거친 세상 그 안에서

In this harsh world

그대 위로가 돼 줄게요

I'll be your comfort

앞에 서 있는 내가 보이나요?

Do you see me standing in front of you?

"Hey," Sungjong murmured, breathing into Myungsoo's hair as the detective trailed his lips down the length of the younger boy's neck. But the older boy didn't even throw him a glance of acknowledgment, only continued to draw himself closer to Sungjong and taste the palette of his skin. The younger boy grabbed a tuft of Myungsoo's hair and yanked him off. "Myungsoo."

"Hm?" came his response before he leaned in to press his lips to Sungjong's bare shoulder.

The younger of the two shuddered at the sudden contact of skin to skin, and he tried shifting his body away from Myungsoo's. "Let's stop." The detective blinked at him, uncertain. Sungjong met his eyes briefly before staring down at his own lap. "I . . . I don't like this." But Myungsoo only continued to stare with the same vacant eyes as though he couldn't grasp what the younger boy was saying. "I don't want this."

Myungsoo pulled the corner of his lips into a half-smirk, and Sungjong felt his heart drop into his stomach. They were too close, their foreheads touching, and it troubled the younger boy how he didn't bother to move away this time. "Okay," Myungsoo whispered, brushing his lips against Sungjong's.

"Myung-"

But the older boy's lips closed over his, holding Sungjong against him.

Sungjong didn't fight back.

~

"Hyung-nim," Woohyun cried out as he waved a police report underneath his team leader's nose, making Sunggyu choke on his water and double over in a coughing fit. "I found some information on our guy. I looked into the records from the February 10th arrest three years ago, and his ID came up. Park Moonchul, age 34, arrested for illegal possession of drugs and assault. He was released from prison a few months ago."

Sunggyu took the police report from him. "Anything on his background? Family? Friends? Work?"

"Not much," Woohyun shook his head, "but it did say something about him working in the loan shark business."

"Loan shark?" The team leader glanced up at him. "So it's possible that him and Min Kisuk work under the same business?"

"That's what I was thinking, but we can't be too sure." Woohyun met Sunggyu's solemn gaze with a slight grin on his lips. "But if it happens to be true, then we're one huge step closer to solving this case."

~

Dongwoo lowered the camera from his eyes and stood up, a distressed sigh escaping his lips. He gave the room another once-over before sinking into the chair beside the patient in defeat. Their imposter didn't leave behind anything that could pass off as evidence (the bullets lodged into the drywall were the only traces he left behind, and even that wasn't convincing enough). The detective tiredly shifted his gaze to Lim Jaeheun's bedside, eyes fixed on the vase of white flowers situated on the nightstand. He sat up. Heathers, huh? Dongwoo thought to himself.

"Hey." The detective turned to glance up at Sungyeol standing by the door (and looking just as exhausted as he was). "You done with this room?"

"Uh, yeah," the older of the two replied absentmindedly. "Sungyeol, c'mere and take a look at these."

"What, these flowers? What about them?"

"The nurse said that Lim Jaeheun only had one visitor, right? Min Kisuk?"

"Yeah, but," Sungyeol peered down at the vase, "what does that have to do with these . . . marigolds?"

A sigh. Then a correction, "They're heathers, Sungyeol. And who else besides Min Kisuk would've left these here?" The younger of the two shifted his gaze back to the bouquet, sounding out an inaudible oohh before hastily shoving his hands into a pair of latex gloves. "You think you can get some fingerprints from this?"

But Sungyeol was already busying himself with brushing a fine layer of powder onto the vase. "I'm pretty sure he left a couple prints whenever he came to change the flowers. I can just look them over in the lab and try to get a face on our killer here." He held out the small transparent square with a single black fingerprint stamped on the center. "Got one. Are we good?"

"Yeah . . . yeah, we're good. Hey, start heading down to the car. I'll meet you there in a bit."

"Okay, but where're you-" But the older detective had already dashed out the door, leaving Sungyeol with mouth agape and hand lingering in mid-air.

Dongwoo's running from corridor to corridor, weaving past bustling hospital staff and the occasional visitor. He found himself growing dizzy as his pace quickened and all he could see were blurs of white from the walls. It wasn't until now that the detective realized how hospitals made him sick to his stomach, how he couldn't stand being surrounded by an atmosphere of negativity. He almost wanted to stop and just, just take a breath. But how could he? There was still something, one last clue, that could help him somehow. He turned another corner and-

"Ah, !" Dongwoo cursed, colliding against a figure clad in a white lab coat and a surgical mask pulled over the bridge of his nose. The detective cleared his throat in embarrassment. "Sorry about that, doctor." Gaze lingering on the man before him, the doctor wordlessly his feet and whisked through the corridor. Out of sight.

Well, okay then.

Dongwoo heaved a sigh before making his way to the elevator. Just as he reached his hand to punch in the button, it came to him like the spark of a match -- since when did doctors wear surgical masks with their lab coats? And he didn't even have to think of what to do next; he was already sprinting back to Lim Jaeheun's room, lungs flaming and the sound of heavy footsteps (he thought they were his own, but at this point, it didn't matter anymore) accompanying him. He was here all along, that bastard, Dongwoo thought angrily to himself. .

Sungyeol, just emerging from Lim Jaeheun's hallway, lurched to a stop as his teammate charged in his direction. "What the hell-"

But the older detective only pushed past him and barreled his way towards the end of the hall, throwing open the door and aiming his gun at . . . nothing. No one besides him and Lim Jaeheun seemed to be in this room. "Goddammit," he murmured. "Goddammit."

"Hey, Dongwoo," Sungyeol cried out from behind, "what the hell is going on?!"

Dongwoo wasn't listening; instead, his gaze was fixated on the vase that once held a small bouquet of heathers, which now gave home to a single bird's-foot trefoil. And it was only fitting for a flower that once promised protection to be replaced by one that gave off an overpowering waft of revenge.

~

Sungjong pressed his forehead against Myungsoo's, gazing at the older man with eyes that seemed to have the entire galaxy painted in them. "When did it start?" he asked. "You liking me. When did it start?"

Myungsoo grinned. "Oh, I don't know. When were you born, again?"

The younger of the two laughed, eyes crinkling and lips pulled up into a wide smile. "I'm serious, Myungsoo!"

"I love you." And Sungjong wasn't laughing anymore. The words left Myungsoo's lips so quickly that he didn't even have time to take them back, swallow them down his throat and lock them away forever. But this time, he wasn't afraid. So he said it again, softly this time: "I love you."

Sungjong's gaze fell, and he bit his lower lip slightly in embarrassment. "Don't be silly," he said. "It's only been a few hours."

"No, it's been five years." Myungsoo stared into him with all the warmth in his heart, enough to break down any of the younger man's barriers. "It's been an entire lifetime."

~

Sometime in the afternoon, Kim Myungsoo looked up from the monitor and found himself staring at Sungjong. Again. At this point, he wasn't even sure if this was a bad habit or not; sure, it was distracting him from his work (if he could call looking over the police reports from three years ago "work"), but just looking at Sungjong smile to himself in their now-shared world only reminded Myungsoo why he's doing all of this in the first place. For three years, the answer had been Sungjong. Always Sungjong.

"You're gonna burn holes into my face if you keep staring at me like that," Sungjong teased, face inches away from the detective's. Stunned, Myungsoo jerked away, and the younger man offered him a sly grin. "What're you thinking about with such a serious face?"

"Oh, um, well . . ." Myungsoo stuttered. "Nothing. I was just tired from . . . y'know, work."

"Work?" the younger of the two mused. He peered down at the detective's empty workplace. "I don't see any work."

"I'm in the process of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. Like photosynthesis. That counts as work."

By now, Sungjong was lying on the floor and rolling around in a fit of laughter. "Really, Myungsoo?" he tittered. "Photosynthesis? Really?"

"You should just be proud that I remembered something from our old science class. Like, did you know mitochondria is the powerhouse of a cell?"

"Stop kidding around and get back to work."

~

"I'm telling you, Myungsoo. Park Moonchul won't talk," Lee Howon muttered from the other line. "We didn't get anything out of him, and he insists that he's acting alone."

"Let me talk to the bastard," Myungsoo persisted, clutching the phone even tighter. "If I just-"

"Look, intimidating him isn't going to work this time. We tried everything-"

Sungjong snatched the phone from Myungsoo's hand and pressed it to his own ear. "Let me talk to him." There was an abrupt silence from the other line. "Yes, Howon-ssi? Yeah, it's Lee Sungjong. Before you try to disagree with me like my good friend Myungsoo here-" Sungjong threw a sidelong glance at the detective as he tried to grapple for the phone "-I think I should be the one to talk to him."

"W-what?" Howon sputtered. "That's just . . . I don't know about that."

"I don't want to come off as- dammit, Myungsoo, biting my arm isn't going to get you your phone back- rude or anything, but you guys don't have any other leads. Now, you can try interrogating the suspect a bit more, hoping that he just might crack and tell you everything you need to know. But at this point, you should've realized that that isn't going to work out as you planned. And you know, I'm sure that it wouldn't hurt to just let me try since you have nothing to lose after all."

Silence. Then a hesitant "I . . . yeah, okay. Fine." From the other line, Howon moved the phone away from his own ear. "Hey, team leader, the kid's taking over for the rest of the interrogation."

And with that, a satisfied Sungjong handed Myungsoo back his phone. "Maybe it's a good idea for you to put some pants on when you take me to the police station."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N (PLEASE READ): gah, it's been way too long, and i know that i've been irresponsible and i know all of you are thinking "dammit, jaewon, you had ONE job kjchkxjhvkjhvkjhfklsiufi." the past few months have been excruciatingly hard on me because of school and the work just keeps piling up. but that's no excuse because i procrastinated on all that anyways. the real reason why i haven't updated is because i've been in a creative rut lately. yep, i mean, i have all these ideas on what to write and everything, but when i finally sit in front of the computer...nothing. i try typing something but it just sounds...wrong. terribly, terribly wrong. even this update seems all over the place, and you don't have to tell me how ish it is. i already know. but this is my attempt at bringing myself out of this rut and actually trying, so please, put down your pitchforks and the like. i'm sort of out of this "i can't write for " phase so i will be updating more frequently (just don't expect another chapter by the end of the week lol...actually, maybe....we'll see). anyways, thank you all for your patience >.<

btw, quick note. the whole flowers analogy is actually real. so, in short, every flower has its own language (hence the title), and the one for heathers is "i'll protect you" whereas bird's-foot trefoils (yes, that is an actual flower) is a promise for revenge. how it relates to the story...well, i'm sure you can figure that out^^