“Truly,” Hajin murmured under his breath, another chilling laugh escaping his lips. In the space where no one dared to speak, only his low, lethal chuckles echoed.
“Borrowing your ‘creativity,’ let me rephrase that.”
Hajin’s finger tapped rhythmically—tap, tap—against the armrest.
“If Guide Chae Suhyeon had truly brainwashed me to plot some sort of scheme… if I were him, I would have wiped out humanity long ago.”
“……Pardon?”
His blue eyes fixed on the one who dared to ask, reflecting a frigid amusement.
“I’m saying that if Guide Chae Suhyeon had asked me—using his guiding or himself as a pretext—to abandon the Gate sites or to slaughter every human in Korea, I would have done it.”
“……Esper Shin Hajin, your words are getting a bit—”
Whoosh!
“……Gasp!”
Blue flames erupted violently in front of the man who had been about to wag his tongue, flickering as they began to consume the shattered remains of the desk.
“Therefore, I suggest you do not touch Guide Chae Suhyeon. My words came out a bit harsh because you were bothering my only Guide. I’m sure you’ll understand, being the ones who issued the summons and all.”
The silence that descended once more was satisfying.
Hajin looked up at the line of officials, every single one of them pale with terror, and slowly stood up.
Click, clack.
Only the sound of his dress shoes echoed through the hall.
With a casual wave of his hand, the flames blocking the entrance vanished.
As he placed his hand on the door handle—
“This is a threat, Esper Shin Hajin.”
Director Lee Nahyeon, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke.
It was a comment not even worth a reply.
Hajin let out a mocking snort and stepped out.
Thud.
The sound of the heavy doors closing behind him echoed with unusual finality.
He had acted more recklessly than usual, but not a single thought of the consequences crossed his mind.
He was an S-rank Esper; no matter how entangled the Association’s contracts were, he and Asher were South Korea’s ultimate military assets.
The Association had no choice but to bow to him eventually.
He simply wanted to kill them for daring to touch Suhyeon without knowing their place.
Cool air greeted him as he stepped outside the building.
The reporters who had been swarming throughout the Gate Rush seemed to have gone to rest now that the Gates had entered a lull; the front of the Association was deserted.
Hajin tilted his head back and let out a long breath.
The icy, burning rage seemed to dilute slightly in the open air.
Turning his head, he saw a squirrel scurrying up a tree in the distance.
The sight of the cute brown fur immediately reminded him of Suhyeon.
He needed to go back right now.
Suhyeon was the only person in this entire world who could soothe this irritation.
His long legs strode toward the Association offices where Lee Jeonghyeon was waiting.
He pulled out his phone, which had been vibrating incessantly, and turned on the screen.
After rejecting the useless calls without a second thought, he was about to press Suhyeon’s number—the only one in his favorites—when a clear notification tone rang out.
—founnd him
The preview window showed a text filled with typos, as if written in a frantic rush.
Aside from Suhyeon, Yihan, or at most Asher Delveron, no one sent Shin Hajin such casual messages.
Hajin frowned and tapped the message.
Immediately after, however, his grip on the phone tightened.
The sender was the person who provided him with monthly reports.
—Arrival of private jet confirmed around 7:10 PM. Departure point: Montreal, Canada.
A photo followed.
Even in the blurred image, the man’s blue eyes were unmistakable.
It was the demon from his past, found at last after seventeen years.
Tring-ring—
For the first time in a long while, he hallucinated the bizarre sound of a broken toy ringing in his ears.
A crack spider-webbed across the phone’s screen.
Only after the display flickered off did Hajin blink.
He belatedly let out a dry, hollow laugh.
His hands were shaking.
He thought that no matter how long it took to find him, he would feel nothing but a desire to kill when they finally met—that there would be no great agitation.
Yet for a moment, his mind reeled.
But it was only for a moment.
Hajin took a slow breath.
The only person who could truly affect him was Suhyeon.
Hajin began to stride down the hallway once more.
“Team Leader! You’re back!”
As he reached the office, Lee Jeonghyeon peeked his head out, sensing a presence, and rushed toward him upon seeing him.
“Hajin.”
Having returned straight home, Hajin pulled the welcoming Suhyeon into a tight embrace.
As the small body entered his arms, all his emotions subsided like a lie, and peace returned.
“Hajin?”
Suhyeon’s voice, whispering as he tilted his head noticed something was off, submerged Hajin in tranquility.
Hajin habitually nuzzled his head against Suhyeon’s shoulder and let his eyes drift half-closed.
There were so many annoying things.
The Association, and Shin Seojun.
The demonic man, Shin Seojun.
Since he had entered Korea and come into Hajin’s sights, all that remained was to kill him.
With Suhyeon by his side, nothing else mattered.
However, the father he had spent seventeen years tracking seemed to have affected him slightly more than he realized.
—Inject it.
The moment he heard the man’s echoing voice, Hajin realized this was a dream of the past.
He wanted to sigh, but his young body in the dream wouldn’t move as he wished.
The feeling of his small, struggling, uncontrollable limbs was infuriating.
‘To have to feel this again.’
The damn dream showed the scenes of his past with agonizing clarity.
—Is it in?
Hajin stared at the middle-aged man he hadn’t seen in so long.
Shin Seojun, the man he had searched seventeen years to kill.
Shin Hajin’s biological father was the man who had conducted human experiments on Shin Hajin and countless other young children.
‘Children exposed to the abilities of high-ranking gifted individuals beyond a certain level have a high probability of awakening as high-ranking gifted individuals themselves.’
The sentence remained vivid in his memory even after seventeen years.
Based on that unverified hypothesis, Shin Seojun had spent ten years evading the Association and the government, pouring his efforts into human experiments involving numerous children—including his own son.
He was a true mad scientist.
Since the age Hajin could first form memories, he had been on this experimental table.
The place where countless children had died.
Hajin stared up at Shin Seojun.
Those blue eyes, so much like his own, were loathsome.
Hajin gazed into the blue eyes that looked like chilling glass beads.
Black hair, black eyes, a scrawny body.
The reflection of his younger self—who never shed a tear no matter the agony—was visible in Shin Seojun’s eyes.
Back then, Hajin’s eyes were still an ordinary black, as he had not yet become an Esper.
—Let’s expose him once more.
—Hey kid, big brother is here.
The dream flowed exactly like the past.
Upon Shin Seojun’s command, a waiting Esper approached with a greasy smirk.
Soon after, Hajin’s small body jerked and spasmed under intense, crushing pain.
—Seriously, you’re creepy every time I see you. Kid, doesn’t it even hurt?
Because Hajin never made a sound—only shedding physiological tears no matter how much power was poured into him—the Esper would mutter such things.
The Esper, who felt no shame in pouring lethal amounts of power into a child, spoke the word “creepy” without hesitation.
Hajin couldn’t remember his name, but that Esper had been the very first one he killed.
Not just that Esper.
Once he awakened, Hajin systematically killed every gifted individual involved in the experiments.
He finished the task within a year of becoming an Esper.
However, Shin Seojun’s whereabouts remained a mystery.
By the time Hajin moved, all evidence linking the experiments to Shin Seojun had been erased.
He had searched abroad, but finding him wasn’t easy.
And so, seventeen years had passed.
—A failure.
Hajin watched the dream play out.
The abilities of dozens of gifted individuals were poured into him daily.
Despite suffering that much, twelve-year-old Hajin failed to awaken.
Since gifted individuals usually awaken around the age of twelve at the latest, Shin Seojun clicked his tongue and judged him a failure.
Thus, Hajin was abandoned in a remote mountain wilderness with a broken, tattered body.
Hajin watched the dream with dead eyes, knowing what was coming next.
It really made him feel disgusted.
A dark-purple Gate opened right in front of where Hajin had been discarded, and his vision turning white was exactly as it had happened.
And then, once he regained consciousness—
—A-a child?
Hajin, whose eyes had turned a piercing blue, awakened as South Korea’s only S-rank Esper at the time (before Asher naturalized) and went into a state of berserk rampage.
In a way, Shin Seojun’s experiment had been a success.
The dream kindly reminded him of a past that wasn’t even important anymore.
Ending with the sight of himself being transported to the Association, his vision flickered to black like a finished play.
Hajin slowly scanned the void.
Despite revisiting his childhood memories, there was no visible agitation.
He just felt his formerly experimented-on body trembling and a foul mood settling in.
The past couldn’t truly affect him.
Hajin loathed the existence of others too much to feel simple hatred or anger toward a specific person.
His desire to kill Shin Seojun wasn’t so much about avenging a grievance as it was about erasing these filthy memories that surfaced from time to time.
Then, at some point, Hajin realized the dream wasn’t over.
Since when had a pale man been standing in the empty black space?
It was his love, his partner.
Suhyeon stood there with the same white eyes he’d had in front of the monster.
“……Suhyeon?”
Hajin’s eyes wavered for the first time.
He called out to his lover with a stuttering voice, but Suhyeon remained silent, standing as if he couldn’t see Hajin.
And then, someone appeared beside him.
Shin Seojun.
“……Suhyeon.”
Shin Seojun stood still and covered Suhyeon’s unmoving eyes.
His blue eyes crinkled, flashing as if he had found a new test subject.
Shin Seojun, who had shifted from the young man Hajin remembered to the blurred figure from the arrival photo, grabbed Suhyeon and pulled him away.
“Suhyeon!!”
Hajin tried to kick off the ground and run toward them, but the floor turned into a swamp, refusing to let him go.
Shin Seojun, pulling Suhyeon toward him, gave a benevolent smile and placed something on the floor.
A music box.
Despite it being a dream, Hajin’s body went rigid.
Tring-ring—
The wound-up spring began to turn, and a bizarre melody rang out.
“Su……hyeon…….”
The voice that had come out so easily before failed him now.
Hajin could only sink helplessly into the swamp…….
“……Hajin?”
Hajin’s eyes snapped open.
Beside him, Suhyeon was sitting up, his eyes wide with surprise. “Kyuu,” chirped the fluff-ball perched atop his light-brown hair.
Hajin gasped for breath, scanning Suhyeon’s body from head to toe.
It was a dream, so obviously Shin Seojun wasn’t there, and Suhyeon wasn’t harmed in the slightest.
Only after confirming that obvious fact did Hajin finally let out a breath of relief.
“Hajin?”
Hajin pulled Suhyeon into an embrace.
Surprised by the sudden movement, Suhyeon’s body tipped over toward Hajin on the bed.
The two men tumbled onto the mattress together.
