Chapter Text
Nerves traveled up and down his body, his hands knotting together on his lap, nails digging into his skin. His mind raced a little too fast, his thoughts swirling in a tornado of overthinking and self-destruction.
Gaon was worried.
The overthinking associate judge sat in the front passenger seat of Yohan’s car, driving back from another one of the stupid events he had been forced to attend, and the night’s horrors stuck to the forefront of his mind as he tried to think about anything other than the hands that had trailed up and down the sleeve of his suit, the wedding rings shining on the fingers of the rich women who cooed and poked the soft skin of his cheeks.
They disgusted him, the things he saw and the people he met at those social events. He could never get used to the idea that the world was in their hands – the hands of the people who thought it was a crime to run out of caviar and have to use their ‘back-up Cadillac’ to arrive fashionably late because their main car was at the mechanic’s.
He had barely eaten at dinner, and yet the food that managed to make it past his trembling lips was now threatening to resurface as the car rocked around a corner.
Yohan was quiet. Unusually so — he was usually gloating, or prodding, or picking on him in that way of his to try and make the younger ‘realize’ something, to teach him a lesson.
Gaon was grateful for the silence. He didn’t think he could take the other man’s games right now. All he could think about was getting back to the mansion and holding Kkomi, crying himself to sleep.
Unclasping his hands, Gaon folded them behind his head, tugging at his hair a little to ground himself. The pain was good — it was real, it kept him in the moment while reality swept around him and emotions threatened to spill over.
He was not going to cry in front of Kang Yohan. Not over the stunts the elder man pulled. Not when he knew that was what his boss wanted — that was why he did it.
Kang Yohan was a sadist, thriving off the pain he inflicted. And Gaon was not going to give him the pleasure of breaking.
His hands fell back into his lap, sharp nails digging into the meat of his thighs. He was shaking a little, remembering the hungry eyes on him — eyes of people who saw him as a piece of food, an item. He was young, with a pretty face and a fit body. The eyes lingered.
“Chief Kang’s boytoy.” The whispers had followed him the past few weeks.
Not wanting to give anyone the satisfaction, Gaon had gritted his teeth and ignored the rumors. He was aware of what it looked like — disappearing into his boss’s office to come back out with crumpled clothes and his tie askew, but it wasn’t his fault Yohan was big on pushing people around to get his point across. It wasn’t his fault that his blood boiled when they argued, and that verbal disputes often turned physical, until they were pressed against each other and breathing heavily, Yohan’s large hands at Gaon’s throat, his eyes murderous.
Gaon knew it looked suspicious that he lived at the mansion, and that Yohan’s car picked him up from work. He knew it was odd that they arrived at social events together, side by side. He also knew that Yohan knew, so it must be yet another game the elder had decided to play.
Gaon wasn’t giving in.
That didn’t mean it didn’t affect him. Now, sitting in the car and watching the outside scenery fly back as Yohan drove at break-neck speed, Gaon drew in a shaky breath and knotted his hands back together.
He was shaking. Seconds away from a panic attack, maybe, because the reporter lingering outside had finally gotten him alone and shoved her mic in his face, while the lights flashed and Gaon was pinned to the brick wall behind him as questions flew at him faster than he could think.
Knowing his face would be all over the news tomorrow, Gaon made a small wounded sound, his blunt nails finally breaking tender skin.
The panic simmering under his skin breaks free, knocking him back and—
Suddenly it’s gone. A large, warm palm settles on his thigh protectively, a little too high up to be strictly appropriate, and squeezes, drawing Gaon’s attention to that touch and that touch alone.
He looks up, his doe eyes flashing up to meet Yohan’s darker ones.
The judge doesn’t say anything, turning back to the road and retracting his hand. But those simple few moments of contact wipe Gaon’s brain clean, and suddenly he can breathe freely, and the shaking has ceased.
Maybe it was a coincidence, the way the elder man’s touch erased his worries.
Or maybe it was something more, something Gaon wasn’t ready to admit.
Either way, his reality came crashing down upon him once again as he got up the next morning. Because Kang Yohan had announced something strange.
His marriage.
The Chief Judge of the Live Court has announced that the Associate Judge, Kim Gaon, was in fact his husband.
And that was all great and juicy gossip, but… they weren’t married…
._.