4) poor man’s moody blues
“…..I was scared. I really, truly was scared.”
The woman’s lips barely managed to part. In her eyes lingered a fear that drifted endlessly like dust—irritating, suffocating, impossible to shake off. Lee Mihyun soothed the woman gently and pushed a steaming cup of tea toward her.
Right now, Mihyun had been given the difficult task of calming this woman—whose complexion had gone beyond pale into downright ghastly—and getting her to talk about that moment.
The woman took a sip of the tea set before her. But it apparently did little to ease her fear, because she gripped the mug—larger than both her hands put together—with crushing force. Her face was even paler than the white bones protruding from the back of her clenched hand, and she stared only downward beneath the table as though lost in thought. Mihyun waited patiently for her to speak, giving her all the time she needed.
How long had it been like that?
As if digging through her memories, the woman finally spoke in a hollow voice.
“They didn’t seem especially strange. They just…… looked like ordinary people.”
“Wasn’t there anything that felt off? Anything at all is fine.”
Mihyun desperately needed every tiny clue that might fall from the woman’s lips. The woman appeared to think harder at Mihyun’s words before slowly continuing in an uncertain voice.
“Um… you said those people were an Esper and Guide Pair too, right?”
“Yes. Extremely dangerous Class-1 criminals. There are even vicious Espers starting to gather under that Pair.”
At Mihyun’s explanation, the woman’s eyes wavered.
What she had seen in that moment was very different from what Mihyun described. Those two unfamiliar men—or rather, Oh Jinwoo and Lee Hansol—hadn’t looked nearly as dangerous as Mihyun made them sound.
If anything…….
Goosebumps prickled over the woman’s arms, and she rubbed at them several times. Even now, what she had witnessed still didn’t feel real.
“But those people… especially the one you said was the Esper… he said he didn’t want to fight, and that man…….”
“That man?”
Noticing the cautious way the woman referred to him, Mihyun asked carefully. At once, the woman’s shoulders stiffened as though frozen solid. Then, in a slow and heavy tone that sounded almost like a curse, she spoke a single name.
“Ji Gwan-young.”
“……”
“Ji Gwan-young. Ji Gwan-young smiled while he…… said that.”
The fear carried in each painfully forced-out word was immense. Mihyun clicked her tongue inwardly. Until now she had handled the conversation skillfully, but suddenly her mouth felt sealed shut with wax.
“And after that, th-that…….”
After that.
Fear began creeping back into the woman’s eyes again. Guessing what she must have witnessed next, Mihyun hurriedly interrupted, a muted sigh mixed into her voice.
“Yes. It’s alright. You don’t have to say it. It must’ve been very difficult for you—thank you so much.”
The woman lowered her head deeply, her body trembling faintly.
At Mihyun’s small gesture, other researchers from The Center waiting outside the interrogation room came in and led the woman away with polite but firm manners. Before long, the woman would forget everything that happened in this interrogation room—and even that moment she remembered with such terror.
The instant she was left alone, Lee Mihyun immediately reached inside her coat for cigarettes, only to remember she’d sworn off smoking a few days ago. She clicked her tongue quietly.
Honestly, when she’d first seen a few articles about Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon, she’d thought that Pair—always causing accidents and incidents while making everyone anxious with their wildly fluctuating matching rate—had finally managed to understand each other.
So she left them alone.
She grumbled outwardly, but pretended not to notice.
Even if that stubborn, foul-tempered Esper was one thing, she’d wanted to ease at least a little of the guilt she felt for trapping Tae-hoon—who had suffered both physically and emotionally—in a prison without bars.
But who could’ve imagined that the result of just a few hours would return as an incident twice this massive?
Lee Mihyun pressed hard against her throbbing temples. Since awakening as an Esper, headaches had become something rare for her, yet lately they’d been happening more and more often.
“Fucking bastard.”
Muttering the curse under her breath, Mihyun threw down the pen she’d been scribbling with over the tablet. The reason she’d been trapped at The Center in nonstop chaos these past few days was entirely because of that fucking bastard.
That fucking bastard—meaning Ji Gwan-young—had, true to form, blown things up on an enormous scale.
A complete water outage across most of Yongsan District and part of Jung District, both adjacent to the incident scene. The area was already packed with floating populations, and to make matters worse, there were countless embassies there too, meaning foreigners were everywhere.
One wrong move, and it could escalate into a diplomatic conflict.
That man was never meant to be respectable. At this rate, even if he threw a fit and said he wanted to immigrate, what country would actually take him?
Lee Mihyun leaned her chair all the way back and let out a deep sigh.
Just then, the interrogation room door opened. It was Oh Yeon, who had been observing the situation through the one-way mirror outside. The moment Mihyun spotted the coffee in his hand, she actually cheered quietly for the first time.
“Ah. Thank god. I seriously needed caffeine.”
“You’ve worked hard. That woman was the last witness, so I think we can at least breathe for now.”
“…….What about complaints from the embassies?”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will deal with it.”
Mihyun’s eyes widened at Oh Yeon’s low voice, which sounded several times more exhausted than usual. Inside The Center, the embodiment of strict rules and protocol was that very blunt Esper standing in front of her. Yet hearing such an indifferent answer from him—about an incident technically caused by a Pair belonging to The Center—was shocking.
Mihyun stopped sipping her coffee and spoke in surprise.
“Wow. There are times when you say things like that too, Oh Yeon-ssi? Guess you really do live long enough to see everything.”
“……”
Oh Yeon had only been catching brief glimpses of his Guide, Park Seungwon, sleeping in The Center dormitory over the past few days.
No matter how patient he was or how rarely he complained, being forced to stay so far away from his Pair was more than enough to put him on edge.
And on top of that, the one who started all this was…….
Yeon swallowed a sigh as he recalled the scene from a few days earlier—the one that had driven everyone at The Center into hellish overtime work.
Amid that living hell where people trembled in fear, Ji Gwan-young had been cradling the unconscious, limp Choi Tae-hoon in his arms as though holding the most precious thing in the world.
The sight had looked so warm, so gentle, that the vivid scarlet blood staining one of Ji Gwan-young’s arms almost resembled part of a beautiful painting.
Of course, that blood hadn’t belonged to either of them.
The incident had begun during Ji Gwan-young and Choi Tae-hoon’s first outing together.
***
Why…… is he angry?
Staring blankly at his Esper’s stiffened expression, Tae-hoon thought in confusion.
Honestly, Choi Tae-hoon had absolutely no idea what kind of situation this was.
The young man throwing strange comments at him was bewildering enough, but what captured Tae-hoon’s attention first and foremost was Ji Gwan-young. Just moments ago, he’d been calmly handling reporters from a distance, but now he was striding straight toward him with a frightening look on his face.
And dragging a massive crowd behind him like storm clouds.
Reflexively intimidated by the overwhelming sight, Choi Tae-hoon moved instinctively to get out of everyone’s line of sight. But the man standing behind the Guide—Oh Jinwoo—was even faster.
“What is this? Let go of me!”
Unable even to properly raise his voice, Tae-hoon struggled to pry off the arm wrapped around his neck from behind like a chokehold. But all he felt was the bizarre sensation of trying to shove away an immovable slab of steel.
Choi Tae-hoon knew this feeling well.
There was only one kind of existence capable of rendering a full-grown man completely helpless so effortlessly.
This person… he’s an Esper.
The realization made Tae-hoon swallow dryly without meaning to. Since the expressionless man restraining him was an Esper, he knew very well there was absolutely no way he could overpower him.
The sound of camera shutters firing wildly rang out everywhere. Seriously, today felt bizarrely like walking through a movie.
The flashes bursting endlessly from cameras aimed into the shadows made him instinctively frown.
But no matter how brightly those bursts of light shone, they were nowhere near enough to erase the presence of the man standing at the center of them all.
Ji Gwan-young stood there with coldly sunken eyes, his gaze fixed behind Tae-hoon.
Only then did Tae-hoon realize that maybe Gwan-young had become irritated because of these mysterious people.
Then Ji Gwan-young spoke.
“Take your hand off him.”
His voice was low and clear.
Questions erupted everywhere in overlapping murmurs.
“Ji Gwan-young-ssi! What relationship do you have with these people?!”
“Is the person in the middle your Guide, Ji Gwan-young-ssi?!”
Lowering his gaze hurriedly, Choi Tae-hoon struggled to steady his dazed mind. He was painfully realizing now that when a person became too shocked, they momentarily lost the ability to say or do anything at all.
Watching Tae-hoon like that, Lee Hansol let out an amused little laugh before casually strolling right up to Ji Gwan-young as if putting on a show.
The closer the distance between them became, the louder the shutter sounds grew—to an almost frightening degree. More and more people were even stretching out their phones to record.
Oh Jinwoo watched the scene without the slightest disturbance in his expression, his hand still firmly gripping Tae-hoon’s neck without budging an inch.
Thanks to that, one of Ji Gwan-young’s eyebrows twitched faintly.
Just as Tae-hoon suspected, he was extremely displeased right now.
That floating, buoyant feeling he’d had earlier—so intense it made him feel almost stupid—had long since crashed far below.
Honestly, he’d dealt with people following him around so often it had become tiresome. Usually it was just mildly annoying, something he could resolve quickly before turning his attention back to Choi Tae-hoon.
But this unfamiliar Pair standing before him now was different.
Ever since he’d begun regularly coming and going from The Center, Ji Gwan-young had encountered more kinds of “power” than he’d seen in his entire life before then.
Yet among all those countless abilities, none had ever made him feel threatened.
Because of that, Gwan-young had always been able to place others on his metaphorical scale and measure them however he pleased. The dreadful feeling Lee Mihyun and Oh Yeon had experienced upon first meeting Ji Gwan-young came from that blatantly mocking scrutiny.
This leisurely contempt was a luxury only the apex predator could afford.
But the Esper standing pressed close beside Tae-hoon right now looked hazy, as though wrapped in thin fog, making it impossible to fully grasp what lay beneath. His shape was visible, yet Ji Gwan-young couldn’t clearly discern what kind of power the man possessed.
From the start, the man—Oh Jinwoo—hadn’t even seemed interested in concealing his presence. That was precisely why Ji Gwan-young had detected him immediately.
The approach had been so blatant it almost felt mocking, as if announcing:
I am approaching your Guide right now.
Ignoring Lee Hansol, who stood smiling brightly in front of him, Ji Gwan-young stared fixedly at the spot where Oh Jinwoo’s hand touched Choi Tae-hoon’s neck.
Blocking out every other sound and focusing only on the sound belonging to Choi Tae-hoon, he could hear the rapid pulse beating with faint tension.
Listening to it brought back, with vivid clarity sharp enough to raise goosebumps, the perfect moment from this morning when Tae-hoon’s bare skin had touched him.
The expression Tae-hoon wore when he’d fallen asleep again almost immediately while talking to him.
The sound of his breathing while held tightly in his arms.
All of it had already been carefully piled away as precious, treasured memories.
“Uh… excuse me? Ji Gwan-young-ssi? Can you not see me?”
Waving his hand as though baffled by being completely ignored, Hansol looked somewhat immature and even frivolous.
Only then did the monster tilt his head crookedly and look at the young man.
His eyes were cold with disdain, as though the other man wasn’t even worth speaking to.
The ones stirred by that look were the reporters.
Ji Gwan-young—the flawless gentleman, endlessly kind and courteous actor loved by everyone.
That was the man they knew.
He was famous for remaining completely unshaken during interviews no matter how terrible the situation became or how rude the questions were, always delivering perfect textbook answers as though scripted in advance. Describing him merely as “clever” would’ve been an insult.
But the man standing before them now felt strangely different from the one they knew.
That subtly sharpened expression was unfamiliar enough to make them instinctively tilt their heads in confusion.
In truth, the reporters’ instincts were an impressively sharp professional assessment.
Right now, he was not Actor Ji Gwan-young. He was only Esper Ji Gwan-young.
