#ikfc

You sat alone inside the medical room upstairs, fingers trembling slightly while reorganizing supplies that did not need reorganizing. Gauze. Alcohol wipes...Bandages...Scissors...Again... And again...And again.

Downstairs, IKFC continued breathing like on a regular day. A year ago, you would have called the police hearing conversations like that but now you disinfected bullet wounds without asking questions. Funny how survival changed people.

The door opened quietly behind you. You looked up instantly and standing when you saw tae-geom stood there with blood across his knuckles again.

Not his blood...Usually never his.

His clothes disheveled, dark hair damp from rain and sweat while exhaustion rested heavily across his face. The second his eyes found you, something inside his expression softened almost invisibly. Only for you....Always only for you.

“You’re late,” you murmured quietly.

“Meeting dragged.” You hated how normal that sounded now. You nodded anyway.

Tae-geom closed the door behind him before sitting heavily against the examination table. You stepped between his knees automatically, reaching for antiseptic.

“You split your knuckles again.” you observed.

“He deserved it.” he replied.

“That’s not medical reasoning.” you argued back almost frustratingly. A faint breath of amusement left him. Tiny....Exhausted.

You cleaned the blood from his hands carefully while silence settled around you both comfortably. Outside this room, Yun Tae-geom terrified people. Men lowered their eyes when he walked past because they knew how inhumane he can be. Security guards straightened instantly hearing his footsteps.

But here…Here he just looked tired. And lately, that terrified you more. Because the exhaustion had been getting worse. Longer silences...Sleepless nights.

Standing near windows at 3AM staring into Seoul like he was trying to find something that no longer existed there.

“Tae-geom.”

“Hm?”

“You’ve been thinking too loudly lately.” That finally pulled his attention fully toward you.

A dangerous thing...Tae-geom only looked at people directly when he cared what happened to them.

“You notice too much.” he said. Flatly.

“I’m a nurse.” you reason with him.

“No,” he murmured softly. “You notice me too much.”

Heat crawled faintly into your chest despite everything..A year inside IKFC should have made moments like this impossible.Yet somehow the quiet parts with him felt more intimate than anything else.

Your fingers brushed lightly across his bruised knuckles while wrapping gauze.

“You need stitches.”

“no, I need sleep.”

“You need therapy.”That earned a low tired laugh from him. Then silence returned again. Heavy this time...You noticed it immediately.

“Tae-geom.” He looked at you quietly for several seconds before speaking.

“If I asked you to leave Seoul with me,” he said softly, “would you?” Your hands stopped moving. The rain outside suddenly sounded louder.

“What?”

“I’m serious.” Your chest tightened instantly.

Nobody left IKFC...Not really..Not alive...Not cleanly. Baek-jeong never allowed it.

“You’re scaring me.” For the first time in months, something genuinely emotional cracked through Tae-geom’s composure.

“Good,” he said quietly. “You should be scared.” The words settled coldly inside your stomach.

“What happened?”

Instead of answering immediately, he reached for your hand slowly, thumb brushing absentmindedly across your wrist like grounding himself through touch alone.

“Baek-jeong noticed.”Your pulse stumbled...Noticed...Of course he noticed.

The late nights together. The way Tae-geom started refusing unnecessary violence.

How he walked you to your car personally after shifts. How you became the only person inside IKFC capable of calming him during bad nights.

Men like Im Baek-jeong noticed weakness immediately.

And love? Love was catastrophic weakness inside places like this.

“Tae-geom…” “He gave me three months.” His jaw tightened faintly. “To fix it.” Cold fear slid down your spine....fix it?? Meaning you.

“You’re leaving because of me.” “No,” he answered immediately...Then quieter... “I’m leaving because I finally remembered I wanted a life.”Your throat tightened painfully.

Before you could answer, the medical room door opened again. Nobody knocked. Nobody ever made Baek-jeong knock. The entire room changed instantly.

Tae-geom stood automatically. So did you.

Im Baek-jeong entered the room with rain still clinging faintly to the shoulders of his black coat, dark hair tied neatly back while silence followed him like something alive.

Even after a year inside IKFC, he still unsettled you immediately. Not because he shouted. Because he never needed to.

His gaze moved slowly between you and Tae-geom before settling briefly on your intertwined hands.

Interesting.

“You’re both becoming careless,” he murmured. Your stomach dropped.Tae-geom stepped slightly in front of you instinctively. Baek-jeong noticed that too. And smiled. Not warmly. Never warmly.

“You know,” he said quietly, “emotional people become liabilities for business.” Tae-geom’s expression hardened instantly. “She’s not involved.”

“No?” Baek-jeong glanced toward you. “Then why are you suddenly refusing assignments that keep you away from her?”....Silence.....Dead silence.

The kind sitting directly before disasters. Baek-jeong stepped further into the room slowly.

“You were useful once,” he continued calmly toward Tae-geom. “Predictable. Efficient.” A pause. “Now you hesitate.” “I still get results.” “Yes.” Baek-jeong tilted his head slightly. “But now you think before killing people.”

The words sliced through the room cleanly...Your chest tightened upon the realization. Because it was true..you had changed Tae-geom Not softer exactly but somethinJust… human again.

And IKFC benefited from monsters, not men rediscovering morality.

“I’m leaving,” Tae-geom said suddenly. Everything went still......

Even Baek-jeong stopped moving.

A quiet laugh. “You’re serious.” “I am.”

Baek-jeong stared at him for several long seconds before removing his coat slowly and placing it over the nearby chair.

Your pulse spiked instantly... You knew what was coming for tae-goem.

“Tae-geom…” you whispered softly. But he already understood too. This was never ending with conversation... He knew that.

“You built too much for IKFC to walk away cleanly,” Baek-jeong said calmly, rolling his sleeves upward. “So if you want out…” His dark gaze sharpened slightly. “Earn it.”

The first punch came fast. Violent enough to split Tae-geom’s lip instantly. You gasped loudly as his body slammed backward into the metal cabinet beside you.

“Tae-geom!” you shouted. But he already lunged forward again.

The sound of fists colliding against flesh echoed brutally through the medical room while equipment crashed onto the floor around them. Neither man fought wildly. That was what made it terrifying. Controlled violence. Precise.

Tae-geom drove his fist into Baek-jeong’s ribs hard enough to force air from his lungs, but Baek-jeong retaliated immediately with a brutal hit across Tae-geom’s jaw that snapped his head sideways violently. Blood splattered across the floor.

You’d never seen Baek-jeong fight personally before.Now you understood why men feared him. He fought like someone emotionally detached from pain itself

Tae-geom crashed against the examination table before recovering instantly, grabbing Baek-jeong by the collar and slamming him hard enough into the wall to crack the frame behind him.

Neither spoke.

Years of loyalty and violence collapsing into fists. “Tae-geom stop!” you cried desperately. Neither listened.

Baek-jeong drove his knee sharply into Tae-geom’s stomach before striking him across the face hard enough to split skin beneath his eye.

The sound made your stomach twist violently. Still Tae-geom kept getting back up....Again...Again. Not for pride but for you.

That realization hurt more than the violence itself.

“You’re proving my point,” Baek-jeong muttered while wiping blood from his mouth. “Love makes men pathetic.” Tae-geom hit him hard enough to stagger him backward a step.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he breathed. Something dangerous flickered briefly across Baek-jeong’s face then.

Real irritation.

The next hit sent Tae-geom crashing onto the floor beside the overturned tray table.You ran toward him instantly.

" Please...director Im...please stop..!” you begged Baek jeong.

Tae-goem coughed harshly, blood staining his lower lip while trying to push himself upright again despite shaking arms.

And suddenly—nausea slammed through you violently. You barely made it toward the sink before vomiting. The room fell silent instantly afterward.

Your hands gripped the sink trembling while realization crashed slowly over you.

No.

No no no—

“Tae-geom…” Your voice broke. He looked up immediately despite blood running down his face. And the second your hand instinctively moved toward your stomach…

everything changed...Baek-jeong noticed it too. Of course he did. Silence swallowed the room whole. Tae-geom stared at you.Then your stomach.

Then back at you again with something almost horrified unfolding behind his eyes.

Not fear. Something deeper. Protectiveness so intense it looked painful.

Baek-jeong exhaled slowly through his nose before looking away toward the rain-covered windows. Annoyance flickered clearly across his face.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered quietly. Nobody spoke.

For the first time since entering the room, Baek-jeong looked genuinely exhausted.

“You got her pregnant.” Tae-geom slowly stood despite the blood covering him.

“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation.That seemed to irritate Baek-jeong even more. Because there it was..Proof...Yun Tae-geom was already gone emotionally.

The organization had lost him long before tonight. Baek-jeong grabbed his coat again before turning toward the door.

“If this were anybody else,” he said quietly, “I’d bury them before sunrise.” Your pulse stopped.

“But emotional men become liabilities,” he continued calmly without looking back. “And desperate fathers become unpredictable.” A pause. “Neither benefits business.”

Tae-geom stared silently. Baek-jeong opened the door.

“Leave korea within forty-eight hours,” he said flatly. “And if I ever hear your child’s name connected to IKFC…” The threat hung unfinished in the air.

It didn’t need completion.

Then he left.

Just like that.

No softness.

No blessing.

No forgiveness.

Only business.

The rain swallowed him whole beyond the hallway while silence settled heavily inside the ruined medical room afterward.

For several seconds neither of you moved.

Then Tae-geom crossed the room quickly despite his injuries, hands cupping your face almost desperately while searching your expression.

“You’re pregnant?” Tears blurred your vision instantly.

“I haven't bled this month so I think so...” you cried. Something inside him cracked completely then. Quietly.

Like a man who spent years surviving suddenly realizing survival was no longer enough anymore.

He rested his forehead against yours carefully, breathing uneven now for the first time all night.

“We’re leaving,” he whispered.

And this time…there was finally something in his voice stronger than fear.

Hope.

___________________________

Life afterward was strangely small. And beautiful because of it.

You moved somewhere quiet near the North where nobody knew Yun Tae-geom beyond being a reserved man with tired eyes and scarred knuckles. Tae-goem had saved enough for the rest of your lives.

At first, he struggled badly.

Crowded places still made him tense.

He checked locks three times before sleeping.

Kept weapons hidden throughout the house without telling you.

Sometimes you woke at night finding him sitting beside the crib silently watching your daughter breathe. Like he still couldn’t believe something that innocent belonged to him.

But slowly…life softened him anyway...Never completely. Tae-geom would always carry violence inside him like old scars beneath skin.

Yet now those same hands once used for IKFC held grocery bags and tiny baby socks instead.

He learned how to braid your daughter’s hair terribly. Burned pancakes every Sunday trying to help.

Stood beside you cooking dinner while rain hit the windows of your small coastal home.

And sometimes, during quiet nights after the baby finally slept, you would catch him staring at both of you with something almost disbelieving in his eyes.

Like he still expected this life to disappear.

“You regret it?” you asked once softly while brushing his hair.

Leaving. Losing IKFC...money..power..everything.

Tae-geom looked toward the ocean beyond the windows before glancing back at you and your sleeping daughter curled against his chest.

Then, very quietly he answered.

“No.” And for the first time in his life…Yun Tae-geom truly meant it.