kim daeho.

"it's nice to meet you, daeho," she offers him a warm smile, eyes crinkling a little as she lets out a soft laugh. "you're right. i don't think we have gotten a chance to introduce ourselves, but it's nice to put a name to the face of a fellow third floor resident." the ends of her mouth curve up a little more, happy that next time she sees him in the hall she can give him a proper greeting without the awkward shuffling and simple, small nod of acknowledgement. "i'm danbi, by the way." she chirps a second afterwards, not wanting to forget to introduce herself. it's not the most ideal place to get to know the neighbor occupying the other end of the hall of the apartment building, but danbi is grateful to be able to spend her time chatting with someone as opposed to just wandering around on the dance floor alone.

he reaches out to the side to grab a glass to fill for her. “i mean, i can make it virgin if you don’t want to drink. you just gotta tell me.” danbi doesn’t seem like someone who’d have more fun here if she had a buzz going on top of the sensory overload, but daeho knows better than to say that to a virtual stranger, and it’s easy to drown the taste of alcohol with a sweet mixer.

“it’s been a few years. my first gig was at this little bar close to the university, there was so much foot traffic.” daeho barely remembers those first few months of his moving to ansong. it had been in the fall, five years ago now; he’d woken up one day with no idea what to do with himself, only in the knowledge that he did better working night shifts than anything too early. and that had been all there was to it: the faint idea of what to do with himself, how at home he felt in busy bars and the club. getting the job had been easy, and then a co-worker had referred him to the hiring manager at illusion. by spring the next year he’d had the job he’s still working.

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it also was easy to be like this, riding in the car alongside daeho. their destination might already be set but that didn't mean the time in between would be uneasy. it tended to stay comfortable when he was with daeho, and insu knew that if there was anyone he could just talk to and feel like he didn't have to put up too much of a front with, it would be him.

"that's fucked," he scoffs as he listens to daeho's explanation, knowing how irritating it can be to be in his situation. he was glad he could help in some way, enjoying feeling like he could at least be useful to someone. he catches movement out the corner of his eye and frowns deeply, tapping on the breaks a bit harder then necessary and shooting his arm out to brace daeho.

he huffs a 'asshole' under his breath to the driver that cut in front of them before speaking again. "they're lazy as hell, too. probably didn't even bother to come inside. like we don't have workin' elevators or something." he slides his arm to rest on the back of the passenger seat headrest and glances over to daeho with a little smirk.

"but—now you have me and melissa to keep you company. the trip isn't long, anyway." even if it would have been, insu hardly minded, regardless. riding like this was never a hardship for him, and daeho's company was always a welcome distraction no matter what.

he’d say as much, but insu doesn’t complain, and daeho is mollified quickly by the conversation. “it’s a shitty job, so i can’t really fault them. but i let them in all the time, so, yknow…” because of his working hours, daeho often accepts other’s packages. and he doesn’t mind it, but this drive halfways across the city is testing his patience a little; not because he minds the excuse to spend time with insu (and melissa) but because of the inconvenience of it all.

“yes, yes. you two are real lifesavers.” he rolls his head over against the headrest, blinks up at insu in a laughable imitation of the sort of coy flirting he often witnesses at the bar. it takes only moments before he cracks up, though - he can’t find it in himself to keep the bit going for too long. “and it’s nice to finally meet melissa. i’ve heard so much about your girl, i can’t believe you’ve been keeping us apart for all this time. worried she’d like me better than you?”

they stop on the third floor and daeho waves over his shoulder as he steps off and heads into his apartment, almost fumbling his key as he shoves it into the lock. the shower after is quick, efficient; his hair is still damp and free of product as he puts on sweatpants and a hoodie, rifles through his kitchen cabinets for a snack to bring. loaded up with his portable charger and food, he chooses slippers over more decent footwear and makes the ascent. nic’s door, as promised, is still open.

he feels dumb that he's lost his group and now he's wandering the maze alone. the warehouse they decided to build the haunted maze in also clearly has poor ventilation, enough that callum has to fan himself with no reprieve. the way daeho’s shoulders are tense, just slightly, doesn’t go unnoticed, and guilt prickles again at the edges of his consciousness. it’s easy to forget how disorienting the whole setup can be, even if they’re both supposed to be here to have fun.

callum shifts his weight to his right foot, glancing around at the dimly lit, web-strewn surroundings. shadows flicker and twist unnervingly with every strobe flash, and the scent of fake fog clings heavy in the air. he's accustomed to the stuffiness and overstimulation, but without anyone with him, it feels a little lackluster. "no," he answers daeho a little too quickly; clearing his throat and wiping his nose, he shifts his weight to his other foot this time. he's not lost — just temporarily isolated. "i mean... i got separated from my friends, so i've been waiting here for a bit to see if i could find them, but it's been awhile. i don't know if they're that severely lost or what, but i'm thinking at this point it's probably better to just meet them all at the exit."

now that he’s standing still though the decor looks pretty fake, helped along by the shock value. the spider staring them down is made of paper; the fog they’re pushing into the space serves to obscure it a little, enough so that a passing visitor might mistake it for being real enough, if spiders could grow that big in the first place. it’s a bit of a struggle to breathe, not because he isn’t getting enough air into his lungs but because the quality is just bad. but daeho’s accustomed to that: it can feel like this at the club too, especially on the themed nights where they bring out all the gadgets to promote an atmosphere. 

“so your friends got lost,” daeho says, because he can read between the lines - but he can’t help but grin around it. “and you’re the only one left.” it’s probably a bit mean to joke, but then again, callum doesn’t look too freaked out. and he had given daeho a scare, so fair’s fair; it probably evens out their karma, or whatever else is keeping balance in the universe. “i mean, are they the types to head to the exit? if they’re not huddling somewhere waiting for…,” he squints at callum’s shirt, “superman to save them that sounds like a plan.”

she glances back down at her phone for a split second, checking the time once more, seeing it's not even been five minutes since she'd last checked, before her attention is stolen altogether and she glances up to see someone standing in front of her from the other side of the bar. it's not someone she knows very well, but danbi instantly recognizes him from the apartment building, remembering that he lives on the same floor as her a little ways down the hall.

“sure, it’s nice to see you too.” he gets momentarily distracted by someone yelling somewhere further into the space, but it’s nothing that needs attention from him, so he turns back to her. “i’m daeho, i don’t think we’ve introduced ourselves?” the noise makes it a little difficult to hold a conversation, even at the bar where it’s a little more quiet; he has to raise his voice to make sure she hears him fine. but that’s just business as usual, and he’s long used to communicating here. he’s spent so many hours behind the beer dispenser anything else would be laughable.

she waves in response to his greeting, before filling a cup with ice and water. "can't complain, but i'm sure you've got a lot to say." being in customer service's bonded them in a tentative acquaintanceship, forged in the flames of consumers' irrational anger. yijung's a little chirpier than usual, a result of actually sleeping well the night before; evident by the faded creases of her pillow on her right cheek and the bit of pep in her step. she knows very well it'll disappear by the end of her shift, but daeho finds himself in a spot of luck today.

he reaches into his pocket to pull out his wallet, riffles through it to drop the appropriate amount of money on the counter: for his americano-priced drink and a tip for her. he probably makes more of those; drunk people don’t always pay that much attention to how much they’re slapping down in front of him. “no, it was okay. someone threw up over the bar but i wasn’t the one who ended up cleaning up that mess, so whatever.” it had been business as usual, really. thinking back on it now there aren’t any conversations that stick out as overly negative; once he’s gotten his sleep he’ll have forgotten about all of it.

if you could go into her apartment on any given day of the week there is one thing you will always find; a plethora of takeout and delivery menus. maybe it was nari’s inability to cook, or the sheer effort that learning how to fend for herself would take, but she always found herself falling back on the ease and convenience of food that came hot, cooked, and ready to go. though part of that could be accounted for in the fact that she did not for one moment trust herself in the kitchen. most of those menus could be found tucked away in the set of dresser drawers that were oddly being used in her living room as a television stand. digging around in said drawer she paused and held up a random menu. 

he's absolutely too tired for this.

dumb. dumb. dumb. dumb idea to agree to a maze in the dark. dumb idea to say you're going to take the lead in the group of your friends because you could navigate a burning building blindfolded. dumb idea because your friends are not trained to navigate networks of unfamiliar paths and being able to easily self-orient. dumb idea because now you're the one that's separated from the rest of your group. dumb. dumb. dumb.

(way to go, lieutenant, thought this was your full time job?)

it's not a matter of callum being lost now, no — even with the trick mirrors and smoke screens and the dimly lit halls of the re-purposed warehouse turned house of horrors — it's a matter of he is very much separated from his group, and therefore, everyone else must is lost and likely very far behind. at this point, everyone has probably been scattered.

after ten or so minutes of trying three different paths he'd committed to memory with no avail, he decides to wait. not something a firefighter would actually be trained to do in an active fire, but aside from trying to increase his chances of encountering someone from his group staying still, the cheap polyester from his costume nic had spent days convincing him of was becoming all but comfortable under his slacks and dress shirt. again, unnecessary layers — another thing he was not trained to wear. he was never letting him talk him into wearing a costume ever again.

now fifteen minutes into losing his group and growing antsy from wanting to leave, callum decides to wander a few more turns. he makes a deal with himself that if he doesn't run into any friends in the next five minutes that he'd find his way out alone.

suddenly there's immediate impact against another body around a dark turn that catches callum off guard and stammers backwards. "shit, sorry — my bad," he recoils almost immediately from the brute force and reaches out forward to the outline of the figure almost to help stabilize their own posture. he puts a hand on the silhouette when he sees the outline of a man, offering a quick "you good?" before the face registers. "oh, damn, daeho. sorry, man. i shouldn't have taken the corner so sharp."

it had started when a few of his coworkers from illusion had pitched the idea of a group outing at the carnival. all of them like to celebrate, the dark at night, most enjoy the season as a whole. they’d had food, a drink or two. one of the girls had brought a flask filled with homemade spiced whiskey they’d shared, not enough of it to go around for anyone to get more than buzzed but definitely enough for daeho to have a good time.

and then there’d been the dare. daeho doesn’t get creeped out easily - he watches bad horror movies for fun sometimes, in the dark in bed - but the friend he’d been with had, turning around after the second corner to hurry back towards the exit. daeho could’ve gone with him, but the maze is well-decorated. he likes exploration. and, more importantly: he’d wasted money on this he’s not willing to throw out the window this easily.

so he spends the next few minutes poking at props, laughing when he hears screams in the distance and trying not to scare himself into startling. it is, admittedly, less easy when you’re in the middle of it all and know you’re by yourself. after the third zombie jumping out at him he takes a moment to gather himself, leans against the wall and stares at the huge spider head hanging down opposite him. if he were a head taller, he could probably get his hair tangled up in the fake webbing.

maybe it’s because he’s engrossed in looking or maybe because the soft padding they’ve put on the ground muffles sound so well, but daeho jumps when someone walks right into him, a bit wide-eyed as he turns towards the guy - and realises it’s just callum, who’s reaching out to steady him. “dude, you scared me. what the hell, i thought there was nobody in this section.”

the nightclub is filled to the brim - the ground vibrating from the pulsating beats, different colored lights shifting all over the dancefloor as the weekend crowd begins to pile in and the dj works on spinning the hottest tracks. everyone seems to be mingling with one another, laughing and shouting over the music, swaying in small groups to the music. but danbi looks a little out of place among them - dressed in clothes she's not necessarily comfortable with, wearing shoes a little too high and clunky for her liking, and holding two drinks in her hands that are not her own.

she blinks, feeling a little disoriented with how she's gotten herself into this situation. after all, when the other girls working the customer service desk at fresh fields kept raving about how fun it would be for them to spend time together outside of work . . . well, she didn't think that would be at a club. and she didn't think that they would have handed their drinks off to her the second a group approached them to dance, calling over their shoulders for her to watch them. but danbi didn't want to be a wet blanket, and she didn't want to deter the others from having fun, so she simply nodded and flashed them a smile as they disappeared into the crowd.

"oh, i'm sorry," she says instinctively when someone bumps into her on their way to the dance floor, them looking at her a little oddly as she just stands there at the entrance of it. she takes a step back, nearly knocking into someone else in the process. "oh, sorry!" she's quick to apologize again, turning and deciding it's probably best for her to get out of the way. her orbs scan the club for a safe space to stand before settling on the bar up ahead, the corner of it unoccupied and with little traffic.

when he spots the new girl it’s immediately obvious she isn’t in her element. daeho’s seen her around lately - carrying her groceries up the stairs and the trash down, making herself at home down the hallway. he doesn’t know her name yet, but she seems a little skittish. or perhaps she’s like daeho, who likes to keep to himself, not out of a lack of confidence but because of antisocial tendencies.

for a moment, he keeps busy. slides the shots over the counter that some college student had ordered, tops vodka with coke. but then there’s a lull and he’s free to take pity on her - so he does, turning towards the corner she’s perched in.

“hey, we know each other, right?” daeho knows he isn’t mistaken - he’s good with faces - but if she’d rather stay a stranger he’ll give her the easy out. nothing worse than someone insisting on engaging you in small talk when you’re not in the mood for it, and she looks so uncomfortable in their surroundings that daeho’s willing to bet she’s thinking about her couch, or whatever else she’d like to get up to at home. he can’t blame her: within the hour he’s going to start looking forward to his apartment, too.

"some people are masochists too," nic quips, blowing a puff of smoke up into the air to linger behind them as their pace stays steady. "i think i'd rather drink bleach than wake up this early."

they’re so close to home that daeho takes another long drag from his cancer stick. he doesn’t like bringing it inside and the way the smell sticks to absolutely everything, so he’d rather ash the remains when they enter. “i’d love to see you try, nic. for real. you gonna put up a fight this time?” his grin is a little sharp, but he means well. bumps his shoulder into nic’s, too, for good measure. “you can have whatever you want, once you’re high it’s over anyway.”

“you know, some people get up around this time.” bakers, probably. people who work really early shifts with shitty commutes. arguably, it *is* early for a night out, and for daeho to be back on a saturday. he considers it: his bed is tempting, but it’s unlikely he’d manage to sleep now anyway. and nic’s been making for good company. also - free weed is free weed.