The protector

August (M)

Hi readers! 

This chapter comes with a big 'ooooh' from me. I spent nearly one year reading comments about how patient In-ah is, how impassible ecc, and laughing inside because I knew this moment would have come. Eventually, we'll get the secret of her good behaviour (and some secret more). 

The point is: is this the truth, or this is just what she supposes to know about herself? I honestly don't know, but I think this is exactly what JH needs, and this is one of the reasons why I decided to put these two characters together. Hope you'll enjoy the reading!

Pyongyang, 2028, February 19

"And this is him, preparing a sandwich."

Jeong Hyeok moved his eyes around the room, unable to believe the scene that was displayed in front of him.

All the cabinets' doors and the drawers were open, empty boxes of food, paper bags, pieces of cling film were laying in no particular order everywhere. It looked like a natural disaster's panorama.

"If you think of me at my place abroad, you have to imagine me like this!"

They were laughing, laughing hard.

When In-ah had told him that they should have been more sincere about their private lives, he wasn't expecting something like that. Though there he was, laughing while the woman showed him the way her husband – in any other situation a germs maniac, according to her words - could cramp a kitchen for a simple sandwich.

"And what do you do?"

"Nothing, I wait for him to leave the room, and then I clean."

"You do?" She was as tidy as him, he couldn't believe that she didn't get mad for that.

"What else should I do? Fighting every day for a bit of mess? Please..."

"Correct... Uhm..." the man's eyes evaded hers, her words giving him something to think about.

"Jeong Hyeok, why I'm having this sensation as if you have a similar problem?"

"Mhm..."

"Good. People like them are useful to people like us. The moment you get mad for a messy kitchen you stop and say to yourself 'ooooh, the lucky I am, my life is so good now that I have the time to get mad for the kitchen.'"

Bitter observation, but he nodded. It was a sad yet massive, huge truth.

"Jeong Hyeok?"

"Oh."

"Help me to clean, I'm getting mad."

The pianist chuckled, his girl was too neat to bear it for more than five minutes.

He wasn't exaggerating when he had called her 'climbing elf.' In-ah climbed on his shoulders, busying herself in closing the doors of the cabinets as he recollected all the boxes and bags. From time to time, she paused her work to tickle his neck or kiss the top of his head. It had become a sort of habit, doing the chores that way.

"So... your woman is a mess, uh?"

"Something like that, yes."

"So... we can say we are each other vacation?"

Jeong Hyeok made her slide around his body so that she could sit on the table.