All day long, the sound of weeping echoed in his ears.
It wasn’t like the skill had given any definitive proof that the unidentified man it showed was actually him, but an inexplicable, visceral sensation was slowly consuming Cha Eui-sung’s mind.
There are moments I don’t remember.
Every time that fact surfaced, it dropped his heart like a stone. He’d already suspected it in the back of his mind, but did he ever expect that suspicion to be confirmed this soon?
It felt like the System’s grand scam had just lopped off his entire arm. The confidence he’d had from knowing a past no one else remembered, a future no one else had seen—that certainty had now warped into a gnawing fear about what he didn’t know.
More than anything, an incomprehensible sense of loss came crashing down on him.
The face of Moon Tae-young, always smiling so warmly and joyfully in his memories, now felt strangely irritating. It left him with a sharp, empty ache.
So… that was me?
He didn’t know how many times he’d repeated that question in his head—one that offered no answers. Whether it was because he didn’t want to accept it or simply couldn’t believe it, even he couldn’t tell.
His head throbbed, and his body felt utterly drained. It wasn’t some skill backlash this time, nor was it likely that an S-rank had randomly come down with a fever—so it had to be purely psychological.
Seriously? This is all it takes?
Normally, he would’ve cursed himself for losing focus. But right now, he didn’t even have the energy for that.
Cha Eui-sung simply curled up in bed, buried beneath the blankets.
In the swirl of spinning thoughts, images kept flashing and vanishing in no order—Go Yeong-won and Oh Se-dan’s ominous smirks, which might appear again at any moment… Moon Tae-young’s enigmatic smile, as if his face blurred between reality and dream.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
That unplaceable frustration and rage had been the foundation that kept him going. And all those emotions had stemmed from memory.
From the belief that he had been abandoned by the world… and yet had risen again.
But now, he was lost. The moment that confidence faltered, it was as if part of his once-steady psyche had crumbled.
It couldn’t be helped. As much as he wanted to scream that nothing in this world was truly inevitable, the years he’d spent running without rest were too long.
He was just… tired.
Thought I could finally catch a damn break.
He hadn’t expected to get this mentally wrecked barely six months into his regression.
Up until now, he’d lived by channeling past misfortunes into self-resentment, using that as fuel. But that had started to wear thin.
Goddamn it.
Even now, there was no one to curse. No one to blame.
If anything, maybe the world itself was at fault—that’s what it felt like.
Cha Eui-sung took a deep breath and forced himself to calm the boiling turmoil in his head, shoving his face back under the blankets. His eyelids felt hot to the touch.
After the worst of the stress passed, everything felt strangely disconnected, like he was floating in midair, separated from the world.
So what the hell do I do now?
Still, he wasn’t completely out of it. The fact that he was already thinking about what came next…
Well, it meant he hadn’t fully broken down.
After all, he’d spent years clawing his way through life. He wasn’t the type to collapse from just this.
Cha Eui-sung opened his eyes to narrow slits and stared blankly into the air. If they were watching him in this state and still hadn’t shown up, that meant he’d have to figure things out on his own.
Kicking off the blanket, he staggered out of bed and walked out of the room.
The reflection in the mirror looked a bit pale, but at a glance, he still seemed okay.
The clock read just past 3 p.m. He grabbed his tablet PC and stepped outside.
The cold air cooled his flushed face, making him feel slightly better.
He blinked up at the sky, then turned and headed toward Moon Tae-young’s house.
Even though he knew Tae-young wasn’t back yet, it was getting harder and harder to just lie around waiting.
“Haaaah.”
He exhaled on purpose, watching the breath plume white.
Was it winter already?
Glancing down at the light autumn coat he was wearing, Cha Eui-sung reached up to rub the back of his neck.
Guess it was time to start buying winter clothes.
It wasn’t even that cold, but the need to dress seasonally felt more and more like just another pointless societal ritual.
Clack!
Of course the door to Moon Tae-young’s house was locked.
Cha Eui-sung stuck his hands in his pockets and casually glanced around, then—without a hint of hesitation—hopped over the wall.
It was a smooth, effortless jump with no running start.
Landing with barely a sound, he stepped lightly into the yard and stretched his neck from side to side for no reason.
We’re lovers, after all.
So going inside the house shouldn’t be a big deal.
He could’ve just waited, sure—but instead, he spun some absurd logic out of nowhere and reached for the doorknob.
Naturally, it was locked up tight.
Breaking into someone else’s house… yeah, that was probably a bit much.
Muttering under his breath, Cha Eui-sung shifted his gaze and spotted the window.
A window’s not technically breaking and entering, right? Just a little damage at most? Besides, someone else had already yanked out the damn doorknob.
He didn’t exactly desperately want to go in, but he sure as hell didn’t feel like waiting outside in the cold like some pitiful stray.
And somehow, he had this baseless confidence that Moon Tae-young would be fine with it.
Yeah. Confidence.
The confidence that had withered along with his erased memories now flickered back to life in the strangest of ways, licking at his bruised pride like a balm.
If he just gripped the window frame and gave it some steady pressure, it seemed like he could snap the lock clean off without too much of a mess—
…Huh?
But when he leaned in for a closer look, he realized the crescent lock was already undone. Just to be sure, he nudged the window lightly—
It slid open with zero resistance.
Moon Tae-young isn’t the type to do this.
He had so much to hide, you’d think he’d be obsessive about security.
With one eyebrow arched in suspicion, Cha Eui-sung hesitated… then shrugged and slipped through the wide-open window.
All things considered, this was a win. He’d made it into the house without smashing anything. That had to count for something.
A clean, bloodless infiltration.
He slipped off his shoes, carried them in hand, and gently closed the window—
Jingle!
A faint metallic clink.
He glanced down and spotted a keychain on the windowsill.
A dumb-looking cat charm dangled at the top, and beneath it hung a single, shiny key.
“……”
Cha Eui-sung picked up the keyring like he was in a trance.
The key dangled, gleaming like it had never been used—not a single scratch on its surface.
He rubbed his thumb over the textured notches, then tilted it into the sunlight streaming through the window.
Sure enough, the keychain looked practically untouched too.
Well, obviously. No way he left one he actually uses lying around here.
Knowing how neurotically tidy Moon Tae-young kept his place, that would’ve been absurd. Hell, the guy didn’t even have enough stuff to make a mess.
Still, it wasn’t like him to store an essential key somewhere like this. And he definitely wasn’t the type to forget where he put it either.
Nor was he the kind to carelessly leave a new key out in the open…
Jingle.
The sound made something flutter deep in his chest.
A strange warmth crept into his lungs as a flicker of anticipation scratched at his throat.
Cha Eui-sung moved quietly through the empty house, soft footsteps brushing against the floor.
He passed through the living room, filled with a hodgepodge of colorful everyday items.
It used to feel so cold and sterile here. When had this place gotten so… bright?
He nudged a beanbag chair with his toe on the way to the front door, then set his shoes down.
And the moment he looked at the firmly shut entrance, his heart started pounding so hard it felt dangerous.
Still in that dazed trance, he opened the door from the inside and slotted the key into the knob.
Click.
The sensation of the lock turning—smooth, resistance-free—sent a shiver straight down his spine.
With the faintest pressure,
Clack.
The golden key turned effortlessly, making a soft, satisfying sound.
“…Huh?”
Cha Eui-sung slowly turned his head back toward the window.
The memory of that obviously unlocked latch made him forget his gloom for a moment—he let out a sudden snort.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Like someone who’d just learned how to use a lock, he twisted the key back and forth a few times.
Not until much later did he finally pull it free with a crisp click, laughter still trickling from his lips.
“Ha… ha.”
God, that’s such a Moon Tae-young thing to do.
A crude, visceral reaction passed through his mind.
That bastard had known he’d come.
He knew Eui-sung would climb the wall. That he’d sneak in through the window.
When the hell had he made a copy of the key for something like this?
Back when he handed over the intel on Jo Tae-jong, maybe? When he’d predicted things would get hectic afterward?
“What a ridiculous son of a bitch…”
Maybe it had bugged him, how Cha Eui-sung always waited outside.
Or maybe he was afraid he’d bolt back to Seoul without a word.
Clutching the key in his fist, the cold metal pressed into his palm with a strangely comforting pressure.
“If we lived together, we’d see each other all the time.”
Suddenly, Moon Tae-young’s voice echoed in his ears.
Cha Eui-sung started to smile instinctively—only to stop.
That line… hadn’t been said to him.
It was a voice from his memories.
A scene shown by the Faded Photograph Fragment, where the past version of Moon Tae-young had laughed and said those words to his lover.
Shit.
That strange pressure in his chest, like his heart was being tugged off balance—it was getting stronger.
Staring blankly, Cha Eui-sung turned toward the direction of the school, even though he couldn’t see it from here, then bit down hard on his lower lip.
80% of Moon Tae-young had just tossed him the house key.
Could the 100% version—the Demon King himself—ever let him go?
The doorknob rattled as it turned.
Only then did Cha Eui-sung realize he’d run outside barefoot. The neatly arranged shoes by the door made it painfully clear.
“Damn it.”
He peeled off his dirty socks, grimacing, then touched his throbbing forehead with a hand gone cold.
***
The sun had started setting earlier and earlier. By barely six o’clock, darkness had already crept over everything.
Moon Tae-young brought the back of his hand to his nose and inhaled deeply. He’d already wiped his hands clean—first with wet tissues, then with the bottled water he brought along—but the stench of monster blood still clung to him, nauseatingly stubborn.
As soon as he jumped out of the Dungeon, he whipped out his phone.
Missed calls: 0.
Messages: 0.
Nothing from Cha Eui-sung.
The moment those brown eyes flashed in his mind—eyes that had held some unreadable emotion when told things would get busy for a while—an uncomfortable weight settled in his chest.
“A formal opinion will be issued soon that Jo Tae-jong is showing problematic responses in the current treatment and detention center.”
Ever since Jeong Seong-hyu had contacted him, Moon Tae-young hadn’t been able to sleep.
Why was it that, the moment he heard the latest news about Jo Tae-jong, it wasn’t rage or thoughts of revenge that came to mind first—but the image of soft, tousled brown hair?
The operation was right around the corner, and yet, for some inexplicable reason, his attention kept drifting to Cha Eui-sung’s daily life.
What was he doing right now? Was he eating properly? He hadn’t looked too well recently… What if he’d collapsed somewhere again?
The fury that burned like acid through his heart hadn’t disappeared. And yet, around the edges of that steely resolve, Cha Eui-sung’s face kept rising and fading like mist. Over and over again.
