Gong Min was the only one left when he stepped closer to Han Jigang. His solemn gaze, heavy with worry, lingered on the pale face damp with cold sweat. Compared to the first time he’d seen him, his features were thinner, sharper—so much so that it felt as if someone had reached inside and wrung his heart.
“Where’s Tae Yishin?”
“…With Somin.”
“Are you going to the funeral hall right after this?”
“…Not yet. I have a mission to finish first.”
“Alright. Then I’ll go ahead.”
“Yeah.”
Gong Min kept watching until Han Jigang, carrying Nabin in his arms, vanished completely from sight. He couldn’t see Nabin’s face, wrapped in the blanket, but the small feet sticking out and swaying faintly lingered in his vision.
The thought that he wanted to be the one holding Nabin instead of Han Jigang left his mouth tasting bitter, like he’d chewed raw gall.
He prayed silently that nothing would happen to Nabin while he was away on his mission. With that wish clenched tight in his chest, Gong Min stood frozen, unmoving, like a stone.
***
Nabin slowly drifted back to consciousness, faint sounds tugging him out of the fog. Ever since the Artifact had broken, he’d been haunted almost daily by hallucinations and phantom voices.
Everyone he had ever known appeared before him—some with blurry faces, some as vivid as if they were standing there alive.
But all those visions shared one thing in common: whoever appeared, they always tried to kill him. Even his father, who had loved him more than anyone in the world, once appeared and wrapped ghostly hands around his throat. The pain of that—like his heart being ripped out alive—had made it impossible to breathe.
It wasn’t constant. Sometimes he slipped between reality and illusion, clawing back moments of clarity. Like now. Whenever he did, he would find himself either alone in a small room inside the grand mansion, or cradled in the arms of Han Jigang or Gong Min.
But this time was different. He was alone in a strange place, his body curled tight. Even the clothes he wore weren’t his. A pitch-black suit, stiff and foreign, rustled harshly whenever he shifted.
Where… am I?
As he stirred, lifting his head, voices he didn’t recognize pierced sharply into his ears. They weren’t loud, but each word rang with a strange weight, as though alive, insistent he listen.
“They said it was suicide, right?”
“That’s what I heard. She must’ve known… that dragging on such a stubborn life would only hurt her son more.”
“Isn’t that Guide the one everyone talks about?”
“Yeah. Always has S-rank Espers shadowing him like bodyguards. Weird to see him alone.”
“He doesn’t look good… shouldn’t we call someone?”
“Don’t bother. If the team leader catches us gossiping here, we’ll be writing reports. Come on, let’s go.”
The two women drifted away from the memorial hall, but their words lingered in the air around him like smoke.
Nabin sat there, stunned, struggling to grasp what he’d just heard. Their idle chatter faded, but one word clung to him relentlessly—suicide. It echoed endlessly in his ears, refusing to let go.
A cold dread crept up from his feet, coiling tight around his body. A familiar scent brushed his nose—incense. Not a scent from recent memory, but one he’d breathed in long ago, at his father’s funeral.
Though years had passed, the memory remained vivid, dragging him back. His mother had sat hollow-eyed, clutching a framed photo of his father, while his younger self had stayed beside her. Around them, similar whispers had floated in the air.
Maybe those people had assumed he was too shocked to hear… or maybe someone else’s tragedy had simply been gossip to them.
“The boy’s father died, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Died protecting the kid. Unlucky.”
“Now that she’s lost her Pair Guide, no wonder the mother’s out of her mind.”
“They say there are no relatives… Still, she should pull herself together. The kid’s sitting right there.”
“Let’s go. Nothing good comes from lingering at the funeral of someone so young.”
“You’re right. Pick up some salt on the way back and scatter it, just in case.”
The déjà vu was suffocating. This moment was a mirror of that one, down to the smallest detail. His chest tightened, his breath catching, as though unseen hands forced his head down.
He fought the pull, forcing himself to raise his head.
“No… no…”
Why did his worst fears never miss?
The nightmare from his childhood replayed itself, only with the roles reversed. This time, it wasn’t his father surrounded by white chrysanthemums. It was his mother.
The photo showed her in her prime, during her active years as an Esper. Younger, more radiant than he remembered her last. Clear eyes, touched with intelligence, and a faint, gentle smile—this was the happy mother he had longed to see again.
Nabin’s face drained of all color. Only his eyes, rimmed in red, betrayed his breaking heart. Tears welled and dropped in heavy beads to the floor.
“Mom…”
The incense smoke curling beneath her photo mocked him, rising as if to escort her away. But he wasn’t ready to let her go. If she left him too, then truly, he would be alone.
Why did everyone he loved abandon him? He wanted to grab someone—anyone—and demand an answer.
“I was wrong… Please, don’t leave me…”
He staggered to his feet and approached. Yet the smiling young woman in the photo felt like a stranger.
His trembling hands lifted the frame and pressed it against his chest. His legs gave out, crashing to the floor, pain shooting through his knees. But sharper still was the wound carving into his heart.
The doctor had said she was getting better. The last time he’d seen her, she’d looked healthier than she had in years, even after her struggles with illegal drugs.
So why… why so suddenly?
And then the word came back to him.
Suicide.
Tears slid down onto the glass, tracing the face in the photo. And in his blurred vision, it looked as if she was crying with him.
His face twisted with anguish. And in that moment, the truth struck: his desperate confession, whispered into her hand, had driven her here.
…But he hadn’t meant it. It hadn’t been real. Just madness spilling out in a moment of weakness. Why—why had she come back to her senses then, of all times, to take those words to heart?
“Mom…”
He lifted a hand, brushing her tear-streaked cheek in the photo. Only cold glass met his fingers. His broken heart bled into endless tears, soaking her frozen smile.
He stroked until the glass warmed beneath his palm, but it didn’t matter. She was gone. She wasn’t coming back.
No scream tore from him. No sobs. Only quiet, stifled weeping, as his bruised heart collapsed in on itself. His grief was a bottomless well, dragging him down into the dark.
***
“…Kim Nabin, are you alright?”
“…Yes. I’m fine.”
Han Jigang’s unease deepened. Nabin’s voice was calm—too calm, unsettling in its steadiness.
After bringing him to the funeral hall, Jigang had left briefly to handle the formalities on Nabin’s behalf as chief mourner. He’d been gone less than thirty minutes, even leaving a staff member to watch over Nabin in case something happened.
But when he returned, he’d found Nabin lucid again, his face streaked with tears.
At first, Jigang almost felt relief. Crying was better than being unable to cry at all.
But afterward, Nabin’s behavior defied all expectations. Rather than collapsing in sobs, he fulfilled his role as mourner with composure—greeting visitors, bowing, standing through the rites.
The tears stopped altogether. His face grew pale, cool, eerily calm. So calm it felt unnatural.
On the second day, even at the encoffinment ceremony, not a tear fell. He simply looked down at his mother’s body, expression steady, giving his final farewell before the casket was closed.
With that unreadable gaze, staring so deeply into her shrouded form, Nabin seemed like a bottomless well—dark, without end.
On the final day, her ashes were laid to rest in the same columbarium as his father’s. The place was old and shabby, nearly forgotten. Jigang suggested moving them both to a better memorial hall, but Nabin only shook his head, refusing firmly.
