Work Text:
It's totally normal for a Daydream employee to have unhealthy or unusual ways to cope with what they have to deal with on the daily. In fact, the only people in the entire company who don't are probably the higher-ups, and chief Lizard.
Many of them smoke, many more drown their sorrows in alcohol or drugs, some gamble their worries away or spend enough money to forget. Few of them have normal hobbies, and even fewer regularly go to the free therapy the company offers them.
Park Minseong? Well...
If anyone asked, he would just say he liked reading. Simple, vague enough to make him look smart and hide how... bad some of the things he indulged in were.
(Seriously, some of the things he's read might count as war crimes...)
Okay, he'll admit it. He's an avid fanfiction reader. One of the very few things he fears is someone looking through his Ao3 history and asking why it was 155 pages long despite the account being created no more than three years ago.
He'll read almost anything that seems vaguely interesting, and most of his Friday nights are spent scrolling through his favorite tags.
And it's there, the first option that pops up when he clicks on the "Original Works" fandom (or lack thereof?): a seemingly unassuming title, just posted by an Anonymous author; the description says that It's about their former and current bosses, and fics about the author's superiors are some of the best, so he clicks on It.
Overall, It's not a bad work: there's no significant grammatical errors, and the writing style is nice; but, one of the characters feels oddly... Familiar.
---
There's no one more informed on the inner gossip in Daydream than Eun Haje, even now that she's left the company.
She is a former reporter after all, so it's only natural to have connections everywhere, ready to tell her anything interesting as soon as it happens.
Still, she didn't expect the older of her two hoobaes to send her an ominous link at 3:53 am, accompanied by an equally ominous text telling her to read it.
It's fanfiction. Of her boss and some random Bureau agent. Having sex.
It was clear why Minseong sent her this, and Eun Haje would thank him, but there was only one thing on her mind right now:
'Who the hell wrote this?????'
(She's not going to ask *how* Minseong found such a work; fanfiction isn't really her thing, but she can understand how fun these kinds of guilty pleasures can be.)
As far as she knows, Daydream employees rarely left for the Bureau, and it was the same the other way around too... And clearly the mystery author worked in both, one in the past and the other right now...
Okay, this is too much. She needs a second opinion.
---
It's Monday, and Jin Nasol enters the Elites' office to see her squad leader looking unusually happy.
She seems to be reading something on her computer, which seems like... Fanfiction?
Well, as long as she deletes her search history afterwards, It's none of her business.
(Squad leader Teal Duck was merely elated at the thought of D squad's chief Lizard's reputation being ruined by fanfiction, as Nasol would later learn from a younger colleague.)
---
"Oh, you're the guy from the fic!"
That is certainly the last thing agent Choi would ever think he'd hear from the Daydream employee he just captured.
"Ah, don't you know? Someone wrote a fic with you and one of our squad leaders," She continues on, unbothered by the clear confusion showing on his face. "I can send you the link if you pay me."
"Wait a sec." He finally says, trying to regain his composure, "What do you mean?"
"Ah. Y'know, fanfiction! I thought you were young enough to know what that Is, but-"
"I know what fanfiction is. What i want to know, is" He vaguely gestures at nothing, a hint of frustration peeking through his voice "everything else."
She looks at him expectantly, and he sighs and hands her a 10.000 won banknote. At her silence he adds two more, and finally the light haired woman starts to speak.
"Well, a few days ago someone in our company found an anonymous fic about a bureau agent and a squad leader. Turns out the squad leader was Lizard from D squad, and it's pretty clear that the other person was you."
Oh God. There's only one person who could've written this, and it's his hoobae.
And if this wasn't enough, she adds: "Also, you're the bottom. Fifty thousand and I'll send you the link."
Agent Choi leaves the encounter 80.000 won poorer, and with a new outlook on the newest member of Hyunmoo 1.
---
Baek Saheon sits in front of his former roommate at their usual meetup spot, stirring his Iced White Chocolate and Caramel Mocha and talking about the latest gossip.
"So yeah, that guy's dead now. Also, I heard someone wrote fanfiction about your ex boss and a Bureau agent."
He stares down at his drink for a few moments waiting for an answer, but the other man says nothing. In fact, Looking up reveals he's become even paler than usual.
"...Hey, you okay? You look like you're about to pass out."
Kim Soleum only mutters a hurried apology, leaving him an item and basically running away.
Huh. That's weird.
Well, Saheon got his item, so It's none of his business.
---
Back in his original world, Kim Soleum actually used to be somewhat of a big shot in the DER community.
Of course, a part of that was due to what he wrote for the DER itself: his entries, despite there being few of them, were quite popular, all of them entering the top 1000 in likes and some even being considered 'classics' and 'must reads', but there was another factor.
He prided himself of being the creator and official ambassador of Employee D x Agent Choi.
Born as no more than a crackship in his then adolescent brain, it was originally an inside joke between himself and a few mutuals. But when he reluctantly published a short fic on the DER website's Tales section, It quickly caught on.
In no time, DChoi had become one of the most popular fandom OTPs (with others such as KwakB and ViperHo, but that's a story for another time), even being referenced in a few official entries (at least before Choi's canon death).
Kim Soleum hadn't expected this to happen, but the ship was his child and that meant he had to keep writing for it.
Sure, he published less and less works in the recent years due to his growing responsibilities as a grown-ass man, but that didn't mean he'd stop. Not even if he found himself in the world of DER, face to face with the characters he so dearly cared for.
In fact, he'd only gotten more ideas; and on a fateful night last week, he decided to publish an Anonymous oneshot. After all, no one would notice it, right?
He stared down in horror at the tens of emails, all from the same website.
'Baaaaadger, S3afo4m, ItsGoralTime, Bronze___, Wispie130666, HeOwOun, TheCoolerHeoun, YongYong, DefinetlyNotHageum and 32 guests have left Kudos on "Hold me in your Heart"!'
'FoxingAround (Registered User) has left a comment on Hold me in your Heart:
| <3
Posted on Aug 20xx 1:48:13 +0000'
'G00DFR1END (Registered User) has left a comment on Hold me in your Heart:
| I don't like these people.
Posted on Aug 20xx 1:49:14 +0000'
Kim Soleum can only describe this as a nightmare.
He knew something was up the moment agent Choi started looking at him with an almost uncomfortable expression ever since coming back from a mission a few hours ago where he apparently encountered a Daydream employee, but he didn't think he'd be discovered like this.
Seriously, why did his fic have to blow up? Why did someone at Daydream have to read it?? Why didn't he check his email and delete it before the entire company saw it???
His wish ticket? Gone, probably. His Dignity? Nonexistent.
Should he quit the Bureau and tell director Ho what he knew?
[My, friend! You wrote this anonymously, didn't you? There's no way they could ever trace it back to you!]
Right. There's no way they'll find out it was him. Baek Saheon all but confirmed It, by telling him about It as if he wouldn't know such a fic was written.
(Many months later, stuck in the subway system of a nonexistent city, someone would bring It up, and Kim Soleum would experience the most embarrassing moment of his life)