If he could, he would have sold his very soul to the devil to wipe away everything in this world that tormented Nabin. But no matter how desperately he cried out—to God or to the devil—no one ever answered.
Only today had he been allowed, for the briefest of moments, to meet Nabin in this strange, unknown space.
“I tried so hard… to keep the promise I made with you, Dad… I really did my best… Did I do well, Dad?”
Each time Nabin spoke, his voice broke apart with sobs that spilled through the pauses.
His father couldn’t bring himself to answer. His lips quivered soundlessly, and seeing that silence alone made Nabin’s face twist with pain.
In the end, his father was forced to speak, in a voice thick with urgency, the words he knew his son longed to hear.
“Of course! My Nabin is the best. Out of all the heroes I’ve ever seen, you’re the bravest and most magnificent.”
Only then did a fragile smile, glistening with tears, touch Nabin’s lips. It had been so long since he’d last seen his father. Whether this was an illusion of his own making or just a fleeting dream destined to fade upon waking—it didn’t matter.
A single word of praise from his father was enough.
As long as his mother stayed by his side, Nabin felt he could endure even the cruellest of hells. He truly believed he would be fine.
Held once more in his father’s warm embrace, he felt a peace he hadn’t known in so long. He prayed desperately for this moment to last forever. But the reunion was as short as a passing breeze.
The hem of his father’s clothes, which he was clutching tightly as if afraid to let go, began to fade into transparency. At first he blinked, thinking it a trick of his eyes, but it was no illusion.
“Dad… do we have to say goodbye now?”
Nabin’s trembling voice carried his plea as he looked up. His father, too, seemed to sense the farewell drawing near, unable to take his eyes off him.
“I’m sorry, son. I… I can’t stay with you any longer…”
Tears streamed down both their faces, drowning them in sorrow. Yet there was nothing either could do. With their bodies vanishing from the fingertips upward, all they could do was cling to each other as desperately as possible.
“I’ll find a way, somehow, to make sure you can be happy, Nabin. Son… I love you.”
Nabin reached out toward his father’s disappearing face, but all he saw was his own hand scattering into dust-like fragments. Before it was too late, he tried to say he loved him too.
“I love you, t—”
But the final farewell was left unfinished, an incomplete sentence swallowed by the void. A single tear fell from his eye, and then his body too began to break apart.
“D-dad… Don’t go…”
A sorrowful cry echoed through the dim infirmary.
From the adjoining lounge, where he had dozed off, Kim Su-hyun stirred awake. The small room was used by healers for overnight duty when a patient required close care. Restless from the day’s events, he had barely managed to sleep, only to be dragged back awake by the sound seeping through the treatment room wall—a hollow cry that pressed painfully against his chest.
“Guide Kim Nabin?”
There was only one patient left in Infirmary One. Kim Su-ryeon had recovered enough earlier to discharge herself, though her pale complexion had suggested she should have rested longer. She had hurried out, uncomfortable even around Su-hyun.
Rising quickly from the cot, Su-hyun rushed to the infirmary. The moment he opened the door, he saw Nabin, his face blank with despair, tears streaming without end. His sweat-damp hair clung messily to his forehead, as though he had just awoken from a nightmare.
For a long moment, Su-hyun could only stand there, watching. Nabin’s wide eyes brimmed until tears burst forth, falling in torrents. It felt as though even Su-hyun’s body had been bound by those tears; moving was difficult. The grief spilling from Nabin reached all the way to his own feet, pinning him down.
“Guide Kim Nabin, are you alright?”
Finally, he forced himself to step closer, his voice taut with urgency—as though calling out were the only way to stop Nabin from vanishing before his eyes.
Slowly, Nabin’s gaze drifted from the void to meet his. When Su-hyun finally saw his face clearly, his lips parted and refused to close again.
Tears streamed down from reddened eyes, so many that Su-hyun thought he could cup them in his hands. But worse than that were Nabin’s eyes themselves—like vessels brimming with every pain and sorrow in the world.
Su-hyun wasn’t someone who cried easily. He hadn’t since childhood, and after awakening as an Esper, his tear ducts seemed to have only dried further.
Yet now his own eyes burned red. More than the sting in his eyelids, it was the sharp, suffocating ache in his chest, as though his heart were being crushed, that overwhelmed him.
Unconsciously, he pressed a hand against his chest, trying to ease the suffocating weight that sat there like a stone. Even breathing felt like a struggle.
How long had they stood like that, staring at one another as if time itself had stopped? Then Nabin’s eyes fluttered shut, and his body began to collapse backward.
“Guide Kim Nabin!”
Snapping out of it, Su-hyun rushed forward and caught him in his arms. Even unconscious, tears streamed down, carving new paths across already raw skin.
He gently brushed Nabin’s tear-streaked face. All he could do was pour his ability into him, replenishing the fragile energy in his body. The physical wounds had already been healed when he was first admitted.
But even as an A-rank Healing Esper, there were limits. He could mend a body—but never a broken heart. All he could offer to emotional wounds were empty words of comfort.
Never before had Su-hyun resented the limits of his own ability, but ever since meeting Nabin, the inability to heal the mind left him feeling useless, drowning in self-loathing.
For Nabin, the scars on his heart were deeper than those on his body. And when Su-hyun thought of the people who had inflicted fresh wounds on someone already carrying so much pain, his jaw clenched until his teeth ground together.
Tomorrow, Nabin was to move into those men’s residence. Su-hyun had even gone so far as to beg the Center Director for more time, but had been refused.
Never had he felt so small as in that moment, bound by orders he couldn’t disobey.
Even the residence itself was a problem. Those men weren’t the type who could live peacefully alongside other Espers and Guides—and they didn’t want to.
If only their abilities had been mediocre, it might have been easier. But all three of them were S-rank Ability Users. For them, the Director had even built a vast mansion far removed from the Center.
By law, an awakened Esper belonged first to their nation of birth. But in an age where top-ranked Ability Users defined national power, the reality was different.
A-ranks often received overseas offers. For S-ranks, it was inevitable.
The Center still maintained some authority over Ability Users, but the stronger they were, the weaker that leash became.
South Korea had one of the highest ratios of Ability Users relative to its population. Its national power had grown beyond what it had been before the Gates, but population-heavy nations like the U.S. and China still loomed large.
China, especially, was relentless in its attempts to lure away Korea’s top Espers.
Most Ability Users, however, remained loyal, choosing temporary overseas assignments instead—mercenary-like stints abroad. The Center even encouraged this, so those who needed money or sought experience in foreign dungeons often submitted paperwork and departed on short-term dispatches.
For the average Ability User, the Center imposed little restriction.
But for S-ranks, it was another story. And these three, with their volatile personalities, worried the Director most.
The way they behaved—even toward a man nearly every citizen and Esper respected—showed they had no interest in following order.
The Director feared they might one day defect to China or the U.S. And so, to calm that fear, he planned to use Nabin as a tool to control them.
As the head of an organization, the Director had to be cold when necessary—that much Su-hyun understood. Rationally, it made sense. But the reality—that Nabin was the one forced to shoulder the burden of both the Director’s ambition and their selfishness—filled him with bitter anger.
Because of his low rank, Nabin would inevitably be forced into sexual contact Guiding. And there was no chance those men would treat him gently.
Even with Su-hyun healing both his external and internal wounds, years of abuse had left Nabin’s body frailer than an ordinary person’s. His fragility was plain to see, yet those men not only ignored it, they sharpened their killing intent into weapons to strike at him.
