But the person who was rolling his eyes and secretly watching me from over there was undeniably ‘Choi Taehun.’ The Esper, wearing a hat pulled down low, was suspicious whether that fool who was lingering around me was truly my guide.

If there’s a brain and intelligence, could he really act like that?

‘Why, he pretended not to know me at the center?’

So, Ji Gwanyeong decided to ignore Choi Taehun this time.

And then, that fool of a guide seemed to be absolutely convinced that I hadn’t recognized him. With his eyes sparkling, he took slow steps closer to me. Ji Gwanyeong, already knowing the script, focused on it while suppressing his boiling frustration, wondering how he even had the guts to come this far.

In the end, Choi Taehun didn’t last long before getting caught by a staff member.

After all, no matter how much he tried to hide behind a hat and stand in a corner, it was impossible for someone with such a tall frame to not be noticed. Ji Gwanyeong genuinely doubted if that guide wasn’t a bit lacking in some way when he saw Choi Taehun hiding behind a rack at the shooting site.

He wasn’t an ostrich, and thinking that just hiding his head would make him invisible made Ji Gwanyeong question his intelligence. But what truly made Ji Gwanyeong furious was what happened next.

“Hehe. Hello.”

“Yes. Hello. Thanks for the other day.”

‘The other day?’

An eyebrow of the Esper raised.

He overheard the conversation between Choi Taehun and a female staff member, not missing even a single breath. To be precise, he was ‘eavesdropping,’ but Ji Gwanyeong was the type of person who wouldn’t label his actions like that.

“What’s going on today? Is it because of Ji Gwanyeong?”

“…Ah, no. It’s not.”

Though spoken in a whisper, if Ji Gwanyeong missed something like that, it would be a disgrace to the Esper’s name. Ji Gwanyeong secretly chuckled to himself.

At that moment, the guide was whispering with a petite staff member behind the rack, his shoulder barely touching hers. For someone who had caused such a fuss, talking like this in a corner of a drama set was truly something.

Ji Gwanyeong, still staring at the script he wasn’t reading, focused on Choi Taehun’s husky voice.

Thump, thump, thump. The guide’s heartbeat was rapidly increasing. This was truly ridiculous. I had been overwhelmed by the mountains of information filling the mansion just the day before, and now, the awkward laughter of the guide in front of me was irritating.

A small click of the tongue escaped from the Esper’s mouth. Then, shortly after, Ji Gwanyeong pressed the name ‘Boyfriend’ stored in my phone.

Exactly five seconds later, a sharp intake of breath was heard from behind the rack where Ji Gwanyeong had been listening intently.

“Ha.”

Of course, this ‘boyfriend, Choi Taehun’ was indeed the insane guide, Choi Taehun.

Ji Gwanyeong calmly stood up from my chair. The vibrating phone, clutching the name ‘Boyfriend,’ was staring at me with the dumbest expression on his face. His mouth, which had opened in surprise, looked pitiful.

What irritated Ji Gwanyeong even more was the way the surrounding people started nodding their heads with overly pleased expressions as soon as their gazes met between the guide and him.

In a soft and gentle voice, one that could melt anyone, Ji Gwanyeong spoke.

“…Choi Taehun.”

“Cough, no, huff, yes?”

“Follow me.”

The surrounding staff and actors, watching the conversation of the lovers, had expressions that showed they would support the romance between the two men in their prime. However, Choi Taehun, who knew Ji Gwanyeong better than anyone, had thoughts far different from these sweet ideas. In fact, he was sure of it.

Right now, the Esper was smiling with eyes that clearly wanted to twist my neck. That was definitely, absolutely, and really not a pleasant smile. But there was no way or reason to refuse what that man was saying.

The guide blinked his eyes and hesitated to follow Ji Gwanyeong, who was walking ahead with confident strides. Then, a beat later, he recalled what I had heard and thought about it.

How did he know my name?

Choi Taehun’s youngest brother, Choi Jeongmin, enjoys crime investigation stories, which is a bit surprising given his calm demeanor. Since they have a significant age gap, the eldest, Taehun, finds his younger brother quite adorable and has watched a few dramas with him.

In those videos, the unsolved cases often reach a dead end because there are no CCTV footage or witnesses. As a result, at this moment, the guide thought, “Thank goodness. There are plenty of witnesses.”

“……”

“……”

Ji Gwanyeong, who had brought him to the set, didn’t say anything. Taehun avoided the piercing gaze of the Esper, looking down at the ground like a guilty person, and then realized that the place he was standing at was the same spot where he had secretly kissed his Esper and laughed.

Everything was the same—location, the person accompanying him—but the atmosphere was completely different from that time, a strange situation. Taehun barely suppressed a sigh that was about to escape.

Then, Ji Gwanyeong spoke up.

“Center-affiliated guide, Choi Taehun.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Should I ask why you’re here first? It seems too sloppy to call it spying.”

The voice and face were the same, but the words were entirely different. Taehun was momentarily speechless. He had never been the target of Ji Gwanyeong’s sarcastic remarks. The Esper, who never bowed to anyone, would usually yield to his partner and would change his opinion without hesitation.

Though it was a completely erased past now.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“……”

“I was just thinking of quietly staying out of the way, but… I think I’ve caused a disturbance. I truly apologize.”

Taehun bowed his waist. Ji Gwanyeong’s eyes narrowed slightly at this. The guide had unintentionally passed the first test of this difficult Esper. Before Ji Gwanyeong had lost his memory, he had really liked Taehun’s respectful attitude, which made him more willing to accept his control.

Even though Taehun held Ji Gwanyeong’s life-or-death power, he didn’t tremble or try to sit above him. Since becoming lovers, it was a bit different in a more symbolic sense, but outside of that, in terms of their usual interactions, Ji Gwanyeong received impeccable treatment from his lover.

“Why were you planning to quietly stay out of the way?”

The leisurely but pointed sentence made the guide’s shoulder flinch slightly. The Esper didn’t miss anything with his sharp eyes.

“There must be a reason why you approached me. You were my ‘pair guide,’ Choi Taehun.”

“…How do you…”

“Didn’t you search your name on the internet?”

“Aah… Right.”

He was an idiot. Truly an idiot.

Ji Gwanyeong observed the clean-cut man, who was nodding absentmindedly, and thought about it. But despite the guide’s apparent foolishness, there was something he needed to confirm. A fact check that had been uncomfortable and prickly, like a thorn embedded in his fingertips, was still lingering.

“I have a question. Choi Taehun.”

“Yes.”

“What was my relationship with you, Choi Taehun?”

As soon as the question dropped, the guide’s mouth snapped shut. The Esper was incredibly attentive to this silence. But right now, the guide was far more troubled by that question than anyone else could know. Ji Gwanyeong had asked him the same question. Even though he had completely lost his memory, was it really fair for him to be put in this situation?

Taehun, who had been glaring back at Ji Gwanyeong’s sharp eyes, belatedly came to his senses and hesitated before speaking.

“Well… Umm, you probably won’t believe it, but…”

“Please, speak.”

“We were dating.”

“Who was with whom?”

Ji Gwanyeong, even with his memory lost, wanted the elements of the sentence to be filled correctly. This was what surprised Taehun in that moment.

“Well… It was me and Ji Gwanyeong.”

The man, who could be considered one of the most handsome men in South Korea, looked as if he couldn’t believe the words, as if the sky was falling down. He refused to accept it, even though Taehun was saved in his phone as ‘boyfriend,’ and there were articles about himself and this man all over the internet, acting like juicy weekly news material.

He couldn’t understand why a ‘pair guide’ would fill the entire mansion with information about Taehun and make a big deal out of it. A date on Gyeongnidan-gil? He thought it was completely out of his mind.

After a long pause, Ji Gwanyeong finally spoke his thoughts.

“Did you threaten me, claiming to be a guide?”

“No, Ji Gwanyeong, you were the one who asked me to date you first!”

Taehun looked genuinely wronged.

The man, who usually spoke quietly without raising his voice, was now frowning and speaking louder, and there was no hint of lying in his words. Ji Gwanyeong had hoped that it would be a blatant lie instead of such obvious sincerity. He stared at the guide silently for a moment before finally asking, as if prepared:

“What exactly did I say?”

“……”

“What did you just say?”

I didn’t like the hesitation I could sense from the face that was avoiding words while just shifting its gaze around. Clearly, it was nonsense that didn’t even deserve an answer. That’s why they probably couldn’t respond.

Ji Gwanyeong thought this, raising an eyebrow. Choi Taehun finally opened his mouth despite the expression, which he had never wanted to reveal. It was a soft voice, almost like it was about to crawl into the ground, but it was loud enough for an Esper like Gwanyeong to hear.

“…‘Let’s do it, that damn relationship.’”

Somehow, it was a terrifying feeling to be sure that this cursed sentence would have come from his own mouth. The Esper let out an irritated, hollow laugh.

A long sigh mixed with it. It was clear that the frustration towards himself, who must have done all sorts of stupid things during those 8 months that he couldn’t remember, was the cause. But the guide wondered how the lover would respond to that, swallowed dry saliva, looked around cautiously, stepped back a bit, and carefully opened his mouth.

“Ji Gwanyeong, I don’t have a recovery ability.”

“Pardon?”

“If you hit me, I’ll die.”

Would he really kill him? Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill him?

If you think about it, isn’t all of this centered around that? Ji Gwanyeong thought as he looked at Choi Taehun, who solemnly added, “I’ll really go down with one blow.”

The teacher doesn’t come out of the center’s basement all day.

That place is the only one in the building that escapes the surveillance cameras that fill every corner. The dim, sealed-off space that had been shut down ten years ago when the teacher disappeared is not even shown on the center’s blueprint, and the inhumane traces of making countless “guide test subjects” like Lee Hansol are long gone, but the center director, Kwon Dahee, still can’t shake off the shadow of that darkness.

It only got worse after the teacher appeared again.

“…Please rest a bit before coming. You haven’t slept at all, have you?”

Oh Yeon cautiously spoke to Kwon Dahee. She had been buried in old documents for a while, and after a few seconds of not responding, she reacted a bit late. The only thing in her mind right now was one thing.

‘D-23.’

Already nearly a week had passed in the one-month experiment. The center director, with a pale face, simply raised the corner of her mouth.

“Thank you. Has the analysis of the teacher’s range of actions come out?”

“Yes. But there’s no significant anomaly. I double-checked all the counseling logs the teacher had entered into the system over the past three years, but there isn’t a single suspicious word.”

The center director muttered as she quickly checked the files that Oh Yeon had submitted through the system.

“If the person who went missing started coming into the center three years ago and began planting suggestions in the guides, there must be a reason for that…”

Three years ago.

The Esper researchers focused on the time when the teacher appeared. The experiment with the Ji Gwanyeong-Choi Taehun pair, which had suddenly started, was probably never part of the original plan.

No matter how much of a teacher they were, it was impossible to imagine connecting an unknown guide, who had never matched with a top star or a single Esper, with someone who had just begun to rise in fame.

The secret reason the teacher entered the center had a different purpose.

And it was clear that the teacher, after entering, had planted cruel suggestions in every guide he encountered for that reason.

“Starting from three years ago, or even up to five years ago, we’ve checked all the issues related to Espers both domestically and internationally. Even radical religious organizations. But nothing about the massacre of over 600 guides and the ensuing terrorism that the out-of-control Esper would cause.”

“Now it’s over 600, but if his interest hadn’t shifted to that pair, he would have continued counseling in secret without revealing his true identity.”

“Yes. So…”