He had never been in a relationship, never even had a fling, and yet Hyun Tae-oh was better than anyone else in the world at handling Kang Chi-yu.
“Were you planning to just date me forever?”
Chi-yu chuckled softly.
“Will you Imprint with me?”
Tae-oh pounced on the opening without missing a beat. Chi-yu shook his head with a smile. On Tae-oh’s face flashed the thought: Knew it.
“I like you.”
Chi-yu said it with a calm, smiling face. They were words he’d swallowed down for so long. He hadn’t been able to say it because it felt terrifying, because it felt unbearably heavy, because it carried too much uncertainty. But once spoken, it wasn’t as frightening, or as heavy, or as unsettling as he had imagined. Maybe because he already knew Tae-oh felt the same.
At Chi-yu’s sudden confession, Tae-oh’s expression shifted oddly. His chest rose and fell as he drew in a couple of deep breaths. Then, without hesitation, Tae-oh moved and pinned him down.
With eyes that looked ready to devour him, Tae-oh whispered, voice low and rough.
“Say it again.”
Chi-yu wrapped his arms around Tae-oh’s neck and murmured,
“I like you, Hyun Tae-oh.”
Their lips met instantly. The kiss was nothing like the ones before—this one was deeper, hungrier, overwhelming. And through it, Tae-oh kept muttering that kissing alone wasn’t enough. Chi-yu felt the same hunger. Naturally, their hands began stripping each other’s clothes away.
***
If only he’d realized sooner. If only he’d thought about what Chi-yu meant to him earlier, they would already be Imprinted, living together without a single worry. It was his mistake to never imagine having him like this.
Kang Chi-yu was the only person whose presence never irritated him. That was why he had never even considered projecting the flimsy idea of romance—the most trivial relationship he had ever seen—onto them.
Even the first time he’d thought, I want to kiss him, it had been the same. At Esper Academy, people dated and broke up like it was nothing, like breathing, and he’d come to believe romance was shallow and meaningless. He never imagined he could feel something so fleeting toward Kang Chi-yu.
Back then, they had lived as if they were each other’s whole world. The idea that Chi-yu might leave him to share such a shallow bond with someone else had never crossed his mind.
But eventually, Chi-yu left his side, found a new place to live, changed his number, and didn’t give it to him first. That was when he realized their friendship had an end.
Possessiveness and the need to monopolize him couldn’t be satisfied by just being a friend. Being reduced to someone who could only watch from the sidelines wasn’t enough either. Only then did he finally understand that the bond he had clung to for so long wasn’t as unique as he believed.
Tae-oh pulled Chi-yu into a fierce embrace. Chi-yu felt his heart soften at the warmth and slowly closed his eyes. Tears that had been clinging to his lashes slid down at last.
It felt good. To confess, to return those feelings, to act on them—it was so blissful it defied words. Chi-yu wondered if Tae-oh felt the same.
He got his answer right away.
“I like you.”
The words from Tae-oh’s lips proved it—yes, they felt exactly the same.
***
The first day Kang Chi-yu officially became Hyun Tae-oh’s lover.
The moment he opened his eyes, Tae-oh carried him—still in his arms—straight to the bathroom and washed him thoroughly.
That man, infamous for his near-obsessive cleanliness, didn’t hesitate in the slightest to touch every inch of his body. He washed him, dried him with his large hands, even blow-dried his hair—caring for him from beginning to end.
Chi-yu felt like a child being looked after.
Weary and drowsy from the pampering, he lay on the living room sofa waiting for Tae-oh to finish his own shower. By the time he opened his eyes again, the midday sun had already slipped into a crimson sunset.
A week of medical leave. The thought of having time alone together made him smile—until the memory of his fire-ravaged home crept in, wiping that smile away.
It was his home, the place he would keep living. He couldn’t just leave it in ruins. He started searching for his phone, unsure where he had left it.
Fresh from the shower, Tae-oh spotted him wandering around and asked, towel rubbing at his hair, what he was looking for.
“My phone. Have you seen it?”
“No. Want me to call it?”
“Yeah. Where did I put it?”
He muttered under his breath about how stupidly big the house was, making it impossible to find a single phone, while scanning every corner. Anyone watching might think he’d never lived in a place like this before.
Even though he’d only moved in recently, the neighboring unit he’d lived in before—the same exact layout—already felt strangely distant. It was ironic. He had lived there for years, yet it felt farther away than this new home. Maybe because, back then, to Hyun Tae-oh, he had been nothing more than a “friend.”
Bzzz—bzzz—
The vibration came from inside the sofa. He hurried over, dug around, and found the phone wedged under the left armrest.
Chi-yu pulled it out just as Tae-oh lowered his own phone and pressed “hang up.”
“Thanks,” Chi-yu said, unlocking the screen.
He sat and began scrolling through the messages he hadn’t checked in a while. After skimming through texts from Jun-hyung and Do-il, a handful of unknown numbers caught his eye. As he read through them, his body went cold.
Stay away from Hyun Tae-oh, you B-rank Guide.
You’re a disgrace to the Central Bureau’s First Division.
What makes you think being childhood friends means anything?
If you don’t back off, something terrible will happen to you.
Just like the Fire-attribute Esper who had attacked him, there were others who resented him.
He had once joked that maybe he was famous now, since even Lee Jun-hyung had antis—but this? This chilled him to the core.
The thought that strangers hated him, lurking and waiting for an opportunity to hurt him, made his skin crawl.
“What is it?”
Tae-oh, instantly catching the change in his expression, walked over.
Chi-yu quickly turned off the screen and said it was nothing. He tried to smile, but his lips trembled. Tae-oh noticed the slight shake, his brow twitching. But he didn’t grab the phone or demand an explanation.
Instead, he sat down beside him and draped his arm lazily over the back of the sofa.
“Want to go out for dinner? Make it a date.”
“A date?”
“Yeah. Today’s day one. We have to go on a date.”
Chi-yu gave a stiff smile. His heart was still pounding from fear, but the word date did lighten his mood enough to curve his lips upward.
“You ever been on one?”
“You haven’t either.”
“Exactly. What do we even know about dating?”
“No one’s good at something from the start.”
“You are. You’re good at everything right away.”
“Hm?”
“Kissing. And… other things.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, his face heated—too blunt, too suggestive. Tae-oh’s eyes widened for a moment, then he bit his lip and grinned wickedly.
“Don’t turn me on.”
The playful tone carried an edge of threat.
When Chi-yu looked at him, Tae-oh’s grin vanished, replaced with seriousness.
“I think it’s already too late, Chi-yu.”
“What do you—”
Before he could finish, Tae-oh caught his arm gently and pulled him upright in one smooth motion.
“Let’s go to bed.”
“Hey!”
“I won’t do anything. Just touch you.”
“What the—! Let me go, I said let go!”
“Then can I touch you more? We’ll save the rest until after three dates.”
“HEY! Hyun Tae-oh!”
Dragged toward the bedroom, Chi-yu struggled to break free, but resisting his strength was impossible.
***
After finally shaking Tae-oh off and locking himself in the bathroom, Chi-yu let out a groan. Because of the flood of threatening messages, he still hadn’t dealt with his ruined house.
Leaning against the tub, he ran wet fingers through his hair and thought: First thing when I get out, I need to take care of the house.
People hating people—that was only natural.
He was a B-rank Guide who had managed to land a spot on a show so popular that even A-rank Guides struggled to join. On top of that, he had become the Temporary Pair of SS-rank Esper Hyun Tae-oh—even if they were childhood friends. Of course people would be jealous. He had expected that much.
He had even thought antis might appear.
And with Season 2 airing—showing how their long friendship ended with Hyun Tae-oh openly declaring he’d pursue him—it wasn’t surprising if the backlash had only grown.
But he hadn’t expected it to go this far. Being attacked at home was shocking enough, but that they had gotten hold of his number and sent direct threats? That was worse. And it wasn’t one or two of them. There were several.
Chi-yu dragged his wet hands down his face with a long sigh.
Whatever happened, Tae-oh couldn’t know about this.
Just dealing with the Esper who had attacked his house had already been more than enough. He couldn’t put more on him. And Tae-oh wasn’t the kind to let things slide.
Wiping at his dripping face again and again, Chi-yu steeled himself: he would show nothing, no matter what.
Instead, he’d report the messages to PN, the Central Bureau’s Ability User Protection Division. It might not fix everything, but at least they’d have to move somehow.
While Chi-yu sat in the bathroom thinking this, outside, Tae-oh picked up his phone— and, with practiced ease, unlocked it.
