Lee Hansol had been watching the teacher ever since he was born and able to identify the things in front of him.

‘Father.’

At some point, Lee Hansol began to call the teacher that. He remembers the moment when the brothers who had been born and raised with him twisted and were torn apart, dying one by one. ‘Father’ had watched those brothers with indifferent eyes. It was a look that reminded him of the expression on Ji Gwanyeong, the Esper’s, face when he cut his throat.

A vacant gaze, devoid of any affection.

Lee Hansol had grown accustomed to that.

His father, Oh Jinwoo, and Ji Gwanyeong—all of them had that look. No, not just them, every person he had met so far wore that expression. Hansol lifted the trembling corners of his lips and put on a smile. The teacher glanced at him for a moment before slowly opening his mouth.

“You will take your own life on the 29th day of the experiment.”

Hansol froze, unable to even blink, keeping the same expression he had when smiling. He was now processing each word he had just heard, slowly trying to understand it.

But that understanding didn’t come easily. It felt like a command input into a broken machine that kept malfunctioning. The teacher, seemingly indifferent, asked once more in a casual tone, as if asking about everyday matters.

“Do you understand?”

“Wh-what…?”

“Of course, you will maintain control of the pairing with Ji Gwanyeong.”

The name of the man who had now become the Esper was revealed. But it didn’t even register properly in Hansol’s ears. The teacher asked again, staring at Hansol with wide eyes, seemingly vacant.

The teacher hated asking twice. Hansol knew that well.

“Do you understand my words?”

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly understand. But Hansol could not say that he didn’t understand. From the moment he was born, Hansol was made incapable of defying the man’s words. From the moment he took his first breath, Hansol’s choices had always been the same.

‘Agree,’ ‘Follow,’ ‘Comprehend.’

Hansol had always lived that way. But this time, it was different. That man was his father. A father is supposed to love and cherish his child above all else. Hansol reached into his mind and brought out the faded ‘ordinary sense’ he had learned.

Of course, that had never applied to Hansol.

“A promise must be kept. Once a month has passed, it must be handed over. So, let’s clean things up before then.”

“Father, father, wait, please, father!”

As the man suddenly stood up and walked briskly toward the back, Hansol’s legs weakened, making it hard to follow. But even as he stumbled, Hansol caught up with the teacher and grabbed his pale robe.

“Hands!”

Hansol flinched at the sharp scolding.

The sound echoed faintly against the wall, stabbing Hansol’s heart. The teacher’s eyes gleamed ominously. Hansol read the disgust in his father’s face.

“Let go.”

“…”

“How dare you touch that filthy thing.”

The young man, neither an Esper nor a guide, collapsed. The teacher quickly left the room of despair, showing no sympathy, and exited the room of greed. Hansol had been condemned to death by the one who had given him life in the place where he was conceived.

Now, the countdown for the experiment was down to two.

D-13.

Lee Hansol counted the remaining time with vacant eyes.

This can’t be happening. This truly cannot happen. He sat alone in that empty place for a long time before standing up with a pale face. Hansol knew that if he couldn’t find a way to change the teacher’s mind, the falling reality wouldn’t change.

Lee Hansol could not defy the teacher’s words.

Now, there were only two choices left for Hansol.

First, win the heart of Ji Gwanyeong, the current Esper. In a way, this should have been the easiest choice. But Hansol knew very well that the possibility of this first option being realized was incredibly slim.

He wasn’t confident.

The cold-eyed monster, Ji Gwanyeong, would rather kill him than willingly cooperate—he had learned that from the scars of the past.

So, now only one path remained.

Hansol ran through the center like a madman. Angry and contemptuous gazes followed the guide’s back. In this place, Hansol was like a virus to them. They didn’t even throw stones of condemnation at him, a man who had driven an Esper’s ten years into a pit of misery.

They merely poured out quiet, sincere rejection.

But right now, Hansol was looking for the man he had driven into that nightmare. The second Esper, whose power was immeasurable—Oh Jinwoo. As soon as Hansol spotted him after searching for a while, he shouted urgently.

“Jinwoo!”

From the moment Hansol appeared, Oh Jinwoo’s face stiffened. The strange aura of the guide Hansol clashed with the dark shadow of ten years they had shared together.

“I… I have something to say. I need to say it, now.”

At that, someone’s eyes turned more irritable than Oh Jinwoo’s.

It was Oh Yeon. There were still many people in the center who viewed Oh Jinwoo unfavorably. Even if there was evidence that Oh Jinwoo hadn’t harmed his guide, they couldn’t fully trust him.

But now, to see Hansol—who was familiar with Oh Jinwoo sitting on such a sharp edge—there couldn’t have been a worse situation. Oh Yeon furrowed his brow and blocked Hansol’s path.

“Ignore him. What’s there to talk about with that?”

“Hyung. It’s fine.”

‘That.’

Hansol clenched his fist at the word used to refer to him, but he didn’t react sharply. Oh Jinwoo patted his brother on the shoulder before walking ahead. They were heading to one of the few places in the center, the one that matched Oh Jinwoo’s memory from ten years ago, where few people ever went.

The Esper leaned against the wall, keeping some distance from his guide, who had walked ahead.

“What’s this about?”

“Ugh… yeah. Well…”

Hansol hesitated.

Oh Jinwoo, who had only seen this kind of face a few times in the past ten years, thought it was odd. Hansol often had this anxious look on his face, especially when he talked about ‘Father’.

The Esper’s guess soon proved to be accurate.

“Father is looking for an Esper. One as strong as you or Ji Gwanyeong. A really strong Esper. You know that, right?”

He couldn’t not know. The reason Hansol had killed his previous guide was simple. Because the guide had been ‘strong.’

For a long time, Oh Jinwoo had wondered—if he hadn’t been the ‘immeasurable’ Esper, would he have died? If he had been an ordinary Esper, wouldn’t his death have been inevitable? Wouldn’t the parents of Gaha and his own parents have made that same miserable choice?

Oh Jinwoo’s guide, Kim Gaha, was a man one year older than him and an exempt from pairing. He had always lived on numerous medications, far too frail to undergo the lengthy matching tests with an Esper.

However, after confirming Oh Jinwoo’s explosive power, the process of re-evaluating pairing with exempt candidates began, and Oh Jinwoo and Kim Gaha were paired. Of course, this took a lot of persuasion.

Their physical contact was always cautious. Even holding hands was done with careful concern that even that small contact might hurt. Kim Gaha always smiled faintly at Oh Jinwoo’s consideration.

Oh Jinwoo cursed himself for not being able to protect his frail, sickly pair. After collapsing from a sudden headache, filled with strange anxiety, he rushed to find his pair, only to find Kim Gaha already dead. And standing beside him was Hansol… wearing a twisted smile!

“But I don’t think Ji Gwanyeong is the answer. That person hates me too much. So, so Jinwoo.”

Hansol babbled on, continuing his speech in a disjointed manner as he watched the Esper, who showed no reaction to his words.

“I didn’t want to be your guide either… You know that, right? I can’t go against my father, and so… my father said I needed to find a strong Esper.”

“…”

The man in front of him remained silent, his mouth shut, as though lost in thought. Hansol, seeing the Esper’s expression, grew even more anxious.

“Ten years… I know it was a rough rebound. But it couldn’t be helped, right? That’s why we were together. So please, just help me once. Go to my father and talk to him. He really, really wants to kill me. Okay? There’s no time. I’m serious.”

It was a cunning request. Hansol’s words subtly omitted the time when the teacher was supposedly trying to kill him. Oh Jinwoo took his time to process the desperate sentence and slowly opened his mouth.

“I want to know something.”

“Huh? Huh, what?”

“…When Gaha ended up like that, why did I lose consciousness?”

Hansol hesitated for a moment at this question, one he had never asked before. In truth, Oh Jinwoo had always wanted to ask this, but he had never been able to bring himself to ask, especially since Hansol seemed to share a connection with his pair in a way no one else did.

Whatever the reason, the guilt of not being able to protect Kim Gaha had kept him silent. Hansol swallowed hard as he saw the man with sunken eyes staring at him.

‘Should I lie? Or should I tell the truth?’

Various thoughts raced through his mind. After a moment, Hansol chose a response that mixed both answers.

“Well, the… matching with the guide… was broken.”

“…”

“Because of the rebound…”

“Hansol.”

Before Hansol could finish his sentence, Oh Jinwoo interrupted him. The Esper’s indifferent gaze sent a chill down Hansol’s spine.

“Are you afraid of dying?”

It wasn’t a harsh question, nor one filled with anger—just a calm inquiry.

“That…!”

“For ten years, all I’ve wished for was that.”

He meant it.

Right now, this Esper was speaking with sincerity.

Hansol, feeling as though his throat had closed up, could neither argue nor defend himself. His lips moved but no words came out. The thoughts of the Esper, which had remained unspoken for ten years, carried the weight of those years. Perhaps if the words had come out in anger, Hansol might have been able to respond.

But the man in front of him spoke each sentence slowly and steadily, without any agitation.

“Don’t use ‘Father’ as an excuse, Hansol. Gaha, Gaha’s parents, and even my parents…”

“…”

“You killed them all. But you don’t want to die? Why?”

Oh Jinwoo met Lee Hansol’s trembling gaze directly. His eyes didn’t hold a reprimand for the past ten years.

“There are things in this world that cannot be understood or forgiven.”

For a long time, Oh Jinwoo hadn’t blamed the young man before him the most, but himself. The Esper’s final declaration fell from his lips. It was hatred with all his might.

“For me, that’s you, Lee Hansol.”

***

Choi Taehun was feeling a strange repetition of the past.

“Ji Gwanyeong ○○○ Hotel Sighting.”

“…”

“Please tell me it’s a dream, please.”

“It’s not a dream.”

The agency team leader’s head slumped. Choi Taehun, without realizing it, turned his gaze away. This time, Choi Taehun was also an accomplice, a sinner among sinners, who had extended the time and rolled around together without even a 1% thought of stopping.

Ji Gwanyeong, who had openly taken up residence in Choi Taehun’s apartment, was leisurely flipping through the script the manager had prepared, his legs crossed. He had said he would cancel all his schedules to conserve his energy, and it turned out he wasn’t lying.

“What in the world is going on? Why doesn’t Ji Gwanyeong understand his position? He’s one of the top actors in Korea, and he’s having a hotel scandal with a man!”

“Why do you leave out the word ‘guide’?”

Choi Taehun blinked at the Esper’s words. In truth, he was called a guide, but he wasn’t actually matched with Ji Gwanyeong. In other words, he didn’t need to have sex with him.

But naturally, the Esper didn’t say that. The agency team leader was holding the latest Ji Gwanyeong and Choi Taehun scandal tabloid, his hand limp and weak.

Of course, the contents were predictable.

[Top Star J, Spotted Staying at a Hotel with a Man, Delaying Check Out, Enjoying a Passionate…]

Choi Taehun gave up reading after “passionate” appeared. A few weeks ago, if this had happened, he would have been completely lost, but somehow, he felt indifferent now. Maybe “resignation” would be a more accurate description.

In truth, Taehun’s hips were still a bit stiff.

He had spent the last two days eating, sleeping, having sex, having sex, and having sex with Ji Gwanyeong. He had been pierced by the man, crying, clinging, moaning, to the point where he thought he was losing his mind.

The fact that his voice still hadn’t fully recovered was proof of that. He had been rolling around like an animal for two days, to the point where he even doubted if his lover’s matching score had suddenly reversed. It was an absurd thought, but he couldn’t help but think that if it wasn’t true, someone with no memory wouldn’t be able to kiss him so relentlessly and thrust his hips without stopping, towards someone who had no feelings for him.

“The reporters are calling non-stop! They’re coming to the agency building and asking if it’s really Choi Taehun! It’s a good thing they were able to stop them from taking pictures at the hotel, if anything had leaked…”

“If it leaked, what?”

“Aaaaaack!”