Blaze

Plans

~_____~

Chorong was thankful for the extra clothes Namjoo leant her without asking for it. When she had offered to sleep on the ground or on the sofa Namjoo had told her to just sleep with her on the bed, as if they had been long time friends.

In the dark of her colleague's room her eyes traced the dull hue of the crescent moon floating in from the window. A still silence wavered about. With eyes tracing the walls Chorong thought again about how empty it was here. No pictures on the walls, no decorations, everything was too clean and organized, but there was nothing there that said it was home.

The shifting of Namjoo on the bed made her glance over her shoulder. So, she thought, Namjoo wasn't sleeping either. Even though the silence deepend on it wasn't as awkward as Chorong feared.

"Are you ok?" Chorong worried. "I heard you were at the hospital."

"It's nothing." Namjoo sounded expressionless, but Chorong took it as a statement that the conversation would end there and go no further.

Turning onto her back Chorong stared up at the ceiling, "Can I ask you something?"

With her back to Chorong she asked, "What?"

"You and Suho, why do you work so much? Just out of curiosity, I mean, is it because of a sense of responsibility, some kind of attachment, or is it some kind of escape?"

"I don't know what you mean." Namjoo lied hoping to dodge deep talk.

"Just...you two are so dedicated."

She thought Namjoo slightly turned her head to look back, but their eyes never did meet.

"Sorry," Chorong apologized. "I'm probably keeping you up."

But she was surprised when Namjoo suddenly spoke up.

"What else would we do? There's no one; nothing else, but work," her tone was smoothed with glumness. "You know, Suho has his problems and I have mine. There's no place for us. We're just kind of out there with nowhere to belong, like a fish shouldn't be on land but it can't go back in the water either."

Of course it wasn't like Suho could return to Military Operations after killing a friend. Chorong didn't think he'd go back there willingly, not after so many ongoing years of needed theraphy. It'd be hell for him and it would all just trigger those memories everyday. When she thought about it like that, it was awful.

She didn't think Namjoo would be able to land herself out there with a degree from the Police Academy. Being stubborn she'd sought her way into the police force and even if her father was dead, Chorong didn't think Namjoo would find it in herself to go to any position lower than a cop's.

The two of them really did stick out of the blue. They were groupless.

"Actually, we like it." Namjoo went on with a lighter tone. "Without the strees we usually wouldn't have anything to deal with. In life, you kind of need something to keep you going and work is probably the answer for outcasts like us. We just kind of fused work into our lives; without that there'd be no hills to climb, nothing to do. We may say 'work is work' all the time, but it's the only way we can live."

"But you can make more friends now," Chorong added hopeful. "There's so much of us, isn't there?"

"For Suho maybe," she quietly said, "as you know, he's different from me. Everything was well in place before all this."

Chorong's heart gushed in fear of disappointment.

"Do you still not like our team?"

"I just prefer things as they were before your team came," Namjoo quieted even more.