Work Text:
As the traffic lights lingered on red, Si-mok took a moment to lean back on the seat and breathe in deeply. It had been one hell of a day, starting with the indictment of the middle man caught in between an arms deal that extended to Hong Kong and Iran, and continuing with the aftermath of a surprise pardon request of said suspect in exchange for the names of the masterminds.
He had sat for hours pleading against such pardon, arguing that justice ought to be allowed to follow its course without setting criminals free and setting a precedent, but by the end of the afternoon, he had started to strongly suspect that, once again, his inflexible principles were about to be overruled in favour of what his superiors always termed “the more pragmatic approach”.
As the sun set, he rushed across town to pick up Nari from her extra curricular activities, and Hyun-shik, six months old and as easy-going as babies come, from nursery. He adjusted his rear view mirror to look at them fondly, immediately relaxing at the knowledge that they were both safe in his car, and on their way home. Nari, who was cheerfully swinging her legs in the booster seat, beamed happily at him, while Hyun-shik stared placidly out of the window, seemingly pleased with his lot in life.
It did not take a fully operative insular cortex to appreciate just how precious those little humans were to him. He smiled back at them through the mirror, and was rewarded, as always, by Nari’s giggles. Like her mother, she got disproportionately excited every time his face deviated from its usual seriousness.
Speaking of which. As the lights turned green, Si-mok dialled his wife’s number, eagerly anticipating her sing-song way of saying hello to him, and the usually cheerful voice with which she greeted him. He was thus quite taken aback at the sharp tone with which she greeted him.
“Si-mok, did you get it?”
“Yeo-jin?”
“The one and only,” was the reply. “So? You got it?”
“Got what? Dinner? Was I meant to?” he asked in confusion.
“Dinner?! Si-mok! The arrest warrant I asked you for two hours ago, please tell me you have it!” she cried. “I have the whole cyber crime team here twiddling their thumbs waiting for the warrant to get that motherf--- wait did you pick up the kids?”
“Yes…they’re here. Listening,” he replied cautiously. “And as for that warrant, working on it.”
“You forgot didn’t you?”
Si-mok signalled to the right and made a turn to go back to his office. He had totally, one hundred percent, forgotten to follow up on Yeo-jin’s text request that he had received, and never replied to, while being yelled at by two Division Chiefs and the Police Commissioner. He sighed, knowing that now he had to look forward to another less than amiable reaction by the Judge who will be receiving his request for a warrant so late in the day.
“Give me an hour, Yeo-jin,” was his reply, and heard a collective groan thundering on his wife’s side of the conversation. He was obviously also on speaker.
“Aish... your husband’s slow Chief!” he heard someone complain in the background.
“My husband’s perfect, shut your mouth,” was Yeo-jin’s immediate reply, resulting in a burst of hilarity amongst her team. She obviously got along with these colleagues far better than with her previous ones. Her tone however turned serious when she addressed him again. “Si-mok, half an hour. We’re hungry and tired, and we are dealing with a stalker who might get dangerous.”
“Forty-five minutes. I’m on it,” he replied before ending the call. He could have kicked himself for letting this happen. In more than a decade of working as a prosecutor, he had never slipped up on his job before. Maybe it was the age, or fatherhood, or six months of disrupted sleep patterns resulting from bottle feeds and nappy changes; but whatever it was, all it meant was that he was back at his office, way past the end of the official work day, being gaped at by the security guard as he struggled to show him his identification.
To be sure, it was not uncommon for him to work late, or to return to the office in the evening after taking his children home. However it was definitely the first time that the security personnel saw him rushing by them while clutching a five year old, wearing a taekwondo kit, in one hand and a detachable car seat in the other.
Luckily, at that time of the evening, most prosecutors and their assistants had already left the office. That meant that the corridors and offices were mostly empty, and he had no occasion to explain the presence of his children to judgemental colleagues. He entered the office and set Hyun-shik’s carrier on his desk, while he pulled a chair for Nari to sit down at the table which he generally used for team meetings.
After learning, the very hard and loud way, that, just like her mother, his daughter needed a steady and endless supply of snacks to function, Si-mok dipped his hand into his laptop backpack and successfully retrieved an array of nibbles, including a sandwich that he had bought for lunch and didn’t eat, which his daughter eagerly pounced on.
He pulled out his tablet and loaded a reading app. “Why don’t you practice your reading while appa does something quick for eomma ?” he suggested as he placed the tablet in front of her.
The look Nari gave him back was a mix of horror and incredulousness. Si-mok glanced at the clock and did a mental countdown. Thirty-five minutes. He sighed and loaded the Netflix app instead.
“Fine, Zog the Dragon . In English,” he conceded. If he was going to be that kind of parent who kept their child quiet through cartoons, said child would have to use the time to improve their English, and to practice their reading through subtitles. Also, the princess in this cartoon was also an animal doctor and he was also that kind of parent who believed in empowering messages. “Stay here until I finish, ok? Don’t move or wander about,” he cautioned.
Nari nodded, munching happily. He loaded his laptop, and prepared a bottle for Hyun-shik who was starting to get restless. With one hand he quickly typed the warrant request on the basis of the information that he found in an unopened email from Yeo-jin, and with the other he held the bottle that his son was eagerly drinking from, making little gulping sounds that made Si-mok smile. Both his children obviously had inherited their mother’s appetite.
He was totally engrossed in his task, and managed to send out the request to the on-call Judge with Yeo-jin in CC, and with some minutes to spare from her deadline. It was only after receiving a call from the Judge who agreed to issue the warrant but damn you Hwang next time do your job within office hours!, that he realised that his office was eerily quiet, and that the chair in which his daughter had been seated twenty minutes before was now empty.
His brain had long lost the ability to generate feelings of panic, but still, the fact that his daughter was not where she was supposed to be, and that he had been so absorbed in his work to not have noticed that she had slipped out of the room, was something that was making him feel things that were very very uncomfortable.
He picked up Hyun-shik and walked quickly out of the office in the quiet corridors, his breathing not as calm as it usually was. Luckily, it took only a few minutes before he heard her muffled voice behind one of the closed doors.
“Hello! Where is my appa? ” he heard her ask in the near distance.
“Hi kid. Who the hell are you? Who owns you?” a man replied in surprise.
Si-mok recognised the voice immediately, and closed his eyes in frustration. Of all the offices his daughter could find herself in.
“Appa and eomma I think,” heard his daughter’s matter of fact reply to his problematic colleague’s question. “But I have to ask them!”
Prosecutor Seo Dong-jae exited an office three doors to the left. As soon as he caught sight of Si-mok, staring at him rather helplessly with a baby in his arms, he burst into laughter.
“Is this yours?” he asked, nodding at Nari who was half dangling nonchalantly from his hand.
“Appa! Do you own me?” she asked at the same time.
Si-mok nodded at Prosecutor Seo and turned to Nari with a frown. “What did I tell you about wandering about, Nari?” he chastised sternly. She responded with the anguished, devastated look that she reserved for the rare times that his voice took a slightly stricter tone, and ran to him with tears in her eyes.
“But I needed to pee,” she whispered, her voice muffled as she hugged his leg. “And you were busy doing the thing for eomma.”
Nari’s reactions to his rare scoldings always made him feel like a very bad parent. But Prosecutor Seo was still staring at him rather incredulously, and Nari did disobey, so he kept his stance and just stroked her hair gently. “I am never too busy Nari, never” he just replied, before bowing his thanks to the other Prosecutor, with the intention of going back to his office.
“Wait, so it is true,” Prosecutor Seo replied. “The Hwang kids really exist,” he added, his handsome, albeit rather weasley face, transforming into a large grin. He walked to Si-mok and knelt down to look at Nari, who was still clinging rather forlornly to her father’s leg.
“This one’s really cute,” he remarked. “My youngest is her age, we should make them meet,” he joked.
Over my goddamn dead body was what Si-mok thought. “Hmmmm, maybe,” was what he said.
Seo Dong-jae then peeked at Hyun-shik, who replied with a gummy smile as he happily reached out to grab at his father’s hair. “Gosh, this one looks like you,” he said as he looked at him closely. “Same nose, aish !” he added with a sympathetic grimace.
Si-mok was not bothered by snipes at him, but drew the line at people trying to be funny at the expense of his children. He felt a sudden surge of protectiveness as he tightened his hold on his son and bowed again, muttering a good evening and grabbing hold of Nari’s hand. As he walked back briskly to his office, he did not miss the fact that she kept looking back at Prosecutor Seo, frowning deeply.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and through the lockscreen he could see a text from his wife, complete with hearts and kissing emojis, confirming that the warrant had been issued. He sighed in relief, until he felt his daughter tugging urgently at his sleeve.
“Appa?”
“Yes?”
“I still need to pee.”
------------------------------------------
Much, much later that night, Si-mok made his way sleepily to the living room, and found Yeo-jin sitting quietly on the sofa, with the dim light of the lamp illuminating her softly as she fed Hyun-shik.
“Why didn’t you wake me up? It was my turn,” Si-mok yawned as he lowered himself next to her.
“It’s ok, you can do the next one. I was awake anyway, and I missed them both today,” she replied, kissing the baby’s brow softly. By the time she had come home from work, both Nari and Hyun-shik were already asleep, and Si-mok knew that, even though it happened very rarely, it was still a source of guilt for her when her job took her away from the children. He looked at her fondly as she snuggled their son, and stroked the baby’s cheeks gently as he sucked greedily at his bottle.
“I’ll miss this view,” she added as she looked out of the large window in the living room. He nodded ruefully in response. He would miss this apartment too, his first real sanctuary in Seoul, but in the two years in which they had lived together in it, especially after the unexpected arrival of their son, they had very clearly outgrown it.
“Did you ever imagine this place looking like this?” Yeo-jin asked as their eyes swept around the place to take in the boxes of toys, the playpen, the highchair and Nari’s drawings that took up most of the wall surface.
“Did I ever imagine myself to get so lucky?” he corrected. “No… no I didn’t,” he confessed lacing his fingers with hers. Their lips met for a soft kiss, and Hyun-shik stretched in her arms, indicating that his feed was over.
“My handsome man, are you all done?” Yeo-jin cooed as she fussed over him.
Si-mok looked at his son closely, before remembering Prosecutor Seo’s comment. “Does he have my nose?” he asked as he studied the baby’s profile warily.
Yeo-jin grinned and kissed Hyun-shik’s said nose affectionately. “He has your everything,” she confirmed with a dreamy look. “It’s incredible. Sometimes I wonder if I was even there when we made him.”
Si-mok frowned at that. He remembered exactly when their son was conceived, and from his recollection, which was very clear and very accurate, they both seemed to have had a really really good time.
His wife saw his look and grinned. “It’s a joke,” she explained. “I remember that night. You had just started wearing glasses, and I couldn’t get my hands off you. I had a lot of fun,” she assured him with a cheeky smile.
Si-mok felt his face go warm, a very rare and unfamiliar occurence that only seemed to happen when Yeo-jin flirted so openly with him. He leaned in for another kiss but was interrupted by the opening of the sliding door that led to Nari’s room, and by her little figure padding towards them as she clutched Sharkie to her.
“Hey Koala bear, what’s the matter? Why are you still awake?” Yeo-jin asked as she pulled her towards her for a cuddle.
“I can’t sleep. I need to speak to appa, ” the girl replied, her lower lip trembling slightly.
Yeo-jin looked at Si-mok questioningly, but he replied with a confused look of his own.
“This is not the time to speak to appa, ” Yeo-jin replied, rubbing her back comfortingly before standing up and reaching for her hand. “This is the time to sleep. Everything will be nice and bright in the morning, let’s go back to bed.”
“Noooo! I want appa !” Nari replied stubbornly, gracing them both with a late night scowl.
At this, Yeo-jin and Si-mok shared a look. “This child seems to forget that I raised her alone for three years before you decided to come along,” Yeo-jin grumbled. “It’s a joke ,” she stressed again when she noticed Si-mok’s frown.
“Not a very funny one,” he retorted sharply, his face still clouded over.
“Ah well, I can’t be funny all the time,” she snapped. “Fine, sorry,” she added with a huff.
It hit Si-mok that, technically, she wasn’t wrong though. She had raised Nari brilliantly for three years before he joined the family, and it probably did sting quite a bit to see her child so attached to him, at times at the expense of not spending time with her. Those dots, even with his limitations, he could definitely join.
“No. I’m the one who’s sorry. You’re right, and you have nothing to apologise for,” he acknowledged. “I’ll speak to her and put her back to sleep.”
Yeo-jin nodded and kissed him lightly. “I’ll settle Hyun-shik and wait for you,” she said.
Si-mok took one look at their daughter’s sullen face, and at her little hand gripping his tightly. “It might take a while, so don’t stay awake,” he replied. Yeo-jin nodded and walked to the bedroom, rocking Hyun-shik gently.
He turned his attention to his daughter, who was still clinging forlornly to him, and led her to the kitchen, where he sat her down on the table and proceeded to warm some milk for her. He poured the milk in a cup which she reached out for eagerly.
“Two hands, careful,” he warned her gently. “And what do we say?”
“We say thank you because manners are important,” Nari recited obediently, before drinking her milk.
Si-mok nodded approvingly before sitting on the kitchen stool, making sure that he was at eye level with her. His complete inability to gauge the social interactions that were required from him had earned him the reputation of being notoriously rude, but he wanted to make sure that no one could say the same thing about his children. He allowed her some time to drink her milk, before proceeding to wipe off her milk moustache with a napkin.
“What is it, Koala bear? Why can’t you sleep?” he finally asked her.
Nari looked at him closely, before running a finger on his nose bridge. “The man at your office said that Hyun-shik looks like you,” she began. “Eomma said the same thing just now. I heard her.”
Si-mok could sense where this was going. “Yes, Hyun-shik does look like me,” he replied in a very neutral and measured tone.
“I don’t look like you, appa,” was her only reply.
After a second or two of loaded silence, Si-mok spoke. “That’s because you’re luckier than your poor brother,” he said. “You look just like your eomma. ”
Nari frowned, looking very unconvinced. “But I want to look like you as well,” she finally murmured.
“You don’t have to, you look perfect just as you are.”
“Will you still be my appa if I don’t?”
And there it was. At that question, Si-mok finally realised what it meant when people said that they could feel their heart sinking. When they discovered themselves to be pregnant with Hyun-shik, Yeo-jin and he had spoken about the possibility of Nari feeling jealous or alienated, and they made a very conscious effort to ensure that both children received the same attention and love. So far, Nari had never shown any sign of feeling neglected and he believed that, as parents, they were in general doing a fairly good job in keeping both children equally happy and protected.
Moreover, he had not believed that she could, at such a young age, already differentiate between herself and her brother also in terms of their biological relationship with him. It was honestly a conversation that he hoped he would have had much later in life, if ever.
Bloody Seo Dong-jae.
Nari was still looking at him with eyes wide open in worry, and he gently brushed away some loose locks that were covering her face.
“Nari, love has nothing to do with how you look, and whom you look like,” he explained gently. “I love you and I’m your appa and I will always be your appa. ”
“For always?”
“Of course.”
“But who do you love more, me or Hyun-shik?”
“I love you both equally, Nari,” he replied seriously. “And I need you to really understand that. You are both my children and I love you very very much.”
Nari seemed to mull this over for a few seconds. “But who was my appa before you came? Did he love me too?” she asked curiously.
Si-mok had not realised that his daughter had put so much thought on the subject. In a way he was proud of the fact that she seemed to be so emotionally intelligent at such a young age, something that she obviously inherited in its totality from her mother, and definitely not from the bastard who had fathered her. At the same time, however, he was also aware that he was probably the worst possible person, in terms of the empathetic spectrum, with whom Nari could have this conversation.
Nevertheless, his daughter deserved an answer, and he decided that that answer was going to be the truth.
He awkwardly rubbed the side of his nose and reached for her hand. “There was no other appa before I came, Nari. You were a gift for me from eomma , from the day you were born,” he explained. “I was always your appa, but I was just a little late and I’m sorry for that, little Koala bear.”
Nari smiled at that, seemingly satisfied. She slid from the top of the table onto his lap and gave him a hug and a big kiss on the cheek. “It’s ok,” she murmured softly. “You are here now.”
“Eomma and I will love you always, ok?”
“Me too!”
At that Si-mok kissed her tenderly on the forehead and carried her back to her bedroom. “You should tell your eomma that you love her more often, you know” he chastised as he rubbed her back gently.
Nari stirred in his arms and looked at him in surprise. “But I love eomma ! This much!” she exclaimed as she opened her arms widely.
The reply from the other room was immediate. “Love you too Koala bear!” Yeo-jin answered happily, eliciting a giggle from her daughter.
After he put her back to sleep, Si-mok found Yeo-jin awake, waiting for him with a smile on her face. “I heard what you told her,” she whispered as she pulled him towards her for a kiss.
“You didn’t need to wait up,” he replied softly. “Though I’m happy you did,” he added as he wrapped her arms around her, “and sorry for snapping at you before.”
“It’s all right, you already apologised. My humour is sometimes too sophisticated for you,” she joked sleepily. “ And we’ll sleep when they move out, Si-mok. Hopefully soon,” she yawned as she snuggled in his arms.
Si-mok grinned in spite of himself. “Now that was funny,” he muttered.
Within minutes, this very very long day was finally over.