Fuck. Cha-hyeon was a real bastard.
“Aha… this is new.”
Arms folded, he looked around the department store with eyes half curious, half prickling with annoyed stubbornness.
The Yeouido department store that manifested inside the dungeon was peaceful. Soft lighting, green plants, the intermittent splash of a far-off fountain, a floor gleaming under the lights. No trace of life anywhere—except for Cha-hyeon.
If there was a problem, it was that he’d already reduced the place to rubble several times.
He shifted his gaze. The wall where red steel beams and a crane had been shattered into pieces only moments ago had quietly reverted to its original state.
As if nothing had happened. With a disbelieving snort, he raked a hand through his hair.
“A world where everything unfolds exactly the way Ji Se-min dreams….”
Still tilting his head, he stared at the restored vista, then, moving only his eyes, pulled up the status window.
… 4 days 4 hours 58 minutes until the Gate Flood …
He revised his assessment. Even if he spent that entire time trying to bring this place down, it probably wouldn’t break.
Because that’s what Se-min wanted. Apparently his pair guide wanted everything safe and peaceful.
He decided not to waste more strength. Once he’d recognized the futility, he felt no lingering regret.
If the buildings restored themselves, he could count it as blowing off steam without even kicking up dust. Brimming with energy, feeling almost refreshed after the workout, he finally started thinking strategy.
“No monsters in sight, no illusions….”
If Se-min were in the department store, he’d have shown himself at the sound of a building collapsing, so it seemed his Guide wasn’t here.
Then where did he go? Since the first area that appeared after entering the Gate was the department store, this space should be built from memories tied to it…. His eyes narrowed to slits.
“Or maybe the lounge bar next door at the hotel, sipping wine while looking out over the Han River. The sun’s down now.”
His head turned. A revolving door spun slowly with no one in it. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. Letting a faint, fishy chuckle leak out as the thought surfaced, he strode forward.
He stepped outside. If the weather had been copied too, the night air was cool. A breeze slid past.
“Nailed it.”
Eyes lifted, he looked at the “world running perfectly fine.”
There was only empty road in front of him. But five paces out on the asphalt, cars flowed by.
He started walking. Cars that seemed to bloom out of thin air sped along the lanes and, on reaching a certain point, dissolved back into nothing.
Thunk—someone clipped his shoulder. Instead of knocking him aside, the figure drifted through him like smoke, then vanished once it crossed an invisible line.
His gaze turned to a hotel in Yeouido. The hotel where he would’ve gone on a “date” with his Guide—if this shitty Gate hadn’t blown.
His tapered look rose to the building’s midsection. The rooftop bar—if Se-min was up there, then from wherever his eyes could reach, the world would appear to be running just fine.
Cheap and effective, huh. He split his mouth in a grin. Wetting his lower lip like a snake, he let black mist unfurl from his shoulder blades. The ominous haze, dark as hellfire, swelled to a person’s height and shaped itself into wings.
“Fuck, baby. Who the hell are you on a date with while you leave me behind?”
And the world stopped.
The pedestrians, the cars tearing down the road—everything froze like someone had slammed a pause button.
“……”
Lovers walking arm in arm, children at play, tourists rolling suitcases, an office worker hustling with a phone to his ear, families out for a stroll, students in uniform—they all turned to look at him.
Head-on, with a tilt of the head, a twist at the waist, or only their eyes sliding over—every empty gaze of the dungeon’s illusions, which had been acting like they couldn’t see him, fixed on him without exception.
As if, in a world where everything happened by Ji Se-min’s will, they couldn’t allow anyone to disrupt Se-min’s date.
Even faced with a sight chilling enough to overwhelm, he only rolled his neck left and right.
“What a nuisance.”
In his clenched fist, the same black mist that had leaked from his shoulder blades began to gather. It wound slowly up to his elbow, until his right arm looked like it was made of charred ash.
Sensing an attack, the illusions’ hollow eyes lacquered over red. Tension spiked in an instant, the air on a hair trigger, and still he just looked put upon, like a man saddled with a task he didn’t need.
Then it happened.
A bare split second later, the illusions glaring at him with bloodshot eyes resumed moving as if nothing had occurred. The street filled again with lively noise.
Caught off guard by a turn he hadn’t anticipated, his eyes flicked reflexively to the hotel’s rooftop bar.
“Now what the hell is this…?”
He blinked once—and the backdrop had changed.
He was inside a home.
“…Aha?”
He murmured. Brows rounding, he considered why the scene had shifted.
The answer came fast. A world where everything unfolds just the way Ji Se-min dreams. In dreams, no matter what happens, nothing feels out of place.
So what is it this time? With a sour look, he scanned the room.
A place he’d never seen. The wallpaper was grimy in a way that felt specific, scribbled over in ballpoint pen with what were clearly a child’s drawings. Cherry-colored trim; furniture with a dated orange tint to match. A refrigerator with flowers on it, linoleum that clung to your soles. It looked like a thirty-something-year-old apartment that had never once been renovated.
And yet, despite being a home he’d never visited, some parts were oddly familiar: the dark red brick villa outside the window; the cigarette-butt-littered flowerbed squeezed between blocks.
Ah. Right.
Memories long asleep rose, slow but steady. Once he caught the thread, he could reconstruct what this unfamiliar place was.
This was the neighborhood he’d lived in through middle school. That’s why the view outside rang a bell. Which meant this space sat near his old home….
His gaze landed on a small frame. A photo he’d seen somewhere before: a family portrait of himself, Se-min, and an elderly man.
Click. He picked up the frame—then his head snapped around. A familiar voice had drifted in from beyond the door.
“Hyung, taste this. Do we need more salt?”
“Mm… I think it’s fine.”
“Really? I feel like something’s missing…. What is it? Soup soy sauce? Seasoned salt?”
Setting the frame down, he walked silently toward the voices. Arms folded, he watched the speakers.
The cramped kitchen, too, wore a thirty-years-ago aesthetic: a purple gas valve, jade-green cabinets, a white plastic faucet with a chipped tip.
Against that backdrop, Se-min and “Sung Cha-hyeon” were cooking.
His lips flattened into a hard line. Face wiped clean of expression, he stared unblinking—more precisely, at Sung Cha-hyeon wearing his face.
So this is what meeting your doppelgänger feels like? Seeing an illusion kitted out in the Esper-only combat suit he himself wore once or twice a year at most because it annoyed him, he felt both estrangement and an urge to cave the bastard’s skull in on the spot. Who cared if it wore his face? He was here—and that was fake. A glint of killing intent gathered in his eyes.
The two, oblivious to the murderous heat in him, stayed busy playing house, sweet as sugar.
“Mm… maybe a bit more seasoned salt—Hyung! The stew!”
When Se-min reached for the stew trembling on the verge of boiling over, their bodies bumped naturally. Standing by the stove, Sung Cha-hyeon turned off the flame. Their bodies stayed pressed together.
“……”
“……”
Feeling the heat where they touched, Se-min swallowed. Instead of stepping back in embarrassment, they kept gazing into each other’s eyes.
His killing intent thickened. Still expressionless, he slowly unfolded his arms. A deep blue light beaded in his palm—and in the next instant a summoned bow rested in his grip.
He raised it on a single breath. As he drew the string to his lips, a leaden arrow of black mist seated itself cleanly. The arrowhead aimed for Sung Cha-hyeon’s skull.
What a joke. If I pop that skull first, I won’t have to watch this goddamn farce.
Any advice about not provoking the hostage had long since dropped out of his head. Mind cold and overheated at once, he reached only for the fastest, most decisive solution.
“…We haven’t eaten yet.”
“What does that matter?”
“The stew will get cold….”
“We’ll reheat it.”
At the murmured sweet nothings, veins stood up on the back of the hand drawing the string. The target at the arrow’s point wore a fucking face.
“…Hyung, even after you got your memories back, why do you still—still want to…?”
Strength bled from his bent fingers. Frozen in that pose for a beat, he slowly lowered the drawn string.
A soft, nasal chuckle. Sung Cha-hyeon’s quiet laugh. He murmured, sly.
“What do you mean, ‘even after I got my memories back’? You’re talking like I ever lost them.”
“…Uh… that never happened?”
“Never.”
Whether he’d forgotten how he’d wept and begged to get his memories back or not, the slightly dazed Se-min nodded meekly, accepting it.
“Ah… right. Hyung never lost his memories…. But even if you had…”
Like a doll with dying batteries, Se-min’s voice cut off unnaturally. When he spoke again, it was in a tone that didn’t recall a word of what he’d been muttering moments earlier.
“…Let’s eat first!”
Blushing as if embarrassed, he slipped away. Sung Cha-hyeon’s smile deepened. Even made with his own face, the smile felt foreign.
“……”
The black bow unraveled back into mist. Without so much as a blink, he tipped his head to the side.
