Being A Full-Time Employee C27

Chapter 27

Living together, I should’ve expected this. Our lives were starting to overlap. And when routines overlap, lines fade. Eventually, they vanish, and you find yourselves trespassing into each other without realizing.

“Alright.”
Wonu nodded. Unlike me, with all my endless thinking, he didn’t hesitate. No sign of overthinking. Just simple.
“I’ll run with you, hyung.”
“Fine… then grab a jacket. It’s cold outside.”

Without delay, he slipped back into his damp, chilly room.

I looked at the toes of my shoes. …That wasn’t a room I meant to keep walking into. But what else could I do? In the end, I had no choice. Truthfully, I didn’t even regret it.

The treatment room resembled the matching chamber, or the laboratories. The cold air set to a clinical standard, the smooth antiseptic walls, tools laid out like at a dentist’s office. The reclining chair made me remember the molar they pulled when I first entered the Bureau.

Of course, Wonu had trailed me all the way here. Now he sat waiting in the hallway, like some dog I’d half-rescued. At least regulations barred non-patients inside, or else he’d have been chirping endlessly over my shoulder—“Hyung, does it hurt? How bad was it?”

And since it hadn’t been him who broke my arm but a monster, I couldn’t even vent my anger on him.

“…Why are they late today?”

Just as I moved to stand, the door slammed open.

“Huh? Chief Kang?”

“Sit down.”

Shaggy hair, three-day stubble, wrinkled shirt with buttons mismatched. If we’d met on the subway, I’d have avoided his seat. Chief Doctor Kang Yun-yeop.

Doctor here meant many things—medical researcher, actual M.D., mad scientist… but we just called them all Doctors. Kang was special, though. Not in a good way.

“Drop that expression.” He rolled closer in his chair.
“How do I not? Why are you here? This isn’t your level.”
“Right. But I lost a bet. Was supposed to man the duty office. So. What did you break?”
“Take a guess.”
“Same old. Sharp tongue on you, Guide Yang.”
“You could just read my chart.”

He grinned. Sick bastard. He knew already—that was obvious. Kang was an eccentric perfectionist wrapped in disheveled skin. The one who invented these accelerated treatments.

I remembered when he’d still been a lead researcher. His sharp rise was shocking. But who knew? He might be eighty already underneath.

“Quit scheming in there,” he teased.
“What, I’m supposed to stop thinking? Be a blockhead?”
“You are a blockhead. Dropout.”
“That’s verbal abuse, you know?”
“Of course I know. I’m a doctor.”

Smug bastard. Someday, if I lived long enough to leave this line of work, maybe I’d slug Kang’s jaw. But do that and I’d be dragged back, dissected as damage to national property.

“Arm fracture, hm? Hey, Baekgyeom. I’ve got a new method…” His eyes gleamed, ghoulish as ever.
“No. Just do it the old way. Less pain, thanks.”
“It won’t hurt, really.”
“I clench through, blow something out, then you tack on 30 minutes. That it?”
“…10.”
“No. Keep it up and I’ll call the boy outside.”

An empty threat. We both knew I never would. Kang just chuckled, eyes glittering worse.

“You two really are close, huh?”
“Everyone seems so interested. As though Wonu were some terrible brat to tolerate. He’s not, though.”
“Of course not. Our Wonu’s a sweetheart~”

Out of his mouth it made my skin crawl. Before I snapped, he tilted my chair and pulled out a syringe like a slasher villain in some B-grade horror.

“Goddamn it, Kang! Don’t!”
“Trust me—better than before. I’m a genius, remember?”
“Swear on your hair?”
“Huh?”

He was sensitive about hair—his father had gone bald early. The moment I’d learned that, I’d been filing it away for occasions like this.

“Swear on it.”
“……Less painful than last year.”
“You son of—!”

My curse muffled as he gagged me with a thick cotton wad, snapped restraints on wrists and ankles. Belts locking me in place. I spat every filthy dockworker curse I’d ever learned as a kid.

“Love you too~” Kang crooned inanely, truly worse than me.

My casted arm was hauled up and secured. He carved through plaster with a buzzing saw. Normally, anesthesia came first. Not with this lunatic.

“Good break,” he muttered almost fondly—then jabbed the anesthetic. Too late. Before it spread, he rammed in hunter-modified serum, thrumming down my bone. My pupils flared, every nerve screaming in searing cramps. Chest pulled tight like suffocating seizure. Only then did anesthesia soften me.

Goddamn. I’d rather he knocked me out with a lead pipe.

“Voila. All fixed!”

“One day, Kang, I’ll smash your jaw.”
“Get in line. I’ll hand out numbers.”

My arm felt like lead. Outwardly perfect—but so swollen everywhere else I felt broken all over. Exhaustion dragged at me. I wanted a run, a shower, then collapse.

“So what next?”
“You seriously care?”
“Of course. I do small talk.”
“Liar. Only research interests you.”
“All the same. So what helps best against treatment backlash, in your opinion?”

And as I thought. He just wanted data.

Sighing, I licked metallic taste from my mouth.
“Jogging.”
“Jogging! Fascinating.” He scribbled furiously in his cursed notebook. Kang loved old paper, messy scrawls no one alive could read. That was half the reason his leaks didn’t get him disciplined.

“Run alone?”
“Don’t follow. I’m going with Hunter Chae.”

I croaked for warm water to soothe my throat. He said nothing for a long moment. Looking at me with some odd expression—regret, pity, amusement all tangled.

“What’s with that look?”
“…Hunter Chae asked you?”
“No. I asked him.”
“…I see. Well then. Have a wonderful run.”

Creepy.

With this freak, fewer words meant better odds. Otherwise I’d be bound to some experiment. I bowed curtly and left.

There he was exactly where I’d left him—arms folded, head down. He looked up immediately. Saw my arm. His face lit so bright you’d think it never broke.

“…Say hello, Wonu?”

But from behind, Kang’s voice clawed over. His face froze. Expression gone blank—not fear, not startle—nothing.

It scared me more than anything. In that still mask, he wasn’t pretty or boyish anymore. He was cold steel. A forged weapon.

My body moved instinctively, shoving the door closed behind me. Only then did his expression quiver, slip.

I pretended nothing. Walked up, tapped my healed arm to his.

“Let’s go. I feel like running miles.”
“…Yes.”
“But I’m a strong runner. You sure you’ll keep up?”

I grinned, sudden humor flickering, taunting like we were just two rookies stretching before a jog.