“Ah! Don’t you get it?! Look closer!”
A minute and forty seconds had already passed, yet Min Yu-hyun still couldn’t make sense of what Beom Do-il was trying to draw.
After racking his brain, the only word Yu-hyun managed to spit out was, “Explosion?”
“Wrong!”
The Production Director called it out immediately, and Do-il shouted in frustration.
“No, it’s Esper! Esper! Can’t you see? A water-attribute Esper! Me! An Esper!!”
“…If it’s an Esper, you could’ve just drawn a single person. What’s with all the sticks, the waves on the ground, and the blown-up buildings?”
Yu-hyun asked, looking utterly baffled. Do-il jabbed at the waves with his finger.
“Water attribute! Water attribute!”
The stick figures, he explained, were mutant beasts, and the ruined buildings were carefully drawn details of structures destroyed by them.
Hearing the explanation, Yu-hyun snapped, his voice sharp.
“Forget the details! Just focus on the answer!”
“Alright, next word.”
A staff member held up the LED board with the next word. Do-il quickly lowered his head and started sketching again.
It was still stick figures, though this time he skipped the backgrounds thanks to Yu-hyun’s earlier scolding. The trouble was, even stripped down, his drawing was still incomprehensible.
On the paper was a long rectangle like a building, filled with little square windows.
“What the hell is this…?”
Yu-hyun muttered under his breath.
“This one’s so easy!” Do-il shouted, exasperated.
Taking his words at face value, Yu-hyun yelled toward the Production Director, deciding to just say what it looked like.
“Square?”
“Wrong!”
“Argh! It’s the Central Bureau! The Central Bureau!”
Do-il nearly leapt out of his seat. Yu-hyun stared back at him in disbelief.
“How the hell is that the Central Bureau? You just drew a bunch of squares!”
“That’s what it looks like from far away!”
“What kind of nonsense is that?!”
“How is that nonsense?!”
“You said you won awards for your drawings! And this is the best you can do?!”
Yu-hyun, forgetting the cameras were still rolling, slipped into casual speech as he berated Do-il, practically foaming at the mouth. Do-il barked back, demanding what was wrong with his drawing.
Watching the pathetic back-and-forth, Kang Chi-yu turned to Yoon Do-jae.
“Esper Yoon Do-jae, are you good at drawing?”
“No, not at all.”
“I can’t draw either, but…”
“No matter what you draw, I’ll figure it out.”
“…Haha.”
Chi-yu gave a strained laugh at Do-jae’s words. Before it could settle, Hyun Tae-oh frowned and muttered.
“Fuck, I should’ve been your partner.”
“Stop swearing.”
Chi-yu whispered, mindful of the cameras. Tae-oh nudged his arm against Chi-yu’s like a tap and added,
“I’d guess right no matter what you drew.”
His smug grin made Chi-yu let out a disbelieving laugh.
“You should be guessing Jun-hyung’s drawings, not mine. You can’t draw, so it’s better if he does it.”
“That’s why I said fuck, you should’ve grabbed the yellow ball.”
Stop swearing, Chi-yu muttered low enough for only Tae-oh to hear, then smoothly raised his voice again.
“Doesn’t matter—we all take turns anyway. What difference does it make who goes when?”
“But we only get one shot at this game.”
At that, Lee Jun-hyung, who’d been busy with his phone, finally looked up.
“Not really. If the partners change, they take another day off to do the same kind of game.”
“What? Seriously? You’re telling me we have to do this annoying crap three times??”
Tae-oh’s outburst drew the Production Director, staff, and camera crew’s eyes all at once. Chi-yu jabbed his elbow into Tae-oh to redirect the mood.
“So what are you two gonna do? Jun-hyung, you’re drawing, right?”
Jun-hyung, still half-focused on his game, replied calmly,
“Since I don’t know how bad Hyun Tae-oh is at drawing, it’s probably safer if I do it.”
“He’s hopeless. If he sketches even a simple map, it turns into a maze.”
“…Should I draw then?”
Before Chi-yu even finished, Jun-hyung leaned toward Tae-oh.
“Want to try?”
“Do whatever you want.”
Tae-oh shrugged, then turned back to Chi-yu.
“So you’ll partner with me in the second round?”
“How would I know? It’s not just about what I want.”
“If you want it, you can. Why not?”
Yoon Do-jae cut in quietly.
“The first round still has plenty of time left.”
Immediately, Tae-oh shot him a sharp glare.
And then, Yu-hyun’s voice rang out mid-game.
“No way! How is this a melon?! It’s obviously a watermelon! And what’s with the random face next to it?!”
“Don’t you see? It’s Lee Jun-hyung! Handsome Jun-hyung! His favorite fruit—melon!”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
Everyone turned toward the LED board over Do-il’s head. On it was a round shape that could’ve been a melon or a watermelon, next to an over-detailed face. Do-il had even emphasized the eyes, nose, and mouth and added star symbols to make it look “cool.”
The answer was melon. But Do-il had drawn it with Jun-hyung, because it was his favorite fruit.
Of course Yu-hyun couldn’t guess it. The melon looked too much like a watermelon, and the bizarre “prince-like” caricature of Jun-hyung only made it worse.
Jun-hyung grimaced at the absurd drawing meant to be him, while Chi-yu and Tae-oh argued about melon versus watermelon.
“No, watermelons have stripes that go one way. This one’s crisscrossed, so it’s a melon.”
“Fuck, since when do melons have stripes?”
“Maybe he meant the rough texture.”
“Then he should’ve drawn lines, not waves.”
Yoon Do-jae, who had been listening silently, finally spoke.
“If he’d just drawn a cut piece of melon with the square rind, we’d have known immediately.”
In the end, Yu-hyun and Do-il failed to guess a single answer in ten minutes and returned to their seats. Yu-hyun was furious, while Do-il trailed behind with a wronged expression.
“Next up: Guide Kang Chi-yu and Esper Yoon Do-jae.”
At the Production Director’s call, Chi-yu sat where Do-il had been, and Do-jae took the opposite chair.
The word song appeared. Chi-yu quickly sketched a round face, hands, and a microphone with an open mouth.
“Song?”
“Correct!”
Do-jae clenched his fist in excitement, thrilled at the instant success.
The next word came, Chi-yu drew, and Do-jae nailed it again. They blazed through question after question.
Watching this, Tae-oh squirmed in his seat and muttered to Jun-hyung,
“We have to win. Keep the drawings simple and to the point.”
“Do we really have to?”
“Fuck yes, we do. We can’t let Do-jae and Chi-yu win. There’s a bonus prize. Who knows what it is.”
Based on A Pair is Born so far, it was almost certainly some kind of trip for two. And there was no way Tae-oh would let Do-jae and Chi-yu have that.
“Fair point… but what kind of prize is it? Money? A trip?”
“Doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it can’t go to them. We’re winning.”
Jun-hyung paused, then asked,
“Will you give me the whole prize if we win?”
“All of it.”
“Perfect.”
Jun-hyung grinned, turned off his game, and finally got serious.
In ten minutes, Do-jae and Chi-yu scored four correct. The last one was too tricky, costing them time. They returned with four answers total.
As Chi-yu sat back down, Tae-oh patted his shoulder and whispered, “Nice job,” making Chi-yu’s lips twitch upward despite himself. Tae-oh might’ve been scowling whenever they scored, but he never forgot to be kind—at least to Chi-yu.
But “Mr. Gentle, Only-for-Chi-yu” turned feral when it came to winning. The moment Jun-hyung started sketching, Tae-oh fired off guesses rapid-fire until one stuck.
They cleared four questions, leaving one final problem with two minutes left.
Both of them were tense—Tae-oh because he couldn’t stand the idea of Do-jae winning and using the prize to get close to Chi-yu, and Jun-hyung because he wanted the prize Tae-oh had promised him.
The last word came up. Jun-hyung drew two human figures side by side with an infinity symbol between them.
“Person, human, two, comrades, relationship, couple, two people, Esper and Guide, Ability Users, Pair, Imprint.”
“Pair, correct!”
The Production Director’s voice rang out, and both Jun-hyung and Tae-oh pumped their fists in triumph. “Yes!” they shouted together, while the others clapped and offered congratulations.
The first game mission ended with Tae-oh and Jun-hyung in first place with all five answers, Chi-yu and Do-jae in second with four, and Yu-hyun and Do-il dead last with none.
During the break before the next game, Yu-hyun wasted no time cornering Do-il.
“I told you—I’m competitive. I have to win.”
“…Yeah, you did…”
“And you—you said you won awards for your childhood drawings…”
“I really did!”
“Sure, nobody said you didn’t! But how the hell did you win? You have zero sense.”
The thought—Maybe you’re the one with no sense, since you didn’t get a single answer right—rose to Do-il’s throat, but he swallowed it.
If he said that, Yu-hyun would tear him apart.
His ears already rang from the endless scolding, and he doubted he could survive more.
So Do-il just sighed, muttering “Yes, yes” on repeat as if it really was all his fault.
