Chapter Text
The play started as it should have, and was going well for the most part… up until about 20 minutes into the play, after they had established the play’s setting.
Agent Choi was sure he had read through the script properly, or well, the short summary of the play that Bronze, Soleum(?), and himself was supposed to act out. And sure, since there wasn’t an actual script for them to follow, there was a chance of this happening. But still…
“And with that, doesn’t our little Agent Bluey look so much cuter now?” Soleum, or more like the being in Soleum's body spun Choi around to face out towards the crowd.
How had things ended up like this…?
Choi was to play the cheating husband of ‘Soleum’s’ [Braun’s] lover. And if you were to ask who this ‘mistress’ and ‘wife’ were, well…
Obviously Agent Choi, unsatisfied with his marriage to a plush doll, decides to cheat on it with his ‘mistress’, Agent Bronze.
To be frank, he wasn’t quite sure how he ended up married to a plush bunny doll, but since they didn’t have enough human actors in their group for the main cast, they had to improvise and cast the doll into the play as well.
Even though there were also a bunch of entities who could act out the role instead, apparently they were all adamant that the doll take the role, which furthered his suspicions towards it.
And so now, Soleum and him were to engage in a game of cat and mouse to see who would win the doll over, even though Choi is already married to it and is now cheating on said doll with Agent Bronze.
Maybe the character he was playing was just really greedy.
That was pretty much all he got from the material he was given to use to prepare for his role.
But it seems that Soleum had deviated from the material a bit, and instead of humiliating the character Choi was supposed to be playing, he had turned to just trying to humiliate Agent Choi.
And that humiliation included changing his name to ‘Agent Bluey’ and dressing him up in cute tiger-like accessories.
The crowd laughed and cheered, egging Soleum to continue. This had turned more into something like a talk show than a play.
Choi felt Soleum’s hands come up to his face to pinch and play with his cheeks, spreading them wide. “How about you give us a little roar now, Bluey?”
Unknown to ‘Soleum’, this kind of thing was right up Choi’s alley.
“Rawr~” he winked to the invisible crowd, using one of his hands as a paw and licking it.
Soleum seemed taken aback as he took a step back and scoffed at him. “Hah! Of course someone with as low a pay as yours would be so willing to do something so shameful.”
But Soleum quickly fell back into his act and smiled at him again, fawning over how cute he was dressed like that.
“Hmm, how about you, my dear?” Soleum pulled the bunny plush out of his front pocket and shoved it in Choi’s face, supposedly revealing his ridiculous getup to his ‘wife’. “What do you think?”
Unsurprisingly, the doll didn’t utter a word. Though it was possible that only Soleum could hear it. Even so, Choi was feeling especially annoyed today since his hoobae had come to work contaminated this morning, and had now led them here. Hindering them from saving any civilians for the time being.
So Choi, being the petty man he is, decided to strike back. “Why thank you Pinky! I quite like my new outfit as well.” Choi wiggles his eyebrows and leans in, remembering that this plush is meant to be the wife he is supposed to win over.
“And you know what, if you stay with me, I’ll dress like this everyday just to please you.” Despite his voice coming out low and all breathy, the mic carried it all the way to the back of the playhouse.
Still, if he was gonna act, he was gonna act well. This disaster would ‘help’ you out should you fail to act out your role properly. Unless you were a VIP taking part in the play apparently.
Something to add to the manuals. We can see if we can gain VIP access in the future to make our rescues go smoother.
“My love! You shouldn’t fall for this man's words so easily like that! But if you love him looking like this so much then I suppose I should make sure he wears this till the end.”
A pause, it seemed as if Soleum was now listening to what the plush had to say. “Then if you say so, my dear.” Soleum turned his attention back towards Choi and explained what the doll had said.
“Since you apparently don’t seem capable of listening to your wife all that well, he said it was fine for you to dress how you want. I fear my dear lover is just too kind.” Soleum brought the plush in for a light hug before placing it back in his front pocket again.
Hah, perhaps that doll isn’t so bad after all. Thank you for sparing him from the extra awkwardness that came with wearing this… outfit…
“Well then! Would you look at the time! It’s time for us to go eat an extravagantly filling and healthy lunch my dear. We shall take our leave for now Bluey. Meet us downstairs once you’re ready.” And with that, Soleum snapped his fingers, the lights turning themselves off a beat later, allowing for a change in scene.
Cho scurried off to a random corner to quickly change as stage staff quickly changed the background to one of a kitchen and dining area.
And then the lights flicked back on, and Soleum was standing alone in the kitchen, cooking himself a meal.
“Hahh, it’s a shame I’ll have to be the one to taste it for you, my dear.” Soleum continued on with some sweet talk, the kind shared between two people who are deeply in love.
Eventually, it’s Choi’s time to go out onto the stage again, as he walks into the kitchen where Soleum is now sharing a nutritious yet high end looking meal with his ‘lover’.
“My~” Choi drags out the word as he leans on the table beside where the plush doll is sitting, facing Soleum. “It seems you didn’t make enough for me?” He tilted his head.
It was good that he didn’t need to eat any of this theatre's food, this was still a ghost story in the end. It was painful needing to watch Soleum eating the food, however, he was unsure if it would cause Soleum’s already bad contamination to worsen.
And for the sake of Soleum, this possibly Daydream spy, being ok, Choi was willing to take the food from him and hopefully lighten his burden.
“Why not just give the rest to me if you can’t eat it, Grapsie?”
To Choi’s dismay, Soleum sat up straighter and refused. “It seems we did make too little. Oh well, since it’s come to this, why not go out to eat with that other man you’ve been seeing as of late?”
It took Choi a moment to realize that Soleum was talking about Agent Bronze. With how worried he was, he kept almost forgetting that this was a play, and that Soleum didn’t always mean what he said here.
You’re supposed to be in love with the plush, you’re supposed to be in love with the plush, you’re supposed to be… he kept reminding himself.
“How unfair~” He looked down, pouting. “Pinky is my wife you know, I should be able to eat with… him whenever I want.” In all honesty, he wanted to check up on Jaekwan who he hadn’t seen for 40 minutes now. Please tell him to eat with his mistress.
Soleum smiled up at him from his meal, “Well then, why don’t we ask him about it. My dear, do you want this cheating man to stay with us during our intimate time, or would you rather he leave?”
Silence enveloped the scene once more as Soleum seemingly leaned in to hear what the plush had to say.
Suddenly, Soleum perked up, and a smile slowly spread across his face. “Well, you heard your wife, he doesn’t want a cheating saukerl like you impeding on our time together.” Soleum leaned back in his seat as Choi tried his best to not let his expression show through.
This was the outcome he had wished for regardless, however, instead of playing out as intended he found himself suddenly seated on a chair belonging to a cafe, Agent Bronze across from him with a coffee in front of him.
Bronze, also seemingly taken off guard, quickly falls into character as he starts spouting similar words of love that Soleum had been saying to his plush earlier.
“How terrible, for your wife to be treating you in such a way. You know I’d never throw you away like that, right?” Bronze was a bit stiff in how he was speaking, but other than that he played his character out so well it made Choi want to cringe.
“Well, at least in this way it opens up new opportunities for some games to begin.” Agent Choi smirked. His character was that of a man who loved to play mind games, and it seemed the first incident was coming up.
Agent Bronze lowered his head, probably out of habit yet it fit his character so well. “What’s the plan now?”
Maybe his words weren’t as in tune with his character though. Choi tried to communicate that through little signals the two had with each other, and thankfully, Agent Bronze seemed to have understood, quickly fixing his mistake before the disaster would for him.
“Of course,” Bronze reached over, his face flashing a deep red as he gently grabbed onto Choi’s chin, “You needn’t play such games at all for a wretch such as your wife. W-why not just stay with me?”
Choi shot to attention at Jaekwan’s stutter, looking out for any strings coming down from the ceiling. He let out a sigh when he thankfully saw none.
He quickly let his shoulders relax, not wanting the play’s director to notice anything wrong with how he was holding himself and correcting that too.
“Well, since he’s taking something so important from he…” he leaned closer to Bronze, not too uncomfortable with how intimate their characters forced them to be with each other, and whispered in his ear, his voice still carrying itself throughout the playhouse, “Though not as important as you of course babe.”
They both cringed at that and Choi leaned back again, “Shouldn’t I strike back?” He moved one of his shoulders up and down to signal what that was that he was going to take from Soleum to Bronze, while avoiding letting the audience in on it.
The plush. He needed to see if there was something up with it.
Agent Bronze, having caught up, responded in one way with his mouth, another with how he nodded in understanding what Choi was going to take.
Their conversation continued not long afterwards, most likely not useful to the play’s story as it was soon time for Choi to put his plan into action.
Originally, he believes that his character is supposed to convince Soleum’s character to break into his house to steal some jewelry in order to claim insurance, however there are more important things to do here.
The scene that Choi was originally supposed to use to convince Soleum’s character to commit such an act was skipped over, instead turning into one that let Choi slip into Soleum’s room and steal the plush while his contaminated hoobae was ‘sleeping’.
He tiptoed into Soleum's room, plucking the plushy off of its spot on the bedside table.
This was, in a way, still in line with the story's structure.
There technically was still the theft of something important, just committed by the wrong character. Choi's left arm began to feel a bit prickly, but he paid it no mind, trying his best to leave the room as quietly as possible as if this were real.
So in order to make up for that, he would have to make sure things played out how they were supposed to in the future.
It would be ok, the kind director would help him with that. Mistakes were a part of life and the kind entity understood that.
And so, with the director's help he did. Scenes flashed by, he was off to the side for a while before he was up again.
Ah, he forgot to check the plushie hadn't he?
He sat down to have a chat with Soleum who had surely noticed what was missing the next morning, and to his despair no talks of insurance or of the theft came up.
But it was ok for Soleum to go off script, he was the VIP here after all.
Soleum did however seem worried about how Agent Bronze was doing, which filled Choi with a sense of hope and slight relief. So Soleum was still salvageable after all.
Though there was always the chance of Soleum getting worse. If only he still had those rainbow shoelaces, he’d be able to get them all out right now and keep Soleum safer.
“I must say Mr. Bluey, I fail to understand the appeal to that stiff young lady you’ve chosen to cheat with, but I suppose even she doesn’t deserve a man who is as big a headache as you.”
Choi wasn’t quite sure, but that felt like a stab at both him and Jaekwan as people, not the characters they were playing.
“Well, I suppose I got lucky I guess. But that doesn’t mean I’ve moved on from my previous love, not at all Grapsie.”
Soleum looked at him calmly and opened his mouth.
“But this isn’t actually about our partners now is it, sir? I’ve read many of your books and I must say, I’m quite a fan. You just enjoy these kinds of games, do you not?”
Ah, so this is the reveal of the true motives behind his character’s actions.
“I suppose it could be quite cruel to bring in an innocent bystander such as your wife sir, but of course, it is an honor to have the opportunity to play these games with a person as renowned as yourself.” Soleum bowed his head. “So I hope you enjoy the surprise I left you in return for what you stole last night.”
A surprise? Surely it was fine. Right?
But this VIP didn’t need to care about the script, he could do whatever he wanted.
A feeling of dread sunk into Choi’s gut as he thought through what Soleum could mean by ‘surprise’.
Ah, but according to the outline, Soleum was supposed to scare him in some way that wouldn’t cause actual harm.
And so, as the scene shifted once more, before Choi had the opportunity to properly check what was going on with the doll he was currently in possession of, he found himself in front of a door.
Breathing shakily as his character would have been in this situation, his arm came up on its own to open the door so he could peak through.
The strong stench of metal slammed into his face as the door opened up, and his eyes widened.
“My, you’re mistress is doing well, right?” Soleum’s words from earlier. The same ones that had given him hope that there was still a chance to help him recover.
No, he had been deluding himself earlier, those words had been foreshadowing, but he hadn’t thought that deep because why think at all when the director can think for you?
… Oh.
Choi looked into the dark room in horror, a figure laying there lifelessly on the ground, head detached and rolled off to the side.
He was contaminated, but before he could think of the strings stemming from his body up into the ceiling, he was faced with the figure in front of him.
As the lights came on, the outline became more than just a doll, a prop.
No, it was a person, one he was very very familiar with at that.
As if mocking him, the head started rolling ever so slowly towards him, only stopping right before his feet.
His hoobae’s… his Jaekwan-ie’s shocked face, staring right up at him, his head, completely detached, the body not far from him, the bed, the shelves, the mirror, the chair, or were those shelves? Yea, those were shelves, but not the kind from before. Instead of books the shelves carried boxes, items in storage.
His scar tingled as the room just grew longer and longer and longer with those endless shelves and the temperature plummeting to near freezing as he walked towards Jaekwan’s body, head in hands, and fell onto his knees.
Maybe it was because of the contamination, most likely so, Choi had never let out such a guttural, horrified scream in his life, at least not that he could remember.
This is what his character would've done after all. Scream for the lover who he had just seen yesterday- no, the colleague he had just seen an hour ago.
It should've been him, how could he have let this happen?
Choi closed in as the temperature seemed to grow colder, the same thoughts playing on repeat in his head.
But there was nothing he could do now.
Ryu Jaekwan, was dead.