blue lips, cracked smile
cloy | seo dan/gu seungjun | 1.1k | rated t | fix-it fic, ep 16 does not happen
Pyongyang was cold when Gu Seungjun left someone worth staying for.
Zurich is cold when Gu Seungjun finds her again.
Zurich offers none of the comforts Gu Seungjun could afford in a lesser city. Even breathing the air feels like the cash tucked away in his coat pocket is being eroded away, and his act of burying his hands deep into his pockets doesn’t do much good. He’s here for an admirable cause, if he does say so himself. The two-hour spectacle was immeasurably worth every franc he spent, for the handful of minutes he got to watch her perform.
And now he waits, limp-noodled and shivering, at one of the exits of the auditorium. He’s seen the last of the audience depart, one particularly burly man with his daughter, and a suited figure he thinks was the conductor. His exhalations release fog into the atmosphere, and he waits, cold seeping into the faux-leather of his shoes.
It’s cold here, and Gu Seungjun is starting to lose all feeling in his toes.
It was colder those two nights in London, he thinks. The days where he had made barely a breakthrough in legalising one of his businesses, when the food was too sickening to look at and the corner where he slept in his rented room too leaky. It hasn’t been particularly uphill from there. But he’s had assistance from an unlikely ally, and now, here, a solid three and a half years later, he can give himself a break.
So he’s in Switzerland, where the unrelenting tremble of his leg does not trample the cold. He hobbles to a corner, back up against the bricked wall of some establishment, and waits. He had come here with purpose, he is not going to leave a defeated man.
Greets him the saving grace of the clack of heels on pebbled path, of the sound he’s come to associate with the involuntary grin that delights his lips.
It is who he is waiting for, a blessing from the gods. He straightens, uprightens himself, and exhales. He knows what he’s going to say; somewhere between Seo Dan-ssi, missed me? and Seo Dan-ssi, please tell me you’re single.
Seo Dan is approaching, closer, by the sounds of her footsteps. He exhales once again, prepares himself, and turns. And Seo Dan walks past him.
He blinks. He stares. This isn’t quite how this was supposed to go, he thinks. She didn’t see him, it must be. He nods to himself, prepared once again. He walks in the general direction he’d seen her go, and sets his sights outwards.
No, what had she worn? Red coat, black dress underneath. He can do this.
The crowd is sparse, but close together. There’s one bar in the vicinity, as he’s seen, and that seems like the point of convergence for all these bodies. Seungjun strides with all the confidence he owes himself, ignorant of how frozen his feet are now.
And a hand pulls him into an alley. He goes, barely a breath between one second and the next.
“Gu Seungjun, have you no subtlety?”
“Ah,” Seungjun exhales. He had not prepared himself enough for this. He had definitely not.
Seo Dan is all exuberant, all beautiful. She is more so and just how he remembers. She is here, and he is here, and he has not stopped staring.
“Gu Seungjun,” Seo Dan repeats. “Are you quite alright?”
“Yeah, oh, yes. Amazing. Fantastic.” He smiles, really goes for it, teeth and dimples and all.
And Seo Dan smiles back, the attractive quirk of her lips, the reflection in her eyes.
“You found me.”
“I found you,” Seungjun says, grins. “It’s been a while.”
Seo Dan’s laugh releases fog from her mouth, fog which clears on Seungjun’s face. “It’s almost been four years. Have you been well?”
Seungjun looks beyond her for a moment, then blinks back at her face. “Ah, Dan-ah, leave the past in the past —”
Seo Dan places one finger on his lips. “That means you haven’t been well. I can tell, you know.”
“You can tell?” Seungjun mumbles. “How can you tell?”
“You’re freezing here, you fool,” She says, expression of long suffering. “Here, take my jacket —”
“Woah, woah,” Seungjun hold his arms up, dispatched from her grip. Seo Dan pauses her disrobing. “Seo Dan-ssi, isn’t this a little too forward? I mean, are you still single?”
“Ah, that,” Seo Dan says. She blinks, eyes wandering down, and Seungjun’s heart sinks. She shrugs her
shoulders, fastening her coat again. They’re locked here, in this alley behind this bar in Zurich, and his entire purpose of landing here has been defeated. The moment Seungjun tries to move, Seo Dan’s hands are firm on his arms, in the same position as he’d been dragged here, pressed up against the bricken wall.
“I… I shouldn’t be here,” He tries to fix the atmosphere, his once sharp smile, sharp eyes, failing him.
“Gu Seungjun,” Seo Dan calls quietly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Renewed, through dampness in his eyes he hadn’t noticed, Seungjun blinks. “You… what?”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” She says again. “You asked me to wait for you, to give you chance once you’re a better man. You are, aren’t you?”
“I am, I am,” He hurries to clarify. “Businesses mostly legalised. Well, I say mostly, that’s a little iffy, but we’re getting there. And I’m trying to move my money back into domestic accounts, and I have charted accountant, too —”
Seo Dan swiftly steps in his space, and Seo Dan swiftly seals their lips together, just like that day on the bridge so long ago.
It’s no less explosive, no less thrilling. In seconds, Seungjun has his arms tight around her waist, facing warmth through her coat. In seconds, one of her hands grip his hair and the other his neck, and they find a perfect balance of holding each other and being held.
“We should take this somewhere else,” Seungjun murmurs, between one kiss and the next. “It’s cold.”
“How long have you been standing out here?” Seo Dan asks him, then doesn’t let him answer as she tips his head just right.
“I watched you perform,” He replies, several long moments later, breath ragged. “I’ve been outside since then.”
Seo Dan exhales again, and fog embraces Seungjun’s lips again. “We should go, Gu Seungjun.”
“I have a suitcase in a hotel lobby and about a hundred and fifty franc.”
Up close, he can see the disbelief and oh-so-familiar disgust on Seo Dan’s face. He finds himself smiling again, leaning down for a kiss denied.
“What was your plan?!” Seo Dan demands. “What if you didn’t find me, then? What would you do?”
“Ah, Dan-ah,” Seungjun’s smile softens. “I’ve really missed you.”
“You…” Seo Dan looks away, shakes her head. “I’ve missed you too.”
The attractive quirk of her lips is unmistakable, the reflection in her eyes is unmistakable. It a cold night under Zurich, and Gu Seungjun’s bleak future has just been doused in colour.