Flames erupted from Han Jigang’s fingertips, searing through everything in their path as if to mirror the fury boiling inside him. He guided the fire, sending a stream of ashes toward Tae Yishin.
Yishin moved fast, but Jigang had already anticipated where he would dodge and spread the flames wide. Inevitably, Yishin’s whole body was drenched in gray ash. His jaw clenched tight—an almost instinctive reaction.
“…Enough, both of you.”
When Yishin, wild with anger, lunged at Jigang, Gong Min stepped between them. He couldn’t bear to watch his friends fight inside their precious home any longer.
Though outwardly calm, Gong Min was just as unsettled by Ryu Soh-an’s sudden change. Every time their eyes met, a strange, uneasy feeling twisted in his chest. It didn’t fade with time; it lingered, pulling his thoughts down dark paths.
Whenever that fear and faint disgust crept into what had once been clear skies between them, Gong Min had to fight the urge to grab Soh-an and demand an explanation.
The lack of answers grew heavier by the day. The boy who used to smile softly and call him “Min-hyung” with such warmth had begun to stiffen, his expression tightening every time he looked at him.
The change was so stark that even Gong Min, usually one to keep quiet, found himself thinking he needed to make time to talk to Soh-an. If his instincts weren’t wrong, today’s outburst had started right after Soh-an saw him enter the kitchen.
That thought made it impossible for Gong Min to stop Jigang and Yishin from digging into Soh-an’s secrets. Even if it was something Soh-an didn’t want to share, they needed to know.
Normally, Gong Min’s nature was to wait, to hold on until Soh-an was ready to talk. But after what had just happened, he realized patience alone wouldn’t solve anything.
“…I’ll handle the cleanup. Both of you, go back to your rooms.”
Still glaring at each other, Jigang and Yishin obeyed. Since Jigang had already burned everything to ash, tidying up wouldn’t take long.
Cracks had begun to appear in their once-peaceful life. They had started with Ryu Soh-an, but Gong Min had the sinking feeling it wouldn’t end there.
Something deep inside him whispered that Soh-an wasn’t the true cause. Today’s incident was only a prelude. The thought gnawed at him: just as the mansion’s walls had crumbled under the strain, so too would the bonds between them.
Looking around the empty first floor, Gong Min felt a hollow wind stir in his chest. Usually, being with his friends made him feel whole. Just sitting together in the mansion had always been a comfort.
But his ability kept him apart from others. The more he used it, the more isolated he became. Some revered him, but far more recoiled from the inhuman form his powers gave him.
Even so, thanks to his friends, Gong Min had never truly felt lonely. Yet lately, an inexplicable emptiness had begun to slip quietly into his heart.
Was hollow the right word? Or was it more like a bitter ache that gnawed at him?
Sometimes, when he sat blankly on the living room sofa staring out at the garden, his gaze would fall on the swing beneath the old pine tree—a tree that had been there long before the mansion was built.
It was just an empty swing swaying alone. And yet, whenever he looked at it, he felt as though time itself stopped.
The swing was still and silent, but Gong Min found himself wishing someone was sitting on it.
On a sunny day, under the pine’s shade, he wanted to see someone’s peaceful face as they let the swing’s gentle rhythm carry them.
It wasn’t only Soh-an who was changing. Gong Min, too, was slowly becoming someone different from the person he thought he knew. Those moments of self-awareness were growing.
“…Who are you?”
Even now, his subconscious struggled to recall the faint shadow of a faceless figure. Like someone erased from the world, their features were impossible to see.
Each time that figure surfaced in his mind, Gong Min’s eyes burned, and he couldn’t stop them from reddening. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had cried.
Yet sometimes, with just the brush of that memory, tears slipped down his cheeks before he realized.
His heart ached like something had been hollowed out, just as damp and raw as his tear-streaked face. They were his own emotions, and yet he couldn’t grasp their source. The not-knowing suffocated him.
“…I miss you.”
The words slipped out before he realized, whispered from somewhere deep in his unconscious mind. He yearned—madly—for someone he didn’t even know.
If he could see them again… he felt it wouldn’t matter if he disappeared from the world in their place.
***
Nabin was standing on a cloud. It made no sense, but that was how it felt. The ground beneath his bare feet was soft and white, like a billowing mass of clouds.
Then again, a thought struck him—if someone really stepped on clouds, would it feel like this? Probably not.
“…Where am I?”
He looked around, but all he saw was an endless expanse of cloud-like ground. Above it stretched a clear, vivid blue sky, like a crisp autumn day.
It wasn’t real—that much was certain. Yet strangely, he wasn’t afraid. Maybe because the place was so bright, with no trace of darkness anywhere.
“…Nabin.”
Even if he walked, he felt sure nothing about the scenery would change. With that odd conviction, he crouched down, resting his head on his knees, letting time pass aimlessly.
If this was just a dream, eventually he would wake. With that thought, he pressed his fingers into the soft ground. And then—he heard the voice he had longed for, the voice he had wished to hear again even after death.
“…Dad?”
Slowly, Nabin turned toward the sound. Just moments ago, there had been nothing but endless clouds. Now, impossibly, his father stood there.
He looked exactly as Nabin remembered from childhood. After his death, Nabin’s mother had destroyed every photo, unable to bear seeing them.
As the years passed, his memories had blurred. Sometimes, he couldn’t even recall his father’s face. But now, seeing him here, there was no mistaking him.
He stood just as he had on the day he died, in the same clothes from that tragic moment.
“Dad!”
Nabin ran toward him. His legs, stiff from crouching, carried him without a trace of numbness. Each step into the soft ground was light and full of energy, as if he had never run faster.
He had met his father once before in a dream—back when Kim Minsu had dragged him into an illegal guiding den, before the Center rescued him.
Back then, as he ran toward him, his body had shrunk into that of a child, as though he had been pulled back into the time of tragedy, the time where his father still lingered.
But now, even as the distance closed, he remained as he was—an adult.
“…My son, you’ve grown so much.”
His father pulled him into a tight embrace. To him, Nabin was still a child, no matter how grown. Even more so, perhaps, because he’d never gotten to watch his son grow up.
The day Nabin was born, holding him for the first time, was one of his happiest memories. The small, red, wrinkled baby with half-shut eyes had felt like the most precious being in the world.
He remembered how light the baby had been—so light he feared he might break him if he held on too tightly.
When that tiny mouth moved to babble, he had cried, truly cried. Hugging both his wife and child, he had wept uncontrollably, kissing his wife’s sweat-damp forehead.
Even the simple act of breathing had seemed miraculous. He had wanted to raise Nabin as the happiest child in the world. Both he and his wife had grown up without love, and they wanted their child to have what they never had.
Whenever Nabin scraped his knee or stumbled, he wished he could take the pain for him. That was how dearly he cherished him.
But now… every time his son suffered, Nabin’s father felt as if he were dying a second death.
He should have lived. He should have clung to life, no matter what. He shouldn’t have left everything to his wife. He should have survived—for his son.
