The protector

Jerk (M)

Warning: rough mature scene at the end of the chapter, read at your discretion.

Author's note: In-ah has anticipated it calling him "exceedingly childish" in the previous chapter. This one, the next, and the next northern one - which will come in some week as the next ones will be about Se-ri - will explore this side of JH (this JH, as an AU fictional character): his being emotionally raw. Before reading, so, please consider he's under severe stress due to his soon-to-be defection, it will help you to better understand his reactions.

Author's note 2: to my Taiwanese readers WE ARE WITH YOU. 

Pyongyang, 2028, February

The leftovers from the previous dinner were carefully packed in three different plastic boxes on the table, respectively earmarked to his lunch, to hers, and to the breakfast, this latter a little smaller and with no top. In silent waiting at the side of its siblings, the box was ready to serve its lord, who would have taken it to verse its content – whatever it would have been, it seemed indifferent – in a pan, matching a spoon of sizzling, soy oil.

So he did, like every morning at the same hour, with the same fluid gesture of the hand, his palm so wide that he could easily pick the box without dreading for it to fall down during the short trip from the table to the stove. The other owner needed to walk to the table and take the box from its bottom, helping herself with the two hands. He, instead, only extended one arm. And even if he looked apparently careless, he was quite focused instead. Observing his frowned face, one could have easily guessed the care he put in preparing every meal. And looking more attentively, one could have also guessed how it wasn't due to a specific fondness for the cooking itself, though for the person he would have fed with it.

Like every early bird in the world, there was a moment in the morning when In-ah found herself without knowing what to do, absolutely. Should she have another coffee? Check the mails? It was that kind of spare time that was too little for useful stuff like properly cleaning the house, or at least one room, yet still too big to go to the office without earning - maybe not on the first day, but it surely would have happened in about a week - the reputation of the always-early one. Which was a good thing when one is a trainee, and she knew it from experience, but not when you start to have some power, because your subordinates began to think that you want for them to always arrive at least ten minutes earlier, and within a week not only you gain a reputation but also a certain amount of well-deserved hate. And this was another thing she knew from experience.

Punctuality was a job itself.

It was only one year before, that the woman had been introduced to the closely guarded secret of what people were used to do in the morning. Eating! Jeong Hyeok always used his morning time not only to get ready, work a little and tide up the house so that it would have been welcoming once they would have come back – which was her usual routine. He also warmed the leftovers – or cooked something from scratch - and ate. Sometimes even sitting at the table. Eating an entire breakfast at home was something she only had watched in the movies, with her husband questioning 'when the hell the Americans worked if they had time to cook pancakes and bacon in the morning and then at five had another whole cooked meal.' Seriously, scriptwriters should realize they were giving the distorted image of an entire population that made enough money working part-time. Or share the secret.

Even on that morning, like every morning, she put back the mascara in her beauty case while the tempting smell of the breakfast was reaching the bathroom. Both punctual and creatures of habit, it had taken a little time before they got used to punctuate the morning routine with the feelings, replacing the clock with the sound of the coffee machine, the scent of the hot breakfast, the damned icy winter breeze of the opened windows during the swift house chores.