Kwon Jae-jin slowly reached up and placed his hand on Seo Eui-woo’s head. His fingers combed through the mess of tousled hair, smoothing it back to reveal his handsome forehead.
“You… You only ever look at me. Maybe try looking at something else every once in a while.”
“No. Why would I?”
“…Just in case.”
“In case what?”
“I don’t know, just…”
In case something happened to him.
In case he ended up like before—like in the first timeline.
Jae-jin swallowed back the words, unable to say them aloud. Instead, he simply kept running his fingers through Seo Eui-woo’s hair. With his eyes closed, his mind swirled with thoughts too heavy to contain.
He remembered the ruined look in the first timeline Seo Eui-woo’s eyes.
He remembered the moment he had fired without hesitation, cutting down creatures in rapid succession.
It was as if time had rewound, replaying everything he had experienced in reverse.
The desperate chaos of battle, the torn and bloodied bodies of the Special Task Force members, the young Esper’s agonized screams as he lost control, the ground soaked in black, corrupted blood…
‘…So this is what it means to live as an Awakened.’
For the first time, he truly felt it.
What kind of life Seo Eui-woo had endured.
What kind of world he had survived in.
Until now, he had only vaguely assumed—it must have been hard, it must have been painful, he must have been unbearably lonely with no one to lean on.
But after experiencing battle himself, it felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of blades, each one shredding him from the inside out.
It wasn’t just sympathy or pity.
It was something far deeper, something rotting and festering in his chest.
He wanted to cry for Seo Eui-woo, for all the Awakened who fought on this forsaken land.
He wanted to tell them You suffered, It must have hurt, You did your best.
“…Jae-jin, what are you thinking about?”
Seo Eui-woo cupped Jae-jin’s face with his large hand, pressing in closer until their noses almost touched. His gaze locked onto Jae-jin’s eyes, unwavering.
“You started saying something, then stopped. What is it?”
“…Ah. It’s just… My head’s a mess. That battlefield was brutal, and the Esper who lost control…”
“…I knew it.”
Seo Eui-woo’s gray eyes rippled, dark and thick with emotion, as if they could see straight through him.
“I knew you’d dwell on it. Just don’t think about it.”
“What do you mean, don’t think about it?”
“Whatever it is, just stop. It’s done. You can’t change it, and the only one suffering is you.”
“…….”
“The dead can’t be brought back. The Esper who lost control can’t be saved. It’s already over.”
Over…
Yeah. That much was true.
It was over with the first timeline Seo Eui-woo, too.
There was nothing Kwon Jae-jin could do for him. He couldn’t bring him back, couldn’t return to four years ago, couldn’t find a way to stay by his side.
“…I guess you’re right. There’s no way to bring the dead back.”
The first timeline Seo Eui-woo was nothing more than a painful past.
The one Jae-jin could be with now was the Seo Eui-woo standing in front of him.
The only life he could change was the one in this second timeline.
The only thing that mattered was the present—the here and now.
“Still… I want to mourn them. Awakened ones don’t have families. No one grieves for them. No one remembers them.”
His first battle had left an irreparable scar on his soul. The ghosts of it would follow him for the rest of his life.
But it was a price worth paying.
“They say we can’t let the loss of our comrades break us. That it would interfere with missions, so we’re forced to erase them from our memories. But that’s not just cruel to the ones who survived—it’s a damn injustice to the ones who died, too.”
“Jae-jin…”
“This isn’t right. This can’t be how it is.”
The creature wave wasn’t over. There would be more battles to come.
More would die. The same tragedies would repeat over and over again.
He didn’t know what the first timeline Seo Eui-woo was waiting for. He didn’t know what he wanted from him.
But rather than hesitate in uncertainty, Kwon Jae-jin chose to do what he could—right here, right now.
“I can’t just sit back and watch. I’ve come too far to pretend I don’t see it anymore.”
Jae-jin lifted his head, his voice steady and resolute.
But before he could say anything more, Seo Eui-woo’s hand gripped the back of his neck and pressed him down, holding him firmly in place, keeping him locked in his arms.
“Enough. Stop thinking. Empty your head—right now.”
“What…?”
“How exactly do you plan to fix this? What, do you want to start guiding Espers again? Is that your grand solution?”
“…Why the hell are you bringing that up now? That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what? What was it, then?”
Seo Eui-woo’s voice grew lower and lower until it was practically a growl, like a cornered animal ready to snap. The sheer force behind it was lethal.
“What exactly were you thinking, Jae-jin?”
“I wasn’t—”
“This is why I wanted to leave you behind. Because you, Jae-jin, you always…”
His breathing was ragged, unsteady.
Panting like a man on the verge of breaking, Seo Eui-woo kept calling his name.
“Jae-jin. Jae-jin… Jae-jin.”
“…What? What?”
“Say my name.”
“What?”
“Now! Say it—Eui-woo-ya.”
“What the hell—wait, what?“
“Say it, Jae-jin. Right now.”
The request was so sudden, so out of nowhere, that Jae-jin completely froze. He had no idea what had gotten into Seo Eui-woo. He couldn’t read the situation at all. His lips parted, his confusion plain on his face.
“…E-Eui-woo-ya.”
“Again. Say it again.”
“…Eui-woo-ya?”
“Yeah, Jae-jin. Keep going.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Just keep saying it! Again!”
“Uh… Eui-woo-yaaa…”
Jae-jin, still dazed, muttered Eui-woo-ya about six times. But it wasn’t enough. Seo Eui-woo crushed him in a desperate embrace, his grip tightening as if trying to fuse them together, clinging with a relentless hunger that refused to be satisfied.
“Now look at me.”
Seo Eui-woo seized Jae-jin’s chin, forcing their faces closer.
Still disoriented, Jae-jin blinked at him, hesitating before answering.
“…I am looking at you.”
“No. Really look at me.”
“I am looking—”
“You’re not. You’re standing right in front of me, but your mind is somewhere else.”
“……?”
“The other Awakened, the other Espers, everything else—you keep thinking about everything except me!”
Seo Eui-woo’s voice cracked with raw frustration, laced with something almost painful. Hearing it, Kwon Jae-jin went completely blank.
“Why are you doing this to me, Jae-jin? We’re right here, together, so why do you keep acting like this…?”
“…….”
“Am I not even in your sight? I told you earlier—I said I was confused, that I’d tell you later. You didn’t even ask what I meant. Aren’t you curious? Did you forget?”
“I… No, that’s not—”
“Do you not care about me anymore? Are you sick of me?”
Seo Eui-woo was unraveling, his words tumbling out in a chaotic mess. Jae-jin was too stunned to react.
He had just fought through an army of creatures, witnessed countless deaths, and seen an Esper lose control in a catastrophe—yet Seo Eui-woo wasn’t fixated on any of that.
What consumed him more than anything else… was the fact that Kwon Jae-jin wasn’t paying attention to him.
Everything else came second to Seo Eui-woo.
Kwon Jae-jin was always his first priority, and he expected the same in return.
Seo Eui-woo clutched at Jae-jin’s uniform, gripping and scraping at the fabric. The damp, battle-worn material crinkled under his grasp, rainwater trickling down his hands.
“I can’t take it when you’re like this, Jae-jin. It’s messing with my head.”
His expression twisted, eyes dark with something thick and turbulent. His gaze dropped, heavy with an emotion Jae-jin couldn’t quite grasp.
Still reeling from the outburst, Jae-jin hastily tried to calm him down.
“Wait—hold on, Eui-woo. What exactly is messing with you?”
“…I keep… I keep feeling like—”
“Like what…?”
“Like I want to do something to you. Something terrible.”
“…What?”
“Right now… I want to lock you away somewhere.”
The inferno of raw, consuming obsession flared in Seo Eui-woo’s eyes, burning hot and volatile.
A void inside him screamed for more, a restless hunger clawing at his insides, gnawing at him with relentless need.
It wasn’t about guiding.
Jae-jin was right here. Any time Seo Eui-woo reached for him, he was there, warm and solid in his arms.
They were lovers now. Jae-jin didn’t flinch away anymore—he met him with ease, with gentle, steady eyes.
He had gotten everything he wanted.
And yet.
Even now.
Seo Eui-woo was still drowning in endless, gnawing emptiness.
Every time he felt that hollowness, it drove him insane.
And he had no idea why.
If he could just stay like this with Kwon Jae-jin, then nothing else in the world mattered.
And yet, at the same time, an overwhelming urge surged through him—an urge to wipe out every living thing on this earth.
If he burned everything to the ground, turned it all to dust, then wouldn’t he and Jae-jin be able to live together in that wasteland, lacking nothing?
The contradiction tore at him.
Possessiveness, the need to confine him, jealousy—it all boiled over, relentless and consuming.
It was obsession, plain and simple.
Lust, love, and obsession.
At this point, it wasn’t just about Jae-jin guiding other Espers.
He hated that Jae-jin cared about anything that wasn’t him.
He wanted to trap Jae-jin’s wandering gaze, to keep it fixed on him.
He wanted to bind him, restrain him, never let him look beyond Seo Eui-woo.
If only… If only he could devour Kwon Jae-jin whole.
How perfect would that be?
“I want you to only look at me, only think about me. No guiding, no getting close to other people—I don’t care who loses control or who needs help. I just… I just want you to stop caring about anyone except me.”
“…….”
“I want you to see only me. Jae-jin, I want you to only see me.”
“…….”
“The urge keeps getting worse. Just like that time, when you said you were going to guide other Espers… I lost my fucking mind back then. And now—now, I feel like I’m going insane all over again.”
Seo Eui-woo clenched his teeth, frustration coiling tight in his chest.
No matter how he tried to put it into words, nothing could properly capture the dark, dangerous emotions twisting inside him.
Was it normal to feel violent urges toward the person you loved?
Seo Eui-woo knew—something about him wasn’t right.
And Kwon Jae-jin… He had no idea.
No idea about the kind of terrifying thoughts lurking inside him.
