Sung Gyu didn’t think he still loved her, and when he placed a hand on his chest, he could feel it too. It wasn’t that he loved her that broke his heart; things like that, things so sensitive and in his mind, so superfluous wouldn’t have hurt him. He’d lived his entire life, being unloved, being thrown on the back burner for better things. His parents had him for the sake of having him, for his sister he was just another competitor she could win against. If there was anyone who had even an ounce of love towards him, that would be his niece; but then again, she was just a child. When she’d grown old enough to see the harsh reality of life, her beloved uncle would be nothing to her. Sung Gyu had always imagined that he was someone who’d die alone and disperse into the wind; it had never bothered him. But that night, he supposed, what hurt him the most was not that Yeri had perhaps loved him, actually loved him; but he’d been too blind to it the whole time and failed to realise it. What hurt him the most was that he had never been loved that he didn’t know what it felt like to be loved, so much so that he had ignored and thrown her away.

He still didn’t love her, but when he left her that night for the last time, his heart shattered inside. Perhaps, she deserved a chance, and he should have known. Perhaps she’d been the only actual person in his life to have loved him, and he had just let her go.

Before he left, he told her to be careful, and also that she might possibly be contacted by the NIS to come in for questioning. He begged her to not to let her parents know; that would be a sure-fire course of his parents learning about it too. Yeri held his arm, as if she understood it was the very last time and asked him to be careful himself. ‘Tell me if you need anything’ she whispered to him as she hugged him for the last time; but both she and Sung Gyu knew for a fact that it was never going to happen.

That night, once he arrived home, he was surprised by how everything remained exactly how he’d left them but so many things in his life had changed. Momo came to welcome him, as always, rubbing past his legs and meowing in this sort of affectionate way that he felt was the only form of love he’d ever receive. He carried her to the kitchen, refilled her feeder, picked up the six pack he recently got from the market, a bottle of Soju and a plastic cup; then he locked the house behind him and crept up the stairs to the rooftop.

As much as it was his safe haven, as it happens, it was the same for somebody else too. He was surprised and irritated to find it already occupied, but then a sense of relief crept in upon seeing the size of the occupant and their short hair dancing in the chilled wind. Just what he needed right now. He slowly traversed across the concrete floor towards the bench that she was seated on, a couple of glass bottles on her side. He gazed at her from the behind for a split of a moment, feeling strangely giddy in her presence, and he cleared his throat. “You’re taking up my space, Jung”

Hyerim whipped around, her hair in her face and eyes widened in surprise. Her expression was soon replaced by a mischievous smile. He found it endearing. “You don’t own it, Kim”

Sung Gyu shrugged and made his way towards her, and she wordlessly cleared some space for him. It felt almost natural to be seated side-by-side to one another, basking in their own comfort and silence, as if it was something that they mutually agreed on.

Sung Gyu reached into his pocket and produced a cigarette and his lighter. But just as he rested the stick between his teeth, Hyerim reached out and tugged it off his mouth. Then she vigorously crushed it underneath her boot.

“What the do you have against my cigarettes?” he asked her mildly and was surprised when she offered him a lime flavoured Chupa-Chups.

“Because I don’t want you to die soon” She said, watching him as he carefully unwrapped the candy.

He scoffed. “Like you care”

“You’re right, I don’t” She grinned.

“Then I take it as you carry lollipops at your dispense all the time” Sung Gyu said as he popped the candy into his mouth.

Hyerim shrugged. A moment, and she prodded the concrete ground with the top of her scuffed leather boot. “no, its just I hate cigarettes...after my father died”

Sung Gyu turned to face her, realising that they’d be delving into a part of her life that he hadn’t seen before. “Your father?”

“Mmhm” She nodded her head. “He was a police officer, the coolest one I’ve known” She laughed fondly, perhaps, at memories of a beautiful past. “After my mum left me, he singlehandedly raised me; couldn’t have been easy for him. I wasn’t a particularly nice kid”

Sung Gyu cracked open a can from his six set and handed it to her. “Yes, I can see that”

She laughed again, a pleasant melody in his ears. “I thought he didn’t mind much, but perhaps he did because he never really let it show...I miss him, my dad” She sighed and looked down at her feet where the crushed cigarette still lied, now broken, like remnants of a painful past.

“Is it because of him...? That you joined the police too?” Sung Gyu asked her, his eyes focused ahead, his own can of chilled bear in his hand.

“Yeah...” She breathed out heavily, and by the corner of his eyes he could see her sipping from her can. “Thanks for the beer by the way”

“No problem” Sung Gyu raised his own can as if in a treaty. And then silence for a little too long.

“He must be pretty proud of you” He told her, noticing her extended moment of quietness. Sung Gyu wasn’t used to Hyerim being so quiet in his presence. She was so loud and frustrating, he could swear there had never been a moment that she would shut up, to the point that she nearly the sort of things that she shouldn’t numerous times. He glanced down at her, searching for the effects of what he’d just told her. Hyerim was smiling, a tiny twinkle in her eyes. The lights coming from the city was slightly falling upon her pristine skin. It was strange, really. He felt his heart skip a little beat.

“I don’t know...” Hyerim sighed in the end. “I as a police woman. Nothing I do work out fine”

“That’s because you’re too impulsive” He pointed out, referring to the recent turn of events with regards to his investigation.

“Thanks” Hyerim pouted. “Great help”

“Don’t mention it” Sung Gyu grinned. Then silence.

“But honestly” he piped up a moment later. “I think you’re a pretty decent police woman. I mean, you know...stuff” he cleared his throat, realising he wasn’t making much sense.

“Stuff” Hyerim spluttered and broke into a fit of giggles. She had quite a pleasant laughter, he noted, surprising himself. Sung Gyu had known Hyerim for his entire stay in the apartment building, he’d crossed path with her enough to say that he knew her like an open book; but as they dropped their guard before each other, something new about her seemed to come up to the surface. Strangely, Sung Gyu was beginning to see little charms of her that he seemed to have never noted before; the sound of her laughter, that odd little dimple on the corner of her chin when she smiled, the way her eyes smiled and curled up on the edge, that distinct sound she seemed to make as she plunged into her thoughts; things that he found oddly endearing, as if he was folding the pages of her mystery, a woman who’d been in his life for so long and he’d never known.

They fell into a comfortable moment of silence then, both staring out at the vast horizon, the city lightening up the night sky with a line of yellow lights. The moment was tranquil, just what he needed to contemplate in, to allow his mind to unravel and allow all his qualms to float away into the nether. During that time, Sung Gyu thought of his Ex-wife, of what ifs and could have beens which he was certain would haunt him as long as he lasted. How could he not have known? How could he have been so wrong? He had thought, being a judge, it had given him the luxury of reading people right off the first page. During the time of his experience as a judge, he had deducted the lives of numerous strangers forward and back, made judgements and conclusions solely based on their words and emotions inflicted in their eyes. That entire time, however, he had failed. He had failed as a judge, as a husband, as a man. He had failed to understand that perhaps, all this time what he had misinterpreted had been love all along, perhaps the only kind of love he’d ever receive, and he’d been so close yet so far away until it was gone forever. Sung gyu didn’t think he’d ever be able to forgive himself.

“What brings you up here, Kim?” Hyerim’s voice floating into his mind felt like a rain across his drought of a heart. He glanced at her and shrugged. He was slightly drunk and exhausted, his head was pounding after having been filled with everything that transpired in a matter of hours and now frankly, he needed a release.

By some luck, just the right person happened to be in his company, and he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t have to. Sung Gyu pursed his lips for a moment, gazing down at the tip of her left boot scuffing onto the cement. He let out a sigh. “Yeri and I finally got divorced today...” He felt her stiffen a little beside him, but for some reason, that urged him to carry on. “She’s getting married again, and...” He hesitated, playing for time as he fiddled with the ring on top of his can, the lollipop melting in is other hand.

“She’s going to have a baby...”

There was no reaction for a moment. No sharp intake of breath, no stiffening, no gasping, just silence. He thought she hadn’t heard him speak, he thought she simply didn’t care. When he finally dared to glance at her, however, she was gazing at him intently as if she was trying to read through his mind.

“Grim” She said upon meeting his eyes. There wasn’t much emotion to her words, just casual, conversational. But it wasn’t hard to sense the slight tension underlying in her tone. “How do you know? Did she tell you that?”

He glanced at her and smiled sadly. “I’m not blind”

There was a beat of silence, during which he realised what she was getting at. He could almost feel the strain radiating from every pore of her, but he kept quiet and to himself.

There was a small breathiness in the way she spoke next.

“Then...what about, what about...?”

He knew what that meant, and certainly, he didn’t have to think twice. “It’s not me”

Sung Gyu could swear he heard her sighing in relief.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, about Yeri having a child. But he certainly was not relieved. In the back of his mind, a voice was telling him, she’d gotten everything that he wanted. He knew it deep inside that perhaps, a child could have fixed things, although he hated the idea of using one as a scapegoat to their failing marriage. Perhaps, had he given it time, things would have worked out, a baby would have made them happy and whatever they had between them could have faded away. A bad patch. Perhaps that’s indeed what they had going on between them, and Sung Gyu just refused to understand that.

But how could he have worked it out? He didn’t love her, and he didn’t even know that she loved him in return. How could it have worked?

“So...what are you going to do?” Hyerim asked him slowly, as if she was walking on eggshells. He was glad she understood just how sensitive he felt about it.

“Nothing” He shrugged, and had a long slug of his beer, allowing the cold sourness trickle down his throat like waves. He closed his eyes and groaned afterwards, shaking his head as if that very action would rid him of all the qualms in his mind.

It was then that he felt it, her hand a light weight on his arm. For some reason, he felt warm where she touched him, sparks exuding underneath his skin.

“Don’t think too much...” She said lightly, her voice almost a whisper in the warm breeze. “Who knows? Maybe one day you’d meet another woman who would love you, and you two would pop a dozen of cute little things”

Sung Gyu found himself laughing at the way she worded it, and he had a sudden image of a dozen of little babies flooding his apartment; and strangely, the woman figure in his mind was none other than Hyerim herself, laughing her weird laughter and being the adorable little self that she always was. Sung Gyu tried to shake the image away from his mind, but for that moment, it was endearing.

Hyerim laughed along with him, her voice a light tinkle in the humid air, like wedding chimes. He glanced at her, and his heart stopped for a moment. Is this how Hyerim looked when she laughed? Her eyes were disappearing into little crescent moons, her set of teeth a line of white pearls, and when she threw her head back, her hair did a small dance in the wind; the light coming from the city fell on her skin, and for a moment, he was mesmerized.

Hyerim looked at him, still laughing as his own laughter died down. They stared at each other for a little too long, her eyes falling into his and looking right into the depths of them, making him feel self-conscious. He cleared his throat and turned away to drink from his can.

“I’m...I’m not thinking about marriage again” Sung Gyu informed her a little later. The cheerful ambiance from a moment ago had most certainly dissipated, and Sung Gyu was suddenly so acutely aware of her presence beside him. He gazed down at his hands holding the can. “With everything that’s happening right now, I can’t simply bring in another person let alone...a child into my life” He let out a heavy sigh. “I will ruin their lives...just like I ruined hers”

A moment of silence ensued afterwards, during which Sung Gyu mulled over the possibilities. There was none, if he was to be honest. There was no way that he would even consider getting tangled up again. His marriage had left him with nothing but a scar, one that would remain on his frail heart as long as he lasted, and also a black mark on his career, one he could have avoided but simply didn’t have the liberty to. In a way, he was just afraid. Afraid of what one bring upon him, afraid of how that would destroy him further, how he’d destroy another. Love was not for him. It had never been; from the day he was born and had opened his eyes to the world. It simply wasn’t something that he had the heart to accept or deliver.

“If that’s what you want” Sounded Hyerim’s voice in the quietness of the night, and he turned to face her. “Then it’s fine as well...” Hyerim smiled at him and patted on his arm. “You will be okay. Once all of this pass, you’d realise that it was all just...temporary. One day, you’d be happier. But for now...” She sighed and looked far ahead. “It’s okay”

Temporary...happier...The truth was, those were the sort of things that Sung Gyu found it hard to believe in. Back in college, he had thought perhaps his parents would come out of that phase, the phase of seeing only faults in him, seeing him only through the eyes that they’d always seen his sister. He’d believed that perhaps, it was just temporary, they would change, they’d finally see his worth as he became exactly what they wanted him to be. He graduated, passed the bars with flying colours, entered the profession of jurisdiction early for his age and finally proved his worth. But by that time, that particular ship had long sailed away. His sister was getting married; what more to expect? He was the man who dated women here and there, never settled for one, never capable of love. He should have known that happiness and temporality had never been in the attributes of his life. True, he understood the impermanency of everything. But the things that made him miserable never seemed to fade away.

But for that moment, he wanted to believe her, he wanted to trust her words to carry any sense of truth. Perhaps, he wouldn’t end up going to jail. It would all turn around. He would be happier, his parents would be prouder, he would be worthy of something and people would start seeing him for his truest self. As the night became colder and the city lights grew dimmer, Sung Gyu wanted to hold onto that hope as hard as he could. Yes, that’s what it was. Perhaps, he did have hope.

And that seemed to be what glowed incessantly in Hyerim’s dark pools of eyes.

“Hm?” Hyerim blinked at him, a small smile donning her lips. She looked quite beautiful that night; he had to admit. He liked the way her hair did this thing across her face, and how she kept pushing the strands back from getting into her eyes. He noticed how a thin fringe had stuck to the moist of her lips and fought the strange urge he had to run his fingers along them.

He cleared his throat and looked away. “I...I hope you’re right” He said, for the lack of better things to say.

Hyerim laughed, and then they both fell into quietness, staring across the vast universe as the world continued before them. The sky was starless, the yellow in the horizon had started dimming. But somewhere down in the street, someone was playing music so loud that they could literally hear it up in the ninth floor. Sung Gyu glanced at her for a briefest moment, and noticed the obvious distort in her eyes.

He wondered if it was his cue to comfort her, ask her of her wellbeing. But before he could even form an appropriate question in his mind, her voice crossed through the quietness between them.

“So both us had trouble with the Ex tonight” She muttered, her eyes focused right ahead and tone so poised, almost unperturbed.

Sung Gyu turned to her, trying to make the sense of her words. “So that’s why you’re up here?”

She sighed and gazed down at her scuffed shoes, hand holding the can hanging over her knee. “I did what you suggested. I went out to lunch with him”

Sung Gyu blinked. If he was to be honest, at that very moment, he could hardly remember what he could have told her earlier that day. He said nothing, and as if she understood what it meant, she gave him a tight smile. “Woohyun, I mean”

It took a quiet moment for the truth to dawn upon him. “Wait” he started and widened his eyes. “Woohyun is-,”

“My ex, yes” Hyerim sighed and tilted her head. “Well, it’s more like, I don’t know...almost? On-and-off? We have a strange thing going on, Woohyun and I. He has...commitment issues. One moment, he’s all over me. The other, he’d rather if we remained co-workers or friends. I wanted to end it. But then he asked what there was to end...” She pursed her lips and chuckled bitterly as she gazed ahead. “Honestly I don’t understand what he expects of me.... I’m just, pushed and pulled around-,”

“I’m sorry” Sung Gyu said, interrupting her. He could hardly look her in the eyes, overcome with guilt. For some reason, he couldn’t bear listening to her, the weight and the remorse in her words, that pain, that regret. Even worse, he hated himself for not knowing whereas she had known almost everything about Yeri and him and had mostly taken his side. There was no wonder that people left him, never loved him. A self-centred fool, he was. He should never have done that, what he did in the morning. He shouldn’t have-,

“What for?” Hyerim asked him, and he was surprised to see her smiling.

“No, uhm” He cleared his throat. “About this morning. I didn’t know...I mean, I always thought he looked sort of dodgy, but I didn’t know that-,”

“That I had such a terrible taste in men?” Hyerim offered, and the look in her face at that point made him smile.

“No, I mean...yeah, that too” He replied.

Hyerim laughed and shook her head. “Well, he is not a bad person, to be honest. He is...alright. But he just can’t make up his mind, at this point he’s just using me”

“Doesn’t sound like a good person either” Sung gyu pointed out to her, gesturing with the can of beer in his hand. And then he took a large gulp of it in hopes it would tone down his guilt.

Hyerim shrugged. “We’ve been going back and forth for three years at least. I’m tired. I’d rather just...not have him at all”

Sung Gyu glanced up at her. “Why don’t you just leave?”

“Then I’d have to leave my job as well” She replied with a sad smile. There was silence for a moment, and in that quietness Sung gyu devoured on his beer, his thoughts unreeling. How come he never knew that Hyerim had a boyfriend of three years? How come he had never seen him before? He must have visited her at her flat, surely. He must have been a bigger part of her, as big as Yeri had been for him. Then how had he not known anything about her while Hyerim seemed to know and understand everything about him?

He knew that he hadn’t any responsibility over her. There was no reason why he should know anything. But for some reason, he just couldn’t shake that guilt away. It was almost as if he owed that to her.

“You know, on the other hand, I can’t imagine myself without him either” Hyerim’s voice cut into the silence after a while. Sung Gyu looked down at her, only to see that she had stretched back, her weight resting on her arms. Sung Gyu felt something stirring alive inside him. She looked strong and vulnerable at the same time; a strangely exquisite combination.

“Why not?” He ventured out.

“Because...I don’t know. He’s all I have. Without him, I’ll be alone; I’ll be lonely...” She suddenly sat up then and looked up at him in grim determination. “I think it’s not about him after all. It’s about me. I’m using him to not feel lonely and he’s using me to, I don’t know, cater to his needs”

It must have been the heat of the moment, everything that happened in the span of that time taking a toll on him; but he felt her, he understood her. He realised, with a pang that their life had been similar to each other in a way that he had never imagined.

As much as he wanted to bring this up to her, he failed miserably in putting his feelings into words. Sung Gyu wetted his lips, his eyes focused only down at his feet. “That’s pretty messed up” He told her and realised that it’s been the same for him as well; perhaps even worse. He and Yeri had been married.

“It is...it is...” Hyerim agreed, her voice sounded distant and preoccupied; as if she had more stirring in her mind. “But you know what’s more messed up?”

Sung Gyu turned to her and raised his brows.

“I keep wanting him. Not because I love him, I don’t think I would after all he’d done to me. I keep wanting him because I’m afraid of being alone”

Sung Gyu felt a sharp pain coursing right through him. He could relate to her, to that very emotion, perhaps in a spiritual level. He parted his lips to respond, but she beat it to him.

“You know, I have this crazy messed up idea in my mind that I would be one of those people who’d disappear, and nobody would even realise that” She continued, her eyes focused far ahead across the horizon. “We had a case once; a disappearance of this girl. She’d lived alone; her and her pet dog. You know, nobody knew that she’d disappeared for two days; only when her dog started barking all through the night that her neighbours realised that she hadn’t been home for a long time...” She let out a heavy sigh, lowering her head, and Sung Gyu gazed at her as an indescribable emotion urged him to comfort her. He kept his composure; but he wasn’t sure if he could for too long. “We found her...she was alright, but...what I realised is that it could have been me, and I don’t even have a dog to bark when I’m gone” She ended with a bitter laugh.

“Is that why you stay with Woohyun?” Sung Gyu asked her gently, and she nodded in response.

Sung Gyu nodded back and turned away with a heavy sigh. “Well, just for your information, I’m there right across the corridor”

“But you don’t bark” Hyerim said, smiling.

“I don’t” Sung gyu nodded in agreement. “But I can check on you...I will check on you”

For his amazement, Hyerim scoffed in response. “Right. If you bash on my door to yell at me, I’ll take it as checking on me”

“Come on it was just that one time” Sung gyu rolled his eyes.

“Three times” Hyerim grinned, looking up at him. Sung Gyu stared down at her, as he couldn’t remember the other two times for the life of him. But then, perhaps seeing his perplexed expression, Hyerim burst out laughing.

“Once you got drunk and locked yourself out” She reminded him through her cackles. He had a hard time recalling that moment; all for the reason that he couldn’t remember much from the times that he’d gotten appallingly drunk. But he could vaguely extract that memory of himself, drunkenly leaning against the wall, struggling to punch in the pass code and failing miserably in his every attempt. He’d had a terrible day; perhaps a lunch out with his family or an argument with Yeri, he couldn’t remember. He got easily frustrated when his mind wasn’t at peace. It was perhaps after his umpteenth attempt that he’d trudged over to the opposite door around the corner and started bashing at the door frantically. Hyerim had opened the door, a towel turban atop her head; and that was the time that Sung Gyu had most unwillingly told her his passcode, hence her walking into his apartment in many unsuspecting occasions.

He hadn’t known at that moment that a large part of him had shifted in his life.

“That’s just two times” Sung Gyu shrugged, hiding his smile. He hadn’t realised that Hyerim had been there for him a lot more than he could possibly recall.

“Oh, and remember that time when Momo ran away and you-,”

He could hardly remember that moment; it was just a couple of weeks after she moved into the flat, and he’d been frantically looking for Momo all over the corridors after the cat escaped while he was trying to unload the grocery inside. He went and knocked on all the doors in the corridor, asking if they’d seen the cat. It was perhaps the first time that both Sung Gyu and Momo met Hyerim, Sung Gyu having knocked on her door and Momo having somehow slipped in and used her still unpacked baggage as a scratch post.

“I liked the cat more” Hyerim put in, laughing as she recalled the very same moment herself.

“Right. Because she ruined your bag” He replied.

“At least she didn’t look like I was burdening her” She raised her eyes at him and smiled. Sung gyu just smiled back; it was almost natural for him. It’s been ages since their first encounter, and a lot had changed between them since then. They’ve developed a comfortable dynamic between them; friends by choice, neighbours by default. And it was a comfort, knowing her. It was a comfort to have someone who understood him at a time when the entire world stood against him.

“You know” He started, as it occurred to him that its time that she should know. “You’re not going to disappear like her”

“Hm?” Hyerim perked up, and she’d stolen the lolly from him without him realising it. She now had it in .

“You are not going to disappear” He reiterated, this time, firmly. “It’s not going to happen”

“Yeah well, nobody wants to kidnap me anyway” Hyerim laughed.

“That’s not what I meant” Sung Gyu sighed and turned to her. “Look, Jung. You’ve done so much for me and I feel like I owe it to you. So you’ve got me right across the corridor, you call me whenever you need me, and I’ll be there”

Hyerim halted for a moment, staring at him dazedly. Then she pulled the lolly out of . “How sweet of you”

“I’m serious” Sung Gyu added determinedly. “I mean, you’ve helped me so much and-,”

“I didn’t expect anything in return” Hyerim replied. Sung Gyu halted at what he was about to say, only to turn and gaze at her. She looked back at him, the look in her eyes unreadable, her hair flying across her face.

Sung Gyu had always thought that Yeri was the most complex woman he had ever met. Her expressions didn’t reflect her emotions; her smiles always felt like a mask, curtaining away the sort of things she’d never put into words. As he’d understood now, it was him who’d made her complicated; he’d tried to see right through her, and in turn he’d misinterpreted her intentions, read through the lines of things which were just out there in the open for everyone to see. When she’d loved him, he’d thought it was burdensome, when she’d shown him affection, he’d thought she was prying into his life. Everything she’d been, he’d turned and twisted them around until the image of her in his mind had disfigured, and he’d held onto the version of her that he’d created for so long.

Jung Hyerim was nothing like her. Hyerim was complicated; it wasn’t something he was trying to make up. It’s been easy to read Yeri’s eyes; what’s been hard was accepting how he’d interpreted her actions. Hyerim, on the other hand was too difficult to even read let alone understand. If Yeri was like jurisdiction laws, Hyerim was ing Proust.

“That’s...” Sung Gyu started and cleared his throat. “That’s not what I meant...”

Hyerim just smiled gently and gazed away at the dimming lights of the city before them. It had to be past midnight now, and the city had begun to lose its colour. But that did nothing to the brilliance in her eyes.

“You don’t need to take care of me” She started, a small smile gracing her lips. “I’m not that kind of a person. I’d rather just...have you there. Just like you are right now”

Sung Gyu mulled it over for a moment. “You mean, like a companion” He replied.

Hyerim turned to him, her smile still visible, and blinked drunkenly at him. He had a hard time trying to decipher her expression; whatever that possibly meant, the look in her eyes. She then patted him slowly on his hand. “You feel alone too, don’t you?”

Sung Gyu gulped hard at the implication of her words. “That’s just what you think...”

“We can take care of each other” Hyerim continued as if she hadn’t even heard him. “Two lonely people who don’t want to die alone in their apartments...that makes quite a pair, doesn’t it?”

“What?” Sung Gyu blinked. Not once had he considered the possibility of him dying alone in his apartment. But now that she’d put it into words, the horror of the event finally settled in side him like a haunting reminder.

“Don’t worry that won’t happen” Hyerim went on as if it was any consolation and handed him his half-eaten lollipop. “You can have it if you still want it”

Sung Gyu glanced at the candy and then back at her. “Dying alone in the apartment is the last thing I’m worried about” He reminded her.

“What does that mean?”

Sung Gyu raised his brows and had a sip of his beer. He did not accept the lollipop. It just felt too intimate to have it back from her. “South Korea’s most wanted” He said.

“Ah...there you are, doing that again” Hyerim groaned into the quietness of the night.

“Doing what?”

Hyerim shrugged and sipped her beer herself. Then she turned to him, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “You know, sometimes you make me wonder if you’re so eager to go to jail”

Sung Gyu spluttered. “What made you think that?”

“The way you make it sound like”

“I’m just being realistic” He replied gravely, wishing that indeed, it wasn’t the truth. He had actually calculated the possibility of him getting a jail sentence. There was a chance that he could get pardoned by court, yet he wished they wouldn’t need to go to trial. Jail would ruin him, but trial would ruin him all the same. Jail or no jail, his life wouldn’t be the same again.

Hyerim let out a heavy sigh and turned to him. “Look. Woohyun might be an but as an investigator, he’s brilliant. You’re not going to jail; I can assure that”

Sung Gyu nodded, pursed his lips and looked down at his feet. “It’s not jail that I’m worried about” He said.

“We’ll make sure nothing makes it to the media as well” Hyerim continued.

Sung Gyu couldn’t help but scoff in response. Hyerim could be good at her work, but sometimes she could be naïve in her thinking. There wasn’t anything that could possibly avoid reaching the media. The informants were still unidentified, the ones who raided his flat are yet to be caught. It’s not too far from the news reaching the main stream media and his face will be all over the place. There’s nothing that a good investigator could do against the media. It’s a force that nobody could merely fight against.

“Sometimes you just need to have faith, Kim” She added in as an end note, and Sung Gyu nodded, allowing her to have her ways. He wished there was a way. He just wished. But seeing as to how things were playing out, there was no way that they would turn in his favour. Hyerim and Woohyun had to remain unbiased; they were the investigators, and the rest would be in the prosecution’s hand. Going for a private defence would be a definite call for trouble, and a public prosecutor will never stand his side. Whatever the path he’d take would eventually lead him to the end of his career. So he might as well live this moment for now, being by this strange woman who unexpectedly entered his life and struggled to put things into perspective. For now, he’d appreciate her unrelenting optimism. For now, he’d appreciate her keeping his spirit alive.

*

Jung Hyerim seemed to take the whole “Taking care of each other” arrangement way too literally that the next morning, he woke up to her ringing his doorbell and Momo howling along at the sound like a dog. He trudged over to his door, still in Pyjamas, painfully hungover, his head still ringing, and happened to find her leaning against the door, two cups of coffee in hand.

“Morning, Kim” She greeted, her tone firm and business-like. “Can I come in?”

“You’ve come this far so you might as well” Sung Gyu shrugged and opened the door wider for her. The both of them relocated to the living room where Sung Gyu cleared a chair of unfolded laundry and old take away wrappers. Momo trudged inside to inspect the new comer and lazily stretched across the floor. Sung Gyu fondled her fluffy stomach with his bare feet as Hyerim placed a warm cup of coffee on the stool before him.

“This is too early for anything” Sung Gyu groaned when she pulled out a manila folder. He then noticed hazily that she was already dressed for work. Sung gyu was pretty sure that she got just as drunk as he did the previous night. Didn’t this woman ever get hungover?

“Aren’t you supposed to go to work anyway?” Hyerim returned distractedly.

“Have time”

“Well, we don’t” Hyerim raised her brows and then placed the content of the Manila folder before him. “So we’ve finally ruled down the possible suspects who raided your flat the other day-,”

“Finally, thank god”

Hyerim shot him a glare and continued. “-and as it happens, we’re beginning to see sort of a lead here...” She leaved through the documents and finally pulled out a detail sheet, a coloured photo of a middle-aged man in a police uniform was attached to it.

“This is Yong Jung Min. He’s the current chief officer of the Gangnam police station and is said to have close connections to Judge Ryu Wonho...does the name ring a bell?”

Sung Gyu blinked. Of course, it did, there was no chance that it wouldn’t. “The presiding judge for the Belle-Vie case”

It’s been so long and Sung Gyu wouldn’t have remembered the name just in the same way that he hadn’t remembered the case. But Ryu Wonho was a judge that he personally admired back then; his sense of justice was no match to any other and he’d had this way of addressing in court that was almost mesmerizing. He wasn’t his presiding judge. But more than once had he associated with him and confided in him during his time in the court. Even on that day as they had discussed the possibilities for the Belle-Vie executive, Ryu Wonho was rational, professional. It was hard to believe even then that what they were involved in was wrong.

It had taken longer than it should have for him to realise that sometimes, a good personality could be equally threatening.

“Yes, him” Hyerim nodded and pulled out another manila folder; then she spread the content on the coffee table. “So, first of all, I’m not supposed to do this, but I wanted to let you know” She rubbed a side of her nose without meeting his eyes. “However, we believe that its Ryu Wonho who’s after you...we’re still looking into the reasons. But there’s a possibility that it had something to do with Ryu Wonho trying for the Supreme court”

Sung Gyu gazed down at the documents before him, the blurry images and jumbles of letters floating listlessly in his mind. He’d trusted Ryo Wonho. He had idealised him. He hadn’t much recollection from that day when their discussion on the Belle-Vie executive happened, but he didn’t think there was anything that Ryu Wonho would want to find from his possession. Even if he did, he didn’t think he was the kind of a person who’d take the sort of measures that he indeed seem to have.

“I don’t understand” He lifted his head and looked at her. “Why does it have anything to do with me?”

“Looks like they’re after something” Hyerim sighed and pulled out the photographs attached with the sheets. One, of a car in a car park, another couple of pictures of a bleary image of a man. “We’ve investigated the dash cams of the apartment as well as CCTV in nearing hotels, restaurants and coffee shops. And we connected the scenes from a couple of different viewpoints and concluded with this” Hyerim leaned over, her voice lowered but firm and determined. “See this?” She pointed at the bleary human figure from the dash cams. The figure appeared to have been in different locations, all in different occasions still around the same span of time. “This is a guy who goes under the name ‘K’. He’d had different identities and had been convicted a couple of times for information fraud. He and his cronies go around retrieving confidential information, illegally accessing official databases and a few other cyber and information related crimes. But he’d been bailed out of jail and his cases are always thrown under the rug”

Sung Gyu stared at the grainy human image for a long time, trying to recall his identity and if he had ever come across him. “Sounds like someone that could be of use” Sung Gyu muttered, thinking about his own civil cases related to cyber-crimes. He raised his head and looked at Hyerim. “So, who keeps him out of jail?” He already knew the answer. He was a judge after all. But he needed the expertise clarification.

Hyerim gave him a knowing smile. “You guessed it right...Gangnam police station”

“Yong Jung Min...”

Its not uncommon that the police sometimes worked along with convicted criminal which allowed them to have mutual benefits. Looking back at his civil cases, there’s been numerous times he’d heard and prosecuted cases where the information had been formicated by the police as well as the identity of the real culprit was never revealed under the guise of insufficient evidence. Many cases had been thrown under the rug, suspects appealed, and culprits pardoned, all for the power of politicians, businessmen and culprits that could impose their autonomy over the security forces. It was disgusting, really. But he couldn’t say a thing as he himself had been blatantly used in a power monopoly, and worse of all, he’d allowed himself to be used.

“So what do they want from me?” Sung Gyu asked, sitting back in his chair. He was pretty sure there was nothing of value to a particular criminal fraud lying around in his flat. He made the connections; K was sent by Yong Jung Min and Yong Jung Min’s backed up by Ryu Wonho who was obviously after something in Sung Gyu’s possession that he had no idea of. Yet, whatever that was had everything to do with the Belle Vie case, and somehow connected to the possibility of Wonho becoming a Supreme court Justice. What he couldn’t make sense was of how he was connected, and what part he played in it. Ryu Wonho certainly had a bigger conviction over the Belle vie case. But what was he trying to achieve? Was it that he was trying to hide all evidence related to the case to secure his position in the supreme court? Or was it something more?

The two of them discussed the possibilities for a while, and according to her, it was still quite hard to tell, given that the origin of the recording was unidentified. It wasn’t easy to track down where it came from; given that it had no cyber trace and all physical evidence was almost untraceable. But there was one thing obvious; Ryu Wonho did send K after him. And given that K never appeared again; it was possible that they found what he was looking for.

“I believe that he was only searching if there was anything with you that could come as evidence against Ryu Wonho” Hyerim said after a while, her brows furrowed as she contemplated the possibilities. “After all, becoming a supreme court justice was not an easy feat. He certainly wants his track to be clean”

“Well, I don’t suppose I did have anything” Sung gyu shrugged, feeling quite sure about himself. When he left the civil court life behind, he’d pretty much abandoned everything that had to do with it. And certainly, bringing back anything related to possible insider fraud would never have been in his agenda.

“I guess that’s what keeps K away for the time being”

Sung Gyu let out a heavy sigh. “That certainly doesn’t sound like good news to me”