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He sees Baek Yoon-ho for the first time on a television screen.
There’s a microphone held up to his face, but it doesn’t hide his sharp features. Jong-in’s first thought is that he’s stupidly handsome. His second thought is that Baek has a nice voice. His third thought is—
The world could use more people like him .
“Our job is to clear gates, but more importantly, to protect civilians,” says Baek. He goes on about how it’s imperative that hunters under his guild are trained to keep themselves and others safe, so that raids have as few casualties as possible.
Jong-in knows the story; everyone does. The firefighter who’d charged into a dungeon break to save a little kid and had, subsequently, awakened. Rumors have it that Baek Yoon-ho can transform into a beast. Jong-in’s seen the video, but it was grainy; he couldn’t make out much through the pixelated smoke and flames.
Beast or not, it’s clear he’s strong, and very capable. Noble, too.
Jong-in tears his gaze away from the screen and starts walking again. He of all people knows better than to waste time.
---
When he was seven, his house caught fire. He made it out relatively unscathed, but there were burns on his arms that remained for weeks, and his nightmares for months afterwards were stained by flames, and smoke, and a deep-rooted sense of fear.
It’s like an omen, almost. Fire chases him through his life, a demon always hot on his heels. He’s not surprised, really, when he finds himself caught in a dungeon break, huddled behind a car and surrounded by flames. They are taller than he is and the smoke obstructs much of his vision, but he can still hear the roar of dungeon beasts. Someone screams nearby. He hears a wet crunch, like bones breaking.
Jong-in closes his eyes. He is an adult now and he does not cry, not the way he did when he was seven and trapped alone in a burning building, but still his hands shake. How long has it been since he was this afraid? Maybe he shouldn’t be, not after all the blazes he’s seen. But you never really get used to it— the smoke, the suffocation, the heat that feels like it might rip skin from flesh. Jong-in opens his eyes again, coughing on a thick cloud of dust, and wonders, dazedly, if it’s the smoke that’s making it hard to breathe, or the fear that squeezes tight around his chest.
He doesn’t want to die.
Footsteps— large, heavy. One of the dungeon beasts is approaching his hiding spot. This is it, then.
The cigarette heats up in his hand, and suddenly everything seems to snap in place. His vision sharpens; everything flashes before him in hi-res. He can feel a pulsing in his veins and something aching in his fingertips, begging to be released.
Jong-in stands up, locks eyes with the beast, and flicks the cigarette towards it.
---
The cigarette explodes. He stretches his hand towards the flames and thinks, I’m not going to die today .
---
They start calling him the Ultimate Hunter after that. He gets tested and finds out that he’s an S-Rank, one of six in the country. Everything changes almost too quickly for him to keep up with. He leaves his office job and starts his own guild, and it grows rapidly from the start. He goes on raids and marvels, occasionally, at the sheer explosive power he now holds in his veins.
He doesn’t mind that title— Ultimate Hunter. He’d much rather be powerful than powerless, and if he never has to feel that fear again, then he’ll pop a champagne bottle in celebration. Even if the status comes with new difficulties, like all the damn paperwork, or the expectation of clearing a gate in ten minutes with no casualties, he can handle it. Whatever is thrown his way, he’ll make it work. Fire may have been a demon looming over him all his life, but now it is his to command, and he will use it to rebuild all that’s been taken from him.
It’s just a little lonely, all the late nights with no one around, poring over papers until his eyes blur. He may have a team with him when he goes inside gates, but they’re not really there to fight with him. His abilities mean that he has to be careful what he puts out, because people could get hurt. His hunters give him a wide berth, and he doesn’t blame them. It’s what they’ve been told to do. He wouldn’t want to get scorched, either. They hang in the back and he is the sole person to stand in front, serving as both the guiding light and the weapon of ruin.
He’s fine, really. He’s happy. It’s better like this.
He’s just lonely sometimes, is all.
---
Seong-ja awakens and suddenly it’s not so lonely anymore. They’ve been in consistent contact since their university days; when news of his awakening reached the press, she’d been the first to call him. Her words upon connecting the call were: of course you would be S-Rank, you dramatic bitch .
She’s a B-Rank and decides to go work with the Hunters’ Association, more of a freelancer. They see each other sometimes at work, but more often outside of it. Jong-in has little free time these days, but she’s persuasive and always drags him out to get coffee or peruse the bookstore. He appreciates it, the moments of respite. He’s sure she knows that if not for her, he’d probably stay cooped up in his office for two days straight.
No one ever told him how lonely it would be at the top, but it’s better with her. Her treatment of him is the exact same before and after his awakening, and it’s— refreshing. It feels good to be around someone who hangs out with him because they’re friends, not because they’re looking for a corporate connection or just a meeting with a celebrity. She comes over to his apartment after work sometimes, bringing her homemade soup recipe with her, and they’ll knock back a few beers on the couch. She is, embarrassingly enough, far better at holding her alcohol than he is. She also has no qualms about knocking their shoulders together or hooking her arm through his, and he lets her.
So what if she’s his only friend, really? It’s enough.
---
Then, all of a sudden, there is Baek Yoon-ho. Jong-in meets him simply because they are both guildmasters and need to stay in touch, and in his tired state, Jong-in’s first words to Baek are: “Sideburns, huh? That’s an interesting choice.”
Baek puffs up like an angry cat, his eyebrows furrowing. “Says the one with bright pink hair,” he snaps, and Jong-in startles.
No one else has ever shot back at him like that.
But the sideburns really aren’t bad, he thinks, staring at Baek. Actually, he pulls them off. The sharp nose and jawline don’t hurt, either. He’s stupidly attractive. Jong-in, admittedly, understands the comments online now.
(And those arms. Jesus.)
He blinks to clear his head and focus as Baek continues scowling at him. It’s a little annoying how much taller he is; Jong-in has to tip his head back a smidge just to make eye contact. But he’s not intimidated. If anything—
He’s kind of cute when he’s angry .
So Jong-in does it again. “At least I have shirts that fit,” he says, flashing a little smirk. On cue, Baek puffs up again.
“You—” he growls, but doesn’t seem to know what else to say. Jong-in grins wider, pleased. A victory.
Baek’s scowl deepens. “Whatever,” he mutters. “Let’s just get on with this meeting.”
“As you wish,” Jong-in agrees amicably, but his mind is far from the meeting.
He quickly learns that making any sort of snarky comment will make Baek hiss and puff up, his metaphorical fur ruffled, and he just— he can’t stop doing it, after that. Whenever he sees Baek, he has to tease him, has to make some snide remark and watch the way Baek glares like a cat that’s been provoked. It’s amusing, but it’s more than that. Jong-in finds that, for some inexplicable reason, he likes the way Baek argues back, the way his handsome features twist in a scowl; and he just can’t stop. He sees that familiar figure in approaching him in the hallway and already his mouth is falling open, something sarcastic on the tip of his tongue.
It’s refreshing to be able to insult someone and expect to be insulted right back, is what he tells himself. He can’t do that with most people. Most people, if he were to give them the same sort of comment he gives Baek, would shrivel up and bow their heads and hurry off, quaking in their boots. Baek does not. Baek has no qualms about rearing his head and snapping right back and it’s fun . Arguing with him is fun. Watching him snarl and hiss is— it’s fun. That’s the only reason he does it, really. Not because it forces Baek into a conversation, and being on the receiving end of his irritation is ten times better than nothing but stony-faced silence, or anything.
(Not because he likes it when Baek looks at him, irritated or not.)
And so it becomes their tradition, almost, something they both expect. If they must be cordial they will, but outside of that, anything is fair game. And Jong-in looks forward to it much more than he probably should. It’s the highlight of his day, usually.
The public take notice and begin pitting them as enemies, or rivals, two hunters of unimaginable strength forever locked in opposition. But Jong-in is well familiar with the public’s tendency to… dramatize things a little. He is not enemies with Baek, and their rivalry is more of a guild thing— competing over the best gates and whatnot. Jong-in doesn’t think Baek hates him; he suspects that if he did, Baek would have clawed out his throat by now. Baek hates Hwang Dong-soo, the now-American S-Rank who is less of a man and more of a brick wall made of anger issues and barely-suppressed bloodshed, and he treats him with far more vitriol than he treats Jong-in. So, no, they don’t hate each other. They’re not enemies; they’re rivals at best.
They’re not friends, though. But that’s fine. He doesn’t need another friend; he just enjoys having Baek around to mess with. That’s all.
---
Sometimes Jong-in finds that he can’t quite look away from Baek. His gaze lingers insistently on the cut of his shoulders, the slope of his nose, the wild swoops of his hair. The way his suit clings to his frame and his combat shirts leave his well-muscled forearms exposed. Seong-ja would roll her eyes and say that Jong-in has a type, but he’s met many a muscular man in his career and Baek stands out. He’s— painfully beautiful. Jong-in doesn’t want to stare but he still does, still can’t keep his gaze from drifting back to that familiar figure.
Only sometimes, though.
---
A near S-Rank gate is discovered to be on the verge of breaking, and with less than a day before there is a disaster in the middle of the city, Chairman Go contacts Jong-in and tells him that he is to clear it with Baek. They are the only two S-Ranks available, and there is little other choice if they want to avoid a dungeon break.
So Jong-in shows up to the gate, meets up with Baek, and tries not to smile when Baek gives him a look . “Oh, great,” he mutters. “Why don’t you just burn down the whole gate right now.”
“Well,” says Jong-in, pushing up his glasses, “if I did that, there wouldn’t be much point in this whole thing, would there? I was told this would be an excellent opportunity to work together. Besides, you were a firefighter, weren’t you? I didn’t think you’d be scared of a little fire.”
Baek scoffs. “I’m not scared of fire. I just don’t have a lot of faith that you won’t blow this place up while we’re in it.”
“Why, President Baek, I may be strong, but I have more control than that.”
“Whatever.” Baek begins to march towards the gate. “Let’s get this over with.”
The inside of the gate is no different from a typical cavernous dungeon, with a tunnel that stretches far beyond what Jong-in can see. He snaps his fingers to summon a small flame for light and holds it up. “Hm. No beasts yet.”
“Your obnoxious hair probably scared them off,” says Baek.
“I suppose they just don’t appreciate aesthetics,” Jong-in replies. “Maybe it was your sideburns that scared them off. That seems more believable.”
Baek closes his eyes and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a three-count under his breath. Jong-in smothers a grin and presses onwards.
They encounter their first monsters only a few moments later, and Jong-in makes quick work of them with a carefully-aimed spear. Baek, who’d just begun to lift his fists in preparation to fight, drops them and scowls heavily at Jong-in. “How about a little warning next time, huh?”
“My apologies,” Jong-in hums. “You can take the next batch, then.”
“Damn fire hazard,” growls Baek, under his breath, and Jong-in really shouldn’t take this much glee in pushing his buttons. But he does, because it gets Baek to snap back, and maybe he likes the way Baek looks when he’s annoyed, the way his handsome features crease and sharpen.
Maybe.
He soon finds out Baek is as impressive in battle as the rumors say he is. He tears through the dungeon beasts with the ease of someone ripping a sheet of paper. He isn’t reckless, though; his movements are calculated and sharp. He’s careful not to get in Jong-in’s way, just as Jong-in is careful not to scorch Baek with his flames.
They make their way to the boss chamber, which is when they face their first bit of trouble. The boss, a near S-Rank orc, is tough; no mount of fire or simple beat-the-hell-out-of-it seems to be enough to take it down. All of a sudden Baek is tearing off his shirt and the next thing Jong-in knows, he’s halfway across the chamber, and he’s no longer human. Jong-in’s flames dissipate from his hand as he stares at Baek— transformed Baek. He’s even taller now, unreasonably so. His hands have become clawed and when he yells in outrage, it’s more of a roar. He lunges for the orc and begins to lash at it, his claws moving lightning-fast.
Jong-in shakes himself a bit to focus and tries to help, shooting flame bullets at all the spots Baek can’t reach. It turns out to be not much more than a distraction, but it allows Baek to get one good hit in. He plunges his claws into the orc’s chest and it finally collapses, dead.
As silence descends on the boss chamber, Jong-in first thinks— the rumors are true. But then again, the rumors say that when Baek turns into a beast, he’s fearsome, wild, and everyone should stay out of his way lest he turns his gaze on the innocent. Jong-in stares and stares and can’t really see where those ideas are coming from. Intimidating as he might look, Baek isn’t a beast. He’s not like the orc that now lies dead at his feet. They call him a monster, warn that his transformation is no different from the jackals or goblins in dungeons, and yet—
When Baek turns, his gaze meeting Jong-in’s, there is nothing wild or feral in his black-gold eyes. He doesn’t look like he’s about to tear into Jong-in’s carotid artery. He is still Baek. Jong-in can see traces of him even in this form. There is no monster, only Baek Yoon-ho.
“What?” Baek snaps, when he sees Jong-in staring. There’s something strange in his voice, something almost defensive.
What no one tells you about becoming one of the strongest human beings in your country, so strong that people call you the Ultimate Weapon, is that you start being treated as such. He is expected to clear every gate, defeat every monster— and he is not alone in the physical sense, but he is isolated. People whisper his praises, but to them he is not really a person. He is more of a tool, a safeguard against gates. A hero on a pedestal still stands alone. The higher the pedestal, the further away the world seems.
He’ll never be upset about his title, exactly. But god, is it alienating, sometimes. He knows Baek feels it, too. Hailed as a hero and feared as a monster when really he’s just—
Human, no less so than Jong-in or Lim Tae-gyu or anyone else. And beautiful, even in this form.
Jong-in shakes his head, flashes a cheery smile. “Well, well, I didn’t realize the rumors were true. You really do turn into a kitty-cat.”
Baek’s face goes on a journey, one that starts with shock and ends with the sheer annoyance Jong-in has come to enjoy. “You— don’t call me that,” he snarls. Jong-in doesn’t miss the way his shoulders loosen, some of the tension seeping out.
“Whatever you say,” Jong-in agrees pleasantly. He turns away. A voice in his mind wonders what it would be like to run his fingers through the fluff on Baek’s jaw; he carefully squashes it with a mental chair. “I believe we’re done here. Shall we leave?”
“Finally,” grumbles Baek. But he walks side-by-side with Jong-in all the way back to the gate. Neither of them comment on it.
---
For all Seong-ja likes to call him a dense idiot, Jong-in is not stupid. He knows what it means when his gaze keeps drifting back to Baek during meetings, when he starts looking forward to their interactions more and more, when sometimes he glances at Baek’s hands and wonders what they would feel like holding his own. There is only one explanation for the way his stomach tenses whenever Baek flashes one of his rare smiles, the way Jong-in sometimes cannot hold back the affection that yearns to slip into his tone when he’s making a snarky comment.
Being a guildmaster is often less about actual combat and more about strategizing. Which gates are worth fighting over, and which aren’t? What team should tackle this dungeon? Should he be on the front lines, or should he be dealing with other issues elsewhere? Jong-in has perfected the art of strategy, of planning, of making calculated moves that will best benefit his guild.
And he knows that the odds here are not in his favor. The best strategy? Ignore it. Ignore the feeling in his chest, the ache that sometimes arises whenever Baek steps into the room— ignore how sometimes, at night, when he’s alone and flames dance in his vision whenever he closes his eyes, he wonders what it would be like to have someone next to him, someone to hold.
Just ignore it, is what he tells himself. Ignore it and everything will be fine. That is the best outcome.
---
Jeju comes, and it’s supposed to be easy. Jong-in thought it would be easy, thought that they would charge in, clear all the ants, then leave. Not without casualties, of course, but it would end in victory for the country and they could turn their focus to rebuilding Jeju Island.
Instead it goes like this: Jong-in is covering his guild’s retreat when he sees a small group of hunters surrounded by the large white ants. Among them is someone with too-familiar hair and a shield he’d picked out himself, when she’d asked him to go shopping for weapons with her.
It’s not even a question of whether or not he goes to them— only a question of how fast he gets there. He finishes off the ants in front of him with a vicious explosion, yells at his guild to continue retreating, then dashes for Seong-ja. She turns, meets his gaze, and she looks scared. She’s never afraid.
An ant snaps its mandibles at her, just barely missing her head. A few feet away, one of her comrades is swiftly decapitated. Another collapses, bleeding from too many wounds. She’s the only one still on her feet, uninjured, and he isn’t running fast enough. He stretches out his hands, and—
Fire is a tricky thing to manage. If he isn’t careful, a small flame could easily turn into an inferno. Fighting with people means controlling his fire almost obsessively, keeping each shot tight and precise. He can take out hordes of beasts in one sweep but he can do the same to his allies, and that is the one thing he must avoid at all costs.
The person who’d collapsed slowly pushes up to their knees, trembling. Right in the line of his fire.
He falters.
Seong-ja takes off in a sprint, trying to lead the ants away from her teammates. Two of them take the bait. The others converge on the fallen and Jong-in can hear their screams as they are torn into— can see, even from a distance, the blood spray into the air.
But Seong-ja is running towards him now, pursued by the ants, and he has to save her. He throws his hands out, sends a wild burst of flame soaring over her head and slamming into one of the ants. They’re annoyingly flame-resistant, these white ones, so he does it again, and again, and—
By the time Seong-ja’s eyes widen and she screams his name, it’s too late.
Pain blooms in his side as an ant digs its mandibles into his hip. He hisses through his teeth and lashes out on instinct, setting the ant ablaze with so much force that it crumbles instantly to ash. Behind it is a whole horde of its friends, and Seong-ja is still running for him. He’s bleeding for the first time in years.
Desperation is a tricky thing. Makes it hard to think, to make clear and smart choices. He knows this.
Knowing it, however, doesn’t make it any easier to fight through.
It hurts, and he’s surrounded by ants and he doesn’t want to die, doesn’t want Seong-ja to die. He flings out his hands, his fingers shaking.
The explosion knocks him off his feet. He tumbles to the ground, his back hitting hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. When he rolls over there’s smoke in the sky and fire, stretching as far as he can see, a never-ending blaze that surrounds him. His arm is in it, he realizes, dazedly. He’s in it. It’s crawling along his body and—
He hadn’t thought that he’d forgotten this feeling. It manifests in his nightmares, sometimes in his waking hours. He didn’t think he could ever forget the pain of it, the way smoke feels in his eyes, the way it tastes on his tongue. But maybe over the years the sensation has dimmed, because this—
Fire is a blessing and fire is a monster and fire devours everything, even its maker. How could he have forgotten?
He rolls himself away from the worst of the blaze. His sleeve is charred and he can feel it, the blinding sting of a burn. The smoke catches in his throat and he coughs, choking on it, but even as his lungs claw for air he’s searching, blindly scanning for Seong-ja. Where is she? Where—
He hears her before he sees her— her ragged breathing and soft, muttered curses. Jong-in forces himself to his feet, but she’s caught on the other side of a wall of flames. He can see, through the wavering air, the hazy smoke, her arm extended towards him. He thinks he hears her call his name, her voice raspy from the dust.
Jong-in half-runs, half-stumbles her way. The fire roars at him, but he’ll run through it if he needs. It can’t hurt him as badly as it could hurt her. If he can just get them both out of here— just stay conscious long enough to escape—
He sees it then, too. The ant looming behind her, a shadow flickering behind the flames. He opens his mouth but chokes on the ash floating through the air, and she doesn’t even have time to scream. Neither of them do. The ant tears through her stomach like it’s paper and tosses her to the side. Her body collides with the ground, limp.
Jong-in’s yell is more like a choked cry. He throws himself through the fire, tumbling to a stop right next to Seong-ja. She’s bleeding out on the ground and the ant is still standing, its mandibles clicking. He tries to focus, to channel his mana into his fingertips and blow it to smithereens, but he’s so dizzy. Why can’t he breathe? The ant charges at him and he can’t move fast enough, can’t—
It tears into his side— vicious, agonizing. He shoves his hand against its armored body and blasts it away from himself. The world spins. He stumbles, falls to his knees— right next to Seong-ja. “Hey,” he gasps, almost choking on the word. His vision blurs as he tries to put pressure on her wound. Hopeless. Too late. “Hey, don’t fall asleep. Please?”
Seong-ja does not reply and the other ants— there are still more— begin to converge. Just like that he is seven again, terrified and trapped, surrounded by flames that want nothing more than to devour him. He is twenty-something and crouched behind a car, shaking, waiting for death.
The fire roars. He closes his eyes.
---
It is Baek Yoon-ho who drags him out of the fire— who, even after Jong-in thanks him, brushes it off with nothing more than a simple, I wasn’t going to let you die .
Jong-in wonders if Baek knows that without him, Korea would probably be down an S-Rank by now.
---
They see each other at the funeral, held in honor of all those who lost their lives on the disastrous raid. Jong-in places his flowers right next to Seong-ja’s framed picture and sees Baek approaching to do the same with his friend Eun-seok. Jong-in turns, bows his head; Baek does the same. But they make eye contact briefly, just before going their separate ways, and the Baek’s expression is softer than normal. No annoyed scowl or furrow of his eyebrows. He looks at Jong-in and Jong-in looks back, and there is nothing but understanding in his gaze.
Jong-in turns away. He walks past all the flashing cameras and press, keeping his gaze fixed firmly ahead. He will not cry here, not for all to see.
---
The nightmares come quickly after that— more like one nightmare, really, a single dream that repeats night after night. In it he sees the fire, and he sees Seong-ja reaching for him. It always ends the same: the flames swallow her whole and he cannot reach her, and he can somehow feel the heat of the fire against his skin, can somehow taste the ash in the air and the smoke that clogs his throat. Every night it strikes him, and every night he wakes up sweating, shaking, his chest tight.
He starts sleeping less. Two or three cups of coffee can get him through a night. Stretching himself thin with meetings and paperwork turns out to be an effective way to exhaust himself so much that he doesn’t dream when he passes out. He can tell his employees are growing concerned with his schedule, but it’s better this way. Better than that nightmare.
And so he sits at his desk alone, the tick of his clock counting down the minutes until the next hour of early morning, and he doesn’t sleep.
---
Seeing Yoon-ho becomes a relief, a much-needed break from the endless cycle of gates and paperwork. Even after everything their interactions remain much the same, and he is grateful for it. He throws out a casual insult, Yoon-ho puffs up angrily, they bicker— and then they go their separate ways.
What does it matter that his chest aches whenever he sees Yoon-ho— that he yearns, sometimes, to move just a little closer, to find out what Yoon-ho’s hair feels like, to ask him to stick around just a little longer? He’s gotten good at ignoring it, anyways.
All he has to do is stick to the strategy. Stick to the strategy, and everything will continue on as normal. That’s all that matters.
---
Sticking to strategy was always supposed to be the plan. He was supposed ignore it; ignore the skip in his heartbeat, the way part of him yearns to reach out and hold Yoon-ho’s hand.
But Yoon-ho kisses him, so fiercely that he loses his breath. He wakes up with Yoon-ho’s arm thrown over him, holding him close; he ventures into an unfamiliar kitchen to make coffee and doesn’t realize until too late that he’s not wearing his own shirt.
Why did you stay , asks Yoon-ho, his eyes sharp, and Jong-in freezes.
The strategy was to ignore it. But that was before Jeju, he thinks. He would never admit it, but Jeju had left him shaken, hyperaware of just how close to death he came. Jeju left him with new aches and nightmares that persist month after month— the same nightmare, really, the same scene of flames and smoke and Seong-ja’s blood-stained face. That strategy, it was before Jeju— before he’d become so alone once again.
I could lie , he thinks, a little panicked. Yoon-ho wouldn’t have to know a thing if Jong-in just makes another witty comment right now. It would be par for the course— expected. He could walk out of this place and nothing will have changed. It’s the safe option.
But Yoon-ho is sitting here, staring at him, something strangely hopeful in his gaze. They fell asleep together last night and the nightmare didn’t come. He slept better than he has in months. And Yoon-ho kissed him, kept kissing him, took him home— that has to mean something.
It’s not the safe option. But when has this life ever been safe? When has there ever been a guarantee, a promise that he will wake up the next morning safe and sound? There is none. But there is this: Yoon-ho, in front of him, effortlessly handsome in the early morning light. And this— this could be something, couldn’t it?
He wants it to be something, so badly that it aches.
So he takes Yoon-ho’s hands, feels the warmth of Yoon-ho’s fingers wrapping around his own. I want this to be something , he says, achingly honest. I think you do, too , he says, and despite how he has steadied himself, he isn’t quite expecting the way Yoon-ho pulls him in and kisses him, one hand flattening over the small of his back.
But maybe, he thinks, maybe he’s not the only one who’s been a coward, who’s been prideful and so, so damn stupid. Maybe they both have.
Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?
---
It doesn’t take long, after that, to notice how lonely his own apartment is in comparison to Yoon-ho’s. His own place is nice, with a big balcony and all, but it’s— lonely. He rarely goes home before midnight and the most he does in his apartment is sleep and eat. It’s crushingly lonely in there, with no one but himself and the plain walls.
Yoon-ho’s, though— Yoon-ho’s feels lived in. His kitchen is well-stocked because he likes to cook; he keeps some plants on his balcony and he has photos hung on his walls. It’s warm in a way that Jong-in hadn’t realized he’d been missing until he stays over for the third or fourth time and wakes up to the early light of dawn coming through the curtains and his body pinned to the mattress by Yoon-ho’s arm. He lies there, staring up at the ceiling, the faint motes of dust in the air, and thinks— oh .
So this is what it’s like.
The clock on the wall reads 6:15, right when he would usually get up to prepare for work. But Yoon-ho’s still out cold next to him and Jong-in knows, by now, that he sleeps like a log. He doesn’t want to wake Yoon-ho, nor does he particularly want to get up himself. Not when the bed is warm and the light still soft, and the dust drifts lazily through the air, each mote lined with gold.
He closes his eyes. Five more minutes wouldn’t hurt.
---
The first time they kissed, it was easy. The second time, he was too caught up in the fact that Yoon-ho said yes to feel anything other than elation. The third time, Yoon-ho’s hand drifts up to brush over his back through the thin layer of his shirt, and Jong-in tenses.
Yoon-ho immediately pulls away and looks at him with furrowed brows. “What is it? Did I do something?”
“No, it was nothing,” Jong-in tries to refute, but he knows he’s caught. Yoon-ho frowns, crosses his arms. He doesn’t look angry— more concerned.
“Listen,” he starts. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable. If there’s something I shouldn’t do, then—”
Jong-in shakes his head, cutting Yoon-ho off. Doubling down, he insists, “It’s seriously fine. I’m fine.”
The problem is that he has gotten into the habit of wearing layers upon layers of clothing practically every day ever since he awakened, and turns out that’s plenty of time to forget how another person’s touch feels on your skin. Intimacy is one thing, and holding hands is another, but outside of that— it’s different. Easier to notice how foreign it feels.
He is not afraid of Yoon-ho, and he is not afraid of Yoon-ho’s touch. It’s just…
After Seong-ja, after Jeju, he can’t remember if there was anyone else whom he touched outside of a handshake, and, well.
Three years is an awfully long time to be so alone.
Yoon-ho stares at him for a moment, then shakes his head. “You know, for how shady you are, sometimes you’re a pretty shit liar.”
“Rude,” Jong-in mutters, with zero bite. He knows that Yoon-ho is right, and that he’s just trying to help. He didn’t expect him to be this… considerate, maybe. But the look in his eyes right now, the slight downturn of his lips as his hand hovers awkwardly over Jong-in’s— Jong-in thinks that he owes him a bit of honesty.
“I'm… not entirely used to this sort of thing,” he admits. “I guess I’ve always been accustomed to wearing layers. Touch is not something I am intimately acquainted with.”
“Yeah, you do always wear a fuck ton of clothes,” Yoon-ho murmurs, almost to himself. “I always thought it was a bit dramatic. Who the hell wears a cape into battle?”
“Better than wearing no clothes at all,” huffs Jong-in. Someone could easily think that Yoon-ho is allergic to shirts with how little he wears them in battles. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you want to get sliced in half by a dungeon beast.”
“Like hell I’d let that happen,” Yoon-ho replies, grinning. “Besides, I didn’t think you’d complain about that.”
Jong-in tries not to flush, but he suspects that he fails in this endeavor. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Mm, yeah, sure you don’t. Like I said, you’re a shit liar,” says Yoon-ho. “Now go back to the whole touch thing. Are you saying you don’t want me to touch you, or—”
“No,” Jong-in interrupts, because he— he likes it, is the thing. Intimacy aside, Yoon-ho’s whole body is always warm and his palm on Jong-in’s back had felt nice . Warm, and Jong-in is nothing if not a fan of warmth. He wants Yoon-ho to be able to touch him, wants to discover what his hands would feel like on his shoulder, or hip, or cradling his neck. It’s just that— well. Evidently, three years of solitude don’t bode well for new relationships.
He closes his eyes, breathes deeply to give himself a moment to find the right words. “I’m not used to it, is all. But I don’t want you to— I’m not fragile.”
“Yeah, I know,” says Yoon-ho, far more gently than Jong-in expected. “It’s fine. We can take it slow.”
“Hmm?” says Jong-in, opening his eyes.
Yoon-ho hums. His hand hovers over Jong-in’s back again, waiting. There’s a silent question in his eyes.
Slowly, Jong-in nods.
Yoon-ho’s palm flattens over the small of his back, warm and just the tiniest bit apprehensive. Jong-in leans into it, feeling the weight of it, the shape of Yoon-ho’s palm and the splay of his fingers, and feels something warm settle in his core.
Oh, he thinks.
“Okay?” asks Yoon-ho.
“Yeah,” murmurs Jong-in. “Yeah.” He hooks an arm around Yoon-ho’s neck and drags him down, his whole body feeling lighter. “Now, I believe we were in the middle of something.”
Yoon-ho stares at him, and then they’re kissing again, and Jong-in doesn’t think about it much more for much longer.
---
There is, as it turns out, much more to existence than waking up every day, working for eighteen hours, then returning to the silence of his own apartment.
He starts spending more and more time at Yoon-ho’s place as the months pass, and it’s— so different. Which feels strange, sometimes, considering how work is still the same. They agree to keep their relationship private, and so within the confines of the workplace they behave largely the same. Jong-in makes a snarky remark; Yoon-ho hisses at him; they go on with their day and the public continues to hype up their rivalry.
The public would go insane if they knew what was really going on, Jong-in thinks— if they knew that he was going home with his supposed rival nearly every night. But it’s so easy to. Yoon-ho makes it easy. He’ll text with dinner plans for that evening, and Jong-in can just show up at his door. Sometimes— and this is harder, but they can make it work— sometimes he’ll park at the Hunters Guild and drive both of them back to his apartment. Jong-in teases him about it, calls him a gentleman, but it’s… sweet.
Yoon-ho is a good cook, Jong-in learns. He likes doing it, likes the simple act of whipping up a good meal for himself, and now for Jong-in. Jong-in knows how to cook and he can, but he doesn’t enjoy it the same way Yoon-ho does. Yoon-ho also likes to bake, and sometimes he makes cookies or little pastries.
Just to be annoying, Jong-in likes to stand behind him, wait for him to look the other direction, then steal a bite from the pan, or a cookie from the cooling rack. Sometimes Yoon-ho catches him and scowls at him, but it’s playful. “Get out of my damn kitchen, you thief,” he’ll mutter, and then proceed to make zero effort in pushing Jong-in away when Jong-in comes back behind him for more.
They take turns making dinner, but more often than not it’s Yoon-ho doing it. Jong-in doesn’t mind. It means he can rest his head on Yoon-ho’s shoulder from behind, or lean against the countertops and simply watch him. It shouldn’t be so captivating, really, to watch someone cook, but Jong-in finds himself staring— at the concentration on Yoon-ho’s face, the way his hair curls around his ears, the way he sometimes pokes his tongue out a little when he’s focused.
And the food always tastes so much better than the food he’d make for himself, alone in his own kitchen, with no one around. Some days he wouldn’t even eat dinner at home— he’d skip it entirely, or quite literally grab a quick bite in between meetings and filing paperwork. But now he sits down with Yoon-ho and they can talk, and talk, and Yoon-ho complains about whatever pissed him off that day and Jong-in laughs at him, fond.
Yoon-ho is a heavy sleeper; once he’s out he’s out like a light, and he’s usually not the first to wake up. Over the years, Jong-in’s made it a habit to be up before the sun and at his office before most of his coworkers, but Yoon-ho absolutely does not subscribe to that policy and he, more often than not, is the sole reason why Jong-in also can no longer subscribe to that policy. He could fall asleep on the very opposite side of the bed and still wake up with Yoon-ho wrapped around him like a koala; getting out of the apartment before seven is no longer an option.
But he doesn’t mind. It’s cute, the way Yoon-ho gets clingy in his sleep, and his arms— they are very warm. Very nice. Jong-in thinks he would take this over his old morning routine any day. On the few occasions where he does manage to pry himself from his partner’s grip, he can meander into the kitchen and make them both some coffee, and he gets to watch Yoon-ho emerge, hair still rumpled and voice rough with sleep.
It’s mornings like those, mornings when Yoon-ho’s hair is caught in a soft glow and his eyes shine gold, that Jong-in thinks— they’re all wrong . All the people who call him a monster, a beast. They don’t know the way he clips his g’s on the ends of words when he’s tired, the way his laughs rumble in his chest. They don’t know how he’s tall enough to make fun of Jong-in and tall enough to always kiss his forehead. They don’t know him at all.
And maybe Jong-in didn’t know him all that well, either. But he’s learning now— all the things about Baek Yoon-ho, big and small. How he likes his coffee, his favorite movies, his tendency to furrow his brows when he’s stressed.
Monster, people still say— the same people who praise Jong-in and idolize him online.
Well. Their loss.
---
When he moves in, it only takes a few trips to get all his things into Yoon-ho’s apartment. It’s not hard at all, really, and neither is adjusting to his new home. Yoon-ho’s coffee machine is shit, so Jong-in starts using his own, but Yoon-ho has nice tea bags and forces Jong-in to try some. They set up a shelf for Jong-in’s book collection; Jong-in’s heavy coat joins Yoon-ho’s winter wear on the rack near the door.
Their silverware and dinnerware sets are sorted through until they decide on which ones to keep. Yoon-ho makes a strangled sort of noise at Jong-in’s shampoo, goes to take a shower, then emerges with a disgruntled expression on his face.
Jong-in grins. “What was that about my shampoo, now?”
Yoon-ho throws the towel at him with one hand and runs his other through his now very soft, very luxurious hair. “Shut the hell up. I still like mine better.”
“Right,” says Jong-in, smug.
He later finds out that Yoon-ho mostly likes the smell of his shampoo and is content with occasionally burying his face in Jong-in’s hair to get a whiff. This consists largely of him coming up behind Jong-in at random intervals, pressing his nose into the crown of his head, and remaining there for a second or two. Jong-in finds it hopelessly endearing.
With a shared closet, it’s easy for him to steal Yoon-ho’s clothes right from under his nose. It becomes a great delight for him, not only because he likes wearing his partner’s clothes, but also because of Yoon-ho’s baffled expression when he opens the closet to discover that yet another one of his shirts has disappeared overnight. “Sorcery,” is what he calls it, grumbling about yet another shirt gone. “I swear you have some sort of teleportation ability bullshit I don’t know about. There’s no way you’ve managed to take another one without me seeing.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you just need to pay better attention,” says Jong-in, sitting on the bed in said shirt.
Yoon-ho glares at him. Jong-in laughs.
---
Yoon-ho has a lot of soju stored in his cabinets, and he’s, unsurprisingly, much better at holding his alcohol than Jong-in is. But he gets considerably drunk one night and passes out on their couch in the middle of a movie, his head lolling onto Jong-in’s shoulder. He talks in his sleep when he’s drunk, apparently— mutters about random things, like paperwork and cats.
It’s hopelessly endearing, and Jong-in can’t help the way he smiles, fond.
He’s debating the best way to try and lift Yoon-ho to get him to bed when Yoon-ho cracks an eye open. “Jong-in?” he mumbles, his words slurring slightly.
“Yeah?” says Jong-in. “You’re awake?”
Yoon-ho doesn’t answer. Instead he blinks at Jong-in, his eyebrows furrowed. He looks kind of out of it still— not fully awake or thinking straight. Jong-in frowns, opens his mouth to suggest that they go to bed.
Yoon-ho says, “Are you real?”
Jong-in pauses. “What?”
Reverently, Yoon-ho brushes his fingers against Jong-in’s cheek. He mouths something to himself, something that looks suspiciously like “holy shit”, and— without warning— leans his whole body weight against Jong-in so that they both go toppling into the cushions.
“Yoon-ho,” Jong-in tries to say, but it comes out more as a wheeze. Yoon-ho is now lying on top of him, and he’s heavy . “Are you—”
But Yoon-ho is already asleep again, his arms wrapped around Jong-in’s waist. Jong-in blinks at him and cannot help the way his lips quirk into a smile.
Well. Yoon-ho's couch is comfortable enough, anyways.
---
The thing about the whole “Baek Yoon-ho is a horrifying scary monster” is that those people will never quite understand how shockingly gentle he can be. Jong-in knows this, and yet it still catches even him by surprise sometimes.
It was a stupid, rookie mistake. Jong-in intervened in a dungeon break and left with a gash in his arm from a goblin he hadn’t quite managed to dodge in time. The healers had their hands full taking care of the more badly wounded, and S-Ranks heal faster anyways, so Jong-in had made the executive decision to wrap it with some fabric and let it heal on its own.
He’d gotten home and Yoon-ho immediately chewed him out— why didn’t you go to a hospital, you dumb idiot, it could get infected. The wound was already feeling better, but Yoon-ho stubbornly ignored all of Jong-in’s protests and dragged him into their bathroom to help him get it cleaned.
Now here they sit, and Jong-in’s throat feels tight as Yoon-ho holds his arm in one hand and dips a cloth in warm water with the other. “You should’ve called me,” Yoon-ho huffs, exasperated; his thumb rubs small circles on Jong-in’s wrist. “I would’ve come to pick you up so you didn’t have to drive yourself home. Or to the hospital.”
Jong-in just stares as Yoon-ho gently— so, so carefully— begins to clean the gash with the cloth. He’s methodical with it, washing first the wound and then the blood surrounding it, and it’s so—
He’s not entirely used to this, still. It feels a little foreign sometimes, even after all these months, and sometimes part of him still wants to flinch away. But it’s gotten better, and it’s— Yoon-ho is gentle , impossibly so. His hands are warm but don’t carry the same heat that a fire would; in the beginning he’d kept his touches light, if just a bit protective. Jong-in still shows up to work with all his layers fastened in place, but at home he’s grown slowly used to Yoon-ho’s touch through just one or two. It feels more like comfort, more like safety, than he’d ever expected.
(It makes him wonder, sometimes— especially at night, when Yoon-ho has an arm tucked around him and he can feel the gentle warmth of Yoon-ho’s hand on his hip or shoulder— if he’d been missing this ever since Jeju, maybe ever since he awakened, and he just didn’t know. Would he have been less lonely if he had this? Probably. He isn’t sure. But there’s no way of knowing, is there? All that matters is he has it now.)
“You’re being awfully quiet,” Yoon-ho observes. He swipes the cloth gently down Jong-in’s arm, then sets it aside and reaches for the bandages.
“Just thinking,” Jong-in murmurs.
“Don’t try too hard; you’ll hurt yourself.”
Jong-in swats half-heartedly at his shoulder. “You’re one to talk. And thank you. You really didn’t need to do this.”
Yoon-ho snorts. “What, and let you ignore this? Like hell. I know you would’ve gone to work without even properly bandaging this, and then you’d start bleeding all over your fancy suits and come complaining to me.”
The light-hearted dig makes the tension in Jong-in’s throat lessen, and he laughs quietly. “Guilty as charged.”
Yoon-ho is silent as he finishes up the bandaging. Then, he slides his hand down into Jong-in’s and lifts it up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of Jong-in’s hand. His grip is warm and loose, his fingers careful in the way they cradle Jong-in’s.
“Next time be more careful,” murmurs Yoon-ho. “Or at least call me so you’re not driving your own injured, stubborn ass to the hospital.”
“I will,” Jong-in replies, his voice quiet. His heart is in his throat and part of him really, really wants to throw himself at Yoon-ho and kiss him silly. Instead he tangles their fingers together and squeezes. Then, just because he can— because he knows Yoon-ho will, and he wants Yoon-ho to— he tilts his head, lids his eyes, and declares with a slight pout, “Now, would you really let your injured partner walk himself to bed?”
“You’re such a dramatic bastard,” Yoon-ho snorts. He slides one arm beneath Jong-in’s thighs, the other behind his back, and lifts him while standing up, like it’s nothing. He’s smiling and Jong-in is smiling and despite the throbbing in his arm, the world feels good.
Yoon-ho carries him to bed, and Jong-in falls asleep with Yoon-ho’s arm wrapped securely around him.
---
Days later he startles awake in the middle of the night, fire still flickering behind his vision, his throat dry like he’d just inhaled smoke. It’s the first time in a long while a nightmare has dragged him down so deeply, to the point where he’s near-hyperventilating; his hands shakes as he holds them up and touches his face, just to make sure he’s still there.
He has no one to blame but himself. If he hadn’t let himself get so comfortable— hadn’t let himself believe that maybe, after weeks of peaceful sleep, the nightmare had finally gone away—
Yoon-ho is still asleep, so Jong-in slips out of bed. He goes out onto the balcony and braces his arms against the railing. His head falls into the crooks of his elbows and he tries to breathe, tries to get rid of the phantom taste of ash on his tongue. When he closes his eyes he sees the flames again, looming at him like the worst dungeon beast he’s ever seen, and he sees ants, white ones stained red with blood, and—
Yoon-ho’s arms wrap around him from behind. He startles, and a quiet “fuck” slips from his mouth before he can stop it.
“Don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before,” Yoon-ho murmurs. His voice is pitched low with sleepiness. “You’re gonna get a cold if you stay out here.”
It is getting close to winter, and Jong-in’s wearing a thin hoodie from back when he attended university— but he can’t feel the cold. Maybe it’s the flames, maybe it’s Yoon-ho right behind him. He doesn’t know.
“Come back to bed,” Yoon-ho says. He presses a kiss to Jong-in’s nape, achingly gentle. “Or else you’re goin’ to be exhausted tomorrow.”
“I’m always exhausted,” Jong-in replies, half a joke, half not.
Yoon-ho sighs a little. “Nightmare?”
Jong-in does not reply. He leans back into Yoon-ho’s chest and tries to squeeze the image of that same raging inferno from his mind.
“Talk to me,” Yoon-ho murmurs. A cold gust blows through Jong-in’s hair and he shivers. All of a sudden it’s freezing out here, but Yoon-ho is so warm. The world is blurring at the edges and he feels like he could fall off the balcony as easily as a flame can flicker to life, but Yoon-ho holds him in place. He’s solid and steady and warm; Jong-in thinks he could use warm right about now.
“I still dream about it sometimes,” he admits, barely louder than a whisper. “The same memory, every time. That fire, and all those damn ants. I—” he pauses, swallows back the ache that presses against his throat.
Yoon-ho kisses his neck again, his arms tightening.
Jong-in exhales. His next words come a little easier. “Sometimes I despise fire. Which is incredibly ironic.”
“Was gonna say,” Yoon-ho says, a note of amusement in his tone. “‘S okay. I won’t let you burn yourself.”
Jong-in had thought he could do that, too, and yet—
“I don’t know how you would,” he says, more bitter than he meant.
But Yoon-ho just turns him around, gently, and leans down to kiss him. “I’ll figure it out,” he mumbles against Jong-in’s lips. He sounds half-asleep, and yet so certain that Jong-in cannot doubt him. “I was a firefighter. It’s my thing.”
There is nothing Jong-in can say to that. Instead he lets Yoon-ho lead him back to bed. Yoon-ho throws an arm over him, his chest pressing against Jong-in’s back, a solid and familiar presence behind him.
For all that he’d been shaken earlier, it’s the easiest he’s ever gone back to sleep after a nightmare like that.
---
When Jong-in arrives at work in the morning after the red gate incident, he finds no less than the entirety of the B-team standing outside his office, their expressions ranging from genuinely delighted (Han Se-mi) to dangerously smug (Gina and Lee Bo-ra).
Jong-in slows to a stop. “Yes?” he asks, wary.
“Congratulations. We heard the news,” says Gina with a smirk.
“Yes, congratulations, Guildmaster,” agrees Son Ki-hoon, sounding genuinely excited for him, if not also a little anxious. “If I may ask— how long ago did you two start dating?”
Han Se-mi tries (poorly) to disguise her laugh with a cough. Lee Bo-ra mutters something that sounds like, “Desperate much?”
Jong-in suspects he knows what’s happening here; there’s no harm in indulging them, though, is there? “Around a year now.”
Son’s face goes pale. Seo Ji-woo immediately sticks out her hand; so do Lee and Gina. With all the enthusiasm of a man walking to his execution, Son deposits a hefty amount of won into each of his teammates’ hands. He walks off without another word, his shoulders heavy with the weight of financial ruin.
“How much did you bet?” asks Han, aghast.
“Enough,” replies Gina with a smirk. “Hey, Guildmaster. There’s this brand that released a new eyeshadow palette recently, and I think it’d go great with your eye color and skin tone.”
Jong-in blinks. “I’m not sure I have much use for makeup, other than the foundational basics.”
“Yes you do,” all four women reply at once, in eerie unison.
“No, I don’t,” he tries to refute.
A pause. Gina lifts an eyebrow. Han gives him an encouraging smile.
He sighs, caught. “Alright. Please email me a link.”
---
He gets the eyeshadow and puts it on right before a meeting at the Association— not a lot, just a bit in the corners of his eyes, subtle enough to go unnoticed unless someone was really looking— and he pretends not to notice the way Yoon-ho’s gaze keeps darting back towards his eyes.
Perhaps he should send Gina a thank-you gift.
---
He and Yoon-ho initially release public statements confirming the nature of their relationship and nothing more. That, perhaps, is why the press and public continue to hound them with questions. Some of them are easy to ignore, but others—
He knows Yoon-ho has seen some of them. All the comments about his hunter abilities and general countenance, compared to Jong-in. Nothing new, really, just a resurgence of what people have always said. A monster is what they call him, the intimidating man— is he really a man, though— who somehow managed to pull the guildmaster of the Hunters Guild. And Jong-in isn’t sure why it pisses him off so much, but it does. Seeing all the people who act like Yoon-ho is some deranged beast and not one of the few people whose touch has ever made Jong-in feel safe— it makes him angry in a way so few things do. You don’t know him , he wants to yell at all those people. You have no right to talk because you haven’t seen him when he’s tired. You don’t know how he’ll smile at the kids down the street when they look at him in awe. You don’t know the way he’s memorized my favorite recipe and carries me to bed when I pass out on the couch.
Yoon-ho says to leave it alone, so he does. But he cannot help it, sometimes— the anger that bubbles up when he hears an offhand comment coming from someone on the street, or a hunter at the Association. Even at his own guild, occasionally. He reins it in, swallows it down and masks his frown with his usual placid smile, but his fingers itch to throttle something.
Sometimes, though, he can shut the whispers up— even if only briefly. Like when he passes a group of hunters at the Association just as Yoon-ho emerges from around the corner, his brows furrowed in a sure sign that he’d heard their whispers. Accusing the relationship of being pretend, because surely the gentle and charismatic Choi Jong-in would never date someone like Baek Yoon-ho.
Without a word, Jong-in approaches his partner. Yoon-ho opens his mouth to say something, but Jong-in interrupts him by taking Yoon-ho’s tie in his hand and yanking him down. Even like that he still has to get on his toes to press their mouths together, but he hears Yoon-ho’s little exhale of pleasant surprise and smiles into the kiss. He pulls away, watching with satisfaction as Yoon-ho’s cheeks flush pink.
“What was that for?” Yoon-ho grumbles, like he’s upset, except Jong-in knows he’s really not.
The hunters are staring, mouths agape. Jong-in smiles, already turning on his heel to head for the meeting room. “Oh, nothing.”
---
Yoon-ho’s in a daze the entire walk back to the helicopter. He’s stopped crying, but his gaze is unfocused, like the world is passing by without his noticing. He carries Min Byung-gu’s body in his arms, wrapped in Jong-in’s cape. Sometimes his mouth trembles, like he’s fighting back more tears.
Jong-in walks in front of him— just in case. When the helicopter lifts off, he and Tae-gyu crawl out to the front to fend off the stray ants. Yoon-ho doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t seem to notice much of anything, really. He moves and responds to Jong-in’s words, but he doesn’t speak. They hole up in Yoon-ho’s room on the ship without a word to anyone else and Jong-in helps Yoon-ho get his gloves off. They’re stained with blood and ant guts. Yoon-ho might have to get them replaced, but he likes these gloves. Jong-in will have to see if he can find a way to clean them.
“You should rest,” he murmurs, sitting down next to Yoon-ho. Yoon-ho blinks at him, his gaze clearing a little.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah. I guess so.”
Yoon-ho falls asleep with his head in Jong-in’s lap, then wakes up, his eyes wide and almost frightened as he stares Jong-in up and down.
You could’ve died, he says.
And you’re a fool , Jong-in wants to say, because does Yoon-ho think he didn’t know this? Of course he’d known he might have died when he charged at that ant. He is not weak— his rings are more than just decoration, and he has always been able to throw a mean punch— but at the end of the day, he is a mage. Trying to physically fight a giant killer ant was never going to end well for him.
But what else was he to do? Yoon-ho was being choked to death. He could not stand idly by and let that happen. Yoon-ho already lost Byung-gu and Jong-in lost Seong-ja, all those years ago. They cannot lose anyone else. They can’t lose each other.
So he slides into Yoon-ho’s lap, runs his fingers through his partner’s hair. Yoon-ho buries his face into Jong-in’s shoulder and Jong-in feels him shake, trying not to cry. His grip on Jong-in’s waist is almost painfully tight, but Jong-in does not tell him to let up. Instead he continues to thread his fingers through the wild swoops of Yoon-ho’s hair, and feels the first bloom of tears against his shirt.
---
There are hordes of press waiting the second the helicopter lands, but neither of them are in any mood to answer questions, least of all Yoon-ho. He looks dazed and exhausted and Jong-in isn’t sure he even notices the cameras blinking in his direction. There isn’t much Jong-in can do to shield a man who is both taller and broader than him, but he does his best to cut quickly through the crowd, tugging Yoon-ho along. He drives them both home and orders from Yoon-ho’s favorite restaurant— lots of food, because they’re both running on fumes and need to replenish their mana somehow. Yoon-ho crashes almost immediately afterwards; he collapses in their bed without a word. Jong-in follows suit. He falls into the space between Yoon-ho’s arms, presses himself against his partner; Yoon-ho places a protective hand on his back.
They fall asleep and when Jong-in wakes up, Yoon-ho’s hand is still there, warm even through his shirt. Jong-in stares at him in the early morning light. He’d expected, for some reason, that it would be dark and stormy today. It would have felt right. But it’s sunny outside and the light filters through their curtains, casting Yoon-ho’s hair in a warm glow.
Jong-in reaches out to brush some errant strands from Yoon-ho’s face. Yoon-ho’s eyes crack open, squinting against the light.
“Morning,” Jong-in murmurs. “How do you feel?”
Yoon-ho rolls over on his back, blinks up at the ceiling. “Better,” he says. It doesn’t sound like a lie. He frowns a little, then lets out a small huff of laughter. “You feel asleep on my arm. I can’t feel it anymore.”
Jong-in sits up, studying Yoon-ho as he does the same. He looks tired still— worn out, rather, like Jeju had been enough for a whole year’s worth of raids. There is a weight in his eyes that wasn’t there two days ago, and there is no time to try and loosen it. They have things to do, conferences to attend, so many things to check off their lists. The funeral is tomorrow. This right now— this moment— it will have to be enough.
Jong-in slides his hand through the tangle of Yoon-ho’s hair, cupping the back of his head and guiding him closer. Yoon-ho leans in and kisses him, gently. When he pulls away, the half-smile on his face looks genuine.
Yes. This will be enough.
---
They are invited to the annual international conference and gala for hunters worldwide, although it’s less of an invitation and more of an expectation. In any case, Jong-in has always been the unofficial, designated liaison officer, the one whose job it is to flit between hunters and butter them up and secure Korea some important alliances, because god knows none of his coworkers are sociable enough to do the same— so he and Yoon-ho go. Jong-in gets them new suits with ties that match each other’s suit colors— red for Yoon-ho, black for himself. He tries his on a few days before the flight; Yoon-ho stares at him, and then yanks him closer, and they don’t end up doing much packing that night.
At the gala, Yoon-ho hovers awkwardly in a corner with a glass of wine, and Jong-in makes his way through the crowd, flashing smiles, passing out compliments, working his way into conversations to deepen Korea’s international relationships. He feels bad for leaving his partner— still out of his depth at these social gatherings, even after years of attending them— but they both know what he needs to do. As long as they are here for a socially acceptable amount of time, they can still leave early.
He shares some drinks with a group from France, politely declines an offer to dance from an American hunter. Through lots of flattery and smiles, he manages to get the contact of Russia’s top hunter. Eventually he makes his way back to Yoon-ho’s side. His partner is leaning against the wall, observing one Lim Tae-gyu making a fool of himself in front of some women.
“Why hello there, handsome,” Jong-in says, layering the flirtatious tone on thick— just for fun. Like they’re strangers at a party and not partners for years now. “Care for a dance?”
Yoon-ho startles and stares at him, brows furrowed. “What, with me?”
Jong-in hums. “Unless you’d rather I find someone else?” he replies, just teasing enough to provoke Yoon-ho.
“Nope,” says Yoon-ho quickly. Jong-in smothers a laugh and accepts his partner’s hand.
They move between couples, finding an empty spot. Yoon-ho clears his throat, embarrassed, and mutters, “Just so you know, I’m shit at dancing. I’ll probably step on your feet.”
He looks so genuinely remorseful about it that Jong-in laughs, his chest warm with fondness. “How typical,” he teases. “Don’t worry. Just follow my lead.”
He clasps Yoon-ho’s hand in his own, gripping Yoon-ho’s shoulder with the other. Yoon-ho’s a little too tall for it to work perfectly, but Jong-in isn't about to complain, especially when Yoon-ho’s free hand settles on his waist, warm and familiar.
He begins to gently guide his partner through the steps of a dance, a simple one he’d learned long ago. Yoon-ho’s a little clumsy, but he catches on quickly. They weave between other pairs and Jong-in finds himself staring. There are lines around Yoon-ho’s eyes that weren’t there years ago and the slightest sliver of gray near his temple, and he’s still just as effortlessly handsome as he was the very first time Jong-in saw him.
“What?” says Yoon-ho when he notices the staring. “Do I have something on my face?”
Jong-in shakes his head and replies, “You look good. Although now I’m thinking we should have gone with a more catlike pattern for the jacket.”
Yoon-ho steps deliberately and heavily on his toes. Biting back a yelp, Jong-in tightens his grip and gives Yoon-ho a half-hearted glare.
He’s laughing, the fool— a deep chuckle that vibrates in his chest. There's a grin on his face as he suddenly spins them around once, twice, and Jong-in can’t find it in himself to be even a little upset about the toe thing.
Instead he rolls his eyes and mutters, teasingly, “And here I thought you were such a gentleman.”
“I am,” declares Yoon-ho. He steps on Jong-in’s toes again.
“I’m going to tell the people at your guild that you purr sometimes,” Jong-in informs him.
Yoon-ho snorts. “Then I’ll just tell the people at your guild how clingy you get when you’re tired.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And you like it,” says Yoon-ho, grinning, as he flattens his hand over the small of Jong-in’s back, using the extra leverage to pull him closer.
Jong-in huffs.
Yes. Yes, he does.
---
He’s out with Yoon-ho one day, enjoying a rare weekend off, when both their phones buzz with an alert about an A-Rank dungeon break, just blocks away.
Yoon-ho sighs, placing down the tea set he’d been looking at. “The one day I don’t have my combat shirt on.”
“Hopefully it’ll be quick, but we should hurry,” says Jong-in. An A-Rank dungeon break is just about the worst thing that could happen in a crowded civilian area. The quicker they get there, the more casualties can be avoided. Two S-Ranks are sure to be able to turn the tide, or at least keep the break under control long enough for more support to arrive.
They run the whole way there, and it’s already a mess— screaming, dust in the air, buildings destroyed and beasts flooding the street. Jong-in hears Yoon-ho’s breathing hitch and follows his gaze to a group of kids, no older than seven or eight, huddled near a car as a high orc looms over them.
“Go,” says Jong-in urgently. “I’ll cover you.”
Yoon-ho nods and takes off. Jong-in aims carefully, then snipes the golem through the head with a thin arrow of flame. He has to be careful with his powers here— there are dozens of civilians still trapped and he cannot hurt them with his fire. He just needs to keep everything precise and controlled, enough to keep the civilians safe while also covering Yoon-ho’s back.
His partner has already ushered the kids to safety and is returning for a woman trapped beneath some debris. A werewolf lunges at him from behind, but Jong-in sends another arrow its way. He summons a miniature version of his dragon and lets it tear down the street, setting fire to all the flammable monsters pouring from the gate.
They continue like this— Yoon-ho assisting the injured and trapped while Jong-in protects him from behind. He can see the relief in the faces of the other hunters, the ones who’d already been on scene when they arrived. They’re B-Rank at most; there was no chance they could have beaten back this dungeon break. But things should be turning, now. If he and Yoon-ho can’t clear the beasts, they can certainly keep things in check until more hunters arrive.
Yoon-ho sweeps the last person to safety and meets Jong-in in the middle of the street. He transforms his right arm, ripping the sleeve of his shirt in the process. In classic Yoon-ho fashion, he then proceeds to tear off the whole shirt.
“Really?” says Jong-in. “This is the third time this month.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t like it,” replies Yoon-ho, flashing him a smirk.
Jong-in huffs, caught, and looks away. He hears Yoon-ho chuckle and, without looking, socks him in the shoulder.
“Hey! Asshole.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jong-in says before charging into the fight.
There is now a veritable wall of high orcs crowding the street. These are dangerous; they have powerful attacks and are stubbornly resistant to magic. Jong-in’s strongest flames, no matter how concentrated he makes them, can do little more than incapacitate an orc for a minute or two.
Luckily, they have no such resistance to Yoon-ho’s metal-lined gloves. He goes to town, leaping up to punch one orc’s face in and using his momentum to swivel around and slam his foot into another one. Jong-in is somewhat successful in splitting the group with some carefully-aimed fire spears, giving Yoon-ho more room to work with. Some nearby archers are providing ranged support as best they can, even if their arrows are little more than a distraction. Still, the combined efforts leave a trail of dead orcs at behind Yoon-ho as he works his way through the herd.
Jong-in hangs back, which is why he sees the orc that is approaching Yoon-ho from behind, holding an axe that’s nearly bigger than he is. Yoon-ho is occupied with beating up an orcish mage; the axe-wielding one is too close for Jong-in to risk fire, not that fire would do much to stop it. Panic seizes him in its grasp and he’s moving before his mind can catch up with his body. He throws himself at the orc, knocking it off-balance. It lets out a sound of surprise and before it can recover, he swivels around and throws his weight into a punch. He lets his mana pool into his fist, sparking some flames, and cannot help a grin of satisfaction when the orc stumbles back, its face smoking.
His hand stings— he is not immune to his own flames, never has been. But it’s not bad, and now the orc is caught off-guard. He is not a tank by any means and, though he is not weak, he doubts he’ll be able to kill this one by himself. But Yoon-ho’s already noticed, and he launches himself with such strength that his fist goes clean through the orc’s chest.
Yoon-ho grimaces as he shakes out his hand. “Damn orcs. Thanks for the save.”
“I’m glad it worked,” Jong-in says. He frowns at the sight of more orcs pouring from the gate. “Behind you.”
Yoon-ho swears. “You sure you can’t take some out?”
“Not without torching the air and suffocating us all. I’ll do what I can.”
So they keep going. Yoon-ho charges in with his fists raised and Jong-in tries to support him from the back. Some of the orcs split off and head for him; he turns to face them, taking into account the gaps in their formation and any possible weak spots he could exploit. He raises his hand—
“Jong-in!” Yoon-ho yells.
Instincts tell him to duck. He does, just as an axe blade whooshes through the space where his head was. The other orcs are closing in and there is at least one behind him. This is Jeju all over again. He is surrounded and any physical prowess he has will fail him here; there is no choice but to lift his hand and summon his flames. They spark to life between his fingers and take but a millisecond to expand in the empty space around him, greedily swallowing the air and all that is in it.
The explosion knocks him back. It also knocks away the orcs, but he has little time to worry about that. He hits the pavement with his shoulder and rolls away. Fire licks at the ground mere inches away from him and he feels his breath seize with panic. This is horribly familiar. Behind the flickering of the flames, he thinks he sees the silhouette of something like an ant— or maybe the smoke is just making him dizzy. He coughs on it, feels it scratch at his throat. Get up , he yells at himself, but even as he staggers to his feet, he can see the flames inching ever closer.
His heart stutters in his chest. Not again .
Yoon-ho’s hand closes around his wrist, yanks him closer. He blinks and suddenly he’s out of the fire, and Yoon-ho is setting him down. “Alright?” Yoon-ho asks, his brows furrowed with concern.
Jong-in swallows a greedy gulp of smoke-free air and nods. “Thank you.”
“Told you I’d figure it out,” says Yoon-ho, his lips quirking into a grin. I won’t let you burn yourself , is what he’d said, long ago. He’d kept his promise.
“What a gentleman,” Jong-in murmurs, his pulse fluttering. Now is absolutely not the time to make out with Yoon-ho, but he’s very tempted. Instead he presses a quick kiss to the underside of Yoon-ho’s jaw, then turns back to the flames. “Let’s finish this, shall we?”
“Couldn’t agree more,” says Yoon-ho.
---
“They’re getting worse.”
Yoon-ho says it through the glove between his teeth as he struggles with his own shirt. Jong-in takes it from him, ripping off a strip from the hem, and begins to wrap the deep gash in Yoon-ho’s bicep. It’s cursory work at best, but it’ll stem the bleeding until they can get to a healer or a hospital.
“Shit,” Yoon-ho mutters, hissing with pain. Jong-in frowns.
“Sorry. I have to.”
“I know. Thanks.”
When he’s done, Jong-in takes his place back at the front of the group. With gates cropping up more and more frequently, guild boundaries have loosened. No one really cares anymore who gets what gate, so long as the gate is taken care of before it breaks. This one was an S, and he and Yoon-ho agreed to take it on together with their hunters. The boss is dead, at least, but their healers are exhausted and they’d nearly lost a few mages. Yoon-ho’s injury is quite frankly one of the less grievous ones.
The dungeons are getting worse, he thinks, as the gate comes into view. More powerful, and harder to clear. The Hunters and White Tigers combined shouldn’t’ve struggled too much, but even this low S gate felt like it was more than low S. Things are getting bad. Countries are generally holding on, but the ones with less S-Ranks are struggling. He isn’t sure how much longer Korea can hold on before it starts to crack. The S-Ranks they have left are already being stretched thin; sometimes he or Hunter Cha will have to cast Association rules to the side and take on a lower-ranked gate alone just because no one else will get it in time.
When they emerge from the gate, there is backup from the Hunters waiting— mostly healers. They begin tending to the wounded, their fingers sparking green. Yoon-ho sits down on the curb and Jong-in sits next to him. “How is your arm feeling?”
“What you’d expect,” says Yoon-ho. He grimaces. “I’ll live. It’s not that bad.”
“We’re reaching a breaking point,” Jong-in murmurs. He eyes the blood staining the bandage. “How much longer, do you think?”
Yoon-ho exhales. “At this rate? I reckon we can hold on for another few months. But if these damn S-Rank gates keep popping up there’s no way we’ll be able to deal with them all, even with Hunter Sung.”
Jong-in says nothing. He begins meticulously folding Yoon-ho’s shirt, even if it’s bloodied and torn and probably will be thrown out anyways.
The healers get to Yoon-ho last, but they make quick work of the wound. Jong-in and his partner stick around for a while, making sure all their guild members are healed and okay to go home. Only once everyone else is gone do they make their way to the parking lot.
Yoon-ho rummages around in the car, pulling out a spare shirt and tugging it on. “Need to buy some more soon,” he mutters.
Jong-in exhales— not quite a laugh, he’s too exhausted, but close. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re just trying to show off.”
“Like I would need to,” Yoon-ho snorts. “I think you’re just trying to cover up the fact that you like it.”
“I do not,” says Jong-in, primly. A lie, really, but even after all these years he will never admit to liking when he can admire Yoon-ho’s arms, even if only for a brief second between battles.
“You’re so full of shit.” Yoon-ho’s voice is fond. He leans over, pressing a kiss to Jong-in’s forehead. “Wanna drive? I think you’re more awake than I am.”
The bar is low, but Jong-in elects not to say this. He drives them home and as they’re walking out of the parking garage, Yoon-ho checks his phone and groans. “Shit. Another one.”
Jong-in scowls. “Rank?”
“High A, right in the middle of Myeongdong. It’s gotta be removed by tomorrow at the latest.” Yoon-ho rubs a hand down his face. “Reckon one of the others will take it?”
Tae-gyu has his hands full in Itaewon, and neither the Fame nor Knights guilds are able to regularly raid A-Rank gates. Jong-in shakes his head; Yoon-ho scowls heavily. “Damn it.”
“The B-team already has a raid scheduled for tomorrow,” Jong-in says. “I suppose I could take my team and do it.”
“It’s closer to us,” Yoon-ho replies. “We’ll do it.” He shoves his phone back into his pocket, scrubs his hands down his face, and lets out a muffled yell— as if already dreading it. It’s not as if he doesn’t like fighting or hunting as a profession, but so many gates back to back will wear on anyone. Jong-in would know. They’ve barely seen each other recently, so caught up in clearing gates and preventing dungeon breaks.
Tomorrow will be more of the same— Yoon-ho will run to clear this new gate while Jong-in goes by himself to clear some lower-ranked dungeons, just because no one else has the resources to do it. A high A-rank isn’t necessarily dangerous for an S-Rank, especially one with a team, but—
That gate, months ago, that one was A-Rank. It should’ve been fine, and yet it wasn’t. There is no guarantee; there never is. He knows this all too well by now. Tomorrow Yoon-ho will walk through that gate, and maybe…
Jong-in stops walking. “Yoon-ho.”
Yoon-ho turns, blinks at him. “Yeah?”
Should he say it? Maybe not. They’re in the middle of a parking garage at one in the morning, lit by nothing but the fluorescent ceiling lights. In terms of atmosphere, it’s terrible. But when else is there to say it? It’s not like either of them have the time to go on some romantic candle-lit date on a weekend. There is no promise of another time, or even of tomorrow. There is only right now.
Jong-in slips his hand into Yoon-ho’s and says, “Marry me.”
“I— what?” Yoon-ho breathes, his eyes blown wide.
“I don’t have a ring,” Jong-in murmurs. His heart is pounding. He rubs his thumb over the back of Yoon-ho’s knuckles, trying to steady his breathing. “Or a plan. But like you said, things are getting worse. And you and I both know that time is not a privilege we have. I don’t want to die tomorrow knowing that I could have done more. So.” He breathes deep. “Marry me.”
It comes out as more of a question. Will you marry me? Will you have me, knowing that either of us could die tomorrow? Life makes us no promises, but we can promise each other. That’s all we can do, so will you join me?
He never thought he would get married— mostly because he never thought he’d find anyone to marry, and maybe because, deep down, he knew that the odds were stacked against him. S-Rank or not, hunters don’t exactly have long lifespans. He didn’t think he would ever have time to marry, because what future did he have while he was still young beyond gates and paperwork and hunting?
As it turns out, there is more than those things. A table set for two instead of one; a black coat hanging next to his near the door. Flowers pressed into his hands and fingers woven with his own. He will never be able to settle down with a normal person and have a normal life, but he does not need to. He has this, and it’s more than he could have ever asked for. Having a wedding will not change any of that, not really, but it will mean something. It will be a promise; even as the world spirals around them, at least they will have someone to come home to.
So he squeezes Yoon-ho’s hand. “Marry me,” he says again. When Yoon-ho says nothing, he adds, “For the tax benefits, if nothing else.”
Yoon-ho stares at him for a moment. Then, in the dim glow of the lights, Jong-in sees his mouth curl into a warm smile, sees the shock on his face soften. “You’re a dumbass,” he says, quiet and fond. “Yeah. I’ll marry you.” He settles his free hand on Jong-in’s waist like he always does, leaning in for a quick kiss. Against Jong-in’s lips he murmurs, teasingly, “Could’ve picked a more romantic place, though.”
“This is the most romantic place I’ve ever seen,” Jong-in says, laughing quietly. “Don’t tell me you don’t like cars.”
“Yeah, cars. Love them.” Yoon-ho sways a little on his feet, even as his hand remains steady on Jong-in’s waist.
“You’re going to pass out, aren’t you,” Jong-in says. He feels light now, his pulse thrumming with something almost giddy. “Let’s head back before you eat pavement.”
At the door of their apartment, Yoon-ho pauses and turns to face Jong-in. Moonlight cuts through a window at his back, outlining his frame in silver.
Jong-in tilts his head, confused. “What is it?”
“Your hair,” says Yoon-ho. He reaches out and brushes at something near Jong-in’s nape. “You know you always have this one strand out of place?
“Do I?”
“Yeah.” Yoon-ho doesn’t elaborate— just takes Jong-in’s chin gently in his hand and tilts his head up for a kiss. The promise hangs in the air between them. I’ll marry you . Come what may, I will do whatever I can to come home to you.
It is enough.