Work Text:
People say love is supposed to feel warm.
Geum Seong-je has heard that sentence many times throughout his life, spoken casually by classmates, murmured in dramas playing on television screens, written in songs that promise something soft and uncomplicated, and every time he hears it there is always a pause in his mind where he tries.. genuinely tries to understand what that warmth must feel like.
Because as far as he can remember, love has never felt warm to him. It has always felt conditional, something that exists only after you prove you are worth the effort of keeping.
When he was younger he believed, with the stubborn sincerity that only children possess, that it was simply a matter of trying harder. There is a memory that comes back to him sometimes without warning, one of those small, ordinary evenings that should have disappeared with the rest of childhood but instead linger in the back of his mind like an unfinished sentence.
The apartment had always been small, the kind of place where every sound traveled easily through thin walls and narrow hallways, and that night the television was playing some loud money winning show that neither of his parents were really watching. The air smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and fabric softener, the two scents blending together in a way that always made the place feel strangely suffocating.
Seong-je sat at the kitchen table with his homework spread neatly in front of him, his legs barely reaching the floor as they swung slightly beneath the chair, and he was concentrating so hard that the tip of his tongue rested against his teeth, his pencil moving slowly and carefully across the page.
His handwriting had to be perfect, every line straight. He erased frequently, even when the mistake was so small that most teachers would never notice it, because perfection felt safer than “good enough,” and children who want to be praised learn very quickly that perfection is easier to admire.
He had finished earlier than usual that night, and that had been the plan. If he finished early, maybe they would notice.
“Mom? ” he said eventually in the way someone tests water before stepping into it, “can you look at this?”
She glanced up from her phone for only a moment, her eyes moving lazily across the paper he held out with both hands.
“That’s it?” she asked.
The words were not shouted, more just unimpressed. Seong-je blinked, unsure if he had misunderstood something.
“I finished everything,” he said quickly, a little breathless now, because explaining might fix the problem, because maybe she simply hadn’t realized how much work he had done. “I did the extra problems too.”
His father reached over then, taking the paper from him with absent impatience, and studied it for a few seconds longer than his mother had.
For one hopeful moment, Seong-je felt something fragile spark inside his chest. Approval? Maybe even pride. Instead, the paper slid back across the table toward him.
“You can do better.” his father said.
That was all. The television laughed loudly in the background as if the room itself was mocking him.
Seong-je stared down at the page, at the careful handwriting he had spent nearly an hour perfecting, and for a moment he didn’t know what exactly had gone wrong. It looked perfect. He had checked it three times.
But if it wasn’t enough, then the only possible explanation was simple.
He needed to try harder. So he erased the page, all of it.
The careful characters disappeared beneath rough streaks of rubber and graphite dust until the paper grew thin and fragile beneath his hand, and he began writing everything again from the beginning, slower this time, more careful, pressing his pencil down so precisely that his fingers began to ache.
The clock moved forward, the television eventually turned off and his parents went to bed without saying goodnight.
And still he sat there.
Children are resilient in strange ways when they believe effort will eventually lead to affection.
Seong-je rewrote the page three more times that night. By the time he finally crawled into bed his hands were cramped, his eyes stung with exhaustion, and the paper lying on the table behind him looked flawless, and it almost hurt to look at.
No one mentioned it the next morning. No one noticed the difference. That was the first time he realized something… trying harder does not always bring love closer. Sometimes it only moves the finish line further away.
Years passed after that, but the lesson never really left him.
Love, Seong-je learned, was not something you received simply for existing. It was something you performed for and something you earned. Something you worked toward with the same persistence that once kept a small boy sitting at a kitchen table long after midnight, trying to make his handwriting perfect enough that someone might finally say they were proud of him. And maybe that is why the feeling inside his chest now is so familiar.
Because when Geum Seong-je looks across the room and sees Na Baek-jin, standing there with that calm, distant composure that makes most people hesitate before even speaking to him, something inside Seong-je reacts the same way it always has. The same quiet determination, the same restless need to prove something.
Because if there is anyone in the world whose attention cannot be taken lightly, whose approval feels impossibly distant yet valuable, it is Baek-jin’s.
And Seong-je has spent his entire life learning how to work for love.
So he smiles as if none of this matters at all and then he walks toward Baek-jin.
The room that Baek-jin uses as his office is quiet in the way places become quiet when the person inside them prefers it that way, the desk organized with precision, papers stacked in exact lines, a laptop open in front of him while a notebook rests beside it filled with tightly structured handwriting. Baek-jin sits there with his shoulders slightly hunched forward, one hand holding a pen while the other scrolls slowly across the screen, his attention so deeply absorbed in whatever he is reading that for a moment it almost feels like stepping into a room already occupied by someone who exists on a completely different frequency.
Seong-je leans casually against the doorframe and waits.
Baek-jin doesn’t look up. The silence stretches just long enough that most people would clear their throat, or announce themselves, or do something small to demand attention, but Seong-je has always been patient in situations like this, because patience is part of the performance.
Eventually, without lifting his eyes from the screen, Baek-jin speaks.
“There’s a bike I need you to take care of today.”
His voice is calm, flat, as if he is discussing something no more complicated than picking up groceries.
Seong-je doesn’t move.
Baek-jin continues writing for a few seconds, finishing the line in his notebook before he adds… “Black Yamaha. Parked behind the fitness center on Hanrim Street.”
Still no eye contact, nothing that suggests Seong-je’s presence is particularly interesting.
“The owner lifts there every afternoon,” Baek-jin says, turning a page in the notebook. “Large build. Around one hundred kilos. I checked his social media, he competes recreationally. He’s also been arrested twice for assault, so if you run into him it would be inconvenient.”
The wording is so mild it almost sounds polite. Finally Baek-jin pauses his writing long enough to tap the end of the pen lightly against the paper, as if reviewing the plan in his head.
“Be careful,” he adds.
The words should sound like concern, instead they feel more like.. just… business?
Seong-je stares at him and for a moment he almost laughs, not out loud, he learned a long time ago when to keep those reactions inside… but there is a flicker of something bitter behind his eyes as he watches Baek-jin continue working like nothing unusual is happening, like sending someone to steal from a violent amateur bodybuilder is just another item on the schedule.
Baek-jin still hasn’t looked up and hasn’t acknowledged him properly.
And suddenly the question slips into Seong-je’s mind before he can stop it… does he even want me here?
The thought lingers for a second longer than it should, uncomfortable, because Baek-jin is very good at this… at creating that quiet distance where people orbit around him like tools waiting to be used, where being useful becomes the only thing that matters.
Seong-je straightens slowly from the doorframe, tilting his head as he watches Baek-jin’s focused profile, the faint crease between his brows, the absolute lack of hesitation in the way he organizes people and plans like pieces on a board.
Useful. That’s the rule.
That’s always been the rule.
So Seong-je lets the bitterness settle somewhere deeper in his chest where it won’t be seen, and his smile slides back into place, light and careless as ever.
“Steal a bike from a steroid giant,” he says lazily. “That’s my assignment today?”
Only then does Baek-jin finally lift his gaze.
The movement is small, almost mechanical, like someone briefly checking a detail before returning to the task that actually matters. His eyes settle on Seong-je for a moment that feels more observational than personal.
“Yes,” he says simply.
It is your assignment for today.
The words land with the same weight as the rest of his instructions: precise, factual, entirely free of hesitation. There is no warning added, no reassurance, no explanation for why Seong-je specifically should handle it. In Baek-jin’s world things exist because they are necessary, and necessity rarely requires elaboration.
Seong-je studies him for half a second longer, searching out of habit for something that might resemble hesitation or concern, some small crack in that controlled composure that might suggest Baek-jin is aware of the risk he is handing out so casually.
There is nothing.
Just that calm, analytical focus, already drifting back toward the laptop screen as if the conversation has effectively ended the moment the task was confirmed.
So Seong-je exhales quietly through his nose, pushing himself away from the doorframe.
“Alright,” he mutters, that edge returning to his voice like a mask sliding neatly back into place.
He doesn’t wait for further acknowledgment.
Baek-jin has already returned to his work.
The bike is exactly where Baek-jin said it would be.
The fitness center is crowded, the alley behind it cluttered with crates and rusted metal rails where a row of expensive motorcycles sits like trophies waiting to be admired. The black Yamaha stands among them, locked but not particularly well hidded.
Stealing it should have been simple… It almost is, until the door behind him slams open.
The owner is larger than expected, thick shoulders, arms built from years of lifting heavy things, and the moment he realizes what Seong-je is doing the quiet alley explodes into noise, yelling, fists moving faster than someone that size should reasonably manage.
Seong-je has always been quick, but quick doesn’t mean untouchable. By the time the engine finally turns on beneath him and the bike tears out of the alley, his lip is split and his vision is flashing slightly at the edges.
The punch that landed just beneath his eye was a good one. He has to give the guy credit for that.
When Seong-je returns to the Daesung’s the building is quiet in the familiar way it always is during the late afternoon, most people scattered across the city handling their own assignments while the ones who remain keep their heads down and their voices low.
He parks the Yamaha exactly where Baek-jin usually leaves the newly acquired bikes, then he heads inside.
Baek-jin is still in the office, still sitting at the same desk and .working.
The scene looks almost unchanged from earlier, as if the hours between have passed for only one of them.
Seong-je leans against the doorframe again, though this time the movement is slower, one hand briefly pressing against his ribs before he settles into place.
“Bike’s here,” he says.
Baek-jin glances up. His eyes move across Seong-je’s face, taking in the swelling already darkening beneath his eye, the faint smear of dried blood near his lip, the subtle stiffness in his posture that suggests a few bruises forming elsewhere.
The observation takes less than a second and Baek-jin nods once.
“Good.”
That’s it. No reaction. No visible irritation that the plan didn’t go perfectly, no comment about the injury.
His gaze drops back to the notebook almost immediately, pen already moving again as he writes something down, likely recording the successful acquisition of the motorcycle, another small task completed in the larger machinery of whatever system he is building.
Seong-je watches him for a moment longer. The silence settles in the room again, heavy and familiar, and that bitter thought from earlier creeps back up quietly in the back of his mind.
Useful. .As long as he’s useful.
“Glad you like it,” Seong-je says lightly, though the humor in his voice feels thinner now.
Baek-jin doesn’t respond, so Seong-je pushes himself off the doorframe and turns away, walking down the dim hallway toward the small apartment space he’s claimed inside the Daesung’ building, the one room that technically belongs to him even if it sometimes feels more like a storage space he happens to sleep in, after he was kicked out the day of his 18th birthday.
The door closes behind him with force. For a moment he just stands there in the quiet then he drops onto the edge of the bed, pressing his thumb carefully against the swelling beneath his eye, testing the bruise forming there as the dull ache spreads outward across his cheekbone.
It’ll look worse tomorrow. He lets out a short breath that might have been a laugh, because somehow the thing that bothers him most isn’t the punch, it’s the way Baek-jin didn’t even flinch.
Seong-je is sitting, elbows resting on his knees, an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel slowly melting in his hand because he hadn’t bothered to find anything better.
His eye already hurts like a bitch. He presses the cold against the swelling anyway, hissing quietly through his teeth when the ache spreads deeper into his cheekbone.
It’s stupid, really. Not the fight, he expected that part, but the irritation sitting somewhere under his ribs, the stubborn little voice that keeps replaying Baek-jin’s reaction in his head. Or the lack of one. “Good.” that’s all he said.
Seong-je leans back against the wall with a soft thud, tilting his head so the back of it rests against the cool plaster, eyes half closed as he lets the melting ice drip slowly over his knuckles.
It shouldn’t bother him.
Baek-jin has always been like that, calm, distant to the point of seeming almost mechanical sometimes… but there’s still a part of Seong-je that expected… something.
Annoyance, criticism, anything really. Instead he got nothing.
He lets out a quiet scoff at himself.
Pathetic.
Just as he’s about to drop the useless paper towel into the trash beside the bed, there’s a knock on the door. Seong-je freezes for a second before rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.
“Occupied,” he calls lazily, though his voice carries a faint roughness that wasn’t there earlier.
The door opens anyway and Baek-jin steps inside.
He doesn’t say anything at first, which is typical, but his presence alone is enough to shift the atmosphere of the small room. He closes the door behind him quietly and walks over without hesitation, carrying a small plastic bag in one hand, he has an ice pack, cream and a box of juice.
For a moment he just stares, then the irritation spikes.
“Oh,” Seong-je mutters, straightening slightly, his tone turning angrier than usual. “Now you care?”
Baek-jin doesn’t react to the edge in his voice. He sets the bag down on the small desk beside the bed, pulling the ice pack out first as if the comment never happened.
“I didn’t say that.” he replies calmly.
Seong-je scoffs again, tossing the useless melted ice cube aside.
“I’m fine,” he says quickly, a little too quickly. “You don’t have to do the whole responsible leader thing, it’s just a bruise.”
Baek-jin glances at him, but not the brief look from earlier, but a slightly longer one, his eyes scanning the swelling under Seong-je’s eye, the faint cut on his lip, the stiffness in his shoulders.
“Your eye is swelling.”
“Wow, really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“It will be worse tomorrow if you don’t treat it.”
Seong-je exhales sharply through his nose, irritation bubbling up again.
“I said I’m fine.”
He reaches for the tube of cream like he’s going to prove it, like applying it himself would somehow make the situation less embarrassing, but before he can even open it Baek-jin sits down beside him on the edge of the bed.
Seong-je pauses. Jin takes the ice pack from the bag, wraps it once in a clean cloth he apparently brought with him, and then, without asking, lifts his hand toward Seong-je’s face.
“Hold still,” he says.
The cold presses gently against the bruised skin beneath Seong-je’s eye, who stiffens immediately.
“I can do that myself.”
“I know.”
Baek-jin doesn’t move the ice away.
He simply keeps holding it there with pressure, his expression calm and focused like he’s concentrating on something important rather than tending to a stupid injury from a street fight.
Seong-je’s irritation falters, because this is the strange thing about Baek-jin. He rarely says the right words and he rarely shows concern in ways people recognize… but he stays with him, silently holding the ice pack in place, adjusting the angle slightly when Seong-je flinches, setting the juice bottle on the bedside table within reach without mentioning it.
Seong-je watches him from the corner of his good eye, and suddenly that bitter thought from earlier feels a little less certain, because Baek-jin never said he cared, but he’s still sitting here.
Baek-jin keeps the ice pack against Seong-je’s cheek for another few seconds before pulling it away, studying the bruise, then he reaches for the small tube of cream.
“Seriously?” he mutters, though there’s less bite in his voice now. “You’re going to play nurse too?”
Baek-jin ignores the comment, unscrewing the cap and squeezing a small amount onto his fingertip.
“Stay still,” he says.
Seong-je opens his mouth to protest again, but Baek-jin’s fingers are already moving carefully along the edge of the bruise, spreading the cool cream over the darkening skin beneath his eye with slow movements that are surprisingly gentle for someone who spends most of his time organizing fights and criminal errands.
Seong-je stops talking. For a moment he just watches Baek-jin’s face from a few inches away, the calm focus in his eyes, the slight furrow in his brow. When he finishes, Baek-jin wipes the remaining cream off his fingers with a tissue and hands the wrapped ice pack back to him.
“Hold it there,” he says.
Seong-je takes it automatically, pressing it against his eye. Something uncomfortable shifts in his chest. He stares at Baek-jin for a few seconds, trying to decide whether to say anything at all, because questions like the one forming in his mind usually lead to answers he doesn’t actually want to hear… but the words slip out anyway.
“…do you hate me?”
Baek-jin blinks.
The reaction is immediate and genuine, confusion appearing on his face so plainly that for once it isn’t hidden behind calculation or composure.
“What?”
Seong-je shrugs one shoulder, pretending it’s nothing.
“I don’t know,” he says lightly, though the tone doesn’t quite hide the sadness underneath. “You didn’t even react when I came back looking like this. I figured maybe I did something wrong. Or maybe you just… don’t want me around.”
Baek-jin stares at him like he’s trying to understand a language he’s never heard before.
“I gave you the assignment,” he says slowly. “You completed it.”
“That’s not the point.”
Baek-jin frowns slightly. For a few seconds he seems to be genuinely thinking about the question, turning it over in his mind the way he would analyze a problem… then he says, very simply:
“Why would I hate you?”
Seong-je doesn’t answer, because the real answer would sound stupid if he said it out loud.
Baek-jin continues, still looking puzzled.
“You’re good at what you do. You follow instructions and you’re reliable.”
Seong-je lets out a quiet breath that might almost be a laugh.
“Wow…” he murmurs. “High praise.”
But Baek-jin isn’t finished.
“And you were injured,” he adds. “So I brought supplies.”
He gestures vaguely toward the bag, as if that alone should explain everything.
To him, apparently, it does.
Seong-je looks down at the ice pack in his hand, then back at Baek-jin.
Something shifts slowly in his chest, the tight knot of irritation loosening in a way that feels unfamiliar, because Baek-jin isn’t defensive or annoyed. He just looks… confused, l.ike the idea that Seong-je might think he hates him genuinely doesn’t make sense.
“I thought it was obvious,” Baek-jin says after a moment.
“Obvious?” Seong-je repeats.
“Yes.”
He pauses, as if organizing the thought before speaking.
“I care that you’re fine.” The words are quiet, but they land somewhere deeper than Seong-je expects.
For a second neither of them moves. Seong-je is still holding the ice pack against his eye, staring at Baek-jin like he’s trying to process something that doesn’t fit neatly into the system he’s built in his head.
And Baek-jin, apparently deciding the conversation still hasn’t fully addressed the confusion, adds the next sentence with the same calm bluntness he uses for everything else.
“I like you.”
Another pause.
“I love you.”
The room goes completely silent. Seong-je’s brain stops working for a full second.
“…You what?”
Baek-jin tilts his head slightly, confused by the reaction.
“I said I love you.”
Seong-je just stares at him, because that sentence did not come with hesitation or embarrassment, or any of the emotional buildup people usually attach to something like that.
Baek-jin said it the same way he would state the weather, and somehow that makes it even more shocking.
The silence that follows grows heavier, thick with thoughts Seong-je cannot quite sort through fast enough, because the instinctive defenses inside him are already scrambling, reminding him of everything he has learned about affection… that it is conditional, that it requires effort, that it must be earned repeatedly or it disappears.
But Baek-jin does not seem to follow those rules. Baek-jin simply sits there, looking at him like this confession was inevitable.
Eventually Baek-jin shifts slightly, as if concluding that the lack of response must mean something specific.
“It’s fine if you don’t love me back,” he says after a moment, his tone gentle, “I understand that emotions are not always reciprocal.”
To him, it is a logical statement, an adjustment to a possible outcome, but something inside Seong-je snaps at the words, because suddenly the idea that Baek-jin might calmly accept rejection, might simply file this confession away as information and continue existing exactly the same way afterward, feels unbearable in a way Seong-je cannot properly explain.
The ice pack slips from his hand, landing softly on the bed beside them, forgotten completely as his chest tightens with a feeling that is far too large to be ignored.
Before Baek-jin can finish whatever explanation he was about to add, Seong-je moves. The motion is abrupt, almost reckless, driven by instinct rather than thought as his hand catches Baek-jin’s shirt and pulls him close, closing the small space between them in a kiss, rough and immediate, all the restraint Seong-je usually hides behind dissolving in the sudden urgency of it, his mouth crashing against Baek-jin’s with a kind of intensity that feels less like a careful confession and more like something that has been building quietly for far too long.
It’s hungry in a way that surprises even him, his grip tightening instinctively in the fabric of Baek-jin’s shirt as though letting go now might somehow undo the moment entirely, the desperation in the kiss carrying years of quiet frustration and unspoken longing that he never allowed himself to recognize before.
For a fraction of a second Baek-jin freezes, clearly caught off guard by the suddenness of it, then the tension leaves his shoulders.
His hand lifts slowly, almost automatically, settling against Seong-je’s arm as if steadying him rather than pushing him away, accepting the kiss. The moment stretches, longer than Seong-je expected, long enough that the initial shock begins to melt into something warmer… relief.
When Seong-je finally pulls back, his breathing is uneven and his good eye is wide with a mixture of embarrassment and disbelief, like he has just realized the full weight of what he did.
Baek-jin watches him for a few seconds. Then, after considering the situation with the quiet logic that seems to guide every decision he makes, he tilts his head slightly.
“So you do love me back.”
It doesn’t sound like a question.