“Why….”
A quivering voice, choked with tears, pierced Seo Won’s ears.
“Why would you offer up your neck like that…? Do you want me to kill you?”
Listening to Cha Han-gyeom’s trembling voice, Seo Won silently swallowed a bitter smile.
‘You should’ve asked something else instead.’
Why did he kill Song Yeon-woo?
Why did he have to do that?
But instead of saying any of that aloud, Seo Won gently took the blade Han-gyeom was holding. It didn’t seem like he had any intention of gripping it tightly in the first place.
Judging by the feel of it, it looked like a steak knife. Who knew how long he’d had it hidden? It seemed Jung Ah-young had been rather lax in her surveillance. Or perhaps she had turned a blind eye on purpose, thinking he might need it for self-defense.
Seo Won casually handed the knife back to Han-gyeom.
“Hold onto it for now. I’ll get you a better one soon.”
Han-gyeom took the knife, but didn’t say a word.
“You bastard…”
He spat the words out like venom, then slumped into Seo Won’s chest. A soft clink followed as the knife slipped from his hand and bounced once on the floor.
“Hngh… Hrk…”
Han-gyeom clung to Seo Won and wept without restraint. His cries were desolate, wracked with anguish.
Seo Won held him quietly in the dark, pulling him closer in a silent embrace.
A few hours earlier, when the sun was still high in the sky, Han-gyeom had been on the phone with Woo-chan, frozen in place, unable to move a muscle.
He had turned to stone, as if even breathing had slipped his mind.
Through Kang Woo-chan, he had confirmed what he’d feared. Since Woo-chan shared a sense of debt and camaraderie with him, Han-gyeom knew he had no reason to lie. So it had to be true.
The one who had taken Song Yeon-woo’s heart, fully aware of the danger.
The one who had ruined the life of someone who might’ve lived forever.
And… the one who had shattered the only support Cha Han-gyeom had left.
That was Seo Won…
Up until he asked Woo-chan for a favor, Han-gyeom had been convinced Seo Won was the real culprit.
The one who commissioned the heart extraction—the client.
A murderer who had pushed forward with the operation knowing full well what could happen to Song Yeon-woo.
Everything he’d known lined up. It felt like he didn’t even need to confirm it.
And yet, Han-gyeom couldn’t just brush it off with a “So I was right.”
‘Then… was he lying to me?’
Had everything he said in the car, pretending not to be the client, all been a lie?
That unshakable expression, those steady eyes—like he was simply stating facts, as if he’d never even considered deceit.
‘All of it… just a lie.’
In the chaos clouding Han-gyeom’s mind, a memory resurfaced—something he had said to Seo Won above the sea.
“Do you always just wait without asking, or dig things up on your own like that?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just ask? About what they said, about how I responded—can’t you just ask?”
Back then, Han-gyeom had pressed Seo Won out of sheer frustration.
What he got in return was Seo Won’s calm yet hollow voice.
“There’s no guarantee that the answer you get will be the truth.”
“The one who asks is the one who has to figure out whether the answer is true or not. And if that’s the case, maybe silence—where you don’t ask anything at all—is better than going through the pain of unnecessary confusion.”
At the time, Han-gyeom had somewhat understood Seo Won’s words—but he couldn’t fully agree.
But now, things were different.
Now he understood what Seo Won had meant, with excruciating clarity.
‘What was I even hoping for?’
It was crushing.
His chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.
And then came a wave of rage and grief, too much to bear.
“Ugh….”
He swallowed hard and bit down on his lip. He bit so hard his teeth tore through the flesh, and blood welled up. The sting, the metallic taste—it was the only thing grounding his spinning thoughts.
“Han-gyeom-ssi….”
Across the table, Jung Ah-young looked at him in helpless concern, unsure what to do.
She had no way of knowing what had passed between Han-gyeom and Woo-chan. But just from Han-gyeom’s reaction, she could more or less guess the kind of answer he must’ve received.
Han-gyeom, under her worried gaze, pressed his fingers hard against the corners of his eyes. He felt like he would break down into tears if he didn’t.
—Han-gyeom, are you okay?
Woo-chan’s worried voice echoed in his head.
Han-gyeom took a breath and asked him,
—That report you had… You said Seo Won saw it, right?
—Yeah.
Seo Won had once asked Ah-young to arrange a meeting with Kang Woo-chan. Afterward, Woo-chan had offered to share that conversation with Han-gyeom as well.
When he met Woo-chan, Seo Won had asked what exactly “disposal” meant in the context of the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility. He had also reviewed the report Woo-chan had received from Yoon Jeong-ho concerning the heart extraction.
And that just made it worse.
Even after reading the word ‘disposal’ written so clearly in the report… did it really mean nothing to him? Even after learning that Song Yeon-woo had chosen to go berserk just to avoid such a horrific fate—how could he say nothing to me?
Woo-chan spoke again, his voice low.
—…Would it have been better if I hadn’t shown it to you?
—No…
After a long silence, Han-gyeom finally wiped at his eyes. Tears had already streaked down his face, soaking his cheeks.
Han-gyeom never once blamed Woo-chan for showing him the report. Had he refused to cooperate and Seo Won ended up causing a scene, many people could have gotten hurt.
Wiping away the tears that kept flowing, Han-gyeom spoke in a bitter, weary tone.
—Thanks for looking into it. Thanks to you… I don’t need to waver anymore.
That’s what he said—but his eyes, clouded with grief, still brimmed with emotions he couldn’t contain.
After that, in an attempt to shake off the emptiness and betrayal, Han-gyeom clung to Seo Won in his office and poured out a relentless wave of Guiding. A deep, reckless Guiding, as if he were trying to purge everything inside him—utterly ignoring the toll it took on his own body. Seo Won didn’t question him, didn’t resist. He simply received it all in silence.
‘You could’ve at least asked.’
Seo Won had surely noticed something was wrong. He had to have known, and yet he said nothing.
He didn’t ask what was going on. Didn’t ask why Han-gyeom was acting that way. Didn’t even ask if he was okay. Han-gyeom wished he would have. He wanted to be questioned.
But even when Han-gyeom pointed a knife at him without warning, Seo Won didn’t ask a single thing.
‘Because that’s just your way, isn’t it?’
Never asking.
That was what infuriated Han-gyeom all over again.
He avoids unnecessary confusion by never asking. He doesn’t believe. He doesn’t even try to understand.
And that didn’t change just because the one in front of him was Cha Han-gyeom, the Guide.
Even now, as he held Han-gyeom in the dark, embracing him tightly, Seo Won’s thoughts likely hadn’t shifted at all.
‘Then I won’t ask either. I won’t… try to understand you, either.’
Clinging to Seo Won, Han-gyeom wept silently for a long, long time.
***
Deep into the pitch-black night.
Chairman Seo remained alone in the lounge, gazing up at the unusually bright full moon. Perhaps because the moonlight was pouring in through the windows, the plants filling the lounge looked fresher than usual—lush and vibrant.
He was quietly drinking in the moonlight when, suddenly, he sensed a presence behind him.
“You’ve always liked looking at the moon, haven’t you?”
Startled by the unexpected voice, Chairman Seo furrowed his brow. His wheelchair creaked slowly as he turned it around.
Crack—crack.
A sound like water freezing in an instant echoed sharply.
With that sound, Seo Won’s ice clone appeared, now beginning to take on a clearly defined color and shape.
“Back then, I used to wonder why you always looked at the moon. But now… I think I understand.”
Seo Won’s clone, now indistinguishable from his true self, gazed coldly down at Chairman Seo.
“You just didn’t want to look into my eyes.”
A sharp curve pulled at the corners of Seo Won’s lips.
“My eyes… desperate to live.”
Those eyes were forged from a frigid, icy blue—cold as a solid chunk of ice. Even Chairman Seo, who had seen Seo Won countless times before, flinched at the chill radiating from them.
The Esper bodyguards standing by outside the lounge felt the sudden, unannounced appearance as well.
Knock knock—
“Chairman, are you alright?!”
Their tense voices made it clear—if he didn’t respond, they’d likely barge in without hesitation.
Chairman Seo kept his eyes locked on Seo Won as he composed a message in his mind. One of the guards stationed outside was a telepath, so there was no need to speak aloud.
—It’s just my grandson here to see his old grandfather. No need to panic. Remain on standby until I give the signal.
—Understood, Chairman.
The telepath replied, and silence fell outside the door. Though, undoubtedly, the tension hadn’t dissipated.
Chairman Seo shifted his gaze from Seo Won, instinctively turning his eyes back toward the moon outside the window.
“When did you plant that shard of your clone here without a word? You’ve grown up, but clearly haven’t learned any manners.”
His voice was thick with displeasure.
“If you’ve something to say, wait until morning and come back in person. It’s late.”
“No. I won’t be coming back.”
The Chairman’s eyes flicked back to Seo Won, leaving the moon behind once more. Perhaps it was because the clone was made of ice—but the cold radiating from him was sharply intense.
“Starting four years before I received the heart transplant, you began collecting a set amount of my blood every month. You said it was to make sure none of the viruses left behind by our dead relatives were trying to kill me, to check if I was healthy.”
“That’s only natural, isn’t it? You were the only surviving bloodline back then.”
Chairman Seo answered calmly, but an inexplicable unease gnawed at him.
“Then where exactly were those blood samples tested? No—more importantly, where did you send them?”
Instead of answering, Chairman Seo deflected with a question of his own.
“Why are you suddenly curious about that now?”
“Because it’s something very important to me.”
Seo Won stood there, waiting for an answer, his fists clenched so tightly they looked ready to break.
“But it’s not important to me. You should leave.”
“Are you going to answer me or not?”
Chairman Seo went silent for a moment, then looked away again, as if it wasn’t even worth the breath.
“No. I don’t remember every insignificant little thing.”
“Insignificant…”
Seo Won’s clenched fist unraveled limply. The tension drained from his face, once hard and cold as stone.
Chairman Seo had chosen to avoid.
He didn’t give a clear answer. He didn’t even bother to lie with a convincing excuse.
That alone drew a hollow, bitter laugh from Seo Won.
“…I’ve never once believed that asking would bring me the truth. You were the one who taught me that if I wanted to survive, I had to doubt everything and trust no one.”
Seo Won’s eyes, cast in shadow, wavered with a fleeting sadness.
“But I still wanted to believe in you. You, who always claimed to value truth and honesty above all. I thought you’d be different.”
Despite the bitterness in Seo Won’s voice, Chairman Seo continued to gaze up at the pale moon—like he needed something to fix his eyes on, just to avoid the weight of the emotions being directed at him.
“I was wrong.”
Crack.
The sound of ice splintering echoed through the room—not in a single clean snap, but in soft, branching fractures, spreading one after another.
“I’ll return Song Yeon-woo’s heart to its rightful owner… when the time comes.”
“What…? Song Yeon-woo?”
Only then did Chairman Seo’s gaze shift back to Seo Won.
“Though I suppose you know him better as E_NO.17.”
A slight tremor rippled across Chairman Seo’s wrinkled face.
He had never once told Seo Won anything about the heart donor—not the names the test subjects used among themselves, not their experiment codes, not anything at all.
And yet Seo Won knew exactly whose heart had been transplanted into him.
Only now did Chairman Seo understand why Seo Won had asked about the blood.
But even so, he couldn’t comprehend what Seo Won meant by returning the heart to its rightful owner.
As Seo Won’s ice clone slowly began to disintegrate, he lowered his head in a deep bow, never taking his eyes off the Chairman.
“I truly hope you live a long and healthy life.”
Chairman Seo’s lips parted, as if to stop him.
But the moment he met Seo Won’s cold, unwavering eyes, no words came out.
“Though I imagine… being trapped in that half-dead body of yours is a hell all its own.”
And with those final words, Seo Won’s clone shattered completely—vanishing into a spray of glittering frost.
In the lounge now bathed in moonlight, Chairman Seo was left alone.
And for the first time, he felt a chill unlike anything he’d ever known.
Not even the scent of the vibrant plants he had filled the room with to breathe life into it could offer him comfort now.
