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Baek Saheon stares at the golden stick in his hand with equal parts anger and numbness. Of course it would be him. Of course. Even in an alternate universe, Jisan just won't leave him alone. First his sister, now him. What's next. Who's next.
Before he can spiral any further, the stick goes flying out of his hand, and he looks up to see that Kim Soleum had yanked it away. Blood rushes back into his hand. The color returns to his pale fingers. Baek Saheon didn't even notice he was holding it that tightly.
"Stop looking at that," Go Yeongeun says, grabbing his face in her hands, forcing him to stare into her piercing eyes and away from that damned golden stick. "It won't be like that anymore."
"Did you forget who you are, Agent Boat?" Kim Soleum drawls, spinning the golden stick around his fingers. "Don't tell me you forgot about your items already."
Items… the five-colored shoelaces. Kim Soleum catches his eye and almost smiles.
"I have a plan for Jisan Village. But even if all else fails, you'll never be stuck in Jisan again."
"You grabbed it," Baek Saheon manages, because between the three of them, they only have one set of laces, but the optimism is starting to get to him. "You'll pull gold tomorrow. We're both done for."
Go Yeongeun nudges him. "Grapes said he has a plan, so it'll be the village that's done for. Really, the only people who have something to worry about are Agents Choi and Bronze."
"Ah, speaking of Agent Bronze." Kim Soleum awkwardly scratches his cheek and suddenly refuses to meet their eyes. "We're on our own. After you pulled the golden stick, he left to go get Agent Choi."
Baek Saheon and Go Yeongeun look at each other, unconvinced, then look back at Kim Soleum.
"Well?" Baek Saheon says. Kim Soleum would not have that glint in his eyes if it were just about Bronze going to get backup. "Spit it out. What are you hiding?"
Very, very slowly, Kim Soleum pulls out a long, spiritual, and most importantly, very familiar blade. Baek Saheon shrieks.
"Is that Choi's?!" Baek Saheon screeches as Go Yeongeun turns with a snort at the sight of Kim Soleum, messy hair and glasses and his innocent Agent Grapes look, holding Agent Choi's jakdu in all its sacred glory.
"I'm just borrowing it," Kim Soleum defends, almost pouting, sending Go Yeongeun into another round of giggles.
"Don't pretend you haven't stolen your fair share of items, Boat," Go Yeongeun says, and then pulls out an equally familiar glass handgun. At the sight of it, Kim Soleum visibly relaxes some, compared to Baek Saheon, who instead tries not to scream again.
"I- yes, but, I'm only going to take items no one will notice," Baek Saheon protests, as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out, among other things: a bundle of talismans, a handful of glass bullets (which he passes to Go Yeongeun) that he took before he knew they were meant for a gun, both a tricolored ballpoint and a fountain pen, and a Bureau issued Silver Heart Badge.
"You took more items than we did," Go Yeongeun points out, but wordlessly takes the glass bullets from his palm.
"Yeah, and no one even noticed!" Baek Saheon lies through his teeth. He's pretty sure Ryu Jaekwan already noticed the Badge is missing. "But Bronze is going to realize his gun is gone in an hour, and Choi's sword?! This is too much, even for your merch addiction."
"I saw Agent Choi looking for the Sekwang high fountain pen yesterday," Kim Soleum counters, and Baek Saheon whips his head around to look at Kim Soleum accusingly.
"I didn't even take that one, Bronze let me have it!"
"He's messing with you again, Boat-yah," Go Yeongeun sighs, starting to load the glass handgun, and the corners of Kim Soleum's lips quirk up a bit.
"Made you feel better, didn't it?"
Baek Saheon still simultaneously wants to throw up and also blow up all of Jisan Village, but, "Yeah."
"Good," Kim Soleum nodded, and pulled Baek Saheon and Go Yeongeun closer to him. "Now listen carefully. We're going to plant doubt in their faith."
Baek Saheon watched as Kim Soleum stood over the shrine, arms outstretched and draped in white robes. With the sun at its peak, a halo shone down over Kim Soleum's elegant figure, giving off the impression of a holy being.
But, privately, Baek Saheon found that the white fabric washed out Kim Soleum's pale skin more than usual, his unique pallor even starker under the sun's warm rays. He prefers Kim Soleum without the appearance of a cult-like deity.
"What is he saying about the doctrine, again?" Baek Saheon hissed to Yeongeun, who was hiding beside him. She had Agent Bronze's glass handgun already locked and loaded, aimed and ready to shoot at Kim Soleum's first signal.
"It's just preachings from the Church of the Luminous Unknown," she whispered back, not looking away from the shrine. "Common knowledge for most DER fans."
Baek Saheon didn't really understand, but he supposed that he didn't really have to.
A sudden gasp, and Go Yeongeun started to get up. "Something's wrong. We've got to move."
Baek Saheon frowned but started to follow, looking at the shrine for anything off. There. A golden puddle was slowly forming from underneath the shrine, the wooden floorboards creaking precariously.
"Grapes! Get out of there!" Go Yeongeun called, and Kim Soleum glanced over at her voice before throwing himself out of the shrine. Just as he did, the wooden planks cracked and exploded, and a horrifying creature crawled out of the liquid.
"Fuck… shit, what the hell is that thing?" Baek Saheon said through gritted teeth as he helped to pull Kim Soleum to his feet.
"A Centipede Sage, I think. It doesn't look quite like that, but there's no other ghost story it could be," Go Yeongeun throws out while quickly switching out the type of bullet she had loaded, Kim Soleum nodding to confirm. Good thing Baek Saheon took those extra bullets after all. "Agh, how does Agent Bronze always reload so fast?"
"We have the talismans ready, just in case," Kim Soleum says, and Go Yeongeun nods, pulling out the yellow slips and slipping them into her sleeve. Baek Saheon's hands fly to his pocket.
"When did even you take those?" Baek Saheon hisses, but Kim Soleum doesn't answer and instead grabs Baek Saheon's hands, stilling them.
Fuck. He didn't even notice he was shaking.
"New plan," Kim Soleum says, and wraps Baek Saheon's fingers around the hilt of a sword.
"No," Baek Saheon breaths, but Kim Soleum's hands hold steadfast. "No, you are not serious right now, what am I going to do with this?!"
"You've seen Choi use it before."
"I've seen him use it before, that doesn't mean I instantly know how to use it! I don't even have a Dokkaebbi flame!" Out of nowhere, Kim Soleum's Dokkaebi lantern waves joyfully, before attaching itself to the end of the hilt. Baek Saheon scowls. "We can't do this, let's just wait for Bronze to get back—"
Kim Soleum shakes his head. "We can't keep the centipede restrained for very long. It'll be too late by then."
"Aghh, fuck, let the villagers die, I don't care! They got themselves into this mess in the first place."
"Baek Saheon." Kim Soleum leans closer, then presses his forehead to his. "The jakdu responds best against evil entities. Out of all of us, the doctrine of Jisan Village has done the most evil to you. It'll only work if it's you."
Fuck. Fuck. Baek Saheon's grip tightens against the hilt of the sword. Kim Soleum lets it go, the full weight of the sword dropping onto Baek Saheon. It's lighter than he thought. "Fuck, Kim Soleum, I really hate you. What kind of boyfriend asks their partner to exorcise evil centipedes with no prior experience?"
Despite his words, Baek Saheon grits his teeth, readjusts his grip on the sword, and for once, doesn't run away from Jisan Village.
An explosion sounds somewhere over the hill. Agent Choi and Agent Bronze look at each other, then towards the sound of the explosion.
There is a giant centipede. They look at each other again, then start running.
"Our juniors sure make it easy to find them, hm, Bronze-ah?" Choi laughs as he pats himself down, looking for his ceremonial jakdu.
"Sometimes I wish it were harder," Bronze replies dryly as he reaches into his pocket for the glass handgun.
They both come up empty. Another loud crash comes from the distance.
Simultaneously, the two look at each other, then run faster.
"Doesn't Choi usually throw it? Trying throwing it!" Go Yeongeun calls, shooting a transparent bullet at the final spot of the Centipede Sage's exposed limbs and trapping the entity within the shrine.
"What the hell is throwing it supposed to do?" Baek Saheon screams back, but does as she says, drawing both his arms back and launching the blade up as high as he can.
For a second, nothing happens, the cold steel doing little more than catching the light of the afternoon sun. Then, the sword bursts into flames, Dokkaebi fire spreading from the hilt and sweeping downwards as it crashes through the roof of the shrine. The blade cuts straight through the Centipede Sage, leaving a trail of fire behind and ashes in its wake.
Baek Saheon sprints forward to catch the sword, but he needn't have bothered. The Dokkaebi flies the sword back towards him, and Saheon closes his fingers around the hilt easily.
"What the fuck, what the fuck," Baek Saheon chants, his grip around the sword surprisingly comfortable. "How did that happen, what was that—"
"Whatever that was, do it again!" Go Yeongeun shouts, fingers fumbling and barrel pointed down as she reloads the glass handgun.
"'Do it again,' like it's that easy," Baek Saheon complains, but he turns towards the Centipede Sage despite every instinct screaming at him to run in the other direction. "You'd better hurry it up!"
The Centipede Sage writhes, its crude imitation of a mouth gaping as it struggles to form words, to repeat its doctrine. The same awful doctrine that ruined his childhood and almost killed his sister, that haunts his nightmares and chases him through shadows.
Baek Saheon lifts the jakdu high up above his head. Blood rushes to his face, righteous anger sings in his veins, and, despite everything, he finds that he has no trouble summoning the conviction needed to swing the cleaver.
The jakdu whistles as it comes down, countless bell chimes filling the air. For a second, the world stills, spiritual energy spilling from every pore and infusing itself into cold steel, the force of the countless hands and blades that came before him falling from the sky and culminating into one singular strike.
Baek Saheon grits his teeth and steels his arms, pushing forward even as the metal meets resistance against contaminated flesh. With each fallen limb, the resistance lessens, the centipede's power weakening until it can do nothing more than writhe angrily among the wreckage of the ruined shrine.
"Agent Mint, now!" Kim Soleum calls, and Baek Saheon steps back as the clear sealing bullets fly past his face, each bullet meeting its mark.
"Nice shot, Mint," Baek Saheon gasps as he falls back, shoulders dropping as the contamination is sucked into the bullet, starting from centipede innards to the convulsing mass and ashes, to the ruins of the shrine and desecrated dirt until even the surrounding ground is hallowed and purified. Only a single, blackened bullet lay as evidence that the Centipede Sage had ever existed.
A flash of gold sparks across the surface of the orb, and both Kim Soleum and Go Yeongeun tense until it fades out to silver.
Cautiously, Kim Soleum makes his way over to pick up the orb, then passes it to Go Yeongeun. They nod at each other, and only then can Baek Saheon sigh in relief, planting the jakdu in the ground and leaning against its hilt.
"We did it," Go Yeongeun breathes out, her and Kim Soleum collapsing against each other, both of them leaning their weight against Baek Saheon's back.
"What kind of trouble did our juniors get into this time?" Agent Choi's voice rings from just over the hill, and all three of them instantly straighten.
Or try to. Instead, the jakdu tips over with the weight of three people leaning against it, sending all of them tumbling to the ground. Two pairs of standard-issue Bureau sneakers step into Baek Saheon's field of vision, and he looks up to find both Agent Choi's smiling face and Agent Bronze's furrowed brow looking down at them.
"We never get into trouble," Go Yeongeun defends, at the same time that Kim Soleum responds with a straight face, "Nothing we weren't equipped to handle."
Baek Saheon just groans. "Both of you, get off."
Agent Bronze holds his arm out for them, and the three of them climb to their feet with varying levels of success. Go Yeongeun springs up quickly, but Kim Soleum, still wearing the ritual robe, trips on its end and stumbles as he gets up. Baek Saheon, after managing to get up smoothly, has to bend down again to pick up the jakdu.
He holds it out to Agent Choi. "For the record, this was all Grapes' idea."
Agent Choi takes the jakdu back, whistling. "I take one day off, and our kids take our gear and end a Disaster without even waiting for backup? This is why I can't rest."
"And thank you for letting us also, uh, 'borrow' this," Go Yeongeun says, bowing to Agent Bronze as she holds out the glass handgun. Agent Bronze lightly raises a single curved eyebrow at her, but doesn't say anything as he takes it back and pockets it. Baek Saheon scowls. He knew she was his favorite.
"Is everyone alright?" Agent Bronze says instead, looking them over one by one. Everyone nods, and Kim Soleum presents the silver centipede marble with a shyness that Baek Saheon swears he's faking.
Agent Choi takes the orb and pats Kim Soleum on the back. Baek Saheon scowls harder. Bet Kim Soleum is Choi's favorite, too. "As long as you're all protecting each other, okay?"
"And don't do anything this reckless next time," Agent Bronze sighs, sending Agent Choi into a round of laughter.
"Everything's done, so let's just head back before Bronze-ie gets too scary, hmm?"
Together, the five begin to make their way down the hill, the sun setting behind them as Baek Saheon fights with Go Yeongeun over who gets to give Kim Soleum their jacket after he trips on the robe one more time.
And for the last time, Baek Saheon turns his back on Jisan Village.