Chapter Text
Water twirls around him like sequins refracted in limelight. Waves crash into him– no, not into him, they crash over him and he’s tugged down, down, down. His limbs submit to the water’s easy pull and they sag, floating like satellites. It’s futile to struggle against the current. After all, it wasn’t water that took him. It was him who broke the water’s surface.
His body doesn’t feel a thing as he drowns. There’s no pain, no pressure, no fight. Only leftover resentment pierces the border of unconsciousness, emanating outwards through his soul, as if his fury and spite were pouring out of him and into the water.
It’s not blood leaking out of him. It’s hatred, shaped like bile.
And then– warmth on his arm. A weight on his shoulders. A tug, a pain, and pressure propelling him up. He struggles against the force overtaking him, because what’s the point in fighting when you know you’re going down?
But the pressure is unrelenting and before he passes out, he catches a glimpse of the night sky, dark enough that he can see the stars.
“Oh, are you awake?”
The voice is faint and muffled. It sounds like it’s coming across a mile-long tunnel. Or like In-ho is still underwater, and whoever’s speaking to him is just above the river’s surface.
He struggles to get his eyes open. His eyelids feel impossibly heavy, as if they’ve been stitched closed. He manages to open them and immediately lets them fall shut again, overwhelmed by the sudden brightness of whatever location he’s in. The light makes him dizzy, and as he tries to catch his balance, he realizes he doesn’t know which way is up.
Questions begin to flood his mind as he slowly regains any sense of his own body. His limbs feel impossibly heavy and there’s a dull ache pulsating in his head. He tries to move, to get his muscles to work and pull himself upwards, anywhere . Where is he? And what exactly happened to him?
His hand catches on something and he hears a loud thump. The sound has him recoiling and thrashing around uncontrollably, looking for an exit, though he doesn’t know what it is he’s trying to escape.
“Hey, take it easy.”
It’s that voice again. It’s clearer this time, and he can tell it’s a male voice. Whoever’s speaking to him is clearly nearby. Is it a friend or a foe? Is he in danger?
He finally opens his eyes, and this time he manages not to close them again. He tries to take in the sight around him, but everything is too blurry and hazy. He blinks again, and his vision sharpens somewhat. He can make out individual shapes, even if he struggles to put them together into one picture. A floor lamp. A white wall. An older man sleeping in an odd-looking bed. Another man, leaning down, hair falling into his eyes as he reaches a hand towards In-ho.
He jolts away from the man. Except there’s nowhere to go, and his head hits against… something. The bed frame, perhaps. He’s starting to register all these different sensations in his body, and he’s pretty sure the softness he feels under his back must be a mattress.
He tries to focus on the man in front of him, except he has to blink again, because the artificial lighting emanating from the overhead lights seems to break into a halo around the man’s head. In-ho doesn’t believe in angels. But is it possible that he died in that river, and that this man is some celestial being who’s come to reap his soul? Well, good luck to him. There’s not much soul left in Hwang In-ho.
He squirms on the bed, trying to shift from the awkward position flat on his back that’s leaving him feeling oddly vulnerable. The man takes him by the arm, his movements slow and gentle this time, and helps him to sit up. His face is so close that In-ho can barely see what’s behind him. He seems to be about his own age, with longish, wavy hair that cascades over his forehead like domino.
But it’s his eyes that really catch In-ho’s attention– big cow eyes, wide and warm. It’s like every feature on his face is arranged to accommodate those eyes, to make them stand out. And he’s staring down at In-ho with… worry?
In-ho blinks, trying to shake off the odd feeling in the pit of his stomach that has come over him at having these saccharine eyes trained on him.
“Who…” He clears his throat as his voice breaks on the first syllable. He looks around when the other man finally shifts, uncovering the rest of the room behind him. “Where am I?”
The man hands him a glass of water from the tiny bedside table. In-ho grabs it, his hands shaking slightly, and downs half the glass in one go. “You’re in the hospital.”
Of course. It’s clear to him now, once his vision has finally stabilized and he can actually see his surroundings. There’s a needle buried in the skin of his inner arm, creating a channel between his vein and a bag filled with some clear fluid.
The sight of a hospital room is all too familiar to him. Even the smell brings back memories that he’s been trying to suppress for the past year. He hoped that he would bury them for good last night.
The stranger keeps watching him, his gaze intent. In-ho wonders if he’s a nurse. No, he can’t be. He’s wearing a hoodie, for god’s sake. “Do you remember what happened?”
He remembers the smell of the river, earthy and salty. The concrete bridge under his shoes, and then its loss. Gravity pulling him down, and the odd sensation as if he were flying up towards the starry sky.
He puts the glass down. “Yes. Who are you?”
The man shifts, his expression faltering. He looks surprised and awkward at having In-ho’s attention on him. It reminds In-ho of the way petty criminals would stutter and look away whenever he asked the right question. “I, uh, I saw you when you jumped. I fished you out of the water and called the ambulance.”
In-ho lets his eyes fall shut again. He feels even more vulnerable knowing that this stranger witnessed him at his lowest. He was this close to getting exactly what he wanted– closure. And this lanky man in a ratty hoodie came between him and the peace he so gravely deserves. “Why would you do that?”
“You’re angry that I didn’t let you kill yourself?”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” he interrupts him before the other man has even finished speaking, even as he knows in the back of his mind that he sounds defensive. “I was drunk, and I slipped.”
The stranger continues looking at him impassively. He clearly doesn’t believe In-ho. “Uh-huh. I don’t think that’s true. But that’s okay.” The man falls into the chair beside In-ho’s bed. He looks quite comfortable in it; he wonders how long this stranger sat in that chair while In-ho was still asleep. “How do you feel?”
He takes stock of his own body. His head feels heavy and pulsating with sharp pain, but that’s not exactly uncommon these days; it’s probably not a concussion, just a predictable consequence of drinking. His body feels weak and sore, and he doubts he could stand on his own right now.
There’s a duller pain emanating from his right arm. He turns to inspect it. Bandage covers his inner arm, in the same spot where the IV connects to his left arm.
He brushes a finger over the bandage. “What happened to my arm?”
The stranger looks away, suddenly bashful. “It caught on some rocks when I was pulling you out, I’m sorry, that’s probably my fault. They said you’re going to be okay, though.” His eyes widen as realization hits him. “Oh, I should tell the nurses you’re awake. Wait a minute.”
The man jumps from his seat and legs it out of the room, almost tripping in his haste. He comes back a few moments later, a middle-aged nurse with a pale face and bags under her eyes in tow. In-ho wonders what time it is. She’s probably at the end of her night shift. He remembers how exhausting those felt from his first few years as a beat cop.
He lets the nurse work without putting up a fight. He answers her questions, watches as she checks his vitals and fiddles with the IV. He doesn’t want to make her job harder. All he wants is to get the hell out of this hospital.
“We tried calling your emergency contact but she didn’t pick up,” the nurse tells him after checking his oxygenation. He was lucky, apparently. His vitals look good.
He doesn’t feel lucky.
“It’s fine,” he replies, rubbing his forehead. He wishes they’d give him something for the headache.
“Would you like to try calling your wife again?”
“No, that’s fine.” He doesn’t need the nurse to know that his wife will never pick up the phone again. He hasn’t thought to remove her as his emergency contact. He’d have to replace her with Jun-ho, he guesses, and he’s the last person In-ho would like to see visiting him in this hospital room.
The nurse nods. “Alright then. A doctor will come by to do a check up soon.”
He fiddles with his bandage. He notices the long-haired stranger watching him carefully from the foot of the bed. “When can I go home?”
“We’ll discharge you once a doctor has cleared you up.” The nurse removes her gloves and throws them in the trashbin. She looks at him again, her gaze turning from professional to sympathetic. “Mr. Hwang, one last thing. We’re going to ask a mental health professional to come in and talk to you later.”
He feels blood drain from his cheeks. “That’s not necessary.”
The nurse draws her lips in a tight line. “It’s standard protocol for suicide attempts.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself! I was drunk, and I slipped.”
“Well, my hands are tied. We can’t let you leave before you talk to a mental health professional.” She gives the stranger a brief look before she leaves. She seems just as confused about his presence in the room as In-ho feels. “Good luck, Mr. Hwang.”
The minute she’s out of the room, the stranger flops back into the chair by In-ho’s bed. His legs tangle together, too long for the small chair.
“You’re not very good at lying, are you?” He asks. He sounds amused, even though they were just discussing In-ho’s suicide attempt .
In-ho closes his eyes. He feels tired and frail, and he wants to be left the hell alone. “What are you still doing here?”
The man shrugs. “I don’t know, it didn’t feel right to leave you all alone in the ambulance. I figured I’d wait with you until someone from your family got here. And then they said your wife wasn’t picking up…”
A sudden coldness twists in his chest. “We’re separated,” he lies without thinking.
A soft flush creeps up the other man’s cheeks. In-ho is surprised to find that the splash of color suits him. What an odd thought. “Oh. Sorry. I just got divorced last year myself, so I know what that feels like. Did you guys have any kids before you broke things off?”
It’s an innocent question, but it pierces his heart like a bullet nonetheless. “No.”
“Probably good. We have a daughter, the divorce really took a toll on her.” The stranger hesitates, uncertainly marking his expression as he starts playing with his shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my problems.”
He doesn’t. In fact, he wants to be left alone, and be far away from any people, especially the man who had to pull him out of water as if he was a gutted fish.
In-ho suppresses a sigh of frustration. “What’s your name?”
“Seong Gi-hun.”
In-ho nods. He’ll ask Jun-ho to check the name in the police database later. Just to be safe.
“Thank you for your help,” he says without putting any real effort in expressing his gratitude. There’s nothing to thank Seong Gi-hun for, but maybe he needs to hear it so he can finally deem this whole ordeal over with and be on his way home.
Gi-hun waves him off dismissively. “Don’t mention it. Do you want me to wait for you to get discharged? I could help you get home, you probably shouldn’t be travelling alone.”
He realizes what Gi-hun reminds him of: teenage Jun-ho calling In-ho and trying to engage him in a conversation about football so he doesn’t have to sit down to do his homework. Seong Gi-hun is looking for a distraction, In-ho realizes. There’s some place he’s avoiding going, something he’s trying not to think about, and taking care of In-ho is helping him to feel useful. Like he’s doing something important instead of just wasting time.
He shakes his head. Encouraging this man is the last thing he should be doing. “No.”
“Okay. I’ll get out of your hair then.” Gi-hun gets up and grabs a windbreaker that In-ho is just now noticing has been discarded on the chair. As In-ho watches him head for the door, he’s hit with a wave of relief. Finally , he gets to be alone. But just as Gi-hun is about to leave, he suddenly turns around. “Listen. Can I buy you a soju?”
In-ho stares at him in bewilderment. Could this mean what he thinks it means? “What?”
But Gi-hun seems oblivious to In-ho’s interpretation of his proposal. “I think you’re lying to me, and probably lying to yourself, and you really did try to kill yourself.” It takes him a minute to realize that the expression the stranger is staring at him with is pity. “I don’t know you or your life, but I went through a lot of terrible shit last year and I know for a fact that suicide isn’t the answer. Maybe you just need a stranger to talk to.”
He squints at Seong Gi-hun, trying to gauge his intentions. Is he looking to, what, scam him? In-ho looks him up and down. His clothes are ratty and worn out, and he clearly hasn’t shaved or cut his hair in a while. There’s fresh grime and soil on his sleeves, although In-ho supposes that’s his own fault, since he probably had to get down and dirty trying to pull him out of the river.
In-ho used to be a cop; he’s in the business of judging people based on fleeting first impressions. It’s evident Gi-hun is not someone who has money. Maybe he’s a scammer, trying to prey on vulnerable people.
No, this is way too elaborate a plan for the kind of lowlife Seong Gi-hun appears to be. In-ho’s first instincts were correct. Gi-hun is looking for a distraction from whatever’s happening in his own life, and he chose In-ho.
Well, In-ho refuses to be somebody’s distraction.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he replies coldly.
“But it could help you.” Gi-hun takes another step in his direction. Out of his periphery In-ho notices the older man, a fellow patient, stirring in his sleep in the bed across the room. “Come on. I saved your life. You owe me.”
The awful thing is, Seong Gi-hun is right. Even though In-ho didn’t want to be saved, this man did risk his life trying to fish him out of the river. And he deserves some kind of a repayment.
In-ho scratches at the back of his neck. “I could pay you?”
He watches with great surprise as Gi-hun’s soft smile grows into a laugh that sounds so joyous and so real that In-ho frowns with growing worry about this man’s mental state. What’s even more surprising is that he finds himself jealous at how easily the laughter comes to Gi-hun. “Pay me for saving you from drowning? What, are you gonna tip me for giving you CPR, too?”
Gi-hun looks so sincere and innocent, standing there in front of In-ho with his nose scrunched up and messy hair falling into his eyes, as if he wasn’t addressing a guy who just tried to off himself. In-ho averts his gaze. He’s not a charity case. But he doesn’t quite know how to make Seong Gi-hun leave him alone without acting like an ungrateful ass in the process.
Even though he is an ungrateful ass. But something gnaws at him, maybe honor, or just good manners instilled in him years ago by his father, telling him that he needs to repay Gi-hun. For trying to save a man who doesn’t want to be saved.
“Okay, fine.”
Gi-hun beams at him. “Are you free on Friday? Maybe at seven?”
He gives a tight nod. The truth is, he’s not sure if he’ll still be around on Friday. But in case he is, well, he doesn’t have any plans for the rest of the week, month, year, you name it.
Gi-hun starts patting down his windbreaker, eventually pulling out a wallet. It’s old and soaked with water, and In-ho tries to stave off guilt at the thought of this down on his luck, distraction-seeking man having to buy a new wallet because he foolishly decided to jump into the Han river to pull out a suicidal stranger.
Gi-hun fishes out what looks like a business card, but it’s so waterlogged that he immediately breathes out a sigh of frustration and hides it back inside the wallet. He looks around the room with increasing frustration until his eyes fall on the bedside table of the old man sleeping across the room. In-ho watches, incredulous, as Gi-hun casually steals a small notebook and a pen that clearly must belong to that older patient.
Ah, so Seong Gi-hun doesn’t care about respecting other people’s property.
He tears a page from the notebook, writes something down swiftly, leaves the notebook and the pen with its sleeping owner, and comes back to In-ho’s bedside to thrust the piece of paper with his scribbles into his hand.
“It’s a chicken shop,” he explains as In-ho’s eyes hover over the address Gi-hun wrote down for him. His handwriting is messy. Who would have thought. “It’s nothing special, but it’s nice enough. You’re not going to bail on me, are you?”
He might. Even if he decides not to try and off himself again, chances are he’s going to stand Seong Gi-hun up. Or he’ll just be too drunk to remember to come. “No,” he replies, the lie rolling off his tongue easily. “I would just say no right now if I didn’t mean to come.”
Gi-hun stares at him with surprising scrutiny. In-ho tries not to squirm under his gaze. “Hm. Can you give me your phone number? In case we need to reschedule.”
In-ho sighs, uncaring how rude he’s coming off. “Fine.”
He dictates his phone number to Seong Gi-hun, who writes it down on another page hazardously stolen from the sleeping patient’s notebook. In-ho hesitates on the last digit. It’s probably not wise to give his phone number to this stranger, he realizes belatedly. If In-ho doesn’t show up on Friday, he has a feeling Gi-hun won’t stop blowing up his phone until he gets an answer. So he switches the last digit, dictating it to Gi-hun as a seven instead of a six.
Gi-hun hides the piece of paper in the back pocket of his still slightly wet jeans. “Thanks. I hope you get home okay. And, uh, you can call me if you feel like talking to someone, alright?” He stares at In-ho as if waiting for an answer. When In-ho doesn’t bother replying, leveling him with a bemused look instead, Gi-hun just sends him a warm smile. It’s difficult to break this man’s spirit, it seems. “Okay. See you on Friday.”
Seong Gi-hun walks into the door on his way around. In-ho closes his eyes and lets his head drop against the pillow. The hospital room smells like his wife’s dressing gown. He can’t wait to be out of here.
Jun-ho calls him a few hours later, just as In-ho’s getting on the bus home. He’s surprised his phone is still working. He never actually believed all the advertising about smartphones being waterproof. Well, if his phone survived taking a swim in the Han river, he suspects there’s very few things that could kill it. He wonders if the same applies to him.
Jun-ho’s voice explodes in his ear the second he picks up. “Hyung, where the hell are you?”
He grimaces and has to pull the phone away from his ear. Jun-ho’s yelling is not helping his headache. “Calm down, I’m fine.”
“Don’t lie to me, I know you’re not home. Did you sleep on the street again?”
Again . He finds an unoccupied seat in the back of the bus and steals it for himself. He almost died last night. He gets to take a seat on the bus this once.
“Yes. I’m coming back now.”
There’s a beat. He can basically hear the wheels turning in Jun-ho’s brain as he contemplates the best way to go about this. His little brother has found a new passion for walking on eggshells around In-ho. “Hyung, you have to stop doing this. She wouldn’t want you to live like that.”
“How did you know I wasn’t home?”
“I came by to take you out for breakfast.”
He shakes his head and tries to suppress the irritation already trying to take hold of him. He’s so very tired of Jun-ho acting like In-ho is the one in need of babysitting.
“You should have called first.”
Jun-ho huffs out a laugh. “So you could blow me off?”
He considers it. If he ignores Jun-ho again, he’ll probably invite himself into his home after work. In-ho might as well bite the bullet and meet him on his own terms. “Fine. Do you want to grab dinner after work?”
“Yeah.” Sudden noises and loud conversations suddenly fill the background of wherever Jun-ho is at right now. He probably just came into the police station. In-ho can’t help the sting of jealousy that spreads in his chest. “I’ll pick you up, yeah?”
He turns his head to stare out of the window. Seoul is bursting with life. Most people are on their way to work right now. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you later, hyung.”
It takes him almost a full hour to arrive back at his dorm room. The minute he steps inside, he removes his jacket and disregards it on the floor. He needs a shower, and a change of clothes. He can still smell the Han river on his own skin.
He thinks about the hospital. When he closes his eyes and tries to remember it, it mixes with the memory of his wife’s hospital rooms. The funny thing is, he doesn’t even remember what they looked like. The memories come through other senses: the smell of gauze and sterile needles, the soft blanket that In-ho took from home and insisted that they bring to every hospital she stayed at, the whispered conversations between nurses who thought In-ho was asleep. There’s no point in another treatment, I don’t know why they keep insisting on trying. They should let her die with a little dignity. This poor woman, did you hear her husband has been taking bribes?
He grabs a change of clothes and a towel. It seems he can’t even die right. Well, maybe last night was a sign that he needs to wait it out. It’s not that he has any hope that things will get better. It’s just that he can’t be bothered to try again. He’ll probably fail, just like he’s failed everything else he’s done in his life. He wonders what his father would say if he could see him now. It wouldn’t come off as a surprise that In-ho still doesn’t have it in himself to see something through.
He walks up to the desk and grabs his 2-in-1 hair and body wash from the box where he keeps his toiletries. His hands shake like an alcoholic going through withdrawal, and he drops the bottle. He bends down to pick it up from the floor, his joints cracking in protest.
As he reaches for the small bottle, something else catches his eye: a small piece of paper discarded on the floor. He grabs it and straightens up to inspect it. He doesn’t remember removing it from its last hiding place; he must have done it last night when he was drunk.
The tiny card with three symbols and a phone number in the back. It could fit in his phone case, or in his throat. The tiny card that flipped his life upside down.
His hand tightens around it. Wetness gathers in his eyes. He grabs the nearest book on his desk and shoves the card between its pages.