“Krrrrrr……!”
The monster thrashed violently, trying to tear itself free from the thick layers of coiling thread.
The hands of the man standing beside Shin Seojun glowed with white light.
It was the same manifestation used when he had teleported the F-rank Esper child.
“Ugh…….”
Suhyeon let out a pained groan as the threads wound around his arm dug deeper, dragging him forward.
Whether by design or cruel coincidence, the strings were wrapped tightly directly over his fresh scabs.
“Suhyeon, come here obediently.”
Shin Seojun crooked his finger, speaking as if coaxing a disobedient child.
He was trying to take him back to that horrific place.
Suhyeon felt that if he were dragged back now, he would never see the outside world again.
He had to escape.
The white light in the other man’s hand was already flickering, ready to burst.
As Suhyeon strained with all his might to resist the pull, Shin Seojun let out a weary, annoyed sigh.
“I want to be kind to you, but I don’t have time for this.”
He began to stride toward Suhyeon. Suhyeon’s face went deathly pale.
“Don’t… come near me.”
His voice came out in a stutter.
He tried to back away, but the binding threads kept him pinned.
Trying to snap the strings was futile; even when he pulled with his entire body, they held fast.
He had to get away, yet he was paralyzed by a single strand of thread.
He couldn’t let himself be taken again.
Suhyeon gritted his teeth, fighting to push back the mounting waves of terror.
‘How do I run?’
With every step Shin Seojun took, Suhyeon’s mind turned a blank, snowy white.
‘Surge.’
Just as his mind was beginning to go numb, Suhyeon, who had been leaning back with all his strength, suddenly felt a jolt in his chest.
His guiding energy surged inside him as if demanding his attention.
It was the same wavelength that had been leaking out before he lost consciousness.
It was still moving.
“Krrrrrr……!”
Realizing the direction in which that energy was flowing, Suhyeon’s eyes widened and shook.
The white fur of the monster shimmered.
“Suhyeon.”
At that moment, his arm was snatched.
“……! Let go!”
His skin crawled.
Shin Seojun had closed the distance in an instant and gripped his arm.
Suhyeon struggled to shake him off, but Shin Seojun’s grip was beyond imagination.
A strength that seemed impossible for a middle-aged man shackled Suhyeon’s arm.
The man gestured to the Esper, and the white light flared.
In a burst of sudden, soaring terror, Suhyeon reflexively unleashed a wave of his power.
And in response to it—snap, snap, snap.
“KRAAAAAAAWR!”
Like a prey animal about to be consumed, the threads that had cocooned the monster snapped all at once.
For the first time, the benevolent smile on Shin Seojun’s face twitched and vanished.
“……Ah, really.”
He thought he heard an irritated mumble, and then the monster bucked violently.
The force sent all three people on its back staggering.
Shin Seojun’s grip broke, and as the monster tore through the rest of the restraints, the threads binding Suhyeon vanished as well.
Suhyeon didn’t miss the opening. He stumbled back several steps.
“KRAAAAAAAWR!”
Having shredded its restraints, the monster roared with renewed vigor, shaking its body with a wild ferocity that dwarfed its previous movements.
Stumbling toward the very edge of the monster’s back to get as far from Shin Seojun as possible, Suhyeon lost his balance.
Tilt—
His vision slanted.
Suhyeon’s face drained of color.
Though the monster was standing on the ground, its sheer size made the drop equivalent to several stories of a building.
Suhyeon’s center of gravity had already shifted too far.
His arms flailed in the empty air.
“Suhyeon—!”
Even Shin Seojun, who was grimacing while trying to maintain his own balance, seemed to realize the danger.
As Suhyeon’s feet left the monster’s back entirely, Shin Seojun’s threads lunged forward.
Suhyeon gritted his teeth and managed to twist his body in mid-air, dodging the threads.
He would rather fall to his death than be bound by them again.
The white threads missed their mark and receded.
“KRAAAAAAAWR!”
The sound of sharp wind whistled around his entire body.
He heard the monster’s roar.
He thought he heard people screaming in the distance.
Then, a massive white tentacle from the monster lunged toward the falling Suhyeon as if to catch him.
‘I won’t die.’
Suhyeon thought vacantly as he plummeted.
Unlike his reaction to Shin Seojun’s threads, he felt no urge to avoid the monster.
His dazed mind didn’t recognize the creature—which was still drinking in his wavelength—as an enemy.
His head felt light and floaty from the excessive stimulation.
Suhyeon squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the impact of the tentacle.
He was so tired.
And then, the scent of burning reached him.
“Ah, dear. Am I too late?”
He thought he heard Shin Seojun’s disappointed mutter faintly, but instead of the impact of a tentacle, he felt a familiar pair of arms.
His eyelids flew open.
His light brown pupils shook.
What he saw wasn’t those terrifying glass-blue eyes, but Hajin’s soft, desperate gaze.
Simultaneously, blue flames erupted all around them in a threatening surge, flying toward Shin Seojun atop the monster.
However, just before the flames reached him, a white light exploded.
It was the ability of the foreign Esper by Shin Seojun’s side.
Just before Shin Seojun vanished, Suhyeon saw the man’s eyes narrow into a smile while fixed directly on him.
‘See you next time.’
His lips moved soundlessly, forming the shape of those words.
But Suhyeon didn’t have room for terror at the sight of Shin Seojun’s departure; instead, he buried himself deeply into Hajin’s chest as the man landed on the ground.
“Suhyeon-ssi…….”
A thin, fragile call reached him, but Suhyeon couldn’t lift his head.
Something inside him finally snapped, and relief, security, and exhaustion swept over him like a tidal wave.
“……Ah, haa.”
Suhyeon eventually realized that the person gasping for ragged breaths was himself.
His limbs, still throbbing with bloodied scabs, shook violently.
He slowly lifted his head. Hajin was looking down at him, his blue eyes filled with anguish.
“Suhyeon-ssi……,”
Honestly, there was so much Suhyeon wanted to say.
So much he wanted to ask.
‘The conditioning Shin Seojun tried to do to me—did you really go through that? Did you suffer? I only experienced it for a moment and it hurts this much; are you okay?’
But.
Looking up at Hajin while trembling, Suhyeon couldn’t ask a single thing before his face crumpled.
Tears began to leak from his eyes.
“Hajin-ssi…….”
“Yes, yes, Suhyeon. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Hajin rambled in response to his stuttered name.
Suhyeon’s vision was a blur.
Only after being held in Hajin’s arms, only after returning to him, did all the fear, pain, and sorrow finally explode.
He didn’t think he had cried this hard even when he faced Do Yejun; Suhyeon wailed.
He was that scared, and it hurt that much.
Suhyeon buried his face deeper and deeper into Hajin’s chest.
Hajin wiped the tears from Suhyeon’s eyes over and over.
His hands, which brushed against Suhyeon’s cheeks, shook as if he didn’t know how to handle the situation.
“I was so scared…….”
Suhyeon murmured faintly, gasping for breath against Hajin’s chest.
“I… I’m truly sorry…….”
Hajin held him tight, his voice dangerously unstable as he repeatedly whispered apologies.
It wasn’t his fault. Suhyeon didn’t know the full details of his relationship with Shin Seojun, but he knew that much for certain.
He needed to tell him not to be sorry, but at this moment, Suhyeon couldn’t calm his own emotional turmoil.
“……!”
“……! ……Ah……!”
“Found……!”
The surroundings were chaotic, but the noise felt like it was coming from far away.
By the time Suhyeon finally regained his bearings, they were back home.
The first floor, filled with sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The sofa. Home.
Realizing he had returned, tears burst forth once more.
Hajin laid Suhyeon down on the sofa.
He continuously brushed back Suhyeon’s hair, which was a mess of dust and sweat.
“Kyuu.”
At some point, the fluff-ball had returned and was nuzzling its white fur against Suhyeon’s chest.
Finally, his mind felt like it was returning to him.
Suhyeon reached out a trembling hand toward Hajin’s.
He wanted to feel his warmth.
As if to catch his hand, Hajin reached out even as he shook.
Their hands brushed slightly out of alignment, and Hajin’s fingers accidentally grazed Suhyeon’s wrist, which had been hidden by his sleeve.
“Ugh…….”
Since it happened to be the side that had been bound by the threads, Suhyeon reflexively let out a groan.
