, bored out of her mind – sitting still for hours was never her forte – and after a few minutes she wished she hadn’t. News and posts about what happened days ago kept popping up on her timeline like annoying splinters under her skin that she couldn’t ignore, nor get them out without hurting.

The fire. Arleli. An Yohan. The murders. Arrests. Journalists pouncing on the topic like hungry hyenas. Comment sections full of conspiracies. Eunbi felt nauseated every time she got a reminder about all of it. She wished she could ignore it all, like Taejung, who – despite having a smartphone – didn’t seem to use it much for anything other than texting and calling.

She guessed, if anything else, prison was at least good for one thing – digital detox.

Eunbi closed everything with an annoyed sigh before she started commenting things out of anger, or worse – started crying.

Just then, a familiar, soft knock was heard, then the door opened.

“Hey,” Taejung entered, voice low, not wanting to disturb anyone.

He looked wrung out – his hair was messy like he constantly ran his hand through it, colorful bruises and bandages covered his face (the remnants of the fight days ago) and shadows pooled under his eyes. Yet he still managed to look amazing, as if the whole look was intentional – like he stepped off the cover of a magazine.

Eunbi felt her traitorous heart flutter under her ribs and she tried to ignore it.

“You’re early,” she said quietly, rising from the chair. “Is everything okay? I thought you had things to do at the police station tonight.”

“We finished an hour ago. Everything is fine.” He stepped inside and closed the door, getting rid of his leather jacket, revealing a grey, soft hoodie and dropping a convenience store bag on the night table, rummaging through it. “Did you eat?”

Eunbi didn’t know how he did this. It was like Taejung had a sixth sense for whenever she skipped meals. Which, with her father in a hospital bed and her stomach shrinking to the size of a coin from the constant worry, was pretty often.

She pressed her lips together. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She simply shrugged, not knowing what to say and, sitting down, she avoided his searching gaze and those knowing eyes of his like the plague.

Taejung sighed, tired, and pulled out a triangle kimbap and a strawberry milk from the bag, setting them near her hand on the bed. He sat down wearily on the other chair, opposite of her and nodded at the items.

“Eat,” he said. “You’re not going home until you've finished at least half of it.”

Eunbi almost bristled at his tone, not used to people ordering her to do anything but she was able to calm herself down when she realized that it was all out of care. She raised an eyebrow instead. “Says who?”

“I do,” Taejung raised one back, not backing down from the attitude. “You have to take care of yourself,” he said, voice firm, and almost parental, or older brother like. Eunbi was an only child so she didn’t know first-hand but she saw it a lot among her friends who did have older siblings. Taejung totally got that vibe. She wondered if he was like this with his late brother, Taejin, too, nagging him like a mother hen. “Losing sleep, not eating much… It’s not good for you.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes. The hypocrisy of this man, talking about self-care. “You sound like an old man –”

“Eunbi. Please.”

Her heart threatened to get out of her ribcage from the tone of his voice and the deeply serious and downright pleading look he gave her.

Those damned eyes. They were going to be the end of her one day.

She picked up the kimbap and unwrapped it, taking a bite out of it if only to break the tension. He could be so damn kind and sincere sometimes (most of the time) and Eunbi could do nothing against it (other than going along with what he wanted) when faced with it. It was so annoying.

“Hypocrite,” she grumbled while munching and hated it that it felt good once she saw in his eyes that he was relieved he finally got her to eat. She stabbed the tiny straw into the milk, too, half-murderous, half trying to make him even more happy. (She was so whipped.) “You look worse than I do.”

Taejung crossed both his legs and arms, and got more comfortable in his seat as he huffed – kind of amused. “Nah. That’s just the scars.”

A startled laugh slipped from her at the sudden joke, almost spitting out the milk from her mouth. He blinked, almost surprised how much the awful joke landed with her and to Eunbi’s absolute delight, the side of his mouth curled up just slightly – an incredibly rare sight. She couldn’t stop drinking it in, and the knowledge that under all the trauma and hardship, the man might have natural humor, a sense for timing and a smile to die for.

(She always thought – very privately – to herself after seeing him smile at that little girl, that Taejung probably had the most beautiful smile and laugh on the planet and she selfishly hoped that the world didn’t dim it forever and she could see it one day in all its glory.)

His posture was almost relaxed, too, Eunbi found, and it was so nice to see. Usually, he seemed painfully tense and alert, always sitting like he was prepared to leap to the door the moment someone who wasn't authorized walked through but now he was sitting almost… casually.

Her eyes raked over his face and the mentioned scars that in no ways made him less handsome, and slowly, her smile and her appetite disappeared as she thought deeper about them and the injuries she couldn’t even see. Eunbi remembered how he barely let the paramedics treat his injuries on-site and in this very hospital on that long, long night before he signed himself out (even though the doctor ordered him on rest), just to bring her father and Eunbi some clothes and other essentials.

(She needed to stay for a night of observation because of a concussion amongst other things. The fact that he stayed the night with her, too, making Eunbi feel safe, was why she could even sleep that night.)

And from then on, he’s been either at the police station, the prosecutor’s office or somewhere else he was needed in connection with the whole An Yohan case, or here with her father – not resting for a second and absolutely not letting himself heal.

“How are they?” she blurted out the question. At his confused look, she elaborated, putting the remaining half of the kimbap down and playing with the milk container, not looking at him at all. She couldn’t eat more but she’d try to finish the milk at least – for him. “Your – Your scars. Injuries. Are they okay?”

Taejung blinked like the question caught him completely off-guard, and Eunbi’s heart ached that the man was genuinely surprised that someone was even caring about that. In the end, he simply shrugged.

“I’ve had worse.”

He had multiple slash wounds on his body – and that’s just what Eunbi saw before she was knocked out. Taejung was already wounded by then, bleeding excessively from a previous fight – the details of which she still didn’t know about. She saw some more when she regained consciousness and he was being treated but it was surely not all of it.

The fact that that whole night at that psycho’s house wasn’t the worst he survived simply horrified her.

It was difficult to swallow and not ask questions, but Eunbi managed.

“That’s not what I asked,” she said quietly, using the same words he did. She looked at him for an uncomfortably long time and eventually, he cracked with a sigh.

“I’m fine. One of the night-shift nurses has been helping with my bandages.”

Well… That was a relief, at least. Eunbi nodded, continuing sipping on her strawberry milk.

“You can go home earlier tonight,” he said suddenly, after some quiet. “I’ll stay.”

Eunbi rolled her eyes, almost annoyed. “You always do.”

“And?”

She pinned him with half a glare, half something softer. “Taejung, you’re supposed to rest too.”

He looked at her father instead of answering. His expression softened, the exhaustion turning into something fragile and earnest.

“He did so much for me,” Taejung said quietly, reaching out to hold her father’s hand. “This is nothing.”

Eunbi felt her chest tighten. She couldn’t even argue with that, was the annoying thing. If it was her, she’d be and do the same.

“Eat,” he murmured when she picked at the kimbap packaging absentmindedly. “There’s only a few bites left.”

She obeyed without a word.

They fell into silence, one that was unexpectedly companionable – Eunbi wrestled with the last morsels of her kimbap while Taejung fussed with her father’s blanket. The small hum of machines, the gentle rain that started whispering against the window, the rhythmic breathing of her father – it all blended into something steady and safe.

At some point, Eunbi’s eyes drifted shut without her notice and she fell asleep.

When she blinked awake again, it was already dawn and Taejung was nowhere to be seen – like a ghost, or a fickle hallucination. If they didn’t have their unofficial schedule, Eunbi might’ve thought she imagined him being there.

But as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, she noticed that he did leave some things behind. There was another kimbap and milk in front of her on the bed, with a post-it note that said (twice underlined): EAT.

And his grey hoodie was covering her, like a make-shift blanket.

(If Eunbi brought it with her when she went home for a quick shower and change of clothes, and left it on her bed after trying it on and taking a deep breath of his woody, calming scent, that was nobody’s business but hers.)

(Taejung – thankfully – didn’t ask about it.)

Hospital nights had a different kind of noise compared to daylight: the muted footsteps of the night-shift nurses, the hum of the vending machine down the hall, the soft sound of the air purifier in the corner and her father’s slow breathing on the bed. It all hazily washed together into something that seemed – at first glance – quiet, but as Eunbi spent some time there, she found it just as loud, if not louder, than the sounds during the day.

Usually, she went home around seven at night. Or eight, depending on when Taejung arrived and how much time they spent talking.

Tonight, she’d been staring at the clock on the wall for so long that she was sure that if she looked away, she’d be able to see the imprint of it on the blank paint.

It was almost nine. Nine.

And Taejung was nowhere.

Eunbi didn’t mean to wait for him. Or, you know, anticipate the soft knock he always used before entering the room, or check her hair in the darkened reflection of the window like an idiot.

But she did. She always did.

Tonight was no different, with the added anxiety of wondering if everything was okay with him.

(A part of her – the one that was still deeply traumatized – already jumped to four different conclusions: he’s in trouble, he’s in jail, he’s injured, he’s dead; and she could’ve texted or called him to lay these worries to rest, but the other part of her wanted to believe that everything was okay, that they were safe now and she was just overthinking. So she didn’t.)

Her phone sat face-down on her lap, her father’s hand lay in hers, warm but unmoving. A nurse had told her gently to go home an hour ago, and Eunbi had nodded politely, said she would soon, then promptly ignored the advice. She wasn’t leaving until Taejung was here.

She decided to text if he didn’t appear in the next five minutes and hoped he wouldn’t consider her clingy because of it. But that was still better than him laying in a ditch somewhere, she reasoned.

So Eunbi sat, curled forward in the hard chair, tired, neck achingly stiff; watching that damn clock with her leg bouncing.

When she heard that familiar, careful sound and the door clicked open, her heart breathed.

Finally.

The light from the hallway caught his shoulders and the planes of his face, outlining him in a pale glow. As Taejung entered, his eyes swept over the room, alert – checking for danger, for her, for signs her father had woken – which was a usual occurrence.

What wasn’t – and broke the monotony of the evening – was the little lunch bag dangling from his hand. The only thing she saw him carry into the room until now were some folders regarding the investigation or her father’s hospital papers – nothing else, so this was a surprise.

(Fine, yesterday there was the convenience store bag, too, but that was just one time… right?)

“Oh,” Eunbi breathed, before she could catch herself. “You are okay.”

That’s not what she wanted to say – at all. But she was just so relieved to see him, that she really was just overthinking and he was actually alright, that it was the first thing to leave her mouth.

He blinked at her in surprise and mild confusion, followed by an understanding look, bordering on sheepish. “Ah. Yeah,” he nodded and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry for the delay. I was cooking.” He lifted the bag slightly, as if it was an explanation.

It was a simple, obvious sentence that should’ve been easy to understand and follow but Eunbi’s brain somehow refused to put two and two together, and she blinked at him, baffled.

“Uhm, what? Cooking?”

“Yeah. I made some soup,” Taejung shrugged, as it was the easiest thing to do ever, or nothing out of the ordinary for him.

He stepped further into the room, shrugged off his jacket, putting it on the back of the chair – his chair at this point – and set down the lunch bag on the bed, opening it without another comment. Soon, he was handing her a container almost too hot to the touch, a spoon and a vitamin drink – the bottle wrapped in cold condensation that suggested it had been purchased only recently, not even having time to warm up next to the soup.

Inside the container was a generous portion of miyeokguk with some beef – smelling absolutely delicious.

Eunbi held the items and blinked at him like she couldn’t believe he existed. Taejung simply gestured with his hand for her to eat, more interested in his phone than her. But she couldn’t just move on from this.

“Wait, you – you made this?” she asked shell-shocked. “You can cook?”

He nodded. That’s it. Eunbi – who only knew how to do basic, minimal stuff in the kitchen and how to reheat take-out – was simply floored by the information. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to say something intelligent but wasn't able to.

(Well, she found it quite appealing, but she couldn’t say that to him. No way in hell.)

“It will get cold,” Taejung nagged, looking up from his phone when he didn’t hear her spoon working. “Eat.”

The gesture was just… so thoughtful. Eunbi had no recent memory of anyone preparing food especially for her, not to mention food that was so closely linked to gratitude as a symbol. Intentional or not, it did not matter.

The fact that Taejung was late because after his – no doubt immensely draining and tiring – day he went to her father’s shop to cook a nutritious meal just for her… Eunbi didn’t know how to handle kindness like that.

“You didn’t have to,” she said quietly, already feeling her face warm – not just from her feelings, but from embarrassment. She hated being a bother to anyone, but especially Taejung.

Closing up the container and putting the soup down, she swallowed – feeling terrible because after all he’d done, she was actually gearing up to reject his efforts.

She just… wasn’t hungry.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” His tone was factual, not scolding – it was more like an observation. “You barely ate yesterday.”

“I ate,” she protested weakly.

“You had one kimbap,” he corrected. “And only because I forced you.”

She made a tiny, indignant sound, preparing to argue but he didn’t let her. Taejung looked at her with that quiet, steady gaze that always knocked the wind out of her and she already knew she lost this battle.

“Eunbi… It was past dinner time and you haven’t eaten anything all day. And it wasn’t the first time.”

She pressed her lips together. “I didn’t notice.”

“But I did.”

His words weren’t sharp or judgmental – they were worried. And something about the quiet sincerity of it made her throat tighten.

“I’m really okay,” she tried again, but it came out weak.

He didn’t argue more. Instead, he re-opened the container and placed it directly in her hands, unleashing the force of his beautiful, sincere eyes on her. The warmth seeped into her palms like his kindness into her heart.

“Just a little,” he said quietly. “Your dad would want you to.”

The mention of her father was honestly cheating, but it was understandable and she would have done the same. She stared down at the broth, feeling all of her excuses crumble, and slowly, she lifted the spoon to take a sip.

It was savory, light and comforting, just as expected and it grounded her in a way she hadn’t realized she needed until that moment. After the first two spoonfuls, the next one went down easier and she realized just how starved she was. Taejung – seeing her not needing more prompting – went back to scrolling and typing on his phone.

He didn’t eat anything – only took a bottle of vitamin drink for himself, which he drank in three large gulps, head tipping back, throat working. Eunbi watched him between bites, the steam from the soup curling between them; took notice of his cheekbones that looked more pronounced, and the sharpness of his jawline – and it struck her that she’d not seen him eat before, not even in their time in Busan. He was always in motion, doing something – plotting revenge, fleeing from corrupt cops, watching over the room, over her father, over her.

“You should eat too,” she muttered after a moment.

He nodded, not even looking at her, capping the empty bottle. “I will.”

“When?”

He paused, just for a fraction of a second. “Later.”

Eunbi let out a sharp breath through her nose.

“That means no,” she said bluntly. Letting go of the spoon and putting the container down, she crossed her arms on her chest and stared him down, with all the annoyance she felt. “I’m not eating if you don’t.”

Taejung sighed faintly.

“Eunbi –”

“No!” she snapped, the word sharper than she intended. “You harp about taking care of myself, you nag me when I forget to eat, and then you’re doing the exact same thing. You’re such a hypocrite.”

At least he had the manners to look a bit guilty when she called him out.

“I ate some of it,” he argued. “I was tasting it while cooking.”

Bullshit, Eunbi wanted to say. Her eyes narrowed. His narrowed right back.

Fine then.

“Mhm. Then you could have done a better job,” she said absentmindedly, examining her nails. “The beef is a bit chewy, the broth is too salty and the miyeok isn’t cooked enough.”

Taejung blinked at her, clearly caught off guard for a moment, then he straightened, grabbing his jacket.

“Oh. I can get something else –”

“Stop,” she cut in. “I was just testing you.”

His hands stilled as he blinked in confusion. It was kind of cute.

“You didn’t taste the soup at all,” she continued, tone disappointed. “Which means you didn’t eat shit. Otherwise you’d know it’s cooked perfectly.”

Busted, he sighed, sitting down, lifting a shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I forgot, I guess. I wanted to get here quickly.”

She blinked, stunned. “You rushed… because I didn’t eat?”

“No,” He shook his head once and Eunbi wanted to hide in embarrassment for assuming he did because of her. Of course not; he was doing this all for – “Because you were alone.”

The room suddenly felt too small for how much space his words took up. She didn’t know if it was the result of him actually picking upon her abandonment issues or was just doing it because he was still paranoid, or he was just that kind of person. Or because of guilt. It broke her when – while her dad was wrongfully detained – Taejung left her to deal with the situation, leaving her completely alone and sobbing on the street.

Either way – she really appreciated him trying to be here now.

Eunbi swallowed and tried to will her heart to stop its fluttering without success. But who could’ve blamed her, honestly?

“You don’t have to take care of me,” she said, beyond touched, eyes fixed on the surface of the broth. “You’re already dealing with everything else.”

Her father. The police. The aftermath of this nightmare and who knows what else.

“I know.” He nodded. And that was it. He sounded sure – the ‘But I want to’ undoubtedly present in his tone.

She swallowed, hard. The soup blurred a little in her vision, and she blinked quickly until it cleared.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The machines beside her father hummed on, indifferent witnesses to the quiet moment. Then, with a resigned sigh that sounded more like surrender than annoyance, Taejung reached out for the container.

“Give me,” he murmured.

She blinked. “What?”

He simply stood up and took it when she didn’t give it to him quickly enough for his liking. Taejung pointedly put the container in front of him, already sitting and getting another spoon out of the lunchbag – a cheap plastic one compared to Eunbi’s proper, metal one – matching the color of the container.

To her incredulous stare, he mumbled, “If I don’t eat, you won’t. And I really don’t have the energy to argue with you tonight.”

A surprised, breathless laugh slipped out of her before she could stop it. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Mm.” She watched him carefully as he took a bite, the way his expression barely shifted, except for the slightest relaxation around his eyes. He nodded to himself. “It’s good.”

He really was worried he messed up the soup – cute.

“I told you I was just messing with you,” Eunbi said gently, trying not to smile.

They ate like that for a while – sharing the container between them, passing it back and forth without comment. It felt strangely intimate in a way Eunbi didn’t know what to do with. It wasn’t charged – just quiet. Domestic, almost. Definitely relaxed and comfortable, even though technically she still didn’t know much about this man.

(Except that he was an absolute mother hen.)

She caught herself watching him again: his hands, the faint furrow between his brows that never fully left and his broad shoulders that seemed to carry enough weight for ten people. His handsome face and the scars on it – especially the thin one over his nose bridge that Eunbi secretly adored.

When he finished eating, he handed the remaining soup back to her and told her to eat the rest, then he leaned back with a soft exhale, lifting a hand to rub at one eye. Then the other. He blinked a few times, forcefully, but she could see that whatever was the problem it probably didn’t help much.

“Tired?” she asked gently.

He shook his head automatically but then paused, murmuring, “My eye won’t stop twitching.”

She frowned. “That’s not normal.”

“It is if you stare at reports and CCTV footage for ten hours straight,” he sighed. He pressed his fingers against his brow, then let his hand drop when that didn’t help either. Eunbi wished she had eyedrops with her. “It’s okay. I’ll live.”

Eunbi didn’t comment because she didn’t know what to say other than trying to get him to rest – which she knew he wouldn't, so it was pointless. She just watched him lean his head back against the chair, eyes closing briefly and tried not to look too much at his exposed neck and his Adam’s apple like a creep.

“How were things today?” she asked after a while, fidgeting. “At the station?”

He tilted his head, thinking for a moment, still with his eyes closed. “Complicated.”

“That means bad.”

He gave a small, almost humor-laced sigh. “It means that the police and the prosecutors want everything airtight, in perfect order, but this whole thing is unbelievable, unprecedented and bigger than they ever expected. They have a hard time believing the evidence.” He shrugged, the side of his mouth doing something that conveyed annoyance to Eunbi. “Or me. They keep circling back to everything.”

“Because of your record,” she deduced quietly.

He nodded once.

“They don’t say it outright,” he added, before he admitted. “Well, not all of them. But it’s there, in the way they ask questions, or in what they choose to doubt. Officer Yang’s presence is helping but it’s still frustrating.” His jaw tightened. “Evidence is evidence, until it comes from me.”

That felt like a direct quote, if anything. Eunbi felt anger flare sharp and sudden in her chest. “That’s so unfair.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “Welcome to my life.”

Her heart twisted. No one should’ve gone through what happened but Taejung especially didn’t deserve to. He was a good man.

“They keep asking me how I knew certain things,” Taejung continued quietly. “How I survived certain situations. And they don’t like the answers. Because the truth is messy and ugly and doesn’t fit neatly into a,” he held up both hands while making a face, air-quoting, “report.”

She studied him – the barely noticeable tightness in his jaw, the faint shadows under his eyes. The way his fingers tapped the arm of the chair in a restless pattern.

He seemed understandably frustrated and tired. Actually, more than tired – worn thin. And he’d still made her dinner. Eunbi wanted to roll him into a blanket and protect him from the entire world.

“Are you okay?” she asked tentatively.

His eyes opened and flicked to Eunbi, studying her for a moment. “Why?”

“Because you look worse than yesterday,” she said quietly.

That earned her another look. “You’re observant.”

“And you’re deflecting.”

He looked away. Taejung stayed silent for so long, Eunbi didn’t think he would answer, but after an earth-shattering sigh, and closing his eyes again, he said, “I’m fine. I’m used to it by now.”

‘It’ meaning the world being cruel, needing to sail against the current, and people not believing him.

Eunbi nodded slowly and didn’t push, despite the obvious lie. She could tell – instinctively – that this was as far as he was willing to share tonight.

Eunbi finished her soup in silence, stealing glances at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. The dim hospital light softened the lines of his face, made him look less guarded and younger.

And gentle. So gentle.

Which he actually was – Eunbi had seen enough to know that. She hated that the world was so unfair to this inherently kind, gentle being, pushing him to his absolute limits. Almost to the point of murder.

Yet, Taejung still managed to be kind, present, protective and caring – staying up day and night, looking out for people and showing up with home-made soup.

“Thank you,” she murmured without thinking, heart full of gratitude for this wonderful man.

His eyes opened. “For what?”

For what? he said – like he didn’t do anything, while Eunbi didn’t even know where to begin.

“For the food,” she said quickly. “And for… everything.”

He held her gaze for a long moment. Then nodded.

“Anytime,” he said and he smiled – small but sincere.

Eunbi felt it then – the dangerous warmth blooming in her chest, the kind that almost scared her because it didn’t feel fleeting, like a mere crush.

It felt like something deeper.

She pushed her empty container aside just like that feeling and exhaled softly, glancing at her father, then at Taejung, who settled back into his chair for his night beside the bed.

Eunbi stayed longer than she usually did or meant to, talking with him in whispers that dissolved into the quiet until he was the one who sent her home.

The next morning felt strangely bright, as if someone had adjusted the saturation of the world while Eunbi slept. She arrived at the hospital freshly changed, caffeinated and her hair still damp at some places from a rushed shower. She also picked up some eyedrops from the pharmacy, although she wasn’t sure when or how to give it to Taejung without it being awkward, or making her look silly. The hallways smelled faintly of disinfectant and something vaguely citrus from the floor-cleaning machine as she made her way through.

She expected the usual scene when she arrived: her father sleeping, the room bathed in morning light, Taejung perched quietly by the window sill, either reading something on his phone, looking through a folder, or just sitting in his chair with that calm expression he liked to wear like armor.

But when she pushed the door open, she saw something that made her stop.

Taejung was on his knees beside the bed, sleeves rolled to his elbows, head bent over the bed’s control panel and the tangle of wires that poured out from it like guts.

“What… are you doing?” she asked, instead of a greeting.

He looked up, mildly startled. His hair was a little messy, like he had run a hand through it a few times, but it just made him look even more handsome.

“Morning,” he nodded, as if what he was doing was completely ordinary. “I’m just checking something.”

She stepped closer, eyeing the bed suspiciously. “Is it broken?”

“Not really,” he said. “Only the up-and-down button’s lagging.”

Eunbi frowned. “Lagging?”

“It kept acting up last night,” he explained, turning back to the wiring. “The nurse tried to raise the backrest for your dad, but it jammed twice.”

The morning light filtered through the blinds, falling across his shoulders and softening the rigid lines of his back; kissing his jawline with such tenderness that Eunbi had to look away from it before she got the urge to do the same.

“So you took it apart?”

“Not apart,” he corrected her gently, almost scoldingly. “Just opened the panel.”

“You’re… allowed… to do that?” she asked hesitantly after a moment, clearly doubting it.

A corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes contained an almost mischievous sparkle she hadn't seen before but already adored to bits. “Probably not.”

Eunbi came to stand beside him, intrigued. The wires looked like chaos to her: red twisted with yellow, white looping around blue, all connected to small things with tiny plastic or metal pieces on a green board. But Taejung seemed completely at ease.

Her gaze lingered on his hands – on the faint scars and bruises across his knuckles and the deeply scarred lines on his wrist she’d never dared to ask about. The way his fingers moved with certainty, like this was familiar terrain: poking around, checking connections, tightening a screw with the little toolkit lying beside him.

“You really know what you’re doing,” she murmured softly after a few minutes of observation.

He hummed. “I should. I got certified.”

“Certified?”

He nodded, still focused on the panel. He gently nudged one of the wires back into place, tightened another screw, then tested the button with his thumb. The bed whirred softly, rising a few centimeters, then lowering again when he pushed the opposite one. He managed to fix it.

“Electrician certification,” he clarified, closing the panel carefully after a satisfied nod. “I got it inside.”

Inside.

The word landed between them, heavy and unspoken. Prison hovered there without being named, like the elephant in the room neither of them wanted to address.

“Oh,” she said, stupidly. Then, quieter: “I didn’t know that.”

He shrugged again, wiping his hands on his jeans. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

It wasn’t bitter when he said that – just factual.

She sat down slowly in the chair beside her father’s bed, eyes still on Taejung as he rose, stretching his back with a faint wince and rolling his shoulders with a grimace. Eunbi knew they must have felt painful – not just because of his previous position, but because he carried more weight there. Even ones that shouldn’t have been his.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said quietly. “I’m sure that nurse called someone to repair it.”

“I know,” Taejung shrugged, packing up his toolkit and putting it inside his backpack.

“Then why – ”

“Because it bothered me,” he replied simply. His gaze found her father’s unmoving form on the bed, softening. “I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable,” he said quietly. “And that nurse was at the end of a 48-hour shift, doing everything barely awake and on auto-pilot, so I doubt she remembered to call someone in the morning. I suspected it was a small issue – why wait when I can possibly fix it?”

She couldn’t even remember which nurses frequented the room while he not only knew them but also figured out and kept track of their shifts. Eunbi swallowed. She looked at her father – still asleep, chest rising steadily beneath the blanket – then back at Taejung.

“You always notice things,” she murmured. “Little things.”

He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he leaned back against the wall, folding his arms loosely. His gaze drifted to the window, to the city waking up beyond the glass, his face unreadable.

“It’s a habit,” he said after a while. “It keeps people alive.”

Something in his voice made her chest tighten – the way it sounded old and ingrained. Like vigilance had long stopped being a choice for him.

‘Keeps people alive’ he said – yet Eunbi couldn’t help but hear a ‘me’ somewhere in there.

Just what kind of things he had to go through to be left with such survival habits? Eunbi wondered, her curiosity knowing no bounds when it came to this man.

She hesitated, then asked, carefully, “Was it… useful? In there?”

His eyes went distant for a fraction of a second. Not unfocused – just guarded.

“Yes,” he said.

Eunbi nodded, accepting it for what it was – the truth, stripped of details. She shifted in her chair, rubbing her palms against her thighs, grounding herself in the present.

“My dad never talked about it,” she said quietly, picking at her nails with sadness and a pinch of resentment there. “About his time in prison. Or how he met you.”

Not that she even let him have a proper conversation with her, Eunbi thought under a mountain of guilt. But still – it bothered her so much that he just decided to shut her out of his life. She still couldn’t get it.

“Probably for the better.”

She wanted to argue – the hurt little girl in her that her father abandoned demanding justice for her – but in the end she just bit her tongue.

The silence stretched between them long enough that Eunbi realized he wasn’t planning to speak unless asked to.

Eunbi swallowed. She hadn’t meant to bring it up today, or maybe ever and probably not to him, but now that the topic presented itself, it made the question slip out in desperation.

“Taejung,” she said quietly. His gaze shifted to her, unreadable. “Can you tell me what it was like? I just – I want to understand but Appa wouldn’t – ”

She trailed off mid-sentence like a candle snuffed out. Because Taejung didn’t just go absolutely still – his eyes went blank.

Not angry, not hurt, just… total absence. As if something inside him had recoiled, stepped backward and closed a door behind itself.

Eunbi inhaled sharply, knowing in an instant that she touched on something she shouldn’t have, immediate regret crashing into her chest.

“S-Sorry, that was – ignore me,” she stammered, apologetic. “You don’t have to talk about it. I shouldn’t have asked –”

“It’s fine,” Taejung said.

Except his voice wasn’t fine. It was perfectly level, perfectly even, the way someone sounds when they’re reading a manual.

He didn’t answer her question right away.

For a moment, Eunbi thought he would get his backpack from his feet and leave, but Taejung remained where he was: leaning on the wall, arms crossed, his gaze fixed somewhere past her shoulder – not unfocused but deliberately elsewhere, like he’d found a neutral point to anchor himself to.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm. Too calm.

“It was crowded,” was the first thing he said. “You shared space whether you wanted to or not. There was no privacy anywhere.”

The words came evenly, neutral, and Eunbi felt an odd chill crawl up her arms despite the warmth of the room.

“There were rules,” he went on, voice measured, stripped of inflection. “Some written, most not. You figured them out by watching and listening. And you learned them quickly or you paid the price.”

She stayed silent, afraid that any sound she made might break whatever fragile line he was walking, afraid that if she interrupted him now he would close off completely, retreating back behind that familiar wall of politeness and distance.

“Everything was about routine – there was a set time for roll calls, meals, fresh air, studying or work. It’s boring and repetitive, but that’s life there.”

The room felt smaller with every sentence, the steady beep of the monitor suddenly intrusive, too loud against the quiet of his voice, and Eunbi curled her fingers into the fabric of her sweater, grounding herself in the simple, solid reality of the chair beneath her.

“The food wasn’t great and it was mostly rice – sometimes enough, sometimes not.” He shrugged faintly, as though describing a mild inconvenience rather than years of his life. “You learned not to think about taste too much. You didn’t complain either. Complaining didn’t change a thing.”

Eunbi’s fingers tightened around each other. He might as well have been describing weather patterns.

“You kept track of time at first,” Taejung added. “Days. Weeks. Months. But after a while, you stopped because it just made it all worse.”

Eunbi’s throat felt tight, but she didn’t trust herself to speak, didn’t trust her voice not to shake if she tried to ask how long that while had been for him, so she stayed quiet and let him talk.

He paused, just briefly, long enough for Eunbi to notice the way his jaw tightened, the muscle jumping once before settling again, and then he exhaled and continued as if nothing had happened.

“Violence happened,” he said, simply. “You learned where you stand, who to avoid, when to speak and when not to. Which guards cared, and which ones only cared about keeping things quiet.” His mouth tilted, not quite a smile. “Quiet was usually more important than fair.”

Something in his gaze flickered then, as if a memory had tugged at his attention from inside his own head, and for a fleeting second she thought he might stop altogether, stuck inside, remembering.

“And my dad?” she whispered, gently trying to coax him out of it. “How did you… how did you meet him there?”

For the first time since she’d asked the question, Taejung’s eyes changed – as if he was pulled back into the room. It was subtle, but she saw it – the way he came back into himself, the way the distance in his gaze shortened until he was somewhere closer, somewhere safer.

“He spoke to me first,” he said after a heavy pause, then his voice softened to barely a whisper. “Gave me cheesecake.”

There was more. She felt the weight of it, heavy and unsaid, sitting between them like a third presence. But Taejung’s expression had shuttered again, like he had allowed himself too near a wound that needed to stay covered. This time, Eunbi didn’t press.

Taejung suddenly blinked, eyes refocusing on the present, and he checked his watch.

“I should go,” he said. “I have to be at the prosecutor’s office before ten.”

“Oh,” she managed, trying not to sound disappointed. “Right.”

He stood, slung his backpack over one shoulder, already collecting himself, already stepping back behind whatever careful walls he’d lowered just enough to let her glimpse through. The room felt different after their conversation – darker despite the morning light.

Before he reached the door, Eunbi rose halfway from the chair.

“Taejung –”

He stopped but he didn’t turn. Eunbi swallowed, hoping he didn’t just ruin everything.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said quietly, sincerely.

“It wasn’t much,” he shrugged.

But when he finally looked at her, she saw it – the distance in his eyes, the dullness of it as if whatever he remembered extinguished whatever light he had.

“I’m sorry,” Eunbi whispered, apologetic. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

Taejung looked away.

“It’s alright. You asked a normal question.”

But his eyes were not normal. They were tired in a way exhaustion couldn’t explain, his shoulders weighed down by things she couldn’t see.

He dipped his head once, polite as ever.

“I’ll be back tonight,” he said.

Then he was gone.

Eunbi sat down slowly, her knees unsteady. The door closed softly behind him, the click echoing louder in Eunbi’s ears than it should have, and she sat there for a long moment afterward, staring at the space he’d occupied, replaying his words over and over again.

He had told her facts – nothing more. He had told her about prison, just as she asked – but without telling her about himself.

And somehow, that made it all worse.

Because the silence around those facts felt louder than any confession.

She looked at her father, still sleeping peacefully, unaware of the dark conversation that went down between the people watching over him, and understood with aching clarity that whatever bonds had been formed between them in that place, whatever kindness had been exchanged over something as small as a slice of cheesecake, they were rooted in a world of darkness and survival she could never understand or imagine.

And Taejung seemed deeply scarred by it.

But whatever happened, whatever prison had taken from him, it hadn’t managed to strip away his instinct to remain kind.

That, she realized, might have been the hardest thing of all to hold onto.

The hospital room had grown strangely familiar these past days, like a borrowed apartment she was inhabiting without ever unpacking her bags. Eunbi knew every uneven hum of the air conditioner by heart, every squeak of the curtain rod when a nurse adjusted it, every soft beep from her father’s monitors that meant nothing more than “still alive.”

Outside the window, the city glittered – countless points of light in the dark, while the bedside lamp cast pale light across where Noh Yongsik lay, unmoving but breathing, his chest rising and falling with ease. Eunbi had been sitting beside him, quietly scrolling through her phone without really reading anything, when the door clicked open.

She saw a flash of something green and alive from the corner of her eye; something that didn’t really belong among blank walls, medical machines and antiseptic quiet; something that seemed almost intrusive in its vibrancy. She looked up just in time to see Taejung step in half a second later, easing the door shut behind him with his foot. He carried the plant in one hand, his jacket draped over his other arm, moving with the quiet care that marked his every nighttime visit.

It was not a flower bouquet, nor a fruit basket – he brought an actual plant. Properly potted, leafy and vibrant, like he was smuggling in a piece of the outside world into the sterilized space. As he came closer, Eunbi could see that it was flowering – small white blooms shaped almost like pale flames were nestled softly between dark leaves, delicate and stubbornly upright all at once.

Eunbi blinked once, then again.

“What… is that?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Taejung hesitated halfway to placing it on the side table. “Oh. Uh. This.” He glanced down as if just noticing what he was holding. He glanced over his shoulder, a little caught, maybe even sheepish. “It’s a spathiphyllum.”

She stared at him. “A what?”

He cleared his throat and set it down carefully, adjusting it to his liking. “It’s called a peace lily. It’s easy to grow indoors, highly adaptable and it helps purify the air, too.” His fingers lingered on one of the leaves as he spoke. “It symbolizes peace, hope and healing. I thought – I thought it would be a great addition here.”

She tilted her head, curiosity flickering at his surprising knowledge about the plant – and then, instinctively, she reined it back; fingers tightening slightly where they rested against her knees.

Eunbi hadn’t asked the obvious questions burning at the back of her throat, because she was suddenly, acutely aware of a pattern.

She had been asking too many questions lately – or at least, that’s how it felt to her. Every time she opened her mouth, it seemed like she stumbled onto something sharp – his life in prison, the past, things that strayed too close to painful wounds – and something in him always seemed to dim, just enough to remind Eunbi that she was poking her nose into things she hadn’t earned the right to know and it was hurting him.

Eunbi didn’t want to do that again.

So she stayed silent, watching him fuss with the plant, watching the way his fingers brushed the leaves with surprising gentleness, not checking them so much as greeting them, as if this wasn’t new to him at all. She could learn about him without digging things up, just watching, she decided.

But Taejung, ever perceptive, noticed right away.

“You’re being unusually quiet,” he said after watching her for a few beats, not unkindly.

“I’m not,” she replied a bit too quickly which earned her a raised eyebrow.

“You are.”

She hesitated in front of his knowing eyes, then exhaled softly, conceding. “I was trying not to ask questions.”

That got his full attention. He turned to face her properly, studying her expression with that unnerving perceptiveness that always made her feel like she’d been gently but thoroughly catalogued.

“Why?”

She shrugged, suddenly self-conscious, her gaze dropping to her hands. “Because I feel like every time I do, I end up accidentally stepping on a landmine. Or pushing too much. I don’t want to –” She trailed off, pressing her lips together; searching for a safer, less sharp word than ‘hurt’. “I don’t want to upset you.”

The quiet that followed wasn’t awkward, but it was weighted and dense, stretching for a long time before Taejung spoke again.

“Eunbi,” he said finally, gently, “if I didn’t want to answer something, I wouldn’t.”

She looked up at him, uncertain. He met her gaze without flinching.

“I know how to say no,” he continued, assuring. “You’re allowed to ask and I can decide what I answer.” A pause. Then, quieter, he added, “You don’t need to walk on eggshells around me.”

Before she could say anything, he huffed, almost amused in that depressing way he got sometimes, his gaze almost apologetic. “There are a lot of mines – you simply can’t avoid them all.”

Something about that loosened the knot in her chest. But also tore her heart into two.

“Okay,” she said in a whisper.

“Good.” He nodded once, then gestured toward her, inviting her to ask what she wanted. “So?”

She smiled, small and tentative.

“How do you know so much about plants?” she inquired, unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice.

Taejung straightened, brushing soil from his fingertips and shrugging. “It’s not a lot. I just know a fair amount.”

“That’s not a ‘fair amount’ of knowledge,” she pointed out, leaning back slightly in her chair. “Most people would only know that thing,” she pointed to the peace lily, “is a plant. But you just gave me its Latin name and a bunch of other information about it.” Eunbi tilted her head. “Where’d you learn all that?”

There was a pause – brief, but tangible. For a heartbeat, she worried she’d actually misstepped this time and braced instinctively for him to decline answering.

But Taejung didn’t shut down. His gaze drifted back to the window, watching the city lights as he answered. “My mother.”

His voice had changed. Softened and lowered in a way that she only heard once – when he talked about his brother.

“She liked plants?” Eunbi asked quietly.

“Loved them.” He looked at the peace lily again, stroking its leaves softly with a fingertip. “Our tiny apartment never really had much, but it was always full of greenery. She always said plants made a place feel alive.”

Eunbi didn’t know a lot about Taejung’s mother. She knew she wasn’t alive anymore and that the place they holed up in, after getting Taejung before he was transported back to prison, was originally hers. She also saw some pictures, dirty with dust and soil, tucked safely away between two pots but she never touched them. And that was it. Even then, Eunbi sensed that his mother was a topic he wasn’t used to sharing.

But he was doing it now, so Eunbi stayed quiet, listening.

“She’d pick the plants nobody wanted: the cheap, abandoned and barely alive ones and bring it home,” he went on, eyes fixed on the leaves. “Said if they could survive me and my brother, they could survive anything.”

A faint, complicated smile curved his mouth – the kind that wasn’t really joy but something tender and bruised at the same time.

“She taught us how to take care of them since we were little. How much water to give them. What needed sun, what didn’t. How to tell when something was sick, and how to fix it. Taejin was bad at it but… it was always easy for me.”

She imagined a younger Taejung – smaller, quieter, crouched on a balcony or by a window, holding a plastic watering can too big for his hands – and something warm and aching bloomed in her chest.

Taejung swallowed, taking his finger off the peace lily, voice getting quiet. “Even when things weren't great and she got terminally ill, she tried to keep them alive.”

Eunbi felt something in her chest tighten. She didn’t ask what took her, or how old he was when it happened. That really would’ve been prying.

“Do you miss her?” she asked instead.

“Yes,” he answered simply, like she knew he would. “Every day.”

He wasn’t looking at her, just at the plant, but the way he spoke – soft, longing –, and the way his eyes seemed to glitter, felt like he was letting her peer into a room usually tightly locked.

“My mum liked cut flowers,” she shared quietly in exchange because he offered up so much about himself and she couldn’t bear it without giving something back. Taejung glanced at her, paying attention immediately. “She had a terrible black thumb but she always bought some from the florist down the road from our house. There were always fresh ones on our table,” she smiled as she remembered before it turned into something sad. “I used to press them. But they all perished in the fire.”

Taejung didn’t ask about it, which meant he knew what happened to her family, just like she expected. He only nodded; both of them giving a small smile to the other that was full of grief, fond memories and the silent kinship of those who have lost a mother.

They fell into a gentle quiet. The machines beeped steadily and her father breathed evenly. The plant sat there being stubbornly green-white and thriving.

“Thanks for bringing it,” she said quietly after a while, waving at it.

He nodded quickly, almost awkwardly. “It’s nothing.”

Taejung moved around the room quietly after that – checking her father’s IV line and the machines, adjusting the bed and the blanket at his feet, making sure there was clean water on the bedside table, ready for him to drink if he woke up. Eunbi watched him do it, all these little things, without comment.

When he finally sat, it was with a small exhale, rolling his shoulders like he was working out stiffness and tension that had no intention of leaving him alone.

His eyes were bloodshot and red.

Not dramatically – just enough that she noticed, but coupled with the deepening shadows under his eyes, it was starting to become concerning.

“You didn’t sleep again,” she said, tone scolding.

He waved it off. “I did.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

He huffed quietly, rubbing at one eye with the heel of his palm. “Staring at paperwork all day doesn’t help.”

Her fingers curled into her sweater, thinking of the small bottle in her bag that she’d bought two days ago.

The eyedrops had sat there ever since, a small, almost ridiculous thing she hadn’t known how to offer to him without making it awkward, or a Thing. She’d told herself she’d wait for the right moment, whatever that meant.

This felt close enough.

Eunbi reached into her bag and pulled out the unopened bottle, holding it out to him a little awkwardly. “Here.”

Taejung looked at it, then at her, clearly puzzled. “What’s this?”

“Eyedrops,” she said. “I forgot that I had some in my bag last time.”

She hadn’t meant to imply that she’d remembered, that she was looking out for him as much as he did to her.

But he seemed to understand anyway.

“Oh,” he said, quieter than before. He took it carefully, like the bottle might shatter under too much pressure. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” she replied, echoing him from days ago.

That earned her another look – the kind that lingered just a second too long – and they smiled in understanding, small and sincere, at each other.

Taejung turned the bottle over in his hands, reading the label like it was in a different language. Then, he said, a little sheepishly, “I’ve never used one of these before.”

She raised a brow. “You just… drop some into your eye. It’s not rocket science”

“I figured,” he glared at her mildly for the attitude. “But – ”

“Do you want help?” The question slipped out before she could overthink it, seeing his unsure expression.

He hesitated, then nodded once. “If you don’t mind.”

She moved closer, heart thudding louder than necessary, as she realized she’d need to be near him.

Once in possession of the bottle, she gently nudged his jaw with her fingers in a non-verbal cue to tip his chin up, before she realized she ought to have asked first prior to touching him. But Taejung stilled and complied immediately, baring his throat – trusting in a way that made her breath catch.

“Look up,” she murmured.

He did.

His eyes were dark brown up close, lashes longer than they had any right to be, the healing, faint bruises and scratches on his face more visible in the soft light. She focused on the task at hand (rather than how beautiful she found him) and uncapped the bottle, briefly meeting his eyes from her higher vantage point.

“It’s easy,” she explained, voice hushed. “You just need to pull your lower eyelid down, put a drop in and close your eyes for at least a minute.” She added, “I’d also press lightly on my tear duct; it helps absorb it faster.”

He nodded, watching her silently.

She squeezed a single drop into each eye when he seemed ready, her fingers barely brushing his jawline as a way of steadying his face while being careful not to poke him.

“Keep your eyes closed for a bit, then you can blink,” she reminded him gently.

He did just as instructed, blinking a few times, a soft sound leaving him as the irritation probably eased for him. “That’s better,” he admitted.

She stepped back, suddenly hyper-aware of how close they’d been, giving him the eyedrops. “Good.”

He capped the bottle and handed it back, thanking her, but Eunbi shook her head, rejecting it. “Keep it.”

He paused, then tucked it into his pocket instead of arguing.

They settled into a quiet rhythm after that – Eunbi sitting beside her father, Taejung in his usual chair, the plant a quiet witness between them. After a while, he spoke again, almost casually.

“I had a greenhouse inside,” he said.

She turned to him. “Where?”

“Prison,” he clarified.

Eunbi’s head snapped up at the sudden and surprising information. “You did?”

“Well,” he corrected, with an almost sheepish look, “calling it a greenhouse would be generous. It was more like… a little corner at the back of the courtyard – some plastic sheeting, a bare metal structure and whatever seeds I could get my hands on. But I made it work.”

Her heart ached at the image.

“I built it all from scratch.”

She could hear it – the pride in his voice, the ownership of something that had been only his. He didn’t look at her as he spoke, gaze fixed on the plant instead.

“It helped me keep track of time,” he said quietly. “Gave me something that needed me to show up every day. Even when nothing else did.”

There it was – the part he wasn’t saying the last time. The weight beneath the words.

But Eunbi didn’t push. She just listened.

“Before everything,” he added, after a pause, “I was also planning to open a café. It was on a rooftop, full of plants and fairy lights.”

Her breath caught. Taejung rarely ever mentioned anything from the time she bitterly and angrily titled “BY” in her mind – Before Yohan. “Really?”

“Yeah.” A faint, sad smile spread across his features. “I worked two delivery jobs for over a year to get enough money for it and applied for a loan too. I was so close to opening it.” The tone of his voice was soul crushing. “Now, I don’t even know what condition it is in. Or if it’s even mine still.”

Eunbi hoped that whatever hell Yohan ended up in, he would be tortured for all eternity and then some for what he took from this poor man.

“After all this, you could start again,” she said quietly, encouragingly; even though she knew how hard it was to start from… well, scratch, again. “And if you need some help – although I don’t know anything about plants – I’m always available. Appa, would love to help too, I bet.”

He glanced at her, eyes soft. “Thank you.”

The plant on the bedside table rustled faintly as the air system kicked on, its flowers bobbing their little heads, as if in agreement.

Eunbi leaned back in her chair, watching him look at it, and thought how he fixed broken things without being asked. How he carried life into sterile spaces. How special he was.

The truth was – she liked seeing him talk about something he loved. Liked how it loosened the set of his shoulders, how his eyes glinted with a faint excitement when he rambled without realizing it.

She liked him – more than she should, and more than she admitted even to herself.

As he leaned back in the chair, tired but steady, holding her father’s hand with barely concealed concern, Eunbi thought that the peace lily wasn’t the only thing in this room that made it easier to breathe.

The TV was on when it happened.

Eunbi sat in her usual place by her father’s bed, knees drawn up slightly as she watched the same news cycle for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Every channel had latched onto the same story: the An Yohan case – the press conferences, the endless replays of blurred footage, the speculation about accomplices and timelines. Commentators were picking the whole thing apart with a kind of cold fascination that made her jaw tighten.

She wasn’t really watching anymore, or at least not consciously. It was just background noise – something to fill the space so she wouldn’t focus on the tense, uneasy silence of waiting.

Her father slept through it all. He just lay there, breaths shallow but steady, face slack from exhaustion. The bruise on his temple was fading now, yellow at the edges, but it hurt every time she looked at it.

His color was better than yesterday; the doctor said this morning that his body was functioning as it should.

She was halfway through a sip of lukewarm coffee when her father shifted.

It was a subtle movement – no dramatic gasp, no sudden jolt, just a faint rustle in the sheets, a tiny crease forming between his brows, as if he was struggling out of a heavy, stubborn dream.

“Appa?” She was already leaning forward, heart thudding so hard she could feel it in her throat. She set the cup down too quickly, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the edge. “Appa?”

His fingers twitched. Eunbi stopped breathing.

Then, in a voice barely above the hum of the machines beside him, he spoke.

“Eun…bi.”

It was her name – broken, rasped, but unmistakable.

Her head snapped up. Her father’s eyes were open – foggy, unfocused, but open. She was on her feet before she realized she’d moved, both hands closing around his, warm and trembling beneath her grip. Her heart surged so violently she nearly dropped it.

“Appa? Appa! I’m here. I’m right here.”

She leaned forward, brushing his hair back, blinking rapidly to clear the sudden burn in her eyes. His eyelids fluttered, struggling, and for a moment she thought that would be it – that he’d sink back under, that she’d imagined the whole thing out of sheer exhaustion.

But then his lips moved again, forming another word.

“Tae… jung…”

Eunbi froze.

Of course, he would ask for him, too. Eunbi stared at her father, at the effort it took him just to shape the syllables, at the way his grip tightened weakly around her fingers.

She swallowed hard. “I’ll call him right now. Okay?”

Her father gave the faintest nod, lids drooping again. She fumbled for the call button before her phone and stepped into the hallway as a nurse was coming to check on them. She didn’t remember what she'd told her, more focused on finding and dialling Taejung’s number, her hands shaking.

The call connected on the second ring.

“Eunbi?” Taejung’s voice was low, alert immediately. There was noise in the background – muffled voices, the echo of a large room. She couldn’t remember where he was supposed to go today, her mind drawing a blank. “What happened? Is he okay? Are you okay?”

“He woke up,” she said, words tumbling out before she could organize them. “Appa woke up, Taejung.”

There was no reply, only a sharp exhale on the other end, the sound of relief.

“I’m on my way,” Taejung said.

She heard movement then – a chair scraping, footsteps, someone calling his name – but he didn’t say anything else before he hung up.

Eunbi stared at her phone, stunned by the way he literally threw everything aside for her father. She didn’t know why it made her eyes well up with tears – maybe it was the sheer relief after weeks of constant stress and worry.

When she felt steady enough not to start crying, Eunbi returned to the room, to her finally awake father, the nurse, and the doctor tending to him, and she stood next to the bed and waited.

It took him twenty minutes when it should have taken him at least forty.

She heard him before she saw him – the hurried footsteps in the hallway, the breathless cadence of someone who had run for longer than was wise. Then the door burst open without the signature soft knock, and Taejung barreled inside as if someone was chasing him.

He barely slowed down enough to close the door behind him, hair disheveled like he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly – or actually running, judging by the way his chest rose and fell. He braced himself against the wall for half a second before pushing forward.

His jacket hung open, the hoodie wrinkled beneath it. There was a sheen of sweat at his temples, his breath audible in the stillness of the room.

He looked wrecked.

“Is he – ” He choked on the rest of the sentence, scanning the room until his gaze landed on Yongshik.

Eunbi stood, cracking her hands nervously. “He is asleep,” she said quickly. “He – he woke up for a bit, but he’s asleep again.”

Taejung stopped short as he saw it for himself. The momentum bled out of him all at once, shoulders slumping as the adrenaline that had carried him here seemed to realize there was nowhere left to go finally.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

He stepped closer anyway, movements careful now, restrained, as if afraid of disturbing the quiet. He stood at the foot of the bed, staring at Yongsik’s face with an intensity that bordered on reverence, jaw tight, hands clenched at his sides.

“I’m sorry,” Eunbi said immediately, guilt flaring sharp and sudden. “I should’ve called you again, but it all happened so fast, and I was talking to the doctor and – ”

“It’s alright,” Taejung interrupted gently, shaking his head. “You did the right thing.”

He swallowed.

“I just – ” He stopped himself, exhaled slowly through his nose. “I thought… I hoped…”

That he’d made it in time.

She could see it written all over him – the way his eyes lingered on her father’s face, how crushed he was that he thought he’d missed something important. He didn’t know what to do with himself now that the moment had passed.

“He asked for you,” she said softly, in consolation. “That was the second thing he said. Right after my name.”

That did it.

Something in Taejung’s expression cracked – just enough that she saw beneath it. The tight control, the careful composure he had worn over the past few days, slipped just a fraction, revealing the utter mess underneath.

His shoulders sagged further, a hand coming up to scrub over his face.

“The doctor said it’s a good sign,” Eunbi added. “Really good. That he will wake up more from now on.”

He nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

They stood there for a moment, the quiet thick between them, until Taejung finally turned away from the bed and sank into the chair beside it, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.

He looked exhausted in a way she hadn’t seen before – not just physically, but mentally; like he had been stretched too thin for too long. There was a hollowed-out quality to him today, like something essential had been keeping him upright and now it was gone.

Seeing him so untethered and lost was unnerving. Eunbi was unable to watch it.

“Taejung?” she said carefully. “Are you okay?”

The question lingered between them, heavier than it should have been, stretching past the space where he usually answered automatically. He opened his mouth as if the words were already there, then closed it again, gaze fixed stubbornly on the floor.

After a long, measured breath, he finally spoke. “I don’t know.”

It was probably the most honest answer she had ever heard from him. After a thousand variations of I’m fine, of deflections and half-truths, the admission felt startling in its simplicity – it was quiet and strangely fragile.

She didn’t rush to fill the silence. She waited.

When he spoke again, it was softer. “They gave me the date today.”

Her heart skipped. “For the retrial?”

He nodded once.

Eunbi gasped, hope flaring instinctively before she could temper it. “Wait – that’s… that’s good, isn’t it? You can finally be vindicated. Everything can be cleared, officially.”

He didn’t move, didn’t nod. His eyes stayed on the floor, jaw set tight, shoulders drawn into a rigid line that seemed unnatural after days of seeing him close to relaxed in that very same chair.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, almost panicking.

“I don’t know how I feel about it.”

The words were calm, almost detached, but they didn’t match the way his hands trembled faintly where they were laced together.

“The last time I was in a courtroom,” he continued, his voice dropping as if the room itself might overhear, “everything went wrong. I said all the right things and it didn’t matter. Evidence didn’t matter. The truth didn’t matter.” His jaw tightened. “I walked in thinking it would be over soon. That I just had to explain myself and everyone would realize that it was all just a misunderstanding.”

He paused, drawing in a slow breath that sounded heavier on the way out.

“But I walked out in handcuffs.”

Eunbi didn’t need him to explain further; the weight in his tone said everything words couldn’t. She took a step closer, careful, deliberate, as if approaching something easily startled.

“Taejung,” she searched for the right thing to say and came up nearly empty. “This time is different.”

He exhaled again, slow and unsteady. “I know. I know that logically. But every time I think about sitting there again… my hands start to shake.”

She closed the remaining distance between them and gently laid her hand over his, the contact tentative at first. He stiffened for half a second out of instinct, then eased, fingers loosening beneath hers.

“You won’t be alone this time.”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away either.

“You have witnesses now,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. “You have evidence. Real, irrefutable evidence. People who believe you, who will speak for you. And even if –”

She hesitated, then finished, her thumb brushing lightly against his knuckles in a grounding, deliberate motion.

“Even if something goes wrong, we’ll figure it out. Together.”

That was what finally made him look up at her.

There was something raw in his eyes – fear, yes, but also relief and disbelief, like he couldn’t believe what she was saying. He looked closer to crying than Eunbi ever saw him, and she couldn’t stop her free hand sliding up to his back to stroke it hesitantly. Taejung relaxed, almost slumping into the touch, enough that Eunbi rather gripped his shoulder in a steady hold, grounding him instead.

“Thank you,” he whispered, hanging his head.

“Don’t mention it.”

For a long time, neither of them moved or said anything – the only movement came from Eunbi’s hand gently rubbing soothing circles on his back when she felt like he wouldn’t break down from it.

When his phone buzzed, both of them flinched slightly, the sharp vibration a sudden return to the world outside the room. Taejung glanced at the screen, shoulders tensing as recognition set in, the familiar weight settling back into place as if it had never truly left.

“I have to go back,” he said, reluctance seeping between the words. “I left them abruptly in the middle of something, and they need me to finish it.”

Eunbi nodded, even though the idea of him being pulled back into that endless circuit – between the prosecutor’s office, the police station, and places that never seemed to let him rest – made something tight and unhappy coil in her chest.

She squeezed his hand once more before letting go. “I’ll be here.”

“I know,” he said softly.

He gave her and her father one last look – something unspoken passing through it – then slipped out the door.

Eunbi watched it close behind him, the echo soft but final, her heart heavy and strangely hopeful all at once.

Her father slept. The room hummed on.

She returned to the chair beside the bed, the quiet settling back into place as if nothing had happened at all. She leaned forward, resting her forehead briefly against the edge of the mattress, breathing in slowly.

“You have terrible timing,” she whispered to her father, a sad smile tugging at her mouth. “You know that?”

She brushed his hair back gently.

“Next time,” she added, quieter, “you need to wake up when he’s here. Okay?”

“He needs you,” she said, pressing his hand between both of hers. Her voice wobbled just a little. “And I think I do, too.”

Her father didn’t stir, but she didn’t expect him to.

After a moment, Eunbi straightened, smoothed the blanket with careful hands, and picked up her phone again – checking the time, browsing, killing time.

Waiting, once again.

The room was too quiet.

Eunbi noticed it the moment she pushed the door open – with the familiarity of someone who had repeated this motion every day for too many days to count – the silence registering first as confusion. She stood there for a second longer than necessary, fingers still curled around the handle, listening – instinctively – for the familiar beeps and low mechanical noises that had accompanied every visit for days now.

But they were gone.

What remained was just the faint hum of the hospital’s ventilation system somewhere far away, and the distant murmur of footsteps and voices drifting down the hallway.

Eunbi stepped inside slowly, letting the door close behind her with a careful click, her gaze moving first to the bed out of habit – and then stopping short.

Because her father was awake.

Not sitting up fully, not alert in the way she imagined he might be in her head, but awake enough that his eyes were open and aware, his gaze something unmistakably fond. And beside him –

Taejung was asleep.

For a moment, Eunbi’s brain couldn’t interpret the scene correctly. It was too still, too gentle, too fragile to fit into the jagged reality of the past few weeks.

He was slumped forward in the chair beside the hospital bed, torso angled toward Yongsik as if he was watching him last night, but exhaustion had finally won after a long fight. His forearms crossed on the mattress, with his head resting on them, turned slightly to the side, hidden from her. His breathing was slow, deep, and unguarded.

And her father’s hand was resting in his dark hair, fingers gently combing through it in repetitive, careful motions.

He was petting him.

Eunbi froze in the doorway, her heart knocking once against her ribs, hard.

“Appa?” she whispered, voice barely there.

Her father looked up at the sound, eyes lighting up and the corner of his mouth lifting almost immediately at her presence, and watched her reaction with something like amused fondness, his hand never pausing in its slow, careful motion through Taejung’s hair.

“Eunbi,” he said, voice rough but cheerful. “You’re here.”

The words punched the air out of her lungs. Hearing him speak – after days of silence – felt like the world suddenly righted itself.

It took her a moment to unfreeze from her shock. Eyes burning, she crossed the room in three quick steps, dropping her bag without care as she reached him, hands coming up to grip his forearm, then his shoulder, as if she needed to verify him by touch alone. She took in the way his color looked so much better than yesterday, the way his shoulders were propped more comfortably now that he was no longer attached to half a dozen machines, just the IV bag.

“You’re –” Her voice broke, and she laughed weakly through it. “You’re awake! When did –”

“Earlier this morning,” he replied, eyes crinkling faintly. “The nurses took half the room away while you were gone. They said I don’t need them anymore.”

Her eyes shifted to Taejung without her permission as she wondered whether he was awake for that. His hair was sleep-rumpled in a way Eunbi had never seen before, not even in Busan. She already knew his face looked vastly different in sleep – younger, softer, his frown smoothed out, lashes casting faint shadows against his cheeks. Almost angelic, Eunbi thought when she witnessed it back then, but compared to then, his sleep now looked more… restful, in a way. Relaxed. She was glad to see it.

Yongsik followed her gaze and smiled faintly.

“He almost woke up when they came in and started puttering,” Yongsik murmured, voice pitched low, like he knew what she was thinking about. His hand didn’t pause in its absentminded gesture, fingers brushing through Taejung’s hair carefully. “I tried to shush him back to sleep. When that didn’t work,” he nodded towards his hand, “This did.”

Park Taejung was protective and vigilant, even dead-tired, it seemed, but even he was just human in the face of gentle, soothing touches.

“Every time I stop,” he demonstrated with an amused, fond twinkle in his eyes, fingers stilling, “he starts to wake. Look.”

As if on cue, just a few seconds later, Taejung shifted slightly, brows furrowing for a brief moment – but when his hair was touched again, her father back to combing it rhythmically, his features smoothed out, and he settled again.

Yongsik – mindful of the volume – giggled, and Eunbi herself had to bite on her lip not to laugh out loud. It was really, really cute.

Standing there, looking down at the two of them like this – one just barely returned to the world, the other finally letting go after holding himself together by sheer force of will for so long – felt almost intrusive, like she’d walked in on something sacred.

“Shouldn’t we wake him?” she asked quietly. If Taejung missed her father being awake one more time, Eunbi knew it would devastate him. Not to mention, he might have to be somewhere today as well.

“No,” Yongshik said immediately, voice almost scolding despite its weakness. His palm shifted, covering Taejung’s crown, as if shielding him from her. “He looks like he didn’t sleep much. Let him rest.”

Her throat tightened, and she looked at Taejung again. A folder sat forgotten beside him, papers spilling out in a haphazard fan; he must have been reviewing something until sleep finally pulled him under. The dark smudges beneath his eyes had deepened, almost resembling bruises. It was a miracle he didn’t faint, just fell asleep.

Her father’s eyes followed her gaze.

“He’s been here every night?” he asked, already knowing.

Eunbi nodded. “He came after dealing with the prosecution, the police, everything. And he was here until I came in the morning. I never caught him resting.”

Yongshik huffed. “Stubborn kid.”

“He kept insisting he was fine,” Eunbi complained, while feeling childish because it did feel like she was tattling on Taejung to a teacher. “He was so annoying. And a hypocrite.”

“I don’t think he knows how tired he is,” her father replied simply, kind of sadly. “How exhausted he has been for a long time.”

“It’s insane how he just keeps going.”

Her father looked at the sleeping man beside him, his gaze complicated. His thumb brushed once against the line of Taejung’s hair, almost unconsciously as he hummed in agreement.

“That’s how he survived in there.”

Oh.

Eunbi held very still, listening to her father’s words, a chill running up her spine.

“He couldn’t afford to be weak, hurt, or tired.”

Survived. Afford. Both of those words painted a dark picture – one where Taejung didn’t really have a choice.

Eunbi swallowed and licked her suddenly dry lips.

She had known this moment would eventually come – had felt it hovering between them ever since Eunbi noticed the picture of them together in his shop, and later, when her dad introduced Taejung to her, and even more after her talk with Taejung – but didn’t think it would present itself so soon and so naturally. Since the chaos had eased enough to leave space for questions, she decided not to lose the opportunity this moment gave her.

“Appa,” she said softly, “how – how did you two meet there?”

Yongshik settled back into the pillows, his gaze saddened, drifting far beyond the room. His hand didn’t lift from Taejung’s hair – if anything, his fingers grew gentler.

“The first time I saw him,” he said slowly, voice dropping into something quieter, heavier, “he was sitting in the courtyard, crying his heart out, being all beaten up.”

Eunbi gasped.

“I don’t think he noticed me, though. Or the few times after that we crossed paths,” Yongsik went on, deep in thought. “He didn’t notice much of anything around him at that time, I think.”

Eunbi waited for him to elaborate on that weird statement, but he never did. Instead, his eyes shifted to Eunbi, his gaze turning gravely serious but also apologetic.

“I won’t share much,” he warned Eunbi. “That time is his to tell. Or his to not tell. Please understand that.”

Eunbi nodded. Satisfied with her silent, easy acceptance, he continued.

“We talked the first time on an Easter Sunday. Well,” he chuckled quietly, “more like I talked and he listened. I was an altar server for a long while by then, and that was the first mass he attended.”

She noticed both of them being slightly religious – at first glance, her father more than Taejung. But she saw the cross on the bracelet he wore and never took off, and the way he thumbed the beads sometimes like people would a rosary.

“He said that you approached him first and gave him some cheesecake,” Eunbi said, her father blinking in surprise at her knowing that, but confirming it with a hum. “Why did you decide to talk to him?”

“Because it hurt to watch him,” he murmured. “Because no one else did. Because I was afraid that if someone didn’t… he wouldn’t last.”

Her eyes immediately went to Taejung’s arm lying on the bed, unable to see the inside of his wrist but knowing what scars were there. Eunbi closed her eyes briefly, the image settling painfully in her mind.

“He barely survived in there,” Yongsik added, voice steady but weighted. “That’s not exaggeration – that’s the truth.” His fingers tightened slightly in Taejung’s hair, then relaxed again. “It was hell for him. He was too young, too gentle, and too innocent in every sense of the word for that dark place. Prison destroys people like that.”

He whispered, stroking Taejung’s dark hair with incredible gentleness, “I thank God every day that he’s still here.”

Eunbi didn’t trust herself to speak. The room seemed to shrink around the three of them, full of too much truth.

“Foolish boy,” Yongsik said a beat later, with a soft huff that carried no real irritation. “He thinks I saved him and that means he owes me forever.” A tired breath slipped out. “He’s selfless and loyal to a fault.”

Her lips parted. “You care about him.”

“Of course I do.” The answer came without hesitation, almost upset even, as if Eunbi questioned it. “He’s good. Frankly, too good for this world.”

“That, he really is,” she agreed softly, thinking of the countless little things he did just in this hospital alone.

At that, her father looked directly at her. She felt heat rise to her cheeks, unwelcome and impossible to hide.

“Hm,” Yongshik hummed, turning his gaze toward the sleeping figure beside him, then back to his daughter again. “Thought so.”

“What is that ‘thought so’ supposed to mean?” she whispered sharply, bristling.

Her father smiled. “You’re not subtle, Eunbi.”

Her face burned. She wanted to dig a hole for herself and possibly never fucking emerge from it. First, her friend, now her dad. Was she really this transparent with her teeny-tiny crush?! “Appa!”

“You were always very curious as a child about things that interested you,” he said with an amused look. “And you look at him with this kind of… fond awe,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, I don’t think he noticed it. Yet.”

Eunbi wanted to melt through the floor. She looked down to her hands, avoiding his eyes.

“I don’t disapprove. But,” Yongsik said gently, “don’t rush yourself. You have to be sure about your feelings because he isn’t someone you play with, even by accident.” She nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. “And don’t rush him, either.”

She blinked up at him, frowning. His hand slowed, thoughtful.

“Revenge, survival, and seeking justice had been driving him for so long – it will take a while until he notices anything else. He needs time,” her father explained. “To start anew. To deal with those dark years and the recent events. To grieve. To come back to himself.”

He gave her a small smile. “When he does, you can tell him – but he’ll probably notice your feelings by then, anyway. He is a smart boy.”

Fuck, she knew – he noticed everything. Eunbi could only hope that it would take a while before she would have to embarrass herself like that in front of him, probably.

To her father’s searching eyes, she nodded. “I promise.”

And she meant it.

Time passed strangely after that – she didn’t know how much of it flew by without them speaking, but it was warm and peaceful. Sunlight crept higher along the wall, illuminating the room, and her still-tired father was close to dozing off, his hand freezing on the top of Taejung’s head mid-motion – something that made her smile.

Eunbi’s gaze drifted back to him without quite meaning to: watching how the morning light filtered through the blinds in soft, pale bands, settling over him like it had chosen him deliberately – catching in his hair, warming the curve of his cheek, tracing the slow rise and fall of his chest.

She followed the light absently, eyes lifting from him to where it shone through the window and out into the bright morning beyond. The sky was clear, painfully so, the sun sitting too high, too bright – and when she looked a second too long, it burned white behind her eyes.

She turned away quickly, breath hitching.

The sneeze came without warning and left Eunbi far louder than she anticipated – too sharp, too loud, ricocheting off the walls that had grown used to whispers and careful breathing. It cut clean through the fragile quiet of the room, making her father blink back awake.

And what was worse was that even Taejung stirred immediately.

It was subtle at first: a shift in his shoulders, the muscles along his back tightening as if bracing for impact even in sleep. His brow furrowed, lashes fluttering once, twice, like he was surfacing from somewhere deep and peaceful. His breathing had changed – from slow and even to something shallower, more awake.

Eunbi froze, guilt slamming into her chest.

“Shit,” she whispered, amongst her father’s quiet laugh, instinctively reaching out, then stopping herself mid-motion, unsure whether her touching him was allowed.

Yongsik’s hand, still buried gently in Taejung’s hair, started a careful, steady rhythm once more, but it was no use.

Taejung was already more than halfway awake.

His eyes opened – just a slit at first, unfocused, heavy with sleep.

“…What?” he rasped, voice rough and tired. He blinked again, slower this time, confusion knitting briefly between his brows. “What happen’d?”

Then he realized what he was seeing in front of him – or who.

Noh Yongsik – awake.

The breath left Taejung’s lungs in a sound that wasn’t wasn’t quite a sob but definitely close to one. His shoulders sagged instantly, all that coiled tension collapsing in on itself as he surged back into sitting more appropriately, in one unsteady motion.

“You –” His voice broke outright. He cleared his throat hard and tried again. “You’re awake.”

Yongsik smiled at him, eyes crinkling faintly. “Last I checked.”

Taejung moved closer as much as his seat let him, his arms still lying on the bed but not reaching out to touch her father. His eyes searched Yongsik’s face with naked urgency – checking his color, his awareness, his breathing.

“When – How long?” he asked, words tumbling over each other now that they’d started coming. “Are you in pain? Did the doctor –”

“Easy,” Yongsik said gently. “I’m alright. Just a bit battered.”

Taejung let out a shaky breath, the sound thick with relief. He reached out then, finally, fingers closing carefully around Yongsik’s hand like he needed the confirmation.

“You scared me,” he whispered, accusation soft and fond all at once.

Yongsik squeezed his fingers back, firm despite the IV taped to his wrist. “I seem to recall someone else scaring me not too long ago.”

Taejung huffed out a laugh – a laugh – bowing his head for a moment, forehead nearly touching the edge of the bed. When he straightened again, his eyes were bright in a way Eunbi had never seen before, relief washing through him so visibly it was like the sun came out after a week of nothing but rain.

Eunbi was right, by the way. He really did have the most beautiful laugh in the world.

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