The Sun to my Moon

Chapter 13: Night

Cha Dal-geon watched Go Hae-ri out of the corner of his eye as she drove the pair of them away from Jessica's house. She looked tired, he decided. He really shouldn't let her drive all the way back to Seoul after the long day she'd had. Besides, he had other things on his agenda tonight.

Predictably, her eyelids started to drop not ten minutes after they'd been on the road. "You sure you don't want me to drive?" He already knew the answer, of course, but sometimes you had to observe the niceties of normal conversation in order to steer it in the direction you wanted.

Her grip tightened on the wheel and she straightened in her seat. "I'm fine."

"You're obviously exhausted," he remarked. "You had to have gotten up unspeakably early to drive all the way back to Seoul from Dongnae this morning. I'd say about five am, or a little before. Plus I'm betting you didn't sleep all that well while you were up there because you were working so hard. Kept waking up, thinking about new avenues of investigation."

She sighed. "Must you always do this?"

"Do what?"

"Analyze my every move for your own amusement. Just say what you want to say."

"Perhaps we should stop somewhere for the night," he suggested.

"I told you, I'm fine."

"I know. But you can't deny that you're tired. Besides, I have a couple of things I want to follow up on in Busan tomorrow, and it seems like a waste of time to drive all the way back up here when we could easily stop somewhere along the road and get a fresh start in the morning."

That got her attention. "What things?"

"Just… things," he said evasively.

"Dal-geonssi, I can't have you do that anymore," she said seriously.

"Do what?" he said, feigning ignorance.

"Not tell me what you're planning. What we're doing is too important. I need you to keep me in the loop on this from now on."

"I will," he promised. "I just want to ask around about Jerome at the police station, that's all."

"That's all? Why do I have a bad feeling about the way you said that?"

He grinned. "I have the perfect plan of attack in mind."

"Lord help us," she muttered.

"So, can we stay?"

"I don't know, Dal-geonssi," she sighed. "I was kind of looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again."

He'd have been more excited about going back to Seoul if he was going to sleep in her bed again, too. As it was, after sleeping in Hae-ri scented sheets for four nights, the thought of going back to his hotel or the NIS held very little appeal. Sleeping a room away from her on the other hand, was a far more attractive prospect. "If we stay here tonight, we'll have enough time to stop by and put another coat of paint on in Jessica's room in the morning."

"It probably could use a second coat," she admitted.

"There you go. We can take care of that first thing, and then head back down to Busan."

She frowned. "I didn't really plan on staying up here tonight. I didn't bring enough cash with me for two hotel rooms for the night."

He made a show of producing the hundred dollar bill she had given him earlier that day from behind her ear like it was a shiny new quarter. "Hae-ri Go, you forgot. I am in charge of petty cash."

She glanced over at him, her expression full of healthy skepticism. "This may be the back of beyond, but this is the twenty-first century. No way are we going to find a hotel around here with rooms for less than fifty bucks a night. I know you like to play at magic, Robinhood, but even you can't make money materialize out of thin air."