“Specifically, what do you mean?”
“I just never thought Tae Woon Oppa would go out of his way to save an older man.”
“…Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, considering what Tae Woon was going through at the time, it was pretty strange.”
“It’s not like anything happened that would’ve suddenly changed how he felt.”
“Maybe something happened that we don’t know about? He’s not the type to spell it all out and say, ‘Hey, I’m fine now.’”
Seo Gaeun let out a sigh.
“Yeah, but I still worry he’s just forcing himself to keep it buried.”
“Come on, really? He’s seemed totally fine up till now. He must’ve had a chance to deal with it, somehow.”
Tae Woon’s long-held trauma around adult men only began to heal after the Cataclysm. Faced with emergencies where not just his own life but others’ lives were at stake, he seemed to overcome it—rescuing people and shielding them from monsters.
The kids at the orphanage had lived in such a small, closed world. Tae Woon was no exception. If there had ever been an adult man he felt close to, there was no way the others wouldn’t have noticed or remembered.
“Ugh, who knows.”
The more he thought about it, the more tangled it all felt. Pi Minhyung roughly raked a hand through his hair.
“Let’s just say they met overseas by chance, fell for each other at first sight. He’s already completely gone for the guy—what difference does it make how it happened?”
“You’re right.”
Seo Gaeun stretched and let the question go.
Pi Minhyung, Seo Gaeun, Yang Eunho, and Lee Hangyeol.
The one thing all of them shared, after growing up together in the orphanage, was an absolute faith in Tae Woon. Even if he brought home a 94-year-old instead of someone who was 49 and said he wanted to marry him, they’d eventually accept it. None of them could have imagined that Kim Sibaek’s real age was ninety-seven.
“Anyway, when Hyung and Tae get back, want to grab dinner together?”
“I’ll pass.”
As expected, trust and romance were two completely different things. Seo Gaeun had no intention of getting dragged down with Pi Minhyung like some ghost pulling others down with it.
“By the way, where did they say they were going today?”
“Oh—right. They went to the Agency to meet the Director.”
Director Noh greeted Kim Sibaek and Tae Woon warmly. Her eyes sparkled with hope as she asked whether they had decided to stay in Korea, and Kim Sibaek responded with a smile that met her gaze. A broad smile bloomed on her face. But the moment he started talking about different worlds and twenty-one lost years, her expression turned deadly serious.
She went quiet, as if chewing over the information, then awkwardly broke the silence.
“I had considered the possibility of international complications given your situation, Mr. Kim Sibaek… but dimensional issues? That didn’t even cross my mind. My kid was dead set on you having trained in martial arts—but this isn’t a wuxia world, is it?”
It sounded like a joke, so Kim Sibaek just chuckled in response. If he went as far as revealing he was actually ninety-seven, it would’ve been too much.
The real issue was his whereabouts in Korea twenty-one years ago. His memories and official records were completely gone.
He and Tae Woon had prepared a plausible cover story. According to it, he passed the high school equivalency exam, worked at a tiny company with just five employees, and was transferred to Mak Slechth during the Cataclysm.
There were holes, of course. Many records were lost during the Cataclysm, and unidentified missing persons were still occasionally turning up. Still, the story wasn’t airtight—his supposed family situation, for one, and even if you skipped middle and high school with an equivalency exam, you still had to graduate elementary school. Anyone who wanted to dig could find the graduation records from that year.
But Kim Sibaek remained completely unfazed. His calm, steady demeanor gave off no signs of deceit, and Director Noh ended up accepting it. Frankly, the past didn’t matter all that much anymore.
“But Section Chief Gwak said it looked like you had some fencing experience. Were you an athlete?”
“I studied it as a hobby. I wasn’t good enough to compete or anything.”
The questions kept coming, but they focused more on Mak Slechth than his personal history, so he had no trouble answering. When he explained that monsters had been appearing there for a long time, her expression grew more troubled.
“It’s a bit overwhelming, getting so much information all at once.”
Director Noh gave a weary smile, as if throwing in the towel.
She was handling it all much faster than Kim Sibaek had expected, and he couldn’t help but admire her. Even Gwak Yoonsang—who already knew most of the background—still looked stunned, his mouth agape.
People often grew rigid in their thinking as they got older, but Director Noh was doing her best to grasp the mind-bending idea of dimensional travel. It was a relief that someone this flexible held a high position in government now that he had returned to Earth.
“I think I’ll need some time to process everything. Would it be alright if I asked more about the monsters later?”
“Of course.”
With no current quests, he had nothing but time. After that, the conversation shifted to lighter topics.
“Section Chief Gwak, do you have any questions?”
Director Noh clearly wanted a firsthand Q&A from someone who had seen Kim Sibaek’s powers in action. But when the opportunity came, Gwak ended up asking the one thing he really wanted to know.
“How exactly did you meet the Seven Guildmaster?”
That question held a simple, sincere curiosity: how had that vicious, inhuman Mad Dog ended up wagging his tail and acting sweet just for you? Though Kim Sibaek didn’t quite catch what Gwak actually meant.
“Seven Guild?”
“That’s my guild. The official name’s 7777, but people usually just call it ‘Seven’ for short.”
Tae Woon, who had been quiet until now, spoke in a soft, gentle tone. Gwak Yoonsang’s face reflexively twisted in discomfort, then quickly smoothed out as he caught himself.
“Why’d you name it 7777?”
“No big reason. Lucky sevens, you know? But 7777777 was too long, and if I cut it in half, 777 just sounded like a slot machine. So I went with 7777. Over time, I realized luck matters more than anything.”
“So you named your guild like someone hunting for a four-leaf clover? Wanting to attract good fortune… that’s kind of adorable.”
Watching Kim Sibaek casually press Tae Woon’s cheeks between his palms while Tae Woon giggled happily, Gwak Yoonsang fell into a brooding silence. Director Noh barely managed to keep a straight face—an impressive display of composure worthy of a leader.
Unaware of the awkward tension settling in, Kim Sibaek explained with a relaxed smile, unlike earlier.
“I’ve known Woonie since we were kids.”
“Ah… right…”
Gwak Yoonsang immediately regretted asking. That was an image he’d never unsee. Director Noh cleared her throat and gracefully changed the subject.
“First, we’ll need to recover your resident registration that was lost during the Cataclysm. Do you remember your ID number?”
“I remember the first part…”
“I know it.”
The first six digits—his birthdate—started with a 7. He only remembered the second half started with a 1. But before he could even start puzzling over it, Tae Woon answered without hesitation.
“How do you know my ID number?!”
“Um… someone we knew once stole your ID to sign up for an adult site.”
“……”
That was definitely Pi Minhyung. Kim Sibaek clenched his fist. Middle school kids sneaking onto adult sites? His glare sharpened. Sensing the shift, Tae Woon nervously peeked up at him, then slid a hand under the table and gently rubbed the back of Kim Sibaek’s hand with one finger, like a child trying to beg their way out of trouble.
“I swear I didn’t watch anything. I stopped him before he could use it and slipped your ID back into your wallet… really.”
“Can I believe that?”
Tae Woon nodded eagerly, and Kim Sibaek’s stern expression eased. Honestly, even if he had watched something, what was the point in getting worked up about something that happened 21 years ago? Even if it had been illegal, the statute of limitations had long since expired.
Noticing the mood had softened, Tae Woon gently took Kim Sibaek’s hand and slowly traced his palm with his fingertip. The unexpected ticklish sensation made Kim Sibaek’s fingers twitch.
With his head lowered, Tae Woon leaned in and whispered against his ear. His deep voice lightly brushed over the fine hairs of Kim Sibaek’s earlobe.
“I’ve always had way more intense fantasies in my head than anything porn could offer. I never needed it.”
“…?”
Intense? Not impotent, right? What the hell does intense mean in this context?
Ninety-seven years old and mentally stuck in the early 2000s, Kim Sibaek couldn’t decipher modern slang. He hadn’t exactly brushed up on his understanding of youth culture through TV shows, either. Meanwhile, Gwak Yoonsang, doing his best to ignore the sight of a grown man being teased over whether he’d watched porn, quietly took note of Kim Sibaek’s ID number.
Once the atmosphere had settled, Director Noh gently brought up the question that had been nagging her ever since.
“By the way, Mr. Kim—on the day you returned, how did Guildmaster Tae Woon manage to find his way to the Agency so quickly? Were you in contact? I was told you hadn’t reached out to anyone… yet you both showed up at the Agency right away.”
