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Instruction Booklet for Dummies (Grim Reaper Edition): How to Deal with Boss' New Favorite (and the Jealousy That Comes With It)
Even as nightfall goes into stagnation, and the new moon starts to elicit the shadows of all these souls walking around wearing human flesh…
…it's the beauty of the evidence of life after death, of ambling feet treading the grounds of between Heaven and Hell – that feels like they're spitting at her, running her to the ground, and gnashing her teeth together in the name of human insensitivity.
Because even the most reassuring facts about the afterlife – that it exists, that there is Heaven and Hell for the best, the mediocre, and the worst – it only failed to remind her any less of how this is an addition to another one of those off days.
And the off days are simply the worst when you're working for the gods and Reapers that precede the overall reign of the Underworld. The best of the best, Ryeon agrees – but also the worst of the indifferent people she has come up to face.
But…it's been another bad day, that's all…
Goo Ryeon already knows this. It's just been an exhausting bad day…
The exhaustion only worsens, becomes only more suffocating; as these two imbeciles from probably the same random Team of Jumadeung's many Divisions – gossip loudly about her, about her love life, and about a certain man in question (out of all topics and out of all people); right in front of her face and outside their office's skyscraper. In the same fucking food stall they should've known by now that Ryeon frequents for drinks.
Gods of Heaven, The Assistant Team Leader tilts her pretty head out of secondhand embarrassment, eyes closing from the loss of her unbreakable reputation. Out of all days to test my patience…
She lazily plays with the rim of the cup of whiskey – wishing to throw herself off some bridge now that she's currently wedged together in this situation where two pitiful excuses of Grim Reapers loudly yap about her, yapping specifically about her and her relationship with the renowned Team Leader of the Escort Team; the esteemed and disquieting Park Joong-gil of the Reapers' Jumadeung, Underworld.
But Ryeon supposes their rowdy banter makes the exhaustion feel sweeter against the fading jealousy stirred by the same certain lenient Team Leader and with his budding relationship with his…new thing, this new woman he seems to find silence in – earlier at work, this morning.
Everyone can make out Joong-gil's obvious favor for the newly recruited subordinate (newly recruited submissive, Ryeon grumbles) all throughout the demanding hours of their work – and how his favor clearly rests on a surface level high enough that the rookie was given the freedom to start dressing flirty little smiles on her stunning, delicate features — and playfully threw a coy, coquettish goodbye towards the only man prideful and domineering enough to be feared and renowned all throughout several, if not all office Divisions.
…the same man that already took more than half of Ryeon's affection and loneliness. Already took so much of her fragments and pieces. And he knows this by now.
If all those quiet, vulnerable moments they've shared together even up to this point – she really should've known better than to hope for him to know this by now.
Nonetheless, it was a gritting and irritating eight hours worth of Hell for his wife. Eight hours of stomaching the new subordinate's obvious desire for her husband, of the said husband actually finding the other woman's infatuation for him far from a hindrance, and even going so much as being tolerant of it.
Tuesday's office hours was largely spent with Ryeon trying to find where she lacked when it comes to her performance and personal attitude with Joong-gil today or maybe with what some line she crossed – because how did it come to a point where her husband refused to even spend lunch with her, was adamant of staying far from in the same room with her, alone?
Do you see where she's going with this?
"Hyung, I swear! I really think there's something going on with Timjangnim and Team Leader hyung even at this time! This was ten years ago, right? When they were still lovey dovey without the rabid neck choking?"
"Jun-woong, you asked me that six times already. Thrice after work, twice during drinks – both from our timeline by the way; precisely thirty minutes ago from ten years ahead from this timeline. And now tonight, here – after I teleported us while you're clearly half drunk."
"It's because you won't believe me!"
"And I'm freezing already, Half and Half. Can't we get this over with?"
She releases a short breath, trying not to scoff bittersweetly.
Straightaway highlight these resident Reaper idiots and the way they make all the gnashing irritation in the heat of her stomach all the more cloying. The sound of their voices drives the dying envy to concede into wisps of mere frustration, at least.
After all this time, she supposes, it's only fitting for a hellish day to keep grinding her to the dirt until it finally ends with midnight.
"I'm no longer a half Reaper. I've already died again and went back to working for our Risk Management Team, remember? Your insults are honestly getting repetitive, hyung. You're starting to get boring."
"Since when did we start talking about our boss' passionate love life with Mr. Pretentious Asshole all those years ago to you looking down on my choice of adjectives for you?"
"Ah, so you agree? You think there's something going on between them even at this time?"
"So you agree? You're looking down at your own superior, you annoying piece of work, Office Rookie?"
"I count that as a win, hyung."
"Mr. Park – on a surface level – is already weak for Ms. Goo at this point in their timeline, anyway. I keep hearing from the Escort Team that their Team Manager has been spending a lot of his not-so-free time with her on her day offs for years before they kind of fell out a decade after."
"And yet after all that, you still won't believe me~" The taller of them tut, crossing his brawny arms on his chest as he shakes his darling head in mock disappointment. "Tsk, tsk. So slow, Team Manager Ryung-Gu."
There's humor in their nosiness, at least. There's humor in the falsehood of it all, to put it mildly.
Joong-gil was never interested intimately, let alone romantically with Goo Ryeon. How could he? When clearly he has that-
"-that new, pretty, highly competent subordinate who just happened to be his goddamn wife from his last reincarnation.' Ryeon gripes, feeling the sudden urge to drown out the grappling fire lighting up hotly inside her veins – with the strongest of the bitter alcohol there is. Instead, however, she expresses the best of her sorrows through the tightening grip on her glass shot, deft fingers squeezing the cup with an overwhelmingly rigid force.
Somewhere near them, a streetlamp bursts into pieces.
Whiskey becomes her only confidante, her only friend on every sad day. Everything else – the white noise, the broken lights; it pales in comparison. Most of the time, anyway.
"Enough procrastination. Just approach Ms. Goo alrea-"
"No."
"What?" The cool-headed between the two men immediately scoffs – he snakes one condescending lift on one of his eyebrows. "So you mean you made a bet with me, made me teleport us back to fucking ten years ag-"
"Hyung." The other man says. "Lower your voice. I have my reasons-"
"You mean your excuses."
"My reasons. But you know she might be listening-"
"Of course, I'm listening." Ryeon says instantly, turning her head to the side and throwing them a menacing smirk. "You're all I can hear for twenty minutes full of bullshit already."
It was worth it; the humiliation, the waning patience, her bitterness – to see these two young Reapers swallow what's left of their gritty nerves and to witness their grip from the reins of their emotions irrefutably slip. Fear has never looked any less stunning dancing in the colors of their doe, brown eyes.
"Ma'am, it was Choi Jun-woong who chose to interrupt your alone time after a stressful day at work to gossip about you and Mr. Park." Lim Ryung-Gu, Ryeon remembers after escorting him to the Underworld all those hundred years back – comes up confidently, hardly wasting any more of his seconds.
"Yah, Mr. Lim!" Jun-woong beats, slightly throwing his head back. "Weren't you the one who started the topic back when we were out on drinks thirty minutes ago?"
"Irrelevant. He has no proof, Ma'am. Please don't believe this sad excuse of a Half Reaper."
"I'm no longer a halfling, get that through your thick head already, hyung!"
"What?" Mr. Lim shifts his head to toss a withering expression the youngest's way. Jun-woong quickly swallows his saliva for the second time tonight. "Did you just use informal speech in front of a superior, Choi Jun-woong?"
"Ms. Goo, you saw it too, right?" Jun-woong points at the smaller man, adamant of making a better name for himself in front of the Assistant Team Leader. "The way he makes a joke out of me?"
Ryeon can feel sincerity dressing itself in her smirk, corners of her mouth lifting a little higher. She snorts. "And what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not your Team Leader."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"....you mean, not our Team Leader yet–"
Jun-woong sputters, immediately biting on his own tongue after Ryung-Gu elbows him – quite far from gently, mind you – right exactly on the jut of his ribs. "Well figured out, Ms. Goo. Thank you for pointing that out." The Team Manager says blankly.
"Come." Ryeon motions, nodding at the two empty chairs standing across the table she's stationed at. "Have a drink with me."
"It's alright. The both of us were actually about to-"
"I'd never say no to free drinks." Jun-woong coughs out, taking several excited steps forward before slumping loudly at the chair stationed in front of Ryeon. "Is it soju, Timjangnim?"
"Whiskey." Ryeon answers, looking at him with interest.
From a distance, she can hear Ryung-Gu let out a small (and unsurprisingly disappointed) sigh from his colleague's naive impulsivity. Despite his sheer and reasonable discomfort from the whole ordeal, the cool-headed Reaper eventually takes a seat next to his friend.
"So is it true, Ma'am?" Ryung-Gu asks, taking a glass shot and pouring himself his own beer. He's obviously deciding to fuck it all (and fuck Jun-woong for dragging him into this) when now all is said and done. "If it's not too brash for me to ask; that Mr. Park has found a woman he's deemed worthy of his time?"
"Shouldn't you be asking him that instead of me?" Ryeon replies. "Or do you expect a different answer from the woman he's deemed worthy of his time, Mr. Lim?"
"Ha! I was right!" Jun-woong laughs a little wilder, booming voice guffawing even worse at the sight of the Team Manager spitting out the whiskey from his mouth right after the said laughing young Reaper relentlessly smacked him in the back.
"I was right, hyung." Jun-woong says with a bubbly grin – subsequently accepting Ryung-Gu's harsh slaps against his bicep ("For retribution" Ryung-Gu mutters) with careless ease. "Mr. Park already has feelings for-"
"His wife." Ryeon says.
"Yes, his wife!" Jun-woong agrees. "Which is-"
"-our new office rookie."
"-you, Ms. Goo-Wait, what?" The beaming picture that paints the best of his buoyant and attractive smile – which, in its own hints of innocence, reminds Ryeon of an old friend – swiftly drops from the charm of his youthful features. "Timjangnim, what do you mean new office rookie? Aren't you-"
"Jun-woong." Ryung-Gu warns.
"-isn't Mr. Park interested in you?" Jun-woong clears his throat, swallowing his spit the third time tonight. "Ma'am?"
"That's news. And where did you hear that from, Jun-woong-ssi?"
Both the junior Grim Reapers promptly went still, the sound of their previously roaring voices now somewhat at a gridlock.
"...from Mr. Lim." Jun-woong says.
"Choi Jun-woong." Ryung-Gu's sharp eyes eventually narrows into slits, brown irises heavy with the promise of torment and the first slight of homicide.
"And how did you come to that conclusion, Mr. Lim?" Ryeon is merciless; she thrives at the sight of the male Grim Reaper hunching a little smaller out of the tone of her voice, out of the prickling of his anxieties from the tone of her voice.
"Timjangnim-" Ryung-Gu starts.
"Don't call me that." Ryeon cuts in before taking a sip out of her whiskey. "I'm not your Team Leader, remember? Ryung-Gu-ssi?"
"Ma'am." Ryung-Gu corrects himself, reprimanding himself for his little slip. "It's not what you think. My subordinate was merely saying-"
"That both of you came from a time frame ten years ahead of my own? You are esteemed Grim Reapers, part of a new and modern management division of Jumadeung the Jade Empress have been preparing to launch for most of the current century already?" Ryeon raises a slightly unimpressed brow, lowering the glass shot from her mouth heedlessly.
"You…"
"Heard your conversation barking about my supposed romance with my Team Leader, yes." Ryeon acquiesces. "And along those lines – of the nature of your presence here, as well."
"Ms. Goo-"
"Ma'am-"
"Don't be afraid." She feels a genuine smile hinting a sliver of her reassurance; the type of small grin that Joong-gil has rarely spoken to have a calming, grounding effect on even the lightest of his unrest. Perhaps those quiet moments are centuries lost, already. "I'd most likely forget about our encounter once you've traveled back to your time. It's the logistics of time traveling in a wormhole, you know?"
"..."
"...apologies, Ms. Goo." Ryung-Gu makes a small bow. "I shouldn't have provoked you like this after the respect I have reserved for you, even at this point in your current time frame."
"It's alright." Ryeon nods. "I am proud of you for reaching the Team Manager rank, at least. That's quite the feat, Mr. Lim."
"Thank you-"
"Ms. Goo, not that I care about the whole fact that you found out about the deal of our entire BS, or whatever – but since you're meant to forget anyway, can we just skip the whole small talk?" Jun-woong was frowning. The enthusiasm, the liveliness; it all came dwindling down slowly from him for reasons that are already quite obvious to Ryeon.
And so she dips her head into a nonchalant nod, barriers already expecting what this reckless, naive, little mouth of his has in store for her. "Speak more respectfully and then I'll let you."
"Team Leader Park – he…why would he care for someone else instead of you?" Jun-woong asks. "Why doesn't he care enough to look after you in moments like this at all?"
"What do you me-"
"Doesn't care for her?" Ryeon watches Jun-woong flinch at the sound of Joong-gil's baritone voice; resounding, domineering, and at the roughness of their edges – was everything she knew for family to sound like. Her husband seems irritated, palpable at the commanding tone of his speech – treacherously daunting even at most of her outworn moments like this.
A strong gait and equally tired, strong legs tread their way towards them as the greatest Team Leader of all Jumadeung Divisions strides proudly with one of his gloved hands shoved in the pockets of his dark slacks. He walks with the melancholic aura of the oldest of the gods.
"What use of it when clearly she already has two men lounging under her whims?" Joong-gil wasn't in a good mood tonight. A contrast to the indifferent expression he wore when he ignored Ryeon's farewell earlier after work.
"Sir." Ryeon greets blankly. "Isn't it past your bedtime already?"
"Bedtime?" He scoffs. "Do you think I'm a pubescent child, Goo Ryeon? You out of all Grim Reapers of the Underworld by now should know I don't really sleep, Assistant Team Leader."
Joong-gil stops a distance from his said Assistant's left, eyeing the two men before her with a challenging edge; bitter, acrid distaste reigning the worst of his regards.
Honestly, the harshness of his onyx eyes – in their own terrifying sense – resembles the angst of a teenage child; nerve-racking and chilling for an outsider, clearly, due to their grating intensity and powerful facet. However, only familiar and oddly endearing to his wife.
The two Reapers immediately took the hint.
"De, Mr. Park. You definitely can take my seat. It's not like I needed it for long anyway-"
"-yes, Team Leader hyung. Mr. Lim and I are actually about to leave. We definitely weren't talking about Ms. Goo and her potential romance with a certain someone or anything-"
"Jun-woong, please shut up." Ryeon cuts in, laxly tucking a strand of brunette hair behind her ear.
"-de, Ms. Goo." Jun-woong turns to Ryung-Gu – and as if exchanging the deepest of their darkest secrets through one share of a measly look – nodded simultaneously together and immediately stood up, the feet of their chairs making a dragging noise while it gnashes against the gravel.
"Leaving so soon?" Joong-gil says, raising an arrogant eyebrow in question. He poises both his gloved hands behind his back.
"The Jade Empress said she was looking for us." Ryung-Gu says.
"Two hours before midnight?" Ryeon frowns.
"Yes, Ms. Goo " the Team Manager of Jumadeung's future Team smiles softly. "She says this colossal imbecile needs to be read to sleep or else he'll wet himself dreaming of kissing me on the cheek again."
"Yah, hyung. That was one time-"
"Right, Jun-woong-ssi?" There was a grave edge on the confines of his tone, holding a promise of a whole different class of threat. It had the young Reaper's defiance promptly tamed and inhibited, thinking twice of running his mouth for the hundredth time tonight.
"A-ah, yes." Jun-woong nods slowly. "The Jade Empress is waiting for us. I mean for me. Or…err, anyways see you later Timjangnims!"
"We're off. Thank you for your time tonight, Ma'am." Ryung-Gu bows in front of Ryeon. He eventually acknowledges Joong-gil's presence as well. "Team Leader Park."
And then both of them are off.
("Gods, I can see my life flashing right before my eyes. I almost saw the light at the end of the tunnel again and I'm already dead, hyung. Dead." Jun-woong grumbles.
"That makes two of us." Ryung-Gu agrees.)
"What are you doing here?" Ryeon says softly, the numbness in her brown eyes gradually building itself back together again.
There's a certain strain in her voice – a reflection from the hurt that wore itself back on her sleeve after catching sight of Joong-gil making his own late entrance to this ending scene – under the name she specifically refuses to call her own.
…this same fucking hurt…that dresses itself on her tired shoulders a little heavier tonight once more – right when she can still see that coy smile the woman he had loved for the last time, the woman he loved from his last life – gave him before he eventually left for work without so much as a curt farewell to Ryeon.
There are a hundred reasons why this Tuesday was one of her crummiest, most unpleasant ones – and all it takes is one other woman to stock those reasons altogether.
"I missed your presence after work earlier." Joong-gil says quietly, making his way to settle down across from her. Audacious and careless – even after driving away Ryeon's company tonight, when it comes to her; he was always careless of everyone else.
Selfish. A little voice croons inside of her. He's selfish of you.
"Perhaps, after a dawn and dusk of hardly talking to each other – the Team Manager in me wouldn't settle for simply the ghost of you. Not when I can have you a little more to myself tonight, Ryeon." He says.
"Aren't you being insensitive, sir?" She says, trying not to swallow the waters drying at her mouth. "Wouldn't Kim Hyejin find this odd?"
"Why would the temporary office recruit find me choosing to spend midnight with you – odd?" Joong-gil presses, almost as if refusing the idea of what he doubtlessly knows his Assistant Team Leader is definitely trying to imply. "Who is she to get in the way of the woman I chose to spend time with as of now?"
"Your wife." Ryeon deadpans.
"And those two men?" Joong-gil was more beast than human, more self-gratifying than he is empathetic. His long fingers play with the rim of an unused glass shot, lazily drawing circles as he says, "What do you call them?"
"I fail to see how that is any of your business." Ryeon follows then with a tone a little more light and yet all the more less friendly. "Sir."
"Then how is my business with Hyejin any more of yours?" Joong-gil comes back. "Ryeon?"
Little shit.
"Apologies, Park Joong-gil." The declining patience that's about to screw itself out of bounds; the weight of her helplessness found in the angry sigh of her words – even she has dropped most forms of respect for Joong-gil tonight. "But please don't force me to resort to making boy-next-doors out of assholes tonight."
"Ah?" Joong-gil snorts, a cruel smirk slowly trails his handsome features. "Are boy-next-doors more of your interest, Ryeon-ah? Is that why you chose to spend your evening drinking with a Reaper that's more than half your age?"
"Are you jealous of Jun-woong, sir?"
"Are you jealous of Hye-jin, Ryeon?"
"Yes." Both of them uttered together. Ironically perhaps – after centuries worth of every amicable and lukewarm memory in their yesterdays; it became somewhat easier to find a silver lining in their most frustrating moments in their present days all together.
There was quietness for a few moments. Before Ryeon eventually let out a soft laugh; breathless, imperceptible, and all it takes for Joong-gil to come undone.
The unresolved emotional tension, this suffocating strain in their relationship, the anger; it's now another part of their long, slightly forgotten past.
They're okay…
"I missed you." He says softly; a small lift of his lips slips into his now easily consoled mouth. Despite his faults, his fallbacks – he trusts her enough to keep him in her safe keeping. "And I know that is my own fault."
"Enough to drive a few of my friends away?" Ryeon raises an eyebrow, challenging him but with the slightest bit of mischief. Frank but with the slightest hints of comfiness hidden underneath her affections reserved only for the most oblivious man she has come to know. "That wasn't very cultivated of you, Joong-gil-ssi."
"Friends?" Joong-gil snorts. "You call those two poor excuses of men – beta male, precisely – your friends?"
"Ah?" Ryeon smiles elegantly, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Are you learning new, modern language slangs, sir? Don't the young ones these days choose to use beta male to describe cowardly men?"
"Were those two men cowards?" Joong-gil wasn't actually asking, he knows exactly what he's trying to say in passing. "Didn't the answer lay on the way they took off with their tails between their legs?"
"Oh!" Ryeon makes an adorable derisive snort. "Another slang, sir?"
"It's an idiom, Ryeon-ah." She can see the way he's trying to stop himself from smirking a bit too wide, stopping himself from getting carried away from what was supposed to be a horrible, confrontational Tuesday midnight. "There's a thing or two to learn from the world's universal language; the Seoul dialect still comes out on top, however."
"Perhaps." His wife nods, eventually taking a few more sips from what's left of her blended whiskey. She then says, "But those two young Grim Reapers were far from the recreants you're trying to paint them as, simply put. They were quite upfront, actually; frank with their intentions and unselfish with their attention – unlike a certain Team Leader I know."
Park Joong-gil knew where this conversation was heading – much to the expense of his ego.
"Those two men weren't the ones who avoided me for more than eight hours just to come searching for me once work is over."
"Ryeon-"
"I understand." Ryeon cuts in, faintly with her own embarrassment and gently with her own apology. She places the cup down in front of her. "It was uncomfortable on my part but even I can see there was a probable reason behind it. And you took accountability already, if the way you admit your fault earlier speaks anything."
"Am I forgiven then?" Joong-gil's features were now slowly growing eased; whether his favored subordinate replies with a yes or no – he already has several ways ready at his arsenal to eventually win her over.
"Only if you reveal to me the reason you came so late to accompany me at the end of the night, sir."
"Didn't I already make my intentions known?" Joong-gil huffs, a small downward curve working itself at the corners of his mouth. "Even if I'll always have you for tomorrow – I refused to settle for only the ghost of you today. You were barely there for most of my Tuesday hours, let alone several of my seconds. Today was already lacking without you."
"I know." It was said in silence, those two substantial words that carry hundreds of years full of unreciprocated memories. A broken heart stirs from the cages of its prison in her ribs – all at the telltale clues of Joong-gil's potential harrowing emotions for her. "If I know you at all; I know my assistance meant at least something for two centuries of forgotten work. But I know there are other reasons you came to me tonight."
"Then which version of the truth do you want?" Joong-gil throws out, his regards seemingly similar to an arrogant, autocratic god's. The glass shot tilts under the control of his lazy dips. "There's a reason I can lie through the skin of my teeth. And today's irritating events make it easier for me."
"Just the real truth." Ryeon answers. "Tell me nothing but the truth of your presence tonight, please."
What can you even gain out of it? Why did you come for me?
"...desperation." He admits by then, perhaps a bit too calmly. There's a strange glint that raises the stakes high in the onyx shades of his eyes. "And the panic that comes with it."
Ryeon silently watches the emotions of a beast slowly rousing into sentience. "Are you that desperate of me, Park Joong-gil?"
"Sweetheart," He smirks, a serial heartbreaker's grin plaguing his wife as it hangs on the heartlessness of his lips. "You have no idea what nightmares can do to a Reaper's soul. Even the best of the women turn into scapegoats when you provoke the bloodhound long enough."
"Nightmares." Ryeon frowns, letting out small breaths of mist. "They've been growing worse?"
"Every night." He accents, skillfully dropping the glass shot with a certain lithe force that has it cleanly clattering at the table. He watches it carelessly. "Every fucking time."
"And it's the same scene, each time?"
"It's the same woman each time, the same end to her story." An eerie ghost story coming from the mouth of an insomniac; something that prickles at the scar in Ryeon's wrist where her broken red threads sit, dancing with the gust of the wind. "Her same scent that keeps on driving me insane all nights wasted with her."
"What does the scent of death taste like?"
"It wasn't death she tasted like." Joong-gil counters. "She tasted like…family, home – the woman I love, my own wife. Honestly, meeting that woman in my dreams keeps on breaking apart what are figments of an incompetent bastard in me. This fucking useless man inside the shell of a hollow Grim Reaper."
Joong-gil laughs bittersweetly, softly – a certain warning screams from the mourning eyes of a dangerous man. "Because what can I do? She's already dead. She keeps dying in front of me, rather. There's nothing even the best of the Reapers can do to change fate."
Ryeon watches sadly – grief, itself, slipping through the confines of such an elite and powerful Reaper (of such a faithful and doting man).
"There's nothing a husband can do to change her fate."
"What does she have to do with me, Joong-gil-ah?" She questions, trying to still the heart that's about to raise hell inside of her. "What does this so-called desperation of my presence tonight have to do with the woman in your nightmares?"
"Perhaps it's two things; one, she's everything I've wanted just as you're everything I wanted – in terms of a partner, romantic or not, lifelong or otherwise." Joong-gil says, his eyes lifting to stare into the walls she's built up desperately, haunting her with the rawness of their loyalty. "Two – it's the fact she takes after your very image. Not Hyejin's, not my latest wife. It's yours. As if you've been mine before."
Goo Ryeon tries to fight back the discomfort that's threatening to crawl out her throat; from a heart that's already weeping incessantly. In the midst of a losing fight – his wife only continues to listen to her grieving lover.
"As if…it'll fucking break me, completely, when the paranoia finally gnaws me alive after finding out it'll finally come true at the end, my nightmares – that once Tuesday is over, I'll find you bleeding in a room, with your wrist slit and your pulse fading into slower life, into slower pulsating beats – surrounded with the scent of home, despair and affliction. My own permanent copy of Hell."
She realizes just how Joong-gil was especially unkind to himself tonight; the most cruel she's seen of him in weeks – it's all evident through the sound of anguish in his tone. "That perhaps the woman I have grown to respect and admire will be taken from me all over again. And there's already so much missing from me, Ryeon-ah. Go tell your Reaper to stop taking the woman I want from me."
"What made you come apart tonight, Park Joong-gil?" Ryeon murmurs in the misery of her held back sorrows, her words coming out short after everything that's been raised. "That you would reveal the first surface of your vulnerabilities to a woman you can't even call your friend."
"Desperation becomes my only hobby on an off day without seeing most of you, clearly." Joong-gil exhales, his grin a little less cruel. "I'm already drunk of it; so excuse my frailty. I promise it's the last time you'll see me dress it on my features."
Silence becomes the next accessory that places itself on their atmosphere but it's how he realizes soon enough that it's all bullshit – to keep on wasting his seconds hesitating, to keep on waiting – from reaching out to her, to touch the woman he's still trying to convince himself won't be stolen from him.
And that's when Ryeon fought back the first of her tears on what was officially one of her exhausting, off Tuesdays. The man she sincerely loves for all her yesterdays, the man she'll only love for most of her tomorrows – only takes her into his hold, and gently interlocks their fingers together. She can clearly see something in his spirit break a bit on the clarity of his onyx eyes.
"But it honestly feels like I never even woke up at all after yesterday. The horrors keep haunting me when I can't get enough of you, so. On a midnight spent with you – with all of you. If this is what I get for putting my hesitation first before you on your off Tuesday – a neverending nightmare…" He says quietly. "Then don't wake me up at all. After all the misery, the hurt – let me stay here with you, Puin. After everything you went through – let me stay with you."
Ryeon eventually unravels. She knows he never meant his nickname for her to ring true to their history; he's only weeping the wife he can only call his own through his dreams.
"When you're now a little less sad. Let me save you." Joong-gil says, with every sincerity borne from the consequences of his sleepless nights.
"Let me forgive you."
Epilogue
"Let me tell you, hyung. This one specific self-help book can really do wonders when you're going through shit at work." Jun-woong exclaims, shoving his hands in his pockets. His gait remains lazy as he walks with his superior down the road, back to their home. "I read it in one go yesterday."
"How is Instruction Booklet for Dummies (Grim Reaper Edition): How to Deal with Boss' New Favorite (and the Jealousy That Comes With It) – anything close to being a hit?" Ryung-Gu rolls his eyes. He raises one finger to start picking at his nose.
"Wow, all that in one go." Jun-woong whistles.
"Right? I'm fucking awesome." Ryung-Gu laughs. "I should be a rapper."
"And then fail as one."
"Go to Hell."
"I already did." Jun-woong drawls, clicking his tongue. "They kicked me out after the first day. And now I work at Jumadeung's new, modern Team after applying for RM Team's available hiring position."
"And you're still doing a terrible job, by the wa-"
"Hyung." A dramatic pause. Ryung-Gu flinched when his junior Reaper swiftly grabbed his arm out of a sudden and halted walking all at once. "Do you see what I'm seeing?"
"See wha-"
"Look what's on that window!" Jun-woong grins before immediately taking off after the book shop they're about to tread past heedlessly.
The wormhole they're trying to get back to is already patiently waiting for them at the entrance of a men's public lavatory – and they have been actually more than willing to go back home to their timeline after a drunk night of betting their lives on Goo Ryeon and a jealous Park Joong-gil-
-until Jun-woong starts fucking around again, of course. As always.
"Yah, Jun-woong-ssi!" Ryung-Gu shouts. He recoils, his features wincing at the embodiment of youthful disgrace that is Choi Jun-woong – before he eventually sighs and goes after his colleague. "What is it now?"
"It's the latest version of that self-help book series I was talking about!" Jun-woong was all bubbly laughter and fluttering excitement. "And it's the last installment to the series!"
"What is it calle-" Ryung-Gu narrows his eyes as he tries to clearly see what's advertised outside the book shop's window.
"Instruction Booklet for Dummies (Special Edition): Ok Hwang's X-Files!" Jun-woong grins. "It's about a series of customer service complaints (and gossip) surrounding the employees of Jumadeung! An excerpt was actually found in the first installment – something to do with learning how to smile while delivering souls to Hell – right at the end of it all, I think. Let's look forward to the last installment anytime soon!"
"Can't you just buy it-"
"Thank you to the readers, and largely everyone else for tuning in to a series that's made to be a harmless hobby by the author!"
"Who are you talking to-"
"Let's look forward to the official end to the series! See you in a few months from now!"
"Wha-"
"Oh!" Jun-woong laughs, pulling at Ryung-Gu's bicep before dragging him inside the shop. "I found a series for you, Mr. Lim! Fifty Shades of Sigmund Freud – since you have a fixation with your mother and all. How about that, huh?"
"Choi Jun-woong." Ryung-Gu growls, almost planning his actual homicide of this one specific junior he shamefully calls his friend – as the brawnier man ultimately drags him to the first circle of eternal suffering. "I'll send you to Hell the second time, myself, goddamnit!"
fin.