Work Text:
Some days he had to lie down and just breathe, take in the ugly awareness of his body that he had: the swell of his lungs as he inhaled, the shifting of his skin as he exhaled, that sort of thing.
Even worse: the way the fabric settled across his skin as he sat under the blankets, hunch-backed, eyes trained on the blue light of the phone (he had no laptop) late into the night as he strained his eyes and neck, staring, desperately, into the oranges and laughter of children cartoons. The popsocket was always gripped firmly into his hand and often left indents by the time he'd watched enough episodes.
He’d bought a cable long enough to reach from the charging port on the wall to his bed, just so he could go to sleep with his phone in his hand every night.
The inherent dangers of living in <Darkness Exploration Records> were on his mind constantly — he would go insane from the panic, he figured, if he had no access to what could potentially be his lifeline; to what had been his lifeline, more times than he could count. The fear was there constantly: a ghost story swallowing him up, a ghost swallowing him up. There was always the knowledge at the back of his mind, anytime, anywhere. He wasn’t safe. He was never safe.
In the mornings he’d wake up and switch the lights off. It was an odd reversal of his routine when he was in a safer world. There had never been a need to leave all the lights on when he was safe. He’d go over what he had on him: his tattoo inventory, the popsocket, and then he’d look in the mirror and carefully gather whatever he had of himself from last night.
He had a need, neurotic almost: check every limb, count his fingers, feel the teeth against his tongue, bite the flesh of his skin. He’d ask: what month? What year? What day? Then he’d ask, what am I doing? Am I feeling anything different? Even if he’d been to the Bureau’s contamination cells the day before, he never stopped asking, do I know what I’m doing? Am I still myself?
And so on and so forth.
Then he’d go to work.
Work was arguably worse than being at the motel by himself.
Number one reason was obvious: work. Sitting still in a motel room in fear of a ghost story was one thing, actively running into one was another. There was a never-ending void of horror he’d grit his teeth and jump into, following the backs of Bronze and Choi. He always had his phone with him. He’d memorised the shape of it, the heft, the way the ridges dug into his palm and the way the popsocket slot between his fingers: a comforting weight in his hand. Then, the actual horrors. Skin and bugs and mourning and sickening gore and horror, Disasters were like that: disasters.
Number two reason was less obvious, more pervasive. Agent Choi’s calculated carefreeness as he bickered and bantered and striked up conversations endlessly, always proking and prodding and staring at Kim Soleum as if if he looked harder, tried more, analysed and micromanaged and picked him apart he’d see through the very essence of him. Surely not. Kim Soleum was as non-suspicious as he could make himself.
It was manageable while he was typing up reports, less so at break times. Let’s go out for a meal, are you coming? Grapes-ie, you should eat more. Our Agent Grapes, so hard working and observant! There was a special kind of horror (social, not terror) that came with being the centre of attention of two intelligent and competent agents.
He was going to be found out, he swore. And then he wasn’t found out. A tense moment would pass, the suspicion would fade. Agent Choi’s eyes would stop glinting in a way that found Kim Soleum fighting the urge to curl into himself, and a warmer smile would take its place. It didn’t stop the knowledge that Kim Soleum was being observed, but at least it wasn’t so obvious.
Agent Bronze would always cut in, usually sooner rather than later. A quelling look, curt words. Each time Kim Soleum only felt further indebted and, horrifically, guiltier. Agent Choi was right to be suspicious: Kim Soleum was a spy.
Number three — not a reason why work was bad, but a one off note. Something he’d observed that made him pick up the strength to go to work the next day as well. The send off. The knowledge that someone else was saved, picked out of a Disaster and sent home, memory erased and shoulders all the lighter for it.
Kim Soleum hoped — prayed, really, that the ghosts wouldn’t cling on too harshly. He couldn’t bring himself to follow up. After a day of tension gathering in the ridges of his spine, the jut of his chin, the divots and straining of his shoulders, somehow the end of the workday bought him a relief he’d never felt in Daydream.
Someone else had gotten home safe.
Even Agent Choi seemed — well. Less suspicious. The ever present discomfort and vague terror that came with the knowledge of being a spy lessened, and he’d even allow a shoulder slung over him with slightly less tension than what he held within in the typical workday. The tension wouldn’t be completely gone, of course. It couldn’t be, not while he remained in the world of <Darkness Exploration Records>, and the awkward outline of the popsocket strained against his jacket pocket the entire time.
But it would be less, more manageable, less debilitatingly terrifying. It would almost, he thought (quiet, to himself, silent enough he could hide away from the thought if it proved necessary) be as if he’d found somewhere to rest, somewhere where his first instinct wasn’t to hide away and run away from. So: the slung arm over his shoulder, a short congratulations, well wishes, see you tomorrow, get home safe, take an extra shoelace with you, remember to keep your bullets stocked, ah, Jaekwan-ah, you worry too much.
Then he’d go home, lower back sore from hunched over all day and shoulders in desperate need of a stretch to buy ramyeon and from a convenience store — which he always double checked the exits for and stayed clear of shadowy corners and prayed for peace — and the journey back, to the motel, where he’d switch the lights on and sit there until morning came. Birds chirping sunrise, the thin slip of lightening blues through the thin curtains, the nausea of too little sleep for too many nights.
Then he’d finally, finally go to sleep.