Woo Jinchul x Reader(F): Something stupid (1/2)
Jinchul smokes in the light novel, doesn't he?
Words: 8000
Warnings: None for this part, smut in the following part, some age gap, possible spoilers
Summary: You start to fall for the man that shows up during your smoke breaks.
The air felt warm and humid when you stepped out of your hell of a workplace, an enormous grey concrete block that was the very embodiment of hostility towards life. Your arms hurt when you shut the door behind you; even one whole year after carrying packages you weren’t quite used to the intensity. At times you wondered if it was due to being a woman, with muscles unwilling to grow despite daily exercise, but then you glanced over to your male coworkers and saw them equally rubbing their backs and hissing in pain at times. Working in a warehouse simply was pure shit. For everyone.
With your body demanding a cigarette, you quickly went around the corner to your usual spot – a metal bench under a cherry blossom tree. A single tree that was granted the privilege of remaining in this place when the warehouse was built – or was it rather a punishment? You had once read that trees, or plants in general, communicated with each other. This tree had no one to interact with. It was all alone. You often thought about that when you sat there, feeling miserable on your own. At least you weren’t the only one trapped in this wasteland.
Today though, you saw someone else sitting there. A true novelty, as this area was rarely crossed by usual citizens and other workers preferred to smoke right in front of the door. Well. You weren’t going to stray from your routine, plenty of space on that bench.
You walked towards the stranger and realized, the closer you came, that it was actually a really pretty guy. Like damn, where did this man come from? You eyed him top-down, eyes big, not daring to smile at him. Despite always thinking you should smile more, that everyone should smile more, despite being completely tired of everyone’s cold face – you couldn’t. The moment your eyes interlocked, you felt intimidated. You could read nothing out of his dark orbs, absolutely nothing, he only seemed to scrutinize you with a cigarette between his lips.
Nevertheless, you sat down next to him, taking your own cigarette out of the pack you held in your hands. The light ones; the brand you start with to get accustomed to successively destroying your health. You wondered if he was some kind of higher-up that was about to inspect the warehouse, the type of man to know everything better without ever having worked one single day by himself. But when you peeked at him furtively from the corner of your eye, there was a golden badge on his collar. Could it be? Was there a hunter sitting next to you? Great.
Your hand slipped inside the pocket on your chest, expecting to find a lighter, but your fingers felt nothing they could pull out. As if it could magically appear in a sudden, you patted your pocket twice or thrice, but there was nothing, only the fabric of the sweater and the fat of your breast underneath. No plastic. No smoking. You let out a defeated sigh, remembering that you indeed had lent out your lighter earlier that day.
You sighed, about to stand up when the stranger’s hand appeared in front of you, a black lighter held between thumb and index finger. With a weary glance you accepted his offer and brought the cigarette to your lips, shielding it from the wind with one hand. As your lungs were filled with the smoke, the top part glowing red, you handed him the lighter back. Wordlessly he took it from you, stuffing it back into his pocket.
The nicotine did it’s magic and made your tense body feel more relaxed. You leaned against the backrest of the bench and exhaled through pursed lips. You could sense the man next to you smoked something strong, it smelt like pure poison, like the smoker’s lounge in a shaggy bar, like the men you worked with. Like desperation.
It came to your mind that you hadn’t thanked him for his lighter, not with words nor with a subtle nod. Now, it felt as if it was too late. Besides, he seemed to be occupied with his own mind. Your voice would break through the silence he probably cherished. So you sat there without a single word spoken, your feet heavy in your tight shoes, your back appreciating every single second it didn’t need to use its muscles to keep you upright.
You reached the last third of your cigarette when the man next to you leaned forward, stubbing out his in the dirt. He stayed there, elbows on his knees, drowsily looking down with his cigarette butt still in his fingers. His black suit jacked perfectly covered his upper body, gracefully adjusting to his positions. Tight on his back and chest, loose around his sleeves and hips.
You had no idea what this man was up to, here, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but there was something about him that made you feel with him. He looked as defeated and tired as you felt inside. Probably that’s why.
You took out your empty pack of cigarettes and opened it, leaning forward as well.
“Here,” you said calmly, “so that you don’t leave it on the floor.”
His attention shifted to the hand you held out for him. He put his brown filter inside, ultimately making your old box a new, improvised garbage can. He then looked at you; eyes dark, expression unreadable.
“I wasn’t going to throw it on the ground,” he said, voice low. All it took were just those few words to get goosebumps, well hidden under your long-sleeved shirt. There was an air of authority around him that made you hold your breath for a second, his stare suddenly becoming so intense you wanted to look away. But you didn’t.
“Most people would,“ you mumbled, bringing your hand with the box to your stomach.
As he only leaned back and didn’t reply anything, you took another drag. “Thank you for the lighter,” you said without turning your head to look at him, speaking into the warm air. “Going back would’ve cost me my break. You gifted me five wonderful minutes.” A sarcastic smile played across your lips, the light bitterness in your voice impossible to miss.
You thought he would ignore this statement, too, but then he asked: “What’s your job?”
“Putting things people don’t need into a box.” You grinned over at him. He had put his elbow on the backrest, his body just a tad bit shifted towards you.
“For example?”
“Well…” you started, noting with regret that your smoker’s break would soon come to an end. You straightened your back and inhaled deeply, getting out every single molecule of nicotine. “Just ten minutes ago I had sunglasses where… yeah, where the temples had the form of a woman’s legs, naked legs of course, and the order also included socks, but not socks for the feet, no, socks for water bottles, when they’re too hot or cold, so that your fingers don’t get hot or cold, god beware. It said ‘World’s best lawyer’ and… I don’t know.”
As you were only met with his staring, a tiny smile cracking at the corner of his lips, you apologetically bit your lip. “Sorry, but you asked.”
“Sounds dreadful,” he then remarked, not breaking off the eye contact.
“Right?” you said and put your burnt-out cigarette into the box with a sigh where it joined the stub from the stranger next to you.
Dainty crow’s feet showed around his eyes and you wondered how old he was. He was handsome, undeniably, but there was something very mature about him.
Despite your duties calling for you, you remained seated on the bench. It felt wrong to stand up just like that – as if the man radiated some kind of force that made it impossible to withdraw. So instead of going back, you asked him what his profession was, lips innocently curving upwards.
His own hint of a smile vanished. Reality came back. He looked away when he finally said: “I work at the Hunter’s Association.” Lying made no sense with the shining golden badge on his chest, he knew that. The indifference in his voice was startling, because to you, it was big news. As a normal, boring commoner, untouched by mysterious supernatural magic, chances were low to interfere with people like him. And then it came to your mind that he looked oddly familiar.
“Which rank are you?”
He clicked his tongue, as if he would rather not answer. “A,” he replied nevertheless, still avoiding to look at you.
Oh my. There were not even forty A-ranks in this country, and you got to sit next to one. If he was being honest. But you didn’t doubt it for a second, something about his behaviour let no room to not believe him. Maybe you should start gambling given your luck, but when you thought about it, what was lucky about that? It was a statistically unlikely occurrence, yes, nothing more.
You blinked at him for a few times, the silence almost comforting, until he felt forced to shift his focus back on you in anticipation for your response. He expected to find the girl next to him looking at him with excitement, fear or admiration in her eyes, with just something at least, but none of that was shown on your face. He saw you with a patient smile, standing up and stretching your arms behind your back.
You would've loved to ask him out about his job, but you knew the clock was running and your manager would not leave out a chance to scold you. “Whatever it is that you do, it has to be cooler than what I do.”
A tired smile crept on his face; one that didn’t reach his eyes. In that very moment, you thought that there was a lost soul sitting on the bench. He looked like one of those many salarymen who struggled to find any joy in their existence, all too consumed by their work and duties they didn’t choose.
He didn’t say anything as you awkwardly stood there in front of him. It didn’t feel right to rush away with a simple “Bye”. Hell, it didn’t even feel right to leave him here like this. A distant urge inside you made you want to stay, as if you were magnetically pulled towards him. But an even bigger magnetic pull came from the warehouse, a big and heavy looming threat, and suddenly it left a sour taste in your mouth that you were trapped there.
“It was a pleasure to smoke with you,” you quickly said with a mournful smile and a short wave of your hand as you turned your back on him, running back to the entrance of the building. You didn’t even hear the “Likewise” that has left his lips, you couldn’t turn your head to see him staring. All you could was make haste to get back to your workplace and to cringe at your own words. It was a pleasure? Goddamn, you’ve been sitting next to each other and then exchanged two sentences, which pleasure did you speak of, exactly?
Jinchul continued to sit there for a few more minutes. He started to wonder what you did in there, which products you collected in this concrete jungle right now. If you had already forgotten the stranger that had intruded your sacred smoking spot.
***
The first thing you did at home was showering. Hot water, too hot to be good for anyone’s skin, but just perfect to relieve the pain in your legs and clear your thoughts. With a towel around your body, you strolled into the kitchen to see what you’ve got to eat. It was… rather disappointing. After changing into sleepwear, you made yourself a salad and some slices of bread. This evening, you didn’t search for a video you could watch during dinner. Instead, you typed “hunters association korea” into the search bar. With your laptop on your lap and the crumbing bread in one hand, you clicked on the official website of the institution and expected that it would be an uphill battle to find him amongst the other hundreds of hunters in the public list.
Oh. You stopped chewing when you saw that he was the actual boss of the association. That’s why he has looked familiar, but you weren't able connect the dots earlier on. You remembered that you had seen his face at that time – one or two years ago? – all over the news, thinking that he was quite a stunner.
After the surprise subsided, you tried to gather more information about him. Only to realize there was just the bare minimum to find. Name, date of birth, place of birth, profession. Not even some kind of biography.
It matched with his mysterious aura.
Your eyes lingered on his birthday. You wouldn’t have guessed that he was nearly ten years older than you. He certainly didn’t look like he’s in his mid-thirties, not even with the tiredness that gave him a more aged appearance.
On the news section, you found a video from the latest press conference. Woo Jinchul declares citizen's concerns to be unwarranted. It seemed like this would be your entertainment for tonight.
***
Whenever you went out to smoke the next days, you looked at the bench with anticipation. Sat straighter against the backrest in case he might come. But he didn’t. The first week you were still hopeful, the second week there was only a small glimmer of hope left. The third week you already slouched against the bench with your knees pulled towards your chest, thinking it was a shame you polluted this very last pretty place. You could enjoy the lovely smell of the cherry blossoms that already started to fall down, but instead you chose to stink up the air with dirty smoke. And yet, you couldn’t stop.
You also couldn’t stop thinking about him. It wasn’t because he was attractive – many people were. It wasn’t because he had been particularly nice – on the contrary, he had been distant and reserved. He had exuded something deeply comforting, impossible to explain. He was a man on whose chest one wanted to cry, this much you could tell.
Sometimes, when you hustled through the stacked racks thrice as tall as you, you wondered what he was doing right now. Sitting in a meeting, negotiating affairs of importance, signing documents he didn’t read himself? But when your short encounter already laid a full month in the past, you accepted that this had been it. You closed the tab with a picture of him smiling (presumably the only one) and deleted your search history. You didn’t expect to meet him again on the bench. You moved on. Worked ten-hour-shifts, sometimes twelve, were admonished for spending too much time on the toilet by your boss you outright wanted to kill. Drunk bad, cold coffee together with your coworkers in the break room.
One day, you were greeted by heavy rain when you stepped outside to smoke. The sky was dark, even though it was still late afternoon. You stood in the door, about to head back, but in the corner of your eye you saw someone sitting on the bench, hidden under a black umbrella. Adrenaline rushed through your veins, leaving a tingling sensation in your fingertips. Without a second thought, you ran through the rain and sat down next to the man. He looked at you with an indifferent expression, one brow slightly lifted. He brought his hand with the umbrella closer to you, providing protection from the drops that fell through the leaves.
“You got wet,” he stated dryly, taking a drag on his cigarette.
“It’s just water,” you said, shrugging your shoulders while shifting closer to him to be fully under the umbrella. Considering all the smog in Seoul, it was probably very dirty water, but you didn’t elaborate.
When pulling out your cigarettes, Jinchul already handed you his lighter. You felt droplets running down your face, so you took his lighter and rubbed your sleeve over your face. With only little success given that the fabric itself was moist.
“What brings you here?” you asked while lightning your cigarette, peeking at him. The humid air had made his hair curl at the ends. Very cute. And yet again, dark circles under his eyes that gave his face a certain roughness.
“Needed a break,” he mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
“Here?”
He tilted his head to meet your gaze, your mouth curved into a doubting smile. He noticed how natural your face looked, untouched by any make-up, and how your skin glistened from the rain. You looked real in a way that intrigued him. So different from anyone else he was surrounded by.
You felt your heart beating faster under his seemingly scrutinizing eye. After a moment of silence that was far longer than appropriate, he finally said: “I like to spend my break in peace. This place is peaceful.”
“So I’m interrupting your peace?”
“I think it’s rather the other way around. It’s you who has to share her smoke break with a stranger.”
True. But you couldn’t complain. You took a long drag. “If I didn’t want some company, I would’ve chosen to smoke elsewhere.”
Jinchul looked on the floor, maybe there was a hint of a smile he tried to suppress.
“Before your break… What was the last order you put together?”
It was weird how familiar his voice sounded. Just because you had spent hours listening to his boring speeches and conferences you understood nothing of. And here he was, again.
“Bento boxes and wooden chopsticks. It actually gave the impression of being high-quality, acacia wood and everything,” you told him, watching raindrops falling from the umbrella splashing on your shoe. Next to his feet, covered in elegant black leather, yours looked tiny.
“That reminds me of my own bento boxes that are gathering dust,” he replied rather to himself with a pinch of sorrow.
“Yeah, mine too,” you agreed, “there’s no time for the important things.”
For a short moment, you sat together in silence, thighs almost touching, listening to nothing but the steady downpour.
“But before I had a disposable camera. It’s insane if you think about it. You make twenty-five pictures and after that you’re supposed to throw it away. Showed it to a coworker and she said it might be useful in certain cases. Yeah, no, it’s a waste of resources, can’t convince me otherwise.”
“It’s the first time I’m hearing about that…” he said lost in thought, tapping off the ash. “What do you think about smoking, then?” He turned his head to face you fully, genuinely interested in your answer.
“It’s also wasteful,” you slowly said with your eyes on his, withstanding the intensity of his gaze. “Smoking only brings harm to the smokers and the farmers growing the tobacco. The relief is so short-lived. It’s just… Whenever I try to stop, I fail. I’m weak.”
You looked away, the tension suddenly becoming unbearable.
“It feels good, even if only for a few minutes. It’s okay to admit that we’re that desperate, chasing after the smallest distractions,” he said calmly, bending down to put out his cigarette.
Absentmindedly, you pulled out your pack and held it into his direction. Your own smoke was about to end, too.
“What’s your name, Mister?” you asked in an attempt to change the subject, forcing your voice to become more light-hearted again, slowly turning your head to see a flicker of amusement in his features.
“I think you know that already,” he responded with an almost shy smile, his grip around the handle of the umbrella tightening. You noticed that he had really beautiful hands. Long fingers, clean nails, blue veins shimmering through his skin.
“And?”
Your cigarette butt joined his in your pack that you now held in both of your hands, awaiting his answer.
“Jinchul.”
You blinked at him with big eyes, and he knew you patiently waited for him to continue. “Jinchul’s enough,” he added, secretly mesmerized by the lovely smile appearing on your face.
“I gotta go,” you said softly, standing up with a body way too heavy for at least five more hours of work.
Jinchul did after you in order to keep the umbrella above you, and for the first time you had to look up to meet his eyes.
“Take this,” he ordered sternly, his hand with the handle coming close to your chest.
You looked over to the warehouse and then back to him, lightly chuckling given the absurdity. “Uh, it’s not that far.”
“Your clothes don’t seem to dry well. You need it more than me.” Despite it being true, your light grey cotton-workwear having wet, dark patches, it simply was unnecessary.
You knew he meant it well, though a serious Jinchul in companionship with his almost black eyes was truly intimidating. “But-“
“I need a reason to come back,” he interrupted you, voice low, almost a whisper amidst the noise of the rain.
And when you wordlessly took the umbrella from his hand, he turned away. Disappearing into his world where no one simply called him Jinchul.
You gulped and got back to your work as well, but beforehand, you put the umbrella in your locker, hiding it away like a treasure.
***
At home, you laid his umbrella on the kitchen table. It radiated some form of ominous aura that you knew very well came solely from the fact that it was something that he had carried with him. It didn’t smell like him, there was nothing personal about it; it was an unspectacular item. And yet, your eyes lingered on the umbrella when you slurped your soup, when you tried to concentrate on the news, when you washed the dishes.
He needs a reason to come back.
You on the other hand, perhaps, need a reason to forget about this man.
You were a simple girl with a simple life, he was… different in so many ways.
But desire doesn’t follow rational considerations, thus your pulse increased every time you laid your eyes on that damned umbrella. As well as every time you went for a smoke break, all hopes up to meet, how you sarcastically called him in your mind, Chairman, only to be disappointed for two consecutive weeks. You were even eager to work overtime in order to get a second smoke break in, increasing the chances to encounter him. That’s how desperate you’ve become. However, on a positive note, it brought some kind of excitement into your dull routine. There was something you could look forward to.
The next time you saw him, he let you have one drag before he took your cigarette from your lips. You raised your eyebrows when he pressed the glowing end against the inner side of his half-full pack and put your cigarette in there. He smiled when he saw your exaggerated pout. Really smiled.
“May I ask why?”
With demonstrated pleasure, he blew smoke right into your face.
“Give me the rest.” He stretched out his open hand.
Reluctantly you put your pack of cigarettes into his hand, he peeked inside, and then he crushed the whole thing by making a fist. Dust, or ash – or whatever – fell from his hand when he unclenched his fingers.
Your mouth opened slightly in disbelief. You raised your index and spoke, voice strict: “That’s waste.”
“You’ll compensate it by not smoking anymore.” His expression was all serious again, nothing hinting at that this might be a joke.
You let your upper body fall against the backrest, your hands empty, nothing to hold onto anymore.
“I can just buy a new pack, you know,” you mumbled, feeling your body’s craving for more nicotine.
“Of course,” he agreed with a nonchalant movement of his hand, “but that won’t make me proud.”
You angrily glared at him. “I want the stress to subside for a moment, not make anyone proud.”
“Listen,” he said whilst leaning into you, crossing his legs, “it’s easier to try for others than for oneself. Just try. For me.”
You wondered what had gotten into him, and why he would care. “I don’t even know you,” you replied with bitterness. “It’s the third time we interact and already you want me to quit smoking?”
“I wanted you to quit smoking the first time I saw you,” he admitted with a dreamy smile, leaning back against the bench. “It doesn’t fit you.”
“You don’t even know my name,” you said immediately, not daring to look at him. The moment the words had left your mouth, you realized that they maybe weren’t true. He probably had all the means to gather every imaginable information about you, albeit you hoped he wouldn’t misuse his power like that.
“You can tell me.”
“And you,” you hissed while leaning forward, pressing your hands on your knees, “could let me smoke!”
He clicked his tongue, pupils focusing on the now short cigarette between his index and middle finger.
He brought his hand closer to your face. “You want to?”
“Yes,” you breathed eagerly. You didn’t knew it, but the frown on your face made Jinchul melt away, and he himself had no idea why the sweet warehouse worker could play with his heart so easily.
“Then ask nicely,” he said with a low timbre, a darkness in his voice that was subtle yet unmissable.
You shifted on the bench so that you sat rather across than next to each other. After clearing your throat, you tried to display your loveliest voice. “Chairman… please let me have the last drag,” you begged, eyes on the short white end of the cigarette that burned and burned away, dangerously close to the brown filter.
“That’s not what I want to be called.” The coldness in his voice made you look up. Your heart pounded when his dissatisfied glance through his lowered lids stabbed you right through your soul.
“Please let me have the last drag… Jinchul.”
As he continued to stare, something unreadable flaring up in his eyes, you leaned into him, closing your lips around the cigarette he held out, not daring to blink, not daring to avert your gaze.
The longest inhale known to mankind was made and with utmost satisfaction, you leaned back, keeping the smoke in as long as possible. “I need to go,” you plainly said after you let go of that sacred last smoke, suddenly feeling burning hot in your thick clothes.
You couldn’t resist and looked back over your shoulder when you walked off with quick steps. There he was, in his black suit and pulled back hair, hands in his pockets, looking as distraught as you felt.
***
Jinchul sat in his office late at night, tired and with aching feet. He went to the window, about to smoke, but when he had his cigarettes in his hand, he hesitated. If felt wrong to mindlessly smoke after he had just forbidden you to do so, and somehow he wanted to show solidarity with you and withstand the very alluring temptation.
He opened the pack and fumbled out the cigarette you had taken a drag from. Thinking about the submissive look in your eyes gave him goosebumps. It wasn’t purely about the sexual tension that had burst, no, it was the fact that you showed no fear, that you seemed to not care about who that man really was. That, on the contrary, you played with him like no one else ever had before.
He should’ve never sat down on that lonely bench. His mind was occupied by a strange girl that he shouldn’t desire. That he couldn’t risk bringing into a life full of dangers.
He should stay away from that damned warehouse, and yet he knew he would fail. He had tried. And it had ended with you sharing a cigarette.
Jinchul rolled the short piece between his fingers, staring into the night sky. Wondering where you might be right now, where you might live in this labyrinth of a city. And what your name was.
Slowly, the used-up cigarette reached his mouth, his lips closed around the same spot as yours earlier. There wasn’t a sudden enlightenment, there was nothing to be exact. It tasted old and stale, it was old and stale. But it comforted him nevertheless. That you and him had shared something, no matter how insignificant and ridiculous.
***
From now on, you went for a smoke break without a single cigarette in your pocket. Sitting a bit lost on the bench, walking up and down, stretching your body. Waiting for a man that didn’t appear. It was absurd.
The first nights deprived of nicotine were hard. Waking up drenched in sweat, not falling asleep again, jittery limbs, not a single coherent thought in your brain. You started to hate him, yes, hate him for having such power over you besides still being a stranger in some way. In those sleepless nights you asked yourself why, and the answer was evident. To make him proud, even though you doubted he was serious. You still did it all for him, he was right, the strength needed to push through was there when it was done for someone else.
This time, he had mercy and showed up earlier than usual; a few days later after your “incident”. Only that you already were about to head back into the warehouse as your break has ended. You stood in the entrance of the fence that enclosed the private area of the company, seeing him jog towards you until he suddenly appeared right in front of you. You tended to forget that he wasn’t… completely human.
“I missed you, right?” he realized, leaning with his shoulder against the metal bars of the fence, his eyes visibly lingering on your arms. You wore a t-shirt for the first time this year as the temperatures have risen. He, on the other hand, was as covered as ever, white shirt and a black suit, a neat black tie around his neck. And despite the sun warming anyone’s skin, you didn’t smell the slightest breeze of sweat from him, but a fresh, clean and just so utterly pleasant scent.
“Yes,” you answered, folding your hands behind your back.
After a moment of solely exchanging glances, he wanted to know if you went out to smoke.
“Do I smell like smoke?” you asked teasingly with a smug smile, stepping closer until there was barely any space left between you.
“No,” he said, his faintly rosy lips forming into a charming grin that made your heart throb.
Just for a second, you forgot about everything, about your work you should return to. He was there, you were there; everything was fine. But your smile soon vanished, you were crossing dangerous lines by taking so much time.
“I really need to go,” you said, worry clouding your face now. Jinchul took your wrist when you turned around. You damned him. And wanted more.
“There’s something in your hair.” You felt him right behind you, his hand brushing over your head. He held his palm in front of your face; a pink flower from the cherry blossom tree that shed its bloom. The wind blew it away.
You threw your head back, his features looking sharp from below, whispering “Thank you” before running into the building. God, if you shared the shift with the wrong manager, things could get dirty for you.
***
You should’ve taken his hand and ran away with him. That’s what you thought when the next days were extra stressful. With summer approaching, people ordered more, and everyone put even more effort into their work. That also meant quitting additional smoke breaks.
Chairman’s smoke ban started to come in handy. Whereas your older colleagues with more nicotine than oxygen in their blood started to get moody, unbearably moody, it wasn’t the cigarettes you needed. When you went home with tired, aching legs, you wondered whether you could’ve seen him today or not. When you sat in the bus with its drumming engine, city lights flashing past your eyes, you imagined the moment of him touching you over and over again. Only now you noticed that your bus followed a route quite close to the headquarters of the Hunter's Association. When you spotted the building in the distance, it was inevitable to think about that maybe he was there, sitting in one of those lit rooms, a desk full of documents.
The worst thing about the whole situation was that you couldn’t even confide in a friend. Every time you pulled out your phone to text your closest friend, you hesitated and ultimately let go of the idea. What could you say? There’s this one man who shows up during my smoke breaks, and he’s a hunter, and not only some hunter, but…
Impossible. With that, you kept it your little secret that wasn’t so little anymore, and dreamt. Of him. Of him and you.
***
There were days at work that made you want to scream, to kick the nearest trash bin, to take the closest stack of papers and rip it all apart. Today was such a day, and you hated every second of it.
It began with your friend, a girl the same age as you, crying in the locker room, saying the boss screamed at her in front everyone, calling her lazy and a disgrace. That the boss, one of those snobby higher-ups that walked the aisles in their suits and nothing else, was here – well, it already was a bad omen.
Trying to ignore his sinister presence that was still around when he was nowhere to be seen, you did your work as usual. Fast, precise, efficient. When you were sent to the electronics sector, your display showing you the order of a laptop, you did what you did a hundred times a day: Taking the product and transfering it to the packaging station. Only that you collided with a coworker this time, letting the laptop slip out of your hands. It was in a cardboard box of course, and in there it was presumably wrapped in styrofoam. But the cracking sound was loud and nasty, and indeed, three minutes later you were greeted by shattered glass with your boss next to you when you unboxed it on a table.
You sighed internally. How come the protection didn’t protect?
“That will be deducted from your pay,” your supervisor said with thin lips and a deadly stare.
“Is this even legal?” you asked indifferently, unfazed by his demeanour. He tried too hard to be authoritative and scary.
He laughed, a dark, unamused laugh, and sent you back to work. It nagged you, undoubtedly so, but you had no room to think about it.
It got even worse when a coworker fell from a ladder, another cracking sound echoing through the hall, but this one got beneath anyone’s skin. It was this brutal and nerve-wrecking. The ambulance took him, and you just knew that you wouldn’t see him for a long time. You wished the whole shelf would’ve crashed instead.
At the end of the day, the boss said you were the worst team he had seen in a long time, that he would need to implement personal changes soon. Right, as if he could find enough desperate idiots to do so.
And as if god was testing you, you found yourself in heavy rain outside without your umbrella, without his umbrella, your clothes soaked wet before you got to the bus station. Despite the day starting warm and sunny, the rain was cold, but it was a comforting coldness that penetrated your skin and got right through to your rusty bones. You forced yourself to embrace it. The fabric sticking to your body, the drops running down your face, the demonic incidents at work; because being angry wouldn’t make you feel better about any of it.
The bad weather made the bus drive slower and you worried that you wouldn’t make it to the second bus. Not today, not today, not today, you hoped, really looking forward to a nice, hot shower, but of course nothing was going to work today, and when you ran across the street to make it into the next bus that already closed its doors, you knew it was a lost battle. The bus passed right in front of your eyes. You started to laugh hysterically, you were alone at the bus station anyway, bending forward with your hands stemmed into your knees. You laughed and laughed, what else could you do besides laughing? It felt freeing and good, maybe you also cried a little, but you wouldn’t know whether it was tears or rain, neither would it matter.
After you had no energy left to laugh, you leaned against a lamppost and waited for the next bus that would arrive in twenty minutes. You hoped you wouldn’t catch a cold, you started to shiver, still you couldn’t convince yourself to get under the shelter.
After a few more minutes of staying out in the pouring rain, arms crossed in determination to endure, a black car stopped on the bus lane, directly in front of you. The tinted window slid down, revealing Chairman behind the wheel.
“Get in,” you could hear, albeit badly against the rain.
You stared at him like he was a ghost. You realized you hadn’t thought about him the whole day.
You got close to the open window. “I’m completely wet.”
“Come,” he insisted with greater emphasis in his voice, making you open the door without a second thought.
With your backpack on your lap, you leaned into the passenger seat and put the seatbelt on, feeling Chairman’s glance on your skin. He drove off.
“Where do you live?” he asked calmly, his right hand switching on the car heater and directing the airflow towards you.
You told him your address. When he instantly knew where to take turns, you asked him if he had been there before.
“I used to drive people around. I know the city very well.”
“You were a taxi driver before you became a hunter?”
A short chuckle escaped him and he gave you a look that was heartwarming to you. He has never felt this loose around you before. “No,” he answered more sternly when he regained his serious expression, “but I sometimes felt like one during my earlier days at the association.”
You opened your mouth to dig deeper, a ton of questions needed to be discussed, but he sensed what was coming and he beat you to it. “Why are you… drenched?” he quickly asked, examining you from the corner of his eye. “I gave you my umbrella.”
“It was sunny without a single cloud in the sky this morning. Didn’t think it’d turn out like this.”
He hummed lowly in response, focusing on the street. The way he held the steering wheel contained something very comforting; feathery-light as if he was stroking it rather than controlling. The same applied to his hand on the gear stick. No pressure, just a light push. He was delicate, whereas you were a wet sack. Difference like night and day.
“What do I do if you stalked me?” you suddenly wondered loudly, “would there be anyone who could help me?”
He gave you a puzzled look, causing you to immediately regret your (not so) stupid question, nevertheless it was true that getting engaged with his kind came with certain risks.
He clicked his tongue, taking his time before he spoke. “You could write e-mails to the S-ranks, asking them to kill me,” he contemplated, no reproach in his voice.
“I’ve read that you have them, more or less, under control. I’m not sure that would be an option.”
“Me neither,” he agreed, showing a crooked smile. “You could contact foreign associations,” he then offered, tilting his head to see if you liked the idea.
You sighed. “So then there’d be no hope,” you concluded, staring out of the window.
“Are you afraid I’m stalking you? Because I show up at your workplace? Because I found you at the bus station?” He sounded neutral, albeit you couldn't help but notice the concern that lay behind his words.
“No, and I wonder why,” you admitted. “If a friend described me such a situation… I’d tell her to be cautious. And yet, I myself am not cautious.”
While you looked out of the window, seeing the neighbourhoods continually becoming less glamorous and more modest, you felt his stare piercing through your body.
Jinchul could tell you how he himself had been responsible to deal with such cases in the past, that he had specialized in protecting the society from hunters abusing their powers, but it would’ve felt like a poor attempt to convince you of something. It didn’t feel right.
Instead, he chose words that had far more weight, and that he also absolutely meant. “If you say to me that you no longer wish to see me, then you will never see me again,” he said. “In person,” he added awkwardly, frowning at the thought that he was in the media at times. Oh, how he hated this.
The silence stretched out, the sound of the windscreen wipers became unbearably loud. Fearing that he put you under pressure, he tried to clarify it. “I didn’t mean it in a petty way. It’s just… I wanted to say… I, uh, respect your boundaries.”
Jinchul felt like all his competence had left him. Maybe he wasn’t competent with normal people to begin with. She must think that the association is run by a complete idiot.
You still focused on the passing houses behind the window and noticed you were nearly home. He was sweet when insecurity plagued him, you thought, smiling quietly to yourself.
“Earlier, work was just work,” you began pensively, “now, I’m looking forward to it. Because that’s where I can find you. Let’s continue.”
Jinchul felt his shoulders relax; apparently he had tensed up. You told him to stop closeby, you could walk the rest.
“I’d like to accompany you to the door, if you allow me to.”
Of course you allowed it. How could you not when he looked at you with those secretly pleading doe’s eyes.
He opened an umbrella over both your heads. “How many umbrellas do you have?”
“They aren’t exactly mine. The one I gave you was the only one I bought myself. But… yeah, many. I guess.”
You laughed like a silly girl, mind you, for unknown reasons, his answer wasn’t that funny. “I can quickly go up and give it back to you,” you offered. He only looked down at you and shook his head. You understood.
As you walked that close to him, you took a deep inhale to smell a breeze of his scent. It was pure heaven. But there was also the smallest whiff of smoke.
“Can you give me a cigarette?” you asked him with big and begging eyes.
He lifted a brow. “You smoke again?”
“No, I promise. It’s only… today was such a bad day at work. I could really need one.”
“What happened?”
You bit the flesh of your mouth, almost too ashamed to tell him. “I broke something expensive. Got shouted at. But everyone got shouted at, so… It was super stressful.” You glanced up, compassion written all over his face.
You reached the entrance door of your apartment building. Old and shabby, but robust and reliable nonetheless. “I’d give you one if I had one,” he said, now standing across from you.
“Come on,” you groaned and stepped closer, looking at his pockets if any outlines of a box were visible. “I can tell that you’ve smoked not too long ago.”
“I did, before I got into the car. But it was the last cigarette, I swear.”
You sighed. “Okay,” you pressed out through thin lips. “Then, uh, thank you very much for bringing me home.”
The disappointment in your eyes wrecked him. If only…
“How much do you want it?”
Would he go and buy you some? You didn’t want that; not after you, and him probably too, had such a long day.
“Very much, but I’ll survive without,” you said with a reassuring smile.
Now it was him who got closer, almost touching your body that was still covered in wet clothes. “What if you could get at least a taste?” he whispered, words coated in something dark.
The smile faded from your face; instead, heat pooled in your lower stomach. You swallowed. Your eyes fell on his pulsating vein in his neck. He was a man made of flesh and blood. It’d be okay.
“This would be more than enough for me,” you said, dizziness arising, voice barely above a whisper.
He brought his head close to yours, his lips almost brushing your ear. “Look at me and say that you want it.”
You lightly tilted your head to face him. “I want it.” You met his half-lidded eyes, pupils blown wide, full of things he couldn’t speak out. “I want you,” you breathed out, cheeks feeling hot.
His arm that had held the umbrella sank down. He let go of the handle, the umbrella fell to the ground.
He kissed you, both his hands cupping your face, pushing against you until you felt the door behind on your back. He kissed and kissed you, claimed you with his lips, it was rough and gentle at the same time, it was liberating. You brought one hand to his neck, the other one buried in his strands, pulling him closer, closer, closer closer, until his body pressed the air out of your lungs. Yes, you tasted the nicotine on his lips, but he tasted like so much more you couldn’t get enough of.
He pulled away, just an inch, his forehead still resting against yours. He breathed through his mouth, deep and controlled.
“What’s your name?” he asked, his breath tickling on your skin.
You smiled, leaning into him to peck him on the lips. “You don’t already know?”
He shook his head. “No.”
You told him your given name, and with that, he continued to kiss you, needing you as much as you were needing him.