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The moment those azure-blue eyes landed on him, Kim Soleum knew, with terrible and immediate certainty, that he was fucked.
Which, frankly, offended him.
Not because the situation itself was unfair — his life now contained enough disasters that fairness had long since packed its bags and left — but because he was tied to a chair with cheap plastic zip ties that bit into his wrists every time he moved. If the Disaster Management Bureau was going to illegally detain civilians inside haunted murder lodges, the least they could do was invest in decent restraints.
Across the lodge’s dim hall, Ryu Jaekwan stared at him with an expression so cold and focused that Soleum immediately understood two things at once; first, that the man genuinely believed he had endangered Baek Saheon, and second, that if Jaekwan decided killing him would fix the problem, he would do it with terrifying ease.
“Hyung, he gave me the cassette tape. I don’t know how I ended up here.”
Traitorous little bastard.
Baek Saheon sounded shaken enough to deserve an award for it. His voice trembled in exactly the right places; his fingers curled into the sleeves of his sweater with just enough restraint to suggest fear rather than performance. Soleum almost admired it, honestly. If he did not personally know that snake well enough to recognize the gleam hidden underneath all that softness, he might have bought it too.
Unfortunately, Jaekwan clearly had.
Unfortunately, that was worse.
“What?” Jaekwan asked quietly.
Quietly was somehow more threatening than shouting.
“Saheon-ah. You got dragged into this because of him?”
The emphasis on him hit like a blade sliding between ribs.
Soleum sat very, very still.
Because apparently Baek Saheon had an older brother in the Bureau.
And not just any older brother.
Ryu Jaekwan.
Ah.
Wonderful.
The same Ryu Jaekwan Soleum had previously encountered at Salmon Market. The same Jaekwan who had his phone number. The same Jaekwan currently staring at him with the expression of a man realizing somebody had handed his younger brother directly to a serial killer.
The lodge around them groaned softly beneath mountain wind; old timber walls, yellowed lights, velvet curtains heavy with dust, all of it wrong in the way cursed places tended to be. Snow pressed endlessly against the windows despite the fact it was mid-July. Earlier, one of the researchers had tried opening the front door and found nothing outside except darkness descending forever beneath the porch steps.
Nobody had tried again.
— Ahhh. Ladies and gentlemen tuning in tonight, it appears our good friend Mr. Roe Deer has stumbled into what we in the entertainment business call a catastrophic public relations incident.
Braun’s voice rolled warmly through Soleum’s head; smooth, theatrical, absurdly delighted.
— The tension. The betrayal. The deeply concerning family dynamics. Wonderful television. No offense, my good friend.
None taken, Soleum thought automatically.
Then, after a pause:
Actually, no, offense taken. Why are you enjoying this.
— Because I am not the one zip-tied to a chair while a federal agent contemplates dismemberment, Mr. Roe Deer.
Ugh.
At the center of the room sat the cassette tape itself.
Black plastic. No label. Thin strands of dark hair tangled inside the reels.
Nobody touched it anymore.
Nobody wanted to.
Jaekwan still had not looked away from him.
Soleum resisted the urge to sigh. “You’re really buying this?”
Saheon flinched immediately, perfect and practiced. “Hyung, see? He’s acting strange again.”
“Acting strange,” Soleum repeated flatly. “I am currently trapped in a murder lodge.”
“You kept texting me weird things for weeks.”
Jaekwan silently held out his hand.
Saheon placed the phone into it without hesitation.
Soleum internally recoiled.
Ah. Right. The messages.
In retrospect, sending things like WATCH OUT FOR SERIAL KILLERS at three in the morning maybe did not help his case. In his defense, he had been trying to help. Saheon worked for Daydream; naturally he kept ending up tangled in Darkness-related nonsense adjacent to their lives.
Unfortunately, context rarely survived screenshots.
Jaekwan scrolled in silence.
The longer he read, the worse Soleum felt.
Not because the messages looked incriminating — though they absolutely did — but because of the expression slowly settling across Jaekwan’s face. Not disgust. Not anger.
Fear.
Tiny signs only; tension gathering around his mouth, fingers tightening fractionally around the phone, gaze flickering once toward Saheon as though checking he was still alive.
Ah.
There it was.
Soleum suddenly understood the situation in full and, honestly, wanted to throw himself directly into the fireplace.
Because this was not about the cassette tape anymore.
This was about Baek Saheon somehow having an older brother who loved him enough to panic.
Which was horrifyingly absurd.
But apparently real.
“Hyung,” Saheon said softly, “I told you before he was dangerous.”
Dangerous.
Soleum nearly laughed.
He looked between them; the exhausted Bureau agent with shadows beneath his eyes and blood dried stiff against the cuffs of his gloves, and the thing masquerading as his younger brother with that careful trembling voice and snake-cold instincts hidden beneath lowered lashes.
The universe was sick.
— Ahhh, tragic irony, ladies and gentlemen! Braun declared brightly. The loyal protector does not realize the wolf cub already has blood on its teeth!
You are making this significantly more stressful.
Before Soleum could answer, the lights dimmed.
The lodge fell quiet.
Then, somewhere upstairs, something heavy dragged slowly across the floorboards.
Everyone froze.
A second later came the sound of an something hitting wood.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Wet.
Measured.
Deliberate.
Jaekwan did not even look away from Soleum.
That was the part that unsettled him most.
Because there was something horribly restrained about him now; shoulders tense beneath his coat, jaw locked hard enough to ache, one hand still wrapped around Saheon’s phone while the other tightened slowly around the axe resting beside the fireplace.
Soleum had not even noticed the axe before.
Ah.
“Hyung,” Saheon whispered, voice small, “what if he brought me here on purpose?”
Jaekwan finally moved.
Slowly, deliberately, he picked up the axe.
The room went dead silent.
Soleum felt every instinct in his body immediately begin screaming at him to run, which would have been useful if he were not still zip-tied to a chair.
Jaekwan crossed the room one step at a time.
Heavy boots against old wood.
The axe dragged briefly against the floor before lifting again.
Even Saheon had gone quiet now, watching from behind him with wide eyes that looked frightened enough to fool anyone who did not know him.
Jaekwan stopped directly in front of Soleum.
Up close, Soleum could see how exhausted he looked; pale with sleeplessness, shadows beneath those bright blue eyes, dried blood caught beneath his fingernails like he had already tried very hard to keep people alive tonight and failed anyway.
“You understand,” Jaekwan said softly, “that if anything happens to him—”
The axe head slammed into the arm of the chair beside Soleum hard enough to splinter wood apart.
Someone gasped.
Soleum flinched despite himself.
Ah.
So this was how he died.
“WAIT,” Kim Soleum shouted.
He swallowed hard, mind racing so quickly it almost made him dizzy.
“I know how to get out of here,” he said breathlessly. “Without anyone dying.”
Silence.
The axe remained raised.
Kim Soleum looked directly at the agent.
“We just have to trick the lodge into thinking everyone already did.”