* * *
“Did your meeting with the Director go well?”
‘If it were the old me, I would’ve answered that question honestly, without holding back.’
‘No, more than that, I wouldn’t even have needed to explain anything about the Director—I could’ve just handled the situation my own way, anywhere, even in the bathroom like I originally thought—just taken him by force.’
But Haimar didn’t do that.
He’d grown intrigued by the steadily shrinking distance between them lately.
That overly kind man—if he’d listened to the Director, he would’ve been agonizing over it, sick with worry.
Haimar didn’t want to see that.
And maybe, just maybe, Ben would’ve eventually given in and opened up on his own.
But for some reason, that idea felt unpleasant.
‘Because he had no choice. Because he couldn’t help it.’
Using those kinds of reasons to explain away his own limits left a bitter taste in Haimar’s mouth.
He couldn’t stand the thought of cracking the resolve he’d made in the bathroom yesterday.
There was also a promise between them—a vow they were both bound to.
The beginning of this long, tangled relationship.
A promise once made in a fleeting moment of interest and whimsy had now become something too difficult to break.
The changes in their relationship had twisted around that promise, turning it into a knotted mess that couldn’t be easily unraveled.
Too precious now to cut with brute force.
Haimar Eilec was a man who would rather be discarded than let his power run unchecked.
A man called the strongest Esper of humanity didn’t find it pleasant to show his weakness.
Even if the one seeing it was Ben Plaskun.
“…Sir.”
At the chauffeur’s voice, Haimar turned his gaze away from the familiar view and leaned back into the plush support of the luxury cushion.
He didn’t need to hear the man speak to know what he wanted to say.
One glance at his eyes was enough to read everything.
The man, playing the role of a driver, was visibly uncomfortable in the luxury vehicle he could never afford even with a lifetime’s earnings—and he was afraid of Haimar.
Haimar hadn’t intended to hire a driver.
But the constant sensory overload made the act of driving, with all its lights and sounds, too exhausting to handle.
So he’d settled for the least annoying solution.
“Leave the keys at the Central office once you’ve parked.”
“Y-yes, understood.”
As soon as Haimar stepped out, a breeze laced with a subtle chill brushed his cheek.
He tilted his head up toward the high-rise apartment building that stood tall against the starless night sky.
The exact floor he lived on stood out to him, as though magnified under a microscope.
He’s not here?
Unlike usual, there were no lights on inside the building.
At this hour, Ben should’ve been home from work, yet Haimar hadn’t received any messages or calls.
He glanced down at his phone briefly, then headed toward the entrance.
Beep—click.
Even after he held his card key to the door and stepped inside, the apartment remained pitch black.
The cylindrical mood lamp that normally lit the living room was off, and even the bedroom was dark—it seemed like no one was home.
But Haimar knew otherwise.
Instinct told him Ben was in the bedroom, and the shoes by the entrance confirmed it.
Click.
The light switch flipped, and only then did Ben, sitting in the room, lift his head.
Ah.
The light stirred the thoughts that had been stagnating in his mind.
Ben had planned to calmly explain everything when Haimar arrived—to carefully unpack the mess of words knotted up inside him.
But nothing had been sorted out.
And it was because of that small, black box in his hand.
If only it hadn’t been for the suppressor inside the box that looked so much like a ring case.
Ben had stumbled upon it by pure accident.
He’d been wandering the apartment in thought when his eyes had fallen—completely by chance—on a drawer he’d never opened before.
He’d opened it on a whim, without thinking.
Inside, unmistakably, was something that looked like a ring box.
Driven by useless curiosity, he’d opened it without hesitation.
Had he known it was Pandora’s box, he wouldn’t have dared.
And he regretted it the moment he saw what was inside.
An indescribable feeling clogged his chest, already tight with confusion.
The small black box, which couldn’t have weighed more than a few grams, sat in his hand with the weight of lead.
For a moment, he tried to convince himself he’d seen it wrong—but in the end, he couldn’t deny what he saw.
They say you can’t be disappointed if you never expected anything.
But what had he expected from Haimar?
Trust. That was it—trust.
Was he really Haimar’s Guide?
And even if he was—had he ever done anything truly worthy of being called that?
At first, he was angry.
‘Was I really that untrustworthy to him?
Then, he felt hurt.
‘Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d just told me himself.’
Finally, he felt sorry.
Because all the things he’d tried, foolish and ignorant as they were, amounted to nothing.
Drowned by inexperience, buried in shallow thoughts.
“If I chose to do that as an Esper, there are only two reasons,” Elgran had once said.
“Either I didn’t want to worry someone, or I didn’t trust my Guide. Either way, you know the answer, don’t you?”
That question became a riddle Ben couldn’t answer—not until he asked Haimar himself.
So if everything Ben Plaskun had done until now meant nothing—if he hadn’t earned even a sliver of trust—that thought alone made his vision spin.
Haimar’s slow steps toward the bedroom, wearing only indoor slippers, looked as though someone had hit the slow-motion button on a video.
Until he came to stand right in front of Ben, Ben hadn’t even been able to look at him.
He sat there like a statue, unmoving.
“……”
Seeing Ben stay silent like that—so unlike himself—Haimar frowned slightly in confusion.
Then, his gaze found the small box in Ben’s hand.
The one he was sure he’d shoved in a drawer the moment he received it.
How had Ben found it?
Before Haimar could say anything, his hand moved on its own, reaching to lift Ben’s face.
Their eyes met—only for a second—before Ben quickly looked away.
Haimar followed his gaze, refusing to let it go, but Ben stubbornly kept his eyes cast downward.
That expression—so full of things unsaid, lips trembling ever so slightly—Haimar caught every bit of it.
His senses, honed far beyond the ordinary, tuned in to nothing but his Guide.
Ben’s oddly heavy, sinking mood pulled at Haimar’s condition too, dragging him down.
But still, he waited for Ben to speak.
It wasn’t even ten seconds. But it felt like ten minutes.
‘…I don’t know what to say.’
Anger, hurt, and guilt—all tangled together in a mess—left only the ashes of what had once been clear emotion.
He wanted to ask, wanted to demand answers.
But he hadn’t done anything right either.
Ben didn’t even know where to begin.
If only he were better at saying what he felt.
He wanted to run.
Maybe, if he ran away for a while, he could come back later, when the words flowed more easily.
But he couldn’t.
Not when breaking their promise now felt worse than staying.
What a cruel, bitter irony.
And so, what finally came out of Ben’s mouth was the question he’d wanted to ask most of all.
“Do you… even trust me a little? No—do you even need me?”
The hesitant, stumbling words—so unlike Ben—immediately made Haimar’s brow furrow.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“If this is about the control device, it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Yeah, well, it sure doesn’t seem like you trust me.”
What ended up slipping out was a voice tinged with anger.
If he didn’t care, then who would?
His bitter tone aimed straight at Haimar, whose eyes grew a touch sharper—but Ben didn’t care.
“I heard about your meeting with the Director today. From Elgran.”
“I told him it wasn’t worth mentioning.”
As Ben’s words turned sharp, Haimar’s tone followed, bristling with thorns.
It even sounded like he was saying, ‘Are you dense or something?’—a layer of contempt that only fueled Ben’s frustration.
“Not worth mentioning to me? Why wouldn’t I need to know? If it’s not because you don’t trust me, then what am I supposed to think?”
“Enough. My patience has limits.”
Haima’s voice was flat, but the chill in his eyes was unmistakable.
His grip on Ben’s chin tightened slightly—enough that Ben could no longer turn his face away.
“No. I am going to say this. That control device—it’s just a replacement for me, isn’t it? So then, from the start, there was never any need to trust Ben Plaskun—”
His lips trembled.
Each word left his mouth like it was tied to a weight, pressing the air down on him until it felt suffocating against his skin.
But if he didn’t speak, he would gain nothing.
Even if the words cut into him, even if they left wounds—he had swallowed enough for a lifetime.
“So it wouldn’t make a difference if I disappeared, right?”
Still, the pain from those sharp-edged words stabbing at his chest was far from something he could get used to.
‘What if he agrees with me?’
The thought crept into Ben’s mind.
He tried to speak as rationally as he could, but his emotions had already gotten ahead of him, and his face twisted like he was about to cry.
* * *
