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Click.
The hundred-won coin slipped from Baek Saheon’s right hand with that sound; it rolled through the mechanism —clack, clack, clunk, one coin after another, while his left hand pressed the buttons, one number at a time.
Baek Saheon held the phone receiver to his ear, and all he could hear was beep… beep…
Outside the phone booth, the world was drowned in pitch-black night. All things were drained of life, swallowed by eerie, endless fright, leaving behind only the ringing in Baek Saheon’s ear… and no matter what happened, it still echoed on like that.
Beep… beep…
The iron fence surrounding the park loomed like a prison wall, yet the old, rusted gate creaked open with the faintest breeze. The sound of its rough hinges was so piercing that anything would instinctively turn toward it. And the only light inside was the phone booth that Baek Saheon was using.
Beep… beep…
The night wind slipped through the iron bars and reached him with ease. It was bitterly cold, enough to raise goosebumps —but Baek Saheon still held the receiver to his ear, and waited.
Beep… beep…
Beep...
Beep.
"Hello?"
The creaking of the iron gate vanished in an instant, as if time itself had been frozen.
But Kim Soleum didn’t fall silent.
"Baek Saheon?"
***
Truthfully, it all began with Kim Soleum.
On the night that he didn’t come back to their room, and Baek Sahon had no intention of looking for him —his phone rang.. at exactly 3:00 AM.
Private Number
It was a call from a payphone.
The first time, Baek Saheon just let it ring.
The third time, Baek Saheon declined the call and went back to sleep.
The fifth time, Baek Saheon sat there staring at his screen for a whole minute.
Then he picked up.
"…"
"…"
"….."
"….."
The silence between them gnawed at his nerves like a countdown to detonation. And Baek Saheon held his breath, waiting for the explosion.
"..Baek Saheon"
But it didn't explode.
A cold jolt shot through him. Every nerve pulled taut like prey sensing a predator.
And he was ready to run.
"I know you're listening."
"…"
"I'll count to three. Answer me."
"…"
"One."
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Baek Saheon ran a hand through his hair hard enough to sting his scalp, nearly swearing, but bit his tongue when the word Two came through the line.
"…What do you want… sir?"
"…"
The crackle on the line sounded like someone strapping a bomb to his body.
"Come pick me up."
And the person who planted it didn't care whether he lived or died.
***
And that was how it started.
No contracts signed. No deals made. No rules laid out for a lower-ranked servant to obey. But on nights Kim Soleum didn’t return to the room, he would call —and Baek Saheon would just know he had to get in the car and go pick him up.
"Isn’t that kind of… an abuse of power, sir?"
Kim Soleum stopped fiddling with the TV volume, but didn’t turn to look.
"What kind?"
".. Sorry?"
He blinked slowly, a shadow curling over his lips like a smile. "What kind of abuse?"
"..."
Baek Saheon pressed his lips together, then quickly pretended he hadn’t. His heart thudded like fireworks going off, like a sheet of ice cracking open, like a mirror shattering on the floor, but he knew it was more fragile than that.
He took a deep breath. "If y— the manager… is calling me out past work hours… right?" Then tried to smile.
Kim Soleum tilted his head.
"..I thought you liked it." He finally looked at him, and smiled without trying like a psychopath. "Isn't it fun?"
"……"
Then go have fun by yourself, damn it
Baek Saheon gritted his teeth. The air in the room was so heavy that it felt like a force was squeezing his temples, tighter, and tighter, until his skull was about to split —Like a cheap glass falling off a dinner table. Like an omen sharp enough to cut.
Baek Saheon gritted his teeth.
"…It is fun, of course it’s fun."
Kim Soleum narrowed his eyes.
And Baek Saheon smiled wide.
"But if you do it too often…it gets a little boring, doesn’t it?"
The silence after that was as powerful as a poisonous snake, but the sound of children's cartoons on the TV screen never stopped.
Kim Soleum propped his chin on one hand and tilted his head. The desk lamp behind him cast shadows across half his face, but the red gleam in his eyes still glowed bright. He stared at Baek Saheon for a long while —and then laughed.
In the blink of an eye, he rose from the couch, step closer. And Baek Saheon, who would rather die than step back, had to stand his ground —until their foreheads touched, their noses met
Kim Soleum’s breath was scalding hot like fire, but the hand that rose to gently pat Baek Saheon’s cheek was cold like a corpse.
Baek Saheon locked eyes with the endless black hole staring down at him, and listened to the voice that would never leave his head.
"What is it that you want, then?"
***
And that’s how it ended up.
No contracts were signed. No deals were made. No rules were set for living together as roommates. But Kim Soleum would call on the nights he didn’t come back. And Baek Sahon would call when he needed to.
Like tonight
"Baek Saheon?"
In a park drowned in pitch-black night, where all things were drained of life, swallowed by eerie, endless fright, he looked up at the reflection in the phone booth glass.
That man was smiling.
"Can you come get me?"
Because he was overwhelmed with joy to know that the one who was stuck here —was no longer him.
***
But in the end, Kim Soleum made it out of that Darkness.
Still untouched, still breathing every morning on his way to work, still acting like a madman in their room every night, still calling Baek Saheon whenever there was no one else to pick him up just like before.
Until —it stopped.
***
Baek Saheon should have known it would end up like this.
He should have known.
"Getting a little too happy, weren’t you?"
He should’ve known Kim Soleum would come back.
That bastard disappeared for over a month, but even in his absence, he still managed to be a pain in Baek Saheon’s ass like some restless ghost refusing to pass on.
Team D’s leader kept dragging him in, asking the same questions that had the same damn answers again and again, until he was ready to lose his mind.
Baek Saheon prayed for Kim Soleum to vanish into some stupid darkness with every breath he took. But if his disappearance was going to be this much of a nuisance —he might as well just come back already.
Among the millions of fleeting, chaotic thoughts in his head, Baek Saheon will never admit that he ever thought that way.
Because Kim Soleum came back.
And everything turned upside down, never to be the same again
Except for one thing.
"Hello?"
Kim Soleum’s sigh fizzed through the receiver, landing softly in Baek Saheon’s ear
Same as always.
“Come get me.”
***
The leaves have changed color.
Baek Saheon looked at the ginkgo tree behind Kim Soleum, taking in the golden blaze and the gust of wind that stabbed so sharp it brought tears to his eyes —and suddenly thought that bastard, in his rumpled government uniform, looked ridiculous.
"This time… you can’t go back to the dorm anymore, can you?"
Kim Soleum glanced up, the lenses of his glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose, and the red glint in his eyes wasn’t hidden at all.
"I wasn’t planning on going there anyway."
"..?"
"I'll go somewhere else."
The fading sunlight was imprinted on Kim Soleum's pale face, carving a broken pattern of ginkgo leaves, as if it knew it didn’t belong here, but had no idea where else to go.
Baek Saheon blinked.
He watched Kim Soleum peel himself away from the side of the phone booth, and then invited himself to get into Baek Saheon's car without saying anything more.
Baek Saheon blinked.
Then glared at the damn old payphone in front of him.
Seriously.
What the hell.
***
That annoying little routine continued for weeks.
No darkness. No deal. No desperate need to survive —just Kim Soleum calling on days a bit worse than bad, and Baek Saheon going along anywhere with him for hours.
"Aren't you bored?"
"Hmm?"
"That."
Kim Soleum blinked, followed the tilt of Saheon’s chin, and lifted the bottle of grape juice to his lips.
No one said It’s hot today, but the sweat from the tips of Kim Soleum’s hair slid down his earlobe, traced his jaw, glided over his moving Adam’s apple —and finally soaked into his collar
Baek Saheon swallowed.
The heat dried out his throat.
"Not at all." Kim Soleum raised an eyebrow.
"Why are you so bothered?"
"...Just asking." Baek Saheon took a deep breath, feeling like he was one breath away from losing his mind. "And if anyone has the right to be bothered, it’s me."
Kim Soleum blinked, glanced at Baek Saheon’s car parked beside them, and laughed.
If anyone had the right to be bothered…it was Baek Saheon.
Because this whole routine of driving around in the evening with a guy who was nothing but his psychotic ex-roommate, not close, not even on good terms, for weeks, for months —wasn’t that something to be bothered about?
If anyone had the right to be bothered…it was Baek Saheon.
Because Kim Soleum, this infuriating little creature, never said a word.
He’d just tilt his head, laugh like a maniac, and grin like a lunatic. "..Isn’t it kinda fun, though?"
See?
Absolute bullshit.
Baek Saheon held the car door open with the most gentlemanly courtesy, waiting patiently until that lunatic turned his back and stepped forward to get in—
Then flipped the whole gesture into a big middle finger.
He burst out laughing because he couldn't help it.
Kim Soleum was definitely a psychopath.
And Baek Sahon was probably losing it too for agreeing with him.
***
But maybe, he should have been suspicious right then.
"Saheon."
"Huh?"
As he stared at Kim Soleum’s jet-black hair on the pillow —he should have been suspicious right then.
The cheap roadside motel room was many times smaller than that damn pharmaceutical company’s quarters, yet Baek Saheon lay on the hard bed beside Kim Soleum…watching the pale face buried in the blanket, eyelids shut tight, breath neither cold nor warm brushing his hand —looking human in every inch.
But maybe, he should have been suspicious right then.
"Don't you think it's crazy?"
"What?"
"You and me."
The air under the blanket was fairly warm, but Kim Soleum's feet that tangled with his were ice cold.
No one talked about the fight that seemed like they were going to kill each other a few minutes ago. No one explained what should’ve been what. No one said sorry, and it just passed like that —in a silence that felt completely out of place.
Baek Saheon blinked, staring at the peeling ceiling above.
"I think…"
He didn’t know that he should have been suspicious right then.
"It’s a fucking mess."
***
It was pouring today.
The world beyond the plastic umbrella blurred as if it had been pulverized and collapsed, as if it had been crushed to dust and poured down from the sky until it shattered into countless pieces. And the pit-pat, pit-pat of raindrops overlapped and layered until Baek Saheon’s ears could register nothing else.
But even so, he knew it was Kim Soleum calling.
Baek Saheon had known the storm was coming. But when he picked up the phone, he hadn’t known something else would fall apart too.
"Let's stop seeing each other."
"..What?"
The thunder rumbled like it was striking back, but Baek Saheon had no idea what he had done to deserve it.
"I said—" Compared to the downpour outside, the voice in his ear felt like it came from another world. "Let's stop seeing each other."
"….What?"
Kim Soleum sighed, and it was louder than the thunder. "I know you heard me."
"No..."
"Baek Saheon."
"You think I'm that stupid?"
The smile on his face felt stiff, like it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it looked just as ugly and terrifying as the twisted mess of emotion lodged in his throat. "I’m that pathetic, huh? So pathetic it makes you sick?"
"That’s not what I—"
"Then what is this!"
Baek Saheon pressed his lips together. Then laughed.
If anyone had the right to be bothered…it was him.
"What is this… what are you doing, Kim Soleum?"
At some point, the umbrella had fallen to the ground.
He didn’t even know when.
Baek Saheon pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, the vein at his temple throbbing in sync with the damn rain hammering against his ears.
Kim Soleum on the phone wasn’t sighing anymore. "Saheon," but the words that followed weren’t any softer. "You said it yourself, didn’t you?"
Rain streamed down Baek Saheon’s face like tears.
"…That we’re completely messed up."
Maybe Baek Saheon shouldn’t have let go of that umbrella in the first place.
***
It should’ve been Kim Soleum from the start.
It should’ve been that bastard who stopped keeping his mouth shut about everything.
It should’ve been that bastard who stopped thinking for everyone else every step of the way.
It should’ve been that bastard who stopped acting like there’s no place for him anywhere in this world.
It should’ve been that bastard.
Not Baek Saheon.
It shouldn't have been Baek Saheon left thinking about Kim Soleum —who didn't get angry, didn't shout, didn't throw things. Just stood there like a trash can that could be kicked around no matter what until Baek Saheon was the one who got mad.
Mad at those hollow spaces behind Kim Soleum’s eyes that could never be filled.
Baek Saheon got mad, So he went looking for Soleum.
But Kim Soleum was gone
Kim Soleum was gone.
Gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where gone where
Kim Soleum was gone?
Where did he go?
Where really did he go?
Baek Saheon thought.
He thought.
And thought again.
Kept thinking.
But no matter how hard he thought —he couldn’t figure it out.
Baek Saheon couldn’t remember.
***
Click.
The hundred-won coin slipped from Baek Saheon’s right hand with that sound; it rolled through the mechanism —clack, clack, clunk, one coin after another, while his left hand pressed the buttons, one number at a time.
Baek Saheon held the phone receiver to his ear, and all he could hear was beep… beep…
Outside the phone booth, the world was drowned in pitch-black night. All things were drained of life, swallowed by eerie, endless fright, leaving behind only the ringing in Baek Saheon’s ear… and no matter what happened, it still echoed on like that.
Beep… beep…
The iron fence surrounding the park loomed like a prison wall, yet the old, rusted gate creaked open with the faintest breeze. The sound of its rough hinges was so piercing that anything would instinctively turn toward it. And the only light inside was the phone booth that Baek Saheon was using.
Beep… beep…
The night wind slipped through the iron bars and reached him with ease. It was bitterly cold, enough to raise goosebumps —but Baek Saheon still held the receiver to his ear, and waited.
Beep… beep…
Beep...
Beep...
Beep.
"…"
The creaking of the iron gate vanished in an instant, as if it had been erased from memory.
But Baek Saheon remembered.
"Kim Soleum"
He remembered now.
“Can I come see you?”