***
Seeing everyone from the second child to the youngest staring at him with swollen, puffy eyes, a small laugh finally escaped Choi Tae-hoon’s lips. The moment he regained consciousness, he’d been taken straight to the matching test room, so his family had been left waiting far longer than expected. They’d spent the whole time anxiously worrying that Tae-hoon had been seriously hurt somewhere.
“Hhuuugh, hyuung, ugh!”
“Choi Woojin, if you cry, the others are all gonna cry too.”
Woojin, who attended a sports university, was about the same height as Tae-hoon at 180 centimeters, but his build was much bigger—so much so that Tae-hoon jokingly called him a muscle pig all the time. Regardless of what his older brother said, Woojin sobbed loudly as he hugged Tae-hoon tightly. At the same time, like sausages linked together, the third child Seungyu, fourth child Jihyun, fifth child Mina, and finally the youngest Jungmin all piled onto Tae-hoon in overlapping embraces.
Watching the children cling to him, Tae-hoon lightly bowed his head toward his parents, who were wiping away tears, then mouthed silently, I’m sorry. Only after seeing his family did the turmoil in his chest finally seem to settle a little.
While the touching reunion unfolded in the Center’s reception room, the atmosphere several floors above, inside the central laboratory, was rapidly sinking to rock bottom.
“……Was Tae-hoon perhaps bisexual?”
It was a question asked while already knowing the answer, clinging to one final shred of hope. Oh Yeon answered honestly.
“He’s heterosexual. During previous matching tests, he also expressed refusal toward male Espers.”
As an Esper who had personally undergone matching tests with Choi Tae-hoon, Oh Yeon knew Tae-hoon’s orientation well.
When Oh Yeon had gone to take the matching test with seventeen-year-old Guide Choi Tae-hoon, Tae-hoon had stepped into the testing room, looked at him, then recoiled backward in shock. Oh Yeon could still vividly remember the reflexive shout:
“Y-you’re a man?!”
Of course, later on, Tae-hoon had eventually resigned himself with thoughts like, What are the odds I’d even get a high matching rate anyway, and stopped strongly resisting tests with male Espers. But that wasn’t because he was bisexual—it came from hopelessness, from believing there was no chance a high matching rate would ever appear.
Lee Mihyun pressed hard against her temples and sighed.
Telling a man who had lived his entire life straight that, simply because he was a Guide, he now had to sleep with another man—Ji Gwan-young—was a cruel thing even for her.
Tae-hoon, who practically lived in and out of the Center, had probably already figured out the situation the moment he saw that absurd numerical result, even before anyone explained it to him. But regardless, the task of delivering those results to him had fallen to Lee Mihyun.
Mihyun recalled Choi Tae-hoon’s slightly hoarse voice, roughened from however many cigarettes he’d smoked.
Tae-hoon had been coming to the Center since he was five years old. There was no way he didn’t understand what a matching rate above 150 meant. If anything, he understood it too well—that was the problem.
That sharp-witted Guide probably already knew there would be no right of refusal this time.
A figure that had never appeared even once before.
Once physical intimacy began, once mental communion with the Esper truly started, the matching rate would likely soar far beyond 150, approaching record-breaking levels.
No—without question, it would.
Lee Mihyun couldn’t even begin to imagine how much of an Esper’s abilities would be unlocked if she herself had a matching rate over 150 with her Guide.
She was already perfectly satisfied living with a 65 percent matching rate. She had no difficulties using her abilities at all. But more than double that?
She couldn’t even imagine how the sensory organs would react or function.
An endlessly high matching rate wasn’t purely a blessing for an Esper. If anything, it was a value dangerously close to making one’s mind collapse with a single misstep. Even if the other person was a Guide, it still meant becoming excessively dependent on another human being.
The authority to command the strongest human weapon with merely the tilt of a chin—to make him move as absurdly easily as he himself had described—had now fallen into Choi Tae-hoon’s hands.
A weak, ordinary man who couldn’t even compare to Ji Gwan-young now held the power of life and death over an unmeasurable Esper.
As Mihyun gradually became accustomed to the shock of the numbers, she began to understand the word leash that Ji Gwan-young had used.
Her gaze shifted toward the man sitting on the sofa at one side of the laboratory. Ji Gwan-young sat there with his legs crossed, eyes closed.
That Esper probably thought of this as nothing more than a change in the rules of another game he controlled and enjoyed, just as always. He likely viewed it as playing with a hunting dog whose leash he could sever at any moment.
Mihyun smiled bitterly.
Ji Gwan-young.
For that man, this was practically the true beginning of his life as an Esper.
But then, suddenly, Ji Gwan-young’s eyes snapped open.
His expression looked slightly startled—something entirely unlike him.
***
“But seriously, oppa. Why do you smell so strongly like cigarettes?”
“Exactly! What kind of patient smokes? Aren’t you scared at all?!”
“I wasn’t really a patient.”
“Then what’s the gauze on your head?!”
Choi Tae-hoon shrugged. He didn’t particularly want to make excuses for smoking.
An hour ago, cigarettes had practically been his only escape from that suffocating reality.
151.2.
The number he’d briefly forgotten slowly resurfaced again.
His heart pounded anxiously, like postponed homework looming over him. Tae-hoon had always told his younger siblings, Never put things off—deal with them immediately. And he himself had always handled his responsibilities straightforwardly, without cutting corners.
But…
Yeah. This was the one thing he wanted to delay and run from as much as possible.
He had awakened as a Guide at age five—so young he couldn’t even remember it properly. Because of that, the Center had existed as something utterly natural to Choi Tae-hoon for as long as his memories existed.
Over all those years coming and going from this place, he’d seen quite a few Pairs. Oh Yeon alone had a same-sex Guide.
It wasn’t that Tae-hoon felt disgust toward people like that.
……He’d simply never imagined he would become one of them.
Choi Tae-hoon pulled another cigarette from his shirt pocket.
He genuinely felt like he couldn’t endure this without leaning on something.
As a result, not only his siblings but even his parents stared in shock and tried to stop him. But Tae-hoon only grinned slyly and insisted, “Ah, just one. Just one,” before stubbornly lighting the white cigarette tip.
Everyone’s eyes widened at the bizarre behavior of the eldest son, who had never once smoked in front of his parents before.
And before long, they noticed something else too—that Tae-hoon’s hands were trembling slightly with anxiety.
The moment pale smoke escaped his neat lips, the Center’s air purifier activated immediately.
Tae-hoon clenched his fist tightly, as though trying to hide the cold sweat dampening his palm.
“…..Can you hear me?”
“Hyung?”
“Come down here. Let’s talk.”
Everyone looked bewildered by his strange behavior.
But before even a minute passed, a knock sounded at the reception room door. Everyone turned toward it simultaneously—
—and their expressions became even more absurd than before.
Because a top star was standing there.
In contrast to his subtly trembling hands, Choi Tae-hoon explained his situation and “Esper Ji Gwan-young” to his family in a fairly calm tone.
His family was horrified enough when they learned that the owner of the name branded onto Tae-hoon’s back was that Ji Gwan-young. But when they heard the two of them had a matching rate ranging from at least 94 percent to nearly 150 percent, they became too shocked to even react.
Tae-hoon was the only Guide in the family, but there wasn’t a single person there who didn’t understand the meaning behind such a number.
Tae-hoon’s parents eventually muttered that they were stepping out for some air and left the reception room entirely. Watching them go, Tae-hoon smiled bitterly, while his younger siblings lowered their heads, shrinking into themselves despite having done nothing wrong.
Truthfully, when they’d first learned the name appearing on Tae-hoon’s back was Ji Gwan-young, the younger brothers had teased him with things like, “Hyung’s totally doomed to become gay.”
And whenever Ji Gwan-young appeared on TV, the younger sisters would joke, “Oppa, your man’s on TV!”
But now, that joke had halfway become reality.
Watching his siblings now made Tae-hoon’s stomach churn strangely, so he simply reached out and vigorously ruffled all their round heads.
“Why are you guys the ones looking so crushed?”
“Then hyung now…… do you have to work as a Guide?”
The one who asked was Choi Woojin.
It was the question everyone wanted to ask but couldn’t bring themselves to voice.
And it was also the answer Ji Gwan-young—the other person involved—was quietly waiting for as well.
After entering the reception room, the Esper had said nothing beyond, “Hello. I’m Ji Gwan-young.” Woojin cautiously studied his expression.
The top star still wore a flawless smile, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
……That was Ji Gwan-young, after all.
Even if it was his own brother, how could he be calm about having to sleep with some man he didn’t even know?
For some reason, goosebumps prickled along Woojin’s forearms, and he rubbed them unconsciously without understanding why he felt that way.
Choi Tae-hoon tried to pull out another cigarette, but after seeing the empty pack, he crushed it in his hand instead.
“……I need to ask the Center a few things first.”
An announcement declaring visiting hours over filled the reception room.
Tae-hoon still had to remain at the Center for several more days for additional examinations by the medical staff, so he sent his family home first. They awkwardly offered greetings to Ji Gwan-young as well.
Gwan-young responded with impeccably polite manners toward the Guide’s family, impossible to criticize in any way.
Once the crowd that had stormed in together finally left, only Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon remained in the reception room.
At the same time, a long sigh escaped Tae-hoon unconsciously.
Dragging his feet, he went over and sat on the sofa.
Gwan-young sat across from him. He waited for the Guide to speak with remarkable composure.
Simply listening to Choi Tae-hoon’s rapidly beating heartbeat was enough to keep him from boredom.
Eventually, Tae-hoon barely managed to open his mouth.
“…….Ji Gwan-young-ssi.”
“Yes.”
“You… I mean, Gwan-young-ssi…”
Gwan-young-ssi.
It was the first time his name had properly come from Tae-hoon’s mouth.
The monster’s eyes curved faintly.
“Even if your Guide is a man…… are you okay with that?”
“……”
Choi Tae-hoon still couldn’t properly meet Ji Gwan-young’s eyes.
He still wore the expression of someone unable to truly process that the man before him was an Esper seemingly born solely for him, or that his own name was engraved across that man’s back.
Slowly, Ji Gwan-young began unbuttoning his shirt.
After avoiding his gaze awkwardly, Tae-hoon belatedly realized what he was doing and instantly turned pale.
“W-w-w-w-w-what are you doing…….?!”
“I thought you should see it.”
“S-see what?!”
As the man’s body—solid and tightly packed with muscles that looked sculpted into existence—began to reveal itself, Tae-hoon swallowed dryly in tension.
Of course, it wasn’t arousal.
It was the overwhelming pressure of same-sex intimacy that had been lodged deep in one corner of his mind.
Smiling faintly as if furrowing his brow, Ji Gwan-young completely removed his shirt before slowly turning around.
Tae-hoon had squeezed his eyes shut without realizing it, but when silence followed, he flinched and cautiously opened them again.
And not long after, a small gasp escaped him.
The Esper felt the Guide’s gaze land upon his back.
How long did they remain like that?
Finally, in a voice so quiet only Gwan-young could hear, a slow, trembling question fell.
“Is this…… my name?”
“Yes.”
“……How?”
Gwan-young lifted a hand lightly.
The small amount of water remaining in a cup began to move.
Tae-hoon stared blankly as the liquid floated into the air and transformed into the shape of the Name inscribed in the exact same position and handwriting as the one on Gwan-young’s back.
Slowly, Ji Gwan-young began breaking apart the complex Name.
So that the man who shared his Name could understand.
Carefully.
Without rushing.
C, h, o, i, T, a, e, h, o, o, n.
Choi Tae-hoon said nothing.
And as if not expecting an answer either, Gwan-young left the floating water suspended in midair while calmly putting his shirt back on.
