* * *
He reached for more, and more.
Hotter.
He wanted more heat….
His whole body felt like it was burning.
He was parched.
But this thirst was different from the one he had felt standing in the desert.
It was strange.
Acting purely on an Esper’s instincts, he moved—until suddenly, his mind snapped back into clarity.
His heart, already pounding, slammed against his chest as if about to explode.
He clutched at it.
“…Uh, excuse me?”
He turned toward the voice.
A man he had never seen before was staring at him with a look of sheer bewilderment.
Why was there a person inside the gate?
Even more incomprehensible was his own condition.
His entire body felt unbearably hot—strange and unfamiliar sensations flooding his system, rendering him unable to think straight.
“You… what… who… ugh—! F… fuck…!”
“Wait, are you awake? Oh, hold on! No, why—hey! Hey, are you okay?!”
The man’s voice buzzed in his ears.
Wonho could see him shouting, but the words barely registered.
His body felt like it was melting.
Or perhaps it already had—because there was no other way to describe his current state.
And just like that, unable to withstand the heat consuming him, Wonho lost consciousness.
Something strange stirred within him.
Half-asleep, Wonho frowned.
A persistent tickling at the nape of his neck forced him to pry his eyes open.
Darkness.
But as an Esper, his senses were far sharper than an ordinary person’s.
Even in the dark, he could perceive his surroundings well enough to understand where he was.
A hospital room.
“…Why am I here?”
He immediately recognized the place—a patient ward inside the research facility at the Center.
But knowing where he was didn’t explain how he had ended up there.
More confusingly, he hadn’t properly slept in years.
His body and energy waves constantly craved guiding, and the lack of it had led to severe side effects.
He had functioned in a near-perpetual state of wakefulness, his inability to sleep making him increasingly sensitive, his tangled energy only growing more unstable as a result.
And yet—he had been asleep?
“…Nngh.”
As he struggled to process his surroundings, a faint breath stirred against his chest.
Only then did he realize—someone was in his arms.
For some reason, he hadn’t noticed until now.
A rush of panic overtook him.
His mind screamed that he needed to push this person away immediately, but his body refused to move.
It wasn’t as if he had been restrained; rather, it felt like his body was outright rejecting the command.
“…Fuck.”
The real problem was that the person in his arms wasn’t staying still.
They kept shifting, burrowing deeper into his embrace.
That was the final straw.
As if his previous paralysis had been a lie, Wonho bolted upright and scrambled away from the bed.
Breathing heavily, he looked down—first at the small-framed man lying on the bed, then at himself.
This couldn’t be real.
Sharing a bed with a stranger was bizarre enough.
But the… state of his body?
At twenty-one years old, he had never experienced a moment as humiliating and bewildering as this.
Forgetting entirely that he had planned to die inside that gate, Wonho was now consumed by sheer mortification.
He had to get out.
This room, this presence—none of it felt like his own anymore.
He turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind him with a deafening bang.
“Ah—! Esper Wonho, you can’t leave! Wait—! Someone contact the team leader, now!”
“Y-yes, sir!”
There was no stopping an Esper who had made up their mind to leave.
The researcher who had rushed after Wonho could only watch in helpless frustration as he disappeared.
The team leader had explicitly instructed them to detain him the moment he woke up.
But of course, in the brief moment they had stepped away, he had woken up—and bolted.
The headache from the inevitable scolding to come was already forming.
Wonho, meanwhile, had run straight home.
The Center was only a five-minute walk away, but for someone moving at an Esper’s speed, it took less than a minute.
By regulation, newly awakened Espers had to reside within the Center for three years.
After that, they could move out, provided they had a Pair Guide.
Wonho had no Pair Guide, but since he had a high compatibility rate with one of the existing guides and had promised to use the Center’s accommodations in emergencies, he had been allowed to get his own place.
It had been less than a year since he had moved in.
And he had chosen this place specifically because of its close proximity to the Center.
Shutting the door behind him, he tried to calm his frantically beating heart.
Everything in his home had been neatly arranged for convenience.
If he died, it would be easy to clean up.
“…Why am I here?”
The question finally hit him.
Why wasn’t he in the gate?
His last memory was of taking down a scorpion monster—failing to suppress his rampaging energy….
“Huh? You’re awake? Oh, wait! No, why—! Hey!”
A voice echoed in his mind—one he had never heard before, yet felt strangely familiar.
It was as if someone were shouting at him right this very moment.
A chill ran down his spine.
Because the moment he had escaped that hospital room, the part of him that had settled so unnaturally fast had begun to ache again.
“…Fuck. What the hell is this?!”
Wonho grabbed his head, trying to erase the voice echoing in his mind.
But no matter how hard he pulled at his hair, the voice wouldn’t disappear.
He let go, and at that moment, strands of hair floated down in front of his eyes.
This was his home—no one else had been here.
The hair must be his.
Yet, something was wrong with the color.
Ever since he started suffering from Guiding Deficiency Syndrome, his hair had turned stark white and never reverted.
Even Jin Seyoung, who had studied espers for years, had never seen anything like it.
It was a side effect unique to Wonho alone.
For years, he had been unable to regain his original hair color.
His eyes had changed the moment he awakened, and his hair had turned completely white, making him feel alienated from his own body.
It took time—and the help of others, including Jin Seyoung—to finally accept his transformation.
Wonho dashed to the bathroom, where a mirror hung on the wall.
“This… This doesn’t make any sense…”
The first words out of his mouth were ones of disbelief.
Because the reflection staring back at him had jet-black hair.
That was impossible.
Not even while receiving guidance from Choi Yoonseo had his hair returned to its original color.
Of course, she had never been able to properly guide him, so it was expected.
Wonho had given up hope long ago that his hair would ever go back to the way it was.
Yet now, it had.
The face in the mirror looked strange and unfamiliar.
He had spent years with white hair—it felt more like him than the black strands now framing his face.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The sound of his phone vibrating somewhere in the house reached his ears.
Still reeling from shock, he staggered toward the living room, where the sound was coming from.
His mind was a jumbled mess, like it was about to shatter.
This wasn’t like his usual headaches.
It was different.
And then, he noticed something else: he wasn’t feeling any pain at all.
That, too, was impossible.
As far as he could remember, he had never been in physical contact with a guide.
Had he…?
* * *
AHHHH