Requested by saturnlvss.

Kim Gun-woo was terrible at pretending to be intimidating.

He tried---really---but it never quite worked. Even standing beside you in a dark suit, shoulders broad and posture alert, there was something unmistakably gentle about him. His eyes softened too easily, especially when they landed on you, and his voice always dropped into something warm when he spoke your name.

“You didn’t eat,” He said one evening, holding out a convenience store bag like it was evidence.

You blinked at him. “Is that a threat?”

He smiled, sheepish. “More like concern.”

Being assigned as your bodyguard had started as a necessity. President Choi’s enemies didn’t stay behind desks or paperwork---they lurked in back alleys, betting rooms, illegal gyms. You spent your days tracking loan sharks, gathering information, walking straight into places most people avoided. Gun-woo took the danger seriously. He just never treated you like you were fragile.

He followed you through narrow streets and smoke-filled rooms, stayed close during tense negotiations, waited outside doors that echoed with raised voices. Sometimes you caught him quietly cracking his knuckles to ease nerves he pretended not to have. Other times, he tried---badly---to look uninterested when you thanked him for stepping in before things escalated.

“You don’t have to say it every time,” He said once, rubbing the back of his neck after walking you out of a gambling den untouched.

“I want to,” You replied.

He didn’t argue after that.

It was subtle, the way things changed. The way his hand lingered when he guided you through crowded rooms. The way he started checking your expressions instead of just the exits. The way silence between you stopped feeling empty and started feeling safe.

Then came what he feared.

Gun-woo was with Woo-jin, locked in a brutal fight with the man who had once beaten him---the same one who had helped ruin his mother’s café, the memory still sharp beneath his skin. Every punch he threw carried that weight.

You were dealing with another one of them. When everything finally settled and you regrouped, Gun-woo’s eyes immediately searched for you. He scanned your face carefully, something tight and unmistakable—guilt—flickering in his gaze.

“Come on,” Woo-jin said, already grabbing the jackets. “Let’s get the money.”

He left the room before either of you could respond.

Later, when you and Woo-jin forced open the safe and grabbed the cash, Gun-woo was already outside, loading the boxes into the car. He didn’t relax for a second, eyes darting down the street even as the engine started.

It wasn’t enough.

You were followed.

What should’ve been a clean escape turned frantic. Tires screeched, metal screamed, and you ended up wrecking your own car just to take out the loan sharks’ truck. The impact rattled your bones, adrenaline drowning out the pain.

You and Woo-jin ran for Gun-woo’s car, abandoning the money as the bags slipped from your hands—speed mattered more than anything else. By the time you reached him, lungs burning, there was no going back.

Woo-jin collapsed into the passenger seat. You barely managed to squeeze in, half sitting between the seats, pressed against Gun-woo’s leg. His grip on the wheel was steady, jaw clenched, eyes locked on the road until the city finally fell away behind you.

When you reached the house—finally safe—and your breathing slowed, Gun-woo stopped in front of you.

Then, unexpectedly, he bowed.

Your eyes widened.

“I’m sorry,” He said, voice lower, heavier than you had ever heard it. When he straightened, his gaze lifted to your face, his finger hovering near his own cheekbone as he pointed out one of your injuries.

“I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

In that moment, you understood that this wasn't just a job for him—that you weren't just something to get done.

You were important, you were cared for. And slowly, the way his eyes had started softening more, the way his voice warmed up just for you, became noticeable. More obvious in your head.

That was the most important you'd ever felt.