Archive of Our Own

Han Yeo-jin flopped down into her pile of blankets, surrounded by half-started manga and stuffed animals, and breathed out a huge sigh. The crimes in the Yongsan Violent Crimes division weren’t getting any less violent, and her promotion to Senior Inspector sometimes felt like she just had more paperwork to fill out. She grabbed the manga closest to her, opened it up, and had read two pages before she felt a familiar buzzing from under the blankets. She felt around for her phone, fished it out from an area next to her right knee, looked at the caller ID, and blinked a few times before answering.

“Hello?” she said.

“If a man’s mistress is found dead in a vacation home by the maid, who is more likely to have killed her--the man or his wife?” a familiar voice said in her ear, one she had not heard for a month. She let the manga she was still holding with her other hand fall on her face.

“Hello, Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok. How are you? How is Namhae? Have you been practicing your smiles?”

“Namhae is…warm,” he said.

“Do you like warm weather?”

“It’s fine.”

“It must be nice to look at the sea every day.”

“It’s fine,” he said. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. Did he miss Seoul? Did he miss her? She didn’t notice their conversation had ebbed, too distracted by her own thoughts, until he spoke again.

“Neither of them have strong alibis. The wife’s motivations would be obvious…but do you think a man would murder his mistress? He had been at the vacation home earlier that day.”

“Maybe they had a fight about something that went horribly wrong. You can’t rule him out.” In the silence that followed, she could almost hear Si-mok thinking.

“How is your promotion?” he asked. She felt a smile slowly spread across her face.

“No one told me there would be more paperwork. It’s exhausting! On top of everything else! And the crimes, they just keep happening.” She started to tell him about her current case, and as she answered his questions, she started to feel less tired. She wondered if he found their conversations as energizing as she did. Then again, why would he have called in the first place, if he did not?

After ten minutes or so, she let out a yawn that she could not stifle. “I should probably sleep…but I’m glad you called. Don’t forget us here in Seoul, okay?”

“Goodnight,” he said, and she heard the line disconnect. She fell asleep with her phone still in her hand.

--

The following Friday night, she was on her couch, drawing in her sketchbook, when her phone lit up and began buzzing, dancing across the coffee table. She answered.

“Are you at home?” Si-mok asked.

“I’m at home--why? Where are you?”

“I’m in my apartment.” She noticed he did not say he was “home.”

“Are you working?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Why are you working? It’s a Friday night! You should read, or watch TV, or do something for fun.” He didn’t respond; Yeo-jin was unaware if Si-mok understood the concept of leisure activities.

She had another idea. “Do you have soju?”

“I think so,” he said. She could picture him getting up from the floor, padding over to his refrigerator, even though she had no idea what his Namhae apartment looked like. She realized she had never seen him in casual clothes before, but chose to picture him in a light sweater and soft pants. Namhae was warm,though--would he be wearing a t-shirt? The thought was too strange to contemplate. “Yes, I do.”

“Alright,” she said, as she opened her own refrigerator and took out a can of beer. “Drink with me, and talk to me. Like we used to do. You need to rest sometimes. If you overwork yourself, you’ll have more headaches.” And who will take care of you? she thought, but kept that thought to herself. “Did you open the bottle?”

“Yes, I’m drinking,” he said, and she popped open the tab on her can of beer.

“How was your week?” They traded case stories and drank their beverages. The next Friday night, he called again, until this became a weekly tradition on the Fridays that she didn’t have night duty. He always called her, never the other way around, and it was always a traditional phone call until one night, she asked if they could video chat.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you just keep saying you’re ‘fine’ and everything is ‘fine,’ but I can’t tell how you are actually doing unless I see your face.”

“Why would I lie to you?” he asked, but then, the request for the video call popped up on her screen. She clicked to allow the call, and his familiar face filled her phone screen: his swoop of brown hair; his eyes, warm brown where the evening light hit them, almost feline as he slowly blinked at her; his mouth, shapely lips resting together in a placid line. She hadn’t seen his face in three months, and she felt a sudden pang of loneliness, as if she didn’t quite realize how much she had missed him.

She frowned at him, scrutinizing his face for any minute changes of expression that might betray a feeling he didn’t know he was experiencing. She watched his eyebrows crease together ever so slightly, perhaps mimicking her unconsciously.

“Let me see your apartment,” she said, to distract herself as much as him. From what, she wasn’t sure--perhaps she had forgotten how it felt to have the full intensity of his stare focused on her. He turned the camera around, showed her the space. It was old, not nearly as nice as his apartment in Seoul (which she told him--he did not respond), but it was a decent size--a small kitchen that opened onto a living area, two bedrooms, one smaller than the other. What struck her the most was the light streaming in through the sliding glass door window that opened onto a balcony. She wondered, aloud, if he could hear the sea from the balcony. He opened the door, stepped out onto it, and she listened to the sounds of the waves and saw the bright blue of the sea. It didn’t seem very much like a home, but neither did his old apartment. It did seem peaceful. She hoped he was at peace there, so close to the water. She realized, when he turned the camera back around and started walking back into the apartment, that he was indeed wearing a t-shirt. It was plain white, with no logos, but she had never seen him wearing a t-shirt before. He looked…relaxed, somehow, as relaxed as he could. Perhaps the sea air was doing something for him.

“Have you had any headaches since moving?” she asked.

“No,” he said, sitting back down on his sofa, picking up his glass of soju and bringing it to his lips.

“Good! I hope that means you’re not working too hard. Tell me more about the people in your office.” She was trying to see if he had anyone around him who would care about him, who would help him if he didn’t feel well. Not a friend, per se--it was hard to picture him with friends--but someone who would look out for him. She worried that he was lonely, even though she knew he might not realize he was lonely. She wondered if that’s why he called every week. She wouldn’t let herself hope that he called because he missed her. Hwang Si-mok did not miss people, least of all her.

--

Two months later, on their weekly call, she confessed that she had been forced to take a vacation from the police department. He assumed she had been suspended, but she reassured him that she just had vacation time that Chief Choi insisted she use.

“What are you going to do?” he asked her. Their phone calls had now turned exclusively to video calls.

“Aie, I don’t know. What I usually do—stay home and read manga and draw.”

There was a pause in their conversation, and she took a sip of her soju straight from the bottle.

“Come to Namhae,” said the voice wafting through her phone speakers, and Yeo-jin almost choked on the liquid. She looked at the bottle, as if it had caused her to hallucinate, or temporarily lose consciousness. A memory floated into her brain, of her holding two cups of chamomile tea, of his “Come in for a few minutes” extended across his threshold, of the smallest look of surprise when she said she would leave him to rest. Inviting her in for a few minutes was one thing--inviting her to visit him was quite another.

“I can’t,” she blurted.

“Why not?” He already knew she wasn’t busy.

“Too expensive.” It was a lame excuse, but it was the only one she could think of.

“You can drive here, it’s not that far.”

“I’d need to pay for a place to stay.”

“You could stay here,” he said. “In the spare room.” Had he had too much to drink? Was he going to regret this in the morning?

“I can’t stay with you!” she exclaimed, and she hated how prudish she sounded.

“Why not? You’re the one who said I could stay with you if I had to move back to Seoul.”

“That was a joke!”

“It was?” Was it?

He stared at her, and she knew that he knew she had run out of excuses. She sensed that he wanted to win this, like he wanted to win a case, and she wanted to go. She wanted to see him so badly--more than she wanted to admit.

Four days later, she pulled into the parking lot underneath his apartment building. He had left the key under the door mat so she could let herself in. She had thought she would prepare some food for them, but was shocked to find his kitchen without even a rice cooker. How did this man feed himself? She’d be sure to scold him about eating so much instant food later. Instead, she found some take out and brought it back in time for him to arrive home. It was unsettling at first, to be in the same space as him after not seeing him for so long--to be in his space. After a while, though, it felt like it used to when they would meet at their local pojangmacha, and she thrilled at every smile she could draw out of him with her teasing and her tales of Yongsan and Seoul. She resisted pointing the smiles out to him, choosing to enjoy them for herself.

She had arrived on a Wednesday, and she was a bit surprised to find him dressed for work the next morning. There was a small part of her that hoped he would take time off to spend time with her. At the same time, she knew they did not have the kind of jobs that were easy to leave, so she instead focused on feeling thankful that he wanted her there in the first place. She occupied herself by visiting the beach and the aquarium, climbing the terraces at the nearby farms, or just sitting on his balcony, drawing and listening to the sound of the sea. She planned on leaving drawings all over this apartment, for him to hang on the walls. It desperately needed some kind of decoration. She wondered if he kept the drawing of him smiling--she didn’t see it anywhere in the apartment, and she feared it would be rude to ask.

On Friday, she bought too much food at a street market and texted him to ask if he wanted some of it to eat for lunch, offering to bring it to his office. She didn’t think she bought too much food deliberately, but she did always want to make sure he was eating, and she was curious to see where he worked. When she entered, she found one desk off to the left side, and two desks to the right, separated by a divider. A young woman sat at one of those desks. She looked up as Yeo-jin entered, her face immediately brightening in recognition.

“Oh! You’re in the photo!” she exclaimed, smiling at Yeo-jin.

“What photo?” Yeo-jin replied. The young woman stood up and crossed in front of a tall cabinet, pointing to a framed photo on top of a smaller filing cabinet, next to a large snake plant. It was behind the desk on the left side of the room.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” the woman asked, pointing to her face, in the back row of the group selfie they had taken at her house. Yeo-jin could feel her eyes widen as she took in their faces, lingering a bit longer on Eun-soo and Se-won, for very different reasons.

“Yes,” she breathed. “That’s me.” She felt both surprised and moved--surprised that Si-mok had this photo framed and displayed, and moved that he had wanted to keep a piece of them all with him here in Namhae.

She directed her attention back to the young woman, who was still standing next to her. “I just wanted to leave this for him,” Yeo-jin said, holding up the bag of food. The young woman nodded and gestured to Si-mok’s desk. Yeo-jin turned around and placed the bag on a sliver of desk that was not occupied by stacks of papers. She looked up, about to walk away, when her eyes landed on the piece of paper, taped to the monitor of the computer.

Her drawing.

She let out a soft laugh, prompting the young woman, who had at this point returned to her desk, to turn around and look at her again. Yeo-jin, not wanting to answer any more questions, quickly thanked her and scurried out the door. She couldn’t help but smile on her way out of the building. Knowing her drawing was at Si-mok’s desk, in a place where she knew he would see it all the time--probably even more than he would see it if it was at home--made her want to hop up and down with excitement, right outside the revolving door of the Namhae Prosecutor’s Office. She was now feeling especially glad that she had made this visit.

On the weekend, she dragged Si-mok to the Boriam temple and the German village. At each site, he looked around, observing his surroundings, but she wasn’t sure if he was really taking it all in. She couldn’t help herself marveling at the views everywhere they went--the green of the hills, the gray of the cliffs, the bright blue of the sea.

“Isn’t this beautiful?” she exclaimed, gesturing to the view that opposed the bench they sat on, eating schnecken procured from a bakery in the German village. “How are you not distracted all the time, living here?” She turned to look at him, only to find him not looking in the direction of her hands at all. Instead, he was looking at her face as she chewed on her piece of bun.

“Why are you looking at me, when you could be looking at this?” she replied, and at that, he turned to look where she was pointing. But he didn’t comment on the view, or on his tendency to look instead at her during their time together. She told herself it was just the novelty of a familiar face being here, a piece of his old life in Seoul here in his new life in Namhae.

On the last afternoon of Yeo-jin’s visit, walking back to Si-mok’s apartment, iced coffees in hand, they stumbled upon a stationary store. Yeo-jin pushed her way into the store, excitedly chattering about the pens on display in the window. Si-mok followed her, his monotone but polite greeting to the shop owner following her bright, enthusiastic one. She flipped through the notebooks, ran her fingers over the pencil cases, admired the brightly colored and creatively shaped post-it notes. Si-mok continued to follow her around the store. Sometimes, he would flip through the pages of a notebook or pick up a pen to examine it more closely. But usually, he would just watch her as he sipped on his own iced coffee.

Yeo-jin stopped to pick up a set of pencils from a brand she knew--artists she followed on Instagram used them. They were always raving about the smooth graphite, the erasers that never smudged. This set was a burgundy color, in a silver metal pencil case. She checked the price and felt her eyes widen in surprise.

“So expensive!” she exclaimed in a hushed tone. She put the pencils back, staring longingly at them before she continued moving down the aisle. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, just in time to distract her from the pencils she couldn’t deny that she wanted. She pulled it out, saw it was Detective Jang, and excused herself from the store. As she stood in the sunshine, sipping on her ice coffee, attentively listening to Jang describe the details of the Violent Crimes Division’s latest case, she didn’t notice that it took Si-mok multiple minutes to leave the store after her.

When she returned to her apartment the next day and was unpacking her suitcase, her fingers found an unfamiliar object tucked in the side of the suitcase--oblong, metal, silver. She pulled out the object to examine it more closely.

It was the pencils she had admired in the store.

She immediately dug out her phone from her pocket, pressed Si-mok’s number. He answered on the third ring.

“Did you leave me a present? In my suitcase?” He didn’t answer at first. “I want to make sure I didn’t steal them in a fugue state that I don’t remember.”

“It was me,” he replied, and she smiled, her fingers tracing around the edges of the metal case.

“Why didn’t you just give them to me? Or at least leave a note?”

“You used to put gifts in my pockets,” he said.

“Until you told me not to,” she quipped. He did not respond.

“Thank you,” she finally said, after a moment of silence.

“Sleep well,” he replied, and ended the call.

--

Five months after her visit, on their weekly call, he told her he would be returning to Seoul for the special investigation into the prime minister’s alleged abuse of power. She expressed her excitement and conveyed her congratulations, and at the same time she racked her brain for a way for a senior inspector from a violent crimes division to be appointed to a special investigation into abuse of political power…could she argue that having non-violent crime experience would be beneficial to her career?

She was so distracted by her own thoughts, she almost missed what he said next. “My tenant is still in my apartment, though.”

“Oh, that’s right! So where are you going to stay?” Silence from the other end of the line. Then, she remembered her “joke.” The joke that Si-mok definitely did not take as a joke. The joke that she wasn’t sure if she even meant as a joke.

“Well, it’s a little cold for you to sleep on my porch…which I think is what I actually offered…” Strictly speaking, it was not really appropriate for him to stay with her. Then again, Yeo-jin had never really cared about what was appropriate and what was not.

“But you can sleep in my living room instead,” she finally said, thinking about the spare futon folded in her closet. She thought she could hear him breathe a sigh of relief on the other line.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” she yelped, looking around at the clutter and mess that had accumulated over the past three weeks. “Sure, tomorrow is fine!” She was suddenly quite grateful she hadn’t used all her paid leave on that vacation Chief Choi forced her to take.

--

A few weeks into their investigation, they found themselves parked in a parking garage, tucked into a corner spot. Yeo-jin had sweet-talked her way onto the special investigation team, and it had been a heady few weeks of research, stakeouts, interviews, and discussions of the case over takeout. They had been waiting for an hour for the prime minister’s brother to show up, hoping to catch him in the act of taking a bribe. Now they watched him, talking to the second-in-command of a shipping conglomerate, waiting for the exchange of something, anything, when the prime minister’s brother’s head began to turn in their direction.

Later, Yeo-jin will wonder why she did not just duck down. Did she think they may have collided with one another? She could have pushed him down behind her and dove in front of him, heads in opposite directions to avoid injury. Physical contact would have been impossible to avoid, but it’s not as though they had never touched each other before. Closeness was to be expected in a stakeout situation. Did she think that would take too long? Or did another part of her subconscious take over in that moment--in the moment where, instead of diving, she reached over, placed her hands on either side of his face, pulled him towards her, and placed her mouth on his.

She had no idea how long time passed. Eyes squeezed shut, hands splayed as wide apart as possible to hide as much of their faces as she could, she narrowed her focus to their mouths pressed together, unmoving. Eventually, when her brain caught back up with her body and she realized that she was kissing Hwang Si-mok, she jerked away and let out a yelp.

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry! He was turning towards us and I…” She trailed off, turned back in the direction of the prime minister’s brother, who had now disappeared. She hoped that meant they hadn’t been spotted. “I…I don’t know what I was thinking, I’m so--”

“It’s fine,” he interjected, and she looked over at him, staring not at her but straight ahead, where the prime minister’s brother had been. She stared at his profile, trying desperately to see if he was upset, but he remained expressionless as he turned on his car and pulled out of the parking spot. She continued to watch him as he gazed on the road ahead, navigating back to her apartment. Surely, she would be able to read some sign on his face or in his behavior--a furrowed brow, a too-long linger as the traffic light changed from red to green, something to show he was at least thinking about what had happened. She didn’t want him to be bothered, as in upset--but maybe, just maybe, she wanted him to be a bit bothered. Then again, they did have to live with each other, so perhaps ignoring her momentary lapse of judgement was in fact the kindest path forward.

Neither of them spoke of the incident over the next few days. Si-mok brought up the investigation as usual, and Yeo-jin tried not to think about the fact that she knew how soft his lips felt against hers. He seemed to have forgotten how her lips felt, if he even thought about it at all--until she noticed, one day when they were eating convenience store dosirak in a conference room, papers strewn around the table, that he was spending a lot of the lunch conversation looking at her lips. He had never done that before, except for the time when he noticed her lipstick and called it “weird.” She was willing to write it off once (she was eating, after all--perhaps she was just chewing in a particularly distracting way), but it kept happening. Over meals, during meetings, when they were at her apartment sitting side-by-side at the coffee table, working in the evenings. His eyes kept drifting to her lips. Each time she noticed, she felt the metaphorical elephant in the room grow larger and larger until it felt like it was sitting on her chest.

“You keep doing that,” she finally said, one night when they were working late in the living room of her apartment.

“Doing what?” he asked, lifting his eyes to meet hers.

“Looking at my lips,” she said, and to that, he sat up straighter, his eyes flicking down to the papers on the coffee table. He did not respond, though, so she pressed him further. “Why?” He continued to not respond, and she knew him well enough to know that a non-response did not necessarily mean a denial. It could also be an unwillingness to expose a vulnerability, or an unawareness of a feeling.

She decided to be more direct. “In the parking garage, when I kissed you…did you…enjoy it?” He blinked once, slowly, lifted his eyes toward the ceiling before meeting her gaze again.

“I don’t know,” he replied. She exhaled a breath she wasn’t even aware she was holding. At least he was honest with her.

Then, he spoke again. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Never?” she exclaimed. She didn’t think he’d had ample relationship experience, but she thought surely someone had kissed him before. Then again, he probably had never been close enough with someone to want to be so physical with them. She had noticed he seemed very uncomfortable with people touching him…except for her. Sure, he frowned at her when she playfully slapped his arm or upper back, but he had also reached for her wrist in the past. When she placed a hand on his lower back or his shoulder, he didn’t pull away or flinch.

As she was mulling this over, she almost didn’t notice his movement towards her, looking up just at the moment where he covered her lips with his own. She sucked in a breath, too afraid to move at first, but she also wanted to avoid a repeat of their first experience. So this time, she parted her lips, letting his lips slot between hers. She felt him press harder into her mouth, and when she moved her lips, he moved with her. His hand came to rest on the back of her neck as he twisted himself towards her, and she shifted the opposite way, so that their upper bodies faced towards each other. He continued to inch closer to her, moving his mouth against hers, pushing and pulling, until his hips brushed against her thigh and she felt him, unmistakably half hard.

“Oh,” she breathed, separating their mouths enough to catch her breath, gripping his upper arm to ground herself here, in her living room, where Hwang Si-mok was kneeling next to her and kissing her and definitely enjoying it. “Do you want to…?” she ventured, not sure where she found the boldness to inquire, but she felt his arm stiffen under her hand, felt him back away from her ever so slightly. She placed her other hand on his cheek, in what she hoped was a comforting gesture, and also to prevent any fear-induced flight his body might want to engage in.

“It’s okay—it’s okay if you don’t know, or aren’t sure, but it’s also okay to feel, and it’s okay to be scared of feeling, because feelings are scary for everyone.” She traced along his jaw with her thumb. “We should get to bed,” she said, and he nodded, and they both stood up, and she removed her hand from his cheek but left the one on his arm, sliding her hand down his arm and squeezing his hand before letting go and leaving him to roll out the futon on the living room floor.

--

A week passed, in which they did not kiss again. Still, Yeo-jin felt this new sense of intimacy between them--they sat a bit closer together on the couch, brushed against each other more often in the kitchen or on the way to the bathroom. One night, Yeo-jin emerged from her bathroom, freshly showered, clad in her sleep shirt and toweling off her hair. She rounded the corner to find Si-mok, sitting on her couch, frowning at his laptop.

“What are you looking at?” she asked. She sat down next to him and peeked at his computer, expecting to find something investigation-related—a phone log, security footage, anything but two writhing naked bodies splayed across the screen.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise. He looked up at her, nonplussed.

“Researching,” he said, looking back down at the computer, eyebrows lowering again in concentration. She watched him--no pink on his cheeks or ears, no sweat at his temples or neck, no swelling in the crotch of his sweatpants. No signs of arousal--he really was studying.

“Oh no,” she said, and at the sound of her voice he looked up at her again, tapping the space bar to pause the video. “Don’t watch that for research. They’re not always very…accurate.” He continued to look at her, his head tilting slightly to the side, as if to say, then what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to learn? She wrapped her towel around her neck and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re very observant, Hwang Si-mok, and you’re very intelligent. I don’t think you need to do as much research as you think you do.”

He looked down at the laptop screen glowing back up at him. After a moment, he nodded, a small, downward motion of his head.

“Okay,” he said, closing the laptop. Yeo-jin wasn’t sure exactly what to say next. She gently squeezed his shoulder, offering him a small smile which she hoped was reassuring.

“You just let me know when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” he replied, immediately.

“What? Now?” she blurted. She could feel her heartbeat tick up, feel warmth creep up her chest under her sleep shirt and her towel.

“Yes.” Si-mok paused, watching her. “Are you?”

She pondered his question for a moment. She’d thought about this, more times than perhaps she wanted to admit, but never really thought it would become a real possibility. The heat pooling in her belly indicated that her body was very, very ready, even though it had been a very long time since she had been with anyone in this way. But her mind kept throwing obstacles in her way, like traffic cones or caution tape--what if it’s not what you expect? What if he’s cold and distant and he upsets you? What if it triggers one of his headaches and it’s all your fault? What if what if what if…

She closed her eyes, exhaled, mentally toppling the traffic cones one by one. She opened her eyes again to meet his own. There was no one she trusted more than Si-mok. She needed to trust him now.

“I’m ready,” she replied. She offered him another small smile. He didn’t smile back. He pressed his lips into a thin line, and then puckered them to let out a small puff of air. He’s nervous, she thought.

“What do we do now?” he asked her. She smiled more broadly this time. Si-mok was an attentive listener--he always did what he was told, especially regarding social cues. She corrected that thought: he always did what he was told when she told him what to do. She assumed this time would be no different.

“Kiss me,” she said, and he did, pressing their lips together as her hand moved from his shoulder to the back of his neck, pushing them closer. She moved her hand up into the waves of his soft hair. Each of her gestures he would mirror: stroking her hair, opening his lips to her own. She slid her hand back down his head and around to the front of his chest, stopping when his hand landed cupped over her breast.

“Squeeze,” she breathed into his mouth, and he did, eliciting a gasp from her. His head reared back slightly, eyes meeting hers, which she read as surprise that such a small gesture from him elicited such a reaction.

“Aren’t we wearing too many clothes?” he asked, and she chuckled.

“We should fix that,” she whispered to him. She grabbed his hand, pulling him up off the couch. He followed her, then stopped abruptly.

“Wait,” he said. “I forgot something.” He walked over to his backpack, crouched down in front of it, and rummaged around, Yeo-jin watching him quizzically. He pulled out something small, square, foil-wrapped, then turned around to show her. Her lips parted, involuntarily, in surprise--she was thankful he’d come prepared, but the image of him buying condoms was something she couldn’t quite picture.

He stood up again and walked towards her, and she turned, rounding the corner to her mattress. She took the condom from him and placed it next to the mattress, then reached for the hem of his thin, light gray sweater. He raised his arms, allowing her to pull it up over his head. She went to toss it onto the floor, but stopped herself with her arm outstretched, the sweater dangling from her hand. He always carefully folded his clothes and put them back in his suitcase--maybe he wouldn’t want his clothes lying on her floor, although it was plenty clean. He gave her one of his small nods, and she dropped the sweater, allowing herself to take in his bare chest. He was slim, but not especially muscular--and still, seeing the softness of the skin across his abdomen, tracing the lines of his shoulder blades down to his sternum, watching his torso rise and fall with his breathing, made her heart beat even faster. She reached out to touch him, starting at the side of his waist, then moving her hand across his belly button and up the middle of his chest. Her hand slid to the right, thumb brushing over one of his nipples—at which point, she heard a sharp intake of breath. It took her a moment to realize that the sound came from him, not her.

She used her other hand to pick up his right hand and placed it over the first button of her sleep shirt. “Will you?” she asked, and he obeyed, silently unbuttoning each of the buttons before pushing the sleep shirt off of her shoulders. She moved her hand from his chest to let it fall off of her, and she stood in front of him, in nothing but her underwear, watching his eyes move slowly over her body. His expression did not change, and she thought, at first, she would find this unnerving. She then realized it would perhaps be more unsettling if his expression did change, because then he wouldn’t be Si-mok. His attentive gaze, the deliberate movement of his eyes, his intense focus on the lines and curves of her body was enough to make her underwear more damp than it already was.

She pointed to his sweatpants, then flicked her finger in the direction of the sweater on the floor. He untied the drawstring and slid the sweatpants off, kicking them aside, his eyes never moving from her. She laid down on the mattress, supine, and watched him settle on the other side of her, turning towards her on his side. This time, he reached out toward her, cupping a hand around her cheek and turning her face toward him as he leaned over and kissed her again. She smiled into the kisses. He was, as usual, a fast learner.

She let her hands wander, up the expanse of his back, across his bare shoulders, and back down to the front of his chest, eager to make him gasp again. She felt his intake of breath against her lips as she rolled and pinched, and she could picture the affronted look he would probably be giving her if their faces weren’t attached to each other. She let out a gasp of her own as he mimicked her, biting down on his full bottom lip to stifle her moan.

She started to move her hand lower, down his stomach toward the bulge currently resting on her thigh. He moved his mouth away from hers then but kept his eyes closed for a moment, as if he were concentrating heavily on the movement of her hand. He opened his eyes when she stopped, her fingertips over top of the waistband.

“Can I?” she asked. He nodded, and she swiped her hand first over the fabric before pushing her hand inside. At first, he didn’t react at all, just kept gazing at her fixedly. But when her thumb swiped over the tip, he inhaled sharply, eyes fluttering shut before blinking open again. His hand moved down to the waistband of her underwear as well, but she caught his wrist before he reached his intended destination.

“Ask first,” she said. “Always ask.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “May I touch you?”

“You may,” she agreed, smiling, and to her surprise, he offered her a small smile in return. His fingers snaked under the waistband, two of them sliding over her mound and into her folds. The presence of his hand so distracted her, she stopped moving her own. She felt her eyes slip closed as he tentatively traced up and down. But he wasn’t moving much, and she opened her eyes to see him frowning, looking down at his hand pressed against the fabric of her underwear.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. He huffed out a breath.

“I can’t…see…” he said, and she smiled again. He made her smile so much--it had been such a long time since anyone had summoned her smiles so easily. She removed her hand from him and gripped the sides of her underwear, sliding it down her legs and kicking them off. He raised his upper body, pushing himself up onto his hands so that he could peer over her, between her legs. She watched him, looking at her, his eyes moving around, a finger tentatively pushing her folds aside.

“Just…try things.” At the sound of her voice, he lifted his head back up to meet her eyes again. “I’ll tell you if I like it or don’t. And even if I don’t say anything, you’ll know, from the way my body reacts.” He nodded at her and settled back down alongside her. She felt the whisper of his fingertips, tracing up and down on either side of her folds, coming to rest at the top. He traced a circle around, and the indirect stimulation made her shiver. He then brushed up and down, over the bud, and she gasped, her eyes slipping closed again.

“Harder,” she said, and he applied more pressure, pulling a moan from her. He stopped for a moment, which prompted her to open her eyes and see him looking at her, lips slightly parted. Was he surprised by her reaction? She certainly wasn’t going to be quiet, but she hoped the noise hadn’t startled him. He maintained the same pressure but changed the direction of his fingers, swiping side to side, and she closed her eyes again, felt her breathing picking up and her muscles tense. When he pushed a finger inside of her, she felt her back arch up off the mattress, another moan escaping her as he began to move his finger in and out.

“Another,” she said, and he added a second finger, picking up speed to match the pace of her own breaths. Before she could formulate enough coherent thoughts to ask, she felt the pad of his thumb against her, moving up and down in time with his fingers.

“Yes!” she cried. “Perfect! How’d you know to do that?”

“The internet,” he replied, and she let out a laugh that morphed into a moan. She could feel the tension coiling in her belly, admonished him to not stop, implored him to keep going. Her eyes were firmly closed this time, but she knew he was watching her. She hoped, even if he wouldn’t express it, even if he didn’t recognize it at first, that he liked what he was seeing. Her hips thrust up into his hand as she came, breathing out a staccato sigh before coming back down to the mattress. She opened her eyes then to see him, still with his fingers inside of her, lips shaped into a small “o.”

“Did you just…?”

“All thanks to you! Look at you--you’re a natural!” He smiled, dipping his head down, and she reached out to ruffle the top of his hair. He slipped his hand out of her and stared at his fingers, covered in her.

“Oh, you can wipe those on me if you want,” she said. She wished she had tissues handy. He continued looking at his fingers, then flicked his eyes back up to her. Keeping the two fingers outstretched, he pushed his underwear down his hips, then wiped his fingers on his own bare thigh. She noticed he was still half-hard as he stood to kick the underwear the rest of the way off, in the direction of his other clothes. He laid down next to her, back where they began, and she turned toward him, running a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes, leaned ever so slightly into her touch.

When he opened his eyes again, he asked her, “What do we do now?”

“What do you want to do?” she asked in response, still threading her fingers through the waves in his hair. He didn’t respond right away, but closed his eyes again. She tried a different question--“Do you want me on top, or you on top?”--asked with the same tone of voice she used when they were at dinner, and they were deciding whether to order hot pot or stir-fried squid.

He reopened his eyes, met her gaze. Her fingers drifted down from his hair to cup his cheek. “You,” he said. She moved her hand from his cheek to his shoulder, pushed him down on his back.

“If I do something you don’t like, please tell me, okay?” He nodded, and she pressed a trail of kisses down the center of his chest and stomach, coming to hover above him before taking him into her mouth. She gripped the base of him with her hand and moved, slowly but deliberately, dragging her tongue along the underside, swirling it around the tip, taking more and more of him in each time she dipped her head lower. All the time she was watching him, watching for moments when his breathing came faster, when he huffed out a breath, when his eyes darted away from her and up to the ceiling, when his hips moved up closer toward her mouth. When he was fully hard, she moved off of him and reached for the condom. He propped himself up onto his hands and watched her tear open the square package, roll the condom onto him, and straddle either side of his hips. He watched her line herself up with him and push down onto him with a soft grunt. She started to move, hands coming to rest on his shoulders.

He was, as she expected he would be, very quiet. But she saw the flush creep up his neck and face, saw his chest rise and fall more and more quickly, saw his head fall back and his eyes close. Once she had found a rhythm she liked, she told him, “Push into me,” and he did, and the feeling of him moving inside of her pulled another moan from her. She was plenty noisy for the two of them, and with each of her moans he would look at her, mouth slightly agape. Was he in awe of her? Of the noises he was making her make? Of the fact that their growing intimacy had culminated in this, the most intimate they could possibly be?

He pushed himself fully upright, his hands coming to rest at the middle of her back. He looked up at her, tilting his chin and arching his back slightly to see her more fully, and it occurred to her that this was unusual for them. They were almost the same height, so they always looked at each other eye-to-eye. She had a sudden, absurd thought that made a laugh burst from her abruptly. He frowned.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked, and she reached out, touching the tip of her finger to his forehead, at the crease of his frown.

“I just…I’m glad to see you’re not slouching.” That only made his frown deepen, which made her laugh even more. She felt a warmth blooming beneath her ribcage as the tips of her fingers slid into the soft, short hair at the nape of his neck. She felt him tense and then melt under her hands, a sound half like a gasp and half like a sigh stuttering out of him. She climbed off of him and flopped down onto the mattress, trying to regain control over her breathing, she had one overwhelming thought in her brain—that she loved this cipher of a man, that she had loved him for a while, that she loved him perhaps more than she had ever loved anyone in her entire life.

When she looked over at him again, he had rolled off the used condom, and she took it from him, quickly scurrying over to her kitchen trash can. She really needed to buy another waste basket…especially if this was going to happen again. Which she really hoped it would.

She returned to find him lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, the rhythm of his chest rising and falling gradually slowing down.

“What are you thinking right now?” she asked. He turned his head to meet her eyes.

“I had always thought I would be alone,” he said, and she felt her chest tighten, felt a sudden pin prick of tears at the corner of her eyes. She reached for his hand, squeezed it, and let go.

“You are far from alone,” she said. “There are many people who care about you. Mr. Kim, Ms. Choi…me.” Her heart stuttered, her mind split in two. Say it, one half whispered. The other urged her to be cautious. This was a lot for one night. A declaration of love might be too much for him to process.

Instead, she curled into him, felt his arm reach around her back to hold her in place. “I think I care about you most of all,” she breathed into his shoulder. She didn’t look at his face—she wasn’t ready to see his response, or lack thereof. Instead, she gave in to the pull of sleep, let her eyes slip closed, head still nestled into the crook of his neck.

--

The investigation came to an end, of course, with the prime minister’s abuses uncovered and shared with the press, and a final team dinner to celebrate. They returned back to Yeo-jin’s apartment, full of food and a bit of soju in her case (though not his--she noticed he only drank with her, or alone). As soon as they slipped their shoes off and put down their bags, he reached for her, and she went willingly, fingers sliding into his hair as their mouths came together. They had done this a few more times, and she let him initiate every time. But this time felt different, the weight of his inevitable impending departure felt in every movement, in the hurried nature with which they removed their clothes, in the slow, lingering touches and heavy kisses. They didn’t even make it to either of their beds, falling onto the couch instead, her underneath him. She was surprised to see him slide down the front of her, even more surprised when she closed her eyes and felt his tongue against her. She threw her legs over his shoulders, threaded her fingers into his hair as she shuddered around his face. It was only when he had pushed into her, when his face hovered next to hers, his breath caressing her ear and her shoulder, that she opened her eyes and let two tears fall down her cheeks.

After, she held him close to her and he let her, and she decided she could not let him leave without telling him how she felt. But she also didn’t want to have this conversation with no clothes on, so she tapped him on the shoulder. He turned his head toward her, meeting her eyes.

“Do you want some tea?” she asked. He nodded, and he sat up, letting her climb off the couch. She grabbed her robe from her bedroom while the kettle warmed. When she turned back around with two mugs of chamomile tea, he had put on his sweatpants and a t-shirt and was sitting on the couch, waiting for her. She sat next to him, handing him a mug, and took a deep breath.

“I just want you to know…” she said, and he looked at her, expectantly, steam curling from the mug in his hands. “I love you.” She paused, looking down at her own mug. “You don’t need to say it back, or say anything at all. But I wanted you to know, before you left.”

She risked a glance up at him, and found him also staring into his mug of tea. Her heart dropped into her stomach. She now wished she hadn’t said anything at all, just enjoyed their intimacy for what it was. He sighed, and she wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, his knee, his fingers, somewhere. But she also wanted to give him space to process what she had said.
Finally, he spoke. “I don’t know…how this could ever be…normal.”

“I don’t want ‘normal,’” Yeo-jin said, and he looked up at her then. “I want you.” He looked back down at his tea, took a cautionary sip. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed.

“Why? Why me?” She let out a guffaw at that, because of course he would ask her. Of course he wouldn’t know.

“Because you are smart, and you are righteous, and you are handsome. What’s not to love about you, Hwang Si-mok?”

He took another sip of tea before he spoke again, but with a smaller voice this time, and continued to stare down at his tea. “What if I can never tell you I love you? What if I can never know for sure?”

She reached out then, her hand resting on his knee, the first place it could reach. “You show that you care for me in so many ways. You invited me to stay, you call me every week, you buy me expensive pencils that I refuse to buy myself, you even wanted to stay here in my tiny apartment! You don’t seem like the kind of person who usually wants to share his space with someone else.” At that, she saw his lips curl up into the tiniest of smiles. She squeezed his knee, leaned in closer, and whispered, “Not to mention, you seem to be really enjoying…certain activities.” She was rewarded with the tiniest pink flush across his cheeks. “You trust your instincts when you’re working, investigating and solving cases. Why would you not trust them now?”

He turned to look at her then, and she almost let out a gasp, because his eyes were ever so slightly shiny, tears hovering in the corners. She wrapped her arms around him then, remembering to take care not to slosh hot tea on him, and pressed a kiss to his temple. He turned to face her, and moved to place a kiss on her forehead.

“I think I can at least feel confident that you won’t see anyone else while you’re in Namhae,” she said, trying to lighten the mood, and his face twisted into a scowl. “You should still try to make some friends, though. Then I won’t worry so much about you.”

He didn’t respond to that, but leaned into her instead, bringing his mug to his mouth. They sipped their tea in silence, Yeo-jin enjoying his presence for just a little while longer. They slept in her bed that night, and she fell asleep with her fingers intertwined in his.

--

After he left, Yeo-jin felt sadder than she had ever felt before. She had been so used to living on her own, even treasured the time alone in her apartment. But now, the apartment felt empty without Si-mok. She couldn’t escape him: when she sat on her couch, she thought of him sitting there working; when she ate at her table, she thought of him sharing a meal with her; when she laid in her bed, she thought of him touching and holding her.

He called her hours later to tell her that he arrived back in Namhae, and for the first time in months, she declined his video call. She called him back with a voice call and he answered.

“You don’t want to see me?” he asked.

“No, I don’t want you to see me! I have, uh, skin products on my face,” she blurted, although the stuffy sound of her voice gave her away immediately.

“You’re crying, aren’t you?” he replied, and she sniffled. No point denying it now.

“Of course I’m crying!”

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I wouldn’t have left if I didn’t have to.” And that almost made her cry more.

“I know…but I still miss you.” Before she let him respond, she followed up with, “Does that mean if you moved back to Seoul, you’d move into my apartment? Guess you got used to all the stairs!”

“No, I’d move back to my apartment,” he said. She smiled--ever the pragmatist.

“I’ll move in with you, then. Your apartment is much nicer than mine. Although it needs some redecoration.”

“What’s wrong with my decorations?”

“You don’t have any decorations! There’s no art on your walls! Everything in that apartment is functional. There’s nothing beautiful in there.”

He paused before he spoke again. “Why would I need more decorations if you were there?”

She almost dropped her phone in surprise. “Hwang Si-mok, are you flirting with me?”

“No. I’m making an observation. If I already don’t spend time looking at the decorations, why would I spend more time looking at them if you were there?”

“Ah, because you’d be too busy looking at me!”

He thought for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said.

“Well, it sounded very flirty. I liked it.”

After a moment, Si-mok spoke again. “Will you come back to Namhae? When you have paid leave you need to use? Or when you get suspended again?”

“‘When’ I get suspended?! Not ‘if’?” She could picture his little smile, even if she couldn’t see it. “You know me so well. Of course I’ll come back. If you promise to take a day off and go to the beach with me this time.”

“Okay, I will,” and she smiled, her chest filling with warmth even though a warm beverage was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m not crying anymore,” she said.

“Good.” He paused again. “Sleep well, Yeo-jin-a.”

“You too, Si-mok-a,” she replied, then cradled the phone against her chest when she hung up. She would be okay. They would be okay. They would forge their own path forward, but they would do it together--and that’s all that Yeo-jin wanted.