“You’re saying… I feel this way just because you’re my Constellation?”
“Hold on, Tae-beom. Let’s just—put that down for a second….”
“Are you insane?”
Baek Tae-beom spoke with disbelief.
“Don’t tell me, every time I did something for you, you made that face because you thought that’s why?”
“What face?”
“The kind of face someone makes when they’re proud of their well-raised son.”
“What kind of expression is that supposed to be?”
I spoke in disbelief myself, and Baek Tae-beom leaned in closer, his face now just inches away.
“Do you really think the things I did were just because you’re my Constellation? You believe that? Who told you that?”
“But…”
“Just because you’re my Constellation and we’re under contract—you really thought that was the only reason I waited two years for you? That I started a guild, and busted my ass trying to fill the space you left behind? Is that what I looked like to you? Some pathetic wreck?”
“Pathetic? That’s not—!”
“Did I seem like someone who just wanted to play happy family with you?”
I couldn’t say a word. Baek Tae-beom’s golden eyes were locked onto me. His cheek, blue-tinted from the light streaming in, moved slightly with his lips. I instinctively held my breath. It wasn’t because I was afraid of him. It was because I suddenly realized something—I had been making assumptions about him all along.
Had I still been thinking of Baek Tae-beom… as just a character?
A wave of discomfort surged through me, alienation from myself. I lowered my gaze to the hand he held.
There was unmistakable warmth coming from Baek Tae-beom.
“Hyung.”
“……”
“I’m not a kid.”
His voice was low, almost like a whisper. It wrapped around my ears. A strange, inexplicable tickle. I flinched slightly at the sensation, making the blanket rustle at my feet.
“Do I still look like a child you have to tiptoe around and handle with care? Don’t you ever think, maybe I’m the one adjusting to you?”
Baek Tae-beom gently stroked the back of my hand, his fingers lightly grazing the surface. He touched the ring on my fourth finger, then slowly slid his own fingers through the gaps between mine, intertwining them with deliberate care.
“I only want one thing. For you to want to know more about me…”
“……”
“To wonder what I did while you were gone, what I’ve been through these past two years, what kind of thoughts I lived with… What my past was like. For you to care about me—not as a Contractor, but as a person.”
“Beom-ah…”
“The way I care about you.”
Baek Tae-beom lowered his head and pressed his cheek against the back of my hand. He blinked slowly, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
“I can wait as long as it takes. But do I still look like someone who’s acting this way just because you’re my Constellation?”
From the gentle interlocking of our fingers, from the subtle warmth of his skin against mine, I realized I had been mistaken about something all along.
[Constellation, ‘One Who Seeks to Escape Destruction’ is synchronizing with the Holy Vessel.]
Baek Tae-beom is human.
And so am I.
What binds us is not just a contract.
Watching him nuzzle against me like a loyal hound, I barely managed to speak. Maybe for the first time in my life, I asked someone a question from the depths of myself.
“While I was gone…”
I gently tapped his cheek with my fingertips.
“Was it hard?”
Baek Tae-beom let out a low chuckle.
The fullness of winter was approaching. The wind tapped against the window, letting out a low, whining hum. Soon, snow would settle like pale ash. I sat and listened to Baek Tae-beom’s story. Nodding along, agreeing or disagreeing here and there. And even then, I didn’t let go of his hand. I held it tighter instead.
“That’s why Hansung started paying attention to me. When an S-Class popped up, you should’ve seen Lee Myung-won’s face. The Guildmaster’s too.”
“What kind of guy is he?”
“He’s mentally stable but acts completely insane. Anyway, that’s how it was. Oh Kwon-hyuk ended up feeling guilty toward me—over your situation too. Even though I told him it didn’t matter since you weren’t dead, he clung to me so desperately that I had to smack him around a few times just to shake him off. He’s a lot more manageable now.”
“That’s your definition of manageable?”
“I threw the bastard in the river, and when he just walked right back out, I seriously thought he was a water ghost.”
“You’re scared of ghosts.”
“That was two years ago. I’m not scared of them at all anymore.”
Baek Tae-beom looked down at our joined hands. His fingers gently rubbed along mine.
“There’s only one thing I’m afraid of now—losing you.”
What am I to you?
A flare of defiance came first. What am I to you, that you cling to me like this? Can I even be someone worthy of that much meaning to you? Questions like that brushed through my mind. But Baek Tae-beom crushed them all with a single, unwavering sentence.
“You said you chose me because you knew the future.”
“……”
“Well, I chose you too.”
Even though he didn’t know anything about the future. Baek Tae-beom whispered it. The thought that struck me in that moment made me look into his eyes without meaning to. What I felt, surprisingly, was relief.
I had been anxious. Afraid that if I wasn’t his Constellation, I’d become nothing to him.
But I had been wrong. As the tension drained from my body, exhaustion washed over me.
[Constellation, ‘One Who Seeks to Escape Destruction’ is synchronizing with the Holy Vessel.]
I could feel the emotions I’d been dragging up swell and then settle again. To hell with synchronization. Since coming back from the dead, I hadn’t felt this stable, not once.
Why had I been so restless about everything?
‘There’s so little I can do right now.’
It must have been because I was obsessed with stopping the apocalypse. Because I believed it was Baek Tae-beom who caused it. But I had been wrong about that too. The apocalypse no longer starts with Baek Tae-beom.
It starts with Kang Si-hoo, the protagonist.
‘I have to make a structured plan.’
Fortunately, I had one hell of a trustworthy villain on my side.
“Then… will you believe what I’m about to tell you?”
I met Baek Tae-beom’s gaze and began explaining.
That I could communicate with other Constellations, that the First Monster Calamity had broken out earlier than it should have and twisted the timeline, and that because of that, the key character—Kang Si-hoo—had ended up the way he had.
And finally, that the apocalypse would be triggered by Kang Si-hoo and his Constellation. I told him everything except for the fact that this world was a novel.
Anyone else might’ve interrupted halfway to ask if I was insane, but Baek Tae-beom listened silently until the very end.
“So then… Hyung…”
“Me?”
“Are you someone from the future?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then if you stop the apocalypse… what happens to you?”
What happens to me?
I realized, suddenly, I’d never thought about that. Would I go back to my original world? Or stay here?
Baek Tae-beom stared at me.
“…I don’t know.”
Honestly, I had no idea. I admitted it openly. At that, Baek Tae-beom asked carefully.
“Will you… stay by my side?”
“……”
“I know it sounds selfish. No—it is selfish. But I want you to stay with me.”
“I can’t promise that.”
I didn’t know if wanting it would even make it possible. The moment the apocalypse was averted, I might be dragged back to my world like waking from a dream. I really should’ve read the epilogue of The Apocalypse Chronicles of Another World. Maybe it would’ve told me why I ended up inside a novel like this in the first place.
Baek Tae-beom’s brows furrowed for a moment. Then he took my hand and began manipulating it. When I looked down, wondering what he was doing, I saw him folding and unfolding my fingers one by one until only the pinky and thumb were extended. He hooked his pinky with mine and pressed down on our thumbs, and I burst out laughing.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a promise.”
He said it curtly, like a declaration.
“If you can’t make a promise… then I will. I’m staying by your side.”
“……”
“Ga-hyeon-hyung.”
I instinctively took a deep breath. The scent of Baek Tae-beom, now so much closer, filled my lungs. He always smelled like young wood—not fully matured. Like a tall, leafy tree, lush and green.
[Your Contractor is showing excessive affection.]
“Yeah.”
The emotion swelling inside me was far too overwhelming to be stifled by a mere system prompt. The wind still whispered against the windows. My throat tightened, the words catching at the base of it. But finally, I let them out. The warmth in my hand was too vivid to ignore.
“Yeah, Tae-beom.”
We’ll see this winter together.
