Work Text:
The world stills.
Even from such a distance, Heejoo can catch the shifts in his expression as realisation dawns on him.
So, she thinks, this is it. Heavy as lead, the arm holding the phone drops down. The phone clatters on the ground, and his eyes snap to it before lifting back to her face.
Thank you, she mouths at him, unsure if he’ll be able to understand but needing to say it all the same. It’s with absolute emptiness except for new determination that she turns around.
She was ready to jump a few moments ago, before he answered the call and told her things she would never have dreamed of hearing, even less from him. She’s more than ready now that everything is irrevocably lost. Wind whistles in her ears, and she quickly thinks she should have taken her high heels off before climbing on the bench. They make it harder to step over the railing.
“Hong Heejoo !”
She startles, catches herself on the ledge. From memory, this is the first time she has heard this tone from him -a mixture of anger and absolute terror. That last one urges her to put her foot back down, turn around and face him once more.
In the few seconds her back was turned, he crossed most of the distance between them, and it’s barely another moment before he’s putting both hands on her waist and lifting her down.
There’s not even a thought of resisting him. Heejoo is exhausted.
“Don’t,” he growls at her, even though she can’t do anything at this point anyway. He’s holding her too strongly, too close.
“Why not ?” She asks, not recognising her own blankness.
Baek Saeon recoils in shock, then moves closer, a pendulum movement Heejoo notices through the haze. She wonders if he likes her voice, or if he’s disappointed.
“Did you not hear me on the phone ?”
Scant space is eaten up as he moves closer still, his breath hot across her cheek, grip tightening on her waist.
“You are not gloomy. You are not lacking,” he says, and sound is dragged from her throat. “You are too good a person to be involved with people like us, so do not let them lead you to that. Do not give them that much power.”
His words strike deep and true, somewhere vulnerable in her chest that’s been cracked open tonight, as this simple evening has managed to erode the walls she painfully erected for 20 years.
“You’re a good person, too.”
For the second time tonight, he seems utterly shocked at her words. Or maybe it’s because it’s one of the first things she has ever told him out loud. It seems fitting, for some reason.
Belatedly, she realises his hands are still holding onto her hips. Why does it feel natural, even nice ?
“You are taking this surprisingly well,” she frowns.
A little laugh escapes him. It’s just a phantom of laughter, really, but it takes her aback anyway, because she has rarely seen him amused. Never heard his laugh.
Heejoo suddenly thinks that she would really want to. And she would want to be the one responsible for it, for such a sign of his joy.
“The police car had a recording of the drive back with you.”
Oh.
Oh.
Tensing, Heejoo pulls back from him, but he keeps holding onto her and doesn’t allow much leeway.
“I couldn’t believe I was hearing you speak.”
“You knew ?” She gasps. “The whole day, you knew ?”
Except, it makes sense; both that he knew and didn’t confront her about it. Heejoo thinks back on the interview, all those pointed questions and subliminal references to lies, that comment about her not being able to speak.
But Saeon didn’t leave her behind. He let her rest before dinner with his parents, defended her against them, and shielded her with his own body.
He answered the phone. He told her…
“All those things you said…” she breathes out, scared to keep going, but he cuts her short anyway.
“I meant every word.”
Throat tight, eyes blurry, she swallows in order to push down the lump that’s taken place there. How could he have thought such beautiful things and yet behaved this way with her ? How could he force her to go through all that feeling alone and abandoned ?
“Why now ?”
“Is that really what you think of yourself ?”
For some reason, the question gets her on the defensive instantly, and she grits her teeth.
“I don’t have any reason to think otherwise.”
“Really ? What about your own accomplishments ?” His tone is angry, angrier than warranted in her opinion, and she can only watch him in stunned surprise. “Your team at the KSL centre, your work at the orphanage, your involvement with the news channel ? Do you think all those people see you as a replacement for your sister ? Do you truly believe you have no value of your own ?”
Of course, she wants to scream at him. Of course I don’t. Because that’s how I was raised, because that is my function. But she has learned long ago not to speak her mind, not to speak at all. Self-censorship is ingrained in her now, and she isn’t sure she can ever undo it.
So Heejoo says nothing, looks over his shoulder so her gaze can’t belie her silence. At that tacit refusal, Saeon twitches in frustration, but changes course anyway.
“I heard what your mother said to you, about your father.”
“I guess he’s like me,” she huffs out without any humour. “He never mattered at all to her. A simple bargaining chip, against me this time.”
There’s no way not to startle when Saeon’s fingers grab her chin and force her to meet his hard stare.
“Forget them. All of them. You are not a bargaining chip. And certainly not to me.”
It is not the first time he invades her personal space, far from it, but the energy now shifts everything into a different perspective. And that’s without examining his words and the unfamiliar longing and determination etched into his every feature.
Heejoo closes her eyes, breathes slowly. Tries to ignore the contradictory gentleness of his hold on her chin and the firmness of what he’s saying.
It’s after 10pm. People are milling about in the rooms underneath them, drifting from one influential group of politicians to the next conglomerate officials, gossiping and eating and drinking without a care in the world.
But Saeon is here. Her husband is looking at her. Her husband, who knows what she’s done. Who seems to know a lot more than any of them ever thought.
“The retirement home called you,” Heejoo starts, because she needs to understand, she needs to understand what that’s all been for, why it all mattered. “They had your number.”
“Yes.”
At that treacherous simplicity of an answer, she can’t help but laugh. It’s a hysterical kind of laugh, bordering on tears as she realises that those three years were spent pleasing the person she thought was essential, but has become obsolete. No need to rely on her mother anymore so her father will be taken care of. He is no longer a bargaining chip, either.
“Hong Inna is back,” she admits for the first time, letting the knot of anxiety and sheer panic loosen. “What am I supposed to do now ?”
Because they will replace her. The lot of them, they’ve never seen her as anything other than a faceless, voiceless stand-in. Now that the real thing is back… well there is no place in the world for her.
And yet Baek Saeon cups her face oh so gently between his palms, and whispers words she has never dreamt of hearing directed at her.
“Come home with me”
Biting back a sob, Heejoo nods her agreement.
Home. She’ll go home with her husband.
They both end up in her room, and though no reason is given out loud, it is implied in the way they can’t be apart from each other for too long, standing scant inches apart at most.
As soon as they enter her room, though, a stupid spike of anxiety makes her stumble forward. Baek Saeon is too quick, swiftly pulling her by the arm and taking her place at the foot of the bed.
She made the atrocious mistake of leaving the box out, waiting to throw it away on her way out in his absence. Well, so much for that.
Nonchalantly, he takes the lid off and picks up the black stockings to hold them out before him, all the while ignoring her palpable annoyed embarrassment.
“Is that Hong Heejoo’s style ?” He taunts.
Despite the teasing tone and words, she detects a hint of tension in his posture, in the grip he has on the stockings. Heejoo rushes forward and snatches them out of his hand.
“My mother gave them to me,” she mutters, throwing the offensive lingerie back in the box and placing the lid on it.
For a second, Saeon is silent. When he opens his mouth, it’s not to say what she expected:
“Why would she do that ?”
With a snort, she turns back to him, defensively crossing arms over her chest and giving him a glare, annoyed at having to explain.
“Why do you think ?”
It takes only a moment for the meaning to be fathomed, she can see it on his face. Since when was she able to read him so easily ?
Saeon clears his throat, but even that doesn’t suffice; his voice is thick with something, eyes dark on her face.
“You don’t need those to seduce me.”
That effectively strikes her dumb, arms dropping uselessly at her sides.
Not knowing what to say, she just remains staring at him, scrambling to regain composure while still trying to comprehend his words. Her mouth opens and closes in vain, and she kind of hates how he said that, shameless and unbidden, and doesn’t make any attempt at deriving the conversation or even continue speaking. So Heejoo grasps at the first thing coming to mind, though it’s probably not the best.
“That’s not how it seemed for 3 years.”
Another huff of a laugh, and she’s starting to get used to those. Distantly, she wonders if he is getting used to hearing her voice.
“You have no idea how much willpower it took not to touch you. How much I restrained myself…”
“Why did you ?” She cuts him off, blood now drumming in her ears.
“Because you never wanted any of this,” he retorts, swiping a hand out and gesturing at the entirety of the room. “I already trapped you in a marriage you didn’t want, put you in a position where you had to suffer my parents’ insults and belittlement. I didn’t… I don’t want you to feel obligated to me, to anyone.”
“But I always hoped.”
“What ?”
“I always hoped you would show me affection,” she confesses, feeling too childish, “that you would at least… if not love, at least want me.”
“I love you.”
It’s said as plainly as a simple statement, which is why it takes her a few moments to understand the words. When she does, she blinks at him in shock, waiting for him to take them back, to scoff at her naivety and turn his back on her.
But Baek Saeon doesn’t. Her husband looks at her, refusing to make her worst fears come true. He looks at her and patiently waits.
“You’re the second person to ever tell me that,” she whispers.
At that, something pained crosses his face, and then he’s right against her, cupping her face, brushing her wet cheeks with his thumbs -when did she start crying ?
“I love you,” he says again, harder. “I love you, Hong Heejoo. I love you.”
A part of her wants him to stop saying it, because he can’t mean it, it can’t be true. Yet most of her is hanging onto his honesty, onto the feelings she can hear painted in his tone, onto those precious, amazing words she hasn’t heard in two decades, since her father sent her away.
Her fingers lift to his lips in wonder, tracing the shape of the words on them like she can snatch them away and keep them somewhere safe to warm her on cold nights. But he keeps saying them like a litany, and she watches him, hears him, and loves all at once.
“I love you,” he insists, takes her hand in his so delicately, and presses the confession and a kiss to her knuckles.
And suddenly, it is not enough to touch them, she needs to taste them from the source. Heejoo doesn’t let herself think -but if she did, the result would be the same- before she slots their mouthes together.
It starts off delicate, tentative. With slow movements and prodding tongues, they learn the shape of each other, the weight of their lips and how they fit together.
Knees weak and legs wobbly, Heejoo pulls him with her when she lowers herself onto the foot of the bed, slow and delicate. Neither of them allows the kiss to break, Saeon bending down to follow her lead, Heejoo stretching her neck to welcome him with parted lips. Her knees spread to accommodate his frame, and he’s all of a sudden pressed against her, nestled between her thighs as naturally as if they had done this for 3 years.
Only when his palm slides up her thigh does she break away with a gasp.
She feels hot and bothered, a layer of lust coating her skin like perspiration, and her only consolation is that Baek Saeon doesn’t look any better. God, how pathetic of them both, to be touch-starved to this extent.
In a valiant effort to remain level-headed, Heejoo cups his face between her hands, thumbs brushing across his cheekbones, catching over his lower lip on the way down.
Baek Saeon shivers, visibly torn between leaning into her touch and pulling away, torn between his desire and his morals.
She wonders how long it’s been since someone touched him like this; with affection.
His thoughts seem to have taken a very different route to hers, though they remain on the same main track.
“I’m sorry I touched you like that before,” he says.
It’s the second time she has heard him apologise, the first time being the incident he’s referring to. And she doesn’t want to examine that too much, because if she thinks back on the way his hand was wrapped around her thigh, strong and insistent, before he left it cold, she is a bit scared of what she would realise about herself.
“I didn’t stop you.”
“You should have,” he breathes out, forehead falling to her shoulder. “God, feeling your skin like this, and you looked…”
“I didn’t want you to stop. I wanted you to keep going.”
“But the photo.”
“But the photo,” she echoes.
“You were the one to tell me to check,” he says slowly, like the dots just connected.
Heejoo feels a blush rise at him calling out her own foolishness. She lifts a hand to shield her eyes in shame, unable to look right at him.
“I… don’t know why I said that.”
“Don’t you ?”
Oh, there is the teasing once again, except thicker this time. Curious -and more than a little thrown off by the provocation-, Heejoo drops her hand.
There is no mistaking the desire in his gaze, and it’s only now that she recognises it as such, despite having seen it before. God, she has seen it before. With his thumb on her lip and his hand on her thigh; with him on his knees offering her a ring that wasn’t hers.
How many times ?
“Maybe I wanted to keep your attention.”
A small part hates herself for the admission, but she can’t be too bothered when he’s right against her, so openly affected by her words.
“You’ve always had my attention. It is distracting, really.”
“How so ?”
“Hong Heejoo,” he berates her, and she tilts her chin up just so, keeping their eyes locked in challenge.
“How so ?”
“I can show you.”
Dark allure coats his voice and sends shivers down her spine.
Can she ? Is this allowed for her ?
Instantly, she dismisses the thought. Who cares what’s allowed ? Why should she care about rules and misguided duty when devotion is staring her right in the face, holding her so tenderly but with an underlaying hunger that has become undeniable ?
It has been so long since she was looked upon with anything other than contempt.
Always, it was too easy for her to agree to whatever they asked of her. But this time, when she nods, it’s for her own selfish reasons.
So Saeon goes back to kissing her, a bit more thorough now that they -probably- have the same idea of where this is going. Intention wraps the actions in lust and anticipation, ankles crossing prematurely at his lower back. Being pressed against him in this way is overwhelming and addicting at once, years having left her bereft of any affection, most of all physical. And here they finally are.
Goosebumps erupt under his hand, across her thigh, and she wants so much more. Her own fingers drift from the sharp lines of his face to his neck, working and shifting at the rhythm of their kiss, and then to the even sharper edge of his collarbone. Saeon startles, and she is reminded again that this must be just as unfamiliar and overwhelming to him.
He blinks at her, quick and thrown off, and Heejoo feels something akin to adoration climb up her throat, warm her from the inside.
“Let me,” she asks, commands. “Let me.”
Without another protest, he stills and leaves her to do as she pleases. And she does. It feels sacrilegious to ruffle that perfect appearance, but she pushes through the few reservations left, and undoes the buttons of his shirt. She doesn’t give herself time to think or pause until the material falls open too easily, as if it hasn’t been an insuperable obstacle between them for so long. Too easy, to touch him like this, to trigger shivers and goosebumps in her wake, his Adam’s apple jutting out from the extended arch of his throat as he swallows audibly.
Heejoo doesn’t recognise her own greed as she paws at anything she can, volatile and impatient like she never was, swaying to his waistband, his back, his torso or his ass with no determined course of actions. Saeon lets her, as she asked.
“Tell me,” he says at the noise of frustration she makes, annoyed at herself for the uncertainty of the next step. “I’ll give you anything.”
You, she thinks, but that’s far too vague an answer. What she wants right now is to feel skin-on-skin, to have his mouth on her in any way he wishes.
“Get me naked. Please,” she adds as an afterthought, and should not have bothered.
Saeon is complying splendidly, urging her lower back to arch into him so he can get to the zipper, and from there it is a trivial affair to rid her of the dress entirely. She pushes his own shirt off as he makes his way down her neck, down her sternum, and she is glad the dress didn’t allow her to wear a bra. His mouth on her breasts is something that will haunt her dreams for days to come, surely, though she fiercely hopes this is not the last instance of the kind.
When his kisses wrap around her nipples, a wretched longing swells like a tidal wave inside her, spilling out from greedy fingers and desperate mouth, spreading to everything within reach. She looks down at him, naked skin melting against hers.
For once, he looks a mess, depraved as he sucks on her skin like addicted. Her ring glints in his hair as she twists it this and that way, uncertain of the direction she’s supposed to impose on him. He’s following his own path down her body, quick and eager and primitive, spurring noises from her throat that she can’t reconcile are hers.
“I still can’t believe I’m hearing you,” he pants into her hip, the motion of his lips driving her even further down that road. “Let me hear you.”
The command is unnecessary; Heejoo has been muting herself for 20 years, and now that the opportunity to let loose has been offered to her on a silver plater, there isn’t much she can do to resist it.
So she lets him hear her now, as vulnerable as she was crying in the car, just differently.
And for the first time since the accident, she lets those frightening, wonderful words take shape and sound in her mouth.
I love you.
I love you.
Although Baek Saeon is too preoccupied to answer, she feels the admission echoing in his every gesture.