Chapter Text
She leans against the wall in her father’s office. Her suit is immaculately cut, makeup elegant, her responses sharp and biting. Vincenzo is supposed to be convincing Hong Yu Chan to trust him, but he finds himself grandstanding for her at the same time, turning to her to yell in Italian about her father’s intransigence. She pulls the straw she’s drinking through away from red-painted lips and smiles, showing her teeth. ‘It sounds like you’re cursing.’
She annoys him almost immediately, but she also grabs his attention. He can’t take his eyes off her.
Her own eyes are one of her many striking features, lively and insouciant, outlined simply in black. If it weren’t for the fact that they don’t quite track him, he wouldn’t be able to tell at all.
~*~
After that first encounter, Hong’s daughter is like a sore tooth, or a vapid pop tune played too often on the radio. She’s an irritant Vincenzo can’t quite stop ignoring when she’s not there. It bothers him in exactly the way his growing friendship with her father bothers him. He’s here for one thing only, and it isn’t to play mediator in a family he barely knows.
When he runs into her drinking at the convenience store, she looks pissed off and disappointed in herself at the same time. She’s clearly aware that she went way too far, so for once they agree on something. If Vincenzo had ever spoken to Fabio the way she did to her father today, he’d have been sent on a one way trip to somewhere where he’d never have been heard from again. Economy class.
And alright, he’s being a smug bastard when he tells her that regret is the most painful thing in life, but he has to work pretty hard to avoid being a smug bastard sometimes. Besides, it’s true. She needs to get her act together or she’s going to end up like him.
Vincenzo almost feels tempted to take her with him to Hong’s favourite bar, but, again, he’s not a fucking mediator. Bastard that he is, he’s also not interested in patronising her by offering her help she doesn’t need. The cane he can see folded up in her bag got her this far, and she grew up here - she must know Geumga-dong as well as he knows his way around a .38 calibre.
So instead he just tells her where they’re going to be. And, against his better judgement, buys her an umbrella, so she won’t get wet on the way. The rest is up to her. He wouldn’t be surprised if she goes straight home.
(Later, he’ll realise how relieved he is that when she reached the bar she couldn’t see her father’s body. And he’ll feel utterly wretched for it.)
~*~
Vincenzo gets the first good look at the cane the next time he sees her. To the extent that he ever thought of the topic before, he’d always had it in his head that a white cane had to be a clinical object. Impersonal. And that it had to be, well, white. Hong Cha Young’s cane isn’t white. It’s a vivid, reflective purple, shockingly bright against the black she’s wearing today.
(He has a lot of irrelevant questions. Why purple? Where did she ever find such a thing? Did she customise it herself? Regardless of the answers, it fits her. She’s one of a kind too.)
Even today, beaten down by grief, she uses it as much more than an aid to navigation around the cemetery. The space it carves out around her is uniquely hers, and within it she wields the thin strip of aluminium like a sceptre: a means to punctuate her words and actions, her will and her won’t.
Really, it’s a weapon in everything but the most literal sense. Much like his lighter - which she asks about, interest clearly piqued by the distinctive sound.
Convention the world over says be kind to the bereaved. But he already knows she’s no more conventional than him. More to the point, she’s vulnerable. And he knows this story, has read versions of it in Italian newspapers and novels for more than half his life: brutal mafioso encounters vulnerable woman in need of help. Brutal mafioso helps reluctantly. Brutal mafioso rehabilitates himself and escapes the steep and painful path of sin.
He’s not interested. Yes, he gave way to a moment’s sentiment on the night Hong died, but what does that amount to, really? She neither likes nor needs him, a fact that he confirms for himself a moment later, when he’s incredibly rude to her and she is startlingly rude back.
On the way back to his dismal apartment, Vincenzo admits to himself that he’s just a little impressed.
~*~
So he changes his mind. Big deal. She doesn’t need his comfort or care, but revenge? He can give her that. It’s one of his specialities.
~*~
Vincenzo offers Cha Young the chance to go into the RDU-90 facility with the victims’ relatives. She opts to stay in the van with him instead, announcing that blind people and fire don’t mix.
Next to him on the double passenger seat, she’s a bundle of energy. At first she jiggles one knee up and down, then she switches to fiddling with her phone, which jabbers at her in a rapid electronic voice about some corporate scandal. One thing he’s picked up by now is that her phone almost never leaves her hand.
He’s not a man who is particularly susceptible to charm, but he has to admit that she’s growing on him. She’s just so vividly herself, without the slightest hint of apology or explanation. It’s refreshing.
Not that he’s going to do anything drastic, like take time out from an operation-in-progress to chat to her.
The team inside the building are making their way out now, leaving a careful trail of accelerant as they exit the main door. Assuming her father’s informant was correct about the amount of raw materials stored in the facility, the effect of it all going up at once should be dramatic and explosive. Literally.
Mr Nam pulls the door open and throws himself into the driving seat. Vincenzo presses the lighter into Cha Young’s palm.
‘Would you like to light the fuse, byeonhosa-nim? The trail is directly below the window.’
She’s not wearing lipstick tonight, but her plush, satisfied smile is still more than worth looking at as she flips the lighter open and leans out of the passenger side window. Just like he would, she waits one long dramatic moment before she drops it.
Their improvised fuse goes up instantly. Mr Nam hits the accelerator as they sweep out of the compound, the other van with the rest of the team following in their wake.
It’s a lovely conflagration, every bit as good as he imagined, and he describes it to Cha Young in detail just to have the pleasure of seeing that smile again. She said that blind people and fire don’t mix, but as far as she’s concerned, he can’t help but admire the combination.
~*~
There are a few surprises when they start working together. One banal one is that she doesn’t bother with a monitor for her work computer. Instead there’s the quiet murmur of the screen reader in her headphones when she’s reading or browsing the web, and the almost imperceptible click of her Braille display refreshing when she’s doing something that calls for more detailed scrutiny of text, like drafting legal documents.
Vincenzo doesn’t want to look stupid by using the wrong terms, so he resorts to a search engine to figure out the correct nomenclature. Before he knows it he ends up down a rabbit hole of technical details. Why the hell did it never occur to him before that solutions like that must exist? It’s not something he would have come across in the mafia, but as soon as he thinks about it it’s obvious. Just like it should have been obvious that technology would have come up with a way for her to make her own coffee (a small device that sits on the edge of her mug and beeps when liquid reaches the top) or stay in touch with her mole inside Wusang (KakaoTalk is compatible with the screen reader on her phone).
The more interesting surprises are just about her. Her irritating brashness, for example, translates to a truly diabolical creativity when she’s under pressure. She treats a courtroom as a theatre, regardless of the fact that she can’t see the audience. Oh, and there’s the way that, for all her genuine and gleeful venom towards their enemies, she is intuitive and gentle with the bereaved families involved in the RDU-90 lawsuit.
The last surprise is just how much he hates her former intern. Vincenzo had an… uncomfortableness about Jang Jun Woo when he saw him fawning over her at the police station the day Vincenzo came to get her released from arrest. His intuition is confirmed when the no-longer intern turns up at the Jipuragi office and demands to take Cha Young to dinner to celebrate his promotion.
Jun Woo is way, way too pushy about touching her, Vincenzo decides. He’s constantly got a hand on her arm or shoulder, trying to guide her this way and that, regardless of whether she wants or needs the help. Cha Young gives as good as she gets, of course, twisting away from Jun Woo’s hand with a loud rebuke and announcing she will only go to dinner if they get jjamppong, which Jun Woo apparently hates.
It really isn’t any of Vincenzo’s business, but his dislike is immediate and visceral. Letting it turn into a pissing contest over who could eat spicier food is a new low, though. He swears he never used to be this childish.
Cha Young capitalises immediately on their stupidity, taking a sinful delight in egging both of them on. She adds extra chilli oil to both their dishes and laughs uproariously when Vincenzo and Jun Woo both collapse, eyes streaming, mouths on fire. She’s laughing so hard when she asks the waiter for milk for them that she has to repeat herself.
She’s the only real winner of the contest, though Vincenzo gets the consolation prize. He might be barely functional because of his own hubris, but at the end of the night, Cha Young walks him the familiar route back to Geumga Plaza, lack of vision be damned. Jun Woo and his grabby hands can find their own way home.
~*~
They start drinking together fairly early on. At Cha Young’s instigation.
Vincenzo is taken aback a little when she first suggests it. Back in Italy he rarely socialised with women in a work context (mafia culture is depressingly old-fashioned), and although he understands norms are different here, the idea still makes him feel odd. Particularly when he sees the place she’s bringing him to. It’s on the luxurious and intimate side, and while he’s certainly not averse to that, a lot of the patrons are clearly not here for work.
As it turns out, he needn’t have worried. As soon as he’s on his second scotch of the evening Cha Young starts casually pumping him for information, and that calms him right down.
There are topics he’ll have to steer her clear of, of course - they still haven’t actually talked about what he is - but it turns out the main thing she wants to know is what he wants with Geumga Plaza. He decides she’s earned the real answer and takes the risk.
It never occurred to him that she just wouldn’t believe it.
Suddenly she’s laughing uproariously at him again, and he’s left watching her as she tips her head back, red mouth parted, completely unselfconscious as she claps her hands in glee at his expense…
Non ti distrarre, Vincenzo.
Cha Young leans back in her chair. ‘Ah - that was good. I haven’t had such a good laugh in forever, so I’ll be magnanimous. Don’t you have questions for me?’
Her glass is empty, so he tops it up before answering, putting the decanter down slightly more heavily than he needs to on the table so she knows where it is. ‘Questions, byeonhosa-nim?’
‘’Can you live by yourself?’ ‘Do you just see black?’, ‘How did you get through law school?’ ‘Why did you go work for a such a dirty law firm after struggling so hard?’’
‘Do people really ask questions like that?’
She shrugs. ‘Sometimes. Curiosity gets the better of people. And I can tell you’re curious. Ask away.’
‘The only one of those questions I’d even consider asking you is the last one. Though I wouldn’t ask it like that.’
‘Why Wusang?’
‘Yes.’
She shrugs again. ‘They offered, and I like money. Plus it was more interesting. People like me are expected to be insipid little angels. I can’t think of anything worse, can you?’
Vincenzo dutifully tries. Cha Young reaches for the decanter, and he holds his glass under it, two-handed the way her father taught him, as she pours and he tells her when. ‘I can’t. But of course, I would say that.’
Cha Young sets the decanter down. ‘Would you? Why?’’
Because I’m a professional criminal. Which you've probably guessed, but you don't know the whole truth. And I'm too much of a coward to just tell you.
‘Because I find people with flexible morals more interesting. Cheers, byeonhosa-nim.’
She raises her eyebrows at the mildly cheesy compliment, but raises her glass so he can clink it with his. And then, showing him more mercy than he would expect from her, she changes the subject.
It’s only when he’s back at his apartment that he realises he meant it. He likes her. He doesn’t just want to coach her so that she can survive the war they’re fighting, he actively wants to meet the villain she’s going to become. Really, he’s getting in over his head here.
~*~
She gets arrested again, and she tells him to get her out the way a mafioso would. He obliges.
So yes, she knew. And yes, she's made a fool of him again. He really shouldn't be quite so relieved that he didn't have to tell her.
~*~
Vincenzo agrees to let her sleep at his place after the break-in. Respect for her independence aside, she does seem genuinely shaken, so he likes to think he’d have let her stay anyway. The first setback is that his generous plan to let her take his bedroom is scuppered by Inzaghi. The little shit has even brought a friend along on his home invasion. Or is he camped out in there with a female? With pigeons how do you even tell?
Once Vincenzo has come to the end of his repertoire of swear words in Italian and several other languages, he offers Cha Young his comfortable new sofa instead, resigning himself to the floor.
Cha Young, meanwhile, has perked up marvellously since he let her in, sneaking up behind him as soon as she smells the ramyeon he’s cooking for supper. Vincenzo finds himself holding his breath as she presses her body up against his back. But as soon as she touches him, she’s gone again, breaking away with a peal of laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’ he says irritably.
She laughs again. ‘Your pyjamas! They’re silk. It fits.’
‘What’s funny about silk? Booralro made these as a limited edition on the anniversary of-’
That just starts her laughing again, and he gives up and goes back to his ramyeon. Cha Young declines when he offers to cook the other serving so she can have some too, and like a fool he believes her.
Inevitably, he ends up letting her eat the entire pot. She still looks way too amused, and it occurs to him belatedly that ‘eating ramyeon’ has a euphemistic meaning in Korea. Oh fuck. She’ll have that stored away next time she wants a laugh at his expense.
So much for his desire to play the generous hero, rescuing her from a home rendered temporarily unsafe.
Cha Young quietens down eventually, but she doesn’t go to sleep before wheedling more answers out of him about his life in the mafia. One of them is the question he’s been dreading since they started this little game: whether he’s ever killed anyone himself. He doesn’t plan it, but suddenly he’s lying to her, not because he fears her judgement, but because he doesn’t want to bring that last remaining difference between them - for all her flexible morals - into this room.
The lie is utterly transparent. Cha Young doesn’t call him on it, which is surprising from a woman who roasts him every chance she gets. Instead his brain pays him back once he gets to sleep by giving him that nightmare, the one that compiles every one of his worst deeds.
But she’s still there when he wakes up. That’s something.
The next morning, he finds out that she avoids mixing up products in the shower by keeping them in different corners, and that she applies her lipstick with a brush and a carefully counted number of brushstrokes so that she doesn’t go over her lip line by accident. Eye makeup is easier - a cotton wool pad placed under each eye as she works on it prevents any mishaps.
As soon as she’s ready for the day, she turns in his direction and gives him that smile, the one that first caught his attention all those weeks ago. This time, Vincenzo doesn’t even pretend not to be fascinated by every little bit of her.
~*~
Their clients are murdered and she cries. She's angry with herself for crying, and he tells her to keep her heart cold. That it will be easier that way.
He makes it clear that he's taking matters into his own hands now. He all but directly tells her he's going to kill.
It no longer surprises him when she tells him she wants the last blow.
~*~
She barrels straight into him in the underpass, cane thrown aside for Jang Jun Woo to catch. She must be able to smell the blood dripping onto his collar. Vincenzo shouldn’t hold her back, but there’s no denying that she makes a comfortable armful. He can smell the clean scent of her hair, and without the message passing though his brain first he’s touching it, bloody hands completely notwithstanding.
It’s soft.
Of course it’s soft. Anyone’s hair would be soft. Why did he think he needed to touch it to be sure?
‘Do you still want the last blow?’ he asks her in the car on the way to the abandoned warehouse.
It won’t actually be the last last blow. Cho Myung Hee’s stolen hunting dogs can take care of that. But if she wants to be the last thing the three assassins who killed their clients’ see in this life, he’s happy to oblige her. Of course, she won’t be able to see them writhe in the agony they deserve, but with a little creativity, he thinks he can still make it a satisfying experience for her.
He turns slightly in his seat so that he can take in her expression. She’s surprised. At him keeping his promise to her? ‘Yes, I do. But I thought you forgot about that when you went off to play hero by yourself?’
‘Of course not. It just calls for a little bit of planning, that’s all. What I have in mind should be ready by the time we get there.’
He can feel her curiosity, hanging between them like a vapour in the air, but she doesn’t ask until he’s ready to explain.
Vincenzo wouldn’t normally bother with a complicated set up like this. Elaborate contraptions have some value for psychological intimidation, but really a flick knife and a bit of creativity are just as good in the hands of a skilled interrogator. But Cha Young hasn’t done this before, and he’d like to make it easier on her.
As easy as the press of a button.
When he presses the remote gently into her hand and shows her which button will start the flow of exhaust into the sealed car and which will stop it, he feels like the devil leading her astray.
There’s a moment where he wonders what he let loose. There’s a moment when he revels in it, as she flattens her hands against the body of the car, eyes damp but face hard as she turns pain into truth. But even that is nothing to the cold thrill that runs through him when the three killers beg her for mercy - for the punishment of the law, as if that could touch them or the one that sent them - and she takes up the remote again, not to extract information but just to hurt, just to expel what she feels.
Only a fool would ever have expected her to be an angel. Only a fool would have wanted it.
You’re corrupting her, says the part of him that still has a conscience.
He’d like to think he’s listening to that small voice when he suggests they stop at a convenience store on the way back to her house and buy makgeolli. It’s easy enough to rationalise: she probably shouldn’t be alone after doing something so gruesome for the first time, and he vaguely remembers one of the older hands in the family getting him drunk after a first experience of ths kind, though he can’t now remember if it was his first interrogation or his first murder.
Sono stronzate e lo sai. You just want to stay near her.
The moment things change between them goes like this: one second Cha Young is propping her cane up in the corner of the entrance way of her house and slipping off her shoes, and the next her body is soft against his again, one arm looping around his neck. Her other hand takes hold of the lapel of his coat as she stands up on the balls of her feet, drawing her mouth closer to his. But not kissing him. Not yet.
It's a question. A challenge. A request.
‘Byeonhosa-nim? What are you-’
She cuts him off. She doesn’t look hopeful and afraid, the way she did in his arms earlier. She looks passionate and convicted, the way she did when she was torturing three assassins. ‘You know what I’m doing. You know what I was doing at the underpass. Did I call it wrong?’
Vincenzo should let this pass. He should not take what she’s offering him. He should give her the chance to think again.
Instead, he tilts his face down so that he can capture her mouth with his.
The plastic bag with the makgeolli bottles falls from his hand to the floor with a soft rustle. Neither of them notices.