Being A Full-Time Employee C29

Chapter 29

The senior, who knew my temperament, only smiled faintly. It wasn’t hard to guess that he was the one who had given Wonu the drug.

“Why did you hand it to him? When I’m here to handle him?”
“Wonu said he didn’t want to hurt you. How could I refuse that?”
“And because of that, I went through hell.”
“Everyone goes through hell. You’ve just been clever enough so far to avoid most of it—that’s why I like you, Guide Yang.”

Of course. Anyone working under Doctor Kang was cut from the same cloth. Mad scientists who saw us not as people, but as living data points.

It hasn’t even been that many decades since the first dungeons broke through. Nobody knows how this will unfold, what lives hunters and guides will live. And scientists hate not knowing things. They want to pile up data, peel back the mystery—through us.

“I told Wonu clearly. Long-term consumption of such potent drugs will have side effects. And that if he resumed after a break, the backlash would arrive even faster.”
“But you didn’t say that to me.”
“Oh, are you upset?”
“It’s a luxury to even be upset. Dead men don’t have the chance.”
“Ha. You’re refreshingly honest. That’s exactly why I like you, you know.”

Instead of scoffing or cursing, I pasted on a grin and played along. Of course, senior. I know. I respect you so much. Clang the bell, flatter the madman. Getting angry only hurt me.

“So anyway…”

Korean: the kingdom of conjunctions. So, but, anyway. Each one a weight.

“Hunter Chae’s condition isn’t great. His usage has been long-term, uneven, rest periods nonexistent.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Recently, his stability dropped even further.”
“…Am I being dismissed?”
“What? No!”

The senior waved his hands wildly, roaring laughter. Whether I should be relieved or not, I wasn’t sure—but my chest loosened anyway. My brain, logical, understood Wonu was risky to handle; my battered heart… didn’t agree.

“So, how far have you gone with guiding him?”

He laced his fingers, chin resting atop them. A casual question. My gaze flicked to the opaque glass door. Was Wonu out there solving his cube in some new strange arrangement? Did he think of what I’d done to ruin it?

“Kisses? Did you do that? Or was it just hugging? Surely not only hand-holding…”

As his questions grew blunt, I could hear an imaginary siren in my skull, ringing up from the base of my neck.

Partnerships were murky. Business contracts, fellow soldiers, running mates—or couples trying to survive therapy sessions from hell.

“If you can, do more. Kisses frequent, embraces and hand-holding obvious, of course. Contact steady and often, so Hunter Chae can climb back to normal state. He’s invaluable to us. We need him long. With your help, we can. We’re all grateful to you.”

I stared at my fingers fidgeting on my lap. Then lifted my head.

“Yes.”

Human rights. Self-respect. Privacy. Laughable here. No such things existed in the shadow of a dungeon gate.

When would I earn enough, 80% guaranteed stability into the Green Zone—and keep moving house, safe? When I left, what would become of their precious asset, Chae Wonu? Still out there ten years from now, solving his cube?

“Good, thank you. Keep it frequent. Oh, and—condoms, don’t. You understand?”

Some days I want to scream out on a city corner. Grab someone ordinary, living an ordinary day, and ask: Was your day peaceful? Because for that… he—we—are giving ours away.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

I pushed back my chair and slid open the glass door.

Wonu lifted his head, cube in his hands once more. The little puzzle I’d scrambled, he was rolling in his palm. He held it up toward me.

“Want me to finish the last face?”
“Why bother asking me? It’s yours.”
“It’s not. It belongs to this place, not me.”
“Does it now?”

I snatched the cube, finished the face, and tossed it into the trash. Clank of plastic under the flimsy lid. I pulled him up by the arm.

“Then throw it out.”

Those wide, clear eyes stared at me like I was the only thing in the room. Wonu: the strangest monster I’d ever met.

By now, movie rereleases were nothing special—commonplace. Sometimes they earned more than ambitious new scripts. For those who lived before, they brought nostalgia. For those born after the breaks, they were retro culture. Theaters thrived on it; side business turned mainstay.

Today’s? A superhero reboot—another installment in a franchise notorious for ticket booms. Just a glimpse of the poster on theater socials was enough to tell. I saw it on break during combat drill and muttered,

“Oh? I wanted to see this one.”

Chewing a straw bent in an old-school apple juice carton. Memory logged in my silly heart alongside cats, dogs, and every useless thing lodged there.

“Hyung, want another?”

I turned. In his huge palms he held tiny, brightly colored juice packs. They looked ridiculous on him.

“…Where the hell did those come from?”
“Just… someone gave them to me.”
“Let me see.”

I snatched them, poking straws, sipping each. He crouched down too, watching wide-eyed as I sampled them all.

“What are you doing?”

Only when the last pack was drained of suspicion did I answer.

“Considering how people treat you? I figured they weren’t gifts.”
“…Checking for poison?”
“Yes. Nothing there.”
“…What if there was?” His voice darkened, handsome. I blinked, dumb.
“Oh… right.”
“You insane?”
“Insane? Hey, I’m older, I should die first anyway.”
“Oh. So age decides who dies first?”

He cornered me with that, hard. Smiling sweet. The retort lodged in my throat. I pulled his necklace up between us.

“You said it can revive me once.”
“Yes. If your heart stops. Breathing halts.”
“So…”
“It takes three minutes. In three minutes, I could kill fifteen people. Five a minute, easy. That leaves just us alive in this room of seventeen.”

“…Sorry.”

I had underestimated his capacity to lay out horror so calmly.

“I thought maybe it was just laxatives,” I muttered. “Let’s both admit, both of us overshot.”
“No.”

He didn’t soften. I reached instinctively for his hand. He slapped it away, turned cold.

His prettiness turned deadly when angered. In that moment, I swore, if powers worked differently, it would be ice, not water, flowing from him.

“This time, you were wrong. Not me.”

“Wait, Hunter Chae—”

He ignored it. Turning away, leaving me frozen with a hand halfway stretched for nothing. A camera shutter clicked behind me.

“Sorry.”

Not sorry at all. One of the instructors grinning with his lens.

“You looked like a 20th-century ballad album cover.”

So oddly specific it stung. I shot upright in irritation and dumped the leftover juices onto the bench. He helped himself immediately, gulping them one by one, ugh.

After downing a whole strip, he chuckled.
“I thought you were his father. Raising him.”
“No. Not at all.”
“But close, huh? Heard the rumors.”
“…What rumors? There some secret forest of gossip I don’t know about?”
“No, but it’s unique. His first partner. And the way he follows you, clings. As if you’d vanish.”
“Utter rumor. He just drives my blood pressure up. But at least I’ll never run out of sugar, thanks to him.”

“…Fine. Forget it.”

He burped, long and gross. Done. Any lingering edge was gone from me instantly.

“What the… disgusting.”

An arm hooked round my shoulders from behind. The instructor leaned, shorter than me, so his weight sagged down.

“Just saying—you’re funny. Why protect him? Nobody here wants him dead.”
“You never know. He makes enemies everywhere without trying.”
“Even if he has enemies, no one can kill him.”