The medication kept changing, and the doses kept increasing. With each rise in dosage, Choi Jiwoon’s anxiety grew heavier. Eventually, it wasn’t pills anymore—it turned into injections. They told him not to worry, that everything was fine. But Jiwoon couldn’t stop feeling afraid. The fear that he might end up back in the lab again was suffocating.
Then, Jiwoon began to feel pain every time he slept with Kwon Hae-beom. At first, it was just a faint, momentary headache—barely a twinge. But the pain grew steadily worse. After the injections started, the discomfort became so intense that his face would twist in pain without him even realizing it.
Still, Jiwoon endured. What began as a desperate attempt to survive—seducing Kwon Hae-beom—slowly turned into something real. Jiwoon fell in love. That single-minded devotion, the way Hae-beom only looked at him, was sweeter than anything Jiwoon had ever known. It was the first time he’d ever felt what love could be.
He’d always seen himself as nothing more than a trash bin filled with dark, ugly emotions. But with every word Hae-beom spoke to him, he truly felt like he was becoming beautiful. Jiwoon longed for this time to last forever.
But one day, it all started to fall apart. It seemed to begin when Lee Tae-rim lost his memory. After that, things spiraled. Especially after Tae-rim returned from an internal exploration and brought back a new Esper.
That Esper was Seon Juho. When word spread that Juho might be even stronger than Kwon Hae-beom, they gave Jiwoon a new command: get close to him.
Jiwoon didn’t want to obey. But he had no choice. Without the drugs, he couldn’t Guide Hae-beom. And losing Hae-beom now would mean losing the only reason he had left to live.
So he approached Seon Juho, however unwillingly. Even when Juho treated him like he didn’t exist—even when it made him feel utterly worthless—Jiwoon bit down his pride and kept trying to get close. There were no results. Nothing changed. But Jiwoon still gave it everything he had. Just so he could stay by Hae-beom’s side.
And yet, knowing full well what had already failed, they pushed him further. They ordered him to seduce Seon Juho. Told him the Matching Rate could be manipulated with drugs anyway, so he might as well use his body.
For the first time, Jiwoon said no.
They hurled every insult they could at him, but it didn’t matter. The only person who could touch him was Kwon Hae-beom. He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else laying a finger on him.
So they retaliated. They cut off his supply of medication entirely. But Jiwoon had lived outside for the past three years. He’d learned how to be human again. And he knew they wouldn’t just throw away the one experimental subject they’d finally succeeded with. So he resolved to hold on. He figured he could ration what little he had left, work harder, and make it through.
But Jiwoon quickly realized how foolish that was.
The day Hae-beom fought off the people who came to retrieve him and rescued him, Jiwoon could only despair. He hadn’t been using the drugs—he was under disciplinary restriction and hadn’t been allowed to Guide Hae-beom for a month.
Without Jiwoon’s Guiding, Hae-beom’s condition steadily declined. So Jiwoon begged him to go to Lee Tae-rim instead. But Hae-beom just kept saying he’d be fine.
Jiwoon worried for him, of course—but deep down, he was secretly glad. It felt like Hae-beom was proving his love for him all over again.
If it had been the old Tae-rim, before he lost his memory, Jiwoon might have felt at ease. But this new Tae-rim scared him. Same face, but a completely different person. It felt like he could take Hae-beom away from him at any moment.
That fear—it had to be punishment for his pride. Jiwoon could only watch in despair as the man he loved began to rampage, violently unleashing his Wavelength. He tried to stay calm and start the Guiding, but without the injections, it was useless. There wasn’t even the faintest sign of connection.
Only then did Jiwoon face the truth.
He was a Manufactured Guide. Originally just a lowly C-rank. Without the drugs, his Matching Rate with Hae-beom was nothing but a number. He was just another average Guide.
That night, as he injected himself, Jiwoon screamed silently inside. Regret tore at him. I shouldn’t have resisted. I should’ve endured, even if I hated it. I should’ve listened. As the medicine dwindled, anxiety gnawed at him.
So the second time, he let himself be kidnapped—on purpose. He planned to talk to them. To beg. To plead for forgiveness, however humiliating it might be.
But he hadn’t known they’d implanted a GPS tracker on him. Jiwoon had gone planning to steal the drugs if he had to. But when the rescue team arrived and everything fell apart, despair crashed over him again. Hae-beom, unaware of Jiwoon’s intentions, hugged him tightly and said he was relieved. But inside, Jiwoon was a mess.
And when the medication finally ran out, Jiwoon left the Center on his own.
He was terrified that Hae-beom would find out the truth. That he’d explode, demanding if it had all been a lie, if Jiwoon had just been deceiving him from the start. Jiwoon was too scared to face that.
So he begged the undercover agents planted inside the Center and barely managed to escape. He had to get back to Hae-beom’s side. Jiwoon couldn’t survive without his love anymore.
***
“Can I say something I’ve been meaning to?”
Once again, Kwon Hae-beom didn’t agree to Guiding until his Wavelength had hit 75%. Lee Tae-rim had already been summoned to the hospital three times. It had been over a month since Choi Jiwoon disappeared. Tae-rim understood Hae-beom’s anxiety—but that didn’t mean he was going to stay quiet.
“When the time comes, just come in for your Guiding session like everyone else. Being dragged out here every time is a hassle. And honestly, I’m getting tired of seeing your bare chest. This could be done with just holding hands. Why do you insist on stripping every time?”
“……”
“Finding Guide Choi Jiwoon is important, sure. But don’t you think avoiding Rampage should come first? That’s how we’ll actually be able to find him. What if something happens to you before we do? Why are you being so irrationally stubborn? Guiding is my job. I get paid for it. Just because you’re Kwon Hae-beom doesn’t mean I’m going to give you special treatment. To me, every Esper is the same. So stop making things harder for everyone, and show up when you’re supposed to.”
Kwon Hae-beom stayed silent. The surrounding medical staff were secretly applauding. They’d been worn thin, constantly on edge about another potential Rampage—and it wasn’t just them. The other S-rank Espers who had to keep escorting Hae-beom in were getting fed up, too.
“Tae-rim’s right, Hae-beom. Honestly, this can’t keep happening.”
This time, it was Esper Jeon Jun-pyo who had brought him in. Jeon stared at Hae-beom’s tightly shut mouth, clearly waiting for a proper answer. Under that heavy gaze, Hae-beom finally spoke.
“…Yeah.”
But words were one thing. Whether he’d actually follow through and show up for his next Guiding session was anyone’s guess.
Kwon Hae-beom had always been a man of his word. But right now, he wasn’t thinking clearly. No one could predict how he’d act. Hopefully, he wouldn’t let his stubbornness get the better of him again.
Choi Jiwoon had disappeared too cleanly. There wasn’t a single trace left behind. No one could figure out how he even managed to get out of the Center. The last time anyone saw him was when Hae-beom walked him back to his dorm. According to him, Jiwoon had seemed completely normal.
The next morning, it all unraveled. When Hae-beom went to pick him up and rang the bell, there was no answer. So he opened the door—and found the room completely empty. Everything was spotless, just like Jiwoon always kept it. On the table sat his smartphone and watch, neatly placed. That was the moment something inside Hae-beom snapped.
Given Jiwoon’s history of being kidnapped—twice—it was the first thing that came to mind. But then again, the tidiness of the room, the neatly placed items… it didn’t feel like a kidnapping. Why would someone bother to clean up afterward? That detail made him doubt. But regardless of the circumstances, Hae-beom completely lost it.
And considering that the previous abduction had already exposed the presence of a spy within the Center, it wasn’t hard to imagine they’d done it again—slipping in and making it look like nothing happened. Setting the scene to avoid suspicion would’ve been simple enough. The situation only grew more tangled from there.
There were a few Espers with psychometry abilities who could read the residual traces left on objects, but there were only a handful of them in the entire world. And they were booked solid, scheduled years in advance. Even with billions at your disposal, summoning one immediately was impossible.
So Kwon Hae-beom, somehow, pressured the Center Director into letting him take matters into his own hands. No one knew how he managed it. He began searching for Jiwoon himself, gathering every available detection- and tracking-type Esper and dragging them around the city, turning the place upside down.
Naturally, he’d also spread word to other regions, asking for help in locating Jiwoon.
Originally, this was supposed to lead to a passionate birthday celebration—an Imprint and a picture-perfect happy ending. So how had everything gone so wrong?
Lee Tae-rim may have bent the story a little, sure. But the main plot had still been moving forward just fine. So what changed?
Yeah, if Haebeom is unwell, not only would he bother a bunch of people who have other things to do, he also won’t be able to look for Jiwoon effectively. It sucks for Lee Taerim if Haebeom goes near a rampage state too, our MC will pass out again.