Suhyeon, suddenly tangled with Hajin and rolling across the bed, blinked in confusion.
“Suhyeon…”
Hajin murmured, pulling Suhyeon into a crushing embrace.
Suhyeon found himself on the verge of being squashed flat within Hajin’s arms.
After being held submissively for a moment, Suhyeon eventually wiggled his arms free and began to stroke Hajin’s back.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
A nightmare for Hajin—the man who always seemed so strong and stoic, except for when Suhyeon was in danger.
Suhyeon tilted his head, the words feeling foreign even as he spoke them.
However, the sight of Hajin moaning and suffering in his sleep before Suhyeon woke him was undeniably that of someone trapped in a bad dream.
He just hadn’t expected to be tackled across the mattress the moment the man opened his eyes.
Whether it was because of what happened during the dream or just a lingering feeling, Hajin, who had been clinging to Suhyeon since returning from the Association, pulled him even tighter.
“Yeah…”
At the small, whispered admission, Suhyeon grunted and pulled back slightly to create some space.
Once he had room to move, he took Hajin’s cheeks in both hands and lifted his head.
Azure eyes shook as they looked at Suhyeon.
No tears fell, but Hajin’s gaze was hazy and clouded.
‘What kind of nightmare could torment this man so much?’
Since Hajin was always anxious about anything related to him, was the dream about Suhyeon?
Or was it a past trauma everyone carries?
Or perhaps just a hollow illusion?
All three were correct, though Suhyeon didn’t know it.
He looked at Hajin, who had closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Suhyeon’s.
Hajin always appeared to be the protector, the one who could handle anything, so this display of vulnerability was quite jarring.
‘He was like this when I first woke up, too.’
Suhyeon, being somewhat emotionally blunt, wasn’t exactly an expert at comforting others.
However, he wanted to embrace the man who had held him and provided a place to hide when he was at his weakest.
Brushing away the last of his drowsiness, Suhyeon wrapped his arms around the neck of the man clinging to him.
Suhyeon’s tongue parted Hajin’s lips.
Hajin’s eyes widened for a split second before vanishing behind his lids in a welcoming gesture.
It was a mirror image of the nights when Suhyeon had suffered from nightmares of Do Yejun and the Gate; nights when Hajin had wiped away his cold sweat and kissed him.
Suhyeon invaded Hajin’s mouth, lightly brushing over his even teeth and caressing the soft, warm, moist membranes.
Hajin’s tongue met Suhyeon’s in a gentle mesh.
It wasn’t rough or feverish with desperate passion; it felt more like a small animal softly licking the wounds of a predator that had cared for it.
Listening to a heartbeat—he couldn’t tell whose it was—Suhyeon watched Hajin accept the kiss as meekly as a tamed animal before finally closing his own eyes.
Tongue against tongue, they shared a warm heat.
“Haah…”
Their lips finally parted after a long while.
A satisfied sigh, released by neither and both at once, echoed through the room.
“Chae Suhyeon…”
“Yes…”
Voices thick with the lingering afterglow of the kiss intertwined in the air.
“You have to stay with me. Do you understand?”
“Okay…”
Though he didn’t fully grasp the underlying weight, Suhyeon, who always stayed by Hajin’s side anyway, murmured his agreement.
Hajin’s hands, which had been trembling, finally found Suhyeon’s and interlaced their fingers tightly.
“You have to stay with me, in a safe place…”
Hajin’s words trailed off into a languid mumble before he suddenly pulled Suhyeon into another embrace.
“Suhyeon is mine. No one can take you away…”
As sleep began to reclaim him, Hajin’s voice grew fainter, sounding like a child’s petulant grumbling.
“Understand…?”
The fact that he insisted on an answer even while losing consciousness made Suhyeon let out a low, soft laugh.
“Yes…”
The lovers fell into sleep, holding each other tightly.
“Kyuu.”
Only the fluff-ball at the head of the bed let out a dissatisfied chirp—complaining that Hajin was getting all the cuddles and wanting to be included.
After that, a peaceful, silent night flowed for the two humans and the single ball of fluff, with no one else’s sleep disturbed.
One week after the Gates entered a lull.
In a private room of a luxury restaurant in Apgujeong, Seoul, a family dinner for the direct Lee siblings—which had been postponed due to the Gate Rush—was finally taking place.
It was a gathering that could be described as “dinner,” but was more accurately “comforting the youngest.”
Four people were present: Director Lee Nahyeon, high-ranking Esper twins Lee Gyujin and Lee Yujin, and Lee Jaeram.
As the meal, conducted in a quiet and elegant atmosphere, neared its end, Lee Nahyeon dismissed the staff.
It was time to get down to the business of soothing the youngest Lee.
Jaeram’s eyes sparkled in anticipation; he hadn’t yet heard the details regarding the failed summons of Chae Suhyeon.
However, the faint hope in Jaeram’s eyes vanished the moment Nahyeon spoke.
“First off, the conclusion is that it didn’t go well.”
“…Really?”
Nahyeon nodded.
“Shin Hajin was protecting him much more fiercely than expected.”
“Don’t even get me started. He looked ready to kill everyone in the room,” Lee Yujin added, and Gyujin nodded in agreement.
The siblings, who gave everything to Lee Jaeram, had likely done their best without revealing their true motives.
For them to speak like this meant things truly hadn’t gone according to plan.
Jaeram, who had needed rest after excessive guiding recently, hadn’t been able to attend the summons.
As his siblings calmly explained the events one by one, he began to bite his well-groomed nails irritably.
He hadn’t expected Chae Suhyeon to skip the meeting entirely, nor for Shin Hajin to show up in his place.
He had clearly underestimated Shin Hajin, assuming he was an Esper who followed the rules.
“Tch…”
Jaeram clicked his tongue in annoyance.
The Gate accident Suhyeon was involved in had been the perfect opportunity.
Guiding that clearly influenced monsters and seemed to close Gates was unprecedented—and unknown power is one of the easiest things to frame as a negative.
The first step had been spreading rumors to the media, and the goal had been to drag Suhyeon into an official Association hearing.
But Shin Hajin had interfered at every turn.
“But, you know, that was my first time seeing the video of that Guide. It was pretty fascinating. How does he do that? He’s not even an Esper.”
While Jaeram remained silent, the twins’ conversation suddenly jumped back to the topic of the video.
Jaeram, who had been sitting with a blank expression, suddenly flashed a bright smile.
“Are you teasing me right now, brother?”
“Eh, no, no. Definitely not.”
Lee Gyujin, the peak achievement of the Lee family Espers and the Team Leader of the Association’s Esper Team 4, shook his head at the youngest’s chilling smile before grinning sharply.
His upturned eyes, which looked like Jaeram’s yet somehow more predatory, made him look like a feline beast.
“You want that Guide removed from your sight, right? Do you just want him gone, or do you not care if he dies?”
Cruel words flowed casually from Gyujin’s mouth, spoken with a cheerful grin.
But the Lee family were, at their core, people who loved to hold and swing the scepter of power; they wouldn’t bat an eye at brutally removing someone who stood in their way.
The only thing they cherished was their own family.
In fact, many of those who reached the top of the Association were exactly like that.
The only one who purely sought justice, peace, and things found in fairy tales was the Association President, who was little more than a figurehead.
Furthermore, Lee Nahyeon—who had gained immense experience since joining the Association at a young age—and the Espers Gyujin and Yujin possessed natures several times more cruel than the young Guide, Lee Jaeram.
They saw no reason to leave someone alone if their “kitten” found them bothersome.
“…Hm.”
Jaeram paused, as if considering something he had never thought about deeply. Gyujin grinned and kept talking.
“Of course, we won’t let you get your own hands dirty. Do you know what the easiest way to get rid of an Esper is? A Gate.”
Nothing is as unpredictable as a Gate and the monsters that crawl out of it.
Nothing is as violent as the battle against them, where life and death hang in the balance of a single moment.
For Lee Gyujin, the Gate site was his favorite place to “dispose” of troublesome Espers.
“But Chae Suhyeon is—”
“A Guide. But he’s a Guide who has now provided an opportunity to be pushed to the front lines like an Esper, hasn’t he?”
Jaeram blinked.
Gyujin’s eyes narrowed like a snake’s as he looked at his precious youngest brother.
Lee Yujin, catching his twin’s drift, also narrowed his eyes.
“If it’s proven again that the Guide has power similar to an Esper—something that can directly affect the Gate—it becomes easy to push him to the front lines, no matter how much of an S-rank Guide he is. Even if Shin Hajin is stuck to him, he can’t control every variable on a battlefield. As long as he’s out there, we just have to keep trying until it works.”
‘It’s just preparation for his disposal.’
At Gyujin’s whisper, Jaeram’s brow furrowed slightly.
“…But Shin Hajin or Asher Delveron will interfere. How do we prove it?”
“What’s the problem? You have me. There are only two of them, and there are many of us.”
When Lee Nahyeon added her support, the pout on Jaeram’s face finally began to fade.
The Lee family laughed, satisfied with that result.
It was the laughter of a nest of vipers.
