Every Guide he’d ever met until now had been the same—matching rates so pathetically low that the Guiding itself was just another kind of torment.
But this one, the Guide Gong Min had just received physical Guiding from for the first time today, was different. Now he understood why the Center Director had forced a D-rank Guide into their mansion.
Guiding from someone with a match rate over 90% was like an addictive drug made exclusively for Espers—once you experienced it, you couldn’t let go.
The fragile thread of reason Gong Min had been clinging to snapped the instant Kim Nabin’s Guiding mana flowed into him. His consciousness blurred, instincts took over, and the Guide was left to pay the price for it.
Panicking, Gong Min snatched a top-grade Healing Potion from the nightstand. He forced open Nabin’s blood-caked lips and trickled the potion inside.
But unconscious, Nabin couldn’t swallow. Most of it just spilled back out.
Frowning hard, Gong Min pressed the vial to his own mouth, held the potion there, then tilted Nabin’s head toward him and fed it to him directly.
The metallic stench of blood was so thick it smothered the potion’s sharp medicinal taste. After forcing down the entire bottle, Gong Min grabbed another, uncorked it, and carefully applied it over the boy’s battered body.
Thankfully, the potion worked fast. Nabin’s small frame—crumpled like a doll cruelly mangled by a child—slowly began to knit itself back together.
His eyes, which had rolled back moments ago, returned to focus, and his long lashes lowered to conceal them once more.
His breathing was still shallow, but no longer on the verge of stopping. Even so, the wounds were so severe that not even a top-grade potion could promise he’d wake soon.
And if he did… there was little doubt he’d be left with deep trauma from it all.
Knock, knock, knock.
Gong Min, lost in guilt as he gazed down at Nabin limp in his arms, was dragged back to reality by the sound of knocking. Moments later, the door swung open and Han Jigang and Tae Yishin entered, their faces set in grim seriousness.
“Hey, don’t tell me you killed him?”
“He’s still breathing. Looks like he’s alive, at least.”
The stench of blood hit them the instant they opened the door. Even from a distance, they hadn’t been able to ignore the sounds filtering out of Gong Min’s room.
Nabin’s fading breaths had left both men restless in a way unusual for them. Once the Guiding ended, they came straight upstairs.
They had known that pushing Nabin onto Gong Min in his condition could be dangerous, but they’d chosen it anyway.
That didn’t mean they’d wanted him dead. If they’d wanted to kill him, they’d have done it the first day.
Besides, the Guiding they’d received from him had been… better than expected. After experiencing it once, the thought of going back to the cold, sterile Guiding devices was unbearable.
“Gong Min, hand him over. I’ll take him to his room.”
Han Jigang stepped closer, reaching out. He slipped his potion back into his pocket—Nabin already looked mostly healed, aside from the pale skin streaked with dried blood.
He figured the Guide deserved a day to rest. Gong Min had pushed him while half-beastified, after all. For someone who didn’t seem particularly resilient, Nabin must have been terrified.
The Center Director had ordered them to receive Guiding every day until their Outbreak Risk Index dropped below 30, but Jigang had no interest in dragging an unconscious kid into bed for it.
Smack.
But his hand never landed. Gong Min swatted it away without thinking. He couldn’t explain the feeling—he just hated the thought of anyone else touching Nabin. His body moved before his mind did.
“…What the hell? You lost it?”
Jigang bared his teeth in a vicious grin, eyes locked on Gong Min. He had never seen him act like this.
Normally Gong Min was passive, detached, as bland as watered-down liquor. He’d never openly shown dislike, let alone so blatantly.
Even Gong Min seemed startled by himself. He’d reacted as though Jigang were a threat—all because of the Guide in his arms. Jigang, though he didn’t show it, was shaken too.
Yishin noticed as well. His gaze darkened, heavy as a storm.
This wasn’t good.
A Guide was supposed to be nothing more than a tool, used until their Outbreak Risk Index stabilized—no different than a machine.
If they started feeling attachment, or pity… there could only be a bad end.
Espers instinctively obsessed over Guides with high match rates. None of them had ever experienced it before.
Ryu Somin was different—family, a younger brother to protect. He could never be compared to someone like Nabin.
And yet, even Gong Min—normally the calmest among them—had just lashed out. If they let this go further, it would end in bloodshed.
They weren’t affectionate men. But they’d grown up together, fighting and bickering, bound like brothers.
Yishin’s eyes gleamed with subtle killing intent as he looked at Nabin. Maybe this was why he’d disliked him from the start—he’d instinctively sensed this outcome.
“Get a grip. What the hell are you doing? Feeling sorry for a Guide now?”
At Yishin’s scoff, Jigang and Gong Min both looked back down at Nabin. They realized it too—their behavior had been unlike them.
“This relationship was broken from the start. He’s just a Guiding machine. Did you forget what you did the first day? Made him piss himself. And today, you fucked him until his body broke.”
Every word was true. From the start, their bond with Nabin had been warped, like wearing a shirt inside out and backward. No matter how they wore it, anyone could see it was wrong.
It was only the shock of touching a high-match-rate Guide for the first time, scrambling their thoughts. They’d mistaken fleeting pleasure for something like affection.
They forced themselves to dismiss it, to steady their racing hearts.
“Hand him over. I’ll take him back to his room. Somin will be home from the hospital soon, and neither of you better let on about this. Gong Min, clean this mess of a room. Jigang, go downstairs and make dinner.”
“Annoying bastard, giving orders…”
Jigang shot him a glare before storming out. He gave Nabin one last glance, asleep and vulnerable, but nothing more. He no longer intended to take him from Gong Min.
This time, Gong Min didn’t push Yishin away when he reached for Nabin. He simply relaxed his arms and carefully handed him over.
Yishin wrinkled his brow at the sight of the boy—body smeared with blood and fluids—then grabbed a sheet off the floor and draped it loosely over him.
Gong Min clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms, suppressing the instinct to snatch Nabin back into his arms.
***
“Hhh… ahh…”
Nabin writhed all night, caught in a fevered haze.
He couldn’t open his eyes properly, couldn’t fall into real sleep. Instead, he drifted through a fog of half-consciousness, trapped in the storm of violence replaying endlessly.
Even when he tried to escape, invisible hands dragged him back into that torment.
He twisted so much the blanket slipped off the bed and onto the floor.
Only in the dim gray of dawn did his swollen eyes finally crack open. Tears had streamed down his face even while unconscious, puffing his lids so heavy his vision was narrowed.
The room was silent, hushed beneath the faint moonlight. Nabin clenched the sheet in his fist and bit down hard.
“Ugh… nghh…”
Even biting until his gums ached couldn’t stop the muffled sobs from leaking out.
Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself upright. His gaze was unfocused, darting nervously around the room.
The space was warm, carefully decorated, nothing like the cold place he’d first stumbled into—but to him, it felt frigid, like he was standing naked in a blizzard.
The mansion’s temperature regulators kept the air comfortably warm, but Nabin still shivered so hard his teeth clattered. He rubbed his arms, desperate to bring heat into his gooseflesh-covered skin, but the trembling only worsened.
His blurred gaze landed on the tightly shut wardrobe. Crawling on all fours, he dragged himself to it and pulled the doors open. Inside, in the corner, sat a small box.
For an instant, his dulled eyes flickered faintly with light.
“Lee Hayan… Esper…”
He whispered the same two words again and again, like someone who knew nothing else.
Clutching the box to his chest, he crawled inside the wardrobe and pulled the doors shut.
The room had already been dim, but in the cramped darkness of the wardrobe, the world went pitch black—so dark that even with his eyes open, he could see nothing at all.
