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Saheon had seen many actors in his life.
Some could trick anyone with a single word. Others lied so convincingly that they eventually forgot what the truth was supposed to look like.
Made it their own reality and became unable to untangle themselves from it.
Kim Soleum was an oddity in that respect.
He was marvelous.
Brilliant, even.
He could fake madness like no one else. His eyes widened to an almost unnatural degree, his body language was all over the place, and every word that left his mouth sounded like it had been personally victimized by the concept of sanity.
He truly acted as if watching people die was fun.
But...
Saheon still remembered the train.
Couldn't not.
Kim Soleum hadn't tried to stop him from leaving.
He'd only looked at Saheon as if he'd expected him to do exactly that.
Saheon hadn't been particularly bothered. He'd had his way out, after all.
Besides, he'd only turned around to look at the other passengers' faces, to mock their naivety and stupidity.
Seeing Kim Soleum holding up that eye had been a shock.
A burst of fear.
Because Soleum hadn't even looked disappointed.
He'd only given Saheon an impassive look, as if to say, You didn't have to hurt anyone.
You could have waited.
Saheon had immediately understood what he meant.
A moment too late, admittedly, but he'd understood.
He'd had the lesson drilled into his own body in a way that left no room for misunderstanding: he'd lost an eye for nothing.
Which, to be fair, was a problem.
A very important, entirely unrelated problem.
One that had absolutely no bearing on his current assessment of Kim Soleum's character.
Just a mere inconvenience that hurt like hell.
Saheon carefully pressed against his healing eye and frowned at his eyepatch.
The whiteness of it made him shiver.
Still...
Kim Soleum wasn't insane.
Not really.
But he was behaving as if he were.
As if he had to.
As if making Saheon terrified of him was the only way to ensure his continued survival.
Which was, admittedly, a fairly effective strategy.
Saheon wasn't stupid. He wasn't exactly afraid of the man, but Soleum's voice would still give him goosebumps every once in a while.
And his footsteps would probably startle Saheon so badly he'd choke on nothing.
As if to remind him that surviving a death train meant even a sane person's morals could get a little screwed up.
It was just...
No matter how he thought about it, the whole thing was baffling.
What exactly had he done to warrant this?
He'd been fairly polite, hadn't he? Hadn't he even called him a teacher?
Shown how much he respected him for keeping his head on straight? Shown him a solution?
He tapped his leg.
Well, there had been the extra's eye. And he did feel a tiny bit remorseful about that.
But that was hardly relevant.
Everyone else was dying, too, and survival was what really mattered.
Besides, it was the man's own fault for just offering up information like that.
He'd acted before thinking, sure, and perhaps the loss of his own eye had been a reasonable consequence of his actions.
Maybe.
But he still didn't see what that had to do with Kim Soleum acting like a lunatic.
Or, for that matter, why Soleum hadn't simply explained things to him. Like he did everything else.
It wasn't as if Saheon would have necessarily harassed him afterward.
(Okay. He might have. Saheon wasn't that nice.)
But that was beside the point.
Saheon crossed his arms, lips curling into a pout.
It was not his fault Kim Soleum had been too slow to tell him about shit.
It really wasn't.