The hand that gently wiped his tear-streaked face was warm and tender. Park Woo-jun buried his face in Lee Han-seo’s palm, rubbing against it like a starved man licking every grain from a long-awaited bowl of rice. He nuzzled his cheeks against Han-seo’s hand, desperate to steady the emotions threatening to spill over.
The strange rush of feelings that had scrambled his thoughts and made his heart pound only began to settle once he was wrapped snugly in the familiar scent of Han-seo’s pajamas.
His sobbing slowly began to fade. The sound quieted, but the tears kept coming, stubborn as ever. In a soft voice, tinged with concern, Han-seo asked if he’d had a nightmare.
“…Yeah.”
Woo-jun nodded. It wasn’t a lie. The dream had been too beautiful—so blissful it had scared him.
“Oh no. My poor baby must’ve been really shaken up. Hang on, let me get you some water. Or maybe I should warm up some milk?”
Han-seo, now fully awake, swung his legs over the edge of the bed. But the moment he moved, Woo-jun instinctively reached out, wrapping his arms around him.
“Seriously, what kind of nightmare was it to have you clinging like this?”
Strong arms locked around him from behind, holding him tight enough to keep him from moving. But Han-seo didn’t seem fazed. He simply let out a quiet laugh and lightly tapped Woo-jun’s arm draped over his shoulder.
“Don’t go. Just… stay with me. Just a little while. Please…”
“Alright, I’m not going anywhere. But come on—loosen your grip a bit, will you? I can’t breathe.”
“Nope.”
He shook his head and only squeezed tighter. Han-seo scoffed, exasperated, and gave Woo-jun’s head a playful bop.
“Here I thought you were all grown up, but clearly not. Why is my boyfriend acting like such a baby, huh? Park Woo-jun, how old are you again? Waking people up like this…”
Twenty-six. But it didn’t seem like a question he was actually meant to answer. So Woo-jun wisely stayed quiet and sniffled, his tears starting to flow again.
Then Han-seo teased, asking if the dream had been about someone dying—or worse, if it had been him dying. Maybe he was just trying to lighten the mood, but if that was the goal, it didn’t work. Woo-jun let out another whimper and told him not to joke about something so awful.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, alright? Now come on, let go of my arms. Let me see that face.”
As soon as Woo-jun’s arms loosened, Han-seo turned around and briskly wiped away the fresh tears. Then, without missing a beat, he pressed a gentle kiss to Woo-jun’s trembling lips.
But Woo-jun didn’t let him pull away. Not with just that. He chased after him, capturing his lips, sucking deeply, then softly biting at the corners of Han-seo’s mouth. Han-seo let out an incredulous snort.
“Seriously? Was this your plan all along?”
It wasn’t. Not really. But what did it matter? A little pleasure between them was nothing to complain about. Even with tears clinging to his lashes, Woo-jun continued sharing breath with him.
“Mmfh—hey, I can’t breathe… Slow down…”
Maybe it was the leftover heat from sleep, but Han-seo’s tongue was warmer than usual—soft and just hot enough to suck on. Whenever he tried to pull away, gasping for air, Woo-jun would tug him back in. After a few more half-hearted attempts to resist, Han-seo gave up and wrapped his arms around Woo-jun’s neck, responding in full.
Each wet brush of their lips sent a sharp tremor down Woo-jun’s spine. Every friction of skin against skin buzzed like a live wire.
When Han-seo’s hands pushed lightly at his chest, Woo-jun didn’t resist. He let himself fall back, his body sinking into the soft, familiar bedding. Surrounded by that scent, that warmth, those sensations—he realized, without a doubt, that everything around him was real.
Every time their tongues tangled, Han-seo’s guiding waves sparked through him with electric intensity. As Woo-jun’s hands worked quickly to pull open Han-seo’s pajamas, a thought passed through his mind—if he weren’t an Esper, and Han-seo weren’t a Guide, would this dizzying rush of sensation feel so intoxicating?
“Mmnh… Woo-jun…”
No. Probably not. Even if the joy was partly instinctual—an Esper’s body responding to Guiding—he was sure he’d feel even happier in a world without any of this. No dungeons erupting every other day, no monsters spilling into the world, no one awakening as Espers or Guides.
A peaceful, almost boring world.
Where he could just be Park Woo-jun.
And he could love Lee Han-seo freely, as one person to another.
“Ahh… ngh—ah!”
His freshly dried face was wet again as he latched onto Han-seo’s chest, sucking hard. The soft nipples quickly stiffened under his relentless tongue—pressed, swirled, sucked in a messy rhythm.
Switching sides, he sucked one and pinched the other. Han-seo couldn’t seem to take it—his torso kept twitching, as if trying to escape. But it was a futile effort. Woo-jun didn’t even need to lift a hand to keep him pinned; he had other ways to press Han-seo down hard and close.
“Ugh—y-you…! Seriously…! Ngh…!”
The gentle breeze that used to dry his hair after showers now bound him in place. It was hard to accept. Eyes wide, Han-seo gasped helplessly, trembling from the sensation, unable to hold back the cries slipping from his lips.
When Woo-jun yanked down both Han-seo’s pants and underwear in one swift motion, the flushed head of his cock was already swollen, dark with arousal. Without hesitation, Woo-jun brought his lips to the trembling tip. He puckered them tight and gave a short, wet suck, and Han-seo’s hips jolted as a moan tore out of him, his body trembling all over.
Woo-jun let his mouth wander, biting and licking wherever he pleased. Between kisses and licks, he kept asking, again and again, “Do you love me?” And even while panting for breath, Han-seo always answered.
“Mmnh… I love you—I do, I do… So hurry up already, please… Do something, anything…”
Woo-jun knew those weren’t just heat-of-the-moment words. Han-seo wasn’t the kind of man to say anything he didn’t mean, not even when he was desperate to get his cock sucked or to have something fill the way he ached. He was too proud, too honest for that.
But somehow, even those honest answers didn’t reach all the way into Woo-jun’s chest. They didn’t settle the ache. They didn’t make the emptiness go away.
Even though he loved Han-seo—and Han-seo loved him—it still felt hollow. He knew it was selfish, a kind of spoiled loneliness, the kind that came when you had so much of someone that it almost felt unreal. But knowing that didn’t make it easier to bear.
He’d seen what happened to Ronnie—how she’d changed completely after her Bonded Pair died and their Imprint vanished. Like she’d snapped awake from a dream. And for a while after that, Han-seo had been strange, too. Quiet. Thoughtful in a way that didn’t match his usual self. He’d gone back to normal soon enough, but Woo-jun had seen it—he’d been thinking deeply about something. And Woo-jun was sure of it: those thoughts had included one question.
What do I really feel for Park Woo-jun?
If they were lucky—really lucky—then maybe, even if one of them died or the Imprint was forcibly severed, something would remain. Some faint echo of love, lingering in the absence of everything else.
But even then, without the artificial bond of the Imprint… that love might not survive. It might fade. Its color, its weight, its meaning—it might all become too faint to hold onto.
And that thought made him cling even harder to what they had now. Because maybe this was a kind of blessing. Being bound to Han-seo as an Esper, tied to him by something stronger than choice, was the only reason Woo-jun could be by his side at all. Because unlike Han-seo—who shined wherever he went, who lit up every room just by existing—Woo-jun didn’t have anything. Nothing but his S-Class rank. Nothing that would ever stand out to someone like Han-seo.
If they’d met as just people—without the instincts drawn from Matching Rates, without the pull of their roles—Han-seo might’ve never even noticed him. He would’ve gone on smiling at a hundred other people, surrounded by warmth, never once realizing Woo-jun even existed.
Lost in that swirl of thoughts, Woo-jun abruptly stopped. He sat up and pulled Han-seo into a tight, desperate hug—tight enough to steal the air from both their lungs. Han-seo let out a strangled shout.
“Are you insane?! What the hell?!”
He hadn’t meant to time it that way, but it was perfect—Han-seo had been right at the edge of release.
