* * *
“Suhyeon.”
The blood in his body ran cold.
Suhyeon bit his lip hard as terror tried to resurface by reflex.
He tasted the metallic tang of blood from his gums where he’d bitten too hard, but he didn’t even feel the pain.
Suhyeon felt like crying.
He had only just escaped a state of exhaustion after being hit by one bomb after another—why did he have to face Do Yejun again?
His hands gripped the blanket so tightly his knuckles turned white, and his fingers trembled uncontrollably.
“Chae Suhyeon, are you hurt somewhere?”
In the voice he remembered, looking exactly as he remembered, Do Yejun hesitantly stepped into the center of the hospital room.
Suhyeon had heard this was a medical wing inside the Association, but how on earth did this man find him?
Goosebumps broke out over his skin.
The reality of being in the same space as Do Yejun, and the fact that the man could touch him if he moved just a little closer, sent an overwhelming wave of fear crashing over him again.
‘Again, I’ll be sucked into the Gate again…’
No, stop. Suhyeon stared at Do Yejun with wide, unblinking eyes.
His heart pounded anxiously, trying to drag out the worst of his memories, but Suhyeon wanted to delete that scene from his mind once and for all.
He hated that he was still being affected like this.
“Answer me, Suhyeon. It’s been so long since we last saw each other.”
Suhyeon pushed down his ragged, choking breath again and again.
His vision blurred; he felt that if he fainted again because of Do Yejun, he would actually be furious this time.
He saw Do Yejun staring blankly at him as he struggled to breathe.
Fortunately—by some miracle—his vision, which had started to haze over the moment the man entered, slowly but surely became clear again.
“I have so many things I’m curious about. Why didn’t you contact me, hm? How did you get out?”
The moment he regained even a sliver of composure, Suhyeon felt irritation and anger rush into the space where panic had been.
It was a shift so sudden it felt like a switch had been flipped.
Fear and dread transformed into rage and annoyance, stirring in Suhyeon’s heart.
He used every ounce of his strength to steady his breathing and glared at Do Yejun.
The image of Do Yejun’s face—gazing blankly at him while clutching Lee Jaeram as Suhyeon was sucked into the Gate—overlapped with the man standing before him, fueling a surge of unbearable anger.
The clean-cut appearance he had once fallen for at first sight now looked utterly shameless.
He couldn’t understand a single word this crazy person was babbling.
‘How did I get out? Am I hurt? Why didn’t I call?’
Does this person have no common sense?
Suhyeon’s light brown eyes held a fierce sharp edge as he glared.
Noticing the shift, Do Yejun began to stammer.
“Why… why are you looking at me like that, Suhyeon?”
“……Ha.”
Finally, Suhyeon let out a hollow laugh at the end of a harsh breath.
He was so enraged his mind was turning white.
If someone who knew nothing of the situation saw Do Yejun now, would they ever imagine he was the man who chose to save his dedicated Guide instead of his lover the moment a Gate opened?
The moment Do Yejun abandoned Suhyeon for Lee Jaeram, he had practically killed him.
Fine. Let’s be incredibly generous and assume Do Yejun valued Lee Jaeram more than Suhyeon, and that’s why he saved him.
In fact, that is why he saved him.
Suhyeon wasn’t even angry about that fact anymore. He was just sad.
Regardless, if he saved Lee Jaeram—if he essentially murdered Suhyeon in a situation where he had to choose—then he shouldn’t come here and say things like this.
If he were a human being with a moral conscience and guilt, shouldn’t he be kneeling to beg for forgiveness, or at the very least, never show his face again?
Suhyeon was confident he would choose the latter without a second of hesitation.
“……I, well, I’m sorry I saved Lee Jaeram back then, Suhyeon. I was seeing Lee Jaeram at the time, and I… I think I just saved him instinctively. But since you’re back, I’m so relieved. I won’t ever look at anyone else again, okay? Suhyeon, I’m sorry.”
‘This lunatic. What is he even saying?’
Suhyeon had suspected it, but hearing the confirmation that the man had been cheating back then—and that he was sorry for killing Suhyeon to save his lover but “it’s fine now because you lived”—made something inside Suhyeon’s overheating brain snap.
“I’m sorry.”
Saying sorry with a face that didn’t look sorry at all?
Because of Do Yejun, Suhyeon’s entire life had been warped.
Suhyeon could never go back to being a normal person.
Because of Do Yejun, he was sucked into a Gate and nearly died.
He gained an unwanted Core, became a Guide against his will, started coughing up blood, and was suddenly burdened with all sorts of duties.
Suhyeon was someone who hated change to begin with.
He was someone who just wanted to live a peaceful, quiet, and still life, but everything had been ruined.
And all of it was because of Do Yejun.
All the stress he had been unconsciously suppressing flooded into his mind like a tidal wave.
His chest tightened, and the energy within him began to flicker and surge.
But Suhyeon, his fuse already blown, didn’t even notice.
He fumbled across the blanket.
Luckily, someone had left his phone within reach.
“Suhyeon? Can’t you hear me?”
Ignoring the madman’s words completely, Suhyeon ruthlessly swiped across the glowing phone screen and pulled up the keypad.
‘112.’
Suhyeon pressed the simple numbers and hit the call button without a shred of hesitation.
—Hello, this is the police. How can we help you?
The diligent public servants were clearly on duty even at this late hour; the call connected after only a few rings.
Suhyeon steadied his breathing.
Hearing the voice of a total stranger seemed to help his condition.
“I’m in the medical wing of the Ability Users Association,”
—……Uh, yes. The Association.
“……Hey, Chae Suhyeon.”
Realizing he was calling the police, Do Yejun dropped his stuttering, weak act and scowled deeply.
“I’m a patient here, and I just woke up to find someone in my room— ugh!”
Suhyeon, who was trying to finish his report, widened his eyes at the sudden pain shooting through his wrist.
“Suhyeon, you shouldn’t do that.”
With a low voice, Do Yejun grabbed his wrist.
“Let go!”
Suhyeon let out a scream-like shout.
His light brown eyes, which usually held only quiet emotions, distorted fiercely.
A skin-crawling sensation, like insects crawling over him, came from where Do Yejun held him.
He hated it.
—Hello? Caller? Are you alright?
“Ah!”
But the pain surpassed his disgust, and Suhyeon eventually screamed.
“A police report? Why would you do something like that?”
Do Yejun’s eyes had turned strange and crazed, as if a gear had slipped, and he gripped the wrist even tighter.
Suhyeon’s body was already sensitive and weak, and the pain felt as if his wrist were being snapped.
Physiological tears welled up from the pain.
Suhyeon gasped for breath, caught between rage that reached the ceiling and the fear of the trauma trying to pull him under again.
As if responding to his state, something in his chest flickered again.
The phone slipped from his thin wrist and hit the floor with a thud.
At the same time, a sweet scent, like it was tickling the tip of his nose, filled the air.
Suhyeon blinked, momentarily forgetting the pain as he caught the scent.
Suhyeon wasn’t the only one who smelled it; Do Yejun’s eyes also widened as he held Suhyeon’s wrist in a bone-crushing grip.
“……Chae Suhyeon, you—”
Whether intentional or not, Do Yejun’s grip tightened further.
Just as the tear hanging precariously from Suhyeon’s eye finally fell to the floor—
CRASH!!
The window glass shattered into a thousand pieces.
“You crazy bastard,”
A low, furious voice—one that sounded like a wild beast, a sound Suhyeon had never heard before—struck his ears sharply.
A streak of sharp blue light flashed past Suhyeon.
“Aaargh!!!!”
The sound of Do Yejun screaming as he was thrown away from Suhyeon happened almost simultaneously.
Suhyeon stared blankly as a blue light he’d seen once before flickered over Do Yejun’s entire body like a flame.
“AAAGH!! Crazy— Shin— AGH!!”
He didn’t know what that light was doing, but Do Yejun lay sprawled on the floor, his face contorted in agony.
The blue flame seemed to cling particularly to Do Yejun’s hand, refusing to go out.
Hajin, who had come through the window, familiarly pulled Suhyeon into his arms.
A refreshing scent enveloped Suhyeon’s body, shimmering around him.
“Suhyeon-si, breath. Please breathe.”
“—Gasp!”
It was only when the low but soft voice rang in his ear that Suhyeon realized he had forgotten to breathe.
He exhaled his held breath and huddled into Hajin’s embrace, panting.
He clung to Hajin almost instinctively.
Perhaps because he had come from outside, his embrace felt cold. Hajin didn’t push him away; he held him close.
“……lee……”
Hajin gently stroked Suhyeon’s back while making a phone call to someone.
Suhyeon’s ears felt muffled, and he couldn’t even hear the conversation.
Only Hajin’s scent and the cold warmth of his embrace remained, slowly calming the emotions that had made his mind flash white.
As the uncontrollable surge finally, slowly began to recede, Suhyeon let out an exhausted breath.
Hajin continued to stroke his back as if he were Suhyeon’s personal sedative.
Ridiculously, the kind of gesture one would use for a child worked perfectly in this situation.
His head felt fuzzy.
Yihan had appeared from somewhere with a terrifying expression and was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear that either.
In the midst of the relief that poured over him like a tide, Suhyeon lost consciousness and went limp.
* * *
