The protector

The Gift (MM)

Author's notes and warnings: 

Reading this chapter, you could have the impression that this is a filler, and that the mature scenes - a lot - are gratuitous and useless. That's not how it is, but you'll understand it in the next chapters.

Also: both in this and in the next chapter, reading about how Jeong Hyeok think and talk about the village could disturb you. Cautious with it, and keep in mind that his resentment is not for the village though for his own illness, this is also why he had avoided to visit his friends in the years before meeting In-ah. Except for the illness that the memories cause him, he still loves the outpost as usual.

Last but not least: TP and this author are going to take a pause till September. I could have continued a little more, but then I would have left you with a big news and no updates for some weeks, so I decided to stop now. This chapter closes the part three "Rampant" of the story, it means that the next ones will bring a different scenario. Next part also is the last one before the epilogue, so we'll eventually come to know what will happen to these four, (five?)

One word: when I posted the part three, since the first chapter "five weeks," I wasn't expecting for you to read it in a certain way. It was unbidden, but you interacted with the story creating a situation of give and take, and it ended with me having fun with you for the way you were reading the story. I really liked it, so I wanted to thank you for the time we spent together.

Could your end of summer be brightening. Have fun, relax, and stay safe!

Pyongyang, 2027, December

"Take it, take it, take it, take it..."

The number of times Mimmi had made a call to someone without having it preceded by a text could have been counted on the fingers of no hands. However, at that time she had no choice but to run to her notebook and fumble over the keys, pressing and pushing and rushing that videocall until the light blue screen changed, displaying a fairly concerned expression.

"Perra!"

"No no, nothing," she firstly reassured her friend, the lack of prior text being susceptible to worrisome interpretations, "but news, big news," she stressed the 'big,' "I have a message from him. For you."

"Fuck."

"Juanito who feels many things for many women." The Spanish had developed the habit to call Jeong Hyeok like that, hoping for him to correct her one day: "not many, just one." It hadn't happened yet, still, she hadn't lost her hope.

In her opinion, it would have been perfect if Jeong Hyeok would have fallen in love with In-ah. Not that she had gone as far as planning how they should have organized their ménage – she had -, but if there was someone in the world who would have felt pretty good with two men, that one was In-ah.

Her life had always been poor in that department. Not the men's department, that one was crowded. The affections one. 

When everyone, during the celebrations, left the table to call their relatives with some privacy, on New Year's Eve or Easter, for example, she usually made a call to her husband, texted some friends abroad - never calling them since they would have been busy in calling their relatives too -, and then simply stayed at the table or went out to smoke a cigarette, alone, waiting for the others to complete all the calls that life, for some unknown and frankly sadistic reason, had denied to her.

There was a lot of space in In-ah's life for two men.

And when, on that morning, Jeong Hyeok had knocked at her door with that very special request, for a while she had allowed herself to hope that it was happening.