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The Bureau was surprisingly empty today, and those who were here skirted around the edges of his sight, trailing behind him from corners. For being agents in the Bureau, Kim Soleum would've thought that their spy work would be much better. But he kept catching sight of them, ducking back into corners the moment they saw that he caught sight of them and typing furiously into their phones.
It was making him worried.
Did they discover that he was from Daydream?
Were they trying to keep track of him in case he tried to escape?
Kim Soleum tried to keep his pace as even as he could, not too fast but not too slow. He didn't want to alarm them, and he didn't know what was going on. But he knew that if the agents hadn't yet came up to him to detain him, he was probably not under suspicion right now.
Still, the constant staring and tailing made him feel uneasy.
There was whispering now, soft and rushed as he got closer and closer to the waiting room. Kim Soleum couldn't make out what was being said, but he was getting more and more worried.
Finally, he reached the waiting room.
The door was shut, the blinds were drawn, and Kim Soleum could not see what was going on inside.
He was on the verge of panicking now.
During his time in the Bureau so far, the door was never closed shut, always kept ajar and sometimes wide open, but never closed like this.
The blinds too. They were usually opened, letting other agents see in, and them to see out. And Agent Choi, overfriendly as he was, would always wave at those who passed by the room. Sometimes, those agents would also come in with snacks and drinks for them to share.
Fuck. There was something wrong, wasn't there.
Kim Soleum could feel the cold sweat forming on his forehead.
Still, he reached out for the door handle, his body tense and ready to make a run for it if need be, and pushed open the door.
The room was dark and silent. He could barely make out odd shapes in the room in the dark. Pursing his lips, he was about to turn around and leave/ He was not crazy enough to call out into the dark like that. That was how most people in horror movies died, stupidly calling out for the danger to find them. When suddenly—
Pop!
"Happy birthday, Agent Grapes."
"Happy birthday, Grapes-ie!"
The lights came on, almost blinding him in its suddenness, and he could hear Agent Choi and Agent Bronze congratulating him.
Wait.
Happy birthday?
It was his birthday?
"Did you think we didn't know your birthday?" Agent Choi teased. "You know it's in your files right?"
It all clicked together in his head. The agents tailing him were telling them how close he was to reaching the room so that the surprise wouldn't be ruined. Kim Soleum quickly shook off his confusion. "No sunbae, I was just… surprised."
He hadn't expected them to find out his birthday and plan a celebration for it. His heart was beating fast now, this time from happiness instead of the usual fear, though he was also a little bit bewildered.
Agent Choi was wearing a… tiger costume? It was a baggy onesie patterned with tiger stripes in bright orange and black, and on its hood was a horrible, cartoonish depiction of what a child might've thought a tiger looked like without ever seeing one.
And Agent Bronze… He was wearing a fluffy black onesie that didn't have a pattern to it that he could identify. He also wore black ears on his head that barely told Kim Soleum what he was supposed to be. It was floppy and limp and barely standing up. He could barely see the shape of it, but he thinks that Agent Bronze was supposed to be a bear? He wasn't sure, but honestly, he was more shocked that Agent Bronze wore that ridiculous costume if anything. He wonders how Agent Choi managed to coerce him into it.
They looked so absurd that he wanted to laugh at them, but he held it in. It felt a little rude to laugh at them when they were making an effort to wish him a happy birthday.
"Oh? So you didn't think we would celebrate your birthday?" Agent Choi raised a hand to rest against his forehead, looking akin to a Victorian lady so shocked that she was on the verge of fainting. "Our hoobae is so cruel! To think that he would think so little of us! My heart will never recover from this!"
Agent Bronze sighed, looking exasperated. "Enough, Choi." Then he moved his gaze onto Kim Soleum. "Happy birthday, Agent Grapes. I hope that today has been well, and…" He raised up what he was holding with a small blush. "This is for you."
It was a cake, a cream cake decorated with grapes to be exact, and although Kim Soleum wanted to say that it was small, bite-sized even, he knew too well that it was not. Agent Bronze's large hands just made them look small in comparison.
"I… You didn't have to…"
His chest felt warm now, and he felt like he was going to cry.
During his time back in his world, he and his friends had relatively low contact, drifting apart from long and clashing office hours that made it hard to talk or make plans with them. As a result, they had stopped celebrating each other's birthdays, only sending a customary 'Happy birthday!' text whenever the time came. He was also not very close with his colleagues, and many of them didn't even know when his birthday was. So his birthdays were typically just any other day, with him working his ass off at the cubicle or lazing about at home.
To think that the people he had met in another world for barely two months would find out his birthday and surprise him like this… It made his heart feel like bursting.
With trembling hands, he reached out to accept the cake from Agent Bronze.
"Thank you."
An arm clasped around his shoulder, Agent Choi's. "Well, what are you waiting for? The cake's for you." He passed a spoon to him.
Kim Soleum gulped, looking down at the cake. He should eat it, shouldn't he… There was no mission right now, not that Agent Choi and Agent Bronze could go out looking like this either, so there was time too…
He took the spoon from Agent Choi and—
Wait.
This was a grape cake, decorated with grapes too.
And he was Agent Grapes.
…
"Um… If I ate this… would this be cannibalism?"