Thank you so much for reading TBBC.  And in particular, thank you to all those of you who have shared it with friends, made posters for it, subscribed to it, upvoted it, and commented.  Over ten thousand comments is phenomenal for me.  This is my parting gift, and my favourite of all the chapters I've written for TBBC.

Enjoy!

It was summer, and round about four in the afternoon, when two guards came and knocked on Minseok’s cell door for the final time.  The prison warden, Heechul, followed them in.

Five or six years ago, this kind of situation would have been a tense one.  But Heechul was almost smiling as Minseok stood up from the bed, gaze flickering to the small bag of personal items he had been allowed to keep with him.  Many were mundane – hairbrush, toothpaste, one or two books, a fountain pen – but in a small wooden box that Heechul had finally let him get not long before Christmas, there was a small stack of photographs and letters that he treasured more than life itself.

The vast majority were from Sehun.  They came once a month, and over the years, the tone had become progressively warmer.  Minseok still remembered the first letter, in which Sehun had stated with clear irritation that he was only doing this because Chanyeol had thought it might a way to let go and work out some of the problems and issues that he had with his brother-in-law.  It had been stuffed to the brim with pretty much every single thing Minseok had done wrong in his life, starting with getting Semi pregnant when he knew he wasn’t going to be around to support her, and he’d felt like an absolute b*stard when he received it, but after some thought, he’d manage to convince one of his guards that he wasn’t going to use a pen as a weapon and was given the materials he needed to pen a response.  He didn’t remember much of what he’d said in the reply beyond accepting all the accusations, but the second letter, starting with the line “it surprised me you wrote back”, was one he reread often.

Of course, the first seven months had been short, terse and largely about Semi being pregnant.  Semi appeared to have handled it admirably, even though some of the stages were incredibly tricky.  Minseok remembered nerve-wracking days when she’d been supposed to visit, only for her brother to turn up minutes before visiting hours were over to inform him that Semi was back in hospital for something or other.  After Jaehwan had been born, Semi had visited several times with the baby (Minseok had never cried so much from happiness as the first time he saw him, fast asleep, in his darling’s arms), but it was a tough trip for her to make up from Busan on a regular basis, particularly with a small child.  Her visits had become incredibly infrequent.  Minseok didn’t blame her at all and just found himself looking forward to them with much greater anticipation.  Sehun sent him letters; Semi sent him photos; and Sehun sent him more letters that often (inadvertently) explained what was going on in the photos.  Sehun’s letters started asking for advice about the girl he was dating, or which jobs to go for, and, on one occasion, to help him prove that a colleague of his was committing fraud.  Every couple of months as the third year rolled around, he would come to visit.  Much less often, Semi would come with him, usually with Jaehwan in tow, though the older the boy got, the less Minseok was comfortable with that.

“I don’t want him to know,” he remembered telling Semi.  “Not at this age.  It’s not fair to him.”

The last time he’d seen the child was nearly eight months ago, and he wondered if Jaehwan even remembered him.  Semi had come by the previous month with Sehun.

But today was a special day.  Today, he’d be going to them.

He almost didn’t mind the handcuffs closing around his wrists as one of the guards picked up his belongings and they stepped out onto the metal lattice walkway of the third storey of cells.  It would be the last time Minseok ever set foot on it, and he wasn’t going to miss it at all.

Various inmates gathered at their cell windows to stare as he passed.  Prisoners being taken out by guards wasn’t that unusual, and nor was Heechul joining the group – but releases didn’t happen often enough not to be a novelty, and most of them could see the bag the guard was carrying.  It made Minseok feel supremely happy.

That was nothing, however, to the incredible feeling when he was pulled to a halt just in front of the enormously forbidding metal doors beyond which lay freedom, and through which he was soon about to walk.  One of the guards took out a key and unlocked the handcuffs before presenting him with some neatly folded clothes.  Denim shorts, he saw, with Converse shoes and a light green polo shirt.  And very bright socks.

“There’s a shower and a changing room just over there,” said Heechul, pointing.  “Once you’re in those clothes, we’ll open the doors and you’re a free man.”

Minseok thanked him and tried not to run over to the room.

Free.  Not because he would be leaving the prison, but because he would finally have the opportunity to live life as he ought to have done from the start.

The neon orange overalls were another thing he wasn’t going to miss, though he did have the patience to fold them up before leaving the room so that he could present them neatly to Heechul.  The man nodded and then the enormous metal doors were creaking open.

“Don’t go getting yourself in trouble again,” Heechul told him as almost blindingly bright sunlight burst through the crack in the doors and began to grow as the gap grew wide.  Minseok took a deep breath.  This was it.  As soon as he walked out into that sunlight, he was starting his new life.  The prospect was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

When the doors were open wide enough for the sunlight to actually bathe his feet with brightness and warmth, he squared his shoulders, gave a deep bow to the guards and to Heechul, and then picked up his bag and set his gaze forwards as he strode out of the building.  Behind him, he could hear the doors grinding shut again, but he didn’t look back.  That part of his life was closed.

It was almost too bright outside.  Minseok had to shade his eyes to see where he was going, and once his vision accustomed to the light, he made out a figure leaning against the gatepost of the gates that led out of the yard.  Before he had a chance to establish whether or not he’d seen this character before, the person raised a hand and waved.  He’d clearly been waiting.

Resisting the urge to run, Minseok broke out grinning when he took a couple of steps closer and recognised the other man as Kim Jongdae.

“You got out just in time for all the good weather,” Jongdae told him as he drew level.

“Impeccable timing on my part,” Minseok joked before giving him a cheeky grin.  “How’s the shoulder?”

Jongdae wrinkled his nose at him.  “Come on.  We have a train to catch.”

Surprised, Minseok followed him as he walked out between the gateposts to a taxi waiting on the curb.

“Train?” he queried as he sat in the back with the cop.

“To Busan.”

“You’re coming with me?”

“Yep.”

“Did Lay send you?”

Jongdae grinned.  “Yixing thought it would be morale-boosting to have an .”

“I didn’t realise you two were still in contact.”

“I’m still an inseparable part of his team.  I’m the only person who keeps him sane.”

Minseok’s grin really couldn’t become any bigger.  “So I’ll be working with both of you?”

Jongdae nodded.

The journey to the station was a peaceful one.  Minseok had hundreds of questions knocking around his head, though he didn’t even know where to start.  By the time Jongdae was pressing a train ticket into his hand and leading the way towards the platform, however, the curiosity was lost in favour of excitement.

The train was heading to Busan.  In just a few hours, he would be able to see Semi again.  And he spent those hours admiring the beauty of the countryside as it flashed past his window.  Jongdae seemed to be working on a case report, though he didn’t let Minseok see what it was as it was technically still confidential even if Minseok was going to be starting work in his squad the next day.

“But you’re not starting tomorrow,”Jongdae said.  “Yixing thought he should give you a honeymoon period.  And tickets to Jeju.  My niece will be babysitting Jaehwan.”

“That’s really kind,” Minseok murmured.

“Oh, and by the way,” Jongdae added, “this is all a surprise for Semi.  She’s currently under the impression you’re not being released until next month.  Sehun’s spent a lot of time persuading her that she really needs to take the next two weeks off work and go travelling solo in Jeju and to leave Jaehwan to Seulgi’s care.  He thought it would be fun to do it this way.”

“This was Sehun’s idea?”

“Combined with Yixing.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”  Minseok resumed gazing out of the window.  “I should bring flowers with me when I show up, then.  Where’s the best place for me to get flowers?”

The florist’s, by some miracle, was still open late when Jongdae and Minseok got there, and Minseok spent some time agonising over what type of flower he should get her.  In the end, he went for a classic bouquet of vibrant red roses, paying with money from the new wallet Jongdae had given him, and then, bouquet in one hand and small bag of luggage in the other, he followed the younger man as he walked through the streets towards the apartment block where Semi lived.  Once they were in the building and on the fourth floor landing outside a door, Jongdae turned to him and handed him a key.

“You’re on your own now, Minseok,” he said.  “Good luck.”  He strode off, leaving Minseok standing outside the door.

Minseok took a deep breath to calm himself.  He had no idea what he’d find on the other side of the door.  It was perfectly possible that Semi didn’t want to see him again, or that she’d already moved on, or even that she’d be angry with him for showing up without warning.

But the burning desire to actually see her again and to hear her voice, to touch her, outweighed all that, and he turned the key in the lock and nudged the door open.

The passageway was dark except for light coming from a doorway several metres down it, and the apartment was silent.  A quick glance at his watch revealed that it was past ten in the evening, so Jaehwan had undoubtedly been put to bed.  Minseok carefully closed the door and slipped his shoes off before making his way down the corridor towards the light.

The room he stepped into was the kitchen, and the woman – the tired woman curled up on one of the wooden chairs, the woman who had had his heart wrapped around her little finger for five years – had her back to him as she read from a notebook she was clutching in one hand.

It was the notebook that Minseok had given her the day he went back to prison.  Minseok set down the bag, affection blooming so hard in his chest that it almost physically hurt.

“Sweetheart,” he breathed in little more than a whisper.

Semi’s head whipped around.

For a long moment, they just started at each other, he drinking in the sight of her face again, with the dark bags under her eyes and the slight wrinkles from frowning with care and worry on her forehead, she in absolute astonishment.  She had cocoa powder smeared on the side of her cheek and her appearance was one of exhaustion, as though she hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in days, but she looked just as beautiful as he remembered, even when her eyes began to brim with tears.

Wordlessly, Minseok spread his arms, and she leapt up and almost slammed him to the floor with how fervently she ran to him, arms squeezing tightly around his waist as she kissed him, hard.  Minseok clutched tightly at her, flowers for