Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They search for a long time, but there’s nothing in the water other than tons of garbage and plastic. A whole variety of it, Simok notices, thinking back at all the environmental laws.

Beyond that, they find nothing, and soon after it’s too dark to look for anything. There’s a brief moment when Detective Han sees something in the muddy water that looks just like a cell phone. Black and boxy, with a screen shining against the late afternoon sun, only for it to turn to be nothing other than a scientific calculator. 

Simok walks back to the shore when this is over—though he never had much hope of finding anything. He’s already with both his shoes in one hand, and the socks in another, when Han Yeojin turns and calls for him, exclaiming loudly and waving a smelly hand.

Simok frowns; it’s hard to say if the smell is from his person, or her, or just the wind growing cold and stronger with the night.

“Oh, where are you going?” She asks, running away from the shore and up to him.

“Work,” He answers, pointing back at his car. Maybe if he went over the case more time… Or maybe if he could take a look at Seo Dongjae’s office again, there shouldn’t be anyone there at this hour—his mind is full of possibilities, but Simok knows there’s nothing of worth here anymore.

Not that Han Yeojin will have any of it.

“Work? It’s dark already.”

Simok hums. He glances at the horizon for a moment and considers, maybe it would be better to go home already, but that’s not the point to be made.

“We both work nights.” That is what he says instead. 

“Aiyoo, sure we do.” She says, still shaking one hand in the air while the other carries her shoes. She’s a mystery too, Simok thinks, the way she behaves with him so differently from others; the way it doesn’t bother him—if he feels such a thing—nearly as much as it would with others. “But it’s cold, we’re both wet and dirty, and well, it will be dinner time soon enough.”

At this, Simok looks down to his feet. They are wrinkled and sure enough, it’s easy to feel the oily wetness between his toes—he could use a bath, and it had been some time since lunch; another one he barely had.

As if agreeing with it, there’s a small stab of pain in his stomach, with a lesser sound following it. When Simok looks up again, Yeojin is just a few feet away from him with a face just as frowny.

“Let’s go,” She says, putting a cold and somewhat wet hand on his covered elbow. It leaves a dark spot on the black overcoat, but Simok’s focus is on the hand—the one that keeps steering him to places. “We should have some barbecue, like Jang Geon said—he’s probably there already. You haven’t eaten, have you? I’m right, you haven’t.”

Reasonably, Simok follows.

Chapter Text

The barbecue place that Jang Geon talked about is a little restaurant tucked away some neighborhoods from where they are. On the way there, Simok calls Han Yeojin twice. The first to ask where exactly he is going and the second one is that he hangs up moments before she almost picks up.

When Simok brings up his question—whether they will be kicked out because of the smell—it’s after they have already parked in front of the place and the Lieutenant is quick to dismiss it. We’re old customers here, she says, Ahjumoni will put a table for us in the back and it’ll be fine.

Because she is the one who knows the place, Simok concedes to it. Not that he usually protests, but with Han Yeojin he concedes to a great number of things.

Just so, the elderly woman who receives them at the door doesn’t do much other than look at him and say: ah, you’re new, before pointing out to another glass door at the other side of the amalgamate of tables and people sitting around them. She closes the door right after, stopping the cold wind from invading and shooing them inside.

“Call me when you’re ready to order,” She tells them, before moving back into where he imagines the kitchen is.

The customers they pass by don’t share the same uncaring attitude to the odor and, inevitably, Simok ends up looking back at the unbothered owner.

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Yeojin says when she notices his looks. “Our station comes here often, so she’s seen all sorts of things. But sure, we eat a lot so I think that’s why no one really minds.”

‘No one’ being the owner he guesses, but she is the one who chooses who does or doesn’t frequents the establishment, so Simok nods along to the theory.

They cross the room with a minimum of displeased whispers and turned noses before opening the second door, letting in another rush of the chilling air as the back of the restaurant appears.

“Ah, there he is,” She says, nodding towards Detective Jang—needlessly, as he is the only one sitting out on the patio, huddling into himself against the cold and too distracted with his phone to notice them. “You go ahead, I’ll find the restroom.”

Simok nods, only stopping for a moment to watch her retreat back into the warmer space and fade away with the murky glass before walking towards the table and greeting Detective Jang.

“Oh, you’re here,” He says, bowing back at Simok. It’s a short nod, casual almost. “The Lieutenant…?”

“In the restroom,” Simok answers simply, sitting down across from him. It’s a little awkward arrangement with the size of the table, but he imagines that if all of the team from Yongsan Station would sit here it would be a nosy and cluttered group making this little patio outback perfect for it.

“Ah,” Jang Geon says, nodding along a little awkwardly.

Suddenly, without the shared goal of investigating something or Han Yeojin’s shared familiarity, the silence turns heavier—not that it’s much of a bother to Simok, mostly he is just glad that his socks are drier under the table with a portable stone, the growing heat of it the only making their stay outside more comfortable. Maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas to leave their shoes on the car, Simok considers, glancing under the table to find Detective Jang a flip-flop with his own slightly wet socks; the origin of those a mystery.

“Usually this is the part where we toast and introduce ourselves—” The detective says when the silence stretches for too long; somewhere inside the restaurant there’s a group of people laughing boisterously. Friends, Simok thinks. “But I think that’s a little late, right?”

If joining a last-minute pursuit of a suspect and ending knee-deep in foul-smelling waters serves as an introduction, “I supposed,” He agrees, peeking back inside. “Besides, I don’t drink.”

Simok doesn’t move back to see Jang Geon’s reaction; it’s always the same when he tells people that. ‘Not even when you go out with friends?’ a newly installed Eunsoo had asked him when he first told her that, after her invitation to a group dinner with some other colleagues—it was an informal reunion, the kind that people never invited him to. ‘I don’t go out’ was all the answers he offered before going back to work. The friends bit didn’t need to be addressed.

In hindsight, Simok can just be thankful for it. Those dinners, the ones where his colleagues left their ties hanging loose or not at all and drunk and ate too much before convincing some newbie at the end of the ladder to pay for it all, those dinners were the ones to lead into karaoke and bars, and their owners offering imported drinks and smiling bar girls.

Simok does know it. Once, he had been just like Young Eunsoo, unaware of the workings outside the offices and invited to those social occasions and nights out, except that, from the moment he rejected his second invitation, there were no third ones; his silent presence too much of a downer, Seo Dongjae himself had said it when Simok was just a rookie under him.

Yet, when he looks back at himself, Simok finds that his tie is gone, the pants of his leg similarly raised as one would after too much drinking. It doesn’t help the crunching feeling on his stomach—just hunger, he files it away—, these memories of friendly and bribery being much synonymous.

Not that silence around them can be described as a comfortable one.

“Aren’t you worried,” Simok has to ask, on the disclosure of those memories. “That I am the culprit?”

At his words, Detective Jang looks up, a startled look on his face leaving Simok to wonder: what was the most surprising of it? The straightforwardness experience tells him. Either way, the man shrugs after a moment, shaking his hands vaguely in front of himself as if saying: don’t worry about it.

“Eh, not much. Truth is: when I heard from Sargent Kim about the prints—that we couldn’t bring you in for questioning. Ah, I was mad—we all were.”

“But…” Simok pushes, knowing there is more.

“But then, Lieutenant Han told us about the reenactment and well, she insisted it made no sense for you to be the culprit. I suppose that was it.”

After a moment, Simok hums along. I suppose that was it, simple as that.

“But I do have a question.” He nods, curious. “Why did you ask for my help, today?”

Yes, that. Why did he ask for Detective Jang’s help? “I didn’t,” Simok answers, with a vague movement of his own. “I asked for the Lieutenant’s assistance and she said the plan would work better with a backup.”

Jang Geon frowns, head tilting to the side. It would be a great moment for the owner to show up and ask for their orders.

“So, you just trusted her.” It sounds more like a question than anything else. “I mean, I didn’t know you too were working together all this time. Well, I can see it now.” He huffs.

Simok blinks, considering the words for a moment. Has he trusted her? It all depends on Han Yeojin, he told her when they first shared information on Park Moosung’s case, Who that person is—who she has been so far?

Necessity posed them together, each holding a piece of the same puzzle, but that wasn’t all, was it?

“You were her backup,” He still says, leaving the matter be. Who Han Yeojin trusts to protect her is her choice in the end.

For some reason, Detective Jang opens his mouth, frowning at him. Still, whatever his question, the movement stops when they both hear the squeaking sound of the glass door opening.

“Oh my,” Yeojin starts, entering the patio without blinking at the cold and sitting left of Simok—with a surprising light slap at his back. “Aren’t you sitting up straight?” She says, sounding oddly proud.

It’s a familiar repetition of the first time they ate together—when he revealed the truth about her Chief and Kwon Minah—but Simok is still stunned to see her beside him and not her co-worker. Yeojin, unaware of this is already talking away with Detective Jang.

“You should stop at the Station, honestly. Shower and change, spare your wife of this smell!” It is a terrible smell. “It’s even picking at my appetite a little.”

“Sure, sure,” Jang Geon says, his frown slowly fading. “Now, what shall we have... Pork belly, maybe spicy pork? What do you like, Prosecutor Hwang?”

Simok considers it, without any particular preference, “Both seem fine.”

“We should have some beef,” Yeojin speaks, sneaking a glance at him and then waving a hand at the foggy glass. He just hopes someone can see it. “A good beef to reward ourselves for the good work.”

A hand on the other side of the glass waves back, but Simok can’t tell if it is the Ahjumoni or just the loud group from earlier.

“It’s likely much won’t come out of it,” He comments instead, thinking of their wrinkled fingers and the drowned calculator.

“Still,” Jang Geon nods, “We did our best—and there’s nothing like some good food to raise spirits.”

Simok nods along, at this point, he is certain that discussing with Han Yeojin, more so with the addition of Detective Jang, is not a task for the weary mind. Yet, it’s not much of a bother, less so as a waitress comes by to take their others and leave them with rice and some kimchi and pajeori to peck at.

“Oh, should I have introduced you two?” Yeojin says, a little suddenly settling her chopstick down after the silence comes back.

Jang Geon laughs, “Nah, we already agreed on that,” He says, lightly.

Yeojin nods, seeming pleased at that, “Of course, you have,” She says, turning to Simok, “When I first got to Yongsan station, our Detective Jang here was the first one to welcome me—he even brought me here.”

Unsurprisingly, Simok can do it. Friends, he thinks once more watching Lieutenant Han turning back to her co-worker; what a concept.

“You two will get along well.” She tells him, “The other day, I took him our Prosecutor Hwang here to dinner and he didn’t leave a smidgen on his bow. That’s because he doesn’t eat a lot.”

Simok opens his mouth to protest but closes it a moment later. It’s mostly dinner he skips, but the grin on Detective Jang’s face is too fascinating to stop.

“Then, I shall grill some meat for both of you,” Jang Geon adds, pushing some of the kimchi around the heating grill. They should probably stop eating or there wouldn’t be any side dishes by the time they meat find them, but still, no one stops.

“Sure,” Yeojin agrees. “We should eat well and sleep well.”

“Regain our strength so we can go back and catch this guy,” The detective adds; it’s as solid as everything is with the two of them, Simok realizes.

On that, he can always agree.

His tie is long lost, but oddly, Hwang Simok doesn’t feel corrupted.

“Let’s catch him,” Simok says, grateful to notice the return of their waitress with some marinated galbi. His stomach grumbles quietly, but he still doesn’t rush.

They should eat well and work well. Who knows? Maybe there could be another dinner afterward.