Title: Nobility and Time

Summary: Somewhere, a clock strikes twelve and Bak Chan grieves. However, he must know that even though his parents are no longer there, someone always will be. /Bak and Komui-centric/

Rated: K+

Author's Note: There's never enough Bak love. Let's all get together and give Bak Chan some love. What do you all think? Here's my challenge to you: write about Bak Chan. Let's make him loved. Read this, then GO DO THAT.

Disclaimer: I do not own DGM.

...

"Been working for the church while your family dies."

-'Intervention' by the Arcade Fire

...

Somewhere, a clock struck twelve.

"Your parents were good people, Bak." He had heard this story before. "They lost their lives in the most noble of ways." Bak already knew this person's entire speech before they had even stared. "Their loss of life was a necessary loss. It was for the good of humanity."

He thanks this nameless, faceless worker of the Order from a branch he had never heard of before and walks away. Would no one leave him alone?

Once when he was a child, Bak had gotten lost in the Asian Branch. Old and large, it had been a never-ending maze for him, and that time he had not been able to find the answer to it. It seemed smaller now. Yes, it was big. Yes, it was frightening at times. But now, however, it was an achievable labyrinth. Everything seemed smaller, now.

"Everyone is very sorry," says an exorcist whom he has never met. "Edgar and Twi were brilliant and will be missed."

Bak was not very surprised when only four exorcists came. Why would they come? The Asian branch was full of shame. To take the lives of lost exorcists and to implant them within new bodies; false disciples. If he were an exorcist and knew that was the fate that awaited him, he would not have come to the funeral of the two scientists that were working on the project. To die in a terrible way, be forced into an unknown body and then thrust into a wave of insanity... That was a fate far worse than death.

"A noble loss, sonny." An old man tells him. Bak ponders what the definition of noble really was.

Bak had always wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He had always wanted to be a scientist, and from a young age he had shown a knack for it. The Order had been his home, always. He had known nothing else, but he had wanted nothing else. He could count the number of times he had been outside a facility of the Order on two hands in all of his years. He hated the outside.

Inside the Order he was the energetic son of Edgar and Twi, he was the one who would some day inherit leadership of the influential Asia Branch, he was the one who everyone had faith in. Inside the Order, he was loved and people had faith in him.

Outside of the Order he was an outsider, he was the one who somehow had blonde hair and Asian eyes, he was the one whose parents had committed something taboo. Outside the Order, he was feared.

Still, he hadn't minded; he had never minded. The Order was all that he had ever needed to keep him happy. But as he had seen his parents' bodies burned until there was nothing left, he was unsure. Of course, there was nothing for him outside of those heavy stonewalls, but for the first time he questioned whether or not there was anything within them for him, either.

Only one of the hotshots from Central had come to the funeral for his parents and everyone else who died at the hands of their sick experiment. It seemed like Central blamed the scientists that had been commissioned by them to do their dirty work. It seemed like Central wanted to forget about the entire thing and pretend that it never happened.

"It's a shame," the hotshot tells Bak. Bak doesn't even care about knowing this man's name. Nothing mattered to him at the moment. "A damn shame. They could have gotten so much more done, helped us so much more. If only that experiment hadn't gone haywire. It was insane, I know that, but if they had just found a way to stop it then-"

"Shut up." It is one thing to express regret; it is another thing to blame the dead for what they could not control. "Do not disrespect my parents at their-"

"Come with me." Suddenly he was being dragged away from this man; Bak couldn't even see who was doing it. Tears blocked his vision.

The two of them kept walking. Neither talked. Bak was lost in his own mind and the other didn't seem to have anything to say, at least, for the moment. But Bak let himself be dragged away; what good was there in resisting? At least he would be away from the crowd and their unintentionally cruel words.

"Here we are," says the person who dragged Bak. They were in a stone hallway near a waterfall. It was quiet. "My name is Komui, by the way. Komui Lee. I'm new to the Order; I work in the European Branch. My sister is an exorcist. She's still at there, but she can fend for herself, I think."

"You came a long way to go to the funeral of some people whom you've never met."

"I may have never met them, but I respected them." Komui sits down on a ledge and smiles. Bak just stares at him, wondering why he was doing this. "I'm a scientist, too. Their work is amazing; it has saved many lives. Maybe someday it will save my little sister's life, or my life. Maybe it will save your life, too." The man fiddles with his beret. "Or the world. Science is what will help us most, I think. The exorcists have the power, but if they have nothing to back it up, then all of that power is useless."

"What are you getting at here?" Bak asks, looking down at the ground, unable to make eye contact with this man. Or anyone else, lately, at least.

Though Bak isn't watching, Komui smiles. "I want to save lives. That's why I'm at the Order; that's why I let my sister go off and do such dangerous things, knowing that any day she could not return. I think, deep down, that's why most people are at the Order. At times it can seem like an unfeeling bureaucracy, but saving the world is what we do. Maybe, as a coping mechanism, people seem cold and unkind. But every day they have to deal with the fact that their comrades won't return. That exorcists will be killed, that the Earl will win battles and that people who they know and love will never come back to smile at them again. And the worst part of that is knowing that, sometimes, it is their fault that the people they love are gone."

Bak doesn't speak. This guy has no idea what he's talking about. His parents were killed because of the Order, because of their selfishness. Yes, maybe they were trying to save lives, but interfering in the work of God would never help anyone. These artificial lives were wrong and his parents had paid the price for it. The massacre of the staff of the Asia Branch could have been avoided, he knew that. It was unfair and sad.

"Did your parents want to save lives?"

Bak looks up at Komui for the first time.

"I'm sure that they did. From what I hear, you do, too."

Somewhere, a clock strikes one.

"Time is limited. In this business..." Komui chuckles softly at how horrible that word sounded in reference to the saving of lives. "Time is more limited in any other. We have a job to do. Do you believe in fate? You're a scientist, so maybe not. Even so, can it be said that we were chosen for this? Out of anyone else on this planet, the people at the Order are here for a reason. And time is limited. The sooner this war is over, the sooner people will stop dying. People who were sacrificed -like your parents- should not die in vain, don't you think? They would want people to keep going on, to live their lives to the fullest and do what they can to try to stop the war that they lost to. Your parents were people, weren't they? They could be the best scientists who ever lived, but they were people, first. They had emotions and loved and did some things right and some things wrong. You, of all people, should know that. And thinking back to how your parents were, would they have wanted you to give up your dreams and leave just because they're gone? I doubt it. But you can give up and leave, like the rumors say you're thinking of, or you can keep going. It's your choice; it's the choice that all of us have to make when we are troubled. But what are you going to do?"

When Bak was a kid, he had thought that his mom was the wisest person who had ever lived. She was smart and efficient, always giving the best advice to her son, her friends and on occasion, even to her husband. Never once did Bak see his mother weaken. When she was in pain, she never showed it. when she was frustrated, she kept a straight face. But when she had laughed, she was beautiful. That was why he loved his mother. That way she smiled, the way that she had looked at her father with nothing but love in her eyes, the way that she held him when the world seemed cruel, that was his mother. This perfect scientist that the people out at her funeral had said she was nonexistent to Bak. He idolized his parents when he saw what they could do with numbers and test tubes, but that was not what he loved about them.

Before his father had died, he had taught him how to summon the deity of the Asian Branch and how to let her unleash all of her power if he ever needed it. Bak wasn't sure why his father had chosen that time to do it; back then it had seemed like they had all of the time in the world to go over something like that. But it had made him happy that his father had trusted him in that way.

"They're promoting you. It was planned before any of this happened," Komui says, looking away from Bak. "That's the real reason that I'm here. I was told to come tell you about it and to try to get you to accept the position. If you accept you'll be the Section Chief of the Northern Section of the Asia Branch. It's a long title, but it's a good one for someone as young as you are. Of course, you'll have to move out of here for a bit and go up to another location, but I expect you'll be back soon enough. They're just testing you out. Trying to see if you could be Chief here in the near future." Komui smiles. "Everyone in the European Branch talks about how they wish that you'd come work over there. Everyone in Central does, too. The people here believe in you, Bak."

It had always been his dream to run the Asia Branch. Always. But there was something more melancholy about this offer, now. Just a week ago wasn't his mother in that position? Was it using her death to his advantage if he took this promotion? Of course, he wouldn't be in her job yet, but if he were, wouldn't it be because he was just using what she had left behind?

And then he thought some more and knew that no, it was not.

"You should make some changes in your life, Bak. Take the job, change your wardrobe and meditate daily. Then, I think, you'll be able to overcome this."

Somewhere, a clock strikes two.

"I have to go; my train will leave in an hour and I still haven't greeted half of the people that I was supposed to. So see you later Bak-chan!"

It wasn't until Komui left and much later when a clock struck three that Bak realizes that Komui had called him 'Bak-chan 'instead of' Bak Chan. And when he did, he wasn't pleased.

...

Time flows by and the clock strikes more than eight thousand more times before Komui meets with Bak-chan again.

...

"Today we congratulate Bak Chan as he ascends to the position of Head Chief of the Asian Branch of the Black Order." Komui hadn't seen Bak in person before the ceremony, or in the past year. The first thing he notices while Leverier introduces him onstage is that the fountain of hair the guy once had was completely gone now. "After serving as a scientist here since his eighteenth birthday, he was given the position of Section Chief of the Northern Section of the Asia Branch. Having done such an extraordinary job at that and due to his family history, we are honored to grant this position to him. I give you my congratulations once more Bak, and best of luck in your new position."

The crowd cheered and Bak beamed and Komui knew that in heaven, his parents were smiling at him.

And somewhere the clock, never-ending in its chimes, though bringing so much stress and fear to them all, never knowing which chime may be their last, struck four.

...

Fin