Chapter Text
Damn it! Of all people, why did it have to be her?!
Baek Saheon gritted her teeth as she glared at the new hire standing in the doorway, regarding her coolly, the crazy bitch known as Kim Soleum.
Their earlier encounter still ran fresh in her mind; the crazy train ride with bizarre and downright horrific displays of gore, and the laughable amount of idiots, and above all that lunatic gripping the key to the darkness all while smiling with sinister glee!
“...”
“...”
“Hey.”
“Hey?”
Saheon flinched involuntarily, Soleum’s sharp retort triggering a bodily response.
“You must’ve enjoyed watching while I had to gouge out a perfectly good eye because of that damn lost eye, huh?”
The scenario in Baekilmong’s orientation had a condition to leave. Return one lost item: the left eye of a blood type-A female in her twenties, which perfectly described Saheon. Wasting no time, she identified any competitors to her escape, smashed their eyes in, and escaped successfully, only at the cost of her own eye. But Soleum, that bitch, must’ve known the entire time that there was already a missing item in the train car!
“Oh, I found it pretty amusing.”
???
“Thanks for that. I had a great time. Is this what they call a dopamine rush?”
“Wh-?”
“Make sure to share more good news with me. Actually, I hope we work together.”
“...”
This bitch was actually crazy!!!
Not wanting to be near the psychopath, Saheon hurried to her room. In the corner of her eyes, she saw a creepy grin crawl onto Soleum’s face, contorting her beautiful face into an expression only sadistic serial killers would wear. A chill ran down her spine, quickly shutting the door.
As soon as Soleum was out of sight, she sank to the floor and hugged her knees, already feeling wetness in the corner of her eyes as well as rising heat in her face.
Her day could not get any worse.
Ever since their first meeting as roommates, Saheon has been actively avoiding Soleum. Whenever Soleum was awake, Saheon was already out the door. Whenever she came back home, Saheon gathered her dinner in record speed and dashed to her room. It was pathetic how quickly she folded under Soleum’s glaring pressure, reducing her to hiding like an idiotic mouse…
Today should've been another day of avoidance, except it wasn’t.
Maybe Saheon dawdled too long while getting home, or maybe Soleum caught an earlier train today, she didn’t know, but somehow their schedules coincided, leading to an awkward stand off outside the officetel entrance.
Meeting Soleum’s void-like eyes with an eerie red glint, Saheon’s mind ran through all the different directions she should take with this. Ignore her and leave quietly? Play up the obedient and polite act even though she was cursing the other woman to death in her mind every night? Call her supervisor? Ma’am?
Right, Kim Soleum was a supervisor now. After her dubious heroic acts in the Manor of the Blind and rescuing 26 employees, she took on the achievement of the fastest promotion ever in Baekilmong corporation. Saheon’s mind reeled in confusion back then, wondering over and over why she was acting like a saint now. The conclusion she’d come to was, it was fun.
This psycho only did things that benefited her amusement!
Saheon nodded to Soleum silently and shoved her key into the hole, choosing a mix of both options. It would do no good to act rudely to her now, who knew what the psycho would do in retaliation. And it wouldn’t aid Saheon to be too obedient either because she might bully her even harsher. There was really no way of knowing what Soleum would do.
When she was halfway through the kitchen and on her way to the bathroom, Kim Soleum broke the silence first.
“Hey, you.”
“Yes?”
As soon as she answered, Kim Soleum’s eyes hardened, her eyes seeming even more unreadable in the dim kitchen light. The red glare in her eyes was glinting. Shit, even the stupid pink bunny named Braun in her breastpocket seemed to be glaring at her with its beady eyes. Realizing her mistake, Saheon hurriedly remediated her response.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Kim Soleum was silent for a while, gripping a paper bag in her hands. Then, all of a sudden, she threw the bag towards Saheon. She barely caught it, almost spilling out the brown container inside.
“I bought a cumin lamburger, you can have it. It doesn’t taste that great.”
If it tasted like shit why give it to her at all? And lamb meat, seriously? Was she trying to poke fun at her goat mask persona at work? Saheon managed to murmur a sensible thank you.
Soleum nodded, receiving her gratitude, and smiled.
No, not that creepy smile that stretched across the lower half of her face. She smiled.
A small, almost shy smile imprinted on her red lips— was she wearing makeup? —and her black eyes mixed with red softened into crescents that rounded the edges of her usually sharp eyes. Onyx hellebores seemed to bloom behind the smiling visage of Kim Soleum, accenting the mystery of the brooding woman in front of her.
Saheon could barely register that she was speaking.
“Hey, don’t overcook it and waste my money. Despite tasting so bad, it was pricey.”
“Huh? Wha–”
“It suits you. Your food must taste as bad as your personality.”
Just as quickly as it came, Kim Soleum’s face reverted back to its mask of normalcy, a blank and brooding stare that completely hid all bits of her sadistic personality, and shut her door.
Baek Saheon weakly sat on the couch and all but collapsed onto the cushions.
What. The hell. Was that.
Confusion overtook her thoughts. Was she finally feeling pity for Saheon? Saheon thought she caught a glimmer of pity in her eyes sometimes. Maybe she…?
Saheon slapped herself. No, this was all a part of that crazy bitch’s act, to stir up Saheon’s feeble emotions and entertain herself! She wouldn’t put it behind her; after all, this was the same lunatic that withheld an eye at the train so that Saheon forked out her own, all for some shitty adrenaline.
More so, why did she imagine hellebores blooming at Kim Soleum’s smile? Didn’t she hate her? If so, why did she think she was… pretty?
Saheon pulled her hair and silently cried, careful not to cause a noise complaint from her roommate even while she was distressed.
After wallowing in confusion and despair for a few more minutes, Saheon sat up, finally remembering her abandoned lambburger on the far left of the sofa. Tearfully, she made up her mind to visit the flower shop next time.
No, not because of Kim Soleum. That was idiotic and stupid, considering their tumultuous relationship. It was because the window next to her desk looked too bare. Even though Saheon took no care in decorating the dorm, she still wanted her room to have some semblance of aesthetics. A pitcher of black flowers with a hint of red would bring an air of mystique to the otherwise bland room.
Yes, that was it.