'Trust in your dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity' - Khalil Gibran.

The shiny silver platter outside of the building was wet with the cold dew of an autumn morning still clinging to it. Orange leaves littered the ground like the carpet a noble fairy would favour, and stung stubbornly to the three stone steps leading up to the wooden door.

With a coffee in one hand and his bag pinched under his arm crookedly since he had left the car in a hurry, Hongjoong made his way through the front yard. His long strides created a dangerous path on the slippery ground beneath him. Any moment, an untimely end created by the hidden trap of wet leaves might dawn upon him.

In the early morning fog that still hustled in the trees and clung to the grey skies of November, the man challenged death to get to work only five minutes too late instead of six. Not that his boss cared much about the difference. But in his many years of arriving late because he hit snooze on his alarm just one time too often, Hongjoong had learnt that Choi Jongho was far more irritable at 7:37 than at 7:36. Most likely because Hongjoong's colleague San showed up at 7:37 most times.

With a shudder in the brisk air, Hongjoong stepped inside the building. The corridor was barely warm, saving on heating costs. Why use the heating system when the employees could just jog up the creaking stairs? Jongho always advised them to keep fit through morning workouts. Subsequently, he forced them through one with his impatience and economic ways of living.

Hongjoong wondered if their pipes were even still up to standards after so long of no use. Their work building was old. He doubted they had seen much maintenance in the past decade.

Huffing, Hongjoong arrived at his floor. They had needed long discussions and complaints for Jongho to move it from the third floor to the second. After all, their priced equipment deserved the safest place on the topmost level. Their sport-loving chef had agreed begrudgingly.

With the artificial cheerful smile of an adult arriving at work at an hour he wanted to sleep, Hongjoong pulled the door open. Mingi, their intern, looked up from the coffee machine when he entered. He was the only one who used that thing. Their grounds deliciously tasted like a demon's butt hole. (San's words, not Hongjoong's.)

"Good morning, my dearest coworkers!" Hongjoong chirped on his way in. In a gesture too grand and hysterical to derive from eight hours of sleep, he waved his coffee around.

"Morning, Hongjoong."

For a guy straight out of university, Mingi's voice was unfairly deep. It was the voice one would expect to hear from an eighty-year-old chain smoker or someone who voiced Arnold Schwarzenegger in the twelfth Terminator movie. When the lanky redhead had greeted the team on his first day on the job, they had written it off as another coworker who got out of bed super late and forgot to put on his voice before he left. But no. Mingi, the youngest in their team and the tallest - though Hongjoong liked to deny that whenever they were seated - actually spoke how Hongjoong imagined coal to sound like if it had a voice.

Not when he laughed, though. Never when he laughed.

"Here so early?" Hongjoong threw him a sympathetic smile as he marched over to the bureaus. He shared a room with San, and he was surprised to see the man's shoes kicked on the ground at the entrance carelessly as he approached. Like any sane office worker, San hated wearing his shoes all day long.

"Yes! The boss called me on a quite vivid case of a devil sighting yesterday and even if it's my late day, I couldn't resist checking it out as soon as possible!"

Poor guy. Hongjoong admired his flame of passion, still burning so brightly. But once Mingi would finish his dissertation on sleep paralysis demons, he would likely become a shoe-less office worker just like San and Hongjoong. Capitalism robbed people of their fire.

Hongjoong wished Mingi fun with his newest case study as he strode into the room. Just like San, he kicked his shoes off, not bothering to put them in order. The inappropriately pink head of hair on the other table was tipped towards his laptop screen.

"Ahoy, Cap," he greeted Hongjoong teasingly. Amused by the roleplay, Hongjoong set his bag down and shrugged his coat off. Then he turned up the heater on his side of the room. The creaking of old pipes soon filled the room as artificial heat rose to have the air under the window glimmer.

"Ahoy, matey. What are we working on today?" Hongjoong snatched his coffee as he rounded the table. As he came over, San leaned back to regard his work, satisfied. Impressed, Hongjoong nodded at the wobbly mouse-drawn flower he had created in Microsoft paint. A warm sip of coffee ran down his throat.

"Me? Case studies with Mingi. You? Nothing."

Hongjoong gestured at the middle of the flower. With the brown brush, San dotted some seeds in there. His artwork was nearly up to par with that of a three-year-old.

"Nothing? Damn, that's better than I expected. I will go straight back home then. I would hate to reschedule date night with my bed again."

San rolled his eyes in mutual understanding.

"Chief wanted to see you. What is above captain?"

"Hmm, fleet captain? Am I in trouble?"

"I don't know. He seemed pretty worked up about it. But that might have been the steam of his forty-minute morning jog." San shrugged. Next to his sunflower, he drew a little rabbit while Hongjoong went back to his side.

"That bad? I didn't get him a coffee... Do you think I have to give up mine?"

"If you leave it here, he won't see." San threw him a wink. When Hongjoong gave him finger guns, a dimpled smile sneaked on his handsome features.

"What would I do without you, wise guy?"

"Drink no coffee. Better hurry, you're the last to arrive at work today and you know how he can be."

With a quick salute at his first mate, Hongjoong strode from the office with socked feet. Further down the hallway, he rapped his fingers on the door concealing his certain doom from him. Ah no, Choi Jongho, as the nameplate read. Jongho was the only one around who saw the necessity for a nameplate.

"Come in."

Hongjoong stepped in meekly, shuffling his feet over the carpeted floor. A hand came up to brush a loose strand of hair behind his pierced ear. Not that his undercut had any hair there to begin with. Still, he hoped that the fleeting gesture of charming shyness would butter up his tyrannic boss.

"You called, your majesty?"

Behind the desk, the mountain of thick muscles and broad shoulders snorted at him. Rounded cheeks and pouty lips made for a lethal two-sidedness that would fool anyone who didn't see Jongho during their outings in summer. One time, he had slapped a feather ball so hard against San's skull with those guns that the mark had still shown four weeks after.

Everybody feared him. HQ probably feared him. San and Hongjoong had a conspiracy going on that Jongho became their boss only because of that. He was too scary to keep as an underdog.

"Sit down. You're seven minutes late."

"Only because San had to show me his paint flower, Sir. You should look at it later, it will brighten your senses," Hongjoong betrayed his friend without batting an eyelash. Grumbling, Jongho typed away on his keyboard. Likely a nagging message in the group chat. When he was done, he leaned back with a sigh. His fingers shifted through the mountain of folders by his side.

Hongjoong sat on his hands, waiting. When the yellow binder slapped down in front of him, he prided himself not to startle.

"I'll send you out to do fieldwork. To an adult, this time." Jongho's sharp gaze reminded Hongjoong of his past failed attempt at working outside of the office. Poor toddler Minah had sustained a horrible trauma of rats after they had ripped apart the man-eating block of cheese that had haunted her in her dreams. Hongjoong regarded his solution as reasonable. And Jongho did, too, or else he wouldn't send Hongjoong out again. Kind as his boss was, he had even handled the complaint from the higher-ups for Hongjoong. He had sent it back with a big fat 'she's a child' stamped on it.

Jongho could be hilarious at times. In Hongjoong's opinion, he was the coolest guy in this room. If the only guy.

"Can't wait." Hongjoong sent Jongho his fakest grin. The man just hummed as he pulled up the file on his computer so they could view it together. Hongjoong stuck his nose into the folder, too.

"Park Seonghwa, a police officer. Same age as you." Jongho flicked his finger over the mouse as he scrolled further down. A powerful finger. Fingers that broke whole watermelons with their power alone.

San and Hongjoong sometimes joked about what else those fingers could do. Those talks had died down after Mingi had overheard them once and got redder than the plastic cup in his hands.

"He has multiple sleeping disorders, including but not limited to insomnia, lucid dreaming, sleep apnoea, and rare cases of narcolepsy. Also nightmares every night."

Hongjoong hummed as he weeded through the pages. Like an old man, he licked his thumb before he turned every single one, disgusting Jongho as well as himself with it.

"You really resent me for those two continuous weeks of holiday, huh?"

When Jongho stared him down wordlessly, Hongjoong buried his nose in the folder to smell it. That weirded out his boss enough that he continued.

The pages smelled freshly printed, for anyone who cared.

"As a police officer, it is quite common to suffer frequent nightmares. He also visits a therapist for PTSD treatment."

"So young? But he's still in the force," Hongjoong muttered under his breath. He already pitied the poor guy. And himself. He had visited a crime scene investigator in a nightmare once, and the night later Hongjoong had to visit his own nightmare that derived from those sights.

"He is. It's more of an obligatory task than anything else. But you should consider that fact in your approach."

Hongjoong read through the list of the top five most common dream topics in Park's subconscious. Drowning, running, dead bodies, basements, tunnels.

Typical police officer. Hongjoong wouldn't have a single night of rest.

"Visit him tonight and see if you can work with him. If you do, I'll take you off all your other cases while you figure him out. And you get weekend bonuses," Jongho listed professionally. Hongjoong clapped in his hands, delighted. At the thought of the new upcoming Tomb Raider game, he rubbed his palms together, evil like a fly.

"That's what I wanted to hear. You know how to please a man."

"Please never word it like that again." Jongho grimaced. Hongjoong's giggles didn't change his rigid face.

When Hongjoong snatched the folder and rose from his chair, Jongho's voice reached him once more. It carried a subtle warning.

"HQ sent this case straight to my private e-mail address titled under 'Extreme Urgency'. Show your sugar side, Hongjoong."

Hongjoong shuffled out of the room with a bright smile.

"Will do, chef! Trust me!"

The sigh that replied to him was anything but trusting. Cheerfully, Hongjoong shut the door behind him.

Mingi still struggled with the restive coffee machine when Hongjoong stormed back into his office. He threw himself on his chair next to the pleasantly warm heater and squealed in joy.

"What, what, what? Did you get fired finally?" San peeked over curiously. Hongjoong eyed him meanly through his grin.

"Fiiieeeld work, baby!"

Now, San fell into a pout.

"Again? Why are you always the one, even after you messed up? Show me!"

"I'm good at my job, Sannie," Hongjoong smirked. He threw his hair back arrogantly as he handed San the folder. Basking in the glow of his fame, Hongjoong let the warm rays of the heater kiss upon his mighty skin.

"Fuck. You get a young dude. And he's a police officer? I want to visit a hottie every night too and save them from the throes of their nightmares, is that too much to ask?" Wailing, San closed the folder and slumped on his desk. His index finger drew sad little circles on the tabletop beside him.

"For you, it is."

Hongjoong snatched the folder again to cuddle it close to his chest. His precious. His payment bonus. And for what? For watching a young man strut around in his uniform all night. What fool would pass on that chance? Not Hongjoong.

San sulked. Hongjoong had the best day of his life. He even dropped by Mingi's office during his break. He let the man ramble about demons and paralysis for half an hour before he fled, but he still felt energised.

Hongjoong couldn't wait to meet Park Seonghwa. To physically enter his nightmares and to make sure that whatever source that troubled his precious sleep would perish.