For Nabin, Kim Su-hyun’s occasional visits were like a breath of air in the suffocating life of the mansion. The environment was certainly better than when he had worked at the establishment, yet sometimes it felt as though his small room was filled to the brim with heavy water.
Even the awe he had once felt gazing through the wide windows had faded with time. By the time he had to Guide Han Jigang before he was even fully awake, all strength left his body.
He didn’t even have the energy to sit by the window and look out at the garden. Breathing alone was a burden.
When Su-hyun returned from America, even if he couldn’t completely escape the mansion, Nabin planned to ask—just once more—if they could go to the playground so he could ride the swing.
Like Su-hyun’s younger sibling had said, that riding a swing made worries fly away, Nabin too wanted to let the heavy, suffocating feelings inside him be carried off by the wind.
Otherwise… without even realizing it himself, he might simply stop breathing one day.
***
It was April 4th.
Some considered the number four unlucky, its pronunciation too close to the word for death (死, sa). And with two fours in the date, perhaps it was no wonder people said the day carried the aura of death.
Yesterday the sun had shone brightly, but before dawn broke, the sky split open with a fierce storm. Blossoms that had just begun to bloom were torn off in sheets, scattering to the ground. The mansion grounds where Nabin stayed were battered by the raging wind and rain.
The garden, usually breathtaking at a glance, had not been spared. The soil had been torn open, as if the weather itself was brimming with fury.
Nabin woke gasping for breath even before Jigang came to him.
“Hah… haah… I feel… so uneasy…”
His small hand pressed down hard against his chest. His heart was pounding so violently against his palm that it hurt. He tried to calm himself with deep breaths, but a nightmare he couldn’t even remember clung to his body like a heavy weight.
Cold sweat drenched his sleep clothes. Rising from the bed, he paced the room nervously.
Bang!!
A thick tree branch, snapped by the storm, slammed into the window with a deafening crash. Nabin’s shoulders jerked at the sound. He moved toward the window.
The wind was strong enough to sway an ancient pine tree that had surely stood decades longer than Nabin had been alive. If this had been his old house, the roof might have collapsed by now.
Bang!!
Another branch tore free and hurled toward him, slamming against the glass. Though the sturdy window kept him safe, Nabin still squeezed his eyes shut in panic.
He tried to tell himself it was just the storm making him uneasy, but it felt as if those black clouds overhead had seeped into his chest as well.
Biting his lip anxiously, he searched for his phone. He hadn’t touched it since yesterday, after Guiding Tae Yishin had left him feeling unwell.
Su-hyun always sent him at least one message a day. Sometimes it was trivial stories meant to ease his loneliness, sometimes a simple check-in.
Just yesterday, Su-hyun had texted that he was still on assignment in America. When Nabin read the line about possibly meeting Lee Hayan within a week, he had erased it right away, just as Su-hyun told him to. But the words kept replaying in his head no matter what.
Thankfully, the message had come before Tae Yishin visited. The Espers seemed to care for nothing about Nabin outside of Guiding, and at least left him free to use his phone.
[Guide Kim Nabin, once I enter the dungeon today, I won’t be able to contact you for about a day. As soon as I’m out, I’ll message you right away, so don’t worry too much. –Kim Su-hyun, 4/3 09:01 a.m.]
Recalling the message, Nabin stared blankly at the black phone screen. The sun had yet to rise. With the thirteen-hour time difference, there was still a long while before Su-hyun could possibly reply.
But why was his heart so restless? He tried to soothe himself, insisting it was just the gloomy weather. Still, he couldn’t stop the ominous dread roiling inside him.
***
“Hey. What’s with you today?”
“Ah…”
Jigang pulled back, gripping Nabin’s small face in his hand, turning it side to side. Normally, the boy responded with little more than muffled moans, but today he seemed completely absent.
It was as if his mind had wandered somewhere far away. Jigang never gave much emotional weight to Guiding, but seeing Nabin so distracted dampened his mood.
“I—I’m sorry…”
Nabin quickly sat up on his knees, his eyes flickering toward the phone on the nightstand. Sweat poured from his body, but he had to keep Jigang from losing his temper.
Jigang was gentler now than when they first met, but just like Tae Yishin, he could turn violent at any moment.
By now, Nabin couldn’t feel anything below his waist. He wasn’t bleeding as badly as he had the first time, but the pain was just as sharp. People said repeated acts eventually brought pleasure, but that had never been true for him.
Any tiny spark of sensation was always swallowed up by the pain that threatened to consume his entire body.
“Your eyes keep drifting to your phone… Kim Su-hyun, right?”
Jigang’s sharpness cut through him. Nabin had only glanced once at the phone on the nightstand, yet Jigang immediately caught on to the reason for his distraction.
The name that had lingered in Nabin’s chest since dawn spilled from Jigang’s lips, and Nabin couldn’t hide his agitation. He lowered his head to shield his trembling eyes, but Jigang had already seen.
“I checked with the Center. Heard Su-hyun’s been sent to America on assignment. That got something to do with you?”
Nabin bit down hard on his tongue until the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. It was better than letting his turmoil show.
These men didn’t care for him the way Su-hyun did. To them, he was nothing but a Guiding machine—handled roughly, kept breathing only because they still needed him alive.
And yet he was useful. For reasons he didn’t understand, Espers with low Match Rates elsewhere matched unusually high with him.
That was why, despite being only a D-rank Guide, he had been able to form Dedicated Guide contracts with three S-rank Espers—something unheard of.
If they ever realized he wanted to leave, there was no telling how they might react. Even Jigang and Gong Min, who had begun treating him more gently than at first, might turn crueler than ever.
Not only to him—but they could target Su-hyun as well. They had both the disposition and the power to do it.
Please, Nabin prayed silently, please let Jigang’s suspicion end here. If the man who had gone all the way to America for him ended up harmed because of his slip, he would never forgive himself.
Perhaps his prayer was answered, because Jigang’s voice soon grew casual again, his suspicion fading.
“…Of course not. Su-hyun’s just a Healing Esper, nosy by nature. Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t get the wrong idea. Or what—are you really thinking of dating him?”
“N-no…”
Date Su-hyun? That was impossible. With a body like his, it would only be an insult to the other person. He couldn’t even bear himself—how could he expect a lover to understand his past?
Normal life had become an unreachable illusion ever since the day his father died.
“Lie down again. We’re not done Guiding.”
“…Yes.”
Nabin obediently reclined on the sheets, spreading his thin ankles wide. His dim eyes held only the familiar resignation for what was about to happen.
Jigang gazed down at him as though admiring a piece of art, leisurely drinking in the sight of his pale body flushing with shame.
Skin as white as if it had never seen the sun turned red at the slightest touch. As Jigang drove himself into the small body, his reason would fade until instinct consumed him.
Even when he tried to be careful, Nabin’s fragile flesh often tore. Then the act had to stop so Healing Potion could be applied.
Despite being used daily by him and the other two Espers, Nabin’s body never adjusted. Watching his reactions, one could almost believe it was his first time, no matter how many years he had supposedly endured at the establishment.
