Tae Woon blinked, a slight furrow in his brow. The phrasing had been roundabout enough that he didn’t catch the meaning right away. But then he let out a soft “Ah,” the corners of his eyes narrowing as he smiled. For all the tension he’d shown while asking, his reaction was surprisingly calm—almost serene.
He flopped down beside Kim Sibaek on the long sofa.
“I told you my shelter was Jaewoo University, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I didn’t go straight there. I hid out at the orphanage for a couple weeks first. I couldn’t adjust to what was happening, and we still had plenty of food.”
Back then, Tae Woon had seen it with his own eyes—Kim Sibaek vanishing into the Rift. Monsters had appeared from both sky and earth right after, but there’d been no sign of Sibaek anywhere.
“I had a vague feeling then. Like maybe… you hadn’t just disappeared. Maybe you’d been erased from this world altogether.”
After awakening to his powers, fighting off the monsters, and setting up a basic defense at the orphanage, the first thing Tae Woon did was dig through old photo albums. Partly to help search for Sibaek—and partly to remember him. In case he really had vanished.
What he found was a photo album that didn’t contain Kim Sibaek at all.
Tae Woon tapped his chin thoughtfully, his voice slow and even.
“Since I saw the photos first, I had some time to process it. It wasn’t just that you were gone. It felt like… maybe the entire existence of you had been wiped out.”
“……”
“If I’d cried and screamed and kept looking for my friends or family like the others, maybe the memory would’ve stuck. Burned into me so deep I’d never forget, even after twenty years.”
He chuckled lightly.
“But hyung, you know how it is. Someone asks you a question during a meal, and a few days later you can’t even remember what it was, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“I was like that too.”
Kim Sibaek listened quietly, then gave a faint smile.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up. Sorry for making you relive something painful.”
It wasn’t an excuse—it was simply the truth. And Kim Sibaek understood. More importantly…
“It’s better to let it out than keep it bottled up. You don’t have much time left, hyung. No point wasting it stuck in your head.”
…Because like he said, no one knew how much time they had left. And even that felt too short just to be with him.
Kim Sibaek turned his gaze. The traces of demonic energy, once creeping past his collar, had faded with steady purification. What looked like veins—or tattoos—now ran faintly near his collarbone instead of his cheek, and his once pitch-black left hand was mottled and patchy.
He planned to finish purifying it before the quest ended. That was the goal. Everything else—every stray thought—he’d leave behind.
Noticing where Sibaek had been looking, Tae Woon’s lips curled into a faint smile.
“Hey hyung, you know Pavlov’s dog?”
“What was that again?”
“That experiment where they rang a bell every time they fed the dog, so eventually the dog started drooling just from the sound of the bell. Lately… I feel kind of like that.”
Was there some kind of trigger happening every time Tae Woon ate? As Sibaek puzzled over it, a soft kiss brushed his ear.
Lips as gentle as flower petals grazed his earlobe, but the voice that followed—low and warm—was soaked in heat. It didn’t just echo in his ears. It rippled through his skin, down to the very grain. That low whisper sent shivers straight to his core. Maybe Pavlov’s dog wasn’t the only one conditioned to respond.
“Every time I feel your eyes on my neck or your left hand… I get hard.”
“…Pretty sure it’s not just you.”
Sibaek’s lips moved, but the words were barely above a breath—so quiet Tae Woon didn’t hear them. He tilted his head, silently asking him to say it again.
Sibaek answered by closing the distance between them.
Tae Woon paused for just a moment, then parted his lips, and their tongues met—neither taking the lead. Just like that first night, Tae Woon’s kisses always started with urgency. Only after they shared warmth, exchanged saliva, tangled their tongues and reassured one another, did he start to truly savor the kiss.
At first, their teeth bumped awkwardly. But then it deepened—slow and thick. The way Tae Woon’s tongue coiled around heated flesh and thrust deep into his throat… it was familiar now. To both of them.
“Mm…”
Tae Woon didn’t even give him time to breathe. His tongue licked over the inside of Sibaek’s mouth before pulling away just enough for air. Heated breath surged into Sibaek’s lungs—but even that pause was too long. Tae Woon surged back in, tongues tangling in midair before colliding once again, chasing each other with breathless urgency.
What mingled in that kiss wasn’t just tongues. It was damp, panting breaths. It was saliva. It was a craving so thick it clung to every motion.
Drenched in heat, Kim Sibaek’s thoughts blurred—yet in that haze, one question echoed: How many more times will I get to feel this warmth? How many more days and nights do we have left?
The fingers on his back slid lower, teasing his waist. The kiss moved from his lips down along his jaw and neck, until Sibaek’s head naturally tilted back and rested against the couch cushion.
Lying there, he looked up at Tae Woon—at a familiar face beneath an unfamiliar ceiling.
He gently touched the scar on Tae Woon’s left cheek—the one that even healing couldn’t fix. Tae Woon smiled, soft and beautiful, and took his hand.
Kisses fell onto his palm, one after another. Then a rough tongue slowly dragged along his lifeline, tracing it like a sacred path. The heat of it was dizzying. A moan nearly slipped out.
But then—from the bathroom—came the splash of water, loud and sudden.
“……!”
It was Biendeoé.
As reality settled back in, Kim Sibaek regained his composure, and Tae Woon let out a deep sigh, burying his face against Sibaek’s shoulder.
“We haven’t even done anything close to having a kid, but it already feels like we’ve got one…”
Kim Sibaek gave a quiet, bitter chuckle and gently patted Tae Woon’s back.
“We’re basically here on a work trip. Doesn’t matter if we’ve got some downtime—doing anything else still feels… off, right?”
“Ugh, I already wanna go home…”
Grumbling like a child, Tae Woon bit into the nape of Sibaek’s neck, sinking his teeth in hard. The suction that followed left a deep, angry red mark. Only once it was clear and visible did he seem satisfied. Then, with a softer look, he ran his tongue over the reddened skin.
“Let’s go home before this fades… and do that other thing you were talking about.”
“…Yeah.”
Still flushed with leftover heat, Sibaek let out a drowsy sigh and wrapped his arms around the younger man’s firm back.
He wanted to go home.
To Tae Woon’s home.
***
The next day, the Hunters moved out to Gae-seong. It only took two hours to get there, and the moment they arrived, the city gave off an atmosphere not unlike Zone 0 outside the barrier. It was chaotic in a way that felt strangely alive—even more so than the areas surrounding Mak Slechth back in Korea.
Half the people on the streets were tourists or everyday residents. The other half looked like Hunters or support staff. And the mix of languages around them—Korean, Russian, Japanese, Chinese—made one thing clear: everyone was here for the same reason.
They’d all come to hunt in the Gae-seong Field.
“They’ve actually cut down the number of Hunters here by limiting access to the southern part of the field, where the worst of the monsters are. But since it’s so close to Pyongyang, it’s naturally evolving into a sort of forward base for field raids.”
When they reached the lodging area, a small group of Hunters from the Paranormal Phenomena Response Agency came out to greet them. With most major guilds having sent their main forces elsewhere, only a skeleton team had been dispatched to hold the line in Gae-seong.
The raid team assigned to the Dragon Eel hunt was a combined force: the 7777 Guild, the Tobazishu Hussars, and the Gabyeolcho Guild. And of course, leading them was none other than Gwak Yoonsang.
“Huh. Chief Gwak, feels like we’ve been seeing you an awful lot lately.”
Seo Gaeun greeted him with a teasing smile. Gwak Yoonsang returned it with his usual shameless grin.
“Well, I am the official handler personally appointed by our Director for Hunter Kim Sibaek, after all.”
The others chuckled at the joke, but Gwak Yoonsang wasn’t joking—not even a little.
After checking in and dropping off their luggage, the guildmasters and raid leaders began gathering in the conference room one by one.
Kim Sibaek, who was neither, had intended to rest in his room. But by the time he arrived, Gwak Yoonsang had already prepared a seat for him—right next to Tae Woon, complete with metaphorical leash attached.
No one objected, so Sibaek ended up staying.
A few minutes later, a group of Field Management Division staff burst into the room, arms full of documents.
“Sorry we’re late!”
They looked like they’d been analyzing data right up to the last second. Bowing quickly, they began distributing freshly printed handouts to everyone. One stepped up to the podium to begin the briefing.
“Good afternoon. I’m Gu Yeongmin from the Field Analysis Division.”
