Mouse - Rewind

Chapter 6

When Ba Reum woke up to the sound of his alarm clock, he groans a bit realising that he has to go to his old job again. The week went by so quickly and he barely felt rooted in his old life. He shook his head, still feeling tired.

The excitement had made it hard for him to fall asleep and the fact that he would have to do go to work once again gave him some stress. This time around, he did care more about the people involved and not just the way they perceived him.

He took a shower and opened his wardrobe, his old uniform hanging cleanly in there. He quickly put it on, glad that the fit was still good, even though he had lost some weight since then, but it wasn't really noticeable with the cut of the suit.

He looked at himself in the mirror and realised that one of the biggest differences was the dour look on his face. He practiced smiling in the mirror, feeling fake, but it was best not to change to quickly, or people were going to raise questions. He still looked different than before, his haircut made a big change.

He put on his cap, smiled at himself one last time and once he was happy with his look he took a deep breath in and left his home.

It was time to face the music.

Arriving at his work felt familiar and strange at the same time. He got the usual greetings from the same people he had worked before. He hadn't seen them since his brain operation and it felt a bit unsettling to be here as if nothing had happened, but he was a good actor none the less.

"Ba Reum, you're back. Had a nice vacation?" his colleague asked and he just smiled.

"I had something urgent that came up. Anything exciting happened while I was away?" he asked the man, trying to blend in in this time line.

"Well, not that much. We got a mysterious car accident a few days ago. We got the driver arrested."

"Weird, how so?" he asked curious.

"Well, someone called in an accident at the abandoned factory, you know, at the outskirts of our district. We all thought it was a prank call because that site is abandoned, but we still needed to check it out. When we got there, there was a car that hit a homeless guy who lived there."

"Well, it doesn't sound too weird yet." Ba Reum said, pretending to not know what this was all about. It had been an impulsive decision on his part and he was happy to find out what had happened to the OZ that followed him there.

"Yeah, but the driver just said that he had been knocked out by someone, and the homeless guy claims that the driver wanted to kidnap him." Ba Reum rose his eyebrows, amazed at how well it had turned out for him. This way no one would ever suspect him and the OZ guy would probably be too afraid to rat him out, especially because they had no proof. Ba Reum had made sure to destroy all the pictures on that man's camera.

"And what happens now?"

"It's out of our hands. All the evidence was sent to the prosecution office, but I guess the driver will go to jail. There were some weird things found in his car."

Ba Reum nodded. Another one of OZ taken care off.

"Well, I guess the judge will decide over that." Ba Reum said taking a seat and logging in his computer, still remembering the old password he had used.

"Oh, Ba Reum, you're back." Another colleague said while passing his desk, "you got a haircut."

Ba Reum rubbed his head self-consciously, glad that the scar was hidden in the hairline, otherwise he would have had something else to explain.