The moment I heard the gwi-mae say that you would die tonight, I moved before I could even think. You are the only one in this palace I can trust and rely on. So… I will not stand by and let you die. I will save you even if it means sacrificing my life. Thank you for protecting me all this time.
This is the only way to save the Princess. She was willing to risk her life for me, so I must do the same. [...] Primordial Gwi-mae. I will give you whatever you want. In return, grant me your power so that I can save the Princess.
Summary: After your husband's disappearance, he starts to act different.
Warning: Angst, disappearance, gunshot wound, head injury, hospitals, mention of death, marital conflict, mention of divorce, guns
6k words
The worst day of your life happened after one of your husband’s work trips. He said that his team had gotten a lead on what might have happened to his brother and that he had to investigate. That was par for the course, every couple months there would be another potential lead on where your brother-in-law could be, but every couple months Jun-ho would be sorely disappointed.
This time was different. He said he would be gone for a couple of days, and that he didn’t know if he would be able to get in contact. He left for one day, and then two, then more. His department panicked, apparently, it wasn’t a work trip and one of their detectives went missing. After a week his picture was on the nightly news, and after 10 days you were doing interviews begging for anyone who had any information to step forward. His mother came to sleep at your apartment, and she said she just wanted to help out with her daughter-in-law, but you could hear her sobs in the middle of the night through the thin walls between your bedroom and the guest room.
At 5 AM, a week after Jun-ho’s disappearance, you got a call. They had found him. He was in a specialized emergency hospital on the outskirts of Seoul, and he was in a coma. You rushed to your car with your mother-in-law and broke speed limits that Jun-ho would never let you break when he was in the car with you.
The hospital parking lot was nearly empty. The lobby was quiet when you walked in, and the front desk woman almost looked shocked when she saw two women with deep circles under their eyes and hair sticking in every direction. Honestly, you couldn’t care less. She was the receptionist at a hospital, if that was the craziest thing she’d seen she was in for a rude awakening when an actual patient came up to her desk.
She quickly directed you to his hotel room, on the 3rd floor, where his supervisor was already waiting. Time seemed to slow down as you rode the elevator. It couldn’t have taken longer than 20 seconds, but it felt like years. What if he was dying? What if he didn’t wake up? What if he was getting worse? Your thoughts kept racing, and you and Jun-ho’s mother couldn’t share a single word between the two of you between all of the panic going on inside your heads.
The floor was so quiet you could hear the squeak of a nurse’s shoes down the hallway. You should’ve run to your husband's bedside, but you couldn’t. You took one step at a time, terrified of what might await you. His supervisor stepped out the door and closed it. He looked at you with tired eyes. “Mrs. Hwang, Mrs. Park, I’m glad you could make it.”
“How’s my husband?” Formalities could wait. Formalities could go to hell.
He sighed, and your heart skipped several beats. “How is he?!” Jun-ho’s mother yelled.
“He’s okay, he seems to be mostly stable, but I-” He raised his hand and scratched the back of his head, looking away at the ground, “I gotta be honest. He’s not great. He was shot and fell from a high distance into water. He passed out in the water and the doctors think he breathed in water and fell unconscious. They’re not sure of the extent of brain damage because he hasn’t woken up, but the lack of oxygen to his brain likely caused some sort of impact. There’s more, but they would only tell me the basics because I’m not family.”
You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t think. What if he didn’t wake up? What if he did and he wasn’t the same? Memories of the last night you spent together raced through your head. It had been a long exhausting day, and he somehow knew how terrible it had been. He brought takeout home and made an extra stop to get your favorite dessert from a bakery. He set the food down on the kitchen table and immediately made his way to you on the couch, leaned down, and kissed you until you needed to come up for air. You turned off the tv and sat on the couch for hours, eating and talking and eventually fucking. Right before you went to bed he told you that he was going on the trip tomorrow, and you just smiled and nodded, thinking it was going to be like all the other times.
You pushed past the sergeant and walked into your husband’s room. His bed was separated from an empty one by a curtain. You couldn’t feel your own feet as you walked towards it, and it almost felt like your hand wasn’t moving at all when you pushed past the curtain.
Jun-ho looked like death. There was a tube shoved in his throat and his skin was so pale it looked translucent, the blue of his veins showing through on his arm next to an IV. The circles under his eyes were deep and dark, and he was in a neck brace, with his head bandaged.
It felt like all the air had been sucked out of your lungs. The second his mother saw him, she collapsed at his side and laid her body over his legs. Her cries were guttural and came from something that must’ve broken inside of her. “My baby, my baby. I lost one son, I’ll die if I lose another.”
You couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t cry. You sunk to a chair at his side and reached out for his hand. He was so cold. His skin felt like he had just been taken out of the ocean minutes before, and his heart rate was so slow it felt like it was second between beats.
You didn’t hear the doctor come into the room until he spoke. Jun-ho’s mother looked up and stared at him like he was an angel, but you couldn’t look away from your husband’s unmoving body.
“Mrs. Hwang, can I talk to you about your husband’s condition?” You didn’t move, his mother had to beg the doctor to continue speaking. “He was shot in his left shoulder, luckily the bullet didn’t hit any vital organs, but because of the time between the injury and his arrival at the hospital, he lost a significant amount of blood. We think he hit the water head-first, and the impact caused his neck to break, luckily, there was no spinal cord damage. We induced him into a coma once he reached the hospital, so unfortunately we aren’t able to tell the extent of the damage unless he wakes.”
Your mother and law stood up “Unless? What do you mean by unless?!” she screamed. “My son is not going to die, do you hear me?!”
You felt broken, Jun-ho had to wake up, he had to. You didn’t care if he couldn’t walk, or speak, but he had to wake up.
You could hear fists banging against the doctor’s chest, but you didn’t turn around. Just kept staring at your husband’s pale face, and pale hands.
The hospital had apparently received a large grant during COVID to expand, and when the pandemic had died down they became designated only for acute emergency cases and recovery care, and many rooms were kept vacant. The staff let you stay in the other bed in his room, and there was a shower attached to the room, designed for patients in long-term recovery and their family members. The hospital had a small cafeteria that made shockingly delicious Korean food, and they delivered the meals to the room three times a day. Before long, you became used to the tired routine of late-night check-ups and tired smiles from the nurses urging you to go home and rest. You were terrified that if you left the hospital Jun-ho would die before you could get back, but you couldn’t tell the nurses that. You just told the nurses that your house was far away and it was more convenient to stay at the hospital as opposed to making the commute or getting a hotel room.
It was three weeks before Jun-ho moved. In that time, you hadn’t left the hospital once. He squeezed your hand while you were holding it, and at first, you thought you imagined it. You called the doctor, and she said she would keep an eye on it, but not to get your hopes up- apparently twitching was normal in coma patients. Several hours later you felt the squeeze again, and when you looked up, you saw Jun-ho’s eyes open the slightest bit.
It was like a month’s worth of fear and pain cascaded over in a heartbeat, and you collapsed on his chest in broken sobs, staring up at your husband. His mother was there, and she leaned over at him, pleading his name. He stared at you for as long as he could, until his eyes closed again, his eyelids twitching like he wanted them to stay open. Once his eyes closed your hand was still holding his in a tight grip, and you reached open to press the button again.
In the next couple of days, he went in and out of consciousness at increasing intervals. The first moment where you felt like you could breathe again came a week after he first squeezed your hand, when you awoke from sleeping laying on his lap while you sat in the chair to the sound of gagging. You heard his heartbeat increase and saw his throat convulse and his eyes flash open as he fought his breathing tube.
You immediately pressed the call button for the nurse, and when they took too long you went out into the hallway and screamed for a nurse. There were only a couple of patients on his hall, and they could go screw themselves if they thought their sleep was more important than your husband's choking. The nurse and doctor came running and closed the door on you. Within a couple of minutes the nurse opened the door, and let you step inside. The doctor tried to talk to you, but you couldn’t hear anything she was saying as you walked past her toward your husband’s side.
“Baby,” Jun-ho whispered. His voice was hoarse and broken, and you could feel tears streaming down your face.
“Honey, you’re- you’re here.” You cried more and more, and he painfully reached his arm up to you.
“It’s okay (y/n), I was never going anywhere, I’m here.” You tucked your head into his neck and sobbed into his hospital gown.
He stroked your hair slowly until his hand rested on the back of your head. You looked up to see that he had fallen back asleep, exhausted from the ordeal of choking on his breathing tube. You pressed a kiss to his cheek, wet from a single tear rolling down his face, and tucked your head back down to fall asleep again.
You woke up to a nurse gently shaking you away, informing you that you had to sleep in the other bed to prevent infection. You wanted to fight her for doing her job, but obliged. You fell back asleep quickly, too tired to stay awake because of the crying you had just finished doing.
“(Y/n).” You awoke to a quiet voice, blinking your eyes because of the bright sunlight streaming through the window. You immediately looked over at Jun-ho to see your fiance with his head turned looking at you.
“Jun-ho.” You stood up, stumbling out of bed in the clothes you had to have been wearing for at least a couple of days before now, and went over to kiss him on the lips, the same way he had the last time you had seen him before he went missing. He reciprocated with more force than you thought someone who hadn’t moved any part of his body in a month could.
“I missed you so much honey, I couldn’t breathe for so long.” He smiled and wiped a tear off of your face.
“I know baby, but I’m here now, I’m here.” He looked at you with so much love and life in his eyes, exactly what you had been missing for the past month.
“I was so scared Jun-ho, first I couldn’t find you, and then once I did I- I wasn’t sure.” You paused, another tear streaming down your face. “I wasn’t sure you would make it.” You whispered.
“I know (y/n), and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You- you got shot. You fell from really high into the water far out in the ocean. You have no idea how scared I was.”
His brow furrowed painfully before he suddenly pulled his head back and winced. “Jun-ho, Jun-ho? Are you okay?!”
You frantically pushed the call button and within seconds there was a team of doctors and nurses entering the room. They slowed slightly when they saw the scene in front of them, and quickly determined there was no immediate danger, and quickly began examining him and asking you both questions. Once the rest of the group left, Jun-ho’s main doctor sat in a chair to explain the situation to the both of you.
She explained what the team had seen when they had checked Jun-ho over, and explained the need for another set of scans to ensure there was no serious brain injury. “We also will need to call the police back to the hospital, because of the gunshot wound.”
Jun-ho froze, and his back grew stiff. “Baby, what’s wrong?” You rested your hand in his grip, tightening it around his.
“Nothing’s wrong, just nervous about the tests.” He squeezed your hand back and smiled up at you at your position sitting next to him on the bed. His body remained stiff, and your brow furrowed in confusion. He was likely traumatized and in pain, both physically and mentally.
Once the doctor left, you apprehensively asked him “Honey, I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but… What happened when you were gone, with the fall, and the gunshot wound?”
He looked away from you and glanced out the window. He paused, “I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened.”
You leaned in and squeezed his hand again. “It’s okay if you do, I just want to help you.”
He remained looking out the window, until he looked back at you, something tight across his eyes. “I really don’t know, can we please talk about something else. I’m going to get enough of that from my coworkers later anyways.” He laughed, but the tightness across his face remained the same.
Smiling a similar tight smile, you squeezed his hand back. “Okay. Just, let me know if you remember anything.”
“Now, is there anything I can do to help you?”
“Jun-ho, I’m not the one who just woke up from a coma, that’s my line!” Jun-ho smiled a real smile, and you copied him, smiling your first genuine smile in weeks.
After the tests, you wheeled Jun-ho in a wheelchair back into his hospital room, where you were greeted by his boss sitting in your usual chair next to his bedside. He stood up to greet you, “Detective! It’s so good to see you awake again!” He bowed to Jun-ho, and your husband nodded his head in return.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but do you think we could do the interview now? Just so we don’t get more in the way of you and your lovely wife.” He smiled, but there was anxiety furrowing his brow. He was clearly using many tactics that you watched Jun-ho explain that the police force used on victims and their families.
Jun-ho smiled back, “of course.” He looked up at you and smiled a similar tight smile towards you. “Honey, do you think you could go and get some coffee from downstairs for us?”
You nodded, unsure of what to do as you could clearly tell that the coffee run was just an excuse to get you out of the room. “Of course.” There wasn’t anything you could do about it, and confronting your husband about something he is clearly not ready to talk about would certainly not be a solution. “Officer, would you like me to get you anything?”
He waved you off and you hesitantly exited the room to go downstairs.
Due to the emptiness of the hospital, it didn’t take you long to go down to the cafeteria, pick up some coffee for you and Jun-ho, and come back upstairs. When you reached the floor that the room was on, you hesitated, noticing that the door was cracked and the sounds of him and his boss were still quietly filtering out into the hallway.
You debated for a second staying and eavesdropping, but your moral compass won out in the end. Whatever it was, Jun-ho was clearly not ready to tell you. You didn’t want to betray his trust, and eventually, he would share it with you. The two of you had no secrets between you. If there ever was a night when Jun-ho would have to stay later at work, or was suddenly asked to hang out by his friends, he would call you immediately and tell you what was going on and when he would probably be home. Not that you necessarily needed him to, you trusted him, but he insisted that he never wanted you to worry after him. You did the same in turn, even though your job was far less demanding than his and plans came up far less sporadically for you than they did for him.
As you walked away, you heard a sliver of the conversation “hundreds… shot.” It made you pause in your step. You must’ve misheard. Maybe he had said something else. Maybe you were too sleep-deprived and stressed to think clearly. Still, you turned those words around in your head as you sat in a chair in the hallway next to the nurse’s station.
If you hadn’t misheard- if; what would it mean? Did Jun-ho have a brain injury that didn’t turn up on scans that makes him misremember what happened? Or- or was he telling the truth? Your husband wasn’t a liar, he was the perfect detective because of his strict moral compass, so that must mean… That must mean that if there was no brain injury, and if you didn’t mishear, wherever Jun-ho was he had watched hundreds of people die.
You heard a knock on the doorframe, “Mrs. Hwang, we’re done with the interview.”
You stood up and walked toward the door when the other detective put his hand on your shoulder while his face grimaced. “I hope everything works out well for the two of you, I really do.” With that foreboding line of encouragement, he walked past you and towards the elevator.
When you entered the room, Jun-ho smiled at you. “(Y/n).” You walked towards him and kissed his forehead, handing him the cup of coffee.
Kissing his forehead, you asked, “How did it go? Are you alright?”
Jun-ho’s brow creased, but he smiled back at you still. “It went well, I just told him that I didn’t know anything.”
That didn’t make sense. You had to have been gone for at least 20 minutes, there was no way those 15 minutes were filled with the other detective asking questions that your husband kept saying no to.
“I’ll have to go into the station later on after I’m discharged and give a longer more formal statement, but for now they’ll leave us alone.”
“Great, I’m glad to have you all to myself.” You leaned over and kissed him on the lips again. You trusted him, and whatever it was that he wasn’t telling you, he would open up about soon.
He didn’t. After another 2 weeks, the hospital was completely sure there were no long-standing effects. Besides having to regularly come in for check-ups and to carefully not hurt the shoulder where he was shot, miraculously there were no other serious effects.
You had finally gone back into the apartment after he woke up, although you weren’t happy about going back when it was lifeless due to Jun-ho’s absence. By the time he was discharged, the apartment was dust-free, and you made sure that everything was the same as it had been when he had first gone missing.
In the past couple of weeks, Jun-ho had been too calm. He was casual about just about everything. He was smiling, and making jokes, like nothing had ever happened. But, underneath it all, you could tell something was different. When you’ve been with someone for so long, had exchanged wedding vows, and slept in the same bed for years, you just knew them. You knew your husband, and something was off about him. He refused to go to sleep in the hospital room with the door open, and every time you came or went he would make you close the door behind you. He insisted that you spent the night in the hotel room with him (not that you were complaining) even when he was far out of the danger zone. On the car ride home from the hospital he would check the mirrors every time he thought you weren’t looking.
There was something completely off about him, he seemed paranoid, and for the first time in your relationship besides his brother’s disappearance- scared. But every time you would ask him what was wrong, he would just smile and say “I’m alright, just adjusting.”
You carried all of your stuff to the apartment, insisting on doing so even though your stubborn husband wanted to carry luggage even with a bullet recently being removed from his shoulder. But, when you left the elevator and were about to go into the apartment, he stopped you by putting his hand out.
“Baby, I just want to get inside. This is heavy.” You complained.
“I know, just- just give me a minute. I want to check something.” He silently turned the key to your small apartment, took off both his shoes, and stepped inside. He pulled up his pant leg slightly and took out a gun that you didn’t even notice was there.
“Jun-ho!”
He turned back to you and put his finger to his lips, shushing you. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He closed the door behind him, and you stood there shocked. You knew something was wrong, but you didn’t expect him to take out a gun and search your home.
In a couple of minutes, he came back out. “What the hell Jun-ho? What was that!”
“It was nothing, I’m sorry.” He put the gun back away.
“Why would you search our house? You’ve never done that before. Seriously Jun-ho, what’s going on?” You shouted, exasperated by him saying one thing and acting in a completely opposite way.
“It’s nothing.” He sighed, “I’m sorry (y/n), I’m just scared. It’s been a while since I’ve been out of the hospital, so I’m nervous.” He leaned in and gave you a hug, which you reciprocated. But still, that wasn’t the whole truth.
“I think you should see someone Jun-ho, this isn’t normal.” You said into your husband’s chest.
“(Y/n), I’m fine. I promise.” You leaned your head up and kissed him again.
The first week back was difficult. Jun-ho seemed terrified of just about everything around him. The both of you barely left the house, and when you did his hand held yours in a tight grip.
Your job had given you an extended leave to take care of Jun-ho, but your leave was ending in a few weeks once the two-month mark passed.
You were laying in bed one night, Jun-ho tracing circles on your shoulder as you spooned after making love. “Jun-ho, I’m worried about you.”
He kissed your shoulder, “what about?” He said casually.
You rolled over to face him. “About everything, you’ve been so scared and stressed. I don’t know what’s going to happen once I go back to work.”
He propped his head on his hand as he laid on his side, “I know, I’m sorry. I’m starting to feel better. I’m sorry I’ve been so paranoid lately.”
You sighed, “I want you to see someone Jun-ho. I don’t want this to fester and fester.”
He sighed, “I know (y/n), I promise it’ll get better soon. I talked to the chief today, I’ll go back to work next week.”
You shot up in bed, “two weeks? Babe, that isn’t nearly enough time. You still can’t lift anything heavier than a paper clip with your left arm.”
Jun-ho reached back towards you and stroked your arm. “Well good thing I’m right-handed.” He smirked.
Tilting your head, you just looked back at your husband anxiously. “Jun-ho this is serious. You aren’t ready to go back to work.”
“(Y/n), please trust me. This will all be over soon, okay?” He looked at you pleadingly. He didn’t want you to drop it or ignore it, he wanted you to- trust him? There was a secret, but he clearly didn’t want you to know it, and just to wait.
Sighing, you said, “Okay, I’ll wait.” You didn’t know what else to say. You couldn’t make him tell you the truth, and he wanted you to not push it. There was nothing to do. “But I really want you to talk to someone.”
He leaned in to kiss you, and right before he touched your lips, he said “Okay, I will; for you.” Then he closed the distance and kissed you until you needed to come up for air.
Your house was quieter after you both went back to work. When Jun-ho came home from work he would make his way next to you on the couch, lay down, and put his head on your lap. It was nice at first, after so much stress you could simply relax and enjoy each other's company.
Soon after getting home, he would get tired. Sometimes falling asleep on your lap.
After a month of him getting back to work, you were exhausted from the silence. It became oppressive. You grew tired of the same routine, and how your husband never quite grew less paranoid. He became better at hiding it, attaching cameras and extra locks around your house under the guise of burglaries in the building that you had never heard of. He would stand up from his crouch install the locks and wrap his arms around you, kissing you and telling you that he just wanted you to be safe.
Before his accident, he would wake up every morning and make breakfast for the both of you, insisting that it was the most important meal of the day. After the accident, he started to make lunch as well, and whenever you suggested that you go out for dinner, he smiled and told you that he enjoyed your cooking so much more.
Then, after 3 months, he came home completely exhausted. It was later than usual, and you stayed up late to greet him, completely concerned by his lack of response to any of your texts. “Jun-ho, where the hell were you? Are you okay?!” You ran up to him as soon as he opened the door, looking him up and down for any injuries.
“No, I’m fine.” He smiled a lopsided and insincere smile at you. He smelled like alcohol.
“Were you drinking?” You demanded.
“Me and my coworkers went out for a couple of bottles of soju after work, nothing much.” He shook off his shoes and went to hug you.
You pulled away, “why didn’t you tell me? We always tell each other these things.”
“Baby, I had a long, long day, let’s not do this right now.”
“No, we have to do this right now, what happened? You’ve been so strange lately, and you never went to talk to someone like you said you would.” You paused, tears beginning to well up in your eyes, “I’m really concerned for you. I want you to get tested for PTSD.”
He stepped closer to you, “I don’t have PTSD, I just had a long day.” You didn’t move. He sighed, “(Y/n), please, I’m exhausted. Can we do this tomorrow?”
You didn’t say anything but didn’t move when he closed the distance between you to pull you into a tight hug. You finally reciprocated, pulling him closer, when you heard silent sniffling from next to your ear. In a heartbeat, you felt a drop of wetness on your shoulder.
The next day, Jun-ho quit being a detective. After he started crying, he pretended like nothing had happened, got silent, and took a shower before going to bed. You barely spoke another word the rest of the night, but after he thought you went to sleep you could feel him trace circles on your shoulder.
He told you as soon as he got home that being a detective was too much work for him after the accident, and he tired more easily, but you didn’t buy it for a second.
“Jun-ho, you love your job, why would you quit? Do you want to go back on leave?” You pleaded at your husband.
He smiled back at you, “Of course I love my job, it’s only temporary.” And he leaned in to kiss you on the lips.
Temporary. Although your better judgment told you otherwise, you put all your faith in that one little word. Temporary, this, like everything else making your husband act so different, would pass.
Jun-ho came home late the next day. Then the next. The first you waited up for him, sitting at the dinner table, your food growing cold. When your husband came in, he didn’t smell like alcohol, he simply kissed you on the forehead and sat down across from you, not confronting his tardiness. You cried yourself to sleep that night, with your husband laying stiff as a board next to you, unsure of what to do.
The next night, when he was late, you didn’t bother to wake up. You left his food in the fridge and went to bed early, tears streaming down your face. You were still awake when he came into bed but pretended to be asleep. You could feel the bed shaking from his silent sobs.
The next month went on in the same way, with the only escape from the monotony of your miserable silence being Jun-ho’s one day off. On that one day, you would pretend that you didn’t have any problems, that you were a normal couple who would go walking through the cherry trees and go out drinking together late at night. You went on a double date with one of your coworkers and her husband and sat awkwardly through one of their arguments. It wasn’t the same, but having some bit of refuge away from your stress was a lifesaver.
But even that changed. One day, you decided to go kayaking out in the bay, and while you were out in the water, Jun-ho stopped for a minute. There was a gap in your conversation, and during it, your husband stopped paddling.
“Babe, are you alright?”
He looked up at you as if startled. “Yeah, I’m alright.” He paused, “Would it be okay if we went back, I need to do something important.”
“Um, yeah sure. What is it?” You hesitantly asked.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Your face sank. Every question you asked your husband ended with him saying ‘It’s nothing,’ no matter how big of a deal it likely was.
A couple of days later, when your husband came home late again, he told you that he would be busy on his day off and that a friend of his needed help on his boat. You just smiled and nodded, because what else could you really do?
Then he was busy the next weekend, and then the next, and the next. You only really saw your husband for a couple of minutes in the morning, and a couple of minutes in the night. Sometimes, you were able to make time. Sometimes, you would go out for a nice dinner, or go out to a friend’s party for the holidays. On your birthday he took the whole day off work and planned every single thing you would do all day. He made breakfast, took you shopping in the morning, went out to a nice lunch, took you out to the countryside to the ocean, and bought you lunch in your favorite tiny spot next to the shore. It was like for just 24 hours you had your husband back.
But other than that, it was like living with a ghost. He got more and more stressed over time. He smiled the same amount, but even with taking a demotion to a regular cop, he was getting worse and worse over time. He felt tenser, and more on edge than he had ever been before.
Every night you would fall asleep crying, you became used to waking up with a wet pillow or having to look at your puffy eyes when you wiped the condensation off the mirror after crying in the shower. Whenever Jun-ho saw the tears, whether you were laying in bed or cooking dinner on one of the rare nights that he came home early would wrap you in a hug from behind, and say, “I’m so sorry honey, I promise this will pass.”
And you would plead, “Please honey, please, just tell me what’s happening, please be here more.”
And he would press his head into your back and whisper, “I can’t, I’m sorry. I love you.”
Your hopes would drop all over again, “I love you too.”
It was three years before anything changed. You would constantly beg him to do anything, to see someone, to talk to you, to do anything. Your friends asked you if he was cheating, but you knew he wasn’t. You knew, somehow that whatever was happening, was big, and important. And that it was eating you and your husband alive.
You didn’t see him for three days. He answered all of your texts with “Just something for work, I’ll be home soon. I love you.” Nothing else. No explanation for anything.
You slept on the couch and stayed there when you were awake, racked with anxiety. When he finally came home you sat there staring straight ahead. He didn’t speak.
You had pictured a fight, a confrontation. You had begged and pleaded, with tears in your eyes before. But nothing had happened. And after almost four years, you didn’t have any energy left.
“I want a divorce.” You surprised yourself with the words.
You looked up at him, and he stood there, his expression unreadable.
“If you can’t tell me what the hell is going on, tomorrow I’m going to a lawyer.”
He stumbled toward you and dropped to his knees in front of you, “(Y/n), please. You just have to trust me. This, this’ll all be over soon. I know I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it, soon it’ll be just like before.”
You looked into your husband’s eyes which were beginning to fill with tears. “I don’t believe you.”
“Baby, please. I can’t tell you, I really can’t.” His head dropped, breaking eye contact as you saw a tear fall down to reach the floor. He whispered, “If- if you know the truth, I don’t know what’ll happen to you. And I can’t risk that. I- I’ve risked everything else. But I can’t risk you.”
You couldn’t cry, your tears were all dried up. You should be shocked by what he was saying, but your mind went back to what you heard him say from outside that hospital room years ago “Hundreds… Shot.”
“I know, I’ve known. I know that you remember, and I know that it’s related to when you went missing. I just need you to trust me. I can’t do this anymore.”
He looks up at you, grabbing your hands and wrapping his around yours. “I know, I’m so sorry, but I need you to just wait a little bit longer-”
You stood up. “I think you should leave.”
“(Y/n), please.”
You walked away from him, towards your bedroom. “(Y/n), I love you.”
“I love you.” And then you heard the door shut.
As you lay in bed, you couldn’t help but feel empty, like your heart had been torn out of your chest. The brutal calm you had been through was over, but storm had just begun.
Part two will be out with the next season, stay tuned for more!
a/n: i wasn't joking when i wrote in my bio that i write whatever i think of loll. this has also made me realize how terrible i am with titles. there's not nearly enough 'x reader' fics on this man and that is so not okay. i hope you guys like reading this!!
(ps: for the people who saw my last post before i deleted it, i am better now and will be returning to my irregular schedule of writing!!)
"____,"
The voice of the new ERPB inspector called out to you, catching you off-guard. The hallways were empty. Classes were over for the day, and you'd been on your way home after working later than usual. You quickly adjusted your glasses and turned around to face the intimidatingly taller man.
He'd been lurking around the school for the past two days, specifically in your classes. He'd witnessed how you'd explain everything so gently to the students while none of them cared enough to listen, how you gave teaching your all while they seemed preoccupied with their own devices.
He'd noticed how well you'd present yourself each day, with a bright smile that sparkled up your eyes despite the students' disrespect.
.☆°☆•
DAY 1:
"Ms. ____, isn't your skirt a bit too short today? Are you trying to impress someone?"
The student laughed as he pointed out something which was in no way related to the literature you were teaching, and also completely false considering the skirt reached your knees. Hwa-Jin observed the interaction from the corner, arms crossed and eyes glaring into the back of the students' head.
"Ah, no, that's not it. I wore it because it matched my top."
You'd smile and respond politely before bringing everyone back into whatever Robert Frost you were reciting. The inspector noticed the way they all went back to doing their own thing. He didn't interrupt this time.
He listened to your lesson while also keeping track of which student stood out most when it came to disrespecting you.
.☆°☆•
DAY 2:
"Ooh, you're wearing jewelry today. I knew it, you are trying to impress someone. Is it that inspector? You've been dressing up a lot since he came here."
The same student from the previous day spoke out again. Tae-Byun was his name, Hwa-Jin had made Geun-Dae do his research the previous night. Around the school, the girls referred to him as 'Byun-Tae' instead, which meant 'Pervert'.
It was clear you weren't the sole target to his comments when such a name circulated around the entire building amongst every teacher and every student.
You took in a deep breath and got ready to sweetly dismiss his comment again, only to be cut off.
"No, it's-"
"Does that really matter right now? Are you learning literature or fashion?"
Hwa-Jin interrupted you abruptly, his eyes landing on the student who had the audacity to disrespect you a second time in his presence. He'd let the first one slide, but he was starting to get agitated too.
He couldn't explain why he felt so much more frustrated than usual when it came to you. He'd dealt with disrespectful students a million times but something about the way he spoke to you made the inspector's blood boil.
"No way, I was totally right. You're defending your girl, aren't you?"
You stared at the tense interaction between the two, silent since you knew you should just let the ERPB do their job. But you didn't want any of the students to end up injured as a result, you'd heard multiple times of the consequences other rebellious people had faced.
"So what if I am?"
Hwa-jin responded casually as he stood up straight, away from the wall where he had been leaning, and approached the student seated down on his desk.
You couldn't help the way your heart raced at the fact that he didn't deny it. No, not just that, but he played into the comment. He didn't even seem affected by it, and you made sure to act like you weren't either.
To act like the student hadn't been right on the dot when he called you out for dressing up to impress a certain inspector.
The ring of the bell broke you out of your thoughts, and Hwa-jin finally backed away from the student. He leaned back against the wall, face tilting up to look at you as the students ran out before you could even dismiss them.
You knew you couldn't control them as they hurried away, the same way you couldn't control the racing of your heart when you were alone in the classroom with the inspector.
"I'm sorry about what he said. It was totally out of line, especially when he knows about your-"
"Don't worry, I didn't mind it. It's about time I moved on like that old man said anyways."
He sighed before leaving the room as well. Your heart was beating even faster than before. He didn't mind people assuming you two were in a relationship? He was trying to move on from his dead fiance because of you?
You shook your head, trying to shake away the thoughts along with it. No, you were overthinking it. He'd started this entire project with his father-in-law as a result of the violence she'd endured that took her life. There was no way in hell a man of that sort would ever think of being with a doormat like you, let alone move on from the incident because of a teacher that was easily controlled by the students.
.☆°☆•
PRESENT TIME:
"Ah, sorry. We're not on first name basis yet."
"I don't mind!"
You replied a little too quickly, causing him to pause and stare down at you as you mentally beat yourself up over the enthusiasm.
"I mean, I think referring to each other in any other way would be too formal. We're not exactly strangers at this point, are we?"
Two days was all it took to have you over-explaining yourself like a fool to make sure he didn't get the wrong impression of you. Two days, and you were already acting like you guys were friends and he wasn't a stranger.
"We're not that close either."
He responded in that same tone he always used with every student and every teacher. You had never had more of an urge to bury yourself deep into the ground. You hoped the ground would open up and suck you within, that you could hibernate beneath the Earth's surface until the ERPB had finished their duty.
Of course, it'd only been two days. You were closer to strangers than anything else.
"You're right. Sorry, I got ahead of myself..."
You laughed awkwardly, giving him a smile so forced that it made the entire situation much worse. You let the horrifying moment of silence sit between you two before drifting your gaze back to his polished shoes.
"The next time a student speaks out like that to you, don't just stand there and take it."
His advice brought you back to reality as you turned your gaze back up to face him again, expecting him to point it out but not so randomly.
"It wasn't that big of a deal. All he said is that I'm dressing up to impress someone, I don't want to be too harsh on him over a comment."
And also because you knew the student had been completely right. You dressed up for Na Hwa-Jin the last two days. The damn inspector who was uncaring and solely here for the purpose of fulfilling his job.
"It's not one comment though, is it? And it's not only about you, think of all the other girls in this school having to deal with his comments. All the diligent students being disturbed because one couldn't shut his mouth up."
You were silent as you processed his words. He had a point. The reason he'd even earned the name of 'Byun-Tae' around campus was because he would repeatedly disturb every existing female around him. You took in a breath and acknowledged his words with a nod.
"If a teacher won't help her students, then who will? They all rely on you, ____, to be the responsible adult for them."
You let out the breath you were holding until you stopped breathing entirely. There it was, your first name again. You understood what he was saying, you processed the way he said it like he was teaching you a lesson you should've learnt from the beginning, and then you finally heard your name.
"I thought we weren't close enough for first names yet?"
"I changed my mind."
And then he walked off like he hadn't absolutely shattered your heart seconds ago by acting distant then stitched the pieces back up together by acting like that never happened.
That night, your heart decided to stop helping you. You followed the same procedure you always did whenever it decided to turn on you.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Close your eyes.
The first three steps failed entirely, so you skipped over to the last one instead of repeatedly trying again. If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't be able to see anything. Surely, you'd fall asleep naturally.
But when you did, all you could see was him dressed in all black. His perfectly done hair, those wrinkles that looked like they'd been sculpted with loving hands, and his eyes.
Oh, his eyes.
You let out a sigh as your eyes fluttered open again, realizing you were never escaping this mess you had gotten yourself into.
.☆°☆•
THE NEXT DAY:
You thought of the multiple ways you could discipline Tae-Byun today while teaching your class, noticing his absence but assuming it was a result of his habit of constantly being late. A scolding as the first warning, ruler to the hand as the second, standing in the corner of the class as the third, sent to the principal as the fou-
You could barely finish your thoughts when the door to the class was shoved open by the inspector, before he threw inside a disheveled Tae-Byun.
His pants were ripped upto his knees, exposing the rest of his legs. His collar was ripped open, exposing his collarbones. His shoes were barely on, exposing the dirty underside of his clearly unwashed socks. Aside from his appearance, bruises coated the side of his face as if he'd been slapped multiple times, the blood staining his lips matching the shade of lipstick on yours.
"He seemed really interested in your top, so I gave him a similar one. I hope you don't mind."
Hwa-Jin stated with a grin before quickly switching back to his serious look, dragging the student across the floor and to his desk.
Class resumed like normal with no interruptions, but you could feel the inspector's eyes staring at your back as you turned towards the board. It seemed you didn't even have to discipline him for now, not when he was there like some sort of bodyguard.
Once classes ended, Tae-Byun stumbled back home. He avoided his usual route to prevent coming across both you and the inspector. You stood outside your class, mumbling underneath your breath as you fiddled with the bracelet around your wrist, reciting what you'll say when you see him.
He'll be leaving today, now that his lesson had been taught. He'd made sure both you and your terrible student had each learned the value of existing in a school, and the difference in responsibility which was present between a teacher and a student.
"'Thank you, Mr. Inspecto-' Ah, that's way too much. 'I really appreciate what you did for me today, Hwa-Jin'. Geez, I don't think I should call him by his first name. We're not that close anyways."
You sighed again as you tossed your head back against the wall, the deep exhale now a part of your hourly routine whenever you thought of him. You closed your eyes, took in a deep breath, and decided to say whatever came into your mind first.
"Na Hwa-Jin, I'm really glad you were there today. Thank you for the help, and for...teaching me to be a better teacher. I appreciate your advice, I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay you for opening my eyes-"
"You could always make it up to me over dinner."
You didn't even want to open your eyes when you heard his voice. You felt like banging your head into the wall until you were out of this reality where he'd heard every single word you'd uttered. 'Opening my eyes', really? You couldn't think of anything better that sounded less like you were worshipping him?
But then you processed his words, and your eyes shot open. He wanted to go to dinner with you? He was asking you out on a date?
"I'm not asking you out."
He clarified as if he could read your mind through your wide eyes. The sudden flutter you'd felt in your stomach died down, only to be brought back as quickly and confusingly.
"I'm asking you to ask me out. Your treat."
What kind of guy even was he? One second, he could be a gentleman fighting off people that dared to disrespect you. Then you take another glance, and he's asking you to pay to take him out on a date and playing difficult with you by purposefully phrasing his sentences in that way.
Oh well, you couldn't care less in this moment. It was too good of an offer to pass up.
"Does barbeque work?"
You asked with a slight smile, removing your reading glasses now that classes were no longer in session. You placed them in your purse as you began walking, knowing well that he was matching your pace beside you.
You didn't know if this would turn into something more, you weren't a fortune teller to predict the future, but you didn't want to either. You wanted to live in this moment, where the two of you were leaving behind the empty school to enjoy barbecue together.
And maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't be the last time you saw each other.
2021's Beyond Evil (괴물) is truly a show of all time. It's about both the necessity and the limitations of law, and what happens when people are inevitably forced to make their own justice. It's about hypocrisy and the terrible things we do for love, including love of self. It's about neurodivergence, ableism, PTSD, and how we both see and unsee those things; how we infantilize some disabilities while dismissing others; how readily we read guilt into behaviours that stem from trauma. It's about how grief can tear a hole twenty years deep and seven families wide through a community, and the impossibility of ever stitching such a wound closed. It's about assumptions, subversion, consequences: how thinking you're right is not the same as being right. It's about the violence of misogyny, the pressure of conformity, and the question of whose voice deserves to be heard. It's about what it costs to know the truth. But most of all, it's about Han Juwon wanting to fuck that old man so bad it makes him look stupid. And I think that's beautiful.
