Encore
bobaheadshark
Summary:
Do-il has a sense of humour about the whole thing, In-joo thinks. She doesn't hear from him for months, then without warning, there's an unmarked envelope with no return address. Just a ticket that she pulls out, first class to Denpasar Airport.
Notes:
Or, so...that ending, huh. Anyway, here's an epilogue because this pairing really crawled into my brain and staged an insurrection until I spat this idea out. (Not beta'd, so, any weird typos or errors are mine alone.)
Hope you enjoy~
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
Do-il has a sense of humour about the whole thing, In-joo thinks. She doesn't hear from him for months, then without warning, there's an unmarked envelope with no return address. Just a ticket that she pulls out, first class to Denpasar Airport.
Bali.
In-joo doesn't know much about the destination. Heard it's a beach getaway, with a lot of Australians. She spends the leadup to the trip meandering through a similar pattern of days. Eating tteokbokki at a street stall to feel normal, doing some freelance accounting work because she fancies occupying her brain. Going back to Hwa-young's old yoga studio because after all, good spinal alignment is meant to lead to a healthier life.
Visiting Hwa-young's become easier now. Her friend's eyes are not so sad, which makes In-joo feel like she shouldn't be, either.
"Don't come see me all the time, In-joo. It will pass sooner than you think." Hwa-young says, during one visit. "Are you eating well these days?"
In-joo is not sure about eating well. Eating feels like a means to an end, input to output. A mathematical equation for survival, the oddness of a sure thing that becomes so meaningless after a while.
After all, the food is delicious. She just doesn't have anyone to share it with.
The flight is uneventful. In-joo buys a trinket on the airline, the hostess practically relieved that someone said yes though she tries not to show it. She drinks an entire flute of champagne and bites back a wince. The sparkle of it as it goes down.
Isn't it something, being able to travel, coaxed out of Seoul. Since she received the staggeringly huge transfer from In-hye months ago, In-joo had been at a loss for what to do with herself. How does someone even begin to spend tens of billions in Won? She'd stared at her laptop for a long time, frozen by indecision.
The money sits in her account, barely touched. Her habits barely changing, even though her circumstances had.
The resort hangs on the side of a mountain, built in a way that it looks like several large floating platforms connected by wooden bridges. The late afternoon light casts everything it touches with a surreal glow.
In-joo completes her check in, the lady at reception, smiling warmly at her, Intan shining bright on her name badge. In-joo finds that she genuinely enjoys the warmth and hospitality, the hotel staff already making her feel more at home. Waiting for a chance to open her translation app, In-joo has a minor wave of relief when Intan confidently switches over into fluent Korean.
"Welcome, Ms Oh," Intan says.
"Please! Call me In-joo,"
"Look, we share the same first syllable. In-joo, Intan."
In-joo isn't quite sure how to respond to that. But it's something, quick-built kinship over a shared sound. How marvellous it is to let someone in, just like that.
In-joo dreams. Has dreamt, about Do-il. She wasn't foolish enough to tell him about the dreams he features in, because he wouldn't have replied, anyway. But also because whatever she denies herself in the waking world likes to let itself be known in strange shapes and vignettes of her subconscious. Dreams where she's with him at the airport, on a road, on the run – where she's always trying to tell him a better goodbye, and she can't quite reach him or find the words.
Sometimes, it wouldn't be him at all, but dreams of Sang-a, face warping in the pond. Everything burning, then sanctified, washed away. Until all that's left is a clean, dust-white skull.
In-joo would wake up, disoriented, in the clammy sheets of her new bed. The bed in her sparse apartment, which she's still not decorated. The flat facing the Han river that glitters in the daylight, and somehow it doesn't reach her inside. The appliances always work and the doors close with a gentle hydraulic swish on everything, and she gradually adjusts to physically being in a neighbourhood when the buses actually come on time, and she can hail a ride easily on her phone these days, but still.
Sometimes she just misses the noise of that rooftop apartment.
"Jasmine is one of the main flowers on our island." Intan says, casting a backward glance as they walk towards In-joo's villa. Typically each cluster grows three flowers, though they can also be solitary on the ends of branches, In-Joo learns.
"It's very important to us here, and typically we use them for ceremonial events such as weddings, offerings to deities, and funerals," Intan adds, pep in her step from her delight at explaining the intricacies of local botany to a captive audience.
"How beautiful," In-joo says, meaning it.
Do-il hadn't explained to her why they were to meet in Bali. He'd just included a short handwritten note with the tickets, see you there in tidy, narrow script.
She thinks it's arrogant of him, really. But overwhelmed with the options that are open to her now, she also can't find it in herself to fight. Besides, unnie, she hears the voice of In-hye, a phantom in her head. When's the last time you took a real holiday?
Her own reflection is the same as it always is, in the white light of her great aunt's – no, hers, she reminds herself – apartment's bathroom mirror. A towel is cool on her cheek when she presses it to her face.
In-joo thought that this might be about some unfinished business, a loose end. Papers to sign. She's too tired to ask, and a holiday does sound nice. So she just goes.
On the steps up to the villa, In-joo had barely stopped herself from inquiring. Then it'd just bubbled out of her, and she'd blurted the question.
"Mr. Choi?" Intan said. "He's at the pool. It's about three minutes walk, the left turn there. Would you like me to show you?"
In-joo shook her head, no, thank you. She stood by the principle that she should find her own way. That not figuring things out on your own was what made rich people indolent.
Strange, that she's one of them now.
In-joo follows the paved stone path and tasteful shrubbery, which opens up to the pool. It's quiet here, most guests seeming to opt for the plunge pools available in their private villas. The design here is all clean wooden slats, curving around giant ornamental pots. The water's postcard blue, the edges seeming to drop right down into the ocean.
Then there's just a lone figure, slicing a sure line in freestyle, at the opposite end of the pool. The man hits the wall with the certainty of an Olympic swimmer. Water rippling around him from the exertion, the sound of his heavy breathing punctuating the silence.
In-joo, distracted by the vista before her, turns to wave and call out Do-il's name, but then he's already halfway up the square pool steps, and–
Oh. In-joo thinks.
Because what can she do against the onslaught of this sensory assault? It's Do-il, practically glistening, in all 5'9 of solid muscled glory. Droplets running down the frankly insane divots of his body, disappearing into the slim waistband of his blue swim briefs. It brings to mind a movie she saw once, that British spy one she'd saved up three weeks of summer job money for when she was a teenager. Except this seems to be a version of it deliberately built to destroy both her brain and her eyeballs.
The sight of him shirtless, dripping with water, makes something latent in her flare to life. A desire she'd tried to tamp down, to forget in the time loop she'd stuck herself in, watching late night TV until her eyes hurt and pedalling all around the city on her bike. But he's here, now, and he's vital. A tiny voice in her head says don't stare, but it's beaten into submission by the even louder voice that tells her watch. If Do-il's in any way self conscious about his state of undress, the amount of skin he's baring, he doesn't show it.
Do-il pushes his short hair back from his face while he reaches for a nearby towel, which only has the terrible side effect of exposing how huge his biceps are. (She likes, secretly, that he's kept his hair that way. It means something in her life has remained consistent.)
"Hi." Do-il says, dried off. He slings the towel around his massive shoulders, and he may as well have hung a piece of tissue on a boulder.
She doesn't know quite where to look, so ends up staring instead at a spot between his eye and his cheek. As if doing that would distract her from the blaring alarm below that is his very, very stacked body.
Palm fronds swing in the breeze. Do-il just stands there, content to observe her, waiting for her cue.
In-joo realises she's been silent for quite some time.
"Hello, stranger." In-joo says, back.
Do-il had checked his watch, and promised he'd pick her up for dinner and explain everything. In-joo ends up back in the villa, shifting the patio furniture around so she can get the best view of the evening light.
"The sunset from your villa is really special," Intan had said earlier, after explaining many of the nearby attractions and telling In-joo she could help with arranging any schedule, clearly on a roll. "It faces Southwest, meaning you can watch as…well. You'll see!"
In-joo does see. The sunset is something unreal, like one of those wallpapers she used to install on her whirry old laptop and wonder where it was possible that the sky would be so vivid. Island sunsets, she observes, are not like the ones in the city at all. In Seoul, the skyline bathes itself nightly, in fire. Here, the sky here is drenched like an empress's cloak, hued in pink, stars beginning to flirt with the night at the liminal point where the sea meets the sky.
"Usually people book this as a honeymoon suite," In-joo remembers Intan saying. Earlier, Intan helped In-joo select one of the pillows from the wardrobe, after a three minute diversion about the pillow menu and what was available.
A pillow menu, In-joo thinks. What a strange thing a higher tax bracket can buy.
"But this villa suite is perfect for a solo traveller too." Intan added, talking to In-joo and nobody at all, smacking the pillow on the bed for a final flourish. "That would be the tour for now. Do you need anything else?
"This is great."
"If you need anything at all, I'll be at the reception."
"Thank you, Intan." In-joo says, bowing her head slightly. It's still awkward for In-joo, to have others scurrying around, to serve her.
Also, did Intan say honeymoon suite? In-joo chooses not to follow her curiosity.
"These, by the way, are complimentary from the hotel," Intan pointed at a sleek wooden tray with several small bottles, on her way out. "Enjoy yourself!"
And so In-joo does enjoy it. After snapping a sufficient number of pictures to send to In-kyung later, she pours herself a drink. The accompanying note from the hotel about the liquor is printed on fancy card stock, which she knows is expensive because it has heft in her hand, unlike the flimsy papers she used to pack at her summer jobs leafleting around neighbourhoods.
Mind idle, In-joo plugs the English words of the card into her translation app, which tells her the tasting notes of the custom-brewed gin are chilli, coriander and chocolate. Complex, but nice, she thinks, chasing it with a swig of tonic water, right out of the bottle.
She toys with the hem of her dress, wondering if it's too much. When she'd walked into one of the shops in the Cheongdam-dong, a consultant had seen her frozen at a line of airy cotton blouses, and taken her under her wing. That's how In-joo spent an afternoon trying on clothes of all kinds, clothing that made her feel strong, clothing that made her feel new, clothing that meant she would blend in. In the end, she went with a dress with sheer sleeves and a contrasting, eyelet pattern, which the consultant had called a great choice.
She tries not to fixate, or to pick at the fabric. Focusing her efforts on mindfulness, the sunset. Propping her phone sideways, she plays a YouTube video of how to fold a towel into a fan, just to give herself something to do.
Fan done, she blows out a shaky breath. Paces the room, then stops.
He held her when she was injured and bleeding. Why was it more terrifying to navigate something as ordinary as small talk?
Right as the sun is threatening to dip below the horizon and her head threatens to explode with anxiety, the doorbell chimes.
In-joo scurries to it, willing her hands not to sweat.
Do-il stands there, the heft of him illuminated by the light at the doorway. His shirt is butter yellow, and she wishes she could put her face in it.
"So I have a few questions–" she starts, sardonicism already winding its way into her tone.
"I told you you'd see me again. Right?"
In-joo finds this attempt at humour unfunny. The corners of his mouth turn up, and god, she's forced to admit to herself that she's actually missed him. Surely he knows that?
She thinks about the texts she sent once in a while, with no response. Just a single line back from him, telling her he'd be in touch. He wouldn't have known that when she drank her cinnamon latte, a new discovery from the cosy neighbourhood cafe with its cheerful fairy lights around the block, she couldn't help but to think of another time she'd tried food she liked. In Singapore, Do-il showed her chicken rice and nasi lemak and sauce-drenched satay sticks that were so much like the skewers she knew in Korea, yet infinitely new. She couldn't tell him how he pops into her head without warning, when she's biking down the river path, thinking of herself at another river, and another time, another friend, another place.
Her yearning and desperation for answers is bleeding out into the landing, souring the air already. She's sure of it. If she could physically yank the strands of them and press them back down inside her, she would.
Moving in pre-emptive self defence would be smart, she thinks. So that he won't see how much she already wants to ask him a million other things. Might as well tear the bandaid off.
"I'm here. What do you want me to sign?" In-joo asks, a bit too brusquely.
He puts his hands in his pockets. "There's nothing for you to sign. It's all done."
"Do you want my money?"
"No." Do-il says, frowning. "Besides, your money's locked up behind several literal institutional layers of protection. Could we talk about this inside?"
In-joo waves her hands, exasperated. "Fine. Come have a drink."
"Thanks," he says, toeing off his loafers and padding to the living room. For a moment, In-joo is concerned at how at home he already seems here, though she knows on a logical level that his confidence moving around the space is also probably because he'd booked himself into an identical villa, not because she's already pictured him in an entirely different context here, or anything like that.
"Are you good with yours?" Do-il asks, choosing not to comment on why there is gin in her glass, and nothing else. In-joo nods, so he efficiently mixes himself his drink, then continues talking. "Your youngest sister made sure your money would be yours, and yours alone. I personally watched her sign those access forms and she made me explain every single one. She's thorough."
"That would be In-hye."
"Right. And please, have more faith in me. Any good fund manager knows a way to turn ten billion won into a lot more than that."
"Well. That's presumptuous. And maybe a bit evil." In-joo says. Outraged, but not really meaning it.
"Yeah. Maybe it was."
In-joo puts her hands on her waist, pinning him with her gaze. "You really couldn't have called? Left a message?"
"I was clearing house with the old Jeongran society. A few of them have been trying to set up splinter cells."
She taps her foot impatiently. "You should've told me. I would've helped."
"I wanted to make sure the situation was secure before I got back in touch with you."
"Thank you. But you know those things aren't mutually exclusive."
He bristles. Almost steps closer to her, before thinking better of it.
"I couldn't put you at risk like that again."
"Was that your call to make?"
Annoyance flickers across his face before he tamps it down, and he opts to shove both his hands in his pockets. When he looks up, there's something strange and unreadable in his expression.
"In-joo. That mouth of yours drives me insane. Even when you're nagging."
She makes an exasperated sound. "You know what? Just think of me like construction noise. May it haunt you forever."
"No, I mean," he says, exhaling long and hard. Something in him deflating. "It's actually one of the things I like most about you. In case that wasn't clear."
"Oh."
It's stark, this news, this tiny confession. Because this reshuffles everything, changes her recognition of what this about. That there is nothing to sign, no final transaction to be made, no money to be chased by this man who once measured the worth of his existence in Won and Dollars.
Do-il had sacrificed this for her, took the fall for her, deemed her worthy of coming back for. The idea, encroaching, like a tidal wave: that he'd done a cost benefit analysis of where and how she might fit into his life, and found the pieces of her, the mess, good enough to keep around.
I'm a real shipwreck of a human, aren't I? In-joo tells herself. Incapable of saying anything honest, changed by what happened to her. Sang-a may be dead, but she still hears the echoes of her, sees the indelible touch of her still-operational holding companies and the corporate worlds the general's daughter had touched, well alive in tv screens and magazines.
And In-Joo thinks to herself. Sang-a made me this. Doll parts, discombobulated. Life suspended by the revelation she has known for weeks, almost months, now. That she's been playing someone else's games her whole life.
So the question arises. Does he still want her? Would he?
Scratch that. What about what she wants, for once?
In-joo steps closer. So close she can smell the clean, sky-blue cotton scent of him. One she realises she has gotten used to, maybe even missed, the scent she had been looking for in many department stores and hadn't known she was searching for. The assurance of him.
"Now you come to my villa for the free drinks. I see." In-joo says, more softly.
There's a flicker in his eyes that gives him away.
"No, In-joo. I didn't just come here for the free drinks."
"No?"
"No."
Her voice comes out very low. Other than them, there's just the sound of waves crashing onto the cliffs below. The sky outside is inky blue now, downlight casting them into intimate shadows.
"So what did you come here for, exactly?" In-joo asks, again. Their drinks have gotten warm, condensation clouding the glass.
He steps closer, too. "You. Just you."
Then, it's her who closes the distance, leaning in to kiss him. It's a delicate thing at first, capable of building to something fierce. His lips brush hers, and he cradles the side of her face. He isn't too much taller than her, but she finds herself leaning up towards him anyway. Seeking his warmth, wrapping around him like ivy and never wanting to let go.
In-joo sweeps her tongue into his mouth, to test the water, and is rewarded with a rumbling groan from him, and his hard-on that springs to attention, poking at her stomach.
When she breaks the kiss, breathing hard, he doesn't turn away. Neither can she, so they're trapped in each other's embrace for a moment. He tilts her chin downwards, seeming content to take his time, kissing the top of her head, then her cheek. She ends up sighing into the side of his face.
They do nothing for a while, her forehead pressed to his, just breathing each other in.
"You're going to be the death of me," he says.
"Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time I've tried."
Dimples crease his face, making him look younger than his years. "Please don't make it a habit. Rescues are very expensive."
"I'll try not to."
Her fingers wander down to his shirt buttons, and she's pleased that the fabric is as soft as it looks. Encasing much harder muscle that's underneath it.
"Can I?" In-joo asks, peering up.
Do-il nods.
"And, here's an idea. Maybe try not punching your way out every single time." In-joo adds.
"I always put brains before brawn. But sometimes, a solid punch is good insurance."
She snorts at that, undignified. And then she remembers the Singapore apartment. How quickly he'd burst through the doors as she'd been in and out of consciousness. Singlehandedly taking out a group of men who answered to an insane woman's beck and call. But she'd also always remembered the gentle press of his fingers on her pulse point. Checking on her, making sure she was alive.
It unfolds inside her like a fragile paper crane. The notion that he came back for her.
Do-il's looking at her like a lost puppy again, so she pulls him in by his shirt collar, and he grunts in surprise. A well-choreographed dance, even though they've never done this with each other before. Then it's the two of them, meeting in the middle, clinging to each other for dear life, as he litters a line of kisses from her nose, to her mouth, to her collarbone. A duet with noone watching as she breathes his name.
He undresses her like she's a blue orchid, but one worth keeping. She peels his clothes off, and in return, she's rewarded with the view of his huge shoulders that end in a tiny waist. She doesn't need protection. But it's nice, still. To be offered it.
Then he lays her back on the bed, gaze reverent. In-Joo has never felt so cared for, so innately safe, so loved.
"In-Joo," he mouths into the skin of her stomach, beatific, before he slides one, then two digits inside her. He sucks in a sharp breath at how she writhes already, around his fingers. And she watches him watching her, probably knowing she's a bit of a freak for doing so, but not wanting to miss any reaction of his either. Processing that this man who had the wits and gumption to outwit the insanity of Jeongran society is here. With her, in her bed. Her pleasure the only target he deems fit to pursue tonight.
"How are you already so wet?" he says. She moans in response, and he dives in with his mouth, chasing the sound. He drags his tongue across her clit, lapping her up eagerly, and it sends her mind into a tailspin.
Sex with her ex was never like this. It was something to be done after dinner or a movie, and yes, she might come, sometimes. A perfunctory thing that he would go through, much like the marriage in itself was perfunctory, something she attached herself to because it was what everyone else did, and then she'd naively bought into his harebrained scheme about investing in doomed ventures.
No; she thinks to herself, this is not like how it was with her ex. Her ex thought only saw her deserving of scraps, as a means to an end. Instead, Do-il looks at her like she is proof of life.
No; she thinks. It wasn't like this, the pressure of his fingers alternating with the press of his tongue, making her squirm. Him eating her out like it was almost an obsession, a task that this star student gave singular focus to. Him, hovering over her, touching her always, one hand inside her and the other tracing close circles on the inside of her thigh. Abundant kisses near her hip bone, on her stomach, and the gentlest of ones on her clit, which make her shiver.
He laughs, softly, and she wants to steal that sound, keep it their secret.
In-joo almost chokes on her breath at the intimacy, and it comes out as an awkward cough, puncturing the tension.
"You okay?" he says, pushing up on those fine forearms, finding her gaze. Care and concern writ across his face. He traces a featherlight touch on her stomach with one hand, two fingers still inside her.
"Yes. More than okay," she says.
"Are you nervous?"
She squirms. "It's just. Um. You can come first, if you want to."
"What?"
"It's okay, I'm used to it. It's normal."
"No, In-joo." He sounds on edge, like this confession of hers is about to eat him up from the inside. Like it truly bothers him. "Who told you that?"
"It's just how it's always been."
A long sigh. Has she done something wrong?
He looks at her, face hovering between her thighs, mouth set in a determined line.
"Hey. We're going to count together now, okay?" Do-il says.
"Count?"
"Yes. Let's see how many times I can make you come, before me. How about that?"
"...Okay. But I'm telling you, we'll be lucky if we even get to one."
Then Do-il smirks. "You should know better than to bet against me, Ms. Oh."
He dives back in, then, mouth on her cunt, determined, listening to her voice climb. She's self-conscious at first, but then he pauses between licking at her to murmur affirmations at her in a low voice. That's good, very good, incredible In-joo, and she finds that suddenly, she isn't embarrassed anymore.
"Ah, In-joo. I love it when you moan for me."
And that's how he wrenches the first orgasm from her; her falling apart around his fingers, legs shaking, back arching on the bed. She crests, seeing stars, tethered to earth by Do-il, Do-il who cared enough to––
Her eyes flutter open, so as not to lose the image of how satisfied he looks, after pulling her entire world apart.
"I need you inside of me. Please?" In-joo says.
Something changes, then. He moves quickly, getting onto his knees, cock still springing to attention after being hyper focused on her pleasure. He reaches near her shoulder and helps prop her up so they're closer together. It tickles her, this attention to care and detail.
"One thing though." In-joo says, staring slightly wide-eyed at his erection. "That is, potentially...it's quite a lot."
"Don't worry. We'll ease into it, okay?"
She nods. "Okay."
She watches while he strokes himself. His cock isn't especially long, per se but it is girthy, and he stretches her out pleasantly when he finally pushes in.
They both groan again, practically nose to nose. When he kisses her again, messy, she tastes the sharp tang of her own come. He winds a hand around the back of her skull, his hold delicate, and she thinks she could get used to this. The lushness of it, being wrapped up in his care.
He toys with her knee. Sensation spirals out from where he touches her.
He's not let go of her since she closed the distance. She thinks to herself that it might be nice to not let him.
"We were on one, weren't we?" he asks. She wants to swat at him, tell him he knows this perfectly well. But she's too desperate for him to start moving.
"One." In-joo says.
"Hold onto me now. Whatever you need."
That's when he starts moving. The bed creaks obnoxiously loudly, and he fucks her with the precision of someone hyper focused on her satisfaction, crown of his head pressing against hers. Hand smearing across her nipples and plucking at them deftly, and there's nowhere else for her to look, nowhere else she'd rather be than right here, marooned with him.
He pushes one of her knees higher, opening up so he can go deeper. In a daze, she realises he's so close to her, shoulders engulfing her vision, she can't see the ceiling. It's just him, the two of them, skin to skin. Thrown together through strange circumstances, circling and circling each other until they ended up here.
"Harder, please–" she gasps.
Do-il, the talented, infuriating man, leans over to pin one of her hands to the mattress. Fingers threading between hers, warm, firm. When he fucks into her faster, she's already halfway gone, and then – he sucks one of her nipples in his mouth, the orgasm slamming into her like a freight train.
Her jaw is slack, limbs jelly after that. The distant buzz of her own blood in her ears.
"Two," she breathes, spiralling back down to earth.
"Good?" he breathes.
"Very good. Spectacular. Amazing. No further comments."
Her fingers graze the firm muscles of his deltoid, and she realises he's tense beneath her fingers. Ever the elusive fox, always holding back. Holding back, the thought emerges, for her.
"Were you waiting… for me?" In-joo asks. Not entirely sure whether she's referring to this, or just, well. Everything.
"Always."
It's so ridiculously romantic, she can't help but wrap her legs tighter around him at that. Grinding on him helplessly, urging him towards the finish line, which she knows is in sight. She knows, from the determined way his hips roil above hers, senselessly. Both of them, driven by instinct, lost in it.
Relief washes over her, too. That they have this, and they have time. He's no longer the boy who always has to be three steps ahead, she's no longer the girl who has to cut supermarket coupons out of an abandoned newspaper for the money. The two of them can meet in the middle now, maybe be something better than the sum of their parts.
"Do-il, I…"
The coda to this is the terrifying thought, also. That In-joo wouldn't have run away with him if he had asked — but she would have been tempted enough to.
The realisation makes her brain white out, and she comes around him with a loud cry.
It unravels something in him, until he buries himself to the hilt, face pressed into her shoulder, back curved with the force of it. Both of them coming undone.
In-joo drops her head back on the pillow, mind spinning. Her breaths are short and steady. She thinks she should go clean up, but she can't quite will herself to yet.
When he finally raises his head to look up at her, he seems almost nervous.
"Three?" Do-il asks, ever the focused student. She idly wonders what he must have been like in University. Cold, remote, nothing behind his eyes, her coworkers had said. Not like he is, to her, now: hair dishevelled, face completely open, glowing at her.
She grins back through her sex haze, pushing a damp strand of hair away from his face.
"Three." In-joo mutters, satisfied.
Her eyes feel heavy, and he kisses the hollow of her neck.
I'm sweaty there. In-joo thinks to herself.
"I don't mind." Do-il says, back. Did she say that out loud?
Sleep rapidly digs its claws into her. Do-il tucks her hair behind her ear, and a pillow under her head.
"Rest." Do-il adds. "You can rest now."
She nods, too bone-tired to protest. And just before she shuts her eyes, mind going blissfully blank, she tells herself to remember this feeling. A feeling of peace, of his arms around her, holding strong.
In-joo wakes up to an empty room, curtains rustling gently in the breeze. The sheets next to her are cooling, and empty.
Panic sets a rabbit run in her heart, but beneath it is a hardened resolve, because she's somehow unsurprised. This is always what happens to In-joo, what she deserves. People find her tiresome, and they leave.
The beep of the keycard on the door shocks her out of her wallowing.
Do-il enters. He quirks his eyebrows at her.
"I thought you'd gone," she says.
"I did," he replies. "To get food. I know you get hungry."
Her eyes go wide at the sight. He flourishes two plastic bags filled with what looks like noodles, before striding around the corner to pull up a nightstand as their makeshift dining table.
"Oh." She sits up, wrapping the blanket around her. "Does it have eggs?"
"There are two in yours."
In-joo hums, satisfied with this answer. He scoots closer to her end of the bed, their knees touching as he fiddles with the chopsticks.
"How is your hand?" he asks, pausing for a moment to turn her left palm over carefully in his own. His fingers are calloused, like a boxer's.
Her stomach growls, a loud interruption. She winces. "Sorry. I'm quite hungry."
"Hello there, 'quite hungry'."
"Very funny."
"I've been told that I can be."
"My hand is fine, thank you. It doesn't bother me."
"Good. You shouldn't have to hurt anymore."
In-joo lets out an annoyed sigh, but doesn't move away, quite content to let him demonstrate care. "Don't you think you've done enough for me already?"
He gently tilts her head up by the chin. All solemn, blinking slow, this time. "For you, never."
She studies him, wondering if he really means that. Looking for signs of deception in his expression, not finding any. The even, flat lines of his face remind her of the hareubangs she had seen on a Jeju island documentary at a restaurant once. Impossible to read, ambiguous in their serenity.
But she has learnt to read him, hasn't she? Seen the smile growing across his expression like daybreak, the sidelong way he's looked at her while driving? The purse of his lips when she does something impulsive, says something that's counter to whatever plan he's got in motion at any given moment, spinning his many plates?
And she thinks of princesses, from the stories. The princes that vanquished dragons to get to them, people deemed worth saving. She hadn't thought she'd be one of those characters before. She's townsfolk, really. This declaration of faith, for a woman who is used to people walking away; who shoulders her burdens like she could ferry them singlehandedly up Mount Bukhansan – well. It is something.
Do-il draws a thumb across her cheek, cradling her face like he would a bird in his hands.
Why must he be so painfully tender?
Is this what it's like, she thinks, to be cared for?
A wet noise erupts out of her, a warble worthy of a funeral.
"Wait. Are you crying? Are you alright?" he asks. Shocked into action, Do-il reaches into his pocket for a tissue.
"No! I mean. Yes."
"If something is wrong, tell me immediately."
"Nothing's wrong. I promise. It's just." In-joo waves a hand dismissively. "The dust."
"This is a five star hotel," he says, uncertainly.
She blows her nose, and sniffles. "You can develop allergies late in life, you know."
"Okay." Do-il says it like he still doesn't quite believe her, but doesn't want to push the point. Nevertheless, there's a twitch in his jaw, and a strained note in his voice that sounds suspiciously like he's trying not to laugh.
Watching him try to control himself makes her lose it too. The both of them collapse into undignified chortling.
A muscle cramps in her neck then, rudely puncturing the moment. "Ow."
He wastes no time, nimble hands on her at once, massaging the tension out of her.
"This is your fault," she says, wincing at a spot on her shoulder that's tender from their lovemaking.
"Sorry," Do-il says, not looking very sorry at all.
She picks up a pillow and tosses it sideways at him. He catches it deftly, because of course.
It shifts a gear between them, back down to something more comfortable. His fingers return, firm and sure on her spine. And blessedly, it is helping.
"Better?" he asks.
"Yes, thank you."
"Good. Now eat your food, will you? Ms. Quite Hungry," Do-il chides. With a low hmph of finality, In-joo does. She reaches over to tear open the plastic bag, Do-il does the same to his own, and they make noises of satisfaction as the seasoning-laden noodles hit their tongues after an evening of very physical, very hard work.
"Pass the sauce." In-joo says. He obliges, tearing the corner off carefully before handing it over, seemingly happy to never deny her anything.
"Hey." Do-il says through half a mouthful of noodles, and she realises that he'd been starving, too. He'd just put his needs aside for hers, again. Idiot.
"What do you know about Belgium?" Do-il says.
"Not much. I've spent quite a lot of time wallowing in my own misery, you see."
He casts her a wry smile, as if to telegraph dramatic, but alright. She appreciates that he doesn't judge her for it, or see her as any less so. That he sees and accepts her, just as she is.
"Your sister made me promise not to contact her after the bank. But she did send this." Do-il reaches into another pocket to press a rectangle of neatly folded paper into her hand. This means In-joo can't focus on eating, but he doesn't miss a beat, spooning a meatball into her mouth.
"Mrargh?" In-joo says around a mouthful of food, still chewing. She unfolds the paper, revealing a postcard of a man and woman kissing. Their faces are obscured by cloth, giving the impression of an illicit, anonymous rendezvous.
In-joo swallows her food, then turns the card over in her hands. The Lovers, René Magritte, 1928.
She's confused for a moment, and then recognition sparks. In-joo dives for her handbag, reaching for a postcard of her own.
"I got this one! A clue?"
She presses the wrinkled piece of paper open, a pencil sketch of a young woman with gleaming dark hair, staring into the mirror, turned away from the viewer. Two figurines with indiscernible faces.
In turn, Do-il pulls out his phone and pulls a quick visual search, pulling an image for her to see. La Reproduction Interdite, 1937.
It's almost identical to the sketch In-joo is holding, in setting and in colour. Except there's only one person in the world she knows who could draw it that way.
"It matches." In-joo breathes.
She wants, immediately, to tell In-kyung about this. Her mind explodes with possibilities for how In-hye is doing. Where did she draw this? Was it at a town square, full of people? Is she at art school now? If it really is Belgium, then how is the weather in Europe? Has she been drinking herbal tea, keeping warm?
And, a secondary pang, in her heart: that she misses both of her sisters, so much. She wants them back, wishes they could go back to the way they once were, but time marches them all relentlessly forward. Though they're on three parallel paths, she knows that one day, they'll reconverge. Flowers of the same branch, after all.
In her excitement about the new clue, In-joo had almost forgotten where she was. But then she turns to look at Do-il.
What a strange, strange man he is. Someone who she still knows so little about, but has saved her life many times. Someone who fought for her, defended her, believed in her when it mattered the most.
He'd walked away from the possibility of 70 billion won. For her. A perfectly ordinary woman.
70 billion won.
Surely then something about her must be extraordinary. Even if she can't see it in herself, yet.
But, perhaps. In-joo thinks to herself. One day, she will.
"So," In-joo says, brushing a crumb from her mouth, and the worry from her mind. Ready. "Where do we begin?"