* * *
Even as Hajin approached Suhyeon at the sound of his pained groan, he never expected things to turn out this way.
However, when those pale eyes, filled with tears, looked up at him, Hajin’s heart once again plummeted into the abyss.
It was nothing compared to how strange he had become the more he looked at this man of sorrowful color.
It went beyond strangeness; he felt an indescribable emotion piercing through him.
Wiping away the ceaselessly rolling tears and whispering don’t cry was not an act of free will.
It was merely an action that flowed out of his body reflexively.
It was something that came out without passing through his brain, as if commanding, ‘You must do this.’
Though his mind knew it wasn’t the case, Hajin’s heart continued to suspect that this man, Chae Suhyeon, possessed an Enchantment ability.
His chest ached every time his heart dropped with a thump, and he couldn’t believe this sensation wasn’t created by a mental-type ability.
And when he met Suhyeon’s eyes, glistening with moisture once more, Hajin had to hold his breath.
‘Was there ever a face of a person he had seen that was this beautiful?’
Suhyeon’s looks were clearly ordinary.
Yet, his face, tinged with lingering sadness and moisture, sparkled as if to seduce him.
It was then that he noticed the trembling hand, and when he came to his senses—
He was already covering Suhyeon’s lips.
A sweet scent, which he had never felt even once, enveloped him.
It wasn’t Guiding.
It was like a hallucination.
It was just sweet.
Everywhere their lips touched was sweet, and a sweet scent, so intense it made him wonder if the person Chae Suhyeon was made of sugar, lingered around his nose.
Suhyeon neither stopped nor refused Hajin’s fierce advance.
That drove Hajin even crazier.
Hajin had never kissed someone, let alone touched them or felt such uncontrollable emotions.
Everything that entered his sight was stimulating, and everything that touched his hands and body was stimulating.
Hajin regained his reason only after Suhyeon fell asleep, exhausted, and his shallow breaths filled the room.
He stared blankly at the mess he had created.
Suhyeon’s lips were all red and swollen.
He had kissed Suhyeon.
It wasn’t an action he had thought about.
It was closer to instinct.
And kissing was something people in a romantic relationship did often.
Hajin, realizing this belatedly, blinked for a moment.
His blue eyes held a dazed look.
This meant that he was feeling that kind of attraction toward Suhyeon.
‘Romantic feelings, affection.’
Words he had never once considered close to himself flashed through his mind.
The way his body acted as if it wasn’t his own, the way he was enchanted by the man Suhyeon, and the way he performed actions entirely different from his usual—was it all because of that?
Hajin ran a hand over his face.
‘I’m going crazy.’
He had to be crazy.
But when he glanced over at where Suhyeon was lying, and when his eyes met those lips, sweeter than candy, which he had just been touching, Hajin buried his head in his hands.
Just looking at that pale face made all his miscellaneous thoughts disappear.
His blue pupils frantically shook. He took a deep breath and turned his head back toward Suhyeon.
Suhyeon’s brown hair, pressed against the bed, scattered messily in his hand.
As the soundly sleeping Suhyeon stirred, the thin, gown-like clothing he was wearing slipped down slightly.
When Hajin took in the snow-white skin hidden beneath without even breathing, he had to quickly turn his head away again, making his initial courage to turn toward Suhyeon pointless.
“…I’m going crazy.”
Hajin’s face was no different than usual, but his ears were beet red.
‘Is this right?’
In a corner of his mind, he heard the devil’s whisper telling him to let go of his reason.
Hajin, gripping the last thread of remaining sanity with an indomitable will, got up.
‘This won’t do.’
*
“What the hell,”
BANG!!! BANG! BANG! BANG!
“happened to him, AACK!”
The Espers on Shin Hajin’s team screamed, dodging the fragments of monsters flying here and there.
Only one sentence occupied their minds: Their already terrifying Team Leader had gone completely insane.
He had been absent for a few days without receiving any work communication or anything, so something must have happened.
Hajin, who normally would leave this kind of work entirely to them, had been indiscriminately tearing up monsters for days.
And when he decided they were dead, he would throw them around wildly, the speed of the falling monster corpses nearing a disaster.
Espers, including Choi Taewoo, cried and fled.
Of course, as always, Team Leader Shin Hajin didn’t even pretend to care about them.
“Lee Jeonghyeon, what happened?! Huh?! Aack!”
Choi Taewoo screamed and asked Lee Jeonghyeon, the Esper who had driven Hajin to Korea University Hospital twice, but Lee Jeonghyeon was equally clueless.
The two of them tearfully dodged the splattering monsters and blood clots together.
When Hajin had been absent, yes.
To be honest, it was truly difficult. Choi Taewoo could assert that every Esper here agreed with that fact.
The work piled up in front of the team and Hajin’s personal name was murderous, and since Hajin was absent, they had to handle all of it.
Furthermore, the higher-ups in the Association were frantically looking for Hajin, wondering what the hell was going on.
All day long, people they didn’t know would come looking for them, asking, ‘Where is Esper Shin Hajin?’
But they were merely Shin Hajin’s worker bees.
How could they know?
There were also rumors that he was confined to his home, but Choi Taewoo personally didn’t believe it.
Team Leader Shin Hajin, of all people, who was absolutely meticulous about his work?
Wasn’t he still taking care of the accumulated work like a madman, just as he was now?
“There,”
Choi Taewoo raised his head at the low command that came just as he was reminiscing about the exhausting days.
“Get out of the way.”
‘Why is the Team Leader, who has been silently dealing with monsters until now, issuing a warning—’
“…!!!!!”
The Espers who looked up turned pale and fled the spot without even screaming.
KWAAANG!!!!!
The massive monster corpse and its squirming tentacles, incomparably larger than the ones that had been splattering around, fell with a tremendous roar.
“…Mom…”
Someone who couldn’t hold back called for their mother.
The Espers on Shin Hajin’s team felt the urge to sink to the floor and cry.
They were naturally accustomed to brutal sights and sudden situations, having been through all sorts of Gates, but this was less due to the monsters and more due to the terrifying rampage of Team Leader Shin Hajin.
Hajin, who landed too elegantly and lightly for the size of the fallen monster, took off the black gloves stained with dirty blood and threw them on the ground.
Taking out another pair of gloves from his pocket and putting them on, he looked at his phone before raising his head.
The Espers, who were trembling and looking at him, flinched.
Hajin crooked his finger at Esper Lee Jeonghyeon.
Esper Lee Jeonghyeon, who was singled out, approached him slowly with a tearful expression.
In an instant, their figures disappeared. With the departure of the terrifying Team Leader Shin Hajin, the Espers one by one slumped onto the floor.
‘Perhaps it was better when he was absent…’
They thought this, weeping silently, unable to say it out loud.
*
Suhyeon tilted his head, seeing the empty first-floor living room again today.
He hadn’t seen Hajin even once since the night he had the nightmare.
The panting kiss and embrace he had accepted were his last memory of him.
Along with the memory of those blue eyes staring at him as if to suck him in.
—He’s probably busy, you know? That bastard doesn’t usually come home much. These past few days were just weird.
He had asked Yihan, but the answer he got was that it wasn’t particularly strange.
He said Hajin was normally an incredibly busy man.
But it was strange, Suhyeon tilted his head to the opposite side again.
‘Why does it feel like he ran away?’
The kiss with Hajin was good.
Just a while ago, Suhyeon was clinging to Do Yejun, and the nightmare was ultimately caused by him, but in that moment, the kiss was so good that he didn’t even remember his past thoughts.
Those deep blue eyes resonated in Suhyeon’s chest.
Of course, since they had gone straight to kissing, facing him the next day might be a little embarrassing.
But Suhyeon thought even that wouldn’t be bad.
He never imagined he wouldn’t see him for days.
Of course, separate from his attraction to him, he didn’t know anything about Hajin, so he thought his feelings were premature.
But perhaps because he was unconsciously expecting something, his previously stable emotions felt a little downcast.
Leaning against the sofa where Hajin used to sit, Suhyeon lazily blinked his eyes.
Since his body was weak, fatigue came quickly.
The sound of the IV drip quietly filling the first floor.
Just as Suhyeon, overcome by sleepiness, tilted his head onto the sofa,
BANG!!
A loud noise echoed.
His body involuntarily flinched at the sudden sound, and his light-brown pupils, which were heavy with sleep, instantly contracted.
“Uh, uh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Team Leader-nim. I couldn’t control my strength well. Are you—”
A familiar, cold, handsome face—Hajin—suddenly appeared in front of Suhyeon.
Beside him was an unfamiliar man, deathly pale, apologizing to Hajin in a rambling manner.
The man, who was rambling, froze completely when his eyes met Suhyeon’s.
* * *
