The slender line of his neck trembled distinctly as his small Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He desperately hoped he’d misheard.
Lee Haru curled his faintly shaking fingers into a fist. Sticky sauce from the sweet and spicy chicken still clung to them, but trivial things like that no longer mattered.
“Hhic…”
“Wh-What the hell…?”
His heart began to pound violently, like a runaway racehorse in his chest. His eyes, stretched wide in shock, darted around in disarray, unable to settle.
There was no mistaking it—somewhere nearby, someone was sobbing. Lee Haru got to his feet and stepped up to the threshold between the kitchen and the living room.
Though the lights were on, the spacious mansion looked eerily like a scene from a horror film, as if something dreadful was about to unfold.
Rrrrummmble—
“Why are you doing this to me…?”
To make matters worse, the dark night beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows lit up for a brief, blinding second.
As rain poured in thick sheets and lightning flashed through the gaps, Haru silently cursed whatever god had sent him here.
He wasn’t exactly an atheist. But aside from a few times he’d been tempted to church by promises of snacks as a child, he never had any real faith.
Was this some divine payback?
At first, he thought he had lucked out—inhabiting the body of Lee Haru, an S-rank Guide with killer looks and a fat wallet.
But now the genre had shifted from tragedy to horror. If it had to change, he would’ve preferred something like an apocalypse. Why a ghost story?
He’d already been sexually assaulted, coughed up blood, and fainted. His plan had been to at least fill his stomach before braving any more of this nightmare. So why the hell was someone crying now?
“Hhic…”
The sound came again. Haru’s thoughts screeched to a halt. Frozen in place like a stone statue, he didn’t even dare to breathe.
Heavy breathing, the relentless downpour, and crackling thunder blended into a chaotic, nerve-wracking symphony.
The final note was that sorrowful crying. Once heard, it couldn’t be unheard—it kept hammering at Haru’s eardrums no matter how much he tried to block it out.
“I-It’s coming from over there, I think…”
His tearful eyes shifted toward the staircase. He wasn’t entirely sure, but the sobbing seemed to be coming from that direction.
“I’m the one who wants to cry… Where the hell did everyone go…?”
How nice it would be to have even a single Esper nearby right now. With this kind of terror, if Hong Seong-jun suddenly returned and started unbuckling his pants again, Haru might just nod and let it happen.
Please, let it be a person—not a ghost.
He had absolutely zero desire to go back through the dark hallway and return to that bedroom. If even this brightly lit space was this terrifying, entering that gloomy, broken-light-bulb storage room of a bedroom would probably give him a heart attack.
This life was one he had barely managed to grasp. Even if it was inside Lee Haru’s body, he was alive—alive in this unfamiliar world, in this moment.
RRRUMBLE— Another explosive thunderclap tore through the air, so loud it felt like the entire mansion shook.
PFT—
Right after the thunder, without any warning, the power cut out. Darkness surged around him, and Lee Haru completely lost it.
“Huuaaah…!”
Letting out a strangled, animalistic sound, Haru flailed forward. His eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the dark—it felt like someone had thrown a sheet over his head.
He fumbled along the wall, searching blindly for the stairs. A cold voice echoed like tinnitus in his ears.
“I told you—don’t come up to the second floor without permission. Got it?”
He got it. He definitely had—at the time.
But now wasn’t the time for rules or pride. His heart felt like it was about to leap from his chest from sheer, mind-numbing fear.
“Hello…? Is anyone there…?”
Practically crawling on all fours like an animal, he dragged himself up the stairs. Thunder flashed and crashed behind him like a camera flash going off again and again.
The second floor had lost power too. Swallowed by darkness, the place was fear incarnate.
“I-I’ll Guide, I swear… Just please, someone, anyone, show yourself…”
It wasn’t just in his head—something unfamiliar was definitely stirring inside his body. It felt like the latent Guiding energy within him was reacting to his panic.
“Why are these stairs so damn long…”
He should’ve known, given how high the ceilings were. Even after what felt like an eternity, he’d only now reached the landing.
Clinging to the banister with flailing hands, he dragged himself upward, one trembling step at a time. But the higher he went, the more suffocating the fear became.
“No way I’m actually alone in here… right?”
Alone—with a ghost that was crying.
Maybe this mansion was built on someone’s grave. Or maybe, before the current residents moved in, someone had been murdered and buried in the basement.
A soul, too full of sorrow to move on, becoming a ghost in search of a companion to drag down with it into the afterlife…
“What are you doing here?”
Just as Lee Haru was about to bolt from the never-ending nightmare spinning in his head, a low voice dropped down from above.
“HIIEEK…!”
It was true—he had been crawling his way up to the second floor in search of the Espers. But the voice that suddenly cut through the silence, without the slightest hint of presence, startled Lee Haru so badly he nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Wh-What the…?”
His body lurched backward in an instant. Unfortunately, it happened just as his right foot was stepping onto the next stair.
Thrown off balance, his weight shifted uncontrollably. As the sensation of falling took over, Haru instinctively shut his eyes tight.
A thought flickered through his mind—that he should raise his arms to shield his head. But it remained just that: a thought. His frail body was simply too slow to react. Maybe if he’d eaten something more substantial, he’d have had a fighting chance.
He’d only just regained consciousness after collapsing and coughing up blood, and the only thing he’d eaten since was a single piece of fried chicken. No surprise he had no strength to spare.
Is this how I die…?
To die before he’d even gotten the chance to do anything with this new life he’d possessed—what a pathetic ending. Apparently, this life was just as cursed as the last one.
The injustice stung, but this life had always felt like a bonus round anyway. All he could hope for now was a death that didn’t hurt too much.
And then—
Thud—
“…You’re utterly unpredictable, Guide Lee Haru.”
Instead of the pain he braced for, a solid force caught him around the waist. Haru slowly opened the eyes he had instinctively squeezed shut.
He had expected total darkness, but the shadows before him radiated warmth. And the faint scent that brushed past his nose was unmistakably human.
The sensation was like stepping into an old library packed with antique books—calm, still, reassuring. Almost without thinking, Haru wrapped his arms around the waist in front of him—much sturdier than his own—and clung tightly.
“Haah…”
A soft breath, tinged with relief, escaped his lips. Right now, he didn’t care who he was holding. He just wanted to bask in this warmth until his heart, thundering like a drum, finally began to settle.
The person stiffened briefly but—thankfully—did not push him away. Thunder still cracked outside, rain still lashed the windows, and darkness filled the mansion… But thanks to that presence, Haru was able to feel safe again.
***
“Thank you.”
Lee Haru bowed slightly as he accepted the mug that was handed to him.
Even though he tried not to, his eyes followed the long fingers wrapped around the ceramic and landed, unbidden, on the man’s striking face. It wasn’t quite the warmth of another person’s touch, but his cold skin gratefully absorbed the heat radiating from the mug.
He stole a few glances at the man who had offered no reply, sitting in silence. Then, lifting the cup to his lips, Haru took a careful sip to soothe his dry throat.
“I feel like I might actually survive now…”
The person who had saved him from falling down the stairs was none other than Kang Min. Just as he had appeared soundlessly to catch him, Kang Min now sat silently on the sofa, sipping tea from a mug identical to Haru’s.
“Hey…”
Now was the time to speak. At the sound of Haru’s voice, Kang Min looked up—only his eyes moving.
The lights still hadn’t come back on, and the room was steeped in darkness. Yet strangely, Haru no longer felt afraid. Just having someone else in the room made a world of difference.
Even more curious, the sobbing from earlier had stopped completely. Though Kang Min was the one who’d assigned him that storage-closet excuse for a bedroom, judging by his demeanor now, he at least seemed rational.
“I think the light in my room is broken. Would you be able to fix it?”
Kang Min had explained earlier that the blackout had been caused by a thunderstorm—a temporary glitch. It was an old mansion, he said, and these things happened sometimes.
He was also the one who had guided Haru down to the living room and handed him the tea.
“You mean the light wasn’t working even before the power went out?”
“Yes, exactly.”
At Haru’s answer, Kang Min gave a single nod. One issue addressed.
Haru traced the lukewarm surface of his mug for a moment, then carefully broached his second request.
“Also, um… Until the light gets fixed, would it be okay if I stayed on the second floor too? I mean… if it’s alright… maybe even in your room, Kang Min Esper. Of course, you would use the bed! I’d sleep on the floor. Really, that would be more than enough for me…”
