A voice heard for the first time in seventeen years.
It had not changed a single bit from the one preserved in Hajin’s memories.
A voice so calm, it was almost benevolent.
Tring-ring-ring—
Drip. Drip.
The sound of cold sweat sliding off Hajin’s chin echoed in the cramped space, mingling with the melody of the music box.
—Has it been seventeen years? Korea has changed quite a bit in the meantime.
If one only heard the voice, it sounded like the serene words an ordinary father might say to his son.
No one would ever imagine that this was the voice of a man who had killed and broken hundreds of children in absurd experiments.
However, hearing that voice actually seemed to sharpen his senses.
The sparks of blue flame, rebelling against the music box’s melody, grew larger around Hajin.
Hajin let out a ragged breath.
His neck and back were drenched in a sickly sweat.
Tring-ring-ring-ring—
A rough breath escaped through his clenched teeth.
This was merely something etched into him during his childhood.
He had lived as his own man, Shin Hajin, for seventeen years, and Shin Hajin was not weak enough to succumb to such a thing.
Hajin bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Blood trickled between his teeth.
The blue flames flickered vividly enough to be seen by the naked eye, repeating a cycle of ignition and fading.
Tring-ring-ring-ring—
Veins bulged near Hajin’s eyes.
Drops of blood mixed with cold sweat fell to the floor.
Finally, a blue flame that bloomed despite the music box’s melody managed to sever one of the threads binding his wrist.
However, there was one final attack remaining.
—By the way, you seem to be keeping quite an interesting child by your side.
Tring-ring-ring—
The melody of the broken toy creaked as it mixed with Shin Seojun’s buzzing voice.
Ding!
Simultaneously, Hajin’s phone, which had been tossed onto the floor, began to ring frantically.
Hajin, who had been consuming his mental strength to the point of burning his brain to break the conditioning, momentarily failed to process the information.
His blue eyes went blank for a second.
‘An interesting child? The person by my side… Suhyeon?’
The moment he thought of him—Snap.
The sound of something breaking echoed. Hajin gasped for air.
Shin Seojun’s target was his lover?
His thoughts fractured as if his mind were broken.
It hadn’t been long since he almost lost Suhyeon. And now, again?
—Su…hyeon-ssi…
In that moment, ridiculously, the scene he had seen in his nightmare a few days ago pierced his mind: the image of Shin Seojun dragging Suhyeon away.
It became vivid.
Tring-ring-ring-ring—.
As if seizing the opportunity of Hajin’s momentary daze to collapse him, the music box’s sound dug deep into his ears.
His blue eyes wavered uncontrollably.
But soon—Ha. Ha-ha.
Fragmented laughter filled the space.
Blue veins throbbed on his forehead.
Why? Just why?
Closing his eyes, Hajin eventually went limp like a doll with its strings cut.
The strength left his body.
As if noticing his lack of movement, the winding of the music box slowed down.
Simultaneously, the small sparks that had been merely flickering surged into a massive blaze.
It instantly incinerated the threads coiling around Hajin’s body and swallowed the music box along with the thread tied to its key.
Blue embers fell to the floor.
The stench of burning filled the air.
The melody of the music box, which felt like it would never end, faded and finally stopped.
The music box turned to ash in the fire in an instant.
Hajin moved his stiff, uncooperative body with a creak.
Thumping down on one knee, he grabbed his phone.
The frantic vibration had stopped.
—Hah, gasp, Team Leader, did you—Team Leader, did you pick up! The thing is, Suhyeon, Guide Chae Suhyeon has—
The veins on his forehead, which had started to fade as the music box burned, flared up vividly again.
His blue eyes, half-closed from the excessive mental strain, snapped open.
Hajin’s chest, which had been heaving in sweat, went still.
An ominous dread skyrocketed.
“Suhyeon… what happened to him.”
His low voice pressed the Esper as if he were about to swallow him whole.
His mind had already gone bone-white with shock.
—I’ve taken over the call. Guide Chae Suhyeon has suddenly disappeared. We suspect he was forcibly moved through some medium. It appears to be an Esper’s ability. We have requested immediate support from the Association.
Instead of the panic-stricken Esper who couldn’t speak, the other Esper beside him added a calm explanation.
Hajin gasped.
It felt like he was suffocating.
Then, the voice recorder that had been tossed into the corner of the burning room crackled.
Just as Hajin’s irrational eyes turned toward it, the recorder caught fire.
—…Search… ca-carefully… bzzzt… zzz…
‘Search carefully.’
Even through the static, the words were clear.
Hajin stood up, staggering, his face devoid of all expression.
He didn’t know why they wouldn’t just leave him alone.
With trembling hands, Hajin turned on his phone.
It felt like his reason would vanish at any second.
His mind was a bleached void.
Blue fireballs sparked and flew about uncontrollably—just like the time he was seized by the fear of losing Suhyeon when the Gate tore open in front of him.
Staggering, Hajin pressed the screen with trembling fingers.
He desperately held onto his flickering consciousness.
He had to find Suhyeon. He entered the internet and forced his fingers to manipulate the screen.
‘Flash.’
The ring on his left hand glowed faintly.
When Suhyeon opened his eyes, he was sitting in a room that looked like a police interrogation room.
The room was sealed on all sides except for one door, and it contained only a rusted iron table, the chair Suhyeon sat on, and a chair opposite him.
He had woken up at dawn and found Hajin gone, so he went out to the living room and ran into the Espers.
He had been having a quiet conversation with them since he was already wide awake.
Then, he felt a sudden tug, a white light flashed, and he lost consciousness.
‘Kidnapping.’
That was the word that immediately came to mind.
Clang.
A sudden chill ran down his spine, and Suhyeon tried to stand up.
However, his movement was immediately blocked by iron handcuffs connected to the chair, which brutally gripped his wrists.
His hands slumped powerlessly.
Sitting there in a daze for a moment, Suhyeon felt his heart begin to throb like an arrhythmia.
The color drained from his face.
He didn’t know how this had happened.
But he was now in a completely unknown location, and he had no devices like a phone or watch that could track his location.
He was clearly at home—so who, and how, had kidnapped him?
“Kyuu.”
Just then, a familiar cry echoed from a distant corner.
Flinching, Suhyeon turned his head and saw a fluff-ball rolling toward him like a tumbleweed of dust.
He couldn’t understand how it happened, but it seemed the fluff-ball had been dragged along with him.
The rolling fluff-ball was so small and covered in dust from being in the corner that it really did look like a piece of lint. It eventually hopped right into the pocket of Suhyeon’s hoodie.
As if nuzzling him as usual, a faint warmth was felt against his stomach.
Perhaps realizing the gravity of the situation, the fluff-ball only let out small ‘kyuu-kyuu’ cries from inside the pocket.
Suhyeon took a long breath.
The fact that he didn’t know who kidnapped him, why, or how, combined with the fact that he was restrained and helpless, caused his body to go rigid.
The faint fear that only visited in life-threatening situations began to crawl over his body.
Suhyeon blinked repeatedly to drive it away, but it was of little use.
Then, with a metallic clank, the door facing Suhyeon opened.
Suhyeon forced his head up.
A middle-aged man with a cold impression, wearing a gray jacket, entered the room.
Suhyeon’s eyes, fixed on the man’s face, blinked—momentarily forgetting the severity of the situation.
Alien blue eyes that didn’t look like they could be natural.
Though he looked quite different from the face he knew due to the wrinkles, the middle-aged man bore a striking resemblance to Hajin.
“Hajin……?”
“Hahahaha! We do resemble each other quite a bit.”
When Suhyeon murmured unconsciously, the man burst into a hearty laugh.
The laughter echoed through the space.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Shin Seojun, and I am Hajin’s biological father.”
‘Hajin’s father?’
Suhyeon’s eyes widened.
As a couple, they had never once mentioned their parents.
Suhyeon hadn’t because both of his parents had passed away long ago, and Hajin simply never told him. The topic had never come up.
Suhyeon stared blankly at the middle-aged man, Shin Seojun.
A benevolent smile played on his lips.
The impression of a “resembling face” changed in an instant.
Suhyeon snapped back to reality.
Father or not, he had been kidnapped.
“I brought you here because I wanted to see you. I’m sorry our first meeting had to be so rough. I’ll let you out of those.”
Clang.
The handcuffs fixed to the chair were released.
