“Hhuek!”
It felt like his dream had been continuing, and he almost kicked out without thinking.
But then—a sudden waft of that familiar soap scent. It was enough to calm the panic that had nearly made Cha Eui-sung lash out.
“Haa… huuuh…”
Once he caught his breath, the situation slowly began to make sense.
He’d definitely broken into Moon Tae-young’s house… No—he’d picked the lock fair and square, entered openly, and fallen asleep in the empty place. But now, upon waking, his vision was pitch dark, and his body was so tightly bound it felt suffocating.
Damn it. No wonder I was having nightmares. And not just any nightmare—a second-life disaster where I was stuck in some absurd matchmaking setup with Oh Se-dan, who should’ve been dead by now…
“Ugh…” He let out a low groan and reached around, only to find a firm arm wrapped snugly around his back and waist.
Moon Tae-young… It was Moon Tae-young. When the hell had this guy come home and ended up lying here like this?
Eui-sung was about to twist away when he suddenly realized the one holding him was far too quiet. He tilted his head slightly—
—and found a pair of black eyes staring straight at him in the darkness, calm and unblinking.
“Uh.”
He nearly bit his tongue. Crazy bastard—he thought he was asleep.
“Ah, shit, you scared me… What are you doing like that?”
He blurted it out without meaning to, his voice rough with sleep. Tae-young’s lips curved into a smooth arc.
“I woke up a little while ago. You were groaning all of a sudden.”
“Haa… And how long have you been like this, huh?”
“Mmm… haha, who knows?”
Who knows, my ass. Still, for some reason, Tae-young was smiling pleasantly for once, so Eui-sung let it slide—until that already-tight arm squeezed even harder.
Eui-sung sighed and pressed his face firmly into Tae-young’s neck.
“Kind of a shame.”
“A shame?”
“I was going to just watch you sleep.”
If you stare at someone when they’re awake, it gets weird. But when they’re asleep, you can admire their eyes, their nose bridge… maybe even stare holes into that perfectly sharp jawline.
And if they still didn’t wake up, maybe… rub their ear a little. A strange thought, maybe, but even Tae-young’s ears looked exactly like him.
As Eui-sung idly entertained that thought and rubbed his head against the man’s shoulder, a large hand covered his cheek and stroked it gently.
“What were you planning to do?”
“What do you mean, planning? I just wanted to look. Purely.”
“At someone’s face while they’re sleeping?”
“Yeah. You’re prettier when you’re asleep.”
A faint laugh escaped at the pointed remark. Wondering if he was being mocked, Eui-sung looked up and saw those eyes narrowed in quiet amusement.
“Go ahead then.”
“…What?”
“Pretend I’m sleeping. Watch all you want.”
Before the sentence was even finished, Tae-young closed his eyes. The smile still lingered at his lips, but his expression was so peaceful and still that he really did look asleep.
What the hell… since when did he hand out this kind of service…?
Was it because he’d just woken up? He seemed unusually soft compared to his usual self. Eui-sung was momentarily thrown off but didn’t waste the chance—he twisted his arm free and gently stroked Tae-young’s eyebrow.
Then, tracing down the bridge of his nose, he toyed with the tip, pressed a fingertip into the smooth curve of his cheekbone, and gave his cheek a firm poke.
“Mmm, keep that up and I’ll wake up.”
“Let’s pretend you’re not.”
“…Why are you touching my ear?”
“Oh-ho. Since when do sleeping people talk?”
What was this, some kind of DP showroom model where you’re only allowed to look?
For someone pretending to be asleep, he sure was good at running his mouth.
“Not hungry?”
“Nope. Not hungry.”
“Looks like your fever’s gone down.”
“…I had a fever?”
Well, maybe the whole thing that had started at dawn really had been stressful enough. If this body had actually gotten to the point of running a temperature, it meant it had pushed itself pretty far.
It felt like his mind was slowly crumbling, like bits of it were flaking away. Maybe he really should set aside a day for some kind of self-imposed mental training.
“I had a strange dream.”
For some reason, Cha Eui-sung admitted it without hesitation. He didn’t know why—he just wanted this absurd feeling to be shared with him, too.
“I figured you were having a nightmare.”
“In the dream, I was on a blind date… and an old enemy showed up, all dolled up.”
Of all the ridiculous things. He was still muttering to himself when Moon Tae-young suddenly snapped his eyes open.
“Shit—!”
It was so abrupt that Eui-sung nearly pinched the ear he’d been fiddling with.
“…Why were you on a blind date?”
“How should I know? It was a dream.”
“Was it someone you met in Seoul?”
“…Huh? Oh—no?”
Not technically a lie. They’d met inside the house, after all. But wait—how the hell did this guy know he’d met someone in Seoul?
If he’d called it an old connection and then immediately brought up Seoul, that meant he’d already put some pieces together.
Eui-sung narrowed his eyes and studied Tae-young’s face.
There was no way someone as busy as him had actually followed him around. More likely, he’d done his usual thing—quietly gathering scraps of information from everywhere until he’d figured it out on his own.
Thinking about what—and how much—he might have guessed sent an uneasy chill down Eui-sung’s spine.
“If you’re just going to say weird things, I’ll stop talking.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“‘Sorry,’ you say, but why does your tone sound like you’re cross-examining me?”
“Must be your imagination.”
It was a lazy way to dodge, but since the face peeking out from behind that excuse was anything but lazy, Eui-sung let it pass.
Pressing him wouldn’t get an answer anyway. Sighing, he continued.
“Then… all of a sudden, he says we should go into business together. After holding my weaknesses over my head.”
“…Business together?”
“Apparently, he thought I’d be useful for his career.”
“This was the old connection, you said?”
Technically, in this regressed body he was still only twenty-two, so calling it old was a stretch.
Still, life’s unpredictable. There’s no shortage of people who’ve been hustling since their teens.
“It was just a dream.”
He shrugged and glanced at Tae-young, whose eyes held a curious, probing light.
It was hard to tell whether he really thought it was just a dream… or whether he was fishing for something else.
Eui-sung casually looked away and kept talking.
“Anyway, I was suddenly on a blind date, and hearing that kind of thing from the other person… it made me realize something.”
“…”
“Oh. If I hadn’t cut that bastard off back then, I’d have been dragged along forever.”
“…”
“The real mistake was ever meeting him under those circumstances.”
They’d met in the same organization, fighting over the only open spot, so of course it had turned into an all-out brawl.
If there hadn’t been that constant pressure—if he hadn’t gotten in the way—there wouldn’t have been any need to take him out. But Oh Se-dan was never going to sit still, so sending him straight to the bottom had been the right move.
And as always, his thought on the man’s end: No regrets, just a bit of lingering pity.
From another angle, it was really the victor’s calm satisfaction—there might be a hint of pity, but never regret.
“Connections are strange things. It’s just an idle thought, but sometimes I wonder…”
“What do you wonder?”
“If we hadn’t met here, what would’ve happened?”
The moment the words left his mouth, the calm atmosphere seemed to sink further. Ignoring the chill in the air, Eui-sung kept talking.
Come on, just listen. He hadn’t brought up Oh Se-dan for no reason—it was all just to set the mood.
“You know those ‘what if’ scenarios. Like, what if I’d never come down to Cheongseri? If our paths had never crossed? If we’d just gone our own ways—would we still have run into each other somewhere?”
“…”
“I think we would. Because that’s what a connection is.”
He asked as casually as possible, keeping any hint of probing out of his voice, but Tae-young stayed silent for reasons unknown.
“Mmm… though maybe it would’ve taken a few more years.”
His voice dipped slightly, sounding almost subdued. In return, a warm hand began to gently rub the back of his head, as if to say he wasn’t ignoring him.
Eui-sung caught that hand, laced his fingers with it, and brought it up to his lips.
Breathing in that position filled his lungs with the familiar, comforting scent, while his warm breath tickled across the back of Tae-young’s hand.
“Probably. At least several years.”
After a long pause, Tae-young finally replied, his tone flat and dry.
But for something supposedly tossed out without thought, there was an odd certainty in his voice.
Hearing it, Eui-sung’s thoughts flashed to the memories stored inside skills and recognition chips.
For some reason, his chest felt a little heavier.
I knew it.
For most people who haven’t regressed, their patterns don’t change unless something drastic happens.
In some forgotten iteration or timeframe, Tae-young might have acted recklessly, without thinking about the future.
And when it all went wrong, he’d been caught and dragged in—if that’s how it had happened, it made sense.
If an Awakened had committed a crime that deliberate, then even if his usefulness earned him a completed sentence, there was no way he could’ve been making long trips just to visit a lover.
Not unless he’d been released first.
But he looked too young for that, didn’t he?
Nestled into Tae-young’s arms, Eui-sung’s eyes sharpened, a thought piercing straight through him.
So back then, he must not have been Awakened.
The moment he latched onto that clue, his mind spun into overdrive.
It was only speculation, but—in the Faded Photograph Fragment, Tae-young had probably taken his revenge while still unawakened, been caught, and then Awakened either after serving his time or just as it ended.
Whatever happened afterward, he’d met his lover—that is, the version of Eui-sung from a past he couldn’t remember.
And the System, of all things, had chosen that version of him as its hidden card.
Yes. The one meant to stop the Demon King and overturn the fate of destruction—
—the Hero.
And that’s how the regressor Cha Eui-sung became the Hero of Earth.
