She stayed in his bed all day.

He didn’t join her, but he didn’t kick her out either.

He spent his day gravitating around her, moving from the kitchen to the living room to his shop, to the store by the corner and then back to the kitchen. Something bothered him, he knew it, it was why he couldn’t sit still or focus. He had a good feeling it had to do with Ayeon and the way she would vacantly stare at his wall, mindlessly playing with Triple’s ear as she curled into a ball under his sheets.

Even though they talked, even though her words wrapped him up in forgiveness, it didn’t feel right. She felt too distant.

“I made you tea.” He said softly by the door.

She rolled on her back and surveyed him from the door, “I feel like you’re trying to nurse me back to health.”

“I could if you want, are you sick?” He mused, setting the mug down on the bedside table.

She smiled slightly, “Not yet. What kind?”

“Chamomile.”

She peered over the lip, sniffing it, “You think I need to be calmed down?”

“Everyone needs a little calm every now and then.”

She looked up at him, wondering why he had yet to awkwardly ask her to leave his apartment or at the very least, his room, “I hope you’re not feeling guilty.”

“I’m not. I don’t feel guilty over being angry, I feel guilty that I’ve hurt you and kept something from you.” He said honestly.

He was strong. Not in the way of seeing who could shout the loudest or throw the hardest punch, he was strong in the way he rode above. How honest he was with himself. A few months ago, she would’ve sneered and said that their relationship didn’t extend deep enough for him to feel guilty or even caring that whether he hurt her at all. But she couldn’t exactly say that to him now, not after all the times they had seen each other cry and vomit.

“I’m not hurt, I was confused and now I’m not.” She said while taking a sip of the tea and pressing her knees against her chest.

He looked unsettled and it almost made her smile, she had never seen him so worked up over something like this before. “It’s fine.”

“You’re doing that thing.” He said, unsmiling.

She stared at the little slice of lemon that stared up at her like a citrus sun, “What thing?”

“The thing where you think fine is a trustworthy answer.”

She set the mug down and pulled his sheets up to her neck, like a shield. She needed to ask him where he bought it, it was so comfortable, and she needed one of her own. “You’re not what makes me feel not fine, what happened to you, on the other hand, does. I’m not going to sit here and act like my biggest problem was you keeping this from me. My biggest problem is what happened to Haerin.”

It made sense why the two of them would be so uniquely good for each other. In a universe where neither of them spent enough time caring about themselves, together, they’d enter an endless loop of caring about the other person. Someone who prioritizes you over themselves while you prioritize them over yourself.

They would fill each other’s gaps. Like fingers slotting into each other.

“You’re a good cop, detective.”

She didn’t smile or look away, “Now you’re doing that thing.”

He raised his brow inquisitively.

“You’re doing that thing where you think comforting me is deflecting attention off of you.”

He smiled in a way that did tragic things to her mind, “Detective, what were you like as a child?”

“Oh, screw off.” She breathed out with a slight laugh. “I was a terrified child.”

He had moved closer to her, it was impossible not to. She just pulled you in. She managed to laugh it off, but he saw the tense in her shoulder. He reached out and brushed her cheek in a way that had her lashes fluttering, “Well, you turned out a woman that terrified others. I guess you won.”

She squeezed his hand and pulled it away before caressing it with her thumb, “How were you as a child?”  

“Probably waiting for someone like you to stroll into my life.” He joked, carefully setting her hand down and walking to the door.

She felt the lump in her chest grow as she watched him, the way he carried himself, the way he could just say something like that so simply before she called out to him.

“I think we’ll be okay, Jaehyun.”

------

“Have you ever done something insane?”

Dr. Kim looked up, it was rare that her patients asked her probing questions, “I’ve been alive for quite a while, so you’re going to have to be specific.”

“Have you ever done something for the sole purpose that it wasn’t something you’d typically do?” Ayeon clarified.  She had chosen to leave out her clash with Jaehyun, it was resolved, and she still felt uncomfortable bringing his name up in the sessions.

Ayeon wasn’t random, Dr. Lee knew that much, she asked questions because she found the answers to be of importance, “Once, in college. I was timid by nature and was dragged out to a party by friends and long story short, I ended up breaking into the campus pool and skinny dipping.”

“Why did you do it? If you were timid by nature?” She asked carefully.

Dr. Lee took in a deep breath, thinking, “I’m not sure, I think at the time I was afraid of being boring and missing out on the recklessness of being 20. Now that I’m older and make a living off of figuring out why people do the things they do, I figure it was because I wanted to make sure that I was capable of doing things that scared me. That I could take risks and end up okay.”

Ayeon chewed on her lip in thought, “Is that why most people do it?”

Dr. Lee smiled, if she didn’t have experience working with law enforcement, she would’ve been intimidated at the interrogation-like line of questioning, “It’s hard to say, people do things for different reasons based on their own experiences and goals. Why is this interesting you?”

“Soya made me do this thing called a butterfly challenge. I sort of been slacking but I’ve been thinking about it lately, I wonder if I should be doing it more.” Ayeon said, almost embarrassed.

“Oh, funny enough, I was the one who told her about the challenge. It worked for her because it addressed issues she had at the time. That’s how these things work, it only works on people who need it to work.” She said with a little laugh.

Ayeon frowned, “Are you saying it won’t work for me?”

“Well, no, I think it has been working, or else you wouldn’t be considering doing it more but Ayeon, I don’t think your issue is doing things you normally wouldn’t do.”

 She looked displeased, “Yeah it is. If not, then what?”

“I think your issues are saying things you normally wouldn’t. Expressing anger, disappointment, happiness, love in a verbal manner is something that you veer away from. It isn’t going to parties, dates or sky diving.” Dr. Lee said gently.

Ayeon shifted uncomfortably, “Oh…I guess.”

Dr. Lee took a deep breath before she grazed the topic, “Your father…he taught you that in order to earn approval, in order to avoid being a disappointment, in order to be worth it, you have to bottle your emotions up, only letting aspects out strategically. I think you and I need to work on helping you unlearn how to do that.”

Ayeon shifted uncomfortably, telling her therapist about her father meant that she connected dots that Ayeon would rather pretend didn’t connect, “Well, how do I just become good at talking?”

“Baby steps.” Dr. Kim paused for a minute before sitting straighter, “I want to give you homework. I want you to go home and write a letter to every person who you’ve felt things about but never said. It could any emotion and the letters can be as long or as short as you want.”

“I don’t know…that sounds straight out of a sitcom.” Ayeon said with a snort.

“Funny you say that because that’s exactly where I got the idea. And for the love of god, don’t put them in envelopes.”

-----

So Ayeon sat, with a mug of Jaehyun’s tea steaming next to her desk at home, as she stared at the blank piece of paper in front of her.

She considered writing one for Lucas. That was where her mind first went because he was the first person, she thought of who had unresolved issues with. But she rejected the idea almost as soon as it formed. The same went with her mom and father.

She thought about writing one for Jaehyun, he seemed the safest option at first, then she realized that she would be writing a letter to a man whose bed she had spent hours in, who had seen her vomit, who had bared his innermost trauma, and who she had gotten close to kissing on an alarming amount of occasions.

Instead, she settled on Soya, writing about their friendship, what she had meant to her and all the things, good and hard, that they had been through together. It was easy to write this one and she assumed that it defeated the purpose. The point was to get better at something that was supposed to be hard.

Maybe she’d come to work her way up.

Baby steps.

-----

“I’m going to step out.” Ayeon said, slipping her jacket on.

Jaehyun looked up from the lilies he had been fighting with, “It’s cold out.”

She made a show of wrapping her scarf around her neck. “Good?”

His eyes measured her jacket out unsurely, but he said nothing and just nodded with his own one-word question, “Work?”

“I’m meeting someone.” She said vaguely. “You’d be proud.”

His lips curled in a way that made her stomach churn and her vision swim, “Stay warm, detective.”

-----

She had been standing in the cold for 2 hours.

Ayeon was going to rip Mina’s head off when she saw her.

After hemming and hawing, she finally decided to call Mina and meet with her. She had to bite the bullet because this wasn’t just about her anymore. She had sent Mina strict instructions to meet in an alley not too far for the flower shop and just waited.

She couldn’t feel her fingers or her toes and despite the scarf, she could still feel the cold air slip under her blouse. Her head pounded and was shivering violently against the winter frost. She could hear a sharp ringing in her ears from the cold.

“Sorry!”

Ayeon turned, her glare sending Mina to a screeching halt as she ran down the alley, out of breath, “2 hours.”

Mina gulped, “I’m sorry, I was moving into my new place and I don’t have a clock, my phone died an—”

“It’s fine.” She said coldly. She tried to minimize the shivering and focused on the topic at hand, “I’m meeting you completely off the record.”

Mina nodded aggressively, “I swear.”

Ayeon let her shoulders drop, “Why did you send me all those messages?”

“I needed to reach you. I have information involving you. Important information.”

Ayeon raised her brow, “Well?”

“Someone at your precinct called in that fake tip about the van. They’re the reason you were sent to the hostage situation.” Mina said, her head held up proudly as if she had just cracked a decade long cold case.

Ayeon blinked at her, “How do you know?”

Her faced reddened, “I was there. I handcuffed myself to a chair.”

“Who did it? Who made the call?” Ayeon barked, her body tense.

Embarrassment flooded her face, “Um…I’m not sure. My back was facing them, and I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I didn’t know it was a hostage.”

“Oh.” Ayeon rolled her eyes, pretending that she hadn’t held her breath in anticipation, “So, you blew my phone to tell me that?”

Mina was stunned at her bored tone, “Someone at your precinct tried to get you killed.”

“I know.” She hissed, “But I don’t know who did it. That’s