DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN CITY HUNTER.
City Hunter is my FAVORITE, FAVORITE drama of all time! I loved it so much because of the plot line, the strong lead cast, and of course, — and let's be real here — LEE MIN-HOT! I fell in love with Korea because of mainly him! I get so warm and fuzzy by watching KDramas. They inspired me SO much that I can read, write, and speak the language today!
Anyways…back to Mr. Lee Min-HOT, the guy is just…! *heart eyes* Especially In CH! He was SO good (and HOT, HOT, HOT!) in those fight scenes! Gahhh, I'm fangirling again!
Anyways, this is my first City Hunter story, and I don't know if there's anyone reading in this fandom, but I wanted to write it anyway. :)
Twenty-one years...
He had spent twenty-one years fighting and training for the unknown until a landmine revealed his true identity and purpose.
Seven years later...
He had built walls around himself. His once playful and mischievous eyes turned dangerous, cunning, and meticulous. His smile, what was once part of his charm, was now a part of his deceit. His wimpy attitude was a mask for the highly trained vigilante hidden underneath. His player, can't-live-without-women personality was a way of extracting information from the girls that innocently fell for his charms and effortlessly into his traps, hoping for a memorable night in return.
And that's the way he expected every day to be.
Until, of course, Ahjussi had asked him to take care of that girl in that tattered photograph, revealing no additional details about his relationship with her. He was curious though not enough to continue pestering Ahjussi about it.
He sighed, knowing that this was an extra burden on him. Who knew where she's at and what she's doing? She's better off living happily the way she has been. She's better off smiling like she has been in that photograph. She's better off being happy without having a shadow in the darkness clock her every move. To say that he was surprised to see her show up as his driver in that club, much less be appointed as a security guard the very next day at the same workplace as him was a massive understatement.
Coincidence or...fate?
Again…no answer.
Still...she was amusing. There was something interesting to her that made him rethink. Perhaps...getting to know her won't be a burden as he had thought.
"For someone who's worried about me, I didn't even get a phone call last night."
He can't tell if she was miffed or hurt. Hurt, he deciphered as she avoided his eye with a scoff. He almost wanted to laugh. Did she really think that he was capable of caring for someone other than himself? Has he led her to believe that? He had been so, so careful. Moving into her house under the pretense of being closer to work when all he wanted to do was make sure that she was safe.
He let his eyes linger on her for longer than a moment. How should he tell her...? How to tell her that he did care for yet at the same time conveying that he didn't...? Didn't she understand his feelings underneath without him having to explicitly say them? Had it been anyone else on that rooftop yesterday, she would've been the one on the couch with a bullet lodged in a worse place than the shoulder. How can she be so chill about shooting someone? Even...he never did. Threaten? Sure. Shot? No.
That scared him. She wasn't any security guard with outstanding skills in Judo. She was trained to kill, if necessary. His mind reeled back to the shooting practice from moments earlier where she hit every single target with ease. Ease that almost...mimicked his own.
And that...he realized...that automatically pit them both on the opposite sides of justice.
"I should've caught City Hunter yesterday."
Something in his gut wrenched at the way she lamented. She saved the candidate. Why wasn't she celebrating her victory over that instead? He anxiously asked in return if she thought that City Hunter is a bad person to which her only reply was that it was her job to protect the presidential candidate.
Just a few days ago, she was praising the City Hunter for catching and handing over criminals to the prosecutor's office, even going as far as to scolding him to reflect on it. And today...she's the one reprimanding the city's new unseen force of justice. Because of orders. Because of her so-called duty, she was willing to forget about something she had once smiled about.
As she walked away, torn between his emotions and duty, he eyed the training pistol in his hands...the weight of it somehow growing heavy.
"I like you."
The first time she said that to him, he was shocked. What was it in him that attracted her, he didn't know.
From then on, her feelings for him became even more apparent. She continued to show and say that to him countless amount of times. And though he was careful enough to never once let his true feelings peek through, he couldn't help the spark of joy that bloomed inside of him. The gentle moments of happiness that appeased all his worries even if they lasted only for a short while.
He had never returned her words.
She continued living in the false perception that he didn't return her feelings. Has she ever been so wrong? To think that he didn't?
He did. He has. For years.
To her, it has only been months since she met him. But to him, it's been seven years. Seven long years spent occasionally talking to a pretty seventeen-year-old girl in an old, worn out photograph and wondering what she might be doing in the faraway city called Seoul. Smiling, he had always guessed. He had never known about her tears or her nightmares. How would he? He had nightmares of his own. Every day in the US, he had spent cursing his life, seeking answers for unanswerable questions. Why should he be here, away from everyone he loved? Why was he abandoned? Why was he forced to buy another identity and live as someone who's been dead for years?
Women flocked to him, men envied him…yet what was the point?
He remembered his father's words, especially the last ones. Don't fall in love. He didn't. No one attracted him. He had spent his days, growing angry at those five wretched men that ruined his life. They took away his chance to live a normal life with his father. They took away everything. And they'll pay. When he finds out their identities, they'll pay for every one of their atrocities against the nation and most importantly against him. He had lived this way for years. Waiting and waiting for that one moment destroy the lives that wronged him.
Amidst his dark lifestyle...there was no space for light. He did the only thing he could do to protect her. He handed in his resignation.
"I'll forget you. I'll go back to the time I never met you. I'll disappear from your life."
The one thing he wanted her to say...yet the one thing he never wanted her to say. After throwing her out of the house, this place was the last remaining tether he had to her life. And having her disappear from this one too...
Without those five men...he would've had a chance with her. He would've been able to be as long as he wished with her instead of having to worry about prosecutors, police, and assassins tracking his trails. His eyes burned with rage as he clenched his fists with determination. Even after twenty-eight years, those men threatened to ruin his life yet again. And for that, he'll never forgive them. And he'll make sure that the nation doesn't either.
"You know that I like you, right?"
The entire tension between them broke once she realized his true identity. They went back to their old ways — teasing each other. Which also meant that she didn't have to try to get over her feelings for him or at least, that's what she wanted to believe. She continued to reassure him, despite him constantly berating her to go buy a mirror for herself. Despite the smile that always made its way to his heart at her innocent words, he couldn't help but frown and dismiss her confessions.
How could a complicated person like him deserve a girl like that? She deserved a life of happiness. She deserved someone who didn't have twenty-eight years of revenge-filled baggage walking behind him. Someone…who's not him.
He pushed her away, called her names, threatened her, threw her out of her own home…yet there she was. Still protecting him, still carrying his secrets as if they were her own, still walking alongside him fearlessly...
Until finally, one day...
In a drastic heat of the moment, he had finally relented that her love was never unrequited no matter what he had led her to believe. Having been nearly gassed to death, his eyes opened after a long time. The very first thought was that...he had escaped. This time. But…that's all he did. Escape. He didn't prevent his inevitable death. He just postponed it.
There will come a day — soon — where he'll never return. And what will come of her? She would've been alone, thinking that all she's worth in his mind is a bear or a chicken. He knew he'll never forgive himself if he just let her believe that he never loved her. So, he told her.
It should've been a joyful moment…until he went along and ruined it. She would've been happy…until he left her doorstep, leaving her in tears.
It's for her own good. Or at least, that's what he told himself.
He told her to forget him and move on. He told her to never accept him should he ever lose resolve and come running back to her again. The look of heartbreak, confusion, and fear she gave him was worse than any threat or any deep secret his father hid from him.
And then he realized the reason why his father told him to never fall in love.
"I'm fine."
His plan had worked too well. She ignored him, pushed his hand away, coldly refused his help, walked right past him as if he didn't matter to her anymore…until he stopped her to remind her to take care of that ugly wound near her eye.
He should be happy, shouldn't he? This was what he wanted. Or at least...this was what he told her that he wanted.
Holding the broken photo frame in his hands, he eyed her smile and his own. He couldn't care to remember what they were smiling about. He only cared that they were.
"Can't you come back to me? After all this is over?"
She asked him with so much of hope in her soft brown eyes.
He was too afraid to say yes. Too afraid if he had said yes and ended up dying on his quest for this so-called revenge, he would end up breaking her heart. Again. So he walked away.
Until fate had them cross paths again.
Holding her close to his heart, he carried her all the way home. She wasn't heavy...but the weight of her emotions broke him. He realized that she had accepted his words. He realized that she believed that they really were over.
Which means that eventually…she'll move on. With someone else. She'll cook ramen, go on long drives, and make coffee...all with someone else. Someone other than him. Someone who'll win her affections. Someone who'll probably tell her what he feels directly instead of beating around the bush and teasing her. Someone whom she'll never have to protect or be protected by. Someone who'll let her live the happy, safe, and mundane life that she deserves after all the demons and battles she had fought for the last ten years.
Yet...he couldn't bring himself to be happy for her.
He didn't want her to move on.
He was too selfish to let her. He can't give her to anyone else…he can't keep her by his side either.
"I can't live without you anymore."
She told him tearfully, her tears mingling with the lingering water droplets on her face.
She still wanted to be by his side, despite the fact that she nearly drowned to death. Didn't she realize what she did to him? Didn't she realize his rage? Consumed with fury, for once against something that didn't involve the Nampo waters, he had raced his way here, ready to kill.
Knowing that...she still wanted to be with someone like that? He couldn't tell if she was being naïve, stupid, or stubborn.
Her feelings for him were pure. They were light and clear as day. They were born from attraction, blooming slowly as she spent time with him.
But his? His stemmed from fear. His feelings were infused with the dread and terror of losing her.
They were so different...yet alike. They had the same sentiments yet walked down different paths to get there.
"I'll wait a lifetime for you."
Raising his eyes for the first time in the face of her questions, he watched her leave. A lifetime, she said. Something inside of him snapped as her words registered into his brain. A lifetime.
That's what she offered. A lifetime...with her. Isn't that what he had wanted? In the beginning, when he had treated this revenge game as something akin to a part-time job after his regular one, he had flirted with her, kissed her, and used just about any pathetic excuse to be around her.
That's what he wanted. A life with her. He wanted to be a smartass jerk and stuck-up asshole with her, not this vigilante/guardian angel.
She had asked him to let her love him for as long as she wanted. And he realized that he had to live for that. If not for him, then at least for her. Preparing for a death that might never come was no longer on the menu. Fearing his fate was something he didn't have to do. Not alone, at least.
"...Wait," he stopped her. "Wait just a little longer," he told her with the firm promise that he'll return to her. He won't be collateral. Not today or tomorrow or the day after that. He'll come back.
And for once…the twenty-eight years of blood and tears that he shed…finally seemed worth it.
He realized that she'll never let him go the same way he can't. She was his home...as he was hers.
AN: I hope you enjoyed reading. If you did like it, please let me know...? It would mean a ton to me especially from a fandom that I would LOVE to see it grow! Yoon-sung and Nana are my favorite couple in all of the gazillion KDramas I watched! Blame their incredible chemistry :D