Page 109 of Marked By Him

Jin suffered two broken ribs and a cracked brow among other scrapes and bruises. And then there was the tiny piece of crushed glass that lodged itself into his left eye.

Dr. Baek was able to carefully remove it, but he warned that his sight in that eye wouldn’t return to normal for a few weeks. Thankfully, his loss of vision isn’t going to be permanent.

But tonight—this early morning—Jin feels more fragile than I’ve ever felt him.

Every time his body shudders and he lets out a pained grunt, it’s a reminder that he isn’t invincible. As strong and resilient as he seems, Jin is still human. He’s just a man made of flesh and bone with blood pumping through his veins.

We cross the threshold of the dark house in silence.

The place still smells of wood, sea salt, and traces of us. Then I’m reminded that it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since we left.

It’s just that everything that’s happened in the last day was so chaotic, it feels like way longer.

I fumble through the darkness, gathering the bed mats and clean sheets and setting them up for us by the window where we sleep. Jin moves to help, but I wave him off. He needs his rest more than anything after his brutal fight with Seung-min.

Jin has collapsed on his back, his face turned up toward the ceiling. He looks utterly spent, his entire torso wrapped up in bandages. There’s the other bandage around his left eye, the off-white gauze stark against his messy jet-black hair.

But he still watches me with his good eye. It bothers Jin to be so weak and vulnerable, even with me. He would prefer the roles were reversed—that he was able to take care of me.

I kneel beside him and reach for the wrapping along his side. Dr. Baek advised me to change them out if any bloodspots emerged, and I can see the wrapping redden even in the dark room. Jin’s hand catches mine first.

His touch gentle and firm, I look up to find his intense gaze. He slowly brings my hand to his lips, kissing the tips of my fingers with so much tenderness, a shiver racks through me. His lips are cracked and dry, but the gesture is warm and full of gratitude.

Love.

He lowers our hands and lets his thumb brush along the bandage wrapped around mine. He wasn’t the only one hurt from our fighting. I’ve sprang three fingers and sustained some bruises everywhere from my stomach to my neck to my face after the punch I took on the train.

The fingers came from when I tried to fight Seung-min in the Baekho-je’s office at the Claw Lounge.

Jin had explicitly told me to stay out of the confrontation, and I had… until Seung-min cheated and he was on the verge of killing him. As Jin lay in agony on the floor, blinded by the glass Seung-min had tossed into his face, I watched helplessly as he smashed his boot into his ribs. Against his jaw. The back of his head.

He was going to kill him if I didn’t do something.

So I threw myself at Seung-min, literally jumping onto his back. I wrapped an arm around his neck and figured it was an eye for eye. He had gone for Jin’s eyes, so I went for his. I dug my nails into him as hard as I could.

He flung me halfway across the room. I crashed into the desk, slumping to the floor. I was now the center of Seung-min’s attention. He advanced toward me and I scrambled to my feet, hoping I could distract him long enough to give Jin time to recover.

That… or we’d die in the office together. Seung-min was going to have to murder us both.

I’m grateful my gamble paid off, even if I have a few extra scrapes to show for it.

A muscle tics in Jin’s jaw as he studies my bruised face and throat. His hand slides up the side of my neck, then cups my swollen cheek. I flinch on reflex alone, the throbbing flesh still too sensitive.

Anger bleeds into his expression. It makes him livid to see me like this.

We peel off our dirty, torn clothes and get ready for bed. Once we’ve washed up and changed, we collapse onto the bedding mat for the last time tonight. It feels so good to lay beside him after everything we’ve been through.

Simple pleasures like going to bed with the one you love are taken for granted. It’s a relief to be safe and alive together.

Jin seems to have the same thing on his mind. “Do you realize what’s happened?”

My brows knit out of curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“You’re free, Tokki-ya,” he answers, reaching for my wrist. He turns it over so that the mark is visible and traces his thumb along the black ink. “You can have your old life back.”

I lift my hand to his jaw and hold his gaze in the dark. “I don’t want my old life back. I want a life with you instead. I want a future where we’re together. I’m never going to be that Monroe who stumbled into that alley again… and I’m okay with that. Because life changes and so do people. The most unexpected things happen—both good and bad—and we have to accept it. We have to learn to evolve.”

“My rabbit is wise,” he teases quietly. “But I’ve realized things too, Tokki-ya. When I marked you that night, I thought I was scaring you off. I didn’t realize I was doing something else instead. Marking you for myself. It was selfish of me to do. It’s still selfish of me. I don’t want you by my side because you feel obligated or burdened. I lead a violent life. I have enough blood on my hands that they’ll never be clean. If you want to walk away now… I would understand.”

---