Work Text:
The lights were dimmed. No, they were completely off— it was night already so there was no sunlight to filter past the blinds. The only thing remotely qualifying as a light source was the desk lamp Lee Soohyuk kept on his desk from a company gift exchange, his laptop screen, and his phone screen that flickered on and off occasionally when a message came in.
Stacks of paper— reports, sat on his desk to fill out and pour through. Performance reviews, budget reports, appeals, this and that. He was getting sick and tired of printed letters. His pen was even starting to run dry on ink and his eyes were stinging, just a little.
“Grade five… sighted at district A…” he gulped down another cold sip of coffee from his fourth mug, feeling the bitterness on his tongue, and let out a sigh. Good stuff.
Tap tap. He was typing words into the search bar of the national monster index. “Tusked—”
His locked bedroom door’s handle wiggled a few times. He looked back, heard a few knocks, and sighed. “I’m busy,” he called out while the knocking persisted. He could hear Choi Jungsoo call out his name, and then Kim Roksoo in a more stoic tone, and then silence. He thought they’d left— no they didn’t.
Click, click!
The door opened with a creak and light from outside the room poured in. Lee Soohyuk squinted, feeling his eyes burn as he whipped his head around behind his desk. “What—”
A loud, vulgar curse from Kim Roksoo rang out, and Choi Jungsoo pointed at him accusingly. “You!”
“I’m— did you just break into my room?”
Kim Roksoo shrugged, the small coin in his hands glinting from the light outside the hall. “You’ve seen me do this a dozen times now when the bathroom lock gets jammed.”
“We’re not breaking in, we’re just visiting our favorite roommate-hyung here~” Choi Jungsoo sing-songed as he strided in with his fat fluffy gift-exchange teddybear slippers.
“Why the hell is it so dark in here?” Kim Roksoo said, utterly baffled before flipping the light switch, flooding the room with light.
Lee Soohyuk winced and shielded his vision with his arm. “Hey—”
“Geez, my mom nagged me all the time about playing games in my room with the lights completely off as a kid ‘cause I could apparently go blind or something,” Choi Jungsoo said, poking around. “Are you trying to go blind, hyung? Hm?”
“No— it’s just, it’s for… ambience, okay? It helps me focus, and—”
Kim Roksoo clicked his tongue in disapproval. “What kind of ambience? A ghost story ambience, you crazy bastard? Your eyes are red and bloodshot."
“That’s a mean way to talk to your superior, Kim Roksoo,”
Choi Jungsoo picked up one of his red T-shirts. “Aigoooo, are these your clothes on the floor? Roksoo already went to the laundry this morning, you know.”
Kim Roksoo scoffed. “I asked you both if you had any dirty clothes.”
“Hey, don’t look at me, my room’s all clear,” Choi Jungsoo raised his arms in surrender.
Lee Soohyuk leaned back on his chair, feeling his back ache as he let out a long sigh. “Well, look, I’m sorry about that, okay? But can you both get out now? I have work—”
Choi Jungsoo groaned as he plopped down on Lee Soohyuk’s bed. “You’ve been working for hours. We were just gonna ask you about dinner, but no more of this.”
“You can just eat without me, and I’ll eat my portion la—”
“Later? Really?” Kim Roksoo looked like he didn’t believe him at all. “You said that for lunch too, and Choi Jungsoo ate your portion.”
“Uh—”
Kim Roksoo headed over to his desk, brushing past him and picked up one of his mugs, then started counting the ones on the table. “Four cups. Four.” He then confiscated the one he was holding like it was contraband.
“Hey—”
“You bastard, Team Leader, are you trying to die or something?”
“There’s round marks from the mug on the desk— geez, didn’t we agree to all use coasters?” Choi Jungsoo added on.
“Following ‘bastard’ with Team Leader isn’t going to make your statement any more respectful, Kim Roksoo. Can I please have it—”
“No.”
“Okay.” Despite nodding back, Lee Soohyuk still tried to reach for it. Kim Roksoo glared at him and back up, snatching all three of the remaining mugs on his table while he was at it like he was playing a deranged game of gonggi. “Haha…”
“Addiction."
“You also drink coffee.”
“I drink one cup in the morning and then drink water and tea the rest of the day, and maybe one more cup of coffee if we’re working an overtime shift like a civilized person.”
Choi Jungsoo scoffed. “Ice-cold water— that’s why you have a cough all the time, and you dump like 4 sugar cubes in one cup of tea, you punk,”
“Pfft—”
“Now is not the time to be talking about this.”
“You’re right. I should be working right now, so—” when he turned around to go back to his desk, he found that it was almost completely empty. No paper, no cellphone, even his laptop was closed. “Ha.”
“Ya looking for these?” Choi Jungsoo waved around the stack of paper in his hands with a smug look. “Wow, I’ve always wanted to say that—”
“Okay, then, I’ll fill out those later,” he turned around towards his desk, and was about to open up his laptop, when he heard Kim Roksoo sigh from behind him.
“Choi Jungsoo, pull him out of there.”
“What—”
“Okie dokie,”
The members of Team 1 were all (mostly) quite fit, and were strong in their specific specialties. Team Leader Lee Soohyuk was generally an all-rounder, and his ability’s attribute was incredibly strong, but in the physical strength department, even he would be struggling against Choi Jungsoo.
“Hey—! Choi Jungsoo, you punk—”
Lee Soohyuk struggled against Choi Jungsoo’s grip as he was dragged down the hall and towards the bathroom, where Kim Roksoo was waiting holding the door with a towel in hand and a change of clothes. The youngest rookie on the team then unceremoniously threw his folded clothes and towel on him and closed the door after they managed to wrangle him inside.
“Go shower first.”
“You should hurry before the food gets cold~”
Lee Soohyuk stared at the door, and then down at the towels and fresh clothes in his hands. “...” he let out a long sigh and relented, slumping against the wall. A warm bath was already drawn for him, though a bit more on the lukewarm side. Even so, it definitely felt somewhat relaxing once he stepped in.
A few knocks rang about maybe fifteen minutes in. “Don’t fall asleep in there,”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he called back in response to Kim Roksoo’s remark as he rinsed his hair. Maybe he could trim it a little sometime.
“Hyung~ we’re having Moon chicken from the next block over by the way— we just ordered that thing you always do,” Choi Jungsoo called out, probably from the couch. “It was that garlic chicken or something, right? Anyway have fun,”
“Have fun…?” he mumbled, somewhat confused. With what? A shower?
“When you’re done, make sure to put your dirty clothes in the laundry basket this time,” Kim Roksoo reminded.
“Okay, okay, sorry,”
Ding dong!
“Oh! Delivery guy!”
Lee Soohyuk absentmindedly listened to the sound of his juniors and roommates shuffling around outside, with the sound of plastic bags and paper boxes opening and rice being unwrapped. By the time he got out, with a towel draped over his shoulder and fresh from the shower in shorts and cheap T-shirt, they were already waiting at the table.
“Hang up the towel at the rack,”
“I know, I know, Roksoo,” he sighed and neatly arranged it as ordered, before joining them to sit at his spot on the table. Choi Jungsoo passed him some fruit soda in a bottle and his boxed chicken, with the rice unwrapped and everything. He sighed and picked up his wing, biting into it. “Mn.”
“Eat slowly, you haven’t eaten all day,” Kim Roksoo warned him from across the table, putting— good god, hot sauce on top of his flaming hot red chicken. “One bite at a time,”
“Okay, okay,”
“Shouldn’t you tie your hair back?” Choi Jungsoo asked, pointing at a few loose clumped together wet strands of hair. He brushed it behind his ear. “You’ll end up eating hair-flavored chicken,”
“I just washed my hair and it’s wet, you aren’t supposed to tie it up. Plus, it’ll get the hair tie wet and that’s annoying,”
“You have other hair ties— where’s the one you usually use?”
Lee Soohyuk raised his right hand, where he had it secured around his wrist like a bracelet. “Here. Keeps me from losing it.”
“Oh, cool, it could double as like a bracelet— have you considered adding a charm to it or something? You know, like in those anime,”
“I’m not a magical girl or some kind of power ranger,” he chuckled at Choi Jungsoo’s suggestion while biting at the last pieces of meat on the bone.
“I see a lot of those kinds of stuff from those carts with cheap toys that sellers like to pull around the city— they don’t look too reliable,”
“Aw, Roksoo is such a fun killer~”
He pointed a random fork lying around the table at Choi Jungsoo. “I’ll be a killer-killer, you want that?”
Choi Jungsoo bowed his head until his forehead was planted firmly on the table with a little slam and his hands above his head pressed together. “Forgive me, esteemed dongsaeng, treasure of Team 1!”
“Stop that, you punk, there’s white sauce in your hair,”
“Eh!?”
“Hahaha— keugh!”
“Don’t laugh with food in your mouth, Team Leader,” Kim Roksoo scolded, handing him some water. Lee Soohyuk drank a few sips to wash it down. “Are you feeling sleepy?”
“Tired, but I feel okay, I guess?” he shrugged.
“Okay? As in tip-top shape?”
“I just said I was tired— but I mean, I’m fine, you know? Not super exhausted or anything, I probably get back to—”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Okay.”
“You’re really lucky we sleep in separate rooms now since getting this new apartment, ‘cause now you’re pulling all-nighters every night.” Choi Jungsoo said. “I go out for bathroom breaks at 3 AM and hear you tip-tapping away back there— just how many all-nighters have you been having? Huh?”
“I wouldn’t call it an all-nighter. Just, working a bit late, you know? Like overtime?”
Kim Roksoo looked up, unimpressed. “What time did you sleep?”
“Uh… I don’t know?”
“Yes you do,”
“Like 3…?”
“And we leave for work at 6.30 in the morning to catch the bus, and you wake up at five sometimes to like— jog, or something,” Kim Roksoo said. “You’re going to bed after this.”
“But it’s so early, though—”
“It’s 10 PM.”
“School kids sleep at 10 PM, Kim Roksoo.”
“Yeah? And what does that matter? You’re sleeping after this. We confiscated your laptop.”
“Wha— You can’t just—”
“And your coffee. And we took out the pens in your room, and the pencils, and also stored away your paperwork.”
Lee Soohyuk stared at them both in a mix of awe, annoyance, and speechlessness. “...ha.”
“Relax. I took a look at it and filled out a few of the mission reports, you’ll be fine,” Kim Roksoo replied, gulping down some water. “You can catch up to it in the morning, and we don’t have any field work tomorrow unless an emergency comes in, which is unlikely considering the trend of incidents and also some environmental reports.”
“...Okay. But I’m really not sleepy or anything.”
“Sure, sure— anyway, I found this video just a while ago, so I’m gonna watch it over dinner or whatever, okay?” Choi Jungsoo said, opening up his extra chicken pieces and even half a portion of rice.
“Huh? What is it?”
“Miniforce lore iceberg.”
“Miniforce? Like the cartoon?”
“Exactly the cartoon.”
“Okay…?”
Kim Roksoo looked over at Choi Jungsoo. “Turn it up a bit, I’m curious.”
“Ya got it~”
“Huh. Okay, I guess?”
A quarter into the long video essay, thirty minutes to be precise, Lee Soohyuk was already out like a light, head laid on the table. Choi Jungsoo looked over while putting their trash in a plastic bag, carefully poking his cheek. He didn’t even stir. “Oooh,”
Kim Roksoo smacked his hand away while wiping down the table. “Stop that. Can you carry him to his room, or something?”
“I mean, I could, but I’m gonna need some help,”
“Didn’t you drag him about just fine before?”
“Yeah, I dragged him, and he was perfectly conscious and also moving with me— there’s a difference. Look, he’s completely out cold here— haven’t you heard somewhere that dead bodies are really heavy? Have you ever tried lifting an unconscious person? Hm?”
He groaned. “Are you really calling Lee Soohyuk a dead body? Well, whatever, of course I’ve had to drag unconscious people before— I dragged my blacked-out uncle through our apartment door when I was eight. Though dragging ais a bit different that carrying if I could do it when I was eight you can do it.”
“Okay, I wasn't expecting that, can I give you a hug, or something?”
“Aigooo, later,” Kim Roksoo said, picking a piece of rice from Lee Soohyuk’s hair and brushing back some messy strands behind his ear. Lee Soohyuk snored when he slept. “I’ll help you, come on, I want to hurry up and sleep already.”
—
When Lee Soohyuk opened his eyes, he had a bit of a headache, and he was also definitely not in his own room. In fact, he was in Kim Roksoo’s, with a blanket messily strewn on top of him and a stack of two pillows underneath his head.
“What…” fortunately, today was a weekend, so he didn’t need to worry about working. That was the last thing he wanted to do, actually— Lee Soohyuk felt like he could just pass out again right that second. Though with him occupying his junior’s room, that would raise some questions about where said junior is sleeping.
Trudging out of the mostly neat room save for the messy stacks of paper and books on the desk and stacked up on the floor, Lee Soohyuk slipped past the doorway and down the hall. Choi Jungsoo’s bedroom was empty too. He headed to his room, and—
“...”
Kim Roksoo and Choi Jungsoo looked like they had just passed out on top of each other, or something— like tangled wires. A blanket was thrown in somewhere between them, though now it was twisted around them. Choi Jungsoo was drooling on Kim Roksoo, and the latter’s elbow was pointed towards Choi Jungsoo’s shin like he’d tried to get him off before, or something. Despite the awkward, twisty, sore-looking position they were tangled in, they actually looked somewhat comfortable.
“....”
He was too lazy to just go back. And this was his bed anyway.
Lee Soohyuk face planted straight into the mattress, with a pillow in his hands and a loose blanket draped over him and some part of his arms and legs overlapping with Choi Jungsoo and Roksoo’s. Kim Roksoo stirred at that moment and Choi Jungsoo groaned when he tried to move around. “-e Soohyuk…?” he hummed back in response. “Do we… have…”
He sighed. “It’s a weekend and, uhh, 6 in the morning.”
Kim Roksoo then weakly punched Choi Jungsoo with a fist. The latter, a deep and heavy sleeper, barely stirred, but shifted around. “Ugh… Did you sleep?”
“Yeah,”
“Good?”
“I dreamed about convoluted Miniforce missions.”
“Okay.” he nodded. “Okay… I’m gonna sleep now.”
“Good night Kim Roksoo.”
“It’s…6 AM.”
“I don’t care, it’s a weekend.”
“Good night Team Leader.”
And they were both out like a light.