Title: Intrinsic attributes
Fandom: While You Were Sleeping (2017 Kdrama)
Rating: PG-rated
Length: 966 words
Notes: I’m not sure if this quite counts as a missing scene or if it’s slight canon divergence. Either way, I feel like the show could so easily have gone here. *pets Woo Tak*
Tags: OT3 feels, drinking with exes, angst, pining, loneliness, emotional hurt (no comfort)
Summary: Woo Tak has drinks with Do Hak Young, but his heart is elsewhere.



“Your secret is safe with me.” Do Hak Young grinned across the bar table, openly brimming with relief and cheer at having his name cleared, after weeks of being a murder suspect and the focus of public anger and resentment. He raised his glass in a toast.

Woo Tak clicked their glasses together, but he knew his own smile was wavering. The clench of false pretences and not being able to let himself be known was unsettling him tonight. Because he had two secrets, really. Two disqualifying attributes, equally intrinsic to who he was. But of course Hak Young would only hold one of them over his head; if he talked about the other, he’d only implicate himself.

In public, to the rest of the world, they’d been roommates.

In private, they’d been more.

It had started by accident. Do Hak Young had burst in and caught Woo Tak in his bedroom, privately contemplating a gay porn magazine. (Not a euphemism; he’d even been fully clothed.) Instead of recoiling, instead of being shocked or disapproving or threatening to tell the trainers at the police academy, Hak Young had laughed and said, “You too, huh? I always wondered.”

Over time, they’d explored and grown together, tentatively at first, sometimes defensive and almost angry, other times casual and affectionate. Never quite on the same wavelength, but usually close enough. But ultimately, it had been more convenience than anything else, not what Woo Tak really wanted. He’d broken it off, Hak Young had moved out, no regrets on either side, as far as Woo Tak knew.

No regrets, but Woo Tak still ached for Hak Young’s touch sometimes. Acquiring a dog to pet and cuddle didn’t make up for all the other stuff.

And now they were back across the table from each other for the first time in a year, and Hak Young didn’t seem to bear him any ill-will for ending things. Just seemed happy to be here.

Hak Young was decent and good-looking. Unlike certain other people, he was easily within reach. If only Woo Tak could kindle a spark, a desire that matched his other longings. But he couldn’t relinquish hope—that Jung Jae Chan was secretly like him, that Hong Joo would choose them both. He’d tried to give up, told himself over and over it was pointless, they only wanted each other. That if he wanted their happiness, he should step away and leave them to it. He’d tried.

But he kept being drawn back to them, to irresistible laughter and fellowship and mutual admiration. Nothing else came close.

“What’s the matter?” asked Hak Young, smirking, interrupting Woo Tak’s reverie. “You look like someone falsely accused you of murder.”

Woo Tak made himself focus on his immediate surroundings. On his friend across the table. His friend who was technically his ex. (What would Prosecutor Jung Jae Chan have said if Woo Tak had revealed that during witness testimony?) He smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Good, good. You’re a hero, you know. You saved me.” Hak Young stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

He headed for the bathroom, and Woo Tak rested his elbows on the table and his head on his hands. His eyes felt heavy, an increasingly familiar slipping away, and then—

It was nighttime and raining. Jae Chan smiled at Hong Joo, who held a polka-dot umbrella over the two of them; in its shelter, they were completely wrapped up in each other, glowing. “So how did you reply, in your dream?” Jae Chan asked Hong Joo, and she gazed up at him, speechless, the moment expanding, ripe with emotion. Woo Tak’s stomach swooped in reluctant anticipation. His throat tightened. He was right there, he didn’t have an umbrella, but he couldn’t feel the rain pelting down, and the others couldn’t see him. They didn’t see anything but each other. And then Hong Joo cupped the side of Jae Chan’s face, and they came together.

It was a swoony, romantic kiss. A first kiss. A declaration. Woo Tak shouldn’t be watching, but he couldn’t look away. He shouldn’t be jealous, because they were happy, but—his heart hurt so badly. If only they would look around, if only they would see him—

He woke up. Back in the bar. Hak Young sliding back into his seat, teasing, “Were you sleeping? Here? What, do you have narcolepsy?”

Woo Tak couldn’t speak. He wiped his face, though there was no rain on his cheeks and he would not let himself cry. He couldn’t cry at his friends’ happiness! What kind of awful person would that make him?

“Woo Tak,” said Hak Young, softly. “Woo Tak, can I come back to your place tonight?”

He looked hopeful, sounded needy—a neediness that echoed Woo Tak’s own. Woo Tak could find comfort with his friend. Even more, he could give comfort. But. Unable to help himself, he glanced across the bar.

The windows glittered with raindrops, scattering the yellow and red neon of the bar’s sign.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t be good company.”

Because hope was an indelible mark on his heart, as much a part of him as his other secrets. It was a lottery ticket folded tightly in a cramping fist. He couldn’t let it go. Not yet. Not yet.

There had to be a chance—that they felt it too, this connection. That someday they’d both turn and see him there. That they’d beckon him into their embrace. That they could all three kiss in the rain like that and become one beautiful togetherness.

He wasn’t ready to move on.

He took in Hak Young’s disappointed expression, considered again the offer of easy muted affection.

And picked up his beer. “Sorry,” he said again, and changed the subject, distracting Hak Young. Distracting himself.


END