“It opened. The door opened!”
“Su-jin, Su-jin! Baby! We did it!”
The first to notice the Gate’s exit opening were the Guides. They’d sensed the wind shifting in an unusual way, and then, in the distance, they saw a Gate form—one that would let them leave.
“It’s coming to us anyway, so why’re you sprinting like that?”
“What, do you know what love is?”
Min-ho, Su-jin’s paired Guide, ran down the path the Espers had taken, his face crumpled like he was about to cry. Jin-ha watched his back with an expression that said he genuinely didn’t understand.
Ah. Come to think of it, there’s one more person who’d be like that.
Jin-ha flicked his gaze toward Yu-won. Yu-won’s fist was clenched tight, his face looking like he wanted to run to the Espers right this second.
His heart was practically blazing to go, but he didn’t seem to have the courage to actually move. Well, his feelings might look heartfelt, but it wasn’t like they were truly close enough for that. Thinking it was nothing worth dwelling on, Jin-ha simply waited for the Espers to return.
“Hhk—hhngh.”
“Why’re you running like that? If the Gate opened, looks like you dealt with the boss just f—.”
“Sorry, but we don’t have time for that right now. I’m going ahead.”
“Wait—who is that on your back…?”
Tae-hwan sprinted toward the Gate exit with Min-hyeon and someone limp slung over his back. For a split second, it looked like Min-hyeon’s face was ghostly pale.
“Rion hyung…?”
Just from the silhouette, Yu-won recognized who was being carried, and his face instantly drained of color.
A moment later, Yu-won—his face exhausted—grabbed the Espers as they emerged and demanded an answer.
“Why’s Rion hyung like that? What happened?”
“Let’s get out. We’ll talk after we’re out.”
“Min-hyeon sunbae was there too. So why—?!”
“Out. Now!”
Hyeon-seo snapped, her voice sharp with irritation. She looked completely rattled—her usual composed, adult-like demeanor nowhere to be found.
“I don’t have the strength to explain it one by one, Yu-won. So let’s get out first, then talk.”
“Yeah, Yu-won, let’s go. Once we’re out… once we’re out, I’ll explain everything.”
“Sunbae, calm down. It’s going to be okay.”
The Espers who’d come out after them tried to calm the two down. There was no way a few words would truly settle them, but getting out of the Gate came first.
Why—why is there nothing I can do? Not even that… not even knowing anything in a situation like this…
Yu-won couldn’t remember what mindset he’d even had while leaving the Gate. After seeing Rion go out unconscious on Tae-hwan’s back, the very next moment Yu-won could recall was—
“Esper Kang Rion was just transferred to the emergency room unconscious! What happened inside the Gate?!”
“Could you tell us why Esper Kang Rion was injured, and what the situation was like inside?”
“Please, even just briefly—what happened in the Gate?!”
A barrage of flashes that made his eyes ache, and questions so blunt they felt cruel.
***
“Haah. Do those reporters seriously not have even the bare minimum of human decency?”
“They’re the ones who parked themselves in front of the Gate even though they knew they could get swept up if something went wrong. What were you expecting?”
“Sure, but still… haah. I’m sorry. I should’ve stopped it somehow, but there was no way. The so-called freedom of the press, seriously.”
Inside the hospital’s VIP lounge sat only the team members who’d entered the S-rank Gate, the Center Director, and a handful of staff from the Central Center.
The Espers who’d made it out all had injuries big and small, and the Guides, too, were in no condition to speak of after a forced march that had dragged on for a full week.
They’d rented out an entire VIP ward in advance, but with someone so severely hurt they couldn’t even use those rooms, the Gate raid was technically over—and yet the Center Director couldn’t feel at ease.
“What happened?”
It felt wrong to ask that of people who hadn’t even managed to pull themselves together physically or mentally, but the Center Director had a duty to know everything. When he asked carefully, Joo-chan began explaining the situation.
“We thought it was over after we succeeded in hitting the boss’s vital point, but… maybe it was a last-ditch struggle. The boss swung its leg at Rion.”
“That kind of thing happens all the time. And it’s not like Rion’s inexperienced enough to not anticipate that. So why…?”
“It wasn’t just that. Before that, Rion hyung had already hurt his leg. I think that’s why, when he took that attack, landing was hard for him. He told me if I healed everything, I’d burn out too, so I should conserve my strength and we should just finish it like that, but…”
Min-hyeon spoke through tears. Rion, forgetting he’d injured his leg, planted it on the ground—and in that instant, the pain surged in, and he stumbled.
The team was already exhausted, and because it was Rion, everyone assumed he’d swat that attack away easily. Their response was delayed, and Rion was struck by the boss’s leg and sent flying.
“I knocked it away, but… I didn’t block it completely.”
Tae-hwan lowered his head, his face heavy with self-reproach. Honestly, if the person in that position hadn’t been Rion—with a leg injury—Tae-hwan would’ve moved faster.
It’s Rion. He’ll be fine.
That thought ended up shackling all of them. Only after seeing Rion slam hard into a tree and collapse did they truly realize it.
“Just because he’s a strong Esper doesn’t mean he can’t get hurt… Haah. I don’t know. I’m just… pathetic.”
“You know as well as I do that nothing in an S-rank Gate goes the way you want. Don’t blame yourself too much. That was an accident.”
The Center Director offered the standard consolation, patting Tae-hwan’s shoulder. And though no one said it out loud, most of the Espers were thinking the same thing Tae-hwan was.
Rion was still a person, and they’d grown complacent, hiding behind the certainty of his strength—and that was how this situation had been created.
“Will he be okay? His condition…”
“Is he still in surgery?”
“……Yeah. They said they’d contact us as soon as it’s over, but since we haven’t heard anything yet…”
Rion had come out of the Gate unconscious and was taken straight to the emergency room. The tests that followed immediately delivered one grim update after another—none of them anything you could call “lucky.”
“There’s internal bleeding in his organs, and three of his ribs are fractured. There’s also a fracture in his leg. But the biggest issue is… due to the trauma, the head—”
“His head? Then… is this going to be a difficult surgery? In the worst case, what could happen…?”
“We’ll do our best, but we can’t rule out the worst possibilities. We’ll do everything we can to prevent that from happening.”
It had already been eight hours since Rion went into surgery. Even though the grueling week-long ordeal had ended, no one could sleep peacefully. All of them waited for him with the same desperate hope.
“He’ll be fine. It’s not just anyone—it’s Rion sunbae. He’ll pull through and then act like nothing even happened, like, ‘What’s with you guys?’ and— hnng.”
Joo-chan tried to start speaking as if everything would be okay, but tears burst out the moment he opened his mouth, and he clamped his lips shut again. Everyone imagined the worst, but no one dared to say it out loud.
“If my ability was better… if it was, then maybe it would’ve been better…”
“It’s not your fault. Don’t think like that. You pulled out everything you had—everything you didn’t even have—to heal him.”
“Yeah. And the fact he’s even at ‘that level’ is because you healed him. If you hadn’t…”
If not for Min-hyeon’s immediate treatment, it was possible the place Rion lay right now wouldn’t have been an operating table at all.
“Snff—h-hic… What do we do? He’ll be okay, right? He has to be okay…”
“Don’t cry, Kim Min-hyeon. If you cry, then I—then I, too, for no reason—”
“Ah, seriously, don’t make the mood like this.”
Starting with Min-hyeon’s tears, the team members began crying one by one, unable to hold back their anxiety any longer. Some sobbed out loud, while others fought desperately not to let their tears fall.
“…….”
Yu-won belonged to neither group. He just sat there, completely out of it, his face blank as if he couldn’t even hear what people were saying.
“Stay in the hospital for at least a few days. The tests are one thing, and rest is rest, but… reporters are swarming all the way down to the first floor of this hospital. Honestly. Do they think once they write an article, that’s the end of it?”
The Center Director sighed, sounding stifled with frustration. It wasn’t exactly shocking that reporters, blinded by a story, would camp out wherever they pleased—hospital or Gate entrance—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t infuriating.
The Center would officially release information about Rion’s condition when the time came, and even if they didn’t, reporters would dig up sources and run something anyway.
Still, it was maddening that there were plenty of people besides Rion who needed rest, yet the reporters acted like their recovery didn’t matter at all, squatting outside the hospital.
“Once the surgery’s over, we’ll obviously inform you ourselves, so—haah…”
Bzzz—.
Just as the Center Director sighed again, his phone screen lit up. Wearing a weary expression, he checked it—then hurriedly answered.
“Yes, yes. Ah, I’ll come down right away. Yes. Thank you.”
“Wh-what was it? What did they say?”
The moment they saw color return to the Center Director’s face, the Espers leaned in like they were about to pounce—before he even finished the call.
Understanding that feeling all too well, the Center Director stood and spoke.
“I’ll know more once I go hear the details, but… the surgery ended well. We’ll need to watch how it goes for his consciousness, though.”
“Haaah….”
The team let out a collective sigh of relief. As everyone’s tension finally drained and they bowed their heads, only one person stood up from his seat.
“I’m going to go in and rest.”
“O-oh. Yeah. You should. All of you go in and get some rest. They said he’s past the critical point—after everything you went through, you should finally let yourselves breathe and recover.”
Yu-won, who had stood up first, didn’t even wait for an answer. Before anyone could speak, he walked straight into his room. Watching him silently, someone muttered under their breath.
“No matter what their relationship is, still…”
“I thought they’d gotten closer inside the Gate. Guess I was wrong.”
How could someone look so unaffected when something like this happened to a teammate they’d been stuck with for a week? Someone clicked their tongue, as if Yu-won’s coldness was too much.
