Only after Sung Cha-hyeon spent a long time coaxing, soothing, and apologizing did he manage to speak again with Ji Se-min, who was livid.
Even at a full boil, Se-min wasn’t the type to keep snubbing someone who was genuinely sorry. Once his fury peaked and gradually ebbed, he found himself thinking, ‘Maybe saying I wouldn’t do Guiding at all was too much.’ His resolve softened, and only when he let Cha-hyeon pull him into his arms—reluctantly, but without resistance—did the two finally have a proper conversation. For Cha-hyeon, it was a relief.
“Here. A peace offering.”
Cha-hyeon held out a “surprise box.” He didn’t call it that just because he appeared out of nowhere; it truly looked like the sort of thing where a clown would spring out as soon as you lifted the lid.
It seemed to sit on the boundary between two and three dimensions. One glance at the ribbon-laden box was enough to tell it wasn’t of the real world. With eyes swollen red from crying, Se-min mumbled,
“Did that drop in today’s money dungeon?”
“Probably? I think it got mixed in with the clear items… hmm.”
At the word “clear,” Se-min’s jaw started to set. Sensing it, Cha-hyeon rushed to add,
“There’s no candy or chocolate, I swear.”
Strangely, that one line smoothed the prickliness right out of him. Realizing just how much he was at the mercy of a Se-min who wielded Guiding like a weapon, Cha-hyeon let out a quiet breath of relief before he knew it.
Se-min stroked the ostentatiously glittering box. Because of Cha-hyeon—who wanted him to have a normal life—Se-min knew less about dungeon Gates than most Guides, but even he recognized this famous item.
Surprise Box
Grade: F
What could be inside?
Among dungeon drops, it belonged in the “toy” category—a one-off gag with a gaudy look and a frivolous effect. Fidgeting with it, Se-min flipped the lid.
Bwoing!
With a ridiculous sound effect, the box popped! What sprang out… was a tiny Cupid.
A cute baby angel draped in white cloth winked at Se-min, loosed a little arrow of love—pew—and vanished. The sight was both adorable and absurd.
“Heh…”
Taking that small laugh as a good sign, perhaps, Cha-hyeon quietly sat down beside him.
Perched on a big boulder near the car, which had been parked any old way, they noticed the on-site staff—who’d disappeared at some point—slipping back in.
“…Oh!”
Only then did Se-min register them and practically spring to his feet. The staff waved their hands with awkward smiles as if to say, Don’t mind us. Mortified and apologetic, Se-min bowed again and again, head nearly touching the ground.
They were a fair distance from the people tidying the area unsettled by the Gate, yet heat still tinged Se-min’s cheeks. In a voice that barely rose above a murmur, he said,
“…Shit, that’s embarrassing…”
It was basically like live-streaming his fight with Cha-hyeon in public. They’d stepped away to give them space midway, sure, but showing anyone that he and Cha-hyeon had argued was mortifying all the same. On impulse, he tried pinning it on Cha-hyeon.
“It’s your fault, Hyung.”
“Yeah. It’s my fault.”
In a half-resigned tone, Cha-hyeon echoed him. He smacked his lips with a bitter taste after taking hits like, “Do you even know what you did wrong?”, “…Going into a dungeon Gate without telling me?”, and “How can someone who knows that not be at fault?” about three times while calming him down.
“……”
Eyes narrowed so much it was hard to tell whether he was glaring or just looking, Se-min finally held out his hand. After silently gazing down at it, Cha-hyeon threaded his fingers through his. At some point—like a remora—that big hand had latched on; it drank in the Guiding energy flowing from Se-min.
…In the meantime, the waves had turned choppy again. Thanks to the earlier Guiding, he was stable enough that contact guiding alone would probably settle him, but that didn’t make it any less upsetting.
“What’s going on, Hyung…?”
Vexed by how fast the Guiding energy was draining, Se-min couldn’t help but grumble. What on earth was so urgent that he’d planned to run seven dungeons?
Birds chirped in the quiet forest. With the Gate’s appearance, the mountain would stay closed for the day. After listening a moment, Se-min asked softly,
“…Why did you do that?”
It wasn’t a jab meant to attack like before—it was a question born of real curiosity. Wind brushed through Cha-hyeon’s hair. Only after enough time passed for the bangs tickling his brow to settle did he answer.
“A status window notification popped up. Said there was an unclaimed reward.”
“…What? When?”
Startled, Se-min turned to him. He hadn’t even guessed that.
“When I was running your bath and we were talking.”
Se-min remembered how, back then, Cha-hyeon’s gaze had drifted to a patch of empty air.
So that was because a status window notification appeared?
Status windows only activate inside dungeons. Not just Awakened—even ordinary people, even kids—knew that.
But a notification popped up outside a Gate? As if the status window had activated?
“Seriously? How? Is… is that even possible?”
Se-min murmured, dazed. But more importantly—an unclaimed reward?
“…Unclaimed reward?”
His voice leapt a pitch. His swollen eyes went round.
“What is it? Something you didn’t claim back then so it’s stuck as unclaimed? But you said later it suddenly showed up as a reward. Oh, don’t tell me you lost your mem— I mean, you kind of claimed a reward in that old dungeon and then it was like it never existed. Is that what’s popping now?”
But by then, he was already off to the races. Thinking hard and blurting half-formed theories, he sent his Guiding energy bucking even higher—his emotions spiking.
“So what was the reward?”
“No idea.”
“…Huh?”
His momentum collapsed. With eyes too puffy to open properly, he squinted, wary. Cha-hyeon explained,
“It was all question marks. Status windows only activate inside a Gate, so I figured if I went in, maybe the question marks would resolve into text.”
“Ah…”
Only then did Se-min accept what he’d done. Thinking of how he vanished without a word still made his heart drop, but he could see why he’d rushed to enter a dungeon.
He still couldn’t see why he’d planned to grind through a bunch, though. If he’d registered seven at once in case the first Gate didn’t trigger it… well, that was very S-rank Esper Sung Cha-hyeon of him. Of course, as his Guide, watching that would drive Se-min up the wall.
“Hyung, still—signing up for seven dungeons at once is a bit much. From now on, talk to me first before you do something like that.”
“Got it.”
Cha-hyeon let out a soft, crackling laugh. At last, even the lingering aftertaste of their spat seemed to dissolve. Feeling sheepish, Se-min deliberately brightened his tone.
“Mm… so did it turn into text now? I’m curious.”
Silently, Cha-hyeon focused on empty air. That slight misalignment in his gaze told Se-min he was checking the status window only the user could see. Then, as if he’d spotted something, his brows lifted.
~Unclaimed Rewards List~
♦ …Clear Reward… (1/3)
“…Ha-ha?”
His mouth stretched sideways into a thin line, then he let out a short, incredulous laugh. Brimming with curiosity, Se-min asked,
“What? What does it say?”
“Fuck, is this a joke…?”
Startled by the sudden curse, Se-min flinched, his shoulders jerking. But Cha-hyeon didn’t have the bandwidth to feign concern.
He’d come out here tugged by raw curiosity, putting aside even the comfort of sticking close to his Guide. Maybe, deep down, he’d expected something substantial. Not this punny nonsense.
He read the words that had replaced the question marks again. Even as he stared like he meant to etch them into his eyes, dry laughter kept slipping free.
The unclaimed reward was a “Clear Reward,” it said. Well, obviously. From the moment he’d seen a status window full of question marks, he’d guessed it was the clear reward from the dungeon where he’d lost his memories.
But if all he got… was something that obvious? He felt the annoyance of having gone out of his way, the emotional fatigue of soothing his pair Guide’s trauma—sharpened by how Se-min wielded Guiding—and, on top of that, a baffling “(1/3)” like some conditional reward with unknown criteria.
For someone who hated hassle, it was nothing to be happy about. Who knew when he’d fulfill the other two conditions—and more to the point, he hadn’t actually gained anything now.
Well. One thing: pointless irritation.
“W-why…? What came up? Is it a bad reward?”
A cautious voice felt its way toward him. Cha-hyeon was just parting his lips, not bothering to hide a scoff, when—
…His slightly opened mouth closed. The wry curve of his lips flattened.
Wind blew. Pine-scented air skimmed his hair and bared his smooth forehead.
In the distance, the Gate site staff moved as if they were nearly done with cleanup. Strange scorch marks lingered where the Gate had opened—a tableau that said a clear run had just happened here.
Those dark, unreadable eyes drifted, slowly, to his own shoulder. Then down the arm sheathed in a black combat suit, to his wrist, and to their clasped hands. That look—faintly displeased, perhaps—tracked his own body parts, unhurried, as if they belonged to someone else.
Then his black eyes shifted to the one whose hand he was holding: the steady flow of Guiding energy; the way their fingers were naturally laced; a pale wrist with the barest hint of a bruise; a face with tear tracks plain as day.
“…Hyung? What’s wrong?”
A worried voice. Only then did he seem to snap awake; he slapped their joined hands apart with a sharp smack.
Startled by the sudden shove, Se-min’s eyes went round with confusion. He couldn’t even guess why.
“Baby.”
“Uhk…!”
Fingers clamped down on both his shoulders hard enough to hurt. A frown creased Se-min’s brow at the pain, but that quickly took a back seat—because emotion slowly spread across Cha-hyeon’s previously blank face.
Panic.
“Why are you here? Go back. Now!”
