Chapter Text
KANG HYEON-MIN
“Where are you?” Tae-eul said, as soon as he picked up the phone, and “Never mind,” curt, before he could answer. “It’s a matter of national importance.”
“I happen to have an evening off,” Hyeon-min said, then cocked his head at the door and sighed before getting up to open it. She was already there.
“I do not remember inviting you to spend my day off with me,” Hyeon-min said. She held up a bag of beer and chicken silently. They’d renewed their friendship after Tae-eul had moved to Busan to teach at a physical education college, and it’d become something of a ritual, especially since Master Jeong Tae-eul, nine-dan, former police academy dropout and current girlfriend of the freaking king of the country, had kind of a limited set of circumstances in which she could hang out with her friends and talk about matters of national importance.
“Spill,” he said, once they’d cracked open their first cans, and Tae-eul had downed half of hers in a single gulp. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, then took another swig before speaking.
“When would you say you figured it out about Her Majesty and Colonel Choi?” she said.
“Figured what?” Hyeon-min said. She looked at him.
“Oh, that they’re together,” he said. “When the twins––the younger twins––turned up at the station, I suppose. There was something about the way they talked about them together that gave me a hunch. You know they call daebi-mama ‘Auntie Min,’ don’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” Tae-eul nodded. “And your mother had already told you that they were best friends, and that Colonel Choi moved in to the palace when she was in treatment for her PTSD, and––“
“She wasn’t all that indiscreet,” Hyeon-min cut in. “Our eomma’s a professional, you know.” He levelled a look at Tae-eul. “She didn’t say anything about Colonel Choi being in treatment, for example.”
Tae-eul winced. “I’m gonna be stepping on people’s toes my whole life,” she muttered. “Though maybe not, because I’m going to break up with Lee Gon, on account of how big an idiot he is.”
“You say that every six weeks,” Hyeon-min said, because it was true.
“That’s about as often as I discover a new depth to plumb,” she said. “The guy’s a space cadet. Do you think aliens have had contact with us? Is that what it is?” She crunched up her empty can in a fist and dunked it over his shoulder and past the counter of his kitchen, straight into the garbage bin. Sometimes Hyeon-min thought that if he was even a little bit straight he would have fought Lee Gon tooth and nail for this girl.
“Do you think he got bodyswapped and now the person––no, the intelligence––inside that sexy giraffe body is just collecting data on us while pretending to be human?” she went on, cracking open a fresh one. “I mean, that’s the only reason he fails at it so often, right?”
Hyeon-min kept a straight face. He didn’t want to laugh and bring up the last time they’d had this conversation, when Tae-eul had paid a visit to the royal stables with Lee Gon to meet his best horse friend, named Maximus, only to discover that Gon only permitted Maximus to drink bottled water. “That’s taxpayers’ money!” Tae-eul had hissed, appalled, and Gon had nodded seriously and said, “Taxpayers should drink bottled water, too, though obviously we have to find a futuristic alternative to non-recyclable packaging.”
“I mean, there’s you, who put two and two together about the aunties before you ever met either of them,” she said. “There’s me, who got it the first time I went to eat lunch with her Maj, and Colonel Choi came up to have coffee with us and kept stealing biscuits from her Maj’s plate.”
“Whew,” Hyeon-min said. “Really not trying to hide it, are they.”
“She walks around the palace in the queen’s shirts,” Tae-eul said. “Like, they are literally monogrammed with ‘Min of Corea’ on the cuffs. And guess when Lee Gon realised that his mother and her best friend maybe, maybe, don’t live together and travel together and co-host family lunches every weekend and have sleepovers twice a week because they’re just gals who’re pals?”
“To be fair,” Hyeon-min frowns, “his Maj and Yeong do most of that together, too.”
“Do not,” Tae-eul said, enraged, “make excuses for rich male idiocy.”
Hyeon-min stifled a sigh at the thought of rich male idiots, in particular one of whom he’d grown unreasonably fond in a short time. “Okay,” he said. “What’s the story?”
JO EUN-BI & JO KKA-BI
“That’s a rabbit, obviously,” Eun-bi said, and eomeoni answered, “Obviously,” smiling a small smile.
“Too obvious,” Kka-bi commented. “Why can’t it be something else, like a scholar’s hat from Joseon times?”
“Because that’s nerdy,” Eun-bi said. “You’re a nerd.”
“I think that one’s a screaming man,” eomeoni cut in, smoothly. They looked up at the cloud at which she was pointing.
“Like Munch,” Eun-bi nodded. “The library in the village had all these cool English art books that Teacher Kim donated to it when he retired and went to live with his son in Bangkok.”
“That was nice of him,” eomeoni murmured. “Though, Eun-bi, I think they call the painter something different where he comes from.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, I think they might say his name as ‘Myoo-nkh.’”
“I like ‘munch,’ it’s the English word for ‘eat,’” Eun-bi said. “I heard it on Cartoon Network.”
“That one is a vulture,” Kka-bi said of another cloud, when the giggle-fest had gone on long enough.
“It’s an eagle,” Eun-bi said.
“It’s a vulture,” Kka-bi explained patiently. “Vultures are way cooler. D’you know, eomeoni, that they can die from the medicines humans take?” Their mother made a questioning noise, and Kka-bi took the opportunity to wiggle a bit more firmly into her side as he explained about how humans and cows took medicines to stay healthy, but then they died anyway, and the medicines stayed in their system and poisoned the vultures who ate their flesh. Eun-bi narrowed her eyes at him jealously and got her nasty pointy elbows into eomeoni’s other side, so that they were all lying on the grass in daebi-mama’s private garden in a tangled knot, looking up at the sky and talking as the sun narrowed its fierce afternoon gaze at them.
It was lovely when eomeoni was in a good mood. She had been very sick almost from the minute they had been rescued from that awful night in the warehouse, and even though they all lived together now and eomeoni was no longer in the army hospital, she was still not well. To be sure, she hugged and kissed them and said ‘I love you’ to them all the time. But when Eun-seop and Yeong did that to Eun-bi and Kka-bi they knew it was out of happiness. Their eomeoni was not happy.
Their therapist said her sadness had nothing to do with them, but they had both vowed to do what they could. Kka-bi had hoped that the sunshine and the clouds and cool vulture facts would prolong her happiness a bit more today, for instance. But her responses had grown shorter and more infrequent as the hour wore on, and when Kka-bi said, “That’s a jam biscuit,” she did not respond at all.
He looked away from his cloud and saw tears running down her face.
“It’s a cream puff,” Eun-bi said, also looking at her. She didn’t say anything to that either.
“Maybe this game was stupid,” Kka-bi said. “Sorry.”
“We can play something else,” Eun-bi agreed. She reached up to wipe the tears rolling down eomeoni’s temples, into the grass, but eomeoni put her arm over her eyes, hiding herself from them.
“I think,” a new voice said, “you ought to play something that doesn’t give you sunburn.” They looked up: it was daebi-mama––Auntie Min, as they now called her. She was striding across the grass in a long swishy lavender skirt of tulle under a Busan Institute Of Ancient History hoodie.
“Up now, hippos,” she said. She had her hair up in two buns today like Princess Leia. “Madam Park is here, go hunt up some actual cream puffs with her.”
Eun-bi and Kka-bi got up obediently and dusted the grass off their butts.
“Sorry,” eomeoni said, in a choked voice. Her eyes were screwed shut. “Sorry.”
“Really, Yeon,” Auntie Min said. “It’s to be expected. You’ll give yourself a migraine lying in the sun like that.”
She brandished the deck umbrella she was holding in both hands and opened it over their little patch of grass.
Their mother opened her eyes when the shade fell over her.
“Sorry,” she said again, looking at Auntie Min.
“Apology not accepted,” Auntie Min said. There was a whisper of tulle, and then eomeoni was surrounded by a lavender cloud and a whiff of Boy Chanel as Auntie Min sank to the grass next to her.
“You have things to cry about,” Auntie Min said, kindly, and eomeoni turned and hid her face in the tulle skirt.
Madam Park was waiting for them at the edge of the grass. Kka-bi took one last look behind before she led them through the doorway into the delicious coolness of the palace. He saw eomeoni lying with her head in Auntie Min’s lap. Auntie Min was speaking in her low, musical voice; and he saw that eomeoni reached up and cupped Auntie Min’s cheek in her thin palm, and said something in answer that made Auntie Min smile.
“Eomeoni’s not going to die, is she?” Eun-bi said, next to him. Kka-bi turned to look at her in shock.
“You mustn’t think like that, Miss Jo,” Madam Park said. “Of course she isn’t.”
“I went with Eun-seop oppa to see Teacher Kim’s wife Teacher Yoo when she was in the hospital back home––back in my old home,” Eun-bi said. “And Teacher Kim was sitting next to Teacher Yoo, and Teacher Yoo told us she didn’t know what she would do without Teacher Kim, and she reached out and held his face just like that while we were there, and then one week later she died.”
“Didn’t you say Teacher Yoo had cancer?” Kka-bi asked.
“Your mother does not have cancer,” Madam Park said, firmly, and led them to the kitchen where they got to help a chef make cream puffs from scratch. So that was reassuring and cool and it was pretty dope after all that eomeoni and Auntie Min were married.
MISS KOO FROM COREAN BROADCASTING
“You’ve worked hard,” Min said to the reporter, who had convincingly pretended to drink her tea over the meeting, but in whose cup the level of liquid had gone down not a whit. It wasn’t an eating disorder; this was one of those professionals who took her job as seriously as an assassin. “Have a biscuit. I hear you want to be in Parliament.”
“If it is the people’s wish,” said Miss Koo Seo-ryeong of the Corean Broadcasting Corporation. Brazen, Min thought, to admit to it outright in the offices of the highest authority in the land. (Second-highest; but Gon was working on a paper about non-Euclidean space these days and refused to leave his university office except when his girlfriend ordered him to.)
“Not enjoying journalism?” she said.
“I only do things I enjoy, ma’am,” the girl answered. She was ravishingly pretty; almost as pretty as Min herself. It accounted for her skyrocketing popularity, and concealed, Min could see, the fact that she controlled a significant proportion of what actually made it to the news these days. She had more power at Corean Broadcasting than any other journalist, got her pick of field assignments, and was the youngest ever board member of the National Corean Press Union. Min’s staff had gone on high alert as soon as they were notified that she was coming to conduct the annual interview of the Queen Mother herself. Yeong had even sent her a handwritten note with an ugly little drawing of a scorpion––he’d never had much talent for art, the dear––next to the words DON’T DO IT.
But that would have looked like the palace was dictating rules to the public broadcaster. Besides, Min had wanted to meet Koo Seo-ryeong for herself, and now she had. Journalists were deplorably stupid as a class. It was entertaining to meet an exception.
“Will you be seeing the Chinese minister of defence on your visit?” Miss Koo asked her. The dull, pre-approved question about what Min expected to accomplish on her state visit to China next fortnight had been wrapped up on camera.
“Will I?” Min said. Lady Noh herself had called General Zhou to set up a private dinner date. “I’ve no idea.”
“Government’s hoping you’ll bring up the border security issue, I believe.”
“Is that so,” Min remarked. She’d danced all night with Zhou Jianxin at a barge party in Shanghai in 1988, and had every intention of browbeating him and his army into behaving themselves.
“Yes,” Miss Koo said. “Is Colonel Choi going with you?”
“I rather think she will,” Min said. She did not narrow her eyes at Miss Koo.
Miss Koo put down her teacup and smiled.
“She’s a hero of mine,” she said. “I’ve read that you and she have known each other since you were schoolgirls.”
“The teacher kept us inside at break for talking too much, on the first day we met,” Min said, slowly. “I was seven and she was six.”
“Is it true you attended the birth of her younger children?” Miss Koo asked.
Min raised an eyebrow.
“I was leading the investigation of her pursuit of the Lim case,” she elaborated. “I noticed your name in the hospital records in Seoul.”
“What else did you find?” Min asked.
“Nothing I plan to reveal,” she said, the gorgeous little viper. “I think it’s lovely.”
“What is?” Min inquired in her politest tone, the one that Gon used to call ‘ice-cube voice’ when he was a child.
“What you have with each other,” Miss Koo said, without missing a beat. “It’s quite rare and precious.”
“You mustn’t have many friends,” Min said.
“I’ve never needed any,” Miss Koo said, frankly. “But I know the value of precious things.”
“She’s going to be a pain in my neck,” Min groaned, later that night, when they were getting ready for bed.
“The reporter girl?” Ji-yeon asked, brushing her hair in front of the mirror. “Why?”
“Because she’s going to be prime minister in the next five years,” Min said. “If she doesn’t find herself dead in a ditch before then.”
“Should be fun,” Ji-yeon said, because she wasn’t the type to beat about the bush.
Min made a face. “Should be fun,” she agreed.
PRISONER 5827
A sustained human rights campaign had allowed for inmates of the maximum-security prison on –––Island to receive newspapers as part of their daily routine. A further intense campaign had allowed the privilege to be extended to those in solitary confinement. As part of his routine, the only prisoner currently held in isolation in the institution unfolded the copy of the previous day’s Daehan Maeil Shinmun that came tucked under his breakfast tray, and turned to the crossword page first.
He filled in the quick, then flipped over to the sudoku and checked that off––six seconds off his record time, he reckoned, he was getting slow in here––before turning to his breakfast. Over lumpy rice and lukewarm soup, he unfolded the paper and read through the racing reports, then the business pages, then the incomprehensible metro news (–––Island received the Hamhung edition, a city Prisoner 5827 had never seen, and which he had fully intended to depopulate and sell off to private Japanese mining interests when he assumed power).
Breakfast over, he pulled out the crossword page and put it aside so he could do the cryptic in the afternoon. He then proceeded to rip the newspaper apart page by page, channelling his ungovernable rage into shredding it into the tiniest pieces possible for human hands to make. It was slow, focused action, and he had worked up a light sweat by the time he got to the front page, which was adorned with a picture of his resplendent, smiling sister-in-law posing with the President of China before their state dinner.
He bared his teeth and began to run a tear down the masthead straight through her forehead, when he was distracted by a cluster of smaller pictures below. They were sycophantically captioned QUEEN MOTHER’S DAY OUT, and featured the usurping harridan in poses better suited to some attention-seeking servant of democracy: at a school for underprivileged children, at a meeting with Corean-Chinese delegates, strolling through the so-called Imperial Gardens of the Forbidden City, smiling at––
Prisoner 5827 very nearly lost his iron composure at the sight of the woman beside Mother Usurper. Then he very nearly lost it again when the sound of a baton rapped against his door.
“Alright in there, 5827?” the jailor on duty asked.
“How dare you speak to me,” he answered, with an effort.
“You made a noise like an elephant giving birth just now,” the sacrilegious worm on the other side said. “Did you stub your toe again?”
“You will not be beheaded for your insolence,” 5827 informed him. “You will be disembowelled, in public.”
“So you keep promising,” the blaspheming jester said, airily. He rattled his baton against the bars on the door of 5827’s cell before moving on.
“So I do,” 5827 said. He looked down at the front page of the previous day’s Daehan Maeil Shinmun. He contemplated the faces of his two greatest enemies on this earth in silence for a few moments, before smiling. He had known there was a weakness, naturally, but he had not discerned the nature of that weakness before. It was obvious, really; and it was despicable, and he would use it one day to destroy them both, after he had burned the world to ashes around them.
“So I do,” he said again. “And I am first and foremost a man of my word.”
Silence reigned, for a time. “5827?” the jailor asked, when it had stretched on. “You’re not eating the newspaper again, are you?”
JO EUN-SEOP
On most days Jo Eun-seop was pretty content with his new life, being a glass half-full sort of guy to begin with, and having had a miraculous reunion with his beloved family, coupled with a role in putting away the most dangerous traitor in modern Corean history for life, to go on. He missed home in his mountain village from time to time, but the ache had eased a bit after Tae-eul noona joined them in Busan, and they stayed in regular touch with all their friends back home.
Then there was the delicious torture of being in love with the coolest, most beautiful woman he’d ever met in his life, a woman too good for him in every way possible who somehow still liked Jo Eun-seop and wanted to be friends with him.
It wasn’t close to the sum total of all he wanted from Miss Myeong Seung-ah, but friendship was friendship, and Jo Eun-seop was a wise man, and wouldn’t have given it up for the world, not even on a day like today. Miss Myeong had lately got in the habit of putting Eun-seop in delicate positions, vis-a-vis his feelings for her. Ever since Eun-seop had met her he’d only wanted to look at her and talk to her and hang out with her all day, every day, but she’d been making it increasingly challenging for him to be a gentleman about it.
Take today, a national holiday on the day after Eun-seop’s final exams for his semester, and a writing holiday for Miss Myeong. She’d asked him to a picnic at the botanical gardens, and brought with her a basket of all the things Eun-seop liked to eat best. She’d lain on the blanket and read the fifth Shieldmaidens of the Blue Dragon book while Eun-seop corrected proofs of the latest edit of her mystery novel, which was wow, another bestseller to be.
After he was done she’d flung her arms around him and smacked a hearty kiss on his cheek in thanks, and popped open a bottle of champagne that had gotten Eun-seop pretty quickly and thoroughly drunk.
Then they’d gone to coffee, where she’d whipped out surprise tickets to a secret gig that Turtle Dove Emergency, one of Eun-seop’s favourite bands, was playing at a bar by the beach. Then they’d had soju and ssamgyeopsal at one of their favourite cart bars before he walked her back home to her cute little flat close to midnight. She’d breathed, “Make yourself at home,” and popped into her bedroom.
He put on some tea and watered a couple of her plants which looked like they needed a little TLC, before pouring himself a mug and turning on the TV. The news was running a report from that evening, about her Majesty returning from her trip to China. Gon hyung was at the airfield to receive her. He looked dignified and handsome, not in the least like he’d spent the last week irritating Tae-eul noona by refusing to shave, shower or sleep while he made incomprehensible mumblings about topological theory.
Eun-seop grinned, and then found himself grinning harder at the sight of his mother disembarking from the plane. It was her first holiday after––well, in a long time. The dark circles had finally vanished from under her eyes. There was colour in her cheeks, and a sparkle in her smile that he remembered from back when he and Yeong were little. She paid obeisance to Gon hyung, who turned and led them both to a waiting car, which whisked them away to the palace, where she was staying overnight.
Eun-seop blinked at the screen as the motorcade sped away, then frowned as an idea began to form in his mind.
“What are you watching?” Miss Myeong said. The scent of something dreamy accompanied her voice, like she’d put on perfume.
“My parents,” he said, still thinking. Eomeoni’s smile––the sparkle––
“My mother,” he said, and squinted at the screen. “My mother and the mother of the nation?”
“Excuse me?” Miss Myeong said.
“Miss Myeong,” Eun-seop said, slowly, “do you think my mother is dating the Queen Mother?”
There was a prolonged silence beside him. He looked over, then did a double-take at Miss Myeong’s lacy silk nightgown and retouched lipstick, which made her mouth look glossy and more kissable than ever. There was a feather boa around her neck and an odd expression on her face. She was holding two goblets of wine.
“Mister Jo,” Miss Myeong said, very deliberately. “Would you take a glass?”
Eun-seop complied wordlessly, then sat still as Miss Myeong leaned in and took off his spectacles. He could still see her––a lot of her, it turned out, curvy and creamy and perfect.
“Mister Jo,” she said, “I really don’t want to talk about mothers right now. Is that alright with you?”
“Yes, thank you, Miss Myeong,” he breathed, and found he had a lot left to discover on that particular national holiday.
LEE GON
“…so there we were, at Sunday afternoon brunch with his mother,” Tae-eul told Hyeon-min, “which turns out to be, as usual––”
“––brunch with the family,” Hyeon-min nodded. He’d been to these events a couple of times: not at the palace, but at the garden behind the kitchen of the big house on the cliffs where Yeong had once lived all alone with little Kka-bi. It was now the Jo house again, home to the reunited siblings, their mother, and an ever-increasing assortment of friends and visitors.
“Right,” Tae-eul said. “And he’s finally done with the lecture series he’s been driving everyone crazy over, of course––”
+++
“––so I made éclairs,” Gon said, setting down a large tray on the table in triumph. “Deceptively simple, like all works of genius, but the product of the perfect blend of art and effort. Comforting, yet sophisticated; light, yet rich; sweet, yet not cloying.”
“Looks like sausages,” Eun-bi said.
“Does not,” Gon said, and rapped Kka-bi on the knuckles as he sneaked a hand out to take one for himself. “A little patience, please. You know the rules of coffee service. Ma’am,” he said, severely, and Tae-eul pouted and withdrew her sneaking hand, too. Gon’s éclairs were almost the best thing about him. “Eoma-mama,” he beseeched his mother.
“What? Oh yes,” the Queen Mother said, and put aside her phone. She wasn’t usually distracted at these gatherings, and Tae-eul had heard her views on setting a good example to the children by not distracting oneself at meals. Today, she seemed to be waiting for someone.
“Is Colonel Choi joining us?” Tae-eul asked.
“She should be on her way,” the Queen Mother said, taking up the coffee pot to pour little espresso cups of steaming hot black coffee for the three of them. “And orange juice for the minors,” she said, setting down the pot and pouring out espresso cups of juice for Eun-bi and Kka-bi.
“I want chocolate milk,” Eun-bi said, and then, seeing the look on the Queen Mother’s face, “please?”
“Your days of fun are over,” the Queen Mother said. “I, your benevolent and generous Auntie Min, would have granted your lightest wish. Alas, your health-conscious and priggish mother would chew off my ear about refined sugar, child diabetes and other matters about which I have absolutely no interest hearing, so you must suffer.”
“Where is Auntie Ji-yeon, anyway?” Gon said.
“Here,” a voice came, from within the halls, and Colonel Choi emerged from the corridors. She bowed to Gon––Tae-eul had learned not to roll her eyes at the propriety––and then put an arm around him and kissed his forehead.
“Oh,” Gon said, pleased. “Are the flowers for me?” She’d come with an armful of narcissus.
Colonel Choi offered him one, then smiled at Tae-eul and the children. “I was at the hospital,” she said, “and my tests are all clear.” Tae-eul and the children let out a whoop, and Colonel Choi broke into a smile.
“You don’t have to have an operation on your back!” Eun-bi shouted, pleased. “No more nasty medicine, hurray!” Colonel Choi shook her head, laughing, and went around the table and dropped a kiss on each of their heads, and gave them a flower each.
“I’ll take a flower and a kissie, thanks,” Tae-eul said, when she approached her, and stood up and gave her a hug. “It’s been a rough few months for you, eomeonim. Congratulations on overcoming it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you all,” Colonel Choi said. She turned to the Queen Mother, who was sitting back in her chair, not above a suspicious glistening of the eyes. “Thank you for looking after me, and putting up with me.”
“Like it’s something special?” the Queen Mother said. “I’ve been putting up with you since you were six years old.”
“Please always do,” Colonel Choi said, and gave her the flowers. She bent down and kissed her forehead, and then her cheek. The Queen Mother kissed her in turn, and Colonel Choi returned the kiss on her mouth. This went on for some time.
“Hyungnim,” Kka-bi said, presently. “The éclairs.”
“Of course,” Gon said. He was looking at his mother and at Colonel Choi, leaning over her. The narcissi were crushed between their bodies, and the scent was rising in the air around them.
“Excuse me,” the Queen Mother said, in a dreamy voice. “I think I’ll take my coffee indoors today. Ji-yeon?”
“Yes, please,” Colonel Choi breathed. She stood and picked up the Queen Mother’s coffee cup for her. They left holding hands. Gon turned to them, uncertain, then caught Tae-eul’s eye and smiled.
“Girls’ school manners, huh?” he said.
Tae-eul stared at him.
“Oh my gosh,” Eun-bi said, gleefully. “He still doesn’t know.”
“Hyungnim,” Kka-bi asked him soberly. “Are you a homophobe?”
“How dare you,” Gon said, giving him an éclair. “I introduced and enforced a diversity hiring policy for my palace secretariat as soon as I attained my majority.”
“You’d have married Yeong if he’d have you,” Tae-eul muttered.
“Yeong and I aren’t like that,” Gon said. “You can be soulmates without being romantically involved, you know. I wouldn’t leap to conclusions.”
“This is the best day of my life,” Eun-bi said, and took an éclair.
“I need a drink,” Tae-eul said.
+1: JO YEONG
“You’re back,” Hyeon-min said, as if he hadn’t been waiting all evening to hear the beep of his door lock. He tried, briefly, to look neutral and impassive, but it was too hard: Yeong had been away for so many weeks on a mission, and there was something so charming about his tired little smile and the curling ends of his usually perfect hair, still damp from his shower at debrief, Hyeon-min thought; and Hyeon-min was well-adjusted enough to admit that he’d missed Yeong terribly, after all.
“Hello,” Yeong said, dropping his bag and smiling back as he leaned up for a kiss, which turned into two, then four, then a string that involved Hyeon-min backing Yeong up into the living room and over to the couch, where Yeong climbed over him and took his face in his hands, kissing Hyeon-min like a starved man.
“Wow,” Hyeon-min said, when he caught his breath. “It’s like you only want me for one thing.”
“Accurate,” Yeong breathed, and dove back in for another kiss. “Where’s dinner? I’m famished.” He shortened the kiss, then landed a series of soft, feathery little pecks on Hyeon-min’s mouth.
“What do you take me for?” Hyeon-min said. He’d put his very best ordering skills to use and got them Vietnamese takeout, and because he was an amazing boyfriend who hadn’t spent the last couple of months in probably Siberia, he got up himself to fix Yeong a bowl, and got him a beer while he was at it. They ate with their feet tangled on the couch, as Yeong told him all the non-classified things he could about his time away, and listened to Hyeon-min’s progress on a cold case, and then cosied up and kissed Hyeon-min a little more, and then a lot more, when they were done with dinner.
“I should do the dishes,” Hyeon-min said, breaking away, when Yeong was a warm, tired weight against him, his eyes drooping and his lips slick and kiss-swollen.
“They’ll keep,” Yeong said, his voice low and gravelly. He nosed at Hyeon-min’s throat and grazed his jaw with his lips. Distantly, Hyeon-min heard a thud and a clink, in rapid succession. It was their empty beer cans, ricocheting off the hob at perfect angles and falling into the bin.
“You insufferable show-off,” Hyeon-min exhaled. “I am so hot for you.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Yeong said, and they were still new enough to be honeymoonish, but comfortable enough that Hyeon-min could manhandle Yeong into the bedroom, then undress him lovingly and kneel in between his legs so that he could give him a sweet, lazy blowjob while Yeong made pleased, sleepy sounds and petted at his hair.
“You’re so pretty,” Hyeon-min said, in between deep, earnest sucks of Yeong’s dick, which if you asked Hyeon-min was as pretty as the rest of Yeong. “Did you miss me when you were away? Touch yourself thinking of me?” Yeong made a small, choking noise at that, then groaned as Hyeon-min licked and teased him, and dirty-talked at him a little more, until Yeong sat up with a growl, then strong-armed Hyeon-min up by his collar, got his shirt and boxers off him, and got on top of him in a burst of horny energy. They fucked like that, furious and passionate, and Hyeon-min laughed when it was over and Yeong slumped on top of him, sweaty and exhausted. He dropped a tiny kiss on his face, then got up to earn himself even more brownie points and cleaned Yeong off with a warm towel and tucked him under the covers and put a bottle of water by his bedside, before he turned in to read a few more pages of The Plotters.
“Miss Jeong was here?” Yeong asked, like the little freak he was, probably having noticed a scuff mark on the welcome mat, or the sound of the beer cans rattling in the trash.
“Yeah,” Hyeon-min said, tolerantly, and ran his free hand through Yeong’s hair. “Did you know his Majesty’s horse only drinks bottled water?”
“Mmm,” Yeong said, smushing his face into his pillow. “It’s for her gut health.”
Hyeon-min opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“Don’t quibble,” Yeong said, yawning. He snuggled into Hyeon-min’s side. “He’s going to solve the world’s water shortage problems in fifteen years’ time.”
“What?”
“He has a plan,” Yeong said. “He’s just a little distracted.”
Hyeon-min started to roll his eyes, then gave up. “You know he found out about your mother and daebi-mama today?” he said.
“Really?” Yeong murmured, sinking into sleep. “Fascinating. How dibzmbrm pzzz.”
Hyeon-min smiled, in spite of himself, and bent to kiss Yeong’s exposed bare shoulder before returning to his book. He read a chapter, then put it face-down on his nightstand and reached out to turn off the lamp, when a hand shot out to capture his wrist in a grip of steel.
“Found out what about my mother and daebi-mama?” Yeong said, opening his eyes.