My Client's Former Best Friend | MEANIE/MINWON

Chapter Twenty Five.

  Mingyu was nervous as he waited on the front steps of the police station. Nervous and feeling less than fresh. He was still in the same clothes from the day before. They were the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d had sex with Wonwoo. The clothes he’d worn to Junhui’s and then throughout the sweat-producing ordeal of nearly dying and then watching his new maybe-boyfriend nearly die. Then he’d been hauled off to the police station, shirtless under his jacket, interrogated by said maybe-boyfriend’s dick of an ex-boyfriend, and had now been waiting outside said station for the last hour, all the while wearing the same clothes. In the rom-com version of this moment, he’d have plenty of time to dash home, shower, change, grab a big bouquet of roses, and catch up with Wonwoo before he got on his plane to start some exciting job across the country.

  In the real-life version, he was terrified of missing him, terrified of leaving this spot in case he walked out through the doors and he never saw Wonwoo again. Knowing Wonwoo, he’d change his name and wipe all record of his existence after this. He’d move at once, if he hadn’t magically done so while being in the hospital with a gunshot wound. He may be done with this case, but he had other clients and a revolving door of perspectives. Not to mention his fugitive uncle who he’d been reunited with and who treated subterfuge as a lifestyle instead of a necessity.

  The uncle who Wonwoo was now talking to in the station vestibule. Mingyu could see them in his periphery. His pride told him to look out at the street and pretend to be nonchalant, but his paranoia had him keep one eye on the door at all times.

  They’d been standing in that hallway talking for forever. What could they possibly be talking about? Probably him. No, his ego wasn’t so inflated as to believe that. Speaking, or rather thinking, of his ego, it didn’t feel quite so crippled as before. He didn’t have the urge to drink himself into blackness or sex himself numb. He didn’t have the urge to write, to have people judge him and criticize him because of the work he’d put out years ago. Was it, could it be possible, he was moving past The Night Before the Apocalypse? What did that mean? If he wasn’t an alcoholic, failed screenwriter, and the last few days had shown him that he was not, what was he? A whole world of possibilities, the idea of something, anything without his past tempering it, stretched out like a cooling ocean before him. Christ, he was going off the deep end. Here he was, on the steps of a police station, gearing up for some big romantic confession, and he was having an existential crisis.

  Still, whatever it was, whatever he did from here on out, it had to be better. He believed it to be better. He already knew what the first step was. If he’d hurry up and get his ass out here.

  ***

  Wonwoo left the police station, smiling from his talk with Seungcheol. The sun shone without a cloud in the sky, the city smog beat down on him, and the whole world looked Technicolor.

  Mingyu sat on the steps, his back turned to Wonwoo, his head angled so Wonwoo knew he saw him approach. He wore the same clothes from yesterday, now grungy and rough around the edges, his sling showing the worst wear of the ordeal. Wonwoo didn’t look much better. Since everyone had been in police custody while he was hospitalized, no one had brought him clean clothes. His only option had been Sylvia’s blood-stained shirt. His hair must have been a sight and his makeup smudged and caked. He’d taken off his heels in Rowoon’s office and couldn’t go back to get them now, so he was barefoot under the ruined $56,000 shirt. His shoulder throbbed in its sling. He needed to get his pain prescription filled, but his car was at Junhui’s house. And first, before any of the hygiene and pain management and practical considerations, he had to find out if Mingyu would go for the idea he was about to present to him.

  Mingyu stood up as Wonwoo approached and turned to face him. Mingyu looked Wonwoo up and down, taking in the sling and the shirt and his bare feet, and he swallowed, his eyes alight with interest. Wonwoo exhaled. He thought about saying screw it and making out with Mingyu right on these steps. He almost did, and would have, but Mingyu spoke first.