5) blind
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a ceiling so white it didn’t have a speck of dust on it.
Lee Hansol drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out again. That strange tightness still lingered, as if someone were gripping his throat. Fingertips without a single callus brushed over the wound that had already closed up, tender new skin having formed over it.
The long mark running from his neck to his collarbone was that Esper’s warning. An ordinary Guide would still have trouble even breathing, but Lee Hansol possessed regenerative abilities several times faster than theirs.
Because his beginning had been as an Esper.
Only belatedly did Lee Hansol notice the gaze fixed on him from a distance. Lazily, he turned his head.
A gaunt-looking man stood there.
“Hi, Jinwoo.”
At the sound of the cracked Guide’s voice, Oh Jinwoo’s shoulders twitched.
He had carried Lee Hansol—collapsed and bleeding bright red blood—out of that hellish scene with desperate determination.
“You angry that I didn’t die?”
“……”
“You didn’t stop that person because you wanted me dead. Right?”
Lee Hansol’s words were accurate.
The one who let him die, and the one who saved the Guide as he turned deathly pale—both were Oh Jinwoo.
The Esper stared at Lee Hansol with chapped lips bitten tightly shut.
From the age of twenty-two—
Ten years.
Ten full years spent consumed entirely by hatred. Every single day, he cursed that face—the face that had smiled even while the hot blood of the Guide he killed had not yet gone cold. More than once, he had tried to destroy him with his own hands.
But every time, at the very last moment, his instincts as an Esper refused to kill the man who had become his Guide.
Oh Jinwoo remembered the first day they mixed their bodies together because he couldn’t die.
Lee Hansol had climbed on top of him—his body too thin and frail to be called the strongest physique—and curved his beautiful eyes into crescents. Jinwoo had pushed him away until the very end, saying death would be preferable, rejecting him over and over. But the ecstasy he felt the moment the fingertips of the enemy touched him—that left Oh Jinwoo with nothing but despair.
He loathed himself for feeling joy at kissing the person who had killed the lover he once loved.
Time piled up layer upon layer in vicious resentment.
Every time Oh Jinwoo mixed bodies with Lee Hansol, he suffered horrific rebound effects. But the agony of every bodily sensation twisting at its limits was the only thing that made him feel alive.
Thanks to that, throughout those ten years spent at Lee Hansol’s side, he never forgot—not for a moment—how humiliating it was that his life was sustained by the very person he hated.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to be your Guide anymore.”
Lee Hansol smiled at Oh Jinwoo.
It was a smile identical to that crimson day in the past.
“Because of that Esper?”
“Yeah. Then you can meet another Guide, and I can have a stronger Esper too. Works out for both of us.”
Oh Jinwoo furrowed his brow, unable to hide his disgust toward those innocent-sounding words.
Hansol didn’t so much as blink at the familiar look of contempt as he rose from the bed.
His legs, unused properly for so long, staggered several times, but there seemed to be no major issue with moving them. Though his steps were awkward, Hansol somehow managed to make his way to stand in front of his Esper under his own power.
Lee Hansol gently caressed the cheek of the taller man.
“But you, Jinwoo… even if you’d let me die again, you still never would’ve helped me anyway……”
“……”
“So. This is goodbye for us now.”
The period at the end of all those years steeped in poison came in the form of a notification that sounded almost like a joke.
Looking at the exhausted man silently staring down at him, Lee Hansol added softly, almost as if worried about him.
“Try not to use your powers too much if you can, Jinwoo. Without me around, if you do, something really bad could happen. Okay?”
“…….Where are you going?”
It was their final conversation as a Pair.
At Oh Jinwoo’s question, Lee Hansol broke into a bright smile, then softly pressed a kiss to his pale lips.
It was the Guide’s final kindness.
Knowing that well, Oh Jinwoo frowned slightly, but he didn’t avoid the ticklish contact.
In this one-sided relationship where an Esper could never abandon their Guide, but a Guide could abandon their Esper—Oh Jinwoo had finally been abandoned.
Lee Hansol knew perfectly well that this man, who wanted to kill him more than anyone else in the world, would never try to stop him.
After a kiss where their tongues briefly tangled, Lee Hansol answered in a faintly roughened voice.
“I’m going to see my father.”
***
Right now, Choi Tae-hoon was painfully realizing exactly where the phrase having no face to lift came from.
The sight of him—someone who always listened to others with perfect posture—now sitting with his head bowed deeply and sighing heavily probably expressed his feelings better than anything else could.
The neatly dressed middle-aged man sitting across from him continued speaking with a face worn down from stress.
“We’re really not that narrow-minded.”
“……Yes.”
“We’re famous for thoroughly protecting the privacy of actors under our company. We don’t interfere or tell them what to do. Seriously.”
“…….Yeees.”
A voice thick with frustration burst from the man’s mouth.
Thanks to that, Ji Gwan-young—who had been sitting leisurely right beside Choi Tae-hoon, sipping coffee—briefly shifted his gaze toward the man before lowering it back to the book in his hand.
The middle-aged man looked even more enraged by that reaction and continued.
“Once Ji Gwan-young’s drama finishes, there are seriously enough scripts waiting for him to fill a truck. We carefully selected one, and he’s scheduled to go into Director ㅇㅇㅇ’s project. No, before that—”
“……”
“You know the drama’s already been exported to China and Japan, right? Every episode airs and by dawn the next day there are already subtitled videos circulating everywhere. Right now.”
“……”
“And that’s not all! The range of roles he can play has expanded several times over compared to before. These days, overseas offers asking to cast him as an Esper role are pouring in nonstop every single day. There’s honestly never been a better time for him to build an unrivaled career like this.”
Choi Tae-hoon no longer even had the nerve to answer, so he merely nodded heavily.
The middle-aged man—Ji Gwan-young’s agency management team leader—with dark circles around his eyes from endless all-nighters, took courage from Tae-hoon’s reaction and raised his voice even more.
“Dating?! Fine, sure! He’s a man in his thirties wanting to date someone—who’s gonna stop him? But! But!”
A small cough escaped Choi Tae-hoon’s mouth.
Damn dating.
The word he wanted to tear to shreds had finally appeared.
Dating. Dating. Fucking dating. Goddamn dating. Chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out dating.
Feeling blood rush to his face, Choi Tae-hoon tightened his clasped hands.
The sweet little word right there was the beginning of this entire mess.
“Why! Why would you insist on going public with the relationship?! And on top of thaaat!”
“……”
“Why are you causing this huge mess saying you’re gonna come out as gay?! Please! Please! Choi Tae-hoon-ssi, talk him out of it! I’m seriously going insane, losing my mind, ready to jump out a window, quit my job, and disappear!”
“Then quit.”
“AAAAAGH!”
At Ji Gwan-young’s two-word response that completely overturned the poor overworked man’s insides, a scream burst out of his mouth.
In the end, Choi Tae-hoon gave the agency team leader a quick bow of apology before dragging his Esper into another room.
Of course, Ji Gwan-young still wore a perfectly composed expression like he hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
Trying to scold him, Tae-hoon found the end of his sentence oddly softening against that relaxed expression.
“You weren’t gay!”
“Now both you and I are gay.”
At that arrogant declaration, instantly defining a sexual identity that had never once wavered in twenty-eight years, Tae-hoon lost all words and rubbed at his reddened neck.
Choi Tae-hoon currently had no way to deny those words.
If he hated it, he should’ve said so that day, at that moment.
When Ji Gwan-young had shouted that they should date, Tae-hoon had stammered like an idiot before blurting out, “How could we do that?”
And Gwan-young had answered:
“What’s stopping us?”
Now completely holding the upper hand, Ji Gwan-young looked at his Pair—face flushed red as he aggressively ran a hand through his hair for no reason—and hammered the point home.
“If I nail it down with a press conference too, then you won’t be able to say that crazy shit again.”
“……Ah, seriously!”
You really had to watch what you said around that ill-tempered Esper, even in the heat of the moment.
Ji Gwan-young held grudges frighteningly well.
It felt like it should’ve been enough by now, but he still ground his teeth every chance he got over phrases like another Esper or marrying someone else.
Tae-hoon tightly grabbed the mocking man’s hand as he raised one brow, clearly still not over it.
“I really won’t say things like that anymore, so can’t we just… secretly date without doing a press conference or anything?”
“Why?”
“It’s one thing if only I get tired from it, but what about my family? Especially my younger siblings—they’re still young, they meet people outside all the time. Apparently things were already chaotic enough after people found out Ji Gwan-young-ssi was my Esper.”
…Well, would you look at that?
Watching Choi Tae-hoon continue speaking while lightly tracing over their joined hands with his fingertips, Ji Gwan-young scoffed inwardly.
It was painfully obvious that the Guide was trying to coax him sweetly with that excessively polite expression.
Honestly, even if Choi Tae-hoon objected like this, Ji Gwan-young could still just do whatever he wanted.
There were countless reporters who would come running with cameras and laptops at a single text from him.
The problem was that, even while fully aware of how transparent Tae-hoon’s shallow little scheme was, he somehow didn’t feel motivated to resist it at all.
Loosely tilting his head, Ji Gwan-young sank into thought for a moment before abruptly speaking.
“Then can I tell Jihyun?”
“……Jihyun? Choi Jihyun? My fourth sibling?”
“Yeah. Choi Jihyun. First-year English major at ㅇㅇ University, Choi Jihyun.”
A profile of his younger sibling—something he’d never even mentioned—flowed smoothly from those pretty-shaped lips.
Tae-hoon blinked blankly before stammering out a question.
“H-how are you planning to tell Jihyun?”
“I know her phone number.”
“How exactly?!”
“We exchanged numbers when she came to visit the official residence last time. For reference, I also have Choi Woojin’s contact info. He monitors my drama every week.”
Choi Tae-hoon froze completely with his mouth hanging slightly open.
He had never even imagined there could be such a secret connection between Ji Gwan-young and his siblings.
Looking at the neat white teeth visible between those slightly parted lips, Ji Gwan-young suddenly thought about shoving his tongue in and kissing him.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not. Absolutely!”
“No press conference, no telling the family. Then what is allowed? Give me a convincing reason.”
Crossing his arms, Ji Gwan-young spoke while watching Choi Tae-hoon shake his head adamantly.
That handsome face looked so infuriatingly relaxed that Tae-hoon glared at the man who had now become his lover with heated eyes while carefully choosing his words.
“Y-you don’t really need to go so far as telling all my siblings……”
“Not enough. Give me a more believable excuse.”
Is this really the kind of conversation people in a relationship have?
Every time he saw that faint smile lingering around Ji Gwan-young’s eyes, Tae-hoon felt like he was always the one losing.
But there wasn’t much he could do.
It was his own fault for falling for a man like that.
Now wearing a fairly playful smile, Gwan-young fully pressed their joined palms together and started teasing him lightly.
At the ticklish skinship, Tae-hoon awkwardly averted his gaze, feeling inexplicably prickly all over.
“It’s already bad enough that everyone at The Center knows. I really… don’t want my family finding out too……”
