“Apologize. Admit you were wrong.”
Seo Eui-woo repeated the words as if entranced.
“…Love? Like in wisdom tooth?”
Kwon Jae-jin thought, Of all things, before responding.
“Yes, something like that. Once it starts, there’s no turning back. Something vicious.”
“…….”
“Are you not going to apologize?”
“What I did… was it violence? Was it really?”
A hand, now considerably more relaxed, reached out. Seo Eui-woo gently cupped Kwon Jae-jin’s cheek, carefully stroking it—as if it were a feather that might float away with the slightest breath, as if it were a bubble that would burst upon contact.
“Enough to make you show a face like this?”
That flushed expression shook Seo Eui-woo in a way he had never experienced before. It struck him harder than a hundred words ever could.
“Don’t look. Turn away. I know my face must look weird right now.”
“How am I supposed to look away from this…? I’m sorry.”
“…….”
“I was wrong.”
“…….”
“I just… I wanted to do this with you, Jae-jin. We were sleeping together, feeling good, and I didn’t want to send you away alone. I didn’t want to pull out. I wanted to show you affection. I thought it’d be cute if you pissed yourself in my arms. And it was cute. It felt really good. So good that I wished we could do it every day… I want to see it again.”
“Seo Eui-woo…”
“No, I know. I know I’m a little messed up. I swear, I’ve never had thoughts this filthy about anyone else. It just seems disgusting—ugh, unclean. But with you… I think I just lose all control when it comes to you.”
Seo Eui-woo muttered desperately, gazing at Kwon Jae-jin’s face as if trying to burn it into his retinas. His gray eyes bore into him with an overwhelming intensity.
Kwon Jae-jin’s expression, his appearance, and even the emotions behind it—Seo Eui-woo looked ready to devour it all, to tear it apart and consume every last bit.
His dark obsession and blind devotion toward Kwon Jae-jin grew endlessly, stretching like the elongated shadows cast by the setting sun, growing larger and larger, swelling without end.
“I thought it was because I’m an Esper and you’re my Guide. I thought it was just some weird urge driven by instinct. But as you know, Jae-jin, that’s not it. Even if there were no Guiding effects, even if it had nothing to do with that… I’d still be like this when it comes to you.”
Seo Eui-woo, who had been gradually closing the distance, finally touched Kwon Jae-jin. His high, straight nose pressed against Jae-jin’s cheek, his long, delicate eyelashes brushing lightly against his skin, tickling him.
“For the first time… it was the first time I ever seriously thought about killing someone.”
“…….”
“When I said I was going to kill Mateo, I don’t know how you took it… but it wasn’t something I said lightly. I’ve killed countless Creatures. I’ve watched comrades fall in battle. But even then, deciding to take a living person’s life with my own hands… Do you think that’s an easy decision, Jae-jin?”
Seo Eui-woo pulled Jae-jin into an embrace without a sound. Before he even realized it, Eui-woo had closed the distance and was holding him tightly.
The warmth of their pressed bodies, the contact of their faces, seeped through. Seo Eui-woo’s entire body was rigid and cold, as if Kwon Jae-jin’s single word about breaking up had frozen every capillary in his body.
“I’m serious. If it involves you, Kwon Jae-jin, I really could kill someone now. Before I even fully realized it, I had already become that kind of person… Jae-jin, do you understand the weight of that?”
“…….”
“But if you tell me you want to break up… that makes me a fucking lunatic, doesn’t it?”
Seo Eui-woo exhaled roughly, his large body trembling like a wounded beast. His finely sculpted muscles, sharp as a cut diamond, tensed and flexed as he panted, pressing against Kwon Jae-jin.
Jae-jin remained still in Eui-woo’s arms. He neither pushed him away nor embraced him in return.
“…I understand how you feel, Seo Eui-woo. Then please, try to understand how I feel as well.”
“What do you mean, your feelings?”
Seo Eui-woo lowered his gaze dangerously, murmuring in a low voice.
“You don’t want to date me? You don’t want to be my lover? What, do you think I’m some disgusting pervert who does filthy things, a fucking lunatic who makes you sick…?”
“It’s not that extreme. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Sigh… This, this kind of relationship… This isn’t the kind of romance I wanted to have with you, Seo Eui-woo.”
Seo Eui-woo has no understanding of social norms. He doesn’t understand romance. He has no idea what Kwon Jae-jin wanted to experience with him. Not even a clue…
“…This time, I wanted to live without regrets. I wanted to start small with you, Seo Eui-woo, take things slow, step by step… But the circumstances and everything around us wouldn’t allow it, so we haven’t been able to do anything yet…”
It wasn’t about wanting something grand. Going on dates, wearing matching outfits, celebrating anniversaries, exchanging gifts, writing love letters, getting rings together, coming up with pet names… just…
Just the kind of things that normal couples do…
Something so trivial, so meaningless…
Something so normal and insignificant that he hadn’t even gotten to experience in his first life—he had thought, just once, what if he did those things with Seo Eui-woo?
He didn’t want to be nothing more than a hole to fuck while pissing himself.
No matter how he looked at it, Seo Eui-woo was in the wrong. Kwon Jae-jin furrowed his brows with difficulty.
“I didn’t mean that I truly want to break up with you. I meant that I don’t want this twisted, grotesque excuse for a relationship that you forced on me. You ignored my wishes and kept doing whatever the fuck you wanted, even when I told you to stop. That pissed me off.”
“Then… you’re saying you won’t break up? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? That you’re still my boyfriend, Kwon Jae-jin?”
“Wait. I’m not done talking yet.”
Jae-jin let out a bitter sigh and leaned his upper body toward Eui-woo. He shifted his weight against him, resting his body in his arms, and exhaled another deep breath.
Seo Eui-woo. Seo Eui-woo. Seo Eui-woo…
He was the worst of the worst.
At this point, there was no turning back.
Reluctantly, Kwon Jae-jin wrapped his arms loosely around Eui-woo’s back. He reached up and gently grasped a handful of his soft, wavy black hair, running his fingers through it before locking eyes with him.
His gray irises flickered with uncertainty. He looked like he was in pain. That devastatingly beautiful face was darkened, as if he were someone burning alive.
“…Seo Eui-woo.”
“Yes.”
“Dates, couple rings, matching outfits, love letters… Do you know what even one of those things means?”
“No. What are they?”
“They’re the things we’ll be doing from now on. Or rather… the things I want to do.”
“You do…?”
“They’re the things I couldn’t do even before my regression. Even four years later, I never got to do them.”
Seo Eui-woo blinked his long eyes once, his stiff, ominous expression cracking slightly.
Kwon Jae-jin looked at this twenty-year-old Seo Eui-woo, feeling an overwhelming wave of emotions rise in his chest—brittle, persistent emotions he forced back down.
It’s only been four months.
This Seo Eui-woo had only known him for four months.
But for Kwon Jae-jin, it had been four years.
Four long years of constantly seeing, hearing, fighting, enduring, pushing away, hating, loathing, thinking, understanding, trying, coexisting, accepting, trusting, allowing… ultimately dying, regressing, being betrayed—
After all of that, he had chosen to hold this young Seo Eui-woo’s hand again.
Even with gaps in his memory, as long as he was alive, he had decided to stay by Seo Eui-woo’s side.
He had resolved to try dating him.
Seo Eui-woo said he could kill for Kwon Jae-jin.
But even if Seo Eui-woo became a murderer—Kwon Jae-jin would still remain by his side.
That was how he felt.
“It’s the kind of thing normal couples do in ordinary society. But before the regression, I never had the chance to do any of it. The Gate opened, and I ended up dying. But even if that accident hadn’t happened… I still couldn’t bring myself to suggest it to the first-timeline Seo Eui-woo. I never even considered it.”
“…Why? Why not?”
“Good question. Why was that?”
Maybe it was because, with the first-timeline Seo Eui-woo, they had been standing in the middle of a fucking swamp.
With that Seo Eui-woo, there was no room for sweet, innocent gestures of affection. Even after four years, Kwon Jae-jin had never been able to open up to him fully. Unlike the Seo Eui-woo in this timeline, the first-timeline Seo Eui-woo had started off in a relationship built on hurting each other, wounding and being wounded in return…
“You once told me you wanted to date me properly, Seo Eui-woo.”
“Jae-jin, let’s really, properly date this time.”
“Alright, fine. Let’s do it.”
Let’s take this to the very end.
Kwon Jae-jin and Seo Eui-woo—
For real.
“Let’s date properly and see where it takes us.”
Jae-jin’s dark, unwavering gaze finally settled. He stared straight at Seo Eui-woo, locking eyes with him without hesitation.
A fierce, untamed storm brewed in Seo Eui-woo’s wild, gray irises, as if he were a beast poised to lunge. Their eyes clashed, a violent collision of raw intensity. It felt like blue sparks were crackling between them.
