FALLING SLOWLY ||Complete||

Broken curse

The door shuts with a snap too loud. The patter of rain reduced to a dull hum by the thick wall - it gives way to silence and Ha Jin shivers, finally fully appreciating how drenched she is and the contrast of heat and humidity against her rain washed skin. Her eyes dart across to So catching him in her peripheral vision as he stands dripping at the door. He stares at his hands for a moment as if wondering where to put them and combs his hair back with both as an afterthought.

He shouldn't have done that - she thinks against the deafening pound of her heart as her eyes trail the path of a raindrop down his cheek - along the sharp edge of his jaw and taut codes of his throat before vanishing. She has no idea what to do with her own arms and to avoid the temptation of reaching out to him, she wraps them around herself. Words burn in her throat, silence suddenly so overpowering that Ha Jin cannot think of a word to utter.

They had run the distance hand in hand - even after so long her fingers fitting perfectly into the spaces his large hand leaves out - but now that they were safe from the storm for the time being, the wind not so loud that they could hear their own thoughts - something different has started to simmer.

"What is this place?" So saves her, his eyes looking around anywhere but at her, and the curiosity of his tone a welcome distraction.

"Miss Oh's greenhouse - well in part," she adds catching the arch of his brow.

"I thought greenhouses are made of glass?"

"It is old fashioned - like everything else. The roof is glass." She reaches out and switches the lights, the dim amber flooding the room and bringing to life the greenery around them. "This is where she keeps the herbs - flowers and orchids," she adds with a flash of a grin at him.

"Exquisite..." So says as his hand hoovers over a bonsai, her eyes snap back to him to find his eyes on her. Ha Jin feels her cheeks grow warm.

"Come through here - let me have a look at your leg, I'm sure the rain did no good...." she chats away the nerves, leading way through the aisle between plants and stops when she realizes he had not followed. "Hwang So?"

He stands there, arms hanging limp by his sides and looking at her with a lost expression. Ha Jin gives him a moment and since he refuses to move, takes his hand again.

"Come!"

**

Yo sighs and stretches his arms, his joints crack and he rolls his shoulders. He was a firm believer in all - nighters, but the exhaustion seems to be finally catching up on him. He turns to his office manager and finds Park Mun Seong drooping with an elbow tucked under her chin. There is something almost cute about her extra thick frames that had slid to the tip of her nose. On a second thought, he wants her awake. Yo balls a scrapped paper and throws it at his manager hitting square on her forehead.

Mun Seong wakes up with a start.

"Coffee!" He greets her, with a tilt of his head in the direction of the espresso machine.

"Yes with double cream - thank you, prosecutor nim," her smile is extra sweet as she pushes her glasses back in place and flutters her lashes at him.

"Hey! I wasn't offering - make me some."

"And which country are you the king of?" Her penciled eyebrows rise, "ask nicely if you woke me up." She yawns in a very un - ladylike manner and fishes out a pencil from her messy bun, before checking her mobile for time. "Soon my landlord will rent my apartment to somebody else since I never seem to live there anyway -" she complains stretching her neck and weighing the paperwork on her desk.

"You can move in with me -" Yo doesn't even look up as he offers, his focus consumed by the folder he is studying. Had he done so, he would have noted how the girl had gone completely stiff. "I don't live there anyway."