Work Text:
In hindsight, three years is a very short amount of time.
Compared to the twenty plus years he'd spent living under the thumb of a centipede-worshipping cult, three years was very little time to be free. Even if it he knows it doesn't exist anymore, he finds himself much more agitated whenever the date rolls around each year.
He unfolds the white paper boat again and again, as if holding it will manifest the protection of the paper boat's other owner.
Compared to the time his seniors have spent working at Daydream Inc, three years was still a rookie number. Even if he's outlasted them one by one to pry a swift promotion from their cold dead hands, the praises of his coworkers feel empty to his ears.
There was someone else in his batch who was promoted even more swiftly. Who would've probably reached his position in half the time he spent.
Compared to the time Sekwang Special City had been spent forgotten as a government cover-up, three years was not enough to recover from the things that happened in there. Even if he has no particular sentimental attachment nor obligation to the place, he still feels the same stinging loss that that sheep-spined colleague of his felt.
On that rooftop, three years ago in that tank was his fear his heart his light his hope
Three years is very little time. It passes by in quick succession. Life moves on regardless of how harrowing an experience was. Baek Saheon knows this. Perhaps Goral does not, perhaps those government agents do not, but Baek Saheon isn't like them. People die all the time in Daydream Inc. The fact that what happened that evening wasn't death but fulfilment of a wish should put their minds at ease.
People come and go. Baek Saheon is no stranger to loss. He feels the occasional gentle brush of fingertips patting against his hair. He pays it no mind and continues with his day. He sees the next weak-willed Daydream employee move out of their shared dorm. He clicks his tongue at their cowardice and stupidity and goes back to his room.
It's been three years and his life is still more or less the same.
He's still working for this soul-sucking company even if half his superiors have gone MIA or been killed, two directors included. He's still living alone, the short weeks when the company was so hideously stingy they shoved in a random newbie to play house with him notwithstanding. He's still only in possession of one human eye, the supernatural one having yet to detect anything with danger levels similar to that guy.
All in all, it's been three years. It's not a particularly long time. Nothing has particularly changed in Baek Saheon's life.
Even the gaping hole of an individual that haunts just as many Daydream Inc employees as it does government agents and even Darkness entities, remains filled in Baek Saheon's life.
Filled by Baek Saheon's own self-induced hallucinations.
That fucking bastard.
Even if he's already fucked off back home to who knows where, he still remains in the recesses of Baek Saheon's mind. The image of his face, expression psychotic and laughing, pops up in his head every time he uses the eyeball. He half expects to turn around to see deer antlers everytime there's a cooperative mission with Team D. When he encounters government agents in the wild, those two insane men and the defected Goral, he expects to see another man with them, quiet and steady like a rock.
As if that wasn't enough, Baek Saheon swears he can still hear the bastard at home. When the light's are off and everything's dead silent, imaginary sounds of a cartoon playing on TV, murmurs of him talking to his plushie, footsteps in the hallway.
Kim Soleum is everywhere.
His dreams, once mostly nightmarish about bugs, faceless villagers and his sister, now revolve around the man who was once his roommate.
Sometimes he's dressed in a neat suit, the Roe Deer mask casting an ominous silhouette as he becomes the feared Top Rookie that everyone from Baek Saheon's batch remembers him as. In these dreams he slams Baek Saheon against the wall, face leaning close as his mouth twists into a grin and soft-toned yet poisonous words spill out of his lips.
Sometimes he's wearing a blue coat with a government symbol stitched on its chest. He's quiet yet no less competent. Swooping in like the Prince Charming his sister used to read stories of, holding onto Baek Saheon's hand and guiding him out of the desolate remains of his village.
He wakes from them both like they're nightmares, each one seared in his brain, haunting him loudly when the office is filled with nothing but the clickety-clack of keyboards.
Kim Soleum, Roe Deer, Agent Grapes.
The man seems to never leave him alone. Even when Baek Saheon had assumed him dead the first time, finally getting his comeuppance after watching him play cult leader with a serene expression on his face, the man had simply appeared back into his life, a charming smile set up on his face as he casually gave ominous advice to Baek Saheon.
Most annoying of all, Baek Saheon cannot count the number of times he's had to mess up his own plans because Kim Soleum's ghost, apparition whatever it was kept tugging at the back of his mind until he went back and decided that he could screw someone over partially rather than completely.
That goody-two shoes. Always acting like he was better. Always acting like Baek Saheon was inferior. Always belittling him. Always saving him.
Kim Soleum is always there.
For the past three years, Kim Soleum has been right there in Baek Saheon's mind. Every little interaction he has with the man playing on repeat in the darkest hours of the night. Every save of Baek Saheon's life gripping his conscious in a tight fist during Darkness Explorations. Every little shove of his face, both threatening and calming when he leaned near Baek Saheon.
Kim Soleum is always there.
Everyone he knows knows Kim Soleum. Everyone he knows knows Roe Deer the Top Rookie of Daydream Inc. Everyone he knows knows Agent Grapes the glasses wearing agent from the Disaster Management Bureau.
Kim Soleum is always there.
Every little thing, every little word, every little private moment to himself, Kim Soleum is there.
Kim Soleum. Kim Soleum. Kim Soleum.
In the grand scheme of things, three years is very little time. However three years spent thinking about one man is a completely different matter.
The cold hearted psycho who tormented Baek Saheon in Daydream, the kind hearted saviour who freed Baek Saheon from his village.
Kim Soleum.
That day when his supernatural eye had identified that agent with the same menacing aura as its gifter, Baek Saheon had nearly come close to a mental breakdown.
Kim Soleum.
That man knew. Knew he was Baek Saheon his tormentee from work and Baek Saheon the reluctant villager and had saved his life regardless of what he'd been to him.
Kim Soleum.
Kim Soleum smiling as he pressed the eye container against the train window overlapped with Kim Soleum as he presented him with that black eyeball with the purple iris.
Kim Soleum's tired smile in Jisan Village overlapped with Kim Soleum's placating grin in his stupid infiltration as a researcher.
Kim Soleum who terrified him, made him heel, exploited him, bullied him, saved him, helped him, freed him.
Kim Soleum-
"Baek Saheon-ssi."
He snaps out of it immediately. Where was he? Right. Daydream. Work hours.
The clacking of keyboards stop briefly as he and his subordinates now acknowledge the existence of someone from the administration department. Those fuckers always acting high and mighty because they got to sit behind computers rather than tough it out in Darknesses.
He smiles kindly and politely. He is Team H's Leader. If anything else, he is a good employee.
The man from the administration department prattles on about something and nothing at all. Baek Saheon humours his attempts at dominating small talk by intimidating the Field Exploration Team employee.
To summarise, something's going on at one of the branch offices. Namhae or something. Baek Saheon doesn't know much of the branch offices mostly because he doesn't care. He does know that an Assistant Manager from Team A got transferred there after a demotion. As far as Baek Saheon is aware, it's a remote place for desperate or indebted employees. If he were to hazard a guess, probably just another bunch of sorrier fucks getting thrown at Darknesses for less than a quarter of the benefits and pay of the regular Field Exploration Employee.
The thought of it brings Baek Saheon some smugness. It gets wiped away when he hears the next words coming out of the man's mouth.
"A security breach has taken place. You've been assigned to conduct an audit at the branch."
Just fucking great. Now he had to go down to that slump too. Even at the position of Team Leader, he still had to go and clean up the messes of some incompetent fucks. Just great.
He smiles and thanks the man from the administration department. They exchange typical pleasantries and the man finally leaves.
Baek Saheon turns back to his work and answers some questions from his colleagues, his mind already formulating how he could benefit from this business trip.
Baek Saheon was going to wring out every last drop of good that damned side branch could possibly give him.