* * *
“You’re treating me worse and worse!”
“Nonsense.”
The phone call was to let them know that everything was ready and they should come down.
With Yihan’s grumbling as background noise, Suhyeon headed toward a place called the Guide Center, his waist held firmly by Hajin’s arm.
In the process, for some reason, every person they passed let out strange sounds like “Huck!” “Hup!” or “Gah!” while staring their way.
Suhyeon tilted his head.
Thinking there might be something on his face or that he looked strange, he looked down at himself for a moment.
Nothing seems wrong?
However, when he looked up, the stares and the sounds had all vanished.
Was it my imagination? Suhyeon tilted his head again.
“Wow, wow…… this crazy bastard.”
Yihan muttered some unintelligible curses, but since Yihan acting like that was nothing new, Suhyeon decided not to pay it any mind.
“You are Chae Suhyeon, right?”
Soon, they arrived in front of a place filled with transparent glass doors.
Someone who appeared to be a staff member was waiting and asked as they approached.
Suhyeon nodded.
“It’s just a rank measurement, so it will be over very quickly. Please come this way.”
The staff member guided Suhyeon with a smile, explaining that it usually takes a long time to make IDs for newly awakened people because they are young and need a comprehensive identity check.
In reality, the rank measurement was indeed very simple.
He just had to enter an empty room and place his palm on a machine.
The machine’s screen flickered with static for a moment, hesitated, and then spat out the words: F-Rank.
“You’ve been ranked as F-Rank! It will take a little time to issue the ID, so please wait in the inner waiting room!”
It was so simple that it was hard to believe it was over.
Suhyeon took a long breath as he sat in a corner of the waiting room with Yihan and Hajin, where a few other people were present.
He felt his body, which had been tense without him realizing it, go limp with relief.
Perhaps it was because the Awakened people closest to him had been Do Yejun and Lee Jaeram.
Suhyeon admitted to himself that he had harbored a rather poor perception of Espers and Guides.
Falling into a gate, suddenly awakening as a Guide, and getting sick because of it.
He wondered if he felt that way more because all of it was related to special traits.
F-Rank.
The fact that he received a numerical value close to a normal person with almost no abilities made Suhyeon feel relieved deep down.
—You have awakened as a Special Guide.
Then, Suhyeon suddenly remembered the words he had heard while in the hospital and turned his head toward Yihan and Hajin.
Hajin was already on the phone with someone.
Suhyeon shifted his gaze to Yihan.
“Yihan-hyung.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
Yihan’s eyes sparkled as he patted his chest, telling Suhyeon to say anything.
“When I was first in the hospital, the doctor called me a Special Guide,”
“Ah, that?”
Before he could even finish his sentence, Yihan shrugged as if he understood perfectly.
“They lump all Awakened people together and call them Special Espers or Special Guides if they have some kind of problem that prevents an accurate rank measurement. I guess your condition was so serious back then that they couldn’t test you properly.”
Seeing Yihan speak so dismissively, as if it was nothing to worry about, Suhyeon was able to let go of his last bit of anxiety.
“Tsk, I just wish your Core would return to normal.”
It really meant that once his body recovered, he could live a life no different from a normal person.
Suhyeon let out a breath full of relief.
As the anxiety that had uncharacteristically filled him disappeared, he finally began to feel thirsty.
“I’m going to go buy something to drink for a moment.”
When he pointed to the vending machine right outside the waiting room, Yihan winked and waved his hand for him to go ahead.
Suhyeon gave a brief glance at Hajin, who was still on the phone, and then stepped out of the waiting room.
As the tension and anxiety faded, his mind returned to a comfortable state.
The chronic fatigue that had briefly left him returned to fill the void.
I want to pick up my ID and go home quickly.
Thinking this, Suhyeon pushed coins into the vending machine.
The sound of the coins rolling into the machine sounded exceptionally loud.
He picked up two cans of coffee, and just as he grabbed the last one and stood up—
“……Chae Suhyeon.”
A voice that sounded like a lie heard from behind caused Suhyeon’s body to freeze stiff.
A voice he wanted to forget, but couldn’t, pierced his ears.
Feeling as if his joints were making creaking sounds, Suhyeon slowly turned around.
The coffee he was holding fell to the floor with a sharp thud and rolled away.
“……Do Yejun.”
In that very short moment of turning around, Suhyeon thought hundreds of times that he hoped it wasn’t him.
However, the person behind him was undeniably Do Yejun.
His heart thudded.
It felt different from how it beat when he looked at Hajin.
It was also different from how it beat when he was dating Do Yejun.
Like facing something terrifying, a heart filled with tension pressed hard against his chest.
Before he knew it, Suhyeon’s pale lips began to tremble.
“……You were safe.”
Those were the first words Do Yejun spoke.
Suhyeon felt his complexion turning white beyond the simple pounding of his heart.
“Yejun? Who is this?”
The voice of someone with Do Yejun hummed in the air.
Suhyeon gasped for breath and placed his hand on the vending machine.
“Suhyeon-ah, I was…… so worried. I’m glad you’re safe. Back then, I—”
He thought he had sorted out his feelings for Do Yejun.
It was a scary, terrible experience, but he thought he had reduced all his feelings for the man to nothing.
He thought he was gradually regaining stability as he started dating Hajin.
Beee—
A sharp tinnitus pierced through his ears.
“……Suhyeon-ah?”
Perhaps noticing Suhyeon’s strange state, he could feel Do Yejun gradually approaching.
Don’t come.
—Grrrr.
A scene began to repeat in Suhyeon’s head like a rewinding tape.
His body being pulled into the gate.
Do Yejun just staring at him blankly after saving Lee Jaeram.
Opening his eyes inside the gate.
Being defenselessly attacked by monsters.
The version of himself that would have already died if not for that mysterious necklace.
The version of himself only shedding tears in the face of excessive fear.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Suhyeon’s heart hammered painfully. It felt as if his vision was going dark.
“Chae Suhyeon, you—”
He harshly brushed away Do Yejun’s hand, which had come right up to him to grab his arm.
His hands were shaking violently.
Only then did Suhyeon realize that everything he had experienced at that gate with Do Yejun had settled in his mind as trauma.
Cold sweat poured down.
“Suhyeon.”
At that moment, someone hugged Suhyeon’s body, which was shaking like an aspen tree, from behind.
A refreshing scent pierced through his numbed senses.
It was Hajin.
He knew without even looking. Suhyeon leaned into the firm chest as if burying himself.
A hand gently stroked his back as if to say it was okay.
“It’s alright.”
The other hand, not stroking his back, gently slid into Suhyeon’s and held it.
The firm grip squeezed Suhyeon’s hand as if it would never let go.
As if it were his only lifeline, Suhyeon gradually calmed down while holding onto Hajin’s hand tightly.
His vision, which had turned white, gradually returned to normal.
His light brown eyes, filled with tears and trembling, glared at Do Yejun.
Do Yejun was looking this way with a flustered face.
Why is he so flustered?
As the fear faded, he felt a surge of resentment.
He hated Do Yejun.
Because of that one moment, Suhyeon’s life had changed completely.
Eventually, a tear that had gathered dropped to the floor.
“Suhyeon-ah.”
“……Don’t come any closer.”
Even after seeing this state, Do Yejun took another step forward as if he had done nothing wrong.
He hated the sound of his name coming from that man’s mouth.
Suhyeon’s breathing became a bit more ragged again.
“Suhyeon—”
“Didn’t you hear him tell you not to come any closer?”
When Do Yejun tried to call him again, Suhyeon’s body was lifted securely.
Hajin growled while holding Suhyeon.
Do Yejun’s eyebrows twitched.
“Shin Hajin……? Who are you to interfere right now?”
Suhyeon wanted to let out a hollow laugh.
Hajin was interfering?
The one who didn’t want to hear a single word from Do Yejun right now was none other than himself.
However, Suhyeon couldn’t do it.
Because a pain so familiar it was annoying crushed his chest.
It was impeccable timing.
“Ugh—”
With the feeling of something rising, Suhyeon coughed up blood.
The pain, as if someone was grabbing and squeezing his wildly beating heart, had returned after a long time.
“……!!”
“……!!……!!”
Suhyeon gasped for breath.
It seemed like someone, either Hajin or Yihan, was shouting, but his muffled ears couldn’t hear anything.
Tears began to leak out again.
Suhyeon, whose lips were trembling, suddenly snapped his eyes open.
His muffled vision blinked white and could capture nothing.
After struggling for a long time to hold onto his fading consciousness, Suhyeon felt ‘something’ at a certain moment.
What is this?
The pain was the same, but there was something else.
Something wavered beside his heart that was giving him such intense pain.
The moment Suhyeon recognized it, the wavering something spread out as if it had been waiting.
That was the last memory.
Suhyeon lost consciousness.
* * *
