Chapter Text
There were a lot of things Han Seo still couldn’t get right. He didn’t always know what to say to people he was meeting for the first time or just how to say it. He didn’t always know how to be sure that someone wasn’t playing him. He did get that familiar heaviness in the pit of his stomach when it happened, but he could only ever put a name to it after the fact and never quite knew what to do about it. He couldn’t use a fax machine to save his life, and he always, always forgot to water his plants until they were a few droplets away from dying on him out of spite, unless Ji-won remembered to water them when she came over.
There were actually many more things that came hard to him than things that came easy, but there was one thing that he never had to work at.
Han Seo was always on time.
It was one of those things that had been programmed into him very early on because someone didn’t like to be kept waiting. Someone could hold a grudge for days over a 5-minute delay in anything at all, but Han Seo tried his best not to remember those things. Not because they hurt him to remember (it wasn’t something he could really forget), but because over the nine years that he’s lived alone, he’d noticed his own obstinate tendency to drag whatever had been buried inside him without his permission out into the light and set it aflame the minute he recognized that he had anything to do with it, even if it felt, at times, like he had to tear it out of his own flesh. Being on time has helped him with a lot of things, though. He didn’t want to have to force himself out of this one.
So, he fell back on this little game he played with himself, every once in a while, where he pretends it was his mother who taught him something. When he was 12, she taught him how to eat with chopsticks because he was embarrassing her whenever they ate in public by always asking for a fork. When he was 15, she taught him how to cheat on a bubble sheet test because she hated the kid who got the highest grade in his class and wanted to make him feel stupid. When he was 19, she poured a whole bottle of Soju over his head because she found his drinking etiquette lacking. (The game works better with some things than others because his mother was long gone by the time Han Seo was old enough to have his first drink, but no matter. He finds a way around it. He tells himself she must’ve taught him that before she left), and by that logic, she also must’ve taught him never to be late to anything.
If Han Seo had been a little late, though, if he’d arrived at work just 10 minutes later, he would’ve been too busy to take the call, and on his darkest bitterest nights, he sometimes still wishes he had.
“Mr. Jang, your brother, Mr. Jang Han Seok, was stabbed in the prison yard yesterday and has been transferred to Incheon Medical Center to receive treatment. As his next-of-kin, we would …”
Brother. Han Seok. Next of kin. A lot of words that meant nothing and way too much to him at once, and he couldn’t quite remember everything else she’d said or how he’d ended that phone call.
“Han Seo? Are you alright there?” Ari asked. She’d been wary of Han Seo when he first started working there and Han Seo had been wary of everyone, but he grew on her pretty quickly (he had that effect on a lot of people. Not enough people, but a lot still), so he was rarely tongue-tied around her anymore, but his mind was too foggy to think of a proper response. It must’ve been clear on his face anyway.
“I…my...someone’s had an accident. The hospital just called.”
“I’m so sorry, Han Seo. Do you need to go? Me and Lee Yeon can manage on our own today. Saturdays aren’t really that busy anyway.”
She tactfully didn’t ask who it was at the hospital, but she must’ve seen something on his face that made her sound so concerned. Han Seo didn’t know what he wanted to do or whether he should go to the hospital, but he was sure he couldn’t spend the day at work, no matter how much he loved being there. He nodded gratefully.
“Are you sure you’re gonna be alright on your own?” asked Lee Yeon, “I could get you one of the puppies for a cuddle session, real quick.”
He forced a breathy chuckle out and shook his head.
“Alright but let us know if you need anything!”
He promised that he would and tried to get his shoulders to untense at least a little as Ari hugged him goodbye.
Han Seo lived only a couple streets away from the shelter he worked at in a small apartment that was supposed to be temporary. He moved there when the trials started because he couldn’t set foot in his own house without seeing the blood spatters on the carpets and the walls even long after they’d been cleaned spotless. The people Vincenzo toyed with, the people that had turned on each other without the need for him to push them once the Guillotine file was made public, they made battlefields out of every place the scandals touched for weeks on end, and his house had been only one of many. Sometimes he still wondered how he made it out of that mess alive, but then he reminded himself that you really shouldn’t underestimate Vincenzo. That’s how his brother ended up behind bars.
The streets were empty that time of the morning, with most people having already gotten to work or school or whatever their destination was. He walked without a destination, vaguely in the direction of his house. Han Seo always knew this day would come. He’d thought this day would come much earlier, in fact, because who would toy with a dead mouse for nine whole years without feeling the bone-deep exhaustion that always settled into Han Seo whenever he was pulled back into this old life of his, no matter how far away from it he tried to remind himself that he finally was? Vincenzo Cassano, apparently.
After Han Seo and Cha young were taken, Vincenzo took refuge in the one thing that always worked in his favor: chaos. He gave the signal to Mr. Nam to release the Guillotine file to the public, raw and unedited, and bade his time for the ten minutes it took for all hell to break loose. The police had arrived before Han Seok could fire a single bullet.
When he got the call, Han Seo wondered if this is Vincenzo delivering the blow he promised when Han Seok first went into prison or if one of Han Seok’s other enemies finally got an inside man close enough to get the job done. His brother had a lot of enemies. They had to keep him in solitary a lot in the first couple of years. Han Seo didn’t know if they still did that. He used to try really hard to find out how he was doing and what was going on with him in those early years. He even sent him newspaper clips of any new articles that praised his leadership of Babel Mobile, just to rub it in his face that he’d managed to keep at least one subsidiary standing after all the fines the group had to pay had nearly levelled it to the ground. He wanted him to know he was wrong, to regret underestimating him, to see that this one tiny remaining part of his empire was now entirely in Han Seo’s hand and there was nothing he could do to take it away from him.
“Have you considered, maybe, that a part of you still wants him to acknowledge you? to be proud of what you’ve accomplished?” his therapist asked him one session.
That was the last time he sent any newspaper clips.
And the last time he ever went to that particular therapist, but no matter. He was doing alright now. Or he had been.
Maybe he should call Vincenzo; he would tell him what to do, and he’s been meaning to call for a while anyway. He and Chayoung moved to Italy right after the trials till the dust settled, but they had to leave only three years later for reasons he still doesn’t quite understand. He knows it had something to do with someone from Vincenzo’s past that they had to get away from, but the thought of anyone getting the best of him was preposterous enough that he and Mr. Nam had had a good laugh about it before concluding it was just Vincenzo doing Vincenzo things.
The next time they came to visit, though, Vincenzo’s eyes were sunken, and his skin was paler than he’d ever seen it. He didn’t say anything to any of them and barely left his room for the first week and a half, but Chayoung clearly missed the company, and she’d never been built for solitude to begin with. When the plaza people gathered, she was her usual chipper, slightly outrageous self, but on one of those days, she confided in him over cups of Makgeolli (poured and drank with impeccable manners) that their stay had opened wounds they never expected they would have to face.
“We told Luca we were leaving so she wouldn’t kill Vinny, but the truth is that we were more worried that he would have to kill her first. She was so young, Han Seo. So young and so angry. He couldn’t lift a finger. I couldn’t bear it.” And there it was, right there on her face – that heaviness that comes with being reminded that you could hide from your past, but if you do, it will never be truly gone. No matter how much of it you burn, there will be clouds and stones and ashes that bear witness. They’ll tell you that you were here. They might tell everyone else too, but even if their testimony fell on deaf ears in the bustle of school buses, barking dogs and midday chatter, you would never mistake the sound. You would never escape it.
“Make amends, Han Seo,” she’d said, “Look your past right in the eye.”
So, Han Seo did. He took what was left of his inheritance, sold his share of the new Babel he’d made for himself and went back to a list he had prepared years earlier for a different reason, seeking the acceptance of a man who no longer existed. 3700 people. 3700 lawsuits. 3700 wrongs for Han Seo to make right. Some of them welcomed him; the news had latched onto Han Seok so fiercely that really there was very little contempt left for him on anyone’s part, especially when Babel Mobile got on its feet and started making proper, legal profits. Some, understandably, only wanted their compensations and to never see or hear of him ever again. A few spat right in his face. Those took much longer to convince that he truly had no ulterior motives for approaching them, but really, what motives could he have had?
The Guillotine file, for all its power, created many more successful scandals than successful lawsuits – there was only so much solid evidence you could store on a hard drive, and it was almost impossible to prove murders using it. Some of it was outdated. Some of it was hearsay. Most of the damage it caused in the hands of the prosecution was to the companies’ finances. Its real impact, much like the man who exposed it, wasn’t in the courtroom, it was on the streets, where the big industry whales first squashed their accomplices into silence and then began to reckon with each other for secrets that even they hadn’t known were in the files.
There was no honor among thieves, and thieves they were – every last one of them.
They went down in glorious flames of their own making as their masks dropped and their stocks plummeted. Those who made it, made it out with nothing to their names. Han Seok made it out with nothing, a 12-year prison sentence and a promise from Vincenzo that regardless of whether he made it out, he would die when he least expected it.
His sentence would have been much longer if they could prove he kidnapped Cha young and Han Seo, but by the time the police arrived at the house the only gun in the room belonged to Han Seo, and a known member of the mafia was standing uninvited in Han Seok’s living room. It was in everyone’s best interest that this particular incident gets swept under the rug as thoroughly as possible. Vincenzo might’ve been able to stay longer than he did had the temptation to punish Myung hee not been too great, but once he’d burnt her to a crisp, there was no choice for him but to take his partner and fall off the face of the earth.
On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t call. They’re busy enough as it is. Vincenzo would’ve called him if he had any instructions, so maybe he should just see how this all plays out. He makes that decision and goes back on it twice, thrice, in the time it took him to get to his house. When he does get there, there’s no room for decisions. He gets into his car and heads to the medical center.
***
He got there much faster than he was hoping, so he parked his car and sat there, staring at the building, wondering what Han Seok looked like now. The lady on the phone said they were doing their best to stabilize him, which meant he wouldn’t be on his feet, but a part of Han Seo felt like he would be the minute he walked in, his mind conjuring images of him getting up right after Han Seo shot him, and then right after Vincenzo did the same. He remembered that another inmate had dislocated his knee in a fight in his first year, but even then, he’d imagined him getting right back up, hopping on his one good knee to try and give back as good as he got.
His phone vibrates in his pocket, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Ji-won: Hey, babe. Missing you already <3
He would’ve hated you so much, Han Seo thinks.
He flinches on instinct, then forces himself to relax, reminds himself that he has a life. He has a house. He has a job. He has friends who care about him and a relationship that he’s working on. He cannot be pushed into a corner anymore.
“He could be standing or flying for all I care!” he yells into the rearview mirror, then gets out of the car.
A nurse immediately recognizes him as soon as he sets foot in the ER, probably from the news. She welcomes him curtly and leads him all the way to the end of a hall lined with four or five officers. He can’t be sure exactly how many there are. Some people aren’t uniformed, but don’t really look like visitors. Besides, it didn’t look like the two rooms on the right and left had any occupants to begin with. He doesn’t look anyone in the eye while he waits for Han Seok’s doctor to explain the situation, and then doesn’t look the doctor in the eye while he says things like blood loss and splenectomy. The details don’t concern him one bit.
“Is he going to make it?”
“We’re very hopeful that he would, yes.”
“Okay.”
“He’s been out of surgery for a few hours now, but he’s not awake yet.”
“Okay.”
“You could see him if you like, but only for a few minutes.”
He hesitates.
“Okay.”
The doctor is, mercifully, one of those indifferent professionals who don’t really care enough to form judgements. He gestures for the door and then walks away. Han Seo stares at it while the officers stare at him until he can’t stand it anymore.
He goes inside.
And then nothing happens.
Han Seok is lying there connected to bunch of tubes and wires linked to beeping machines that Han Seo had promised himself to look up, just to have an idea what they did, back when their father was hooked to those very machines, but then it slipped his mind. Or rather it was driven out by everything else that flooded his mind and he never managed to make any space for it later. There was suddenly room for them again now because there certainly wasn’t any room for any other thoughts in his head whatsoever. His stomach lurched. His whole body felt cold and numb, and he didn’t think he was quite shivering yet, but he knew he would be soon.
Han Seok looked…strange. His already slim frame had lost some weight, the bags under his eyes were darker than he’d ever seen them, and he had a slight scar along the side of his jaw, just a couple inches above where he’d cut himself trying to terrify Han Seo into obedience.
“Is this what I looked like when you came to see me? Is that how you felt?” he wondered aloud.
Han Seok didn’t answer. Though, to be fair, it was strange to expect an answer from him in his sleep when he rarely ever answered any of his questions awake – not the ones that mattered anyway.
For all the horrors his brother had put him through, the two times Han Seo was hospitalized had been his own doing. Once for the bullet wound, and once, many years before, somewhere between Han Seok’s first and second victim, some time after dad’s wife died, when he stuck one needle into his arm after the next until the world blurred around him and then finally, blissfully disappeared. Hyung had hurt himself then, too.
Not hyung. Never hyung.
Except he’d looked like a hyung that day when Han Seo woke up in the hospital room in the middle of the night with a different type of needle in his veins. He was sitting on the chair next to the window, feet planted firmly on the floor, crouched over an open packet of gummy bears in one hand and a red piece in the other that looked like he’d taken it out some time ago. He wasn’t moving it to his mouth, though. He wasn’t moving at all. He was just staring ahead looking lost in thought, lost in general. Han Seo remembers hearing him grind his teeth and heave a heavy sigh before sleep overtook him once again.
The second time he woke up, no one was there. A nurse came in a while later who had clearly been instructed not to give him any impression that she was judging him, gave him some medication and left again. It looked like his father hadn’t shown up, having bought the staff’s silence and called it a day. Han Seok was nowhere in sight either. He took some time to bask in his shame and drifted between sleep and wakefulness for a few more hours. When he woke up later again that night, hyung was there again. The small lamp they left on when he was sleeping barely lit a quarter of the room, but he could clearly see his brother’s outline. He wasn’t crouched over this time, no, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, one foot crossed over the other carelessly, with an arrogance that might once have been practiced but now came much more naturally to him than anything else, fiddling with something in his hands.
“Oh, you’re finally awake.”
“I…I…”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’m sorry.”
Han Seok hummed, then moved closer, and Han Seo’s blood froze. His brother kept fiddling with a long, empty needle as if it were nothing of importance, nothing at all.
“It’s not enough.”
“I’m sorry, hyungnim. I…I’ll…I don’t know what came over me.”
“You don’t know? Let me tell you then.” He finally turned to look at him, now barely an arm’s length away, so Han Seo could clearly see the fury in his eyes and the glint of the needle getting closer and closer to his face.
“You got soft. You got weak. You thought that this would make things easier for you, which just goes to show what happens when you try to think, dongsaeng. You thought I wouldn’t know. You thought this fucking filth you put into your blood would make you feel good for a while. You wouldn’t waste our time. You wouldn’t ruin Babel’s reputation. You’d just have some fun. No harm, no foul,” he growled, bringing the needle closer to Han Seo’s face with every syllable.
“I didn’t! I…I…,” he was crying. He knew his brother hated crying. He never cried and he hated to see others doing it, but he couldn’t control himself. Tears were running down his face and cold sweat down his back as he struggled to stutter out the right combination of words to end this conversation, but hyung wasn’t having it. It wasn’t one of those conversations. The needle was barely a breath away from his eye now.
“I-It won’t happen again, hyungnim. I-I promise. I swear. I swear. It’ll never happen again.”
“It had better not, Han Seo, because I’m really not in the mood for another funeral, so if you ever, ever, pull something like that again, I’ll give you a punishment no drug in the world can make you forget, got it?” He finally pulled the needle back, snapping it in half, scratching his own hand in the process like it was nothing. Han Seok had already learnt how to weaponize his own pain against his brother and it was baffling to think a strategy like that was worthwhile to him.
If there had been room for it, Han Seo would have told him that no drug could balance him out anyway, but he’d just shuddered and nodded, after which his brother gave him the gentlest, most condescending pat on the cheek and led him to the bathroom so he could heave over the toilet for a few minutes. It seemed his already empty stomach was punishing him too.
It worked, though. Han Seo never touched a needle again and Han Seok didn’t have to attend another funeral for several years to come.
If he looked really hard, beneath all the old scars and the new bruises, he could see the shadow of the old Han Seok sneering in his sleep, grinding his teeth and mangling Han Seo’s sympathy under his molars, bending the very walls of the room under the weight of his contempt for the world that gave him everything and still failed to satisfy him.
Han Seo felt dizzy already.
There's a knock on the door.
“Mr. Jang? I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room now.”
With one last look at his sleeping brother, Han Seo leaves the room.
It’s only when he’s back in the parking lot that he can breathe again.