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The door opens. He slips inside and sees a pleasantly decorated room with sunlight softly coming in through the window. A man whose eyes seem too old for his youthful-face stares at him from his chair, a cup of tea in his hand.
“Agent.” Director Ho greets flatly.
“Director Ho.”
“I warn you that if you want to receive counseling, it likely won’t give the results you expected.”
Choi laughs at that, stepping boldly across the carpet and lazily dropping onto the couch. He finds satisfaction at the annoyed twitch in the director’s eyebrow, however petty it may be.
“Never believed much in therapy. There’s nothing a good old nap can’t solve.”
“Yes,” Director Ho smiles brightly, gesturing at the Agent whose manic eyes match his, deprived of sleep and rest for a lifetime. “I can clearly see the results of that.”
Choi snorts, adjusting his feet. Director Ho sets down his cup, the glass making a soft clink in the room. The birds' song from outside starts to quiet.
Director Ho sighs. “So you must be here to regard something about Kim Soleum.”
“Haha, what gave it away?”
“It is the only thing you could possibly talk to me about.”
“Is it now~?” Agent Choi smiles wide, adjusting again in his seat. “It’s just common sense for a sunbae to care about his hubae.”
“I’m sure.” Director Ho smiles brightly. “He must’ve felt the care deeply while inside that glass marble you stowed him away in.”
A scratch against the carpet. Director Ho looks down at where Choi’s foot had staggered, oddly stilted like he was about to get up. His smile is frozen in place, but his eyes are alight with rage.
Good. Let him rage. There’s nothing more satisfying to him than making these Agents suffer even just a fraction of what he has.
Still, he graciously lets the poor manners slide. There are no weapons on Agent Choi’s person. He clearly came here needing something, baring his neck for Director Ho to bite.
After years of starvation, fear, and endless, endless fury at something he cannot name, he takes small joy in playing with his food.
“Yes, well.” Choi’s voice is pitched a bit too high. “He came back. And he won’t leave again.”
Desperation is written on those eyes, barely concealed by a masked air of casualness.
Director Ho knows the look. Knows it all too well.
“You come here to me for Kim Soleum. I have no power over him, you know that.”
“But you care for him.” Choi says. It sounds more like a demand than a plea.
The director smiles wryly. “I would not be a good counselor if I did not.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Agent Choi stands up, stepping closer. The director stares at him from his seat. The light from the window lands on his scar. Something ugly and jagged. He does not care enough about this man to ask.
“You care about Soleum–about your patients.” Agent Choi says. “That is the only thing I can trust about you.”
A trickle of cold sweat rolls down the back of the Agent’s neck as he gets closer. Director Ho stares at it idly, already forming an idea of what the person in front of him is requesting.
It is disgustingly in character for a Bureau agent.
A person who says they stand for saving all citizens, yet regard human lives like rotten food on a platter.
The person in front of him is giving up everything to save one person. The look in his eyes is crazed, desperate, and resigned. He looks like a man ready to give up everything he has fought for to save one person.
It is selfishness wrapped all up in a shell of a man, acting as though that blue jacket and scar can cover it up and make it seem noble.
“Name your price.” Agent Choi says with a smile, acting like his hands aren't so faintly trembling.
Director Ho smiles.
“I doubt you have anything to offer that I want.”
Still, he knows from the way the Agent’s smile brightens that if he was the person to give up that easily, he would not be standing here today.
The door to the fox counsel room slowly closes.
It is going to be a long few hours.