Archive of Our Own

Song Taewon thinks of himself as a fairly disciplined man.

He is not a perfect man; he does not have a perfect track record. But he has his schedule, and he has his pride in it.

He wakes up, every morning, at the same time. Brushes his teeth, shaves his face. These take the same amount of time every day, because he does them every day.

He pulls together some leftovers for breakfast. He brushes his teeth again.

He has not had a cavity in 27 years, and he does not plan to do so any time soon.

He drives to work: he has not changed his car in many years, because it still has good mileage, and people tend to drive nicer around him when they think his car is nothing special; that he is nothing special.

Taewon pulls into an empty parking lot and greets the lone receptionist and security guard, which is not the least bit surprising.

He likes to think he's good at what he does, and though what it contains varies day-to-day, he can count on it being a lot.

If it's not paperwork, it's field work. If it's not field work, it's paperwork. Taewon bounces back and forth, always more work, and does his best to absorb any issues without feeling it in his chest.

He's sure some of his colleagues would abandon ship or dodge the responsibility altogether; in this respect and many others, his life is much as it was in the army.

He won't complain about it.

And, in many other respects, his life is very unlike the army. He doesn't need to worry about a sudden ratcheting up of tensions that he's been promised is just around the corner because it's already here, and he has the ability—if not the capacity—to do something about it.

It's a comforting thought, though the results may not be.

When he leaves the office, it's just him and a new receptionist and security guard. When he leaves, the two get ready to leave as well.

He squeezes into his car and winces as he has to slam the door shut. He whispers an apology as he turns on the gas; it hums alive, reliable and unassuming.

In the time it takes to get a few ignored disgruntled honks, he's back home, locking the door to his apartment.

After Taewon's awakening, many of the small luxuries afforded to his fellow white class working stiffs—not that they might include him in their number—have been denied to him. He can't go to massage parlours, and he can't squeeze himself into a seat at the bar. Not that either of them were things he often partook in before the world changed, but they are reminders of the things he is no longer now that it has.

He buys a foam roller and gets good at frying chicken.

It's not what he is planning to make tonight, as he stares into his fridge. The green onions, along with a smaller zucchini and a couple potatoes, are starting to look like they might wilt shortly; in the freezer, he finds a pack of shrimp that are looking long in the... tail.

He ties on his apron and gets to cutting his vegetables. He works in silence, allowing the even rhythm of his work to carry him through each step.

Once everything's bubbling away in the pot, Taewon chances a look at his phone.

He did not miss any emergencies—well, none that he was called on—during his cooking, which is a relief and not at the same time. There is always time for one to hit as he sits down to enjoy a hot meal.

He pops a rice pack into the microwave and waits by it.

He eats in silence as well; savouring the hours he gets in the quiet of his apartment and not the chaos of the world outside. It almost reminds him of being in the barracks after lights out.

Then: it's bedtime. He takes a shower, fast enough to be efficient, slow enough to be enjoyable. It's a good feeling when the balance between the two is always maintained, with his schedule.

Taewon puts on a pair of blue light glasses and does some reading: new court cases, legal blogs, a peek at... other sources, and at 23:00, it's lights out.

His morning is much the same as yesterday (and the day before that, and the day before that, and so on into he-can't-quite-remember).

Brush teeth, wash face. Breakfast. Brush teeth. Drive to work; arrive first.

Work.

It's an astounding amount of paperwork, though dungeon breaks tend to do so; he's not sure on which end he'd rather be on.

At the cafeteria—he has managed to not be deployed for, in his estimation, a whole 18 hours; it might be a new record—they are serving rice, soybean soup, some banchans. He minds where his colleagues jockey for position.

Nobody sits with him, which is just as well. He has no doubts that he would not want to engage in any lines of questioning or conversation they might have.

But he hears snippets of conversation. A little about him as he passes, less than he expected; spurious gossip about minor guild drama; something about Han Yoohyun.

He stops himself from turning his head. It's mildly intriguing but still the kind of talk that keeps conversation going over lunch, so he won't put too much stock into it. Still, he makes a mental note of it.

When Taewon gets back to his desk, he still hasn't been deployed. The idea makes him a little jittery. He finds solace instead in checking the news.

As ever, there's a scrolling count of the numbers of lives lost when he opens Naver: a ticker tape of unawakened people along with F- and E-rankers found missing or dead, nameless and faceless, sometimes bodyless. He feels an old worm of familiar guilt, snaking through him; this, too, was a part of the military, endless bodies fed into the inescapable machine.

He pushes past it and searches what he needs to.

It's some loathsome celebrity rag that comes up first. As much as he hates to give it another hit, capitalizing obnoxiously on the news with a plethora of scare quotes and a flawless photo of Han Yoohyun, the only other things that came up were the man's fan groups, which he is even less interested in entertaining.

He scans quickly—it is technically my job, he thinks—and finds some fairly uninteresting dreck. Unfortunately, the headline was essentially the whole of the article: some superfan caught one of Haeyeon's high rankers accompanying an unknown man. That man went to the registration centre, was marked as F-rank, and even after that was spotted talking to Guildmaster Han himself. They then sold the news to gossip mags, along with an extremely blurry candid shot of the supposed man.

There's a little bit at the end speculating who the mysterious F-ranker might be, and why anyone from Haeyeon would have accompanied them.

Taewon sighs, closes the tab, and gets back to work.

Even when he's out on the field, hands dirty with muck and blood, soot and concrete, the item rankles at the back of his mind.

He knows why: rankers don't mix between ranks, in the same way a horse doesn't mix with a fly. They simply live in two different worlds. That he was with anyone from the Haeyeon Guild is a bad sign, either for its Guildmaster or for them.

Well, if the Guildmaster was somehow duped by some fast-talking salesman at an awakening brokerage, Taewon's sure they won't exist tomorrow, much less their company, though another two will take its place.

When he's settled in for the night and checking his communications one last time, he can't name the feeling he feels as they send him a memo that the Haeyeon Guild have recruited another S-ranker.

He feels it first as a prickle at the back of his neck.

Taewon, who is not a particularly paranoid man as far as these things go, dismisses the feeling he gets when he wakes up in the morning as... an anomaly. Perhaps he failed to stretch out his muscles for the optimal amount of time, and this is simply the resulting crick in his neck.

It doesn't help settle the rest of his body, too attuned to the minutiae of disaster and war that it's anyone's guess as to how it isn't constantly rankling him.

He tries to calm himself by biking to work, shaving off a precious half hour of work time, all so that he can—stretch his legs, get rid of this excess energy.

There's a small clump of people gathered around one of the intersections; he walks his bike across the light, mindful of feet and legs.

Whispers pile up from the clump.

Did you get a good shot of him? No? Move closer!

Oh my gosh, he's never come to this neighbourhood before...

Aish, is that what this was all about? Waste of time.

He glances over the crowd, almost expecting to see that... striking shade of gold-yellow.

Instead, it's the few faces that he read about, just yesterday; if he a less informed man, he would have half the mind to be suspicious of it.

As he pulls away and onto his bike, his eye snags on one last detail: a hunching figure, almost absent in its presence, sitting perfectly like they collapsed around him and he cannot be pushed to move. Were it not for the loud personalities that clamor beside him, Taewon might've missed him entirely.

He marks it and tucks it away as something to look into deeper.

When he gets to work, the receptionist greets him warmly though with a question, clearly, on his lips.

"I biked," he offers, and climbs up the stairs to his desk.

His pulse is still thrumming when he sits down. He organizes his papers before logging onto his computer, eyeing his phone for any alerts.

When none come under his watch, he sighs and pulls up the Awakened Repository.

Taewon tries searching first by ranks. Though F-rankers are often rarer than expected—sitting at slightly more common than B-rankers—there is still a pool to wade through. He doesn't know when the man was assessed, or what he looks like.

Hm.

He tries going through to the Haeyeon Guild's member list. The man doesn't show up there either, nor does anyone lower than C-Rank, which he is unsurprised by. Anyone lower than that at a guild like Haeyeon may as well be an unawakened custodian for all their skills do them good.

He's staring at the list one last time, to see if he can materialize the man out of sheer force of will, when the alert sound pulls him out of his spiral.

Taewon is on his feet before he knows it, drilled into him as active line of duty—though if restlessness is abated by his work, he supposes nobody is hurt by that either.

He's knuckles deep in some insectoid monster, hands covered in goop that is not the colour of human blood, when the thought occurs to him.

It's a long shot, but when he cleans himself and sits back down at his desk, he tries it anyway.

HAN YOOHYUN
S-Ranker, Guildmaster of the Haeyeon Guild
*Person of Interest

He scrolls down.

Taewon blinks. And clicks.

He was right, after all, though the confirmation brings with it no sense of stability.

Yoohyun's parents being deceased in a dungeon break makes some amount of sense, though their death in Hong Kong does not fit alongside his awakening timeline, nor does his alive—and late awakened, from the looks of it—brother.

The blurry man from that tabloid article is possibly this F-ranker, though no photo accompanies his profile.

For a brief moment, Taewon wonders if he's the only man who's figured the exact nature of their relationship; he snorts and shoots the idea down. He has no doubt that some fan or media group is sitting on the best moment to break the news, either when Yoohyun needs a PR boost or crisis.

Still, he tucks it away in his mind, the way all information about S-rankers goes. It soothes the small frissons of worry that are only prudent to feel, even for him, even with his skills.

But it's still not enough for the nagging feelings of unease to abate.

As he bikes home, later than usual, he has the uncanny feeling that he's still somehow being kept in the dark, more pawn than human. At least in the military he was certain it was the case.

He is not arrogant enough to settle into the new status quo.

Taewon wakes up in the middle of the night with an ache at side, an old war wound that healed superficially but tightens with stress.

He fumbles for his phone. He doesn't do this usually, but he also rarely wakes up in the middle of the night for no reason.

He does have a text, unceremoniously dropped on an unencrypted platform. That man may well be talking about his hedonic dessert or his sordid affair he invented whole cloth to rile Taewon up for no other reason than his own pleasure.

As he squints at the screen, he puts it together.

Hyunje texts him that the five will likely be meeting the next day, discussing a certain asset that weighs heavy on the balance of their guilds. It is delivered the way he delivers every message: some ethereal lip-licking gratification in subversion, irritating and libertine.

In short: it's not something he should be sending over an unencrypted platform.

He feels a rumble of frustration before the next messages pop up.

oh, good evening, officer~

didn't know you kept such a close eye on me. are you burning
the midnight oil?

public servants should be getting their hours of beauty sleep,
or else their rightful wrinkles of stress will become permanent.

Why did you inform me over KakaoTalk?

we do most of our correspondence here, do we not?

This is not an everyday occurrence, and not
appropriate for KakaoTalk.

well. I thought you might rather prefer to hear its contents
directly from me, and not some watered-down report in
the morning, hm?

Goodnight, Hunter Sung.

He turns off his phone and stares up at the dark ceiling. He closed it in a moment of weakness.

Still, that man is clearly uninterested in telling him more, merely teasing Taewon abut what he doesn't know.

For as grating as that man is, he was always going to be right.

The meagre two-page document that has landed on his table is, as with all things S-ranker, basically a formality.

If there was anything these guildmasters wanted to keep a secret, they had no shortage of options on how to accomplish that: murder, blackmail, bribery, professional mercenaries,

Taewon is bothered by the idea that anything they do reveal, they really only do it only out of respect for his own S-ranking and the hell he could bring down if there was some critical un-reported on news, even if he knows it to be true. He is very aware of the law of the jungle, but he wants to believe they're more civilized than that.

(thievery, seduction, memory manipulation, a 'disaster break', intimidation, kidnapping; the list is functionally infinite for them.)

He sighs and reads. A never-changing attendance list. An agenda with only one item listed.

• Han Yoojin awakening & co-management w/ consideration for working space

He blinks; he feels his shoulders roll back just a centimetre further.

The bullet point does not go away.

The second page, much to his dismay, is little more than a contract for their agreement. His eyes skip to the bottom:

With respect to the newly awakened ability of POI Han Yoojin, we, the undersigned, do agree to take on a shared burden and responsibility for the health and safety of the POI in our capacities as both S-rankers and guildmasters of the T5 guilds of Korea.

This burden and responsibility envelops and includes the development of a facility in Yongsan-gu for Han Yoojin's purposes as outlined above.

Signed,

His eyes eyes skid back upwards.

There's something paradoxical in that the documents written for the most powerful of the nation are crystal clear with very little room for reinterpretation; just as likely, given that no court could seriously sentence them for anything they do.

In short: Taewon knows exactly what is being said and what is being asked. He does not think of his findings as particularly pleasant.

Opening up the Awakened Repository, he puts in the name that is now three days running in the back of his mind.

HAN YOOJIN
F-Ranker, Unaffiliated

Abilities
Primary Role: Support

• Custodian — Type: Title, Effect: Buff
• DEX Up — Type: Skill, Effect: E
• INT Up — Type: Skill, Effect: E

Nothing about his newly awakened skill. He might wear a hole in the document on his desk with how much he's tapping at it, but he's so—the gnawing feeling of something, of premonitory prickles and empowered helplessness, it's all of a kind.

Song Taewon thinks of himself as a fairly disciplined man, and he lives a fairly disciplined life.

But when things like this—some gentle reminder that the God he could not believe in anymore is there, taunting him, or that his life now feels little different from the ethereal presence of escalation with their neighbours—he's not sure how much he can be asked of.

What is this report?

become illiterate, officer?

all that pencil-pushing finally killed off all your brain cells?

This is little better than your messages about
your

escapades.

so you do read those! I'm touched by your loving care,
Taewon-nim.

now, what seems to be the problem? it seems the report
is as it usually is.

Hyunje.

first name, Taewon-ah! I'm practically swooning from
how open you are today.

ah~ it seems I've spent too much time texting you.

my secretary is giving me the most astounding glare.

(he's much like you in this way. and others~)

in any case, I would have more information for you,
but! I seem to remember a case nary a week ago,
where you had refused my gallant help.

Your "aid" in that case was motivated by an
economic incentive that I could not accept.

Information is a different matter.

oh? but information can be so lucrative a business.

do the rules bend so easily for others, officer?

If you have nothing to tell me, you can say
as much.

boo, you're giving up already?

alright. for you, a little hint between friends.

don't take your eyes on the TV~

Taewon turns off his phone and puts it face down.

Talking to that man is the most infuriating part of his job, but it's necessary. He reminds himself that it's necessary. He has to talk to that man, because his deep pockets and deep connections means that he needs to talk to him.

He wishes he didn't have to.

He heads down to the Awakening Revealed! Media (YH) broadcasting studio. It wasn't the first studio he checked, but it was up there.

There's someone from Sesong outside, scrolling on their phone. They're only a B-ranker, but their presence is confirmation enough. When they look up, he nods at them, and they nod back.

The receptionist starts, but doesn't glance twice that he is here. She's been primed.

"Good afternoon, Director-nim. Do you have an appointment with us today?"

He glances around. He's not one for TV.

These posters are... very colourful.

"My apologies," he bows slightly. "It's a bit of a last minute urgent request, in fact."

"Of course!" She smiles, teeth bared only in the way someone working customer service could. "How may I help you?"

"Could you pull up the broadcast for next week? There's a personality I need to check on."

She tilts her head, and shoots him an apologetic look.

"I'm terribly sorry, Director-nim. In fact, the Sesong guildmaster," she gestures with her head to the person outside, "had requested we keep the matter a secret up until the broadcast. A matter of security. Urgently requested—much like you."

Taewon feels something build in the back of his mouth; his hand clenches into a fist against the glass countertop. He clears his throat. "I should clarify. This is a matter I ask as the Director of the APMD, not merely as a curious member of the public."

She shakes her head, though her voice trembles ever so slightly. "I'm—I'm afraid I still have to deny the request. There are—ahm, concerns regarding financial duties and arrears that make committing to it an impossibility."

He stands there, nails against glass, feet rooted to the floor; he feels a heavy rush of something against his back, head, up and through him. He thinks there might be a growl at the back of his throat as he opens his mouth again.

"Ah, Director Song!" A man wearing sunglasses and looking thoroughly sleazy slides into the area, holding out his hand for an introduction.

He looks him over, and takes it.

"Programming director Jeong Minsu. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. This is your first time in our office, yes?" He smiles wide, with only a little sweat coming down his face and on his palm. He pumps Taewon's hand with uncharacteristic vim.

He nods and withdraws his hand. "I don't mean to intrude on your work. There is a possibility of a person under investigation by myself making an appearance. I need only see the broadcast schedule guesting list."

"Of course, of course," Minsu nods easily. "Well, that matter was cleared up easily. Sanghun-ssi? Could you show the good Director the schedule for the next week?"

A silent conversation passes between them before she sighs. "My apologies, Director-nim. Do you have an email I could forward the broadcasting schedule to?"

He pats around his body and finds his business card holder, sliding one out to her.

"Excellent. I'll forward the information shortly. My apologies again for the delay."

"It's alright," he mutters. "And... apologies on my end, as well."

Minsu laughs, boisterous and overly fake, leaning on the glass countertop. "All's well that ends well, Director. You have a good day, now."

He feels thoroughly thrown off balance so he nods and takes his leave; behind him, the man is waving while the receptionist glares silent questions into the side of his face, no doubt to be answered after he leaves.

The B-ranker isn't there when he goes outside.

In a few days time, there's a slot carved out for highlighting "Hunters with the most peculiar talents!".

He feels something murky and unfathomable when it confirms the hunter is Han Yoojin.

He hears more than a few sudden stops just outside his office when they catch him glancing at his phone, sat on its side, playing some reality TV pap; some interviewee is tearfully recounting their mawkish tale of awakening, priming the audience for the guest segment coming up.

Or so he assumes. He stopped looking up after the first couple times when they inevitably scurried away, flushed like they were chastised.

He can't storm into the recording studio and demand to see—what, an ordinary (for a sensationalist TV station) hunter?

Even if there was a quickly filled work-for-hire regarding monsters on a TV set.

He hardly gets any work done; only a word or two gets written before the compulsion to check again like it's a nervous tic. There's a sensation itching under his skin, though; a joke he's not being made aware of.

It's not out of the question, but that makes it no less disquieting.

The diversion ends unceremoniously; they cut from the middle of their sentence to a bright, shiny title card that wipes away the somber music and set dressing.

He pushes in his keyboard and picks up his phone.

The announcer welcomes the audience, smiling and excited. As he's introducing the segment, a bright orange creature springs towards him and meows insistently. The invisible audience laughs, before dissolving into cooing as it flips away and flops onto its back, exposing a soft yellow tummy.

Right now, on TV, a fire manticore is exposing its tummy to an audience of dozens. Sharp feeling slides through him.

Taewon is not an ignorant man. He understands—indeed, he understands very well—that there are nuances to the structures of power and society that mean that, try as they might, the beasts hiding between people cannot be understood merely in terms of their ability to maim.

This, however, is impossible.

The audience is almost definitely all unawakened, or at best have low-ranks; the camera panning over them proves as much. Even with a few high-rankers standing by, there is no way that a beast like that, no matter how young, would do such a thing.

(In his minds eye: a dozen hunts, a dozen dozen hunts. Each as bloody as the last.

Sometimes they had the viciousness of the child of a beast with the wherewithal to hide their young before being slaughtered. Sometimes they had the protection of a battle-hardened and sly parent.

Never did they surrender.)

Here it is: on its back, demanding nothing but attention. The announcer tries to move on but the camera is fixated on its rolling around, looking for all its lurid colours and parts like a housecat, making itself comfortable on a loud, brightly lit set.

In the corner, they show off the challenge set before it: sparkly bright lights and toys adorn a maze fit for cats and dogs, and not for a fire manticore.

Invisible hands hold it at the start line, before it shoots off as the announcer tries to take a handle of the situation with an explanation of the rules. It races past corners and dead ends, bounding towards the exit, making a jubilant leap.

The camera snaps back up towards a thoroughly normal man, holding out his arms for the monster to jump into and curl up, as pleasant as a flower.

He smiles brightly to the camera and there's nothing astounding about it. The only thing that Taewon is shocked by is, of course, that this was the man when Haeyeon's two S-rankers were kicking up a fuss.

Han Yoojin is, by all metrics, extremely boring. He isn't dressed particularly interestingly, and certainly not like he wants any attention. Every time the camera pauses on him for too long, he offers up the beast, meowing, or doing a trick, or otherwise being very distracting.

And yet: here he is, on TV, blasted to all the ranker fanatics—too distant from the reality of superpowers yet close enough to find every last drop of content they can get their hands on. He's their featured segment; his name ever-present on the chyron.

It's an unrecognizeable centre point around which things are hung. He is as guileless as his rank purports him to be but it feels like a nexus of potentiality, a paradigmatic truth he's becoming or collating.

Song Taewon is not a superstitious man. He gave that up when they beat it out of him so they could put something more useful into him. He had to abandon that, too, when the world exploded around him and everyone—everything—he knew was being replaced.

But he is, for what he is, not stupid either. There is something and it is unnerving, a soft trembling beneath his feet and a shock of something dreadful rising from the base of his spine.

He keeps watching. Even as the announcer pulls focus away and Han Yoojin becomes little more than a blob on the background, the unmistakeable back of Hunter Moon joins him.

He doesn't move away. Doesn't even startle. He talks to her like he talks to his creature, like he talks to the announcer, like he talks to the audience.

Cold certainty curdles at the pit of his stomach as he commits the man's face to memory.

It feels like pounding a cold beer on a hot summer's day when his watch buzzes, a disaster miles away demanding immediate attendance.

I heard you behaved absolutely beastly to those kind
workers over at the broadcasting studio

any thoughts on that, Taewonnie?

He's sitting in an interrogation room, staring down at a rap sheet with incomprehensible crimes, when the voice calls his attention.

It's not as sly or silky as someone else he knows, nor as obvious and demanding as so many others. It's gentle, compliant; like it takes no greater pleasure than in catering to his every need.

"Um, officer-nim?"

He looks. Han Yoojin—with his soft face, a perpetual blush that never quite seems to go away under examination—looks back at him.

Despite the hunch in Taewon's back, Yoojin's gaze is still framed by sweeping eyelashes, demure and pleasant. He's swaddled in a hoodie, open slightly to the fit shirt he wore on TV. His hands are cuffed to the table.

Taewon clears his throat. "Yes?"

He fidgets in his chair, glancing around the room before settling back on Taewon.

"Um... can I ask why I'm here? I wasn't given very good explanation, see..."

Yoojin trails off with an apologetic smile, like he's sorry that Taewon had to arrest him.

He looks back down at the rap sheet. Nothing has coalesced into any sense.

He clears his throat again. "... well, I can't seem to see anything here out of order. I think we may have brought you in for some questioning. Now that that's over, I should be cleared to let you be free."

He nods, and his shoulders drop ever so slightly, wrists relaxing in the metal.

"That's good," he hums; he sounds legitimately glad Taewon doesn't find him personally suspicious. "I have to get back to my little brother."

There's a ring of keys at his side. He doesn't think he noticed them before, but as he slides them into his palm they feel right again.

Yoojin offers up his arms, placating and easy.

He feels it in his stomach but he has no reason to feel it, a sinking alarm buried by duty.

"Are you sure?"

In the corner of the room, Sung Hyunje is standing there, looking bored and smug as he always does. He's picking grit out from under his nails and examining them.

"What," he grinds, "do you mean by that?"

"Check again," the man murmurs, sotto voce and delighting in the drama he's set before himself. He leans against the wall.

Taewon looks down at the rap sheet and everything has straightened out into easy understanding, and he knows instinctively what is wrong.

When he looks back up at Yoojin, there's a terribly sweet smile on his face that leans against his hand. His face is cast in such kind satisfaction that he almost—almost—feels bad enough to let him go anyway.

"And I nearly got away with it too."

Taewon wakes up in the middle of the night, a line of sweat wetting his sheets.

As he stares over his sink, water dripping down his face to properly wake himself up, something warms ugly in his guts.

He checks his phone—no news from that man, no news from the world around him.

When he creeps around in the dark, he finds that Han Yoojin's face is imprinted everywhere. Superimposed over windows, reflected in the lights lining the streets, smiling from the alloy back of his phone.

He feels restless; he needs to get rid of his energy, go for a run. There's something brewing in him that he can't think about for too long.

Instead, he turns opens up to the recording of the segment from yesterday, and plays it from the start.

It's so... off.

His presence is so small. Even with the camera's dimming qualities, he ought to shine brighter than that, but it almost seems like he's nothing.

Or maybe he's spread apart, touching and being present in everything. He's leaving residue everywhere, signs and symbols, dread feeling with such mild openness it's impossible to deny it. A centre point so vast its shape cannot be discerned by his eye.

He falls asleep with the feeling of massless weight on his mind, sucking everything into itself like a black hole.

He wakes up with an aching neck.

It's a bad omen, but it's also a perfectly explicable one. He slept poorly.

He's not sure the last time he's had a dream, much less one so... immediate. That he kept digging at even after he woke up.

Taewon thinks that he is not nearly as good at hiding what he is when something is... different in the office. The receptionist doesn't greet him, this morning, but shuffles ever so slightly away as he passes by the desk. Nobody pops into his office to bother him with some triviality they could very well do themselves.

review and approve the dungeon clearing application

Sorry?

Taewon, I don't have time for you to roleplay a
hapless bureaucrat. Open the dungeon clearing
applications and approve ours

Hunter Sung, I don't know what you
might be referring to.

You'll know it when you see it

He hasn't even coated anything in a mystery because, when Taewon opens the log for dungeon clearing applications as suggested, it's right there at the top.

An application to clear an A-ranked dungeon with the secondary aim of improving the level of one of its members; there is no doubt that it would easily go through. Still, he clicks.

He almost laughs. He doesn't, because that man, even in his most frivolous moods, rarely makes demands he does not intend to absolutely fulfill—and he does not seem to be in a joking mood.

But beyond that, it's an absolutely absurd proposal. Four of Korea's eight S-rankers, poured into a single measly A-rank dungeon, all acting in the role of DPS.

It's not even insane for reasons of balance, though the fact they've left support entirely to an underlevelled A-ranker and an absurdly underpowered F-ranker is enough of a punchline. No, it's the idea that all four of them might get along easily, or that they all need to be there. With such a force, countries could easily be levelled, nevermind an A-rank dungeon.

And then, of course, Han Yoojin.

You understand why this is impossible.

Yes, officer. This is why you're approving it

Why is Han Yoojin on this team? He is
nothing but liability.

Oh-ho. Don't speak so condescendingly of F-
rankers, Taewon-ah, or else we'll know how you
really feel

This is purely logistically true.

What a shame I'm not looking to negotiate

Don't worry about him. He has more than
enough eyes looking out for him~

That's what I'm worried about.

But—he can't say no. There's no world in which he has any feasible reason to deny them this, especially not when it's a procedural dungeon that needs regular culling, and so many hunters are unwilling to take on the menial task.

And if he doesn't approve it, someone else will see it—and, while Taewon is not in the business of casting aspersions on his colleagues, he knows there are more than a few who enjoy the hidden perks of working with the internalities of a department focused on matters of awakening.

... and, of course, there is the ever-present pull of a new thorn in his side.

He allows it, if only to keep it under wraps for a day more.

He wonders if he shouldn't have kept it under wraps for a day more.

The news breaks and crashes all government communications for an hour—not absurdly long, but longer than any self-respecting department would reasonably permit.

When they left the dungeon, Sunghan came out with a brand new ranking, and Yoojin came out slung over the shoulder of his brother.

IMG_5508

What is this.

safe and sound. don't blow a blood vessel,
officer. you need those.

Submit paperwork to transfer
him to a government hospital.

Taewon's demand is fulfilled within an hour. It's an eerily quick turnaround, with no complaints from that man at all; no whining about the futility of paperwork, nor the immensity of the ask, not even some ribbing about possessiveness.

He had sent it out of instinct than a serious attempt to sway Sesung's guildmaster. He feels like the floor is sliding out from under him, directing him towards some secret core of the world.

So his phone sits by him on the table, waiting for updates from the hospital.

Passed out, Han Yoojin looks like a completely different man.

There's nothing of that—thin spread of himself, leaving invisible tags of himself on everything he's surrounded by. He's entirely contained within himself, and he shines unobtrusively like a minor star's minor star, pulsing with quiet life.

In other words: there's nothing artificial, nothing to perform. It feels like being imparted a truth; the openness of that newly vulnerable body, the unguarded tension not masked by something on top.

It's an odd feeling to try and recognize the real man to a man he's never met, but he knows he has to. There's something to find, between the folds of the man's blanket and his striped pyjamas, something he only has so long to discover before he's sucked into Yoojin's gravitational centre and turned into something unrecognizeable.

When he peeks back at the occasional update photos and charts sent, the man in the photos still has not moved.

He's standing at the foot of the bed, body casting a shadow over the whole of the blankets. They've been tossed off, banished to the far edge.

In their place are Yoojin's freed legs and torso, exposed to the cold. His shirt, in particular, is ridden up slightly; a soft strip of skin faces the air, a forbidden reminder. His pants are also rucked up slightly, revealing delicate ankle bones.

His torso rises and falls very slightly, the movement little more dramatic than the flapping of a small bird's wings. Everything about it seems so frail and so... distressingly vulnerable. He is, of course, but it's all so... exaggerated.

He moves closer. His shadow encompasses the whole of the bed; Yoojin's now cast in the dark. His breathing continues its slow and steady gait.

Taewon reaches out, to cover him again with his blankets.

A hiccup in breathing catches his attention.

Yoojin's eyes are open: clear, bright, and, if Taewon is allowed the comparison, coy around the edges like that man.

"What are you doing?"

His voice is a clarion call of indeterminate demand; he doesn't sound like he's been unconscious for... for any amount of time.

Taewon hesitates, and looks down. His arms are reaching out towards Yoojin's body, hand almost touching that sliver of skin, hovering instead over his upper half.

"I wa-was—"

Yoojin's eyes narrow, before a smile that is both knowing and amused graces his lips. It looks disconcertingly like someone else's, but it fits on his face like a second mask, like it belongs there.

He stretches and bends slightly. The sliver becomes a slice and there's a pliant curve to it; the man looks at Taewon through his lashes, nothing short of meekly taunting.

"Well?" His voice sounds breathy, expectant. His face is no more demanding than before but the word rings like when that man texts him. "What are you waiting for?"

Taewon's hands have clenched into fists but they're still hovering, unwilling to be drawn back into himself. He can't seem to get his mouth around any words.

He tilts his head, turning into one long arch through the whole of his body. It's surely uncomfortable.

"Could it be that you preferred me before?" He smiles, beatific as any saint. "I could close my eyes and pretend to be unconscious, if that's what you like."

His mouth runs dry, denial or abnegation heavy on his tongue. He shakes his head, slow and uncertain, his nails digging into the meat of his palms.

"Let's give it a try anyway."

His eyes flutter shut; he looks like a princess in a glass box. Everything gentles—his lips are serene pink and plump; his breathes are slow and careful.

Taewon shivers. He reaches—and forces his hand to the bed by him, creaking faintly against the new mass. Yoojin's breath stutters—a brief break in the illusion—before evening out again.

That sliver of skin, displayed, seems almost luminescent, glimmering in the fluorescent light that seems to spotlight only them. His hand looks... oversized, in comparison, too unwieldy and rough.

He glances up at Yoojin, wets his lips quickly.

His knuckle brushes against skin. The man underneath him stifles a gasp, a quivery half-breath.

His fingers extend, stretched out to feel his hand against—against skin like porcelain, like mother-of-pearl, like untouched silk.

He has to shove down a choked sound of his own when it moves beneath his recognition, crossing far past the threshold of accident into something undeniable. It makes him feel greedy, this traversal across what feels like time and space together.

The body under it relinquishes, plush for him to touch. It feels like it's shuddering ever so slightly, worried about what he could do, but it's still exposed, open. When he slides upwards, just barely breaching the edge of the shirt, the man whimpers.

It's a small, tragic sound, but his eyes are still closed in promise.

The edge of his hand glides underneath the fabric and it falls away, unbuttoned and easy, exposing round flesh not built for anything violent, nor beastial.

Taewon feels like a carnivore when he leans over, leg braced against the hospital bed, more of his weight bearing down on a man who is now trembling in something he cannot tell is fear or—or something else. Something carnal and base.

His fingers brush by the chaste pink of Yoojin's nipples, as he leans over to examine him closer. He nudges his hand, unthinking, and the man lets out another whimper, this one so much louder in Taewon's ears.

Yoojin isn't wearing any of his protective armour; not his gloves, nor his clothes. The only thing that remains are the little pinprick earrings, too small to warrant any attention.

He feels a low, indulgent sound growl from the back of his throat as he leans down, takes the lobe between his teeth and licks it, tastes smooth stone and tangy metal as he does. His hands are still busy feeling those pert nubs, pinching them lightly.

The illusion is fading; Yoojin breathes heavy and makes light whines as Taewon feeds, taking him down and swallowing him whole. Still, the man's eyes are resolutely shut, not watching Taewon nor what he does.

He lets go off that little bit of Yoojin and still feels avaricious. He's fully leaning on the bed now, somehow supporting both their weights as his hands travel even further up. The sleeves of his shucked off shirt are still too wide around his upper arms. It's not a large shirt by any means. Taewon would not be able to fit in them.

His hands cover collarbone before pressing down. Yoojin's eyes fly open, dark brown with recognition and a flash of something scared.

Emotion runs heavy and rushes to his cock.

"You shouldn't have let me," he says, a drooling whine marring his words. "You could have stopped this."

Yoojin doesn't say anything, but his hand comes up to balance against Taewon's thigh. It's a small thing—almost laughable in its attempt to do what it's trying to do—but what comes out is an embarrassing and startled moan, like he's a fucking teenager who's never been touched before.

Again, Yoojin doesn't say anything, but gives him a patient, infuriating smile.

Taewon leans down, pressing against Yoojin's collarbone, seeing a growing something in the back of his eyes. He reaches down, skimming past all that yielding skin; his finger traces along the seam of his pyjama, filled out.

It kills all pretense when Taewon feels the shape of a groan vibrate against his hands, down through his throat as frissons against collarbone.

He tries not to think too hard about the length he's groping, about how he could encompass the man's body in his own and still have space. How his cock fits so well into the meat of his hands, wrapped wholly.

Yoojin doesn't help matters, staring with eyes dewy with pleasure and flirting his long lashes up at him. It's want distilled into noise as Taewon fondles him, moderated only by the fabric that—well.

He lifts his hand and Yoojin blinks up at him, a pinprick of tears in the corner of his eyes and a whine at the back of his throat. He smiles—just barely, he's not a monster—and his hand slides underneath the fabric of Yoojin's pants, his underwear, and makes contact there.

It's hot, and cramped, but the look on the man's face—too mild to be scandalized but too flushed to be anything else—is reward enough.

He feels the edges of his mouth pulling in something akin to victory as Yoojin turns helpless under him, one arm pinned and the other arm raised to hide himself, turned shy now that all performance has been flayed from him.

Yoojin is so noisy now; his hips buck into Taewon's hand and the bed creaks while he bites his lip, failing to smother his reactions.

His throat feels raspy with recognition; even if he wanted to, Yoojin couldn't stop him. It was all a lie anyway, so he bends over again, bearing down on Yoojin's chest and murmuring into his ear. "Cum for me."

His thigh jolts into Taewon's arm; the sound he makes is diaphanous and startling, alluringly euphoric.

It falls back and he lies small under Taewon, still as a statue.

He extracts his hand and tries to swallow down the painful growth now that he's just bent over Yoojin, territorial like a pissing dog. He wipes his hand on his handkerchief and his throat has closed up, no words for the thing he can't take back.

He steps away; he feels like a criminal, fleeing the scene.

A thin-boned hand grips his wrist.

Yoojin is still looking up, transmuted from something affectionate and benign to something cloying, knowing. His eyes shine with that same kind satisfaction; Taewon thinks he can see the peek of canines as he speaks, mouth opening red and intimate.

"You won't let me return the favour?"

And Taewon—

wakes up with a start.

He's hard, and sweaty, and feels absolutely disgusting.

It's not who he is, not what he wants—and certainly not with some like Yoojin, not even if—if people try to goad him into it.

He takes a cold shower.

It doesn't make him feel better, not when there's phantom traces of semen on his fingers, of a softly callused touch against the inside of his wrists, of human bone pressed against the meat of his palm.

The nausea comes in waves as he hunches over his sink, trying not to think too much about his reflection. His brain rattles through all the truths—excuses—truths that he holds to, what he's doing.

His phone buzzes at his side. It feels like a practical joke when the unadorned profile of Hyunje pops up, text obscured on notification but surely containing something awful.

He has to open it. It feels like destiny. There's a black hole sucking him down and he cannot fight against physics.

patient cleared, officer~

no permanent scars or damages. I told you he was
in good hands.

IMG_5578

His hands tremble as he types.

Good to know.

You can stop updating me.

you were so invested in his safety. what happened?
see something that scared you?

it's too bad~ the building's done. we were
thinking you could tour our guest around.

as a show of diplomacy between the t5 guilds and
the government

but if you're uninterested...

He actually thinks he might throw up.

Is this an official request?

heavens, no. not over kakao.

think of the procedures!

but this is the best you'll get.

If he could, Taewon thinks he would laugh.

It's a beautiful day when Taewon has to remind himself that he is a disciplined man.

The sun streams in through the slats in his blinds, casting himself like a criminal as he makes breakfast and he stares at the badge dangling off the hook at his doorway. His face smile back at him, paternalistic and—and dutiful.

He wishes he could take a photo again, have it cast him in all his flaws. He feels like—like he has to live up to the photo, rather than the photo merely being a reminder of himself.

His thoughts are spiralling. He knows it well. But when it feels like there's a singular loop, the size of the universe, that he cannot fathom; that he is merely on a track for...

He's in his car before he realizes it. Turns the key.

He's fidgeting at his desk.

He knows he doesn't have any meetings today but sitting in his very poorly decorated office behind his desk feels important.

His heart is thrumming faster than when he's out in the field; it's thoroughly unpleasant to wait, but unpleasant still to be there, to see him, to—

Han Yoojin is in front of him.

Han Yoojin is in front of him, smiling, holding a mug, neck bare and back to him like there's nothing to be frightened of; like he's not seeing simulacrums of someone who he's not whining, twisting, bending for Taewon.

He's talking to Taewon like small talk is all that it is. His hands—long, thin-boned—go easily to find the coffee like he's always stewarded this kitchenette, like it both is and isn't a place that was made just for him.

(He tries thinking of anything else: the weather, a shockingly nice 18°C, perfect picnic temperature. Light wind chill. There is traffic along the Gangbyeon Expressway—more than usual, because families are coming out to enjoy the sun without the heat. Children are begging to go to pools, instead; their parents have not packed their swim clothes, so they demur.)

It doesn't help. Yoojin is still happily chatting away, and Taewon feels his hands cramp and itch with curiousity, with something else, with misery and dread wired directly through his fingers.

Now that he's standing before him, their difference is even more exaggerated; if he picked the man up, he would gain a good few feet. It was grotesque in his dreams, and it's grotesque in person.

He's sure he's said something. He's had it drilled into him, anyway.

But then he turns—the pale line of his neck twisting ever so slightly. Instinct-sense-memory flies through Taewon and his hands go to Yoojin's neck before anything works through logically.

There's soft skin under his hands: soft flesh under his hands. He's not gripping so tightly but the act itself should be enough to feel something—startle reaction, pulse running, an incisive largening of gaze. Nevermind the fact that his blood is so high he fears he doesn't know.

But Yoojin slumps slightly under his hands; surrenders, even, before Taewon raises him up into the air—it is a couple feet he gains, he thinks distantly. He is lecturing something but that's not what's in his ears.

No, what's in his ears are the little microsounds; little gasps of struggle and distant whines, so, somehow, painfully familiar. Yoojin isn't pliant with pleasure, however; his fingers dig into Taewon's forearms, fighting and flailing.

He's pressing harder. He knows this, because he knows how much it takes to leave a mark, and he knows he is going to leave a mark. The thought shivers, cold and undeniable.

What if he put him down? Pressed him against the counter? Held him and felt him push back, didn't stop him soon enough and now there's no stopping him now?

He feels the first beads of sweat against the purlicue of his hands when the pressure in his ears pop and behind him, someone else watches.

Taewon remembers where he is; what he's doing.

He can't—he won't—he's glad choking people is not allowed, and that that is taking up too much space between them.

She's saying something he's sure he agrees with but the pop of pressure has been replaced with little better than static. His hands tremble as he apologizes, spews some post-hoc justification as he eyes the pale pink he's sure will soon become a discoloured red.

Pamphlets flash in his mind and he tries uneasily to remind himself what he was doing, this sinkhole of gravity turning everything unknowable. Turning himself unknowable.

Then: Yoojin smiles.

For one interminable, spotlighted second, Han Yoojin smiles, and the kind satisfaction that shines through is enough to stun Taewon into silence.

He smiled like that with his head on his hand, he smiled like that with his hand against Taewon's wrist; Song Taewon is not a superstitious man but he doesn't know what to make of this, this thing he saw in his dreams that seems to invent the universe from its conclusions.

It grinds him to a halt and he gives Yoojin his number, this small thing that feels oddly like an offering for mercy over any other functionality it might have.

Before he can walk away from this—this mess he's made, Yoojin grabs his arm.

It's uncompelling but he freezes anyway, just barely turning to make eye contact with the man.

The marks, darkening and accentuated when he speaks, taunt him.

"Thanks for going easy on me, Director-nim."

Taewon nods and has to flee the scene before he says anything else.

Song Taewon, who thinks of himself as a disciplined man, goes home and does something he regrets.

Taewonnie? Why did I see some peculiar behaviour
from you when I was showing off my little
treasure?

He's not yours to keep.

oh~ is that a threat, officer?

finally showing teeth?

I'm simply keeping him safe.

haha. old habits do die hard, don't they?

I hope that bite of the forbidden fruit was worth it.