Cha Jae-woo’s brows repeatedly furrowed and then smoothed out, as if he were grappling with what to say.
Meanwhile, Lim Haeyul rubbed the arm that Cha Jae-woo had touched. …It was strange. What was that just now? Was it something Cha Jae-woo had deliberately projected? Was the awkward expression he wore meant to feign embarrassment, as if all of Lim Haeyul’s thoughts had been laid bare?
But was that even possible? He knew that a Mental Esper could implant thoughts into a target’s mind using their abilities, but only for the sake of hypnosis. Just like Cha Jae-woo had done to him once before.
Yet this time, it was different. The raw, chaotic emotions had been transmitted exactly as they were, unfiltered. Was such a thing even possible, even with deliberate intent?
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
After a long silence, Cha Jae-woo finally spoke. His voice sounded strained, as if the very act of speaking was difficult. Unable to distinguish truth from falsehood, Lim Haeyul found it equally hard to say anything in return.
What should he even say?
It felt like I could hear your thoughts just now? Did you do it on purpose? Are you trying to shake me again by pretending to be uneasy?
……
The more he thought about it, the worse his confusion became. His head started throbbing, and his stomach churned. He wanted to get out of there.
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Should I even try to understand?’
The best way to rid himself of this chaos was to avoid Cha Jae-woo altogether. Though that was impossible without Cha Jae-woo’s cooperation, he still had to try to run away as far as he could. There was no reason he needed to know what was going on. He was just frustrated with himself for constantly forgetting that.
“If you don’t know, that’s fine. I don’t want to know either.”
Forcing himself to remain composed, Lim Haeyul spoke coldly to Cha Jae-woo.
“Don’t come looking for me again. I’m taking back what I said about trying to do something, anything. Even just seeing you is exhausting. I wish you’d just do nothing at all.”
“……”
“I wanted you to get hurt as much as I did standing by your side. Of course, since my wounds were born out of liking you, there’s no way you could ever feel exactly the same. I know that. That’s why I just hoped you’d at least get a little flustered.”
“……”
“You don’t have any other Guide besides me, right? I saw the article. That’s why you’re suddenly here, pretending to be sorry, pretending you want to fix things.”
Cha Jae-woo’s lips twitched. It looked like he wanted to say something, but Lim Haeyul had no patience left to listen.
He had no center anymore. His thoughts, light and insubstantial, swayed like reeds in the wind. He should have ignored Cha Jae-woo entirely, and yet, here he was, facing him still. Maybe he was already too far gone.
That was why he couldn’t afford to listen to anything Cha Jae-woo said. He needed to leave without giving even the slightest opening, without meeting his eyes again.
‘You sure caught on fast.’
Biting down the bitter laugh directed at himself, Lim Haeyul pushed forward with his words.
“But honestly, you should just find someone new. Come on, there’s no way there isn’t another Guide out there with a high matching rate with Cha Jae-woo. One’s bound to show up eventually. Even someone like me existed, right? So, I’ll just─.”
“I need you.”
But Cha Jae-woo didn’t let him finish.
Facing Cha Jae-woo’s firm, shaking head, Lim Haeyul let out a small sigh. He hadn’t expected anything. If Cha Jae-woo was the kind of person who would back off just because he was told not to come, he would have done so from the very beginning.
‘If I knew it would be like this, I shouldn’t have tried so hard.’
He should have just stuck to the method Kim Sol taught him—pushing mana into him without getting emotionally involved. Maybe that was why Kim Sol had warned him so many times. Not to try too hard. Not to fall for him. That it was all just an illusion.
‘Was it my fault for not listening?’
At the time, he couldn’t even imagine that he would come to like Cha Jae-woo. But… the fact that he still couldn’t completely turn away from him even now must mean that those feelings hadn’t fully disappeared yet.
How utterly pathetic. The other was just looking for a way to use him, and yet here he was, clinging desperately to emotions he should have long discarded.
“You’re just wasting your time. I already told you—I can’t Guide you. If you want, we can test it out right now.”
Locking eyes with Cha Jae-woo, Lim Haeyul forced himself to keep a steady face, desperately hoping that the weakness in his heart wouldn’t show.
Cha Jae-woo’s face had, in the meantime, twisted into something utterly wrecked. I was the one who should have been making that face—so why was it him? At this rate, it felt like the one harboring feelings wasn’t Lim Haeyul but Cha Jae-woo.
“A Guide who can’t Guide is useless. You don’t need me. I’m not going to Guide you. I can’t.”
“…You don’t have to.”
Cha Jae-woo shook his head firmly, rejecting Haeyul’s cold, detached words—words that had naturally taken on an icy edge because of his thoughts. The look on Cha Jae-woo’s face made it seem like if Lim Haeyul demanded he get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness, he would do it without hesitation. That thought made Haeyul’s heart ache sharply.
‘Why? Why go this far? Why are you so desperate to torment me?’
“Whether I Guide or not… that’s not something you get to permit, is it?”
His voice turned sour without meaning to. No answer came back. In fact, he was starting to doubt whether the man standing in front of him was even the Cha Jae-woo he used to know.
Gone was the face that had always been so nonchalant, bored yet unshakably confident. Now, there was only a man before him with a hollow, exhausted look, as if he had lost everything.
‘Is it really an act? Could he really go this far just for Guiding?’
The doubts he had shoved away countless times resurfaced again. And once again, Lim Haeyul ruthlessly erased them from his mind.
“If I say I can’t do it, then it’s over. Even if you want it, Cha Jae-woo, you can’t have it.”
“……”
“Oh… was I not supposed to say that? Maybe I’ve really lost it. I used to be terrified of you, but now… I’m not scared anymore. Whether you abandon me or kill me, whatever you do, I just wish you’d go ahead already.”
“……”
“It feels like dying would be better than being trapped by you, unable to ever live normally again.”
He didn’t mean that he truly wanted to die. But the words he said to Cha Jae-woo were sincere. Because if Cha Jae-woo continued to hover around him forever, he would have to spend every single day trapped in the fear that he could be dragged away at any moment.
Apologies from him no longer meant anything. Because Lim Haeyul knew—Cha Jae-woo wasn’t really sorry. He was only trying to keep him close because he was still useful.
‘If only I lost all my use to him…If only all my mana would disappear, and I could just be an ordinary person.’
“Well… even if I say all this, Cha Jae-woo, you’re not going to listen anyway. I know that. I know…”
He cursed himself internally for speaking at all. He didn’t really want to die. What a stupid thing to say.
With a deep sigh, he turned away. There was nothing left to say. Cha Jae-woo was the one who had grabbed him, and yet he had been the one throwing meaningless words around like an idiot.
Would Cha Jae-woo even realize? That because of the words Lim Haeyul had thrown at him today, he would be living in fear, trembling and tormented for a long time to come? That he would be terrified, worrying whether Cha Jae-woo, once he truly no longer needed him, would come back to kill him?
Or worse yet—that he’d be worrying not about dying, but about whether Cha Jae-woo had been hurt by his words? That everything he had said today would end up stabbing him instead?
Cha Jae-woo would never know.
Step by step, Lim Haeyul trudged away. At first, there was no sound behind him. He thought Cha Jae-woo would leave him alone, like he always did.
“Lim Haeyul.”
“AAH!”
Maybe he had let his guard down too soon. At the sudden shadow looming over him and the hand grabbing his wrist, he screamed and collapsed to the ground. Ridiculous, considering he had just claimed that dying might be better.
But dignity didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t even have time to care about it.
‘I almost killed you again.’
In the instant that Cha Jae-woo grabbed his arm, a hollow, sorrowful voice echoed inside his head—just like before.
Cha Jae-woo’s hand quickly let go, but his voice lingered in Haeyul’s ears, ringing out clearly. He was blaming himself.
“…This time, I’ll listen.”
Even amid the confusion of not understanding the situation, Haeyul heard Cha Jae-woo speak in a voice sunk low with regret.
“I’m sorry.”
‘It’s just empty words. There’s no way you’re really sorry.’
That was the conviction Lim Haeyul had clung to—yet even that certainty wavered. Because Cha Jae-woo’s expression was so utterly devastated that it robbed him of all words.
“…Yeah, being ordinary…”
“……”
“…is a good thing.”
Cha Jae-woo let out a short, broken laugh. And then he turned around immediately, walking away.
Lim Haeyul sat there dazed, staring blankly at Cha Jae-woo’s retreating back for a long time. And during that entire time, Cha Jae-woo never once looked back.
He’ll come back again, Haeyul thought. He was sure of it. But for some reason, he couldn’t shake the strange feeling that this time…this might really be the end.
