* * *
When Suhyeon opened his eyes, the car had just stopped smoothly, seeming to have arrived at its destination.
Hajin’s body was turned toward him, as if he was about to wake him up.
When Suhyeon blinked, he flinched.
“You’re awake.”
Suhyeon nodded obediently.
The rear door clicked open with a small sound.
Suhyeon tried to get out on his own but realized he still had no strength in his body.
When he looked at Hajin to ask for help, Hajin chuckled and lifted Suhyeon up just as before.
Suhyeon, who had already been carried once, assumed a stable posture and was carried out of the car.
He then opened his mouth in awe.
It was irresistible.
What unfolded before his eyes was a place surrounded by high walls.
As Hajin, familiar with the grounds, opened the main gate and stepped inside, a garden that shouldn’t exist in the heart of a Korean city spread out.
It wasn’t an endless expanse or an unrealistically large area, but it was certainly wider than any house’s garden Suhyeon had ever seen.
In the middle of the well-kept garden was a white building with attractive floor-to-ceiling windows.
It was a size that immediately warranted the word mansion, not just house.
‘They called it a mansion at the hospital, too. It really is big.’
‘I guess that’s why he said there were hospital equipment at home.’
Suhyeon, who had only ever lived in small apartments or officetels, blinked at the wide-open view.
Hajin familiarly crossed the stone path through the garden and opened the mansion’s door.
The bright interior, decorated with a warm ivory color palette overall, greeted Suhyeon.
Sunlight streamed in through the full-length windows.
The living room, which could be described as enormous, contained a long sofa, a TV, and various high-end items.
A neat kitchen and an island counter were subtly visible behind it.
Hajin carried Suhyeon across the living room and went up the stairs.
Unlike the first floor, which was openly spread out with no partitioned rooms, the second floor was separated into large areas, though without doors.
Only after seeing that space did Suhyeon realize again why the doctor at the hospital hadn’t really opposed the idea.
Giant devices, similar to what you would see in a hospital, filled each space.
There were also machines emitting a soft light that Suhyeon had never seen before.
Transparent cooling units that seemed to store IV fluids were visible, too.
It looked like a clean, giant, empty hospital.
At the far end of the second floor, which was vaguely visible, there seemed to be a space resembling a laboratory.
Suhyeon narrowed his eyes when he spotted a dark figure moving inside.
“Is there another person—”
“OH!!!!!”
‘Is there?’
Before he could finish his question to the homeowner, Hajin, a loud shout was heard.
The figure in the space beyond suddenly stopped and began to rush toward them.
The man, wearing a gown, charged at an incredible speed, enough to make Suhyeon wonder if he was an Esper.
Suhyeon flinched at the speed, which was no different from a bull charging in a bullring, and simultaneously, Hajin raised his leg.
‘Thwack!’
With a merciless kick, the charging man went down immediately.
Suhyeon thought he heard the clear sound of bone hitting bone.
Suhyeon winced, but the man raised his upper body right where he fell, as if he wasn’t hurt, and shoved his face close to Suhyeon.
“They said you came out of the Gate!”
When Suhyeon nodded reluctantly, the man’s eyes sparkled obtrusively, and he tried to lean in closer.
“That’s enough, isn’t it?”
He seemed to come to his senses a little at Hajin’s crooked voice and paused.
The man, still looking at Suhyeon with obvious lingering desire, backed away a bit.
Suhyeon, having regained a universal physical distance from others, unconsciously let out the breath he had been holding.
“Ahem, ahem.”
The man, perhaps embarrassed, cleared his throat a couple of times and then looked at Suhyeon.
“I am, um, um… huh?”
Suhyeon tilted his head at the man who suddenly began to scrutinize him from head to toe.
The man then alternated his gaze between
Suhyeon and Hajin, who was holding him.
The man’s eyes filled with horror.
‘Why the sudden reaction?’
“Ch-Ch-Suhyeon, Suhyeon.”
‘How does he know my name without me saying anything?’
Suhyeon was puzzled but answered anyway.
“Yes.”
“Are you an Enthrallment Esper, by any chance?”
“No…?”
“Or another Mental-type Esper?”
“No.”
A very strange dialogue went back and forth.
The question, which was incomprehensible to Suhyeon, seemed to hold great meaning for the man, and his jaw dropped further and further.
The horror on the man’s face deepened.
“Shin Hajin, are you sick somewhere?”
Another question, this time directed at Hajin.
Suhyeon looked up and saw a scowling Hajin.
“No, you definitely must be sick. You’re crazy, my god. I’ll examine you again. Should I split your head open this time?”
‘Split what open?’
“Aagh!”
Just as Suhyeon was doubting his ears, another dull sound was heard, and the man let out a sharp shriek.
“Stop with the nonsense and introduce yourself.”
“Fine, fine! You hit me at the drop of a hat, you jerk.”
At Hajin’s sharp command, the man muttered, ‘What did he eat? He’s a bastard anyway,’ and faced Suhyeon again.
The man, now appearing in his most normal state so far, was quite handsome, though not as much as Hajin.
His under-eyes were dark, and he didn’t seem quite normal, though.
“I’m Ryu Yihan. Chae Suhyeon, right? I heard the general gist.”
Only then did Suhyeon realize that the white gown worn by the man, Ryu Yihan, was not much different from what doctors wore.
This was the famous doctor who would be looking after him.
“Awakening as a Guide due to the Gate’s aftermath, and your core is bad. Correct?”
Suhyeon nodded at the summary that perfectly encapsulated the symptoms he had heard at the hospital.
Yihan’s eyes lit up, and he began to circle around him.
“Hmm, I don’t feel a Guiding wavelength. Is it because there’s a problem with the core?”
Just as Suhyeon was blinking blankly at the blatant observational gaze, Ryu Yihan, who had stopped, exclaimed loudly, “Well, anyway!”
“I’ll be by your side continuously while you’re at this house. So—”
“Ugh—”
However, his words were interrupted by the strenuous moan Suhyeon suddenly let out.
Suhyeon’s face contorted completely.
‘Ah, damn it.’
He didn’t like swearing, but the familiar pain pushed into his chest.
“Suhyeon,”
“Eh, Chae Suhyeon?”
Hajin, who was carrying him, reacted first.
He seemed to have noticed the signs of the previous two episodes of pain.
Hajin’s low voice calling him and Ryu Yihan’s surprised voice mixed and buzzed in his head.
The pain of a sharp awl stabbing his heart instantly spread throughout his body.
‘Trickle—,’ what was probably blood flowed down the corner of his mouth.
His body shook in Hajin’s arms as Hajin seemed to be running somewhere.
With every shake, the unbearable pain that silenced even a whimper ravaged his body.
This time, too, his consciousness sank rapidly.
“Damn it.”
It was Hajin who cursed on Suhyeon’s behalf.
Suhyeon’s consciousness was drawn helplessly into the pain.
*
“Wh-where should I take you?”
“Korea University Hospital.”
The driver kept glancing in the rearview mirror as he started the car, perhaps finding Ryu Yihan’s appearance, rushing out of the Association in the middle of the day, unusual.
The phone in Yihan’s hand vibrated and rang madly with calls from his frantic secretaries, but Yihan didn’t even look at it.
Chae Suhyeon, Chae Suhyeon, Chae Suhyeon.
The handsome man, Ryu Yihan, sitting in the best seat in the back of the car, repeated that longed-for name over and over.
Three years ago, before he had climbed to the position of Headquarters Director of the Association.
When the Association’s work was pouring in like a flood, and he couldn’t properly focus on Suhyeon, and that continued for a prolonged period.
Suhyeon was sucked into the Gate.
Damage was minimal thanks to Esper Do Yejun, Suhyeon’s then-boyfriend, who discovered and closed the Gate soon after.
However, Suhyeon had already been sucked into the Gate before Esper Do Yejun even arrived at the scene.
And just like that, Ryu Yihan’s world turned gray.
Everything—his awakening as a weak Esper, and all his relentless efforts to climb higher from a young age, driven by his work—vanished.
He realized only after losing Suhyeon that none of it mattered without his younger brother.
A person sucked into a Gate cannot survive.
The probability of a person emerging from a Gate approaches zero.
Yihan, who worked closest to the Gates, knew that fact better than anyone.
That’s why he felt like he was going insane.
Three years since his brother disappeared.
Three years during which he had to accept that his brother was dead.
He once again lived only for work, like a wreck.
But it wasn’t the ambition he had before.
It was nothing more than a desperate thing he clung to after his focus disappeared and he was left empty.
The Association was a massive company, and he had risen to the position of Headquarters Director through countless tasks—yet…
For Yihan, life without his brother was a gray path where nothing existed.
Chae Suhyeon, his only remaining younger brother, seven years his junior, was gone, and he hadn’t even been able to take care of him.
He regretted it again and again.
Not treating him better, not cherishing him more, not making him more comfortable and wealthy.
Now, the money was overflowing, but the fact that the person to spend it on was gone gnawed at Yihan.
But he was alive.
The person in that photo, which was embarrassingly barely mosaiced, was undoubtedly Suhyeon.
Yihan, whose mind was paralyzed, couldn’t bring himself to think about questioning Esper Shin Hajin, who was also in the photo, or hounding Espers about how things transpired if his brother emerged from a Gate.
His thoughts couldn’t reach that far, and his mind wasn’t functioning.
Korea University Hospital.
Only that location, where Suhyeon was said to be, was seared into his brain as they arrived in front of the hospital.
Seeing the furious look in Yihan’s brown eyes, the hospital staff hurriedly summoned the Hospital Director.
Yihan couldn’t even wait for that.
CRASH!!!
Unable to control his strength, the hinges of the Hospital Director’s private door flew off.
“Where is Suhyeon.”
Hiccup, only the small sound of the poor Hospital Director’s hiccups, who had to suffer under Ryu Yihan after Shin Hajin, quietly echoed in the room.
* * *
