Cha-hyeon’s eyes twisted with anguish as he muttered a name—his own name, yet also the eternal rival he could never face again.
Yes, there was someone who might see this as a true reward. Fury—burning, heavy, and scalding—rushed through his fingers and toes in an instant, replacing the dull weight that had been settling there.
The original Sung Cha-hyeon. A reward that, if nothing else, would benefit him. Now that it was almost certain fate couldn’t be avoided, this was something only Sung Cha-hyeon could truly call a reward.
“……”
Flick. Cha-hyeon turned sharply, jaw tightening as he stared at the hazy blue window. The system prompt indicating an unclaimed reward. He glared at it like it was the original Sung Cha-hyeon, eyes filled with unfamiliar contempt and burning resentment.
This reward wasn’t for Cha-hyeon—not for him. It was meant for Sung Cha-hyeon.
A sudden, chilling clarity cut through the fog in his head. If you wanted to split hairs, it was Sung Cha-hyeon—the one with intact memories—who had cleared the C/S-rank dungeon. It was also the original Sung Cha-hyeon who had passed all four trials and received the Clear Reward.
And if the dungeon’s theme truly was Eros and Psyche, then wasn’t it likely the reward was modeled after that myth? Lovers who, despite countless hardships, were reunited in the end with a happy ending.
“…Fuck.”
In that moment, Cha-hyeon’s vision flushed red with emotion—rage, envy, something unnameable. His overheated thoughts twisted into a narrow but disturbingly plausible conclusion.
He had always seen the original Sung Cha-hyeon as someone other, someone separate. So why had he ever assumed the unclaimed reward was meant to favor him?
They always showed up at the worst possible times—those unclaimed rewards. Like they were designed to sabotage him. They brought back Sung Cha-hyeon’s full memories just in time to shake Se-min, and left the fragmented version of himself trembling in fear. And this time? This time, they’d even left him with a lingering pang of conscience, as if the reward had transplanted Sung Cha-hyeon’s actual heart into his chest.
Only now did he understand. These rewards weren’t for his happiness. They existed to make sure he couldn’t be happy.
Cha-hyeon pressed a hand to his solar plexus. It didn’t hurt anymore, but he remembered when it did—when the sensation of Sung Cha-hyeon’s foreign heart had been so unbearable he needed painkillers just to cope.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
He spat the words like they were poison. Of course, no answer came. But for some reason, he couldn’t shake the creeping suspicion that the original Sung Cha-hyeon was watching him from somewhere in this room.
“I said, what the hell were you thinking?”
His voice turned rougher, harsher. Alone in the empty hospital room, the sound of his ragged breathing echoed too loudly in his ears. His throat bobbed hard as he swallowed.
The Sung Cha-hyeon with his full memories—he was an opponent Cha-hyeon could never surpass.
Se-min’s love. His crush. His blind faith. All of it had originally belonged to him. Cha-hyeon had only ended up with it because of sheer luck—because they shared the same outer shell. He’d always known that. That knowledge had haunted him for so long, convinced him that the moment those memories came back, death would follow.
“Even after Hyung lost his memories, he was still the same Cha-hyeon-hyung to me, so I kept liking him. But this time… the Hyung I met is my boyfriend? When I think about it like that, it just feels off. Like it’s not right. I don’t know… It’s contradictory, but that’s how it felt.”
In the end, Se-min had chosen this Cha-hyeon, finally easing the fear that had gripped him for so long. But now? Now Se-min had no memory of that choice—so what difference did it make?
It felt like the ghost of Sung Cha-hyeon—one he thought he’d laid to rest—was back again, standing right beside him. Gritting his teeth, Cha-hyeon closed his eyes tight and opened them slowly.
This reward no longer had any value to him. Once he came to that conclusion, he closed the blue window hovering at the edge of his vision without the slightest hesitation.
The sea of blue vanished from his eyes, and the world opened up. He could finally see the room clearly again.
A hospital room far too spacious for even two people. Quiet. Cold. Empty of warmth. Empty of everything.
“……”
For a moment, another wave of loss surged up and stole his breath. But all he did was run a hand through his bangs—faint, blurry writing still clinging to his skin.
If it came to this, then out of sheer spite, he would find a way to break this so-called “complete memory recovery” reward. He would sabotage it. Interfere with it. Even if it meant he disappeared, he’d make absolutely sure Sung Cha-hyeon never knew perfect happiness.
It was the same promise he’d made to himself in the mirror the first time Sung Cha-hyeon had come back. The same desperate resolve he’d clung to the second time, believing maybe—just maybe—he could still fix it.
His hand dropped limply from his hair. On his left palm, the words remained faint but legible.
Love and doubt cannot coexist.
The tension in his clenched jaw finally loosened. The message Sung Cha-hyeon had left behind—supposedly a line from Eros as he left Psyche—entered his view again.
The fire in his eyes, once blazing with spite, gave way to confusion. Was it really a coincidence? The dungeon was most likely themed after Eros and Psyche, and yet Sung Cha-hyeon had quoted from that very myth?
What did he know when he left that message? In all the chaos and panic, Cha-hyeon had never truly stopped to consider it. But now, the question hit him like a delayed aftershock.
Unlike him, had the returned Sung Cha-hyeon somehow shared in the memories Cha-hyeon had lived through? Or was it a future self’s advice—some noble warning? But really, what advice could a man who never even saw Se-min as more than a little brother possibly offer?
Why that quote from Eros and Psyche? Unless…
“They say love dwells in the soul and heart, right? If you start doubting that, you’re just being paranoid. Maybe it was advice to have faith in love. If that’s the meaning, I guess it kind of makes sense… But seriously, what is this guy’s deal?”
“Even another version of himself thought he was so jealous, he had to be told that love and doubt don’t go together… tsk, tsk.”
Deputy Chief Jeong’s tongue-clicking jab about whether he had a jealousy complex echoed in his mind. Tch. Cha-hyeon let out a dry, bitter laugh.
So what, now he had jealousy issues? If either Jeong or Sung Cha-hyeon truly understood the fear he lived with every day, they’d never dare say a word—
But the scorn curled at the corner of his mouth slowly faded into a flat, grim line.
He had doubted Se-min’s love. That was the truth. His behavior was driven by that doubt. Unarguably, undeniably, everything he’d done had come from that.
“…No.”
The denial slipped from his lips without thought. Who he was saying it to, he didn’t know. But the rejection came anyway.
Se-min had chosen him. He knew Se-min loved him. Even if that wasn’t the case right now.
Still, he believed Se-min would love him again. He believed he could beat this—even if he had to cheat. That Favorability would eventually max out. That he’d gambled everything, even the death of his own identity, on that faith.
But now? What was he even supposed to believe in? That this reward would somehow lead to a perfect ending for both of them? For Se-min and for Cha-hyeon?
When the reward was clearly meant for the original Sung Cha-hyeon—the one who stood to take everything away?
Still wrapped in jealousy, Cha-hyeon had turned those thoughts over and over again until suddenly, his brows lifted.
Wait…
“…Why did he disappear?”
Maybe he’d been too overwhelmed at the time to think clearly, but that question now trailed one after another in his mind, a never-ending spiral.
The future Sung Cha-hyeon had left him a message—and then vanished. Maybe he’d even left behind his conscience.
The fact that he had the clarity to leave a message… didn’t that mean he knew when he was going to disappear?
Cha-hyeon remembered it clearly: after he received the second reward, his entire face had been soaked with tears. He hadn’t cried since his parents died.
So why had Sung Cha-hyeon cried?
Joy? Sadness? …Or because he didn’t want to go back?
But then again, this was exactly the kind of future Cha-hyeon had feared most.
A golden opportunity to take over the relationship he and Se-min had built—naturally, effortlessly.
If he had been the one from the future, he’d have done anything to stay. Anything. He didn’t believe the other him was any different.
After all… they were the same person.
And besides, the time of Sung Cha-hyeon’s disappearance was different after the first and second rewards. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t some automated function. Maybe he disappeared by choice.
And if that were true—shouldn’t he have stayed longer?
Was it because even then, he couldn’t stop seeing Se-min as a younger brother? Why did he give up?
Could it really be that bastard was… just offering sincere advice?
But the conscience Sung Cha-hyeon left behind had crept in quietly, like a transplant, and now lived in his chest. That faint, foreign feeling… it still didn’t feel like it belonged to him.
What did the Sung Cha-hyeon with full memories truly feel for Se-min?
A dull throb bloomed in his gut. The same sort of guilt he’d felt when Deputy Chief Jeong echoed Se-min’s unexpected question. But when he really examined it…
“…What the hell?”
It was guilt born of a love he wasn’t supposed to have. A love he was never meant to touch.
