Chapter Text
“Ryu Jaekwan-ssi, I’m sorry, you aren’t qualified.”
The agent across from him sighed, collecting his papers and zipping up his jacket slowly so he could stall the inevitable.
“We’ve concluded that despite satisfactory results from your aptitude test, the psychological effects from your early childhood events may have compromised your moral code and ability to make decisions in the moment, and you know we simply can’t take that chance.”
The agent looked up wearily, expecting any sort of emotional reaction or even a pleading outburst, begging for another chance. After all, the kid had wanted to join since his time ever seeing the Disaster Management Bureau in action. When his eyes met the other’s, he got nothing so satisfying as a reaction.
He coughed. “Um, as you know, you’re quite a special case with us, so we’ll allow you to keep your memories—a top-notch privilege, but I think they’re just doing it so you don’t accidentally re-apply,” he chuckled, averting his gaze.
Despite looking away, he still strained to make out the boy’s expression in his peripheral vision.
“Everybody would love it if you kept working at Lee Jeong Bookstore, then we could visit you occasionally. And with that job, you’re basically already doing some disaster-managing of your own!” He said gently, walking around the table and punching the boy’s shoulder playfully.
Within a perfectly courteous amount of time, the boy did arise, dusting himself off and pushing in his chair neatly.
“I’ll, uh, walk you to the door.”
The other merely dipped his head in acknowledgement and offered him a warm smile.
A completely acceptable gesture, so why did the agent feel so guilty—and unnerved?
He walked past the boy to open the door, eagerly taking the opportunity to get that docile, polite expression out of his sight.
“After you,” the agent said.
“Why?”
“Hm?”
The young, prospective recruit—well, he wasn’t a prospective recruit anymore—looked back at him and met his eyes for the first time. “It isn’t ‘after you,’ because I’m the only one who has to leave.”
-
Day 1,
Ryu Jaekwan’s jacket collar slapped incessantly against his face, flapping around wildly like a chicken with its head cut off every time the wind stirred. He smoothed it down again. Generally, he felt he was a calm person, but having to smooth down his jacket collar every other moment and be reminded of its color was beginning to bother him.
He creased it down once more, his fingers traitorously lingering on the blue fabric.
He’d gotten it because it was the same blue as the Bureau’s uniform. Back then, it’d seemed like the natural thing to do—because it was natural that he was going to work there. Now it felt like dress-up.
The wind howled, slapping the collar up again. It was annoying, smoothing down the collar and reminding him every time, but the harsh cut of the frigid wind couldn’t make it through the thick jacket. He was still on a budget, and the jacket was still high-quality.
He forcefully held down the lapel and strode forward into the library, the doors sliding open before him and gracing him with much warmer air.
A lady with a tight bun and square glasses waved him over from the front desk, carrying a stack of books with one arm. “Ryu Jaekwan-ssi, yes?”
Ryu Jaekwan nodded, bowing curtly before hurrying over to her, holding out his arms to help her with the large stack of books.
The lady appeared delighted at the gesture. “Unni said she found a nice employee, but I didn’t know he was going to be so polite!” She guffawed loudly, laughing at her own joke boisterously as she handed him the stack of books.
He accepted them, grateful for the opportunity to hide his embarrassed expression. “I just don’t want to make a bad impression.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Such a nice hubae—I couldn’t imagine you making a bad impression! I’m a full-time employee of four years; I’ll be your shift supervisor. Oh! I nearly forgot, I’m such an airhead—my name is Haeguem.”
Ryu Jaekwan nodded. “I’m honored to work under someone so experienced.”
“Ah!” She shouted, still ear-piercingly loud. “You have to stop speaking so politely, I’ll blush!” She laughed again at her own words. “We’re only a library, please think of us as a family. Don’t be so stiff, you’ll make the books dusty.”
Ryu Jaekwan paused before speaking, momentarily befuddled by the strange idiom. What did him being polite have to do with…? He shook his head. “Okay, noona.”
She smiled widely at her, and despite her overwhelming atmosphere, Ryu Jaekwan felt his heart warm.
Maybe this was what his senior would have been like, had he joined the Bureau.
His chest went cold.
Cho Daeun plucks the last book from his arms, stacking it onto an area on the cart labelled “Class Copy.” Dusting her hands, she blew out a breath and grinned at Ryu Jaekwan once more. “Now! Want to see where you’ll be working?”
He nodded eagerly, this time thankful for her chipper energy. The eager pep in her step quickly carried them across the library.
He craned his head around as they walked, trying to take in everything, even as he nearly tripped on the furniture dotted around the place.
The library held a cozy, distinct vibe that felt a bit more intimate than the libraries from his past. The library itself was a longer commute, so he’d never seen it, but it carried the air of a community that was tight-knit on the outskirts of a big city. The warm, yellow lighting and the old, wrinkled furniture served to welcome him in much like visiting grandparents, the worn touch not shabby or sketchy, just telling of time well-spent.
The bookshelves were much the same, all with older designs he didn’t even recognize and books that crinkled to the touch. There were newer editions, of course, many books that were worn had a brand new copy next to it, but they looked untouched; it seemed the library's visitors appreciated the history in the older books.
Ryu Jaekwan passed by the nonfiction, noting many books were less worn-down and more well-treated than the youth fantasy books they’d walked past. He snorted, picturing what sorts of things kids did that led to the books being so creased and worn.
The supervisor looked back at him with an amused quirk to her lips, noting which direction he was looking.
“If you can’t tell, the kids around here are all about fantasy and the supernatural. Even the teenage girls aren’t gossiping about romance books unless it’s a subplot in a good fiction novel. But even for how much love the fantasy section gets, just wait till you see this…” she trailed off with a snicker.
Ryu Jaekwan raised an eyebrow, picking up his pace to follow her around the bend, to an isolated corner of the library.
They walked past rows and rows of adult fiction, into a special, isolated aisle.
“We had to separate it despite the way it made our organization a little jumbled. We just had too many books of the genre, and many of them were specially requested to be here, even though they’re leaning into adult territory.” She turned, waving her hand to greet him into the aisle.
He stepped inside, and her voice came behind.
“Welcome to the ‘Young’ Adult Supernatural section. Really, everything in here is pretty high level, though.”
Her words were a little foggy as she rambled on behind him; he was too caught up in the massive aisle before him.
Unlike the other aisles, two sides stacked on two sides, cut in the middle with a little alleyway, this was one absurdly spacious aisle that stretched from one end of the library to the other.
It was wide, wide enough that even without the break in the middle, the area had its own worn leather chairs and reading lamps. The sun from the window skipped just over the area, giving the aisle a dim light, yet bathing it in shadow.
It was his childhood dream. Even the Lee Jeong Bookstore, mystical as it was, wasn’t on the same level as this. This represented not only his most comfortable times spent reading books, but also something he’d never truly had—normalcy.
“Don’t get too attached so quickly!” His supervisor laughed, throwing her head back again.
Ryu Jaekwan snapped out of his reverie. He wondered if he was just feeling sentimental after a big change. He eyed the shelf, filled to the brim with books whose colors had begun to fade, and he felt the same tingle under his skin. While he forced himself to ignore it, he wondered if the feeling drawing him in was really just sentiment.
Still, as he looked back to see the ever-delighted expression on the woman’s face, he couldn’t help but have a good feeling about this place.
-
Day 2,
It’s his second day at work when he meets the superior his supervisor had briefly mentioned.
He only happened to be looking at the doors when she entered. It was just a habit, a little jolt every time a new person came in and he wondered if he’d get to interact with them. He wanted to get acclimated, so he tried his best to be friendly. It was only natural that he kept his eye on the door.
However, instead of a teen flapping their library card like it was money, or somebody trudging inside with study books clutched to themself like a ball and chain, a dramatic flap of dark brown leather announced her entrance.
She stepped in, a short click-clack following every stride, and she made each one count, traversing enormous spaces at a time despite her short legs. She didn’t linger or show off, yet her entrance drew a couple of the girls’ gazes. Though she was only dressed in a button-up, tie, and slacks, she wore them as if she’d been born for them, and when she swung her jacket over her shoulder, it was stunningly smooth.
Overall, it was actually a rather weird sight. The large town was a little way away from the bigger city Ryu Jaekwan was housed in, so this place was by no means poor, but the citizens still held that distinctly rural air. Oftentimes, he would see them going to public places in attire befitting of loungewear.
He tore his gaze away, unsure why he even made such a big deal of her entrance.
However, she quickly proved his intuitive interest correct as the sound of her heels came unmistakably closer.
He turned, disbelieving, but no, she was right there, gazing at him expectantly—as if he should already know what she needed him for.
He remembered her from the interview and couldn’t help but shiver under her harsh gaze.
“Ryu Jaekwan-ssi,” she said politely. “I’m not sure if you remember, I’m Eun Haje. I’ve got a longer, stupider title, but for brevity’s sake, I’m just a librarian.” She ran a hand through her hair and sighed, waving him off before he could speak. “I’m busy, so just let me explain.
“I know what your shift supervisor told you, and yeah, you’ll be doing that most of the time, but there’s another job I have for you. You seem like the silent but reliable type, so don’t let this get around, okay? There are enough people and children who’ll seriously think this place is haunted if this gets out.”
Ryu Jaekwan stood, holding a book awkwardly. He watched her stride past him and rushed to shove the book where it was supposed to go before chasing after her. Wasn’t Cho Daeun supposed to tell him his job? Why was a high-level superior here telling him it was different?
He jogged after her all the same, trying to maintain a professional composure even as students glanced up from study desks. Thankfully, the few other staff were too busy to notice him and Eun Haje.
She took him to the back corner, the same one his supervisor had excitedly shown him on his first day. He turned the corner, expecting the same warm sight as before, only to be met with ruin.
It was as if a bull had run through the supernatural aisle. Everything was ruined, out of place, thrown as if in a tantrum.
“Has a child done this?” He asked breathlessly, absolutely speechless that anybody could have done this. He’d come here and seen how attached everybody was to the library, and he’d thought that even if there were some bad nuts, there wouldn’t be much trouble…but this…
Eun Haje dispelled his spiraling thoughts. “Nope, not that lucky. If it were a couple of rambunctious teens, it would’ve been easy enough to solve—in fact, we’ve dealt with it before in the study section. This is something different, and I’ve had to accept long-term damage control.”
She turned to him, her jacket thrown casually around her shoulders and twirling in the air like a cape. She extended her hand, and as the little sliver of light from the large windows peeked through the aisle and crowned her figure, he couldn’t help but compare it to the moment in a film where the superhero chose his prodigy.
“I’m bestowing this job upon you: fix this shit whenever it happens, ‘Kay?”
He stared dumbfoundedly at her, shocked by her blunt language. He quickly bowed his head. “Yes, of course, that’s no problem at all.”
“Perfect!” She clapped, then seemed to wince at her own loud sound.
“Can I ask…it’s really just this aisle? And there’s nothing on camera?”
Eun Haje shook her head. “It’s not even that there’s nothing on camera; the footage simply goes static and we can’t see a thing.”
Ryu Jaekwan felt the edge of his mind tingle with that familiar feeling. He shoved it down brutally, reminding himself that this wasn’t the place. Nor his job.
“I’ll take care of it,” he forced himself to say, cutting off the endless questions he felt tempted to ask the woman.
She eyed his tight-lipped expression, clearly spotting his curiosity, but she just shrugged. Ryu Jaekwan felt his chest deflate a touch—it was foolish, but he almost hoped she’d tell him a little more without his asking.
“For what it’s worth, thank you. I never worry my full-time employees with this job, knowing the four of them, they’d absolutely lose their minds learning what’s been going on back here. I doubt you will, but take this in case you see anything that might hint towards who’s caused this,” she said, handing him a sleek, black business card. With a final look up and down at him, she walked away.
He watched her go, and she seemed to take all the light with her, the sun setting just enough that the sliver of light disappeared, leaving him alone in the disaster with the mess before him.
He sighed, surveying the damage. The shelf was half empty, the ground littered with piles as if the shelf had exploded from the inside. He tentatively picked up the first victim, flipping it over to see a quarter of its pages bent inward from the awkward position it’d been lying in.
The kids had no doubt made some of the creases on these pages, but just this first book was so bent, he wondered how long it would take for the pages to straighten out, even spending the night pressed between the other books. He thought of all the teenagers and adults coming here to read, only to see these ravaged books…his heart twinged.
His first love had been with the Bureau, the idea of saving people, but his time in Lee Jeong had been even more real than his obsession with the Bureau—while he’d grown up watching the Bureau, Lee Jeong had watched him grow up.
Gently, he straightened the pages and closed the book, setting it on one of the fuller shelves so its pages couldn’t reorient themselves for the worse.
He couldn’t bring himself to pick every book up yet, so he moved first to the chair, pushing it back up from its place sideways on the floor. He dusted it off, then turned to face the mess of books once more, feeling the looming dread.
He’d accepted it so easily, he thought sourly as he began to tackle the pile of books, but truly, this level of destruction in this big of an aisle?
If it were a normal aisle, it would take him ten minutes, but this was no small aisle. So instead, he found himself growing increasingly exasperated as the light within the library began to turn orange. He glanced behind him, where the aisle was now clean. It appeared just as it had been when he saw it for the first time yesterday, but now he felt none of the awe, the wonder, or the curiosity. Even that tingling feeling was gone, replaced by an ache in his back.
He sighed, placing one of the last books into place. Many times in his life he’d been showered with praise for his good attitude, but in the real world, it only seemed to bring him more work.
With a heaving final breath of relief, he slid the last book into place.
Finally, he was free, and the ceiling was painted red with the late evening light.
He didn’t bother checking the aisle for a final time; he simply slipped out through the end he was at and walked to the front desk, trying to disguise his exhaustion as his supervisor came into view.
She met him with an amused gaze, clearly oblivious to his struggle. “Oh, I should’ve known! It seems every time we hire someone for your position, they just get so infatuated with the aisle back there!”
Ryu Jaekwan offered her a polite smile, disturbed by just how oblivious she was. Was her boss really not telling her anything? Had she at least come up with that flimsy excuse, or was that just the librarian filling in the empty gaps herself? Much like before, he shoved his own thoughts and questions down. He simply bade her farewell, shift done for the day—with overtime, no less.
He hoped picking up that mess would get faster, because otherwise he would be walking home in the dark every day from now on.
-
Ryu Jaekwan collapsed into his small, desolate apartment bed, dressed in an old pair of pajamas covered in holes. He forced himself to flip over into a proper sleeping position, his back flat against the mattress and his hands folded over his chest. From behind his closed eyelids, he could tell he’d left the closet light on, but for once, he didn’t bother to get up and turn it off like he should. Instead, he kept his eyelids closed and let his exhaustion suck him under a wave of sleep.
It came quickly, giving him a brief moment of pre-sleep bliss, where he was perfectly warm and his blanket pulled over just right, then he was swept away and funneled into a dream.
It started how his dreams often did, the world slowly materializing around him as the dream slowly grew. In his dreamy state, it all seemed perfectly normal. Colors and objects blipped in and out of existence as if his subconscious were curating a custom room in a game.
Eventually, his imagination’s control was ripped away, and the dream-world slammed into place with shocking clarity.
He looked around, dazed. His thoughts churned until he felt his heart in his chest, and he realized.
For the first time since he was just a kid, Ryu Jaekwan was lucid dreaming.
His mind moved at the pace of molasses, but he was in control all the same. Tentatively, he stepped forward, observing the dream around him.
The carpet floors, the wood shelves, and the large window were familiar, but they were just a touch too fuzzy for his bleary dream-consciousness to recognise them. They were stolen away from him, too, as he was forced to go down an aisle, wooden walls rising around him like a prison.
This area was clearer, and he could now see the books. However, instead of standing freely like a normal bookshelf, the bookshelves along this aisle were bound by long strips of hanging talismans.
The Bureau? His foggy mind speculated so, but why? Was this a dream about him being in a disaster? A taunting fantasy of what a Bureau mission might be like? As if responding to his wishes, a smoky figure came into being beside him.
“Agent ◼️◼️◼️◼️,” the smoky figure said. “◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️”
Ryu Jaekwan nodded resolutely, following his superior's orders. He came closer with the flashlight in his hand, inspecting the talismans. After his time studying and working in Lee Jeong, he was very familiar with talismans, and he read their sigils slowly.
Arrest. Dream. Convert.
The sigils boiled down to three concepts, though he could tell the third one was more complex than he could grasp.
They repeated in a cycle, specially positioned to multiply and last. He looked down the long line of hanging talismans, running his fingers along the ones placed at the edge of the shelf.
They weren’t too old, yet the first ones were already becoming worn out. It wasn’t too shocking, as completely suppressing a disaster and directly fighting it took a lot more energy. If the Bureau had utilized one of the concepts of the disaster and subverted it to make it dormant, it would have taken much less. Then, they would have simply had to avoid too much traffic near the sealed area
He frowned. “They’re so new…”
His mind slowly formulated a theory as he trailed the long aisle, watching the talismans grow more pristine and shiny. The disaster must have settled after the library had been built, so they’d taken such an extreme strategy.
But they didn’t try to neutralize it completely?
He turned to his superior, relaying his theories.
“Yes, that much is plain enough. Good job, rookie. You’re missing a little bit, though. The disaster ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️, ◼️◼️◼️ ◼️◼️◼️ ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️”
The sounds coming from his superior were high-pitched again, ringing louder and louder the more he tried to say. Noticing him in pain, the superior stopped speaking and backed away, appearing oddly sorrowful. Suddenly, the strong front of a superior was gone, and the smoke brushed him as if in question.
Ryu Jaekwan looked up in confusion, and the smoke dispersed within an instant.
It was like nobody had ever been there to begin with.
He felt his mind swirl, doubting the memory he’d just formulated. Was the smoke ever there?
Frowning, he turned in a full circle in search of the smoke. He was alone in the aisle, but he still searched fruitlessly, trying to find any sort of hint that the smoke had been there.
A rattling sound broke his train of thought. Whipping his head around, he caught a flash of movement just as a book tumbled down from the shelf.
Its cover was a pitch-black leather, oddly nice for a library book. The familiar library laminate didn’t cover it, its bare cover and pages out for the whole world to see. Or, well, he supposed this was just a dream. He picked it up, flipping to the front. Nothing was on the cover, but when he flipped to the first page, the title was printed in red ink.
Darkness Exploration Records.
He laughed at the title. What a perfect name for a corny, probably overly gory young adult supernatural book. He flipped past the first page, running his eyes over the index.
Chapter 1: ◼️◼️◼️
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
He could make out the first word, but even the title for the first chapter was blinding, making him close his eyes. There were rows upon rows of blinding text below it, but he had to tear his eyes away before he could begin to gauge how many lines there were.
He shook his head, closing the book and moving to put it back. However, the red text on the leather cover caught his eye. That wasn’t there before?
Hello?
Goosebumps trailed down his spine, and he forced the book back into the shelf. Something tried to stop him, an invisible force pulling back desperately on the book and trying to shove it back into his hands, but he was stronger. With a snap, the force gave up, and the book snapped into place.
The talismans fluttered, and the dream world disappeared in a howl of wind.