The light in the room was dense, almost tangible in its density, the kind of light that imposes itself rather than illuminates.
Tae-Hee stirred slightly. His bed was wonderfully comfortable today. He almost didn't want to get up. And the smell of his sheets was strangely intoxicating, a scent he didn't recognize from his own laundry, something subtler, cleaner.
That smell... He had the feeling he'd smelled it before. Not on a sheet. On someone.
The crash cushion.
He shot his eyes open and was immediately blinded by light pouring through a bay window.
A bay window.
Tae-Hee remembered a single wooden window, with a frame that never closed all the way and that he'd patched up last winter with cardboard. No bay window. Never a bay window.
He sat up with a jolt.
He wasn't home.
A sound from the next room. He got up, crossed the bedroom with the caution of a man walking on unfamiliar ground, put his hand on the doorknob, and let the door swing slowly open.
He looked up.
And found, with a shock that instantly froze his blood, his direct superior—his department head—standing in front of him, a towel knotted around his hips, drying his hair with another one.
— S-sorry!
The door slammed shut.
Tae-Hee paced in circles in what was, without any possible doubt, Christopher Ashton's private study.
How had he ended up here? And above all—above all—how had he managed to sleep an entire night in this room without noticing whose it was? Everything, absolutely everything in here, screamed Christopher Ashton from the alphabetically organized bookshelf to the closet where the clothes seemed folded with a ruler.
He scanned for his phone. Nightstand. He unlocked it.
Thirty missed calls from Dave.
— Oh god, he murmured.
Dave was going to kill him. Literally, possibly, or at minimum subject him to a lecture on personal responsibility lasting at least forty minutes. And yesterday, Dave had left in a rush, an urgent call, and then-
The memories came flooding back, without warning, out of order and with unbearable clarity.
Ashton. The car ride. Being carried up the stairs. The bed. And then-
The vomit.
Tae-Hee's cheeks went crimson in a fraction of a second. His eyes went wide. His face froze in an expression no mirror should ever have been allowed to capture.
It was precisely at that moment that Ashton walked out of the bathroom.
★★★
He wore nothing now but a white t-shirt and gray sweatpants, the towel draped over his shoulders, his hair still slightly damp.
Tae-Hee turned slowly to face him, like a man turning to face his execution.
He bowed deeply, eyes closed, at an angle that looked less like a polite nod and more like a full prostration.
— I am infinitely sorry for everything I did yesterday!
Ashton didn't answer right away. He'd anticipated this reaction with an almost tedious precision nothing surprising, nothing new, just Tae-Hee being Tae-Hee, multiplied by the shame of waking up hungover at his superior's house.
— If there's anything I can do to make up for it, I'll do it, Tae-Hee added, still bowed, his voice trembling with sincerity. Anything.
Something lit up in Ashton's gray eyes.
He himself didn't know why that particular phrase—anything—held his attention more than the rest.
— Really? he said.
— Yes! Anything! Tae-Hee replied, with the absolute innocence of a man convinced he'd found the magic formula for redemption.
He had, naturally, no idea what awaited him.
★★★
The surgical department's break room was unusually full for this hour. Almost all the interns had already arrived, a fact rare enough in itself to warrant comment.
— Tae-Hee's still not here? asked Déborah.
— No, said Anaïs, eyes on her phone.
Déborah rubbed the back of her neck. Guilt had this unpleasant way of settling in gradually, like an itch you can't quite locate.
— Maybe the jackal ate him, suggested Léo, who—remarkably—had also arrived early, for the first time in collective memory.
— Why did you guys leave him alone with him? Anaïs snapped, turning to Léo and Déborah. You should have brought him with you, like we did with Mathys!
Mathys nodded vigorously. If Anaïs hadn't literally dragged him out of the restaurant by the arm, he'd probably still be sitting at that table, frozen, staring at his empty glass until morning.
— It would've been weird if we'd all left at the same time and left the jackal completely alone, Léo protested. He might've felt obligated to offer to come with us! Can you imagine?
— So instead you chose to sacrifice your colleague to the slaughterhouse. Very heroic.
— That's not-
— Very, very heroic.
— Anaïs-
The argument flared up again, with Déborah and Mathys quietly splitting into camps on either side, each with the calm conviction of people who'd already picked a side.
Jacob watched the scene from his usual corner, with a distance that was neither indifference nor boredom, simply the position of a man who'd seen this coming from the exact moment Dave left the table the night before. He'd known, right then, that Tae-Hee would end up alone with Ashton. The question wasn't whether. It was how.
What troubled him, though, was that Tae-Hee still hadn't arrived. And no notable traffic jams had been reported that morning.
He glanced out the window. Dave was in the parking lot, phone glued to his ear, pacing with the nervous energy of a man dialing the same number for the fifteenth time, hoping for a different result. He'd come through the break room earlier, asked if anyone had seen Tae-Hee, then left without explanation.
He's trying to reach him, Jacob concluded.
He checked the clock. Almost nine. Dr. Ashton hadn't arrived either. He'd sent a message announcing he'd be late, without further details.
Jacob's brow furrowed slightly.
Two workaholics. Late. Same day. Same time.
He built the mental map almost against his will the pieces aligning with a logic he didn't particularly like, because it implied conclusions he'd rather not voice out loud. That's probably not what everyone else will think.
Which is a shame.
But Tae-Hee clearly doesn't have the nerve for something like that.
— So that would mean...
A car—sleek, low, obviously well out of anyone's price range—pulled into the parking lot reserved for cleaning staff. A lot nobody used, except people trying to avoid something. Or someone.
Ashton stepped out first. He walked around the car, opened the passenger door with a kind of naturalness that wasn't automatic at all—it was a deliberate gesture, which was precisely what made it remarkable—and Tae-Hee got out, head down, shoulders hunched.
Jacob was far away. He didn't need to be close to picture the exact shade of Tae-Hee's cheeks in that moment.
He'd been right. Those two had spent the night together—not necessarily in the way that phrase implied, but they'd shared a roof, a room, a night's sleep.
Jacob's gaze dropped slightly.
Dave was hiding behind a post in the parking lot, motionless, staring at the scene with an expression Jacob recognized instantly, because he'd worn it himself once, about someone else, a long time ago.
A smile formed on Jacob's lips, slow, almost involuntary.
Wasn't this fun? Ashton seemed to have this particular gift for stirring up conflicting feelings in just about anyone within a fifty-meter radius.
This is going to be an interesting story, he thought.
— Am I dreaming or did he just smile? asked Léo, who'd followed his gaze.
— No, you're not dreaming, Anaïs confirmed, looking visibly just as unsettled by the phenomenon.