Chapter 87
Even though Jaaldi was right beside me, I felt an intense tension. A group in black suits and sunglasses. Was this an overreaction born from my PTSD?
But the moment I saw Jaaldi in front of me, all thoughts that this might be an overreaction vanished.
"..."
Jaaldi also flinched.
That meant... she must have been thinking the same thing.
"Lu, lululu. Whew."
I immediately acted like nothing was wrong and moved over to the seat beside Jaaldi. Then, for security, I draped an arm over her shoulders and whispered softly into her ear.
"Team Leader... could that be the fake Bureau?"
"What nonsense..."
A negative response.
But Jaaldi's attitude proved everything.
"Auntie! Please bring us 20 servings of the neck-and-belly set and 10 bottles of soju!"
"Hey! There's a kiosk right here! Order with this!"
"Ugh, it's too complicated! What kiosk? I don't know how to use that!"
"Yes, yes! I'll bring it over! What kind of soju would you like!"
"Fresh!"
"What the hell do you mean, 'Fresh'! You punk, give us ten of the red ones, like Rudolph's nose!"
"Yes!"
The suited men shouted at full volume and started ordering like crazy. The moment they walked in, 20 servings of neck-and-belly set and ten bottles of the red stuff?
Wasn't this too inhuman...? But in that inhuman sight, I felt a familiar normalcy.
Common as can be.
A company dinner scene at a painfully familiar male-dominated company.
"Hey, youngest! Anything you want to eat!"
"Ah, yes! I'm good with anything!"
"I asked if there's anything you want to eat!"
"Ah, Cass! I want beer!"
"Waaah!"
A cheer bordering on jeers erupts.
"Wow! The youngest says he wants beer! Beer!"
"Kid's a total baby! A baby!"
"He's a total sissy!"
"Cass, he says, Cass!"
"Order some Cass too!"
A hot company dinner scene with suited men absolutely reeking of middle-aged-guy vibes... Listening to this vivid scene, I almost felt as if I were sitting at that table myself.
The already crowded barbecue place grew even noisier.
Yet even as I felt all this commotion, my chest had sunk colder than ever.
"I-I'll mix the somaek for you!"
That man they called the youngest...
No matter how I looked at him, wasn't he the affable junior coworker I knew, my soul partner Jinseop...
The very same Song Jinseop who had gone into the fake Bureau...!
"I think those guys are the fake Bureau."
Those "people" over there having such a cheerful company dinner are none other than fake Bureau agents!
What the hell does that mean?
What on earth are those fake Bureau bastards, anyway...!
"Back off for now."
Jaaldi's cold voice snapped me back to my senses.
"Go back to your seat. Quietly. Act like nothing happened. Grill the meat. Understood?"
"Yes."
I let go of the arm around Jaaldi's shoulders and returned to my seat. Then I picked up the tongs and flipped the pork belly and pork neck.
ㅡSizzle-sizzle.
A seriously insane Maillard reaction. Meat tastes best grilled over high heat, but I turned the flame down to low.
At some point, Jaaldi had returned to her usual demeanor. She was fiddling with her cup while casually watching the fake Bureau guys.
"Think later. For now, just... listen. And keep watching carefully."
"Yes. Then I'll act as usual."
"Right. Just eat the meat for now. It'd be weird if you weren't eating, too."
I proceeded to eat.
I picked up lettuce, added rice, added meat, added ssam and grilled garlic, then finally added shredded scallions before shoving it into my mouth.
Delicious.
"Now, everyone, good work today! We don't know when we'll die, but until that very moment, let's do our best! Well, you all know what I mean? It's a bit awkward to say names here, so... To us!"
"Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
A thunderous cheer.
The fake Bureau agents happily toasted and drank somaek. I, too, watched their movements while pretending to take huge bites of ssam.
Aside from Jinseop, there were no familiar faces.
If there was someone at the manager level, Jaaldi might know their face.
...Song Jinseop.
The younger guy who had been closest to me during the Giant Apocalypse.
I saw him in the fake Bureau during the vampire incident. After one thing and another, I succeeded in letting him escape alive.
From then on, I seriously began thinking about the true identities of our Bureau and the real Bureau.
From our Bureau's perspective... the fake Bureau bastards are anomalies that suddenly appear and wipe out everyone connected to bizarre phenomena. I experienced that firsthand, too. My hatred for them runs deep.
But there were too many suspicious points to simply treat them as nothing more than anomalies.
So I thought this 'fake Bureau' urban legend might also absorb real humans like Jinseop and turn them into its agents.
"I'll mix the somaek for you!"
Then that Jinseop over there, mixing somaek for his superiors like a brand-new recruit... is he a being that has been turned into an anomaly?
Are you saying he was really kidnapped by some urban-legend group and turned into one of their kind...!
He didn't look like that at all!
No matter how I looked at it, it was definitely the affable junior coworker I knew, my soul partner Jinseop!
"Calm down. Your hand is shaking."
Jaaldi took my hand.
Jaaldi obviously didn't know anything about Jinseop. Seeing me flustered, she must have thought I was just nervous.
"You're currently on an operation with me, the Bureau's department head. Don't worry too much. Trust me. Understood?"
She stared at me with that usual unreadable face.
"...Yes. Of course."
That was definitely reassuring.
Because Jaaldi was a reliable boss.
ㅡSizzle.
I kept grilling the meat while carrying out surveillance and eavesdropping.
"Anyway... a lot of people were lost this time."
"Damn it, just thinking about those bastards makes me want to cry."
"Haa. Eat and shake it off. If you think too deeply about it, you can't keep doing this job."
The more I listened, the more dizzy I got.
No matter how I looked at them, they were ordinary office workers.
Just from the conversation they're having now, that's obvious. They're not mentioning specifics, but it seems to be about losing coworkers and mourning them.
They really looked like nothing but people, not anomalies at all.
Honestly, I felt that even during the vampire incident. These people were too human. They knew how to care about their coworkers and carried out missions while throwing their lives on the line. I hated them, but in that respect, I could even sense a kind of hot-blooded conviction in them.
And so I slowly grilled meat with Jaaldi and secretly attended the fake Bureau's company dinner as an observer. It felt like being some kind of tagalong.
"Ah, we're done eating! Let's pay and go!"
"Oh, get up! Get up! I need to go outside and get some air!"
As soon as the dinner ended, everyone got up quickly. Male-dominated companies don't dawdle. Once you're done eating, you just get up and leave in true hurry-up fashion.
And Jinseop, the youngest, busied himself darting around, collecting the superiors' suit jackets and checking carefully for anything left behind.
"Gather up the cards, y'all!"
"No, why are you collecting the cards again!"
"Oh, except the youngest!"
The dialect-speaking man collected the cards, excluding Jinseop. Then he shuffled them like hwatu cards and headed to the register.
"Auntie! Please pick one from here, will you!"
"Hey, hey! That bastard hid his card at the very end, out of sight! It's stacked!"
"Wow! This bastard! A cheater!"
Smiling, the barbecue restaurant auntie picked the card he'd hidden at the very back.
"Oh dear! I've been caught by my own trick, huh!"
When the dialect-speaking man smacked his own head, boisterous laughter burst out. Honestly, just watching it made me feel like I might laugh myself.
And so the fake Bureau agents headed outside in a noisy bunch and started smoking furiously.
Jinseop ran to the convenience store.
Soon, he came back out.
He took out ice cream and hangover remedies from the bag and handed them out one by one.
Honestly... what a cheerful company dinner.
"Team Leader. Don't they have a good vibe? It was like... they were really having a company dinner at some ordinary middle-aged guys' company."
"Yeah."
"And they seem to take good care of the youngest guy."
"It... seems that way."
I couldn't read Jaaldi's expression.
"At this rate, it looks like they'll go for round two. Should we tail them?"
"A tail, huh."
But even as I said it, I thought tailing them would be very difficult. They're agents. Even drunk, they might notice if we're tailing them.
Say they go into a karaoke place. If we follow them in and get our own room, what if some sharp-eyed bastard notices us?
They're the kind of bastards who would kidnap and kill someone on the spot.
It wouldn't end well.
Their vibe was clearly good and human. But we couldn't mistake that for anything else. A company dinner is a company dinner, and work is work. One wrong move and things would go sideways.
"Let's go back to the car for now."
"Yes."
We paid right away and went back to the car.
* * *
Sitting in the car, I watched the fake Bureau agents. They chattered loudly as they walked together, then went into the karaoke place up ahead.
"They went into a karaoke place."
"Yes."
"Judging by the mood, it looks like they'll just sing inside, so even if we tail them, it wouldn't mean much."
"That's true."
"We'll wait here. They'll come out when the singing's over. Then we'll check where they go next."
"Whether they return to their Bureau or go home, we'll be able to find out one of the two."
"Right."
All we can do now is keep watch.
In the quiet car, I kept looking toward the karaoke place with Jaaldi.
And as I did, I thought.
Could this be a parallel world with no Bureau? A world where the fake Bureau exists in place of ours?
"Team Leader. Could this place be a parallel world where the fake Bureau has replaced our Bureau?"
"That may be the case."
"..."
If not...
Could this be the fake Bureau's 'main base'...
They appear out of nowhere. Even the Bureau's technology can't track them, so they're treated as anomalies that suddenly materialize.
But what if they appear from a parallel world through some kind of dimensional travel?
That also explains why the Bureau can't find their base.
"That building that replaced our Bureau building."
Jaaldi broke the silence.
"If one of them goes in there, it'll be certain that this is a world where the fake Bureau has replaced our Bureau."
I hadn't yet seen them go into that building, but I had a feeling they'd naturally head there.
That barbecue restaurant is right next to the Bureau, after all.
A perfect place to come for a company dinner.
How long had it been?
"There they go."
After singing to their heart's content, the fake Bureau agents came out one by one. They waved to each other and said their goodbyes.
A textbook company dinner wrap-up.
Several taxis arrived. Some of them got in. A few went to the parking lot, looked around, then snagged a car and climbed into the passenger seat. Were they planning to call a designated driver?
And the two remaining guys... started walking instead of getting into a car.
They passed our car.
"..."
I waited quietly.
When they disappeared beyond sight, Jaaldi started the engine.
"Tailing them?"
"We need to see where those two are going."
"Yes."
Their destination is probably the building that replaced our Bureau building.
Jaaldi drove slowly.
Arrived.
"We'll wait here."
We stopped with the building in sight.
As expected.
The two of them are walking over.
And just like that, the two agents went into the 'fake Bureau building.'
"They've gone into the building that replaced our Bureau building."
Our Bureau...
was using a building in the exact same location as those fake Bureau bastards.