Chapter Text
Jiyoon returned with a small bag packed with clothing, toiletries, gummi bears and peanut butter M&Ms. I laughed as I held up the packages of sweets and he simply shrugged and gestured to Jenna. She grinned, then hugged me and Jiyoon.
“I’m going to go ahead and take off since I’m pretty sure Jiyoon and the docs can handle everything from here,” she said. “You, dinner, soon.”
I nodded and then shook my head as I watched her leave the room. I looked at Jiyoon and he smiled, a little sadly, I thought. He looked at me, then reached out to touch my face, gently, as though I might blow away in the gentle breeze from the hospital air conditioning.
“I am sorry, jagiya,” he said softly. “I never meant to trap you, to make you stay when you so badly wanted to go.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “No. No, no, no, no,” I said, my voice rising in panic. “I didn’t want to go, I thought I would end up trapping you, with a… a woman you would grow to hate because I couldn’t give you what you wanted. A life here in Seoul, a family, someone to dream about future kids with, someone to… to grow old with.” My throat clogged with tears, and I looked down at my hands, watching as my nails left little pale crescents in the skin, watching them turn pink. “I could stand you hating me because I left, because I wouldn’t be there to see it, but the thought of watching you grow to hate me as time passed was… I wasn’t strong enough to even think about that.
“So, I ran. I ran back to the only thing I thought I was ever really good at,” I finished up quietly. “I was… wrong. I was wrong not to talk to you, not to give you the choice to see where this went.”
Jiyoon looked at me, and I could see the pain of the last several days in his eyes. He sighed and stepped closer, reaching out a hand to stop the restless movements of my hands, then took a deep breath.
“I was… so confused at first,” he said. “Then sad, and then… I got angry. I called Jen-ah, and then talked to Namjoon-ssi, and he and the others helped me put together flight information and got me on a plane.
“I could feel… something, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” he said. “I never even thought that it could be a soulbond, that you’d end up…” Jiyoon turned my hand over, finger stroking gently across the mark. He blinked rapidly, then cleared his throat. “I knew that I’d fallen in love with you, faster than I thought it could happen, but I didn’t dare let myself dream that it would be…this.”
“I didn’t either,” I said quietly. “I was so used to running, to burying everything under work, under layers and layers of stupid humor, to making sure I didn’t have the chance to fuck up anyone else’s life, that I never once thought… God has a really fucking weird sense of humor, you know?” I laughed a little, then sniffled as another wave of emotion threatened to capsize the little bit of stability I had managed to build up. “Like, who… who would have thought that my bestie would end up with global pop-K sensation Bangtan Sonyeondan and I’d end up with their head of security. This is just… this is just a fanfic that made a left turn into my life.”
Jiyoon smiled, a bit more naturally, and reached out to me. His hand hovered above my skin, and I could feel the heat radiating from him. I smiled back at him, and bowed my head, suddenly feeling shy.
“I’m… I have no idea what I’m doing but I’m going to try,” I said quietly, my fingers twisting around each other in my lap. “It’s going to be hard for me to talk to you sometimes. Hell, I barely talked to Jenna and I’ve known her forever.”
Jiyoon touched my chin, bringing my face up and I met his eyes. “ Jagiya, we are both new at this. I have had relationships before,” he said softly, “but nothing like what I feel for you. We’ll figure things out.”
“Promise me?” I asked in a tiny voice, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest with nerves.
“I promise,” he said, then leaned in to kiss me gently.
A soft knock broke our kiss, and I looked up. I slender woman in a dark blue sweater dress with a patterned scarf draped sound her neck smiled at us both.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Fitzsimmons, Mr. Han,” she said with a small bow. “I am Dr. Choi, and I’m here to answer any questions you might have about the bond and your regression.”
I took a deep breath and laced my fingers with Jiyoon’s. “I… I guess I mostly want to talk about, um, birth control. I’m not sure if my IUD is, um, still there?” I blushed, suddenly nervous and shy, and Jiyoon simply smiled and squeezed my hand.
We talked about my birth control options, and I asked for a recommendation for a therapist in the local area. Dr. Choi said she would be happy to email a list of therapists, most of whom specialized in treating complex PTSD, and handed me a business card on her way out, telling me to call her with any questions and to make a follow-up appointment in two weeks.
“I wish you both happiness,” she said simply as she bowed and left the room.
“Well, that should have been the last thing to do before checking out,” Jiyoon said quietly, “Now, how about we go… home? Can I call it that? Are you okay with that?”
“Yes, home,” I said, realizing Jiyoon’s apartment had indeed felt more like a home in the short amount of time I’d been here than almost any other place had in recent memory. His cats had even, grudgingly come to view me as an acceptable substitute for their preferred human, and I had missed our little furry overlords.
I ducked into the attached suite to take a fast, hot shower, my hands sliding over a body I hadn’t seen in a decade. I stretched, amazed to feel the lack of knots and kinks in my back, and smiled as I realized I might get a chance to do things a little differently this time around.
Jiyoon had managed to keep one of my favorite cashmere sweater, a deep charcoal color with a giant draped cowl neckline, and a pair of fleece-lined leggings. I’d probably left them in the laundry, and at the moment I was grateful to past Fitzi. The familiar warmth of the sweater and leggings made me feel a bit more settled in my own skin. I leaned over to wrap my hair up in a towel turban and snickered at the incongruous image in the mirror.
Jiyoon was pacing when I opened the door, and I shrank back a bit at the thunderous frown on his face.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, and his head snapped around when he heard my voice.
“Oh, oh no,” he said. “I was just thinking about schedule changes and reassignments. I’m taking a few weeks off to make sure we can get you settled in. We’ll need to get you a soulmate visa, make arrangements to pack up your apartment in California…” He trailed off as he heard me suck in a harsh breath.
The room dipped crazily, as panicked butterflies exploded in my stomach. There was so much to do, so many forms, so much to arrange.
Oh god, I have to call my office, I have to let the leasing office know, I have to arrange for movers…
The enormity of the shift in my life crashed into me, and I started to panic at the sheer volume of things I had to do.
“ Jagiya, jagiya, I need to you to breathe with me,” Jiyoon said softly. “Please, for a count of four, then out again…” He led me through a few rounds of deep breathing, and the panicked thoughts receded.
“I’m so sorry, Jiyoon,” I said, my face turning red. “I swear, I’m not always a total mess. Wait, no, that’s not true. I am a mess. I have… Jiyoon, are you sure you want to deal with me, with… the scars of what I’ve done for a living for the past decade? It’s… it’s a lot. I mean, I’m in therapy, and I take meds when I need to, but,” I stopped abruptly as he placed a gentle finger across my lips.
“Jen-ah, something bigger than we are decided we would work well together in this lifetime, and so, we will,” he said, serene in his certainty. “Love doesn’t always mean things will work out perfectly, but we can do our best, and if that means we both deal with the scars your work has left you with, then that’s what it means.”
I shook my head gently, then sighed as I stepped closer.
“Take me home, Jiyoon,” I said softly, and his smile lit up the room.