* * *
“Careful.”
As soon as Suhyeon tried to stand up, his vision spun, and Hajin lightly supported his back.
Leaning on that solid arm, Suhyeon managed to find his balance and stand upright.
His legs felt weak.
He accidentally made eye contact with the man who had brought his clothes, standing stiffly in the corner of the room, and the man’s eyes were wide open and shaking violently.
Suhyeon felt a little hurt.
‘Is my appearance so severe that it warrants looking at a stranger like that?’
Suhyeon tried to walk a few steps but eventually stopped and regulated his breathing.
Every time he tried to move, his breath came in short, sharp gasps. It wasn’t just that his chest occasionally hurt and he coughed up blood; his whole body was strangely weakened.
He looked at Hajin’s arm, which he had been clinging to like a rail.
His own arm, thin and pale by comparison, trembled, unable to perform the simple task of bearing weight.
‘—Your body could be crushed by a light impact.’
The last words the doctor had left with him came to mind.
Even if Suhyeon was naturally a person who took things in stride, the weakness of his body was definitely inconvenient.
He even doubted whether he could walk out of the hospital properly.
“Should I carry you?”
Suhyeon, who had been staring at the solid arm he was leaning on, looked up.
The blue eyes were gazing intently at him.
“Pardon?”
By the time he asked again, as he hadn’t fully understood, this statue-like man named Shin Hajin must have had a short temper, because Suhyeon’s body was suddenly lifted into the air.
Strong arms securely supported his back and legs.
Suhyeon’s pale arms instinctively wrapped around Hajin’s neck.
Seeing this, a hint of a smile, which he himself wasn’t aware of, played on Hajin’s lips.
“Let’s go.”
“…Yes.”
A little embarrassment was better than stumbling and collapsing like a newborn fawn.
Suhyeon, who agreed to something he would normally have been horrified by, looked at Hajin, who was much closer now.
A refreshing, clean scent lingered.
The chiseled face seemed to tell him what visual beauty was.
‘He doesn’t seem like a bad person.’
Suhyeon thought, looking at the blue eyes that were focused straight ahead.
He considered his judgment of people to be not too bad, despite living a rather easygoing life.
‘…Except for Do Yejun.’
Suhyeon lowered his eyes.
Do Yejun.
He repeated his ex-lover’s name to himself.
The terrifying feelings he had experienced at the Gate seemed to have overpowered the boundless love he felt, making the emotion feel distant.
The years he had spent being blindly devoted to someone—the first and last time in his life—felt like a lie.
It was painful and quite ridiculous that now that the emotion that made his heart pound had vanished, it became so clear that his clinging to him had been a foolish act.
‘It’s been three years, hasn’t it? Will Do Yejun even think of me?’
Their relationship was so one-sided that he had to wonder about that.
He felt a dull ache, like someone poking his heart repeatedly.
“What are you thinking about?”
At that moment, the bright blue eyes, filled with sky and sea, suddenly popped out, interrupting Suhyeon’s thoughts.
Snapping back to reality, Suhyeon raised his head.
Still held securely in the stable position, they were already outside the hospital room.
He saw the glances of a few patients and nurses waiting at the hospital’s payment counter directed at them.
In a normal ward, the place would be bustling with people, but perhaps because this hospital catered to Guides and Espers, there weren’t many people walking around.
Just as he was having these trivial thoughts,
“…Huk,”
He heard someone sharply inhaling.
Suhyeon, held in Hajin’s arms, peeked his head around the man’s back, looking over his shoulder.
A burly man was looking their way, his face deathly pale.
Suhyeon figured he wouldn’t be visible since he was being carried, so the man must be looking at Hajin, who was holding him.
The muscular man soon made eye contact with Suhyeon, who was peeking out.
But for some reason, he turned even paler and backed away.
“?”
“What’s wrong?”
Hajin, who had lowered his head again, apparently finding it uncomfortable to twist his body while carrying Suhyeon, naturally turned his body to follow Suhyeon’s gaze.
Immediately, Suhyeon doubted his eyes.
Just before Hajin’s gaze reached him, the large man sprinted away to a corner where a few nurses and patients were gathered.
‘Was he an Esper?’
He was even emitting a yellow spark of electricity as he ran.
If it were just that man, Suhyeon might have thought he was crazy, but a few other people nearby also looked over and their complexions gradually became pale.
“…?”
‘Is a grown man being carried that much to be avoided?’
It was embarrassing, but he couldn’t help it.
If he tried to take a step on his own right now, he would obviously fall straight forward.
“He says we can go.”
A moment later, the man who had been talking to a nurse returned, and Hajin and Suhyeon started moving again.
They reached the hospital entrance.
The opaque automatic door slid open, and the calm outside air softly brushed Suhyeon’s cheek.
There weren’t many cars on the roadside.
Not many people passing by, either.
But Suhyeon took in the daily life of Seoul, which felt like he hadn’t seen it in ages, absorbing every detail.
The aftermath of his experience being sucked into the Gate was greater than he expected.
“Welcome.”
A luxurious black sedan was waiting in front of them.
A man who appeared to be the driver opened the back door.
‘Is Hajin rich?’
Since he was called a high-ranking Esper earlier, it seemed so.
Hajin carefully lowered Suhyeon onto the back seat and then got in next to him.
Click—,
He thought he heard a strange sound just before the back door closed, but perhaps it was because he was exhausted from leaving the hospital.
Suhyeon fell into a deep sleep without a moment to hold onto his consciousness.
*
“I got it!”
In front of Korea University Hospital, a paparazzi fiddling with his camera in a shadowed spot out of people’s sight, tore his mouth into a grin at the clearly captured image of Shin Hajin.
The unidentified man Shin Hajin was holding was also clearly visible.
It was a photo that would fetch a good price.
Shin Hajin Esper, famous for his mysophobia, holding a man so dearly.
It didn’t matter if he was a lover or family.
It was enough for a sensational story.
Since the photo was taken at a hospital, the article could be written provocatively.
The paparazzi had originally been staking out to take pictures of another celebrity who was hospitalized.
But to unexpectedly catch such a big fish today! His luck must have been through the roof.
The paparazzi immediately sent the picture along with his account number to a friendly reporter and grinned broadly at the money that was instantly deposited.
The reporter, who received the picture from the paparazzi, deliberately did a half-hearted job of blurring the face of the man held by Shin Hajin and uploaded the article a few days later.
The article title was as provocative as possible:
[Shin Hajin Esper, Who Permits No One’s Touch, Is Different Only For His Lover?]
Espers and Guides were not celebrities, but Shin Hajin was as famous as one, and his mysophobia was equally well-known.
The photo of that Shin Hajin standing in front of a car, holding a light-colored man as dearly as a treasure, caused a quiet ripple.
Those who secretly claimed to be Shin Hajin’s fans were heartbroken and sulked in corners, Espers and Guides who knew Shin Hajin personally were appalled by the photo, and—
“A dating rumor has surfaced?”
A high-ranking executive of the Korean Association, who knew exactly what kind of person Shin Hajin was, looked up the photo, wondering what it was, and froze.
He wasn’t surprised by the fact that Shin Hajin was holding someone like a treasure, as others were.
That was surprising, but not the main point.
He stared intently at the light-colored man whose face was barely mosaiced.
Then, he was shocked, looked up the three-year-old article on a hunch, was shocked again, and was shocked yet again when he visited an anonymous online community that appeared in the related searches.
Upvotes 2 Downvotes 4
I’m an Esper who’s hospitalized, and today the person who was sucked into the Gate three years ago came in as a patient and it was chaos.
I saw him from a distance, and I’m a fan of Ian, so I was unsure at first, but when I looked up the article, his face was identical.
↳Bullsh*t
↳LOL, even for clickbait, this is too much;;
↳Who is Ian?
↳(OP) Ryu Yihan. Don’t you know the Association executive? He’s the victim’s brother. Seriously, I nearly dropped dead when I saw him.
↳You like an executive, not an Esper/Guide? Isn’t he a non-ability user? That’s stalking, OP;;
↳Stop lying
The post seemed to have been quickly buried because people didn’t believe it, but the executive, who had seen the photo, couldn’t just dismiss it.
He rushed to his colleague’s office and pulled up the handsome man, who was working with a tired face, buried in paperwork.
“Hey! Hey!!!”
“What is it?”
The man’s eyes, cold and severe, looked at the photo on the executive’s phone.
“Shin Hajin Esper is doing what…”
The man’s previously indifferent eyes slowly widened.
“It’s him, right?”
The man snatched the phone and stood up.
His hands trembled uncontrollably.
“Where, where was this picture taken?”
“At Korea University Hospital, but hey! HEY!!!”
The man stood up and left the office without anyone being able to stop him.
It happened too quickly for his secretaries to even follow.
* * *
