“Ah, fuck. He passed out again.”
The man released the thigh he’d been gripping so hard it left red marks, muttering curses as he stood up. He had been right on the verge of finishing, and his face twisted into an ugly snarl of frustration.
The body hidden behind his massive frame was a wreck. Ribs jutted out from a thin, pale torso, the skin blotched red and blue with no space left unmarked.
If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, he could’ve been mistaken for a corpse. His swollen, festering eyelids were so inflamed it looked as if he hadn’t opened them in days.
Beep—
Scrubbing his scowling face with a rough hand, the man pressed a button on the bedframe. The door opened, and a man in a black suit stepped inside.
The room stank of blood and sex, but the suited man didn’t flinch. He’d seen it all before. Bowing slightly to the guest who had summoned him, he waited in silence.
“He’s passed out again. Are you sure you’re managing him properly? He can’t even guide like this.”
“My apologies, sir. I’ll send you another Guide right away.”
As the guest voiced his irritation, the suited man offered a courteous smile and gestured toward the open door. The guest paused, then added,
“I do like this one, though… At least give him some supplements or something. You guys make enough money. Every time I come here he’s nothing but bones. Sometimes it feels like I’m fucking a corpse.”
“Thank you for your feedback, sir. This way, please.”
The guest followed him out, leaving only Nabin sprawled on the bed. The employee gave him a glance, then pulled out his radio to file a report. The higher-ups were no doubt already watching through the cameras, but if he didn’t call it in, he risked being dragged out and beaten again like last time—so hard he’d nearly lost a molar.
Moments later, the door opened again, and Kim Minsu walked in. He approached Nabin, pressed a finger beneath his nose, and, feeling the faint brush of breath, lifted him in his arms. Without a word, he carried him into the attached bathroom.
The cramped space had no bathtub, only an old showerhead bolted to the wall. Without care, Minsu tossed Nabin down like a dirty doll.
He hit the tiles hard but didn’t stir. Minsu turned on the shower, letting icy water spray over his battered frame.
At first, Nabin didn’t react. Then, under the relentless cold, his body began to shiver. His eyelids fluttered, and unfocused eyes slowly blinked open.
Through the blur, he saw the tip of polished shoes. He knew them well—Minsu’s favorite pair, the ones he wore almost every day since buying them the year before. Their sharp clack-clack had haunted Nabin’s ears for months, a sound that made his body tremble before he even realized it.
“I-I’m sorry…”
As his foggy mind pieced things together, Nabin realized he had blacked out again while servicing a client. Forcing his frozen body to move, he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the wet floor. His tears streamed into the cold water running down the drain.
Since being sold to Minsu’s illegal guiding ring, Nabin could hardly speak at all. Especially in front of Minsu, he couldn’t string together a sentence without stuttering. The only person he could speak clearly to anymore was his mother, lying in a hospital bed.
First scars cut the deepest. Minsu had dragged him into a world of violence and sadism he’d never known before, etching terror into his very skin.
Every time he saw Minsu, he couldn’t breathe, his body trembling under the weight of suffocating fear. Even now, every rise of his chest stabbed him with pain, but the terror drowned out the agony.
“Nabin, there are ten clients booked today. What am I supposed to do if you pass out after the second one?”
Minsu crouched down, grabbed his soaked hair, and yanked his head up. For all that he was lifting a grown man, the weight in his grip felt disturbingly light.
Nabin’s blurry gaze had been fixed on Minsu’s shoes, but now he was forced to meet his eyes. His face was less injured than his body, but his lips, constantly bitten through in pain, were caked with dark, crusted blood.
As a D-rank Guide, Nabin’s abilities were pitiful. For an Esper to draw any benefit from him, he had to take them in—through his mouth, or below.
His small mouth had been torn and scarred from being forced to take things far too large, day after day. The corners never healed, marked with deep gashes. Cruel scars, yet they couldn’t smother the fragile beauty of his face.
Even after years in this hell, his clumsy reactions and fragile looks still drew Espers in. He had more regulars than most Guides.
Though Minsu capped each Guide at ten clients a day, Nabin’s popularity ensured he always hit the maximum. If not for the single rest day Minsu allowed each week to keep him from breaking completely, he might already be dead.
Before this, Nabin had been a miner, crawling through abandoned dungeons since boyhood. His frail body only weakened further under the strain. Seasonal changes brought illness like clockwork, dragging his health down even more.
Now twenty-five, he was smaller and weaker than he’d been at twenty. Even though staff brought him three meals a day, he rarely managed more than a few bites.
The only thing that kept him alive was the chance to see his mother on his rest days. Ironically, the more he suffered, the better her treatment became—Minsu had moved her to a far better hospital than before, funded by Nabin’s work.
Pitiful as he was, Minsu’s eyes held no pity. Nabin knew this. Bowing his head, voice trembling, he begged desperately, hands clasped tight.
Last time, when he hadn’t lasted through all the clients, he had been punished—locked in solitary confinement, a pitch-dark cell without the faintest glimmer of light.
He couldn’t tell if it was an hour, a day, three, or ten. The darkness was so complete he wondered if he’d gone blind. The cell was too small to even lie flat. Curled up, all he could hear was his own ragged breathing.
No food. No sleep. Nothing. By the time he was released, his fingers were bloody stumps from gnawing his own nails.
If he was thrown back in there, he would lose his mind for real. His only lifeline was his mother still being alive. The single mercy in all this was that Minsu had put her in a better hospital.
Minsu knew it too—Nabin’s mother was his only anchor, the one thing that kept him from breaking completely. She was his world, his light, his hope.
“I-I’ll do well… I c-can handle it… Just don’t send me back to the cell, p-please…”
“Good. And today, Esper Han Chul-soo is coming. One of your favorites. Isn’t that nice?”
“Aah—hhhuuhhh…” A strangled sob tore from Nabin’s lips, raw and broken. The sound was like an animal dying in a trap.
Out of the countless Espers who came and went, Nabin remembered very few. Han Chul-soo was one of them.
For Nabin to remember meant he had inflicted pain on par with Minsu’s. Every time he guided Han Chul-soo, it came with violence.
Other Espers were rough, but Han Chul-soo’s brutality was unmatched. He’d broken Nabin’s ribs more than once.
Any other client would’ve been punished for such treatment, but Han Chul-soo paid enough to get away with anything.
Among all of Minsu’s clients, Han Chul-soo was one of the biggest spenders. That alone bought him the freedom to be as cruel as he wished.
“But tomorrow’s your rest day. Just endure today. Understand?”
“Y-yes…”
Minsu always knew when to use the stick and when to dangle the carrot. At his words, a faint spark lit in Nabin’s fear-clouded eyes.
If he could just survive today, he could see his mother. Clinging to that thought, he nodded.
Satisfied, Minsu gave his dripping head a single pat before leaving the bathroom.
Nabin curled into himself, staring at the water circling the drain. It was cloudy, tinged red as it washed away the filth from his body.
“It’s okay… I just have to get through today…”
There was no one to talk to here. Minsu forbade Guides from forming bonds with each other.
The Espers who came spat only curses and crude jokes. Minsu’s words might sound gentle, but there was no real conversation to be had with him either.
So Nabin had grown the habit of talking to himself, just to remember he was still human. After murmuring reassurances, he let slip fragments of a song etched deep in memory.
It was the song he always sang when he was in pain, when despair pressed too hard.
Until the next client opened the door, he sat beneath the shower’s spray, piecing together the lyrics in a broken, trembling voice. It was desperate, as if singing could blot out the yearning to vanish, to dissolve into the drain without a trace.
