Chapter Text
The day had been how it usually is, sending his niece to daycare and then going to work and did all those mountain-like paperwork, had lunch while picking up his niece, ask the neighbors kind grandma to look for his niece in exchange with some food and then goes back to work, getting scolded by Min Ah for working overnight and then go home. Yeah, the usual.
So why is it that his previous body is currently sipping a tea and reading a story book for his niece?
"The knight defeated the last monster in that forest and then-"
"Ah. Ahjuusi!" The little girl exclaim as he jumped off the couch and run up to him, Roksu instinctively crouched down and extended his hands.
"Welcome home!" The little girl said as she embrace her uncle, Roksu smile and kiss her forehead before replying with a small "i'm home"
"Also, why is that man here? You didn't just let a stranger come inside our house uninvited now are you, darling?" Roksu asked as he eyed Cale who's looking at him with a small frown which he interpret as his cringe expression, and once Cale notice him looking at his way his expression change to his usual stoic expression. Really. That guy is really good at playing with his facial expression.
"Ah- is he not your friend? He said, he's your friend. And he had some business around here so he decided to visit. I asked about you to him, and he knew the answer so i didn't really doubt him.." his niece explained as she let go of her embrace and step back a bit.
"..well he..technically is..my friend.. i guess." He then look back at his niece and pat her head
"Why don't you go to your room now? It's late." His niece nodded at that and just go to her room. Roksu sighs heavily as he makes his way to the couch across the redhead, he let out a sighs again and looked at the redhead with a serious look.
"Why are you here?"
"..calm that furrows eyebrows first, it's not like the world is going to end just because i came here." Cale replied cheekily with a small grin as he sipped on his tea, and then he put it down on the table.
"..well the last time i saw you, you were a mess, and dimensions traveling is not exactly a good sign you know.." Cale snorted at that and wave his hand in the air dismissively.
"I'm not the Choi's, Roksu. I'm here to rest actually. Pretty amazing reason isn't it?" He said nonchalantly, which made one of Roksu eyebrow raised. The redhead that seem to always like getting in trouble wherever he went (he knew from Jungsoo and at the first meeting, the bloodied uniform gives a hint) is crossing to another world to rest. Really?
"..well i'll just ignore that for now, why do you looked a lot older than the last time we met? I'm pretty sure it was just a year ago.." he asked, Cale henituse had a youthful appearance, but he looks older than what he remembered, so according to his memories of his past self that face is about 28 years old.
Cale smiled at him, though almost too holy to his liking. Roksu remembered someone from Cale's world that always had that kind of smile.. The crown prince. It's unsettling to see his past body smiling like that, as he had never smiled like that when he's still Cale Henituse.
"I'm 28, not that old. Though i'm quiet surprised that you didn't know about this"
"About what?"
"About how our world timenline is going faster than the other worlds. Our world is a regressed world after all, it's not supposed to be like that so the world was trying to match the other worlds timeline. If that's not too confusing." He pick up his tea again, and took a sip.
"...what a massive information dump, Cale." He shook his head in disbelief, he didn't think of that kind of possibility before as he was too focused on adapting to the new world and his niece aka his mom.
The man who just dumped something that important in question just shrugged, as if it's not an important information at all.
"..i planned on staying in this world for a while.. since there's no real Kim Roksu here, it is easy for me to come here. So what's more better than going to your house right? I don't really have this world currency after all." Cale just said with that hold looking smile, Roksu sighs heavily. Roksu first impressions about this person was honestly very good, Cale seem like a person that anyone could trust to have their back, and he's good at adapting aswell considering that he already accepted the Henituse as his family only after 2 years. But noo, this person is too unpredictable for him, and a bit of a bastard for trying to rent in his house with a fuckin smile. A fake smile at that.
"I don't mind you staying, just go ahead. there's still one room unused. the pattern of the house is still the same as when you were Kim Roksu so you'll know right?"
"My.. our dear team leader Roksu really is generous"
Kim Roksu looked at him with a cringed look, it's not like the title bothers him..it's the way the redhead said it that's kind of irritated him.
Kim Roksu sighs heavily before walking away to head to his room, leaving the redhead who is still wearing his holy smile in the living room. Let's say he believe the redhead "going to another worlds just to rest" reason, and just went to bed without more complicated thoughts about it.
"Good night, team leader!" ..Roksu can faintly heard that as he close the door to his room.
"..Cale?"
The redhead turned around to looked at him, the corner of his lips slowly turns up creating a small smile.
"You're up early, Roksu. Why?"
Frowning, "that's supposed to be my question, why are you up this early?" He walked over to where the redhead is standing,
"..it's been so long since I've seen the sky from a different environment so i thought i could stay up a bit late. I really liked how this lawn looked lively now though, you really took good care of this place"
Roksoo raised an eyebrow at that, somehow the way Cale said that first sentence is a bit..off. And it is true that ever since he came to this world he had been managing this lawn, especially when his niece came into the picture. The lawn had looked so dead back then, he figured that Cale used to took care of the lawn before too since there's a lot of tools for it on the storage room, but someday he stopped completely and just abandoned the lawn, leaving it looking dead.
"..i stopped taking care of the lawn when i became the team leader by the way, if you're wondering. You should've know the reason."
..ah. the previous team death. Roksoo remembered how his team always looked worried when he worked overnight, and how they nagged at him non stop after they started getting close to him. Cale is drowning himself with worked to cope up with their deaths.
"By the way Roksoo"
Roksoo glance at his side, looking at the redhead who's looking at him with a playful smile.
"I planned to work in your company, i want to be in your team. Can you arrange it for me?"
Now, what the fuck? Didn't Cale said he wanted to rest? And he said his dream was to be a slacker the last time they saw each other. He should've know that by becoming his team, no– by joining the company literally means fighting all the time.
"..you said you planned to rest"
"Yeah. And help you a bit as a payment for staying in your house"
"I'm seriously starting to question your dream, Cale."
"I just don't like being in debt, that's all. Having debt is no good for a slacker"
Roksoo sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, even though he can see the logic in his reason, it still doesn't really make sense. Roksoo didn't mind doing just as he asked though, it's not that hard to do and from what he knew, Cale had already killed the white star so this is just some kind of compensation for that.
"..but what about your ability? I know you had ancient power but how would you tell them about it?"
Cale shrugged at that, and Roksoo frowned. This guy is unpredictable. And even though he own this guy many, that doesn't stop him from getting pissed off by his nonchalant attitude.
"..well the important thing is that i still had the ability from this world, so it'll be easy to fooled the inspect ability"
"But record is supposed to be my ability"
Cale looked at him with a frown, no– rather it was like a look of disbelief, or disappointment– Roksoo can't tell, though he can tell that expression is very disrespectful.
"Does a person with throughout ability had already been born? The inspect that i knew can only tell if the person had an ability or not, not– see what kind of ability a person had" Roksoo mouth formed an 'o' shape at that, looks like he never really looked into the recruitment team in this last 2 almost 3 years. Cale sighed, and smile at him. A smile that somehow made Roksoo smile as well, subconsciously so.
It somehow went well. Roksu kind of expected it but still. seeing the report written about Cale data is a bit– how should he say it? Unexpected?
"..third grade ability, 'nature holders' huh? It does have a weird name, if people didn't really know what nature is they will just think this is an ability suited for a farmers to grow plants."
He heard Min ah chuckling at his statement as she put down another load of reports on his table, in which Roksu didn't wanted to look. So he just kept reading Cale's written biodata.
"..i'm a bit surprised when i read that he wanted to join our team, and even more surprised after reading his reason" Min ah told him, making him skips all the short details and went straight on the interview result, he snorted after reading it.
'I wanted to be in my friends team, Roksu is my friend so why not? Wouldn't i be suitable for a reckless team like them?'
Hah! That disrespectful guy really. He seriously can only shook his head at Cale's antics that he started to wonder how the others back in nameless world able to handle him, though thinking about it.. they probably can't as well, and just had to keep up with him.
"I wanted to see his ability in action, moreover– the recruitment team said that his backlash only made him hungry. surely someone who claimed to be your friend would be as crazy as you, right team leader?"
Roksu rolled his eyes at her words, only made him hungry? He probably had a worse backlash than that because Cale's plate is very fragile from what he remembered when he used that body. But he didn't reach that stage since he said he will only using very little of his power for demonstration
"..sure, he will be placed in our team anyway. We'll see it one way or another. And i'm not crazy Min ah, mind you."
Kim Min Ah cackled at his words as that's not how their whole team see it anyway, but she just let him think it that way and just get out of his office.
Cale Henituse, grade 3 ability user. An ability user were graded from 1-10, with 1 being the highest. Though it is still just from the ability only, if the user control is greater than that, even the lowest grade would be on par with the highest. Just like one of the former vanguard team 1 from Roksu company, Cho Jung Soo. It is said that his ability grade is 10, but with his family sword techniques and his great control of the abilty, he became one of the greatest ability user when he's still alive along with the former team leader Lee Soo Hyuk.
Record in itself was regarded as a useless ability before the user made his name known throughout his battle strategy, and such when the society decided to grade these ability a couple years ago. Record got first grade automatically.
Though with how Cale act with Roksu this far, it seems like the dude didn't really like getting too much attention, seeing how he barely get out of the house at day to avoid the neighbors eyes as his fiery colored hair attracted a lot of attention. This though, is where the irony came. As the redhair seemed to attract attention subconsciously all the time. Like how his ability got the third grade. He might have to deal with a lot more sassy than usual cat when he got home today.
True to his thoughts, when he arrived at home and greeted his niece, this is what she said:
"Uncle! Cale is sulking, do you know why?"