Chalice stepped up close and spoke near Rodeo’s ear — cool and measured, as if suppressing his anger — then turned and walked straight away.
In the moment Rodeo stood frozen, a chill prickling across his skin, Chalice had already disappeared from view.
Beneath the faint glow of the dining table light, Rodeo smiled like a general relishing the start of a battle.
Blue dawn light had settled into the room through the window, and Rodeo lay blinking as he listened to the sounds coming from beyond his door.
The clock read 7:10.
Chalice rustled around as though trying to leave the house early, then came the click of the lock, followed by the familiar chime announcing the door had latched shut.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Rodeo lay still, only his eyes blinking, and only after those three seconds did he pull himself upright.
He rose rubbing both eyes with one hand, and a long shadow stretched across the room.
Then a sudden brightness caught his eye — he turned toward the window, and only then did the sound of birdsong finally reach his ears.
“…Leaving early.”
It was the second morning waking up in Chalice’s apartment.
Rodeo opened the bedroom door and stepped out, looking around the place.
It was said to be a move made for proximity to a matched esper — but compared to the facility dorms Rodeo remembered, this place felt at least a hundred times more like somewhere a person actually lived.
Flower vases here and there, very little empty space — for Chalice, he’d done well, Rodeo thought — but there was one thing that struck him as odd: there wasn’t a single trace of anyone else having ever been here.
In Rodeo’s memory, Chalice had always been surrounded by people.
Though Rodeo knew what Chalice was really like beneath the surface, on the outside he had at least been impartial and fair in how he treated both Guides and espers alike — a true hero of the facility, by every measure.
Facility people, tangled up with one another and rarely able to marry freely, tended to have relaxed attitudes toward romance — and so there had always been people hovering around Chalice.
Because Chalice had been particularly warm even toward espers, he was perpetually surrounded by a following of admirers, regardless of gender, Guide or esper alike.
He was a man of strong ego, and wouldn’t have thought to lean on someone as a refuge once he’d fallen socially — but he surely would have needed at least one person to talk to, for some emotional stability.
Yet he looked like someone who had never once let anyone close.
They had only spent a day or two together, but Chalice seemed to have no one who contacted him personally, no hobbies, no life outside of work — and not a single photograph of anyone set out the way people usually kept them at home.
Even now he was only just barely managing to avoid simultaneous Guiding sessions.
“I’ve never come across a single passing Guide, so I have no way of knowing if they all live like this…”
Rodeo set his glass down on the dining table and muttered.
In truth, he already knew.
Ten years ago or now, Chalice had never been sincere with anyone.
Not when he smiled and showed kindness. Not when he spoke up for someone with all the right words.
If anything, he had probably said more genuinely true things during his all-out fights with Rodeo.
“…Fuck, I know all of this, so what am I even doing…”
Rodeo pressed his fingers to his temple and let out a long sigh.
Even amid all the chaos of arriving in the future, Chalice had kept appearing in his dreams in ways that made no sense — and Rodeo felt a revulsion toward himself for it, for never being able to stop pulling him into his sleep no matter the circumstances.
Within all of that, the uncertainty of whether what he felt toward Chalice was hatred or desire was a precarious thing to sit with.
If it had been ten years ago, the situation of having to face Chalice would never have arisen at all — but with the Time Warp, the two of them had become entangled in an instant.
He wondered whether things might have been different if he hadn’t gone so long without seeing Chalice before all this.
Whether it might have been different if he had been a stable enough esper that he never needed to know about the Decorker.
Or if the Decorker hadn’t made Chalice into something so vulnerable.
Or if desire hadn’t found its way into whatever he felt for Chalice.
Rodeo couldn’t shake these thoughts about things he could never change — and what finally pulled his mind out of that useless spiral was the short buzz of his phone.
[Come through the front gate today. Bring everything in your wallet. You said you wanted your name found.]
It was Carousel.
Rodeo muttered a quiet string of curses under his breath, ran a hand through his hair, and got up.
If he was going to do something reckless, now was the time.
He didn’t know what Chalice was afraid of — but if there were enemies, you struck before they could get a read on you.
The possibility that those enemies might be former comrades pricked at him like a needle from somewhere in the back of his mind, but he turned yesterday’s memories over slowly and gave a single nod.
“Either way, what’s happening right now is definitely insane.”
Suddenly, the face of Ink as he knew him flashed before Rodeo’s eyes.
Among all the changed faces he’d come across, Ink’s was one he still hadn’t seen.
He briefly tried to imagine what Ink might look like now, then let out a quiet laugh and shook his head.
“Shouldn’t be smiling when I’m about to go mess with someone.”
Rodeo picked up his phone and fired off a reply to Carousel.
[Prepare the dedicated Guide registration paperwork too.]
Rodeo finished his shower, pulled on briefs and jogger pants, and headed to the kitchen to throw together a quick breakfast — only to find his phone on the dining table vibrating furiously.
[Carousel]
It was Carousel, as expected.
Rodeo checked the clock and pressed the answer button.
[What’s this all of a sudden?]
Carousel’s voice came through unusually cold.
“…Isn’t this exactly why you moved him next door and used the broken window as an excuse to shove me in here?”
[No — even if that were the plan, not like this out of nowhere. What do you even know about the current situation?]
“Everyone keeps saying the same thing… What do I know? How much am I supposed to know?”
[…I figured. Chalice hasn’t agreed to this either, has he?]
“Chalice agreed a long time ago. He’s the one who applied to move next door. Why does he need to agree again.”
[Stop making excuses. Do you think Chalice would’ve agreed knowing it was you who came up as the match, when his motivation already hit rock bottom?]
“Ha. Someone’s gotten awfully comfortable.”
[Hey — did something happen between you and Brian yesterday?]
“We talked a lot.”
Rodeo let out a hollow laugh and continued.
“Fuck, his dad and those friends of his really made a mess of everything, didn’t they.”
At that, Carousel fell silent without a word, and with his voice gone, only the birdsong filled the quiet.
Rodeo waited for a reply, then let out a short, humorless laugh.
“Don’t tell me. You’re one of the ringleaders of that Liberation Movement too?”
[If you hadn’t jumped ten years, you would’ve been one of them too — what kind of question is that.]
“…Lumping me in with that crowd.”
Carousel’s voice started rising.
[Are you sure? Really sure you wouldn’t have been?]
“…….”
[The Rodeo I know? Maybe you don’t realize — your name came up a lot during the Liberation Movement.]
Carousel continued with a sneer in his voice.
[If Rodeo had been there, they said, he would’ve slaughtered the lot of them. Who? Every last person who treated espers like slaves — facility executives, Guides, all of them. It wouldn’t have been a liberation movement, it would’ve been a war. A massacre. Everyone was real disappointed you weren’t around. And you’re saying that wouldn’t have been you?]
“…Okay, sure — up to the liberation movement I would’ve jumped in with both feet. Why wouldn’t I, the world was absolute shit. But what they’re doing now? I wouldn’t have gone that far. How much espers fundamentally depend on Guides — or hell, whether Guides are even human. Seems like everyone’s forgotten all that now. Then what exactly is different between how the facility used to treat espers and how the facility treats Guides today?”
[So — looking at the faces you used to call comrades — you’re saying you can stand up for Chalice? Not just any Guide, but Chalice — the one you despised so much — and you’re suddenly going to be his champion?]
Rodeo was briefly struck speechless, then thumped his chest once or twice in frustration before gripping the phone tight and shouting.
“Stand up for him? I’m just saying I want to register a dedicated Guide. It’s not like having a dedicated Guide means sleeping together nowadays anyway. And it’s not like registering a dedicated Guide is some kind of marriage the way it used to be — what do you mean champion, what do you mean standing up for him?”
When the voices had risen as high as they could go, Carousel went quiet, then murmured in a low, sigh-laden voice.
[…That’s exactly what I mean when I say you don’t know anything.]
“Just because I register one Guide as dedicated, I have to go to war with every esper out there? Is that some kind of ritual they’ve cooked up now?”
At Rodeo’s words, Carousel tried several times to speak and each time failed to finish — letting out a frustrated roar instead.
After the stifling silence that followed, Carousel answered with nothing but the sound of a long, exhaled sigh.
[Just come in. I’ll explain. Like I said before — remember that espers won’t leave Chalice alone. Even if you put in the registration, I wanted you to do it with full knowledge and preparation, not come charging in headfirst like this… Yeah, I’m the idiot. I’m the idiot for meeting you after ten years and completely forgetting you’re out of your mind.]
Before the morning birdsong had even quieted, Rodeo’s car glided smoothly through the auto-recognition gate at the front entrance.
Driving notably fast through the complex grounds, blasting music loud enough to spill out of the windows — every pair of eyes turned toward him.
But unbothered by any of it, Rodeo rolled his window all the way down, drove as if showing off the thumping bass, and pulled into the underground parking lot.
The tires squealed unusually loud against the floor before the car barely managed to stop — in a spot marked clearly with a large sign reading Executives Only.
The music cut out abruptly, and Rodeo climbed out of the car, shrugging on his blouson jacket.
As if mourning the silence where the music had been, a loud voice rang through the underground once more.
“Hey, so what floor are you on?”
[…Was that you making all that noise outside just now?]
“Yeah. Figured nobody remembers. When have I ever not caused a scene at this facility?”
Carousel let out another long sigh.
[Espers in charge or Guides in charge — you act the same either way, is that it?]
“Yeah, well. Funny how everyone turns into the same kind of person once they get to the top. So — where do I go.”
[Come up to the 4th floor and give my name. Someone will guide you.]
Rodeo hung up without a reply and strolled toward the elevator with a looser swagger than usual.
The workday rush was already over, so the elevator came down quickly, and Rodeo stepped on with a light stride, his finger pressing firmly on the number 4.
“The 4th floor — how embarrassing. Can’t even do basic ass-kissing properly.”
The empty elevator shot upward, and when the doors slid open again, the straight-backed posture Rodeo had held snapped back into his usual slouch.
A young face seated in the lobby went wide-eyed with fright at Rodeo’s arrival.
“Ro— Rodeo-nim? I was informed of your visit to see Carousel-nim. I’ll guide you personally.”
Rodeo cracked his neck in a stretch and looked at the person with an odd expression.
