Being A Full-Time Employee C66

Chapter 66

“Mom. Yeah, I’m not feeling well, so they let me leave early. No, it’s not far. I’ll just walk.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m coming. See? Good thing I didn’t go anywhere.”
From behind, I heard Dad ask, “Why, is Baekgyeom really that sick?”

We planned to meet at the bus stop. Somehow, I managed to drag myself there. My entire body felt like lead, and as soon as I reached the shelter, I doubled over and dry-heaved.

My vision spun, filled with flickering specks of rainbow light. No matter how I waved my hand, they wouldn’t disappear. Only later did I learn that those lights were magnetic distortions—signs that a dungeon was about to open. Only espers above a certain rank could sense them. It’s why, nowadays, the Meteorological Bureau employed low-combat espers—it turned out they were invaluable early-warning systems.

If only we hadn’t been the first. If only someone else had come before us to warn the world. Maybe the story wouldn’t have ended so horribly.

Our home was close to school, and my high school campus bordered the middle school. My brother texted me—apparently I hadn’t turned in my phone that day.

“Hyung left early? Lucky. I want to go home too.”
I squinted at the message, reread it several times through the dizziness, and finally typed, “Stop goofing off and study. Hand in your phone.”

That was the last message I ever sent.

I saw my parents’ car approaching and forced my hand up to wave. Through the front windshield, I saw them both wearing sunglasses. Maybe, I thought, they planned to drop me off at the hospital and then go on a belated date. They were still affectionate like newlyweds, and though I teased them for it, I secretly loved it. I actually believed we were the model of a perfect family.

And then, when we were maybe ten meters apart—me at the bus stop, them in the school zone, my brother still at the middle school—the dungeon erupted.

It appeared right between the two schools. The rupture was so large it swallowed both campuses, spilling further out to consume the playground, the road, even an apartment complex across the street.

It was the kind of dungeon that pushed outward rather than pulling inward—a wave that expelled everything, like a shockwave.

I survived only because my fever that day hadn’t been an ordinary one—it was an awakening fever. My body had been transforming and strengthening, and that change kept me alive.

But that was what made it tragic. I lived only because I wasn’t human anymore. My family wasn’t so lucky.

When I lifted my head, I saw my parents, but I couldn’t meet their eyes—they were both closed forever. My brother—I never even found him. The rescue took two days. Not a long time, not a short one.

It took six years before I was finally allowed to reopen the case file.

Dungeon size: Mega-class. Dungeon rating: B–.

Just a B-minus.

Is there any stretch of time more oddly aimless than the days from December 26th to January 1st?

Six full days, recorded clearly on the calendar, celebrated alongside all of human history—and yet they always felt uncertain, like standing in the blank space between breaths. Lose focus for a moment and it’s suddenly the new year, but look back on the past one and you realize there’s still almost a week left. The afterglow of Christmas lingered, but the sight of Christmas trees was unbearable, and celebrating New Year’s early felt like an insult to the time you hadn’t finished living.

Curiously, even the dungeons seemed calmer this time of year. Only a few small ones blinked open and closed quickly. And so, every winter, chatter in the Bureau turned philosophical.

“If dungeons had a god,” someone said,
“It’s obviously God Himself. Look, even He takes Christmas seriously—the numbers drop right after the 25th.”
“Hey, you know Jesus wasn’t even born on Christmas, right? If He was out sleeping in that—what’s it called—the manger thing—”
“The manger. He’d have frozen to death.”
“You sure know a lot.”
“I used to be top of my Sunday school class.”

Pointless debates, half jokes, half nonsense. Just right for this lazy end-of-year lull.

Some even swore the lull was thanks to the Buddha’s mercy, since even Seokga Tansinil (Buddha’s birthday) always fell neatly between weekends and holidays, and there were no major dungeon breaks during that time either. Others scoffed—“Doesn’t mean we never got a call-out.”

“Guide Yang, what do you think?” one of them asked suddenly.

I was in the largest break room, digging into a ridiculous breakfast—waffles, hash browns, buckwheat crepes, and muffins. For all the Bureau’s sins of treating hunters like tools, they at least kept us well-fed—our buffet spread could rival a five-star hotel.

“Me?” I asked, raising both palms like a surgeon before an operation. The oversized sleeves slid down to reveal my wrists. They were from Wonu’s hoodie—he’d outgrown me in height and loved loose clothes. The fit was fine, but the cuffs hung long.

“I side with whatever god keeps me alive,” I said.

Rosaries, beads, good-luck charms, bracelets with “evil eyes” from Turkey—I wore them all. Holy anythings. The hunters, who already thought I was eccentric, gave me flat looks. They were probably thinking, What a lunatic. I thought back at them, What romantics. Hunters believing in gods—please.

“What about you?” The man pushed the question past me.

He was looking behind me. Wonu was by the food bar, piling his plate high with spicy tteokbokki (rice cakes). He blinked, mid-bite of a corn dog, and turned toward us.

I gave him a little squint and a nod—answer politely, please. Thankfully, he caught on. He set his plate down and replied.

“I believe in Baekgyeom-hyung.”

“….”

“….”

Silence crashed over the room.

Because of Wonu’s low social filter and his damn unfiltered honesty, his words landed like a confession of affection that was a little too much—even for the shameless. The other hunters froze, then turned their heads away all at once. I’d faced plenty of mockery and dismissal before, but never this kind of secondhand embarrassment.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, blinking, chewing his corn dog.

I sighed, then shrugged. Technically, no. I grabbed the half-eaten corn dog, squeezed ketchup on it, and handed it back.

“You’ve got another hand, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Make me one too.”

“With or without sugar?”

“Extra sugar. No ketchup.”

The man who claimed to “believe in me” obeyed like a saintly servant. Before leaving, we smiled sweetly and waved to the group of hunters who were still quietly dying inside.

“Looks good~,” Wonu said happily, and somehow, looking at him, I felt the same.

We’d finally brought a TV into our quarters. We spent the afternoon sprawled across the couch, doing nothing—an almost unthinkable luxury in our line of work. Living constantly on alert, never knowing when an assignment might come, made simple idleness feel strange.

But I stuck with it—for Wonu’s sake. Like actors lost in an overlong drama, we pretended not to know that disaster could strike any moment.

Wonu had dozed off again. He’d been sleeping often lately. It had been only three days since Christmas, but maybe this behavior had started even earlier—perhaps back when he was still alone in isolation.

In the quiet, the water inside an empty vase quivered. Instantly, I clasped the hand Wonu had draped around my waist. The tremor stopped. But then the glass of water on the table began to ripple. I turned and pulled him into me.

Whenever water elsewhere started to shake, I pressed closer to him. And when it came to the point that I had to kiss him, he would smile sleepily, body trembling with suppressed strain, pretending he had no idea he’d been asleep at all.

“Hyung… do you really like me that much?” he’d murmur.

That question hurt sometimes. Because since Christmas, he hadn’t used his power once—not even to turn off the lights. But as soon as he fell asleep, it overflowed, leaking out into the air while he clenched his jaw and held himself rigid to contain it.

All I could do was keep wiping it away, over and over. If a cup toppled or the water spilled, I cleaned it quickly before waking him.

Sometimes, I didn’t even need to. He’d jolt awake on his own. Without fail, it was from a nightmare. I never asked what he saw. There were too many possibilities, too many real memories worse than any dream.

He just looked… fragile. I couldn’t understand why he kept holding himself back so much. Especially now—when I was right here with him.