“What bastard is it, Kang Chi-yu?”
It’s you, bastard. You.
“How should I know? It’s already over.”
“Fuck, was it Beom Do-il?”
“No. Why the hell do you keep bringing Do-il up lately…?”
“What other Esper could it be besides that guy?”
You’re an Esper too, idiot. You are.
Sometimes Chi-yu wondered if Tae-oh was just stupid or simply blind. The way he managed to exclude himself from every possibility was almost a talent. Not that he’d ever imagine Chi-yu had liked him all this time.
Still, with just that brief exchange, Chi-yu was reminded once again— there was no answer to this love.
Hyun Tae-oh would never see him as anything more than a friend.
For now, he still held the role of being Tae-oh’s only person, so it didn’t hurt too much yet.
What worried him slightly was that Tae-oh—someone who didn’t even know what love felt like and was clueless to begin with—might not even recognize his own feelings for Min Yu-hyun. But even that concern was just pointless meddling now.
In the end, Chi-yu was destined to watch from afar as Tae-oh promised a future to someone else, maybe even Imprint with them. And if he ever wanted to face that moment with a genuine smile, he’d have to let go of this feeling.
No—whether fate had anything to do with it or not, letting go was the right choice.
He’d already gone all the way and still heard the word friend. Wanting anything more than that would just be foolish and pathetic.
So he had to give it up.
Kang Chi-yu steadied himself once more. He would bury these messy, aching feelings he’d been hiding and truly return to being nothing more than easy, uncomplicated friends.
“So, who the hell is it then?”
But Hyun Tae-oh kept tearing down his resolve.
“Why do you keep asking who?”
“Just give me a name. There’s no way it’s someone I don’t know.”
“And what if it is someone you don’t know? Why should I tell you their name? Who exactly do you think you are?”
“What do you mean, who? I’m your friend.”
“And since when do friends stick their nose in this far?”
“You’re telling me I should just sit back while you—fuck—while you go and fall for some bastard behind my back?”
“And if you don’t sit back? Then what?”
“What else? I’ll track him down and—”
Tae-oh suddenly cut himself off.
From the blank look on his face, even he realized how absurd that sounded.
Chi-yu sighed and pushed himself up from the bed. As expected, if he didn’t spell things out clearly, this simple-minded fool would never get it.
“If I ever fall in love, all you need to worry about is whether that guy treats me right. Whether he’ll make me cry, whether he can actually make me happy. That’s what you should care about.”
“……”
“And if you ever fall in love, I’ll do the same for you.”
Of course, it wasn’t the truth. But that’s how it would have to be. Chi-yu shut his eyes tight, then opened them slowly as he finished.
“That’s what friends are, Tae-oh.”
***
When Chi-yu told him, That’s what friends are, Tae-oh just stood there, dazed, like he’d been struck across the face.
Seeing that expression, Chi-yu grabbed his hand and hurriedly continued Contact Guiding while lecturing him on what friendship truly meant. He even tossed out ridiculous excuses like, Sure, Stage 3 Guiding or saliva-contact Guiding between friends is a little awkward, but since neither of us has a Pair right now, it’s fine.
He added that while they might have to do Stage 3 Guiding again as a temporary Pair, once the program was over, they should each find proper partners suited to their rank.
Listening to him, Tae-oh began rethinking everything he knew about friendship.
To him, friends were still something sacred. But what Chi-yu described and what he felt were worlds apart.
For Tae-oh, a friend was one of a kind, irreplaceable—sometimes even closer than a brother—more precious than anyone else alive. That was what friendship meant. There was no room for anyone else between them, and the thought of someone mattering more than Kang Chi-yu was unthinkable.
But Chi-yu saw it differently.
He said that if he ever fell in love, he could walk away. That there had already been someone he’d wanted to put above Tae-oh, without Tae-oh ever knowing.
Love. From Kang Chi-yu.
With who?
Tae-oh didn’t even know what to call the feeling that rose in his chest—this sharp, suffocating anger he couldn’t swallow down.
“If I fall in love with someone, all you need to worry about is whether he’ll treat me right. Whether he’ll make me cry, whether he can actually make me happy. That’s all you should care about. And if you fall in love, I’ll do the same for you.”
He kept hearing those words in his head, over and over.
Just worry about that? That wasn’t something he could do.
He sat on the edge of his bed, rubbed his face with both hands, and let out a long, heavy sigh. It felt like all the rules he’d lived by had suddenly collapsed.
The very definition of friendship. The assumption that Chi-yu would always be by his side.
He had tossed out the A Pair is Born program as bait to pull Chi-yu back closer to him, but now he saw that the problem went deeper.
The truth was, he’d never once considered that Chi-yu could have someone else beside him—or that he himself could ever care for someone who wasn’t Chi-yu. That blind assumption was what made the shock hit so hard.
It wasn’t as if he had naïvely expected them to follow the same path as his parents, who had gone from friends to lovers to lifelong partners. He’d never thought about it in that way. But maybe, somewhere deep down, he had unconsciously assumed that he and Chi-yu would just… stay together forever.
They had grown into adults without ever doubting their bond, reached the age where starting families wasn’t unusual, and only now did he realize—they needed a new definition for what they were.
Yes. A new definition.
Tae-oh rubbed his face again and sighed heavily.
But even knowing that, he couldn’t just take the one person who was his everything and instantly redefine him as something else. He knew they needed a new meaning, but imagining what that could be was overwhelming and dark, like groping through a pitch-black tunnel.
Because honestly, he didn’t even know what to call this singular, irreplaceable feeling for Kang Chi-yu if not friendship.
It wasn’t love. He’d never felt love, never tried, never wanted to. And calling this bond love felt like it would erase all the years they’d built together.
What the hell am I supposed to do…?
Tae-oh let out a sigh so deep it felt like it could cave in the floor.
In the end, for him, friendship stood far above love. That was why, even after doing everything with Chi-yu that couples might do, he could still call him his friend.
The tragedy was that Chi-yu didn’t know this—and worse, had drawn the wrong conclusion.
But Tae-oh didn’t realize that. He wasn’t thinking about making Chi-yu his lover. All he thought about was how to keep him by his side while still calling him friend.
So he asked himself: how could he preserve this bond exactly as it was, while making sure Chi-yu never had anyone else special in his life?
After turning it over in his mind, one idea finally came to him.
A way to keep this relationship unchanged for life—so that no one else could ever come between them.
The instant it struck, Tae-oh shot up and flung open the bedroom door.
“Kang Chi-yu! Let’s Imprint!”
Chi-yu, who had been sitting on the sofa in the living room speaking with the main camera director, froze mid-sentence. His face twisted at once.
“…What…?”
“Imprint. Forget being a Pair—let’s just Imprint.”
Just Imprint.
Just.
At those absurdly careless words, Chi-yu pressed both hands to his face, sighing long and deep, feeling irritated and suffocated.
He had just finished negotiating with the director—asking him to keep their Stage 3 Guiding private, agreeing that since they already had footage of Stage 2 saliva-contact Guiding, there was no need to film it again. Since the show was only a two-episode special, one session was enough. The director had reassured him that Stage 3 Guiding was too private to even mention on air, which had been a relief.
And now this lunatic was throwing out a bomb like that.
“Imprint with me.”
“What kind of bullshit is this, Hyun Tae-oh?”
He was so furious that he threw Tae-oh’s own favorite phrase back at him.
“What’s bullshit about it?”
“Why the hell would I Imprint with you?”
“Why not? Who else would you Imprint with, if not me?”
“Director, sorry, could you cut here?”
“Of course.”
“Hey, stop spouting nonsense and sit down. Let’s wrap up this A Pair is Born shoot properly. I talked it over with the director—everything has to fit into two episodes: the dorm, the training hall, fieldwork, Guiding, and a Gate—”
“You don’t want to Imprint with me?”
“—So the dorm, Guiding, and fieldwork are already done. That just leaves the training hall and the Gate—”
“Kang Chi-yu.”
“The Gate is already… No, seriously, why the hell are you suddenly bringing up Imprinting, you insane bastard?”
“It’s not sudden.”
“We’re still in a Pair. Temporary, but still.”
“So what?”
“So what? You’re saying you want to Imprint while we’re still under contract as a Pair?”
“Then drop the Pair. We’ll Imprint instead.”
“We’re still filming A Pair is Born.”
“Fuck. When does the shoot end?”
“Just the training hall and Gate left. Since it’s only two episodes, once we finish those, we’re done….”
“Good. Then let’s Imprint as soon as it’s over.”
“Stop joking around.”
“I’m not joking.”
“I said no. I’m not doing that crap.”
“Listen to this Guide—calling Imprinting crap.”
“Because it is. Imprinting is supposed to be between people who love each other.”
At that, Tae-oh’s expression froze. Hard. Chi-yu felt the sting of it like a fresh wound, but he kept his face blank.
“Friends can Imprint too.”
“Ha. Bullshit. What kind of friends Imprint?”
Chi-yu gave a low, bitter laugh.
“If it were that easy, there wouldn’t be a single un-Imprinted Guide left in Team 1 or Team 2.”
“Who cares about them? As long as it’s easy for us, that’s all that matters.”
“How the hell would it be easy? You and me, Imprinting?”
“We’ve already done Stage 3 Guiding. What’s left that’s so hard? By your own logic, that’s something people in love do.”
“Hey. Stage 3 Guiding was just necessary, that’s all—”
“And right now, you can’t even manage it because it’s too much for you.”
“Yeah, so maybe don’t talk about this in front of people—”
“So what, you’re saying you can’t Imprint?”
“Why the hell would I Imprint with you?!”
As the two of them went back and forth, bickering loudly, the main camera director and the two assistants sat frozen with their cameras turned off, listening in shock to every word.
