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Baek Saheon entered the bus, tapping his concession card against the reader as he did.
Today, he had a meeting with Kim Soleum for an exchange of information for items, and that bastard had planned for this meeting to be right after work, causing Baek Saheon to have to rush out of work, barely having time to change out of his dirty work clothes and look presentable to the general public. It had to be on purpose. There was no way it wasn’t. The bastard also knew Daydream’s work hours.
Panting, he took in the bus’s interior, his eye scanning for any free seats — he needed to rest after having ran to catch this bus, barely getting to it in time before it departed.
Taken... Taken... Taken...
There!
There was a seat at the very back of the bus, the only one that was empty. It was weird that no one else took it, despite how packed the bus was, but Baek Saheon wasn’t going to question it. A seat was a seat.
He quickly pushed his way over to it, collapsing onto it as soon as he reached it.
Phew. He huffed as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand and pulled at his shirt with the other to fan his body. The early spring air had not helped cool him off one bit.
The lady seated beside him eyed him with an oddly pitying look, and Baek Saheon could not figure out why, so he sought to ignore her instead, turning the other way to look out the windows of the seats across him.
Cherry blossom trees lined the road, a scenery that marks the beginning of spring. It painted the surroundings a pretty pale pink, a sight Baek Saheon couldn’t get sick of no matter how hard he tried, having been deprived of it in his childhood — his hometown hadn’t had any cherry blossom trees, the only colourful tree being the one ginkgo tree that grew in his neighbour’s garden.
Distracted by the view he was, he didn’t notice the bus having driven a few stops and picked up a lady who was now standing beside him.
“Ahem, that’s my seat, boy.”
Baek Saheon startled — when did she get here? — and turned to look at her.
Immediately, he was struck by her long luscious platinum blonde hair. It flowed past her waist and hips, even when tied up in a braid. And the shine — oh god, it was unreal. A ray of the fading sun hit it through the window, and it almost blinded him. He wondered if he had somehow wandered into a hair shampoo commercial.
“Meow.” A grey tabby cat spoke up on her shoulders after he had stayed silent for too long, too stunned by her gorgeous hair.
Wait. A cat? She had brought a cat onto the bus? Was this even allowed???
Baek Saheon was confused, but there was still a woman he had to rebuff, so he quickly shook himself out of his stupefied state.
“Um, this is the bus, ahjumma.” He sneered at her. Who cared if she had gorgeous hair or a cat that probably wasn’t allowed to be here. He had sat in this seat first and had no obligation to give it up to her. “All the seats here are for public use. How could it be your seat?”
The other passengers on the bus turned to look at him in shock, as if they couldn’t believe he had just said that to her. “What are you all staring at? If you want to give her your seat, then be my guest.” He spat at them.
They quickly turned away from him after that, eyes looking at anything but him.
“A rude boy, aren’t you?” She sounded displeased, and the cat stared down at him with a strangely intelligent look. It reminded him of the little black cat that bastard had disguised himself as in that infected mermaid world, and he found himself creeped out, just a bit.
His hands twitched, wanting to reach up to his eyepatch before he stopped himself. There was no way this cat was that maniac. Kim Soleum had texted him earlier that he was already at the room cafe and sent him the room number. Baek Saheon didn’t understand why he was so early for, reaching almost a whole hour before their meeting time.
“Well, your name isn’t engraved on this seat, isn’t it? What right do you have to ask me to give it up to you?” He spread out further on the seat. “Why don’t you ask all these other people for their seats instead?”
She was frowning now, eyebrows scrunched together and veins bulging out at her temples.
“Ha!” She let out a dry and humorless laugh before saying something in a language he couldn’t comprehend. It sounded like she was gargling water, whistling, and singing all at once. Baek Saheon recoiled away from her.
What the fuck.
Was she crazy?
Had he bumped into a lunatic while traveling to meet one?
Baek Saheon stared at her with bewildered eyes as she continued… speaking.
The weird speech from her lasted for a few seconds before she stopped and smiled down at him, pleased. “I hope you learn your lesson soon.”
Then she walked away, her cat hissing at him as she walked down the aisle and alighted at the next stop.
Looking at her figure through the window, Baek Saheon swore that her hair was longer now, the platinum colour popping out against the dull bus stop with its vibrancy and the strands that were stirred up from the bus passing by looked straight out of a L'Oréal advertisement.
The lady seated next to him patted his shoulders with an oddly sympathetic look in her eyes. “Good luck, young man.”
Baek Saheon looked at her with a confused expression before turning to look out the window once again.
What a bunch of weirdos.
A few more stops passed, and Baek Saheon was getting closer and closer to his stop.
That was when he felt it, a soft ticklish sensation on his neck.
At first, he ignored it, thinking that it was just his shirt collar irritating his skin. But then, it got worse, the feeling traveling down from his neck to his shoulders and back. Irritated, he swiped a hand across his neck, scratching and trying to relieve the itch. But when he withdrew his hand from his neck, the sight had him reeling.
Clumps of hair stuck to his hand, and not just any hair — it was his hair.
What?!
Hurriedly, he pulled out his phone and turned the camera towards his head.
Where messy brown hair had once been was now a stretch of smooth shiny skin.
He stared at the image projected on the screen, desperately hoping that he was just hallucinating, that his hair was still there.
With a trembling hand, he reached up and ran his fingers over it. Cold solid skin met his touch. He wasn’t hallucinating. It was real.
Baek Saheon almost screamed.
How did he lose all his hair so fast?!
His mind raced. How was this possible? Had he touched something in the Darkness he had been in earlier in the day? What could have caused this?
Then, he remembered. That weird lady from earlier. The one who had chanted that weird thing at him. Could it be her?
He shot to his feet, wanting to chase after her before realising that she was far behind now, the bus having traveled a long distance from her by now.
He dropped back onto the seat and held his head in his hands.
Fuck.
FUCK!
His hair. His precious hair. It was all gone now and he didn’t know if it would grow back. He hoped it does. He didn’t want to be known as the bald Team F rookie.
Turning his gaze to the people on the bus, he wondered, why hadn’t any of them seemed shocked by someone losing their hair right before their eyes. But they were all avoiding his eyes, staring at the outside, their phones, or even their hands, just to avoid looking at him.
And then, he heard it, the soft laughter from the front of the bus. A group of young schoolboys were laughing at him — fingers pointing at him and speaking to each other in hushed tones, occasionally letting out a burst of laughter.
…
They all knew, didn’t they? Who that woman was. What she could do.
Baek Saheon felt the urge to scream again, this time with rage instead of horror.
Why did none of them tell him?!
He wanted to reach out for one of the people on the bus and shake the answers out of them. But just then, the bus reached his stop, the soft voice over the intercom announcing its arrival.
For a moment, he battled with himself, one half of him wanted to get answers for the situation he was in, while the other half wanted to go and meet with Kim Soleum.
Eventually, one side won the internal debate. Who knew if he had missed this meeting, would that bastard still agree to meet with him. And he could always get a wig to cover this up, being bald wasn’t the end of the world.
So, he swallowed his anger, let it simmer inside him, and alighted from the bus.
Off the bus, he hunched into himself, trying to make himself seem smaller than he was, trying to blend into the background and escape the notice of the bustling streets as he walked as fast as he could to the room cafe Kim Soleum was in.
Reaching it, he hurriedly pushed the door open and rushed to the room where Kim Soleum was, practically slamming the door open as he did.
Kim Soleum looked up at the noise, then his eyes widened, just marginally, but enough to let Baek Saheon know he was surprised.
“You…” Kim Soleum trailed off, seemingly rendered speechless at last, by something Baek Saheon hadn’t meant to happen, didn’t plan for. He wasn’t even trying this time, and he hated that.
“... Ignore it, please, Supervisor.”