The Wind of the Day

Part 4

AN: We will deviate from canon a little in this chapter, hope everyone enjoys it. I'm very excited and a little nervous about your thoughts on this one. Have a good read! Stay healthy :)

—

Se-ri is drowning.

His kisses are insistent, desperate, and she can barely keep up with the way his hands are gentle and yet grasping her as if she's not real. She's longed for this for weeks, ever since even before leaving North Korea, and now that he's finally opening himself to her, Se-ri can't keep up.

But oh, she will try to match him.

It's not hard to do so when she's desired him probably just as much as he desires her — it's not hard when she's been missing him since way before leaving him, always knowing he's left an empty spot in her heart, never to be replaced. When he denied her, she was angry, and hurt — but in giving in to her deepest wishes, she knows she will never be able to fight him.

What she feels for him... it's just bigger than herself.

"Jeong-hyeok," she breathes, desperate on her own, her hands gripping his suit and running her palms over his chest. He kisses once, twice, one more time quickly until she opens her lips again and his tongue brushes against hers.

He tastes salty. Like tears.

Se-ri opens her eyes. She can't drown. Not now.

"Jeong-hyeok," she says again, this time more forcefully. His lips travel to her jaw and he stills there. She runs a hand through his soft hair and feels his deep breath on her ear as he draws her closer in their embrace. "I'm still here. I haven't left."

"I could have lost you," Jeong-hyeok says, forehead touching her temple, nose nudging her cheek. Se-ri closes her eyes again, unable to let him go, unable to not feel what he makes her feel by doing so little. She's never shared this kind of intimacy with anyone, this breathing the same air, this staring at each other so closely.

Yet not close enough.

"You didn't," she whispers. "You saved me."

He shakes his head. "No. You saved me."

Se-ri smiles under his gaze and this time she's the one to initiate the kiss, because they've taken a long enough break and she doesn't want this to stop now, it can't stop now that she's had a taste of him here and now. This time, the kiss is unhurried, slow, mouths opening and touching and moving slowly — she grasps at his suit jacket once more, this time to take it off, but at the mere touch on his shoulder, he hisses.

"You're," she starts, but Jeong-hyeok kisses her again. She pushes him a little as he takes off his jacket, and she sees a smudge of red on his white dress shirt. "Ri Jeong-hyeok, you're hurt!"

"I'm fine," he mumbles, fingers slowly going from her neck to her collar, oh so slowly.

"But you're bleeding, you need a doctor..."

"I'm fine," he repeats. "I only need you."

He says it with such conviction that she doesn't find it in herself an argument, not when he's pushing her coat off her body and putting his arms around her waist, closer, closer, not close enough. She feels his palms down her back and lower still, and it's by pure instinct that she pushes her hips closer to his, even if there are too many layers between them. She pulls him down towards her, the height difference a little too much now that she doesn't have her heels on, and then she feels Jeong-hyeok's warm hands on the back of her thighs, effectively lifting her.

"Ri Jeong-hyeok!" Se-ri yelps, her legs going around his waist even if he's holding her.

"Yoon Se-ri," he says her name, and she looks at him — now directly above him, with his hands supporting her and her own around his neck. "You're safe."