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Choi smokes a lot these days. The crumpled cigarette butts litter the floor of his balcony like snowflakes, piling up on a winter night. He feels marginally bad for the second-hand smoke that he’s giving the potted plant that Jaekwan got him when he had first moved into this new place a year ago.
A year ago–shortly after Kim Soleum had left to go back home. His real home, with his real family and his real friends and maybe even his real lover, although he had never mentioned anyone that time he had unloaded his hopes and dreams onto Choi with a frenetic haste. Part of Choi still finds a sense of sick giddiness in that knowledge, but mostly he’s just bitter.
Choi had named the plant Grapes, and although he had never informed Jaekwan of this decision he suspects that his hoobae has caught on. Whatever. He knows Jaekwan hasn’t been much better off in terms of handling the loss of Kim Soleum, this time a true escape and fleeing from their wretched world. He sees the eyebags under Jaekwan’s eyes, more pronounced than ever, matching Choi’s own. He sees the way that Jaekwan pauses by Soleum’s old desk on the harder days, the days that are too quiet.
They talk about him sometimes over dinner and three bottles of soju. Choi usually drinks most of the alcohol; if he pretends, the warmth of it settling in his stomach is close enough to his heart. Jaekwan pours him the soju obediently like the good hoobae he is but always cuts him off before Choi gets too drunk to stumble into his apartment on his own.
The knowledge that Jaekwan knows him this well makes Choi’s gaze soften as he taps the ash of his cigarette into its final resting place. It’s a cute tiger-shaped ashtray that Soleum had gotten him once, and seeing it always makes the corner of Choi’s mouth quirk up, crooked and bittersweet. Soleum had always been so eager to leave at any given moment, so hesitant to set roots down in their world, in Choi’s world, that he hadn’t even realized all the little ways that he had touched everyone’s lives with his trembling, kind hands.
And now he’s gone. Or dead. Hopefully gone, Choi thinks. Soleum deserves to be somewhere far away from here, from him. Somewhere kinder, softer, warmer, in a place where he can actually sleep through the night at once instead of drifting off at work before twitching awake with a tiny gasp when he thinks no one else in Hyunmoo 1 will notice. Soleum deserves to be somewhere not here, Choi thinks, and yet he still selfishly wishes Soleum loved him–loved all of them–enough to stay.
On one of the first few nights after he had moved into this apartment, Choi had stood in this same spot on the balcony, shivering from the cold and his grief. He had grasped the icy balcony railing with both hands until his scarred hands turned numb. He had thought about jumping off, briefly, and then had wondered if Soleum had ever done the same thing, so sick of living in this ghost-riddled world. The thought had made Choi want to throw up, and so he did, vomiting into Grapes’ watering can with heaving gasps. The acidic taste of bile mixed with the lingering taste of cigarette smoke on his tongue and the salty tears in his mouth had been nauseating, but it was sharp enough to sting Choi back into his senses so he could stumble back into his room and collapse into sleep, unable to bear another moment of being conscious.
That had been almost a year ago. But now he’s doing better with the whole grief thing, Choi hopes.
“Soleum-ah,” he says out loud to no one, and then stops himself before accidentally baring the rest of his aching heart to any nosy neighbors.
Choi sighs and drops the cigarette butt on the ground before flattening it with his shoe. Maybe not.
___
Last name Choi, first name Agent, he often joked to Jaekwan and Soleum, although his laugh was always a half-tone too flat. That’s all he was, after all. Agent Choi, member of Hyunmoo 1, agent at the Supernatural Disaster Management Agency. That’s all he was meant to be, someone who would save civilians or die trying, always ready to wash off the blood and guts of yesterday’s disaster to begin each day anew.
But sometimes–sometimes, there were moments in between managing disasters and endless civil-service paperwork.
Like this: Choi slinging an arm over Soleum’s shoulders after work on their way to dinner before mentioning that he could practically feel the bones poking out of their beloved rookie’s jacket, teasing and needling wrapped up in one. Soleum, sighing out an exasperated “Choi yowon-nim,” but also not pushing Choi away, letting himself be brought in closer, closer to Choi until their heads would almost bang into each other on the short walk to the barbecue restaurant.
Like this: Soleum looking up at Choi from beneath his dark eyelashes for only the briefest moment before glancing away shyly. “Come on, Soleum-ah,” Choi had said, or perhaps begged, “just once.” And Soleum’s right eye had twitched the way it always did when he was annoyed, but still, leaning forward from his seat in Choi’s lap, he had brushed his chapped lips against Choi’s and whispered into the space between their mouths, “Sunbae,” before Choi had given in and brought their lips together again, again, again.
In those moments, Choi was almost something more than an agent. Soleum was cruel, he thinks to himself as he passes by a group of coworkers on the way into the bureau, for teaching him that Choi was capable of all these other things besides putting his life on the line for civilians. Like desire, and grief, and love. For reminding him that Choi was still a human too, bleeding heart and fluttering pulse and chapped lips and scarred hands reaching for another.
Agent Choi, the new front desk intern mouths to herself as she reads the name on his jacket.
“That’s me,” he says brightly in response to her silent greeting which was almost certainly not directed at him, before jogging to squeeze himself into the crowded elevator.
Last name Choi, first name Agent.
___
“Grapes-ie,” Choi draws out the last syllable, scooting from his desk on his old rolling chair. He does not whine, although Jaekwan and Soleum both beg to differ, rowdy hoobaes that they are.
The younger man doesn’t so much as blink at Choi. “Yes, Choi yowon-nim?” he says absentmindedly, his eyes still glued to the folder of reports fanned out in front of his desk.
Choi presses a chilled bottle of grape-ade to Soleum’s cheek, laughing at the way that the younger scowls. “Ah, don’t be like that,” he grins, “I got you this since the air-con’s still broken in this office. Stop frowning–our lovely super-rookie should always be smiling and showing off his pretty face.” Indeed, all three of them have a small rotating government-issued fan on their desks right now. Even Jaekwan, the ever-diligent agent, has slipped away to another floor with a working air conditioner under the guise of delivering some paperwork.
Soleum smooths his face out, which makes Choi laugh even harder, and takes the proffered drink with a polite thank you. There’s still some condensation left on his cheek from where Choi had pressed the drink, and in a heatwave-induced daze he momentarily wants nothing more than to lick it off him. Before Soleum can glare at him–for some reason he was oddly attuned to when Choi was thinking something perverted about him–he shakes his mind free of the thought.
“Is it good, Grapes-ie?” Choi says, trying not to watch the bob of Soleum’s Adam's apple as he tips the drink into his mouth. His teeth ache whenever he sees the pale column of Soleum’s throat these days. He thinks about the lingering bruises that he left underneath the other’s collar and tries not to bite his lip.
Soleum sets his drink down, to Choi’s dismay, and casts a particularly suspicious look at the other. Well, the jig is up, so he might as well just be upfront about it.
“It is,” Soleum replies slowly, “Choi yowon-nim.” He says Choi’s name like a warning, like he’s reminding Choi that they’re still at work. His eyes flit to their door, as if worried that Jaekwan might come back from his thinly-veiled excuse for a reprieve from this heat at any moment.
Well, for all his reproach, Soleum always kisses back when they’re at work, anyway, Choi thinks brightly.
“Then, you wouldn’t mind if your sunbae had a taste, right?” Choi wiggles his eyebrows. Soleum’s eye twitches.
Soleum lets out a long-suffering sigh, but the tips of his ears and cheekbones are already flushed pink from something besides the heat, and he turns his face toward Choi for a kiss.
Soleum is so cute like this, Choi thinks, when his eyes flutter shut before their lips meet. When they finally part, he is cute like this too, touching his bitten-red lips with his fingertips, his mouth slightly parted. There’s a bit of saliva on the corner of his mouth, and Soleum makes a small noise in the back of his throat when Choi wipes it off with his thumb, not unlike a cat waking from its slumber.
Cute, Choi thinks, dragging Soleum into his lap with a forceful tug on his wrist. He lets himself be moved without complaint, his legs already shifting to make his position more comfortable. Well, as comfortable as two tall men can fit on a single squeaky office chair. Choi’s hands land on Soleum’s slim waist, as they often do when they’re alone, and he smiles internally when Soleum hangs his arms loosely on Choi’s shoulders.
“Two minutes,” Soleum warns, though the way that his tongue slips out to lick his upper lip betrays him, “and no more. Jaekwan sunbae-nim is probably coming back soon.”
“Why do you always call Jaekwan-ie sunbae and not me, Soleum-ah,” Choi despairs, but leans up to kiss Soleum all the same.
___
Choi knows he’s dreaming because Soleum is sitting in front of him and laughing. Even after the adrenaline of saving civilians and making it out of a disaster alive, Soleum rarely laughed. If anything, he might let a weak chuckle rattle out of his ribcage, the kind where you’re so relieved that you can only either laugh or cry. That was okay with Choi. He savored each time that Soleum would smile at a civilian to calm them down, or if he was lucky, direct one of those smiles at Choi himself, a gentle tugging of his lips into a crescent moon curve. Choi was a greedy guy, and he’d tuck each of these smiles away into his memories and roll them over in his hands at night like marbles.
So when they’re sitting at their favorite barbecue place, talking about nothing important at all as they wait for the grill to heat up, and Soleum’s laughing at something Choi must have said, he knows that this is a dream.
Well, this isn’t the first time he’s had a vivid dream, so once Choi realizes he takes it all in stride. He might as well make the most of it before he wakes up to his world, a world without Kim Soleum.
And because Choi’s a greedy guy, he knocks against Soleum’s shoe with his foot underneath the table. Jaekwan must not have noticed, because he’s still looking at the two of them fondly, and these days a smile from Jaekwan is rare enough that it’s even more proof that Choi is dreaming. Soleum doesn’t comment on the fact that Choi is far too old to be playing footsie with a crush, and in fact runs the tip of his worn leather shoes up against Choi’s ankle, pushing up the bottom of his slacks.
Ah, he must really be in a good mood, Choi sighs happily.
As the best sunbae ever (according to himself) and designated griller (according to Jaekwan and Soleum), Choi takes a large serving of meat and places it on the grill with his tongs. The meat sizzles immediately. With it, a curtain of steam rises from the grill, obscuring the face of the man in front of him.
Like this, the milky-white steam separating the two, Soleum looks like he has a veil over him, or perhaps like a ghost. The smoke is thick–too thick, Choi realizes too late–and obscures Soleum’s features. Between the tendrils, Choi thinks he sees a flash of black hair, the glint of fake glasses, the slight curl of his lips.
The rest of Soleum is blurred, his edges smudged like a painting gone wrong. What was the slope of his nose like, the shape of his lips? Did his hair curl around the back of his neck, or was it shorter?
Why can’t he remember what Soleum looks like?
Why can’t he remember?
Why can’t he–
“Soleum-ah,” Choi wakes up with a gasp, the other’s name coming out strangled. He sits up in his bed, his chest heaving, his bangs plastered to his forehead from sweat. No matter how much he tries, he can’t remember the exact sweep of Soleum’s hair or the specific shape of his glasses. What a terrible person he must be, to forget these details of his cherished person after he’s gone.
He doesn’t go back to sleep.
___
Kim Soleum is a liar, and almost certainly a spy for Daydream.
As part of the nature of his work as a spy, almost everything he does and says as an agent for the bureau is a lie.
When he says he trusts Jaekwan, Choi knows it’s a lie.
When he awkwardly declines other agents’ invitation to dinner because of other plans, Choi knows it’s a lie.
But other times:
When he buries his head in the crook of Choi’s neck after they’ve miraculously made it out alive after a particularly terrifying disaster and almost cries from relief–
When he tangles his hands together in front of him and tells Choi softly, shyly, that he likes Choi, no, really–
When he shudders an inhale whenever Choi brushes his lips against the sensitive curve of his jaw–
Soleum hadn’t been lying then. Or had he? Were the signs always there, and Choi had just subconsciously chosen to ignore them, so naively happy that someone like Soleum would like someone like him? Maybe even if Soleum had never told the truth, Choi might be okay with that, because he’ll accept any shape of love if it came from Soleum’s mouth and hands, even if it were shaped like a lie.
“Please, Choi yowon-nim,” Soleum had begged, “please believe me. If we can terminate the Sekwang City disaster before the seal breaks–if we can save the citizens, then I can go home.” He paused to catch his breath and braced both hands on his knees to bow his head low to the ground. “Please, sunbae. You have to believe me.”
Lie. Truth? Lie. Truth. Lie? Truth–
Gently, slowly, Choi places a hand on Soleum’s head. “I believe you, Soleum-ah. I believe you.”
Lie.
___
After a stern berating from Jaekwan, Choi’s been unceremoniously kicked out to one of the unofficial-official smoking places outside the bureau (by the back entrance). It’s late, later than the both of them should both be at work by all HR standards, but the caseload for Hyunmoo 1 has been steadily piling up recently, and Lee Gyeol can only do so much as a part-time intern. The solution, then: Choi really, really needs to smoke.
He thinks about Soleum while he smokes, as he tends to do, and the millions of disaster reports they still have to write up and the fact that he needs to buy another cigarette pack by the end of the week, when a figure approaches in the corner of his eyes. The man comes closer and closer, enough so that Choi can see his shoes from where he’s carefully holding his gaze to the ground in front of him.
Choi has been well-trained in detection, even more so than the other agents at the bureau. He knows people by the color of their veins, the shape of their eyes. He would know Jaekwan in a dark room, with his eyes blindfolded, with his hands tied. And this person–
This person, he’s spent almost a full year staring at their unconscious body. This person he traced the angles of his cheekbones in the night, this person he memorized the curve of their lips through the feeling of them against his own. This person is–
It might be a ghost.
It might not be.
He looks up.
“Soleum-ah?” he asks, careful and unsure, his voice wretched and cracked. He feels like the ground split into two by an earthquake. He feels like lightning’s just raced through him from top to bottom. He feels like the fog has finally been lifted and the sea is washed aglow in the morning sun.
Kim Soleum breaks into a weak smile. “Choi yowon-nim.”