114.
The movie they were watching after a long time was interesting, but he was getting sleepy. It was probably because he hadn’t slept well the night before. Ryu Ho-yeon casually got up and headed to the kitchen. He was thinking of making some coffee. Of course, Choi Jae-won wasn’t one to just watch him. He immediately followed like a shadow.
“If you want coffee, I can just order it for you.”
“Mm, I also want to wake myself up.”
Ryu Ho-yeon yawned with a blank expression and found a coffee mix packet with familiar ease, pouring it into a cup. After adding hot water and stirring it with a spoon, he began sipping it, while Choi Jae-won watched with a somewhat strange expression. Whether he was upset or deflated, his expression was less energetic than usual.
“Why do you look like that?”
“What?”
“Did something happen?”
After trapping the man who had just smiled dismissively at the sink and persistently questioning him, the answer finally came out. Choi Jae-won confessed that he felt disappointed seeing Ryu Ho-yeon so accustomed to common instant coffee mix rather than the bean coffee or espresso extract that he would brew and serve.
“I told you. It’s really nothing.”
Even as he spoke, his ears turned subtly red, apparently feeling silly. Ryu Ho-yeon burst out laughing. When he was a “Won,” he used to carefully savor even this coffee mix that kind Korean tourists would occasionally slip into his pocket. If Choi Jae-won heard that story, he might cry.
Ryu Ho-yeon didn’t add any words but instead bit Choi Jae-won’s hand firmly with his coffee-scented lips. Half meant to snap him out of it, half to comfort him, but…
“Ho-yeon hyung.”
“What?”
The smiling eyes suddenly drew close, and his lips stung.
“You, mmph…!!”
This was truly getting back more than he gave. After biting Choi Jae-won’s hand once, his lips and tongue were completely chewed up. Choi Jae-won had been complaining that they’d had too little time alone together, and now he was making up for all his pent-up longing.
Ryu Ho-yeon wouldn’t just stand by and accept his naughty boyfriend’s behavior. Standing on tiptoe, arms around his neck, he bit back as much as he was bitten and returned every intrusion of tongue.
When Ryu Ho-yeon staggered as his thigh muscles tensed, Choi Jae-won simply lifted his entire body and placed him on the kitchen island. Neither the person who started the teasing nor the one who decided to properly ignite the response seemed to have any intention of ending it here.
Choi Jae-won was right. They had been bustling as a group of five until they got up and finished lunch, and then there was the rehabilitation training that happened every day without fail.
After dinner, Ryu Ho-yeon, exhausted from training, would often fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, so it had been ages since they’d properly set the mood.
Both Choi Jae-won and Ryu Ho-yeon seemed too caught up in each other. As they frantically bit and sucked on each other’s lips, a tangy taste suddenly hit.
“…Ouch.”
The pain came a beat later. His lower lip had properly split.
“Oh no, let me see.”
Choi Jae-won, realizing what he’d done, immediately looked distressed. Ryu Ho-yeon tried to joke that this level of pain didn’t even count as painful, that he was fine, but somehow it backfired. Choi Jae-won’s eyes only grew more troubled at Ryu Ho-yeon’s response indicating he was used to pain.
“Wait here, I’ll bring Song Won-young.”
It was a stroke of luck, in a way, to be able to so casually call upon the precious Healing Esper for whom others would wait a year or two just for an appointment. As Choi Jae-won hurriedly left the kitchen, the three others were already gathered at the kitchen pillar, perhaps because the movie had ended.
“No need to bring me. You don’t need to explain the situation either.”
“Yes, yes, of course, of course.”
Lee Han-seo and Song Won-young, who were in perfect sync at times like this, raised their mouths in teasing smiles as they needled Choi Jae-won, looking like they were dying to mock him. Meanwhile, Park Woo-jun seemed completely disinterested.
“Good grief! How do you manage to tear the kid’s lip while kissing? Are you an animal? Are you teething?”
While the words sounded like scolding, the voice was clearly mocking. Park Woo-jun considered mentioning how Lee Han-seo’s lips had split several times since coming to the island, requiring similar treatment from Song Won-young, but tactfully kept his mouth shut.
“Were you all right outside? That’s convenient.”
Ryu Ho-yeon, without a trace of embarrassment, remained sitting on the island swinging his legs as he spoke expressionlessly. If anyone was blushing, it was Choi Jae-won.
Lee Han-seo and Song Won-young briefly exchanged glances before sighing softly. They had come full of teasing intentions, but with the person in question being so bold, they somehow felt deflated.
“Turn your head this way for a moment. Yes, like that.”
“……”
Song Won-young, clearly feeling Choi Jae-won’s sharp gaze boring into the side of his face, calmly held Ryu Ho-yeon’s chin. Having experienced this several times with Park Woo-jun while treating Lee Han-seo, it wasn’t unfamiliar.
“It might burn or feel stiff a bit, but it won’t last long.”
He didn’t know how it was before Ryu Ho-yeon lost his memories, but as far as he knew, the current Ryu Ho-yeon had never received treatment from a Healing Esper. After adding routine precautions, he began to focus his energy slightly at his fingertips…
Other scars around the slightly injured lower lip caught his eye. Normally, old wounds and scars that had long healed would not respond to any amount of ability poured into them.
That was correct, but something bothered him. He felt an overwhelming urge to treat them even if it would have no effect.
“Song Won-young. What are you trying to…!”
As soon as a faint light enveloped his entire palm rather than just his fingertips, Choi Jae-won shouted with a start, but it was already too late.
“…!!”
“Ho-yeon!”
The area around Ryu Ho-yeon’s lips and chin that his palm had touched was completely smooth. As soft as a newborn baby’s skin. As if it had never been injured.
Ryu Ho-yeon reflexively bowed his head deeply, and Choi Jae-won urgently hid him behind his back.
Lee Han-seo’s surprised eyes scrutinized the scene questioningly, then filled with anger.
“Move aside right now.”
“No.”
“Choi Jae-won.”
“……”
In a situation where everyone should be happy, Choi Jae-won’s reaction was too strange for someone who should be the happiest.
“You know your reaction isn’t normal, right?”
“What about it?”
Choi Jae-won’s answers grew even shorter, as if it was his only remaining defense.
“I thought something was strange all along. How one hand was completely healed. I just thought it was a coincidence, since I didn’t know why he was injured. I thought maybe that part just luckily wasn’t injured. But that wasn’t it. This has happened before, hasn’t it?”
His clever mind began spinning plausible hypotheses. Song Won-young, who had been watching the situation quietly, suddenly remembered a scene.
“Ah…! Now that I think about it, before… when I was healing Choi Jae-won, I used my ability on Esper-nim’s hand at the same time. Could that be when it healed?”
That was probably right. Lee Han-seo nodded, making his own conclusion. Whether Song Won-young had healed it or not didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that Choi Jae-won knew Ryu Ho-yeon could be healed but had deliberately left him untreated.
“Why did you do it? Why did you hide it? Why didn’t you fix him? You could have fixed him. Was there some other circumstance? Or… did you truly not know?”
Lee Han-seo wanted to pull some excuse from Choi Jae-won’s mouth. He desperately wanted to understand his cousin.
He desperately hoped that some plausible excuse and reason that everyone could accept would come out right now. Loud enough for Ryu Ho-yeon to hear clearly.
“Jae-won, say something. Okay? You consulted with doctors, right? It was because rehabilitation first was better for his health than just leaving it to a Healing Esper, right? You were planning to treat Ho-yeon later, right, hyung?”
Before the thought that the person he trusted most had deliberately not fixed him could reach Ryu Ho-yeon’s mind.
“No. I knew about it. And I deliberately didn’t fix him.”
“Choi Jae-won!”
But Choi Jae-won didn’t seem at all inclined to evade the situation with excuses or explanations. As if unaware or uncaring of Lee Han-seo’s burning anxiety, he answered confidently, almost brazenly.
For him, hiding the fact that Ryu Ho-yeon was alive and well, or ignoring the possibility of restoring his injured and broken appearance through a Healing Esper’s hands, were not very different matters.
“You, you really…! This won’t do. I knew you were crazy, but I thought at least your heart for Ho-yeon was sincere, so I left him with you. But this is too much. Ho-yeon. Let’s go. Let’s leave right now and get you treated immediately.”
Lee Han-seo reached behind Choi Jae-won’s back, breathing heavily. Ryu Ho-yeon, who had always been smaller and physically weaker than Lee Han-seo, was easily pulled away. His injury-ridden body was like a paper doll. Feeling that vulnerability made Choi Jae-won even more incomprehensible.
“Han-seo. Calm down, I’m fine.”
But the most incomprehensible reaction was from Ryu Ho-yeon himself. Though pulled away fluttering by the angry Lee Han-seo, Ryu Ho-yeon muttered insensibly. Lee Han-seo, assuming Ryu Ho-yeon hadn’t seen his face yet, immediately turned on his phone’s camera to show Ryu Ho-yeon his face. Exactly the area where Song Won-young’s palm had touched was completely healed, nothing more, nothing less.
“You’re fine? Is this really fine? Really? You seem to know nothing…!!”
Lee Han-seo choked up in the middle of speaking. While being alive was certainly something to be grateful for, he couldn’t help but remember how radiant the Ryu Ho-yeon he had known—his most precious friend—had been.
The current Ryu Ho-yeon didn’t know what he had lost, or how awful Choi Jae-won was for holding back something he could restore but refusing to return. He could be so calm because he knew nothing.
That’s what Lee Han-seo truly thought.
“Do you really think I don’t know anything?”
“What…?”
“I know everything, Han-seo.”
“Ho-yeon. What are you saying right now…?”
“I know the Lee Han-seo who cried after getting 20 points on his first dictation in elementary school, the Lee Han-seo who secretly whispered to me that he wanted to learn violin, the Lee Han-seo who apologized saying he couldn’t be my pair because he had found someone he liked… I know it all.”
Lee Han-seo wasn’t the only one stunned by this sudden confession. Even Choi Jae-won, who had been watching Lee Han-seo’s reaction with a still brazen attitude, showed undeniable emotion rippling across his face. Like waves.
“Ho, Ho-yeon hyung, your memories…”
“Yes.”
“Really? Since when? I mean…”
Choi Jae-won trembled almost as if terrified. It was transparent that he was anxious about Ryu Ho-yeon falling out of love with him, even without him saying it. Ryu Ho-yeon lightly shook off the wrist that Lee Han-seo was holding and interlaced his fingers with Choi Jae-won’s trembling hand.
“Han-seo. Thank you for worrying about me.”
His gaze was fixed on Choi Jae-won, but his words were directed at Lee Han-seo. Perhaps because of this, both Choi Jae-won and Lee Han-seo were equally confused.
“I really appreciate your concern. But I’m truly fine. I can stay ‘dead’ to the world forever. These wounds, they can stay unhealed forever. I… I’ll do everything he wants.”
“Ho-yeon…”
Ryu Ho-yeon’s heart did waver somewhat at his friend’s exhausted voice. But that mild current wasn’t enough to change his course. Ryu Ho-yeon’s heading had been fixed in one direction for a long time.
“The day I left him behind. I decided then. If I could really come back, this kid who could even die for me. It’s not my place to say this after deliberately leaving him, but still. If I could just come back.”
“……”
“I decided I would do everything he wanted for the rest of my life. No matter how much time I had left, I would give it all to him.”
The person who had made Ryu Ho-yeon—once just a microorganism in a flask—able to function as a human was undeniably Lee Han-seo. But Choi Jae-won was the one who had taken Ryu Ho-yeon’s hand and personally kicked down the laboratory door to bring him into the world.
How could he not love someone who had somehow gritted his teeth and followed him despite being shaken so violently?
Ryu Ho-yeon decided to live by the very common, cartoonish protagonist’s life formula.
No matter how many problems remained, he would be happy as if everything had been resolved by the love right in front of him.
The sun would continue to rise in a world that had forgotten extinction, and in the world Ryu Ho-yeon had saved, Choi Jae-won continued to love only him.
So it was okay.
To entrust himself to a worthless, obsessive love that some might never understand.
“Jae-won.”
“Yes, hyung…”
His faintly trembling voice was far different from when he was twenty and first heard it. Just as his own voice calling Choi Jae-won had changed.
But what could he do?
There was so much to tell him. What had happened to him from the moment he turned away after injecting Choi Jae-won with the guiding substitute until he fell into that forest in Tumbes. Since when he had remembered him. Why he hadn’t searched for Choi Jae-won from the beginning even though he remembered.
But still, there was only one thing he wanted to say right now.
Ryu Ho-yeon opened his mouth with a light heart.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes. So much, of course.”
“Good. That’s enough.”
“……”
“Have I told you?”
“……”
“I think I love you a lot too.”
The strategy repeats.
Thus, this empty universe becomes love again.
Their universe was now filled with love.
This S-Class Esper is Not an Obsessive Maniac, The End.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
