Being A Full-Time Employee C60

Chapter 60

The face that stared back at me from the screen was not the same Chae Wonu I knew—the lively, expressive man I’d come to love—but a boy with empty, lightless eyes. It must have been taken about two years ago. It didn’t look like an ID photo at all—more like a mugshot.

“Date of enlistment…”
The very first line already hit a wall. I scrolled several times, unwilling to believe what I was seeing. The enlistment date was old. Almost identical to the start of my own career. Considering Wonu’s age, that meant he had been here since he was barely in his teens—practically from the moment his age reached double digits.

The problem was, this was his Hunter Bureau enlistment date. And the note beside it made my stomach clench.

Brought into the Bureau under the rescue of Officer Kang Yun-yeop. Subject assessed to have a high probability of hunter manifestation. Initiated isolation and subsequent training.

Kang Yun-yeop—Team Leader Kang. He had brought Wonu here himself? That piece of information left me reeling. Their connection ran far deeper than I’d ever imagined.

The remarks section continued line after line. I hadn’t even known there existed technology capable of forcibly inducing hunter manifestation, yet with Kang’s clearance level, I was able to access those classified project details.

This wasn’t what I’d expected. I hadn’t realized Kang would grant access this deep. What was he planning—to let me see it all and then test whether I could still look at Wonu the same way afterward?

My gut twisted painfully. Still, I couldn’t stop reading.

Phase 1: Cooperative Combat Test – Failed.
Phase 1: Guiding Match – Failed.
Solo Combat Ability – Excellent.
Recovery Ability – Excellent (Speed test unnecessary).

The list went on and on. Almost every entry except the personal metrics was marked “failed.” I didn’t have to imagine how cruel those experiments must have been—this was the Bureau’s infancy, after all, when methods were anything but humane.

Helios—that corporation had been infamous even before it entered the hunter industry. The same bastards who sold narcotics disguised as safe painkillers.

I pictured Wonu—not the man I knew now, but the boy in those two photos. Had he ever smiled, even once? Raised entirely within these sterile halls, never stepping foot into a movie theater, his “memories” were all Bureau-made constructs—things you couldn’t even really call memories.

Then I reached the middle section of his file and froze.

Cooperative Combat Test – Subject experienced rampage. Casualties: 6 dead, 2 injured. Subject to resume mission after 3 months of solo training.

At the time of this incident, Wonu had been fourteen. Fourteen, and already someone who had hurt and killed. They recorded it clinically: “resume training after three months.”

I recognized the year instantly. I’d never forgotten those four numbers—they marked the year I lost my own partner. His so-called “solo training period” must have overlapped with my rehabilitation service.

I didn’t remember the boy back then. My eyesight had been damaged; his face, just a blur. But snippets of our conversations still floated back now.

“Hyung, what do you do when you’re in pain?”
“Sometimes I have bad dreams at night. Just between us, okay?”
“I don’t remember clearly, but I think I did something wrong. When I opened my eyes, everything was red. Then… nothing.”
“I like talking to you. You really can’t see me? I’m glad your eyes don’t shake when you look my way. Can we talk again tomorrow? Please?”

He already knew people were lying to him—pretending not to be afraid. What I did back then wasn’t anything special. I just treated him normally. Because I couldn’t see him, I had no reason to fear him.

Back then, I hadn’t realized it was Wonu. But knowing that now, I finally understood why I’d opened up to that boy—I found comfort in him because he was around my younger brother’s age.

And he’d been easy to be around—didn’t demand hugs or special treatment. Just sitting beside him and holding his hand occasionally was enough to make him happy. In a time when every other hunter I met was volatile, manipulative, or desperate for an exclusive contract, he had been my only peace.

We met when both of us were at our absolute worst.

I interlocked my fingers and pressed my elbows to the desk, forehead resting against my knuckles. Biting my lip, I scrolled further.

During solo activities, positive reaction recorded in response to guiding interaction. Guiding test resumed.

So they’d started the experiments again after a lull.

When a hunter forms a long-term contract with a guide, they sometimes still react to others—but in those cases, the Bureau benefits. It can control both of them.

But a hunter who reacts to only one specific guide? That’s a double-edged sword—no, more like outright poison. If that guide dies or disappears, the hunter loses all connection to reality, collapsing into rampage. There’s no substitute, no backup.

Just like taking the wrong drug causes side effects, receiving mismatched guiding can be pure agony. The records continued—failure after failure, each one proof of another round of misery Wonu endured. The fact he hadn’t gone insane was a miracle.

Then came the final note, dated last year.

Compatible Guide: 1 – Yang Baekgyeom. Currently contracted. Subject to be re-matched upon contract completion.

So our meeting had been set long ago. The only difference was that I hadn’t known—but Wonu must have. After years of endless, torturous experiments trying to deny that single, predetermined answer, his body and mind had been soaked in pharmaceuticals.

I recalled our first encounter. There wasn’t much to recall—his voice, his tone. I’d assumed he was just another young man, maybe like my brother: bright, teasing, full of laughter.

But looking at the photo now, I realized how wrong I’d been. The life proven by those clinical experiment records was lightless, suffocating.

I closed every window and sank into my chair. I wanted to dissolve—to turn into liquid so I could flow wherever Wonu called me.

“How did you stand it?”

At last, I understood the intensity I’d sensed from him since the beginning. Initially, it was probably because I was his only compatible guide—his lifeline he couldn’t afford to lose. I’d have done the same. And later? That desperate look in his eyes when he said, ‘I think this feeling must be love.’

How had he managed to endure until love? If it were me, I would have gone mad the moment I met him—done anything to keep him by my side. Wonu had held on, for years. I was the child here, not him.

I pressed my hands over my face and exhaled heat. After a few deep, shuddering breaths, I stood up.
“I’ve made you wait long enough—I can’t make you wait anymore.”
He’d waited for years. I couldn’t just sit comfortably in this chair indulging in sentimentality.

Descending underground, I found a bored-looking guard scrolling on his phone. It wasn’t really a prison—just an administrative “detention block”—so his casualness didn’t even count as neglect. Hardly anyone ever ended up here. Which meant Wonu had accomplished something truly rare.

“Here for a visit?” the guard asked.

Of course, he didn’t need to ask who I was here to see—there was only one inmate. I nodded and presented my guide’s clearance pass along with the authorization form signed by Team Leader Kang. The guard attached a verification slip and nodded again.
“Thirty minutes maximum.”

“Only thirty?”

“That’s plenty. Most visitors wrap up in five or ten.”

Fair enough. It wasn’t a café, after all, and it wasn’t like I planned to start kissing Wonu under surveillance cameras. Though between hunters and guides, “it’s for guiding” could excuse nearly anything, I knew what civilians thought of such behavior—just two lust-crazed freaks clinging to each other.

“He’s at the end of the hall.”

The glass door opened. Everything down here was made of plastic or glass—no metal. The Bureau wasn’t about to risk housing a metal-manipulating hunter, though fortunately, that kind of power still hadn’t appeared in this modern age.

As I walked the long hallway, my heart began pounding harder with each step. I couldn’t tell whether it was nerves or anticipation.

The atmosphere wasn’t oppressive—white walls, surprisingly not cold—but the quiet was suffocating. There were so many empty cells. Why place him all the way at the very end?

It was so silent I could hear the faint ringing in my own ears. Even my phone’s hum vanished entirely when I reached the inner sector.

By the time I stood before the last door, my knees felt locked. I hesitated.

As I steadied my breath, Wonu’s brief, lonely life flashed through my mind like end credits rolling. For anyone else, it would read like a dull, uneventful record.

If I asked Wonu to write his own timeline, what would he include? I could almost guess—perhaps: “Entered the Bureau.” “Met Hyung.” Maybe this year, though—this year would fill pages. He would make sure of it.