Kim Kwonseok laughed heartily as if Tae-hoon’s reaction was entertaining, took a sip of water, then spoke again in a voice still thick with amusement.
“Hey. But honestly, that’s a good thing, kid.”
“What is?”
“Being crazy about your Pair Esper. Having a good relationship, I mean.”
“You’re the same, aren’t you, hyung?”
“Hell yeah. I can’t live without my lady.”
Choi Tae-hoon snorted softly, recalling the cute-looking woman Kim Kwonseok had proudly shown off on his phone again today.
“But you know… if you really look around, there are more Pairs than you’d think who stay together because they practically can’t leave each other.”
“Can’t leave each other……?”
The unexpectedly intense wording made Tae-hoon ask back uncertainly. Kim Kwonseok continued, sounding almost like he was sighing.
“There were quite a few Guides jealous of you and Ji Gwan-young that day. You were too embarrassed to lift your head once, so I guess you didn’t notice, but there were guys hanging around nearby trying to get a chance to talk to you too.”
“…….Ah.”
“And some of the people I know among them only meet their Espers once or twice a month because of matching rates. Others are desperately hung up on an Esper all by themselves. Honestly, people say Pairs naturally end up close, but not everyone’s like that.”
The sentence was calm as he finished off the tiny yogurt that came with the meal in one go, but the weight behind it lingered.
On the way back to the official residence, Choi Tae-hoon thought deeply about Kim Kwonseok’s words.
If two people had a matching rate high enough to become a Pair, then fundamentally, the Esper was placed in a situation where they could easily grow attached to the Guide. That was unavoidable due to the nature of Espers themselves.
The more an Esper used their abilities, the more hypersensitive and abnormally heightened their senses became, and the only thing capable of stabilizing them was a Guide.
“Perfect tranquility.”
That was the phrase commonly used in related publications to describe the feeling Espers experienced when in contact with Guides. Because of that, Tae-hoon occasionally found himself wondering what Ji Gwan-young felt whenever they touched.
“Staying together because they can’t leave each other………”
Tae-hoon quietly repeated Kim Kwonseok’s words to himself.
For some reason, the Esper who had grabbed him in Itaewon recently came to mind—the man who had looked pale the entire time despite being together with his Guide. The man connected to the Guide murder case from ten years ago, Oh Yeon’s younger brother, might have even harmed his own Pair Guide directly.
At that moment, raindrops began falling one by one from the gloomy sky that had been heavy all day.
Lost in slightly dark thoughts, Tae-hoon hurried toward the residence building. But the rain had come down so suddenly that staying completely dry was impossible.
Tae-hoon hated feeling sticky more than anything. Starting from the elevator after scanning his fingerprint to get inside, he began undoing the buttons of his damp shirt one by one. The moment he fully opened the door to his residence, he tossed his soaked outer shirt off right there in the entryway.
Outside the large windows, thunder now rumbled together with the storm. Just seeing the flashes of lightning made him sigh automatically.
“Wow. What kind of weather suddenly turns like this?”
Tae-hoon immediately started toward the bathroom.
This was a place where being “alone” was natural. Unlike home, there was no need to check whether his younger siblings had returned.
……But right now, Choi Tae-hoon stopped dead in his tracks mid-step.
He had just seen something standing in the middle of his living room.
The Guide residences—places that could honestly be called the culmination of all The Center’s security technology—strictly prohibited unauthorized access.
Unless they were the Guide’s Pair Esper, nobody could come and go freely, and outsiders couldn’t even pass the barricades without The Center’s permission unless they were immediate family. Even immediate family members couldn’t set foot inside unless the Guide was present and gave permission. That was what made this place the Guide’s “personal space.”
Even Ji Gwan-young had to go through both retinal scans and fingerprint verification every time he visited. Once, in passing, he had even mentioned that the concrete here was so intricately layered internally that trying to “look far away” with his ability made his eyes hurt. This place had been obsessively designed as an anti-Esper space.
And yet now, someone was inside Choi Tae-hoon’s residence.
Suppressing the chills prickling all the way to the tips of his hair, Tae-hoon slowly inhaled. The sound of him swallowing nervously rang loudly in his ears. For a brief moment, his mind had gone completely blank, but he quickly mapped out what he needed to do.
One button.
Just one button would connect him directly to The Center hotline. Tae-hoon slowly turned his head.
The figure standing in the darkness kept his face hidden in shadow.
Lightning struck.
A few seconds after the flash, the sound would come ripping through the sky.
In the instant the residence lit up brightly, Tae-hoon clearly saw the intruder’s face.
And he realized instinctively—there was no way he could reach the hotline button before that man reached him first.
The thunder roaring in his ears mixed with the pounding of his heartbeat. The intruder who met Tae-hoon’s eyes slowly began walking toward him.
“……I know this is rude of me, but I came anyway.”
The man’s voice was hoarse and slightly cracked. Though the sentence itself was extremely polite, Tae-hoon still instinctively staggered back a step as if even those words were a threat.
The man gave a bitter smile, as though he understood, and slowly raised both hands to show them.
Even while his legs nearly gave out beneath him, Choi Tae-hoon stumbled toward the intercom connected directly to The Center.
The man didn’t stop him.
No—he didn’t even look like he had any intention of doing so.
[The Center Situation Room, Operator ○○○ speaking. Guide Choi Tae-hoon, what’s happening?]
The man quietly watched Tae-hoon gripping the intercom tightly, unable to take his terrified gaze off him, and slowly opened his mouth.
The thing he had wanted to say first was only this:
“Back then…… I’m sorry.”
Tae-hoon’s hand twitched. But only for a moment.
Instead of responding to the apology, Choi Tae-hoon chose to rapidly spit out words into the intercom.
“There’s an intruder inside the residence. It’s ‘that Esper.’ ……..Oh Jinwoo.”
***
A table suddenly lifted into the air and smashed directly into the pristine laboratory wall.
The force behind it was so terrifying that even Tae-hoon, who had been about to stop his Esper, snapped his mouth shut like a clam.
Choi Tae-hoon blinked silently, carefully gauging Ji Gwan-young’s mood.
Wearing dark slacks and a shirt in a similar shade, the Esper looked like he’d stepped straight out of a drama, just as he always did.
No—actually, that description was accurate.
Ji Gwan-young really had abandoned filming midway and rushed straight to The Center.
“The pinnacle of security technology.”
“……”
“The best security system?”
“Gwan-young-ssi. We’re still trying to assess the situa—”
Lee Mihyun’s words were abruptly cut off.
The moment Ji Gwan-young tilted his head slightly, the massive machines behind her were sliced apart as if shaved through by something impossibly thin. Mihyun instinctively jerked backward to avoid it, then sucked in a breath as she stared at the cleanly severed chunks of metal, carved apart with the precision of a surgeon.
Watching a monster evolve could sometimes leave a person with overwhelming helplessness.
Ji Gwan-young’s control over his power had completely changed.
Back during the Gangnam incident a few months ago, he’d simply unleashed his overflowing strength by shredding and crushing everything in sight.
But now, even in this agitated state, he hadn’t lost a shred of precision. Day by day, he was gaining near-perfect mastery over his power.
Because of that, Mihyun unconsciously swallowed dryly. The dismantled machine before her carried a simple but terrifying warning.
If that attack had veered even slightly, she would have been the target instead.
The laboratory fell into icy silence.
Meanwhile, Ji Gwan-young’s head throbbed with fury that refused to subside no matter what he destroyed. He had torn apart the insides of the massive machines with his bare power, split them open, sliced them apart, shattered them completely—and still it wasn’t enough.
All he could think was what use these carefully engineered piles of scrap metal were.
If Choi Tae-hoon had……
Just that unfinished sentence alone drained the blood from his entire body.
Ji Gwan-young gave a hollow laugh remembering how, the first time he visited Tae-hoon’s residence, he’d actually thought the security systems were excessive and annoying.
Thinking back on it now made him want to rip everything apart.
“Gwan-young-ssi. I’m really completely fine.”
“……”
“Oh Jinwoo only said two things to me. That he was sorry for intruding, and… that he was sorry.”
Choi Tae-hoon spoke carefully.
But Ji Gwan-young didn’t even turn his head toward him. He couldn’t control his emotions right now.
His neck was flushed red as he struggled just to steady himself. Tae-hoon could see exactly what state his lover was in, and after hesitating for a long time over how to calm him down, he finally made a big decision.
Slowly, Tae-hoon’s hand wrapped around the tightly clenched fist of his Pair.
It might not have looked like much, but for Tae-hoon—who had never once initiated physical contact in front of others before—it was an enormous step.
Ji Gwan-young let out a long breath at the warmth, then adjusted his grip and tightly intertwined their fingers.
At first, Tae-hoon felt slightly embarrassed and awkward enough to dart his eyes around uncertainly. But that feeling quickly turned into quiet surprise.
Ji Gwan-young’s hand was trembling faintly. There was something almost desperate in the force of his grip.
A man who feared nothing in the world was shaken enough to tremble simply because Tae-hoon had almost been in danger.
Something in Tae-hoon’s chest tightened painfully at that realization.
The fact that Ji Gwan-young was so shaken he couldn’t even meet his eyes until he calmed down—that all he could do was cling to Tae-hoon’s hand—made his eyes sting.
Tae-hoon pressed his lips together briefly, then ran his tongue over them.
He wondered if this was what the man gripping his hand so tightly had always felt too.
Ignoring the people watching, the place they were standing, the situation—wanting to kiss someone right now no matter what.
So this was what that felt like.
Choi Tae-hoon realized it belatedly.
Something deep inside him, dark and vivid, seemed to slowly grow larger and larger. But Choi Tae-hoon and Ji Gwan-young were fundamentally different kinds of people.
Instead of kissing him, Tae-hoon simply tightened his grip around his lover’s hand too.
Ji Gwan-young took another deep breath, then finally managed to shift his gaze enough to look at his Guide.
“We’re ready. To the central hall…… whew, let’s go.”
A researcher entering through the door let out another quiet sigh upon seeing the wrecked interior.
Ji Gwan-young completely ignored it, greedily holding onto his Guide as he strode ahead by about half a step.
Lee Mihyun followed behind them.
Land prices in Seoul were absurdly expensive. And right in the center of the city stood the enormous Esper-Guide National Research Center.
Choi Tae-hoon had wondered something from time to time.
No matter how important Esper abilities were, was it really fair to dedicate an entire prime piece of land like this to The Center? And why was The Center’s “central hall” nothing but a vast empty expanse of white marble, almost like a barren field?
It was a question Guides had pondered for quite some time.
……And now, Choi Tae-hoon was finally getting his answer.
The enormous central hall, which normally held only people leisurely passing through, was now packed with hundreds—no, thousands—of people.
Tae-hoon instinctively knew they were all Espers.
There was only one reason. The intruder imprisoned at the center of the hall.
“The second unmeasurable Esper.”
“A Class-1 criminal.”
“And researcher Oh Yeon’s younger brother.”
Oh Jinwoo, the man accompanied by all those lengthy descriptions, stood motionless inside the transparent prison, restrained by countless shackles.
The tension filling the massive hall was sharp enough to make Tae-hoon’s knees weaken.
Only then did he realize that the Espers filling the space were arranged according to a specific pattern.
Forming a massive zigzagging circle around the prison, they stood in flawless formation, looking ready to unleash their powers at any moment.
