Hee-young climbed out of the car with a limp. Because he’d gotten out impatiently before anyone could help, the staff scrambled to haul a lightweight electric wheelchair out of the trunk, fumbling to set it up before getting him seated. To make matters worse, the injuries were on his right arm and right foot, which made crutches next to impossible to use.
Once they had Hee-young settled in the wheelchair and a knee blanket neatly tucked over his lap, the staff hovered anxiously, watching his expression.
“So, people who are seeing this for the first time might find it a bit… jarring. But it’s not that human rights are actually being disregarded — it’s more of a display. Espers’ abilities are so overwhelming that if the disciplinary proceedings don’t look severe, there’s no sense of hierarchy. The government needs to show that it can keep Espers in check, as a warning to the other Espers as well….”
“Okay. Got it. Got it. My ears are going to fall off. What’s all the fuss about?”
Hee-young waved his hand dismissively. Like I don’t know that. He understood all too well that keeping people who wielded supernatural powers and fought monsters in line required a powerful means of control. He’d even done it himself before. It wasn’t for nothing that he used to walk among his subordinates with a bat in hand.
Everyone treated him like an eight-year-old. And yet he was well past the age for it, and the work he used to do was dirtier than anything anyone here had done. The whole world is insane. But what was even more unsettling was the fact that he was getting used to being treated this way.
Look at me right now. Sitting there with the cute little pink rabbit blanket Shin-yul always wrapped around him — wearing it like it was the most natural thing in the world. The sudden wave of self-awareness hit Hee-young like a truck and his eyes went dead. Damn it. I was trying to make sense of this insane world, and turns out I’d already lost it myself long ago.
As Hee-young let out a long sigh, the staff pushed the wheelchair carefully toward the Esper Center building. Other than a distant glance when he’d been shown around The Center before, he had no information about this place whatsoever — or maybe they had explained it and he’d just forgotten. The interior looked exactly the same as the main headquarters and the Guide Center. Except that, at a time when most people would have long since gone home, quite a few people were still milling about inside.
The staff wheeled him straight to the elevator. Basement level 8. Deputy Shin pressed the button, and Hee-young thought, why is there more below ground than above it. Is this a bunker? In silence, they descended to the eighth basement floor and stepped out carefully.
A long corridor stretched out directly ahead. What was unusual was that the corridor was lined with nothing but heavy iron doors. No windows, no other structures — just an unsettling row of doors, like a place where storage units had been crammed together.
Hee-young swallowed a sigh. He could tell from the moment the staff started fussing, but still… there are no words. The staff walked straight down the corridor and stopped in front of a room set quite far back.
“Um — we’ll open the door, so would you go in alone, Hee-young? You can manage the wheelchair, right?”
At the staff member’s question, Hee-young answered evenly. Sure, why not. Whatever was in there, it clearly wasn’t going to be a pleasant sight — no point having a crowd watch. They weren’t going to help. Hee-young watched the two staff members strain and grunt as they hauled open the heavy iron door, then nudged the joystick on the electric wheelchair.
As he entered the room, the heavy door thudded shut behind him. From the moment he rolled in, Hee-young couldn’t take his eyes off Shin-yul. Seated in a chair flush against the wall, Shin-yul had peculiarly glowing handcuffs on both wrists. A thick blindfold covered the upper half of his face. And as if that weren’t enough, a long chain hung from his neck like he was a beast — and the other end of that chain was bolted into the wall.
Human rights not being disregarded, my ass. Hee-young clicked his tongue inwardly. Hey — what’s the difference between these people and gangsters, exactly? I was wondering where all the thugs went. Turns out they were here. Damn, I always said the abyss recognizes its own.
Hee-young nudged the joystick again to move toward Shin-yul. In the quiet, the hum of the motor sounded loud and out of place.
“It’s not time for my meds yet.”
“…….”
Hee-young didn’t answer. For all the terrifying setup, Shin-yul’s voice was completely calm and at ease. What meds are you even taking. In the silence, Shin-yul paused briefly, then a faint smile crossed his face.
“It’s my princess.”
Freakish bastard.
“You’re in a wheelchair? I didn’t know — the sound wasn’t footsteps. If you’d walked, I’d have known the moment the door opened.”
“So you can recognize my footsteps?”
“Of course.”
Wow. Absolutely not right in the head. Hee-young was revolted — and yet he kept rolling right up to Shin-yul’s face. The meds comment — was that about psychiatric medication?
“So what crime did you commit? Why are you like this?”
“Hmm…. The crime of failing to protect my princess?”
“You’re cracking jokes, so you must be fine.”
At Hee-young’s blunt words, Shin-yul laughed out loud. Every time he laughed, the chain around his neck clinked. He let the laughter die out and drew in a breath.
“…Were you scared? Or disappointed?”
“By what.”
“Just. Right now.”
Shin-yul’s voice was subdued. At the deflated tone, Hee-young scoffed.
Ha — what? Did you put that leash on yourself?
“By you sitting there chained up like a dog?”
“…Couldn’t even protect my princess.”
The self-reproach in his voice left a sour taste in Hee-young’s mouth. He’d done well enough. The only thing that stayed in his memory from just before he’d lost consciousness was Shin-yul’s desperate expression as he came flying toward him. A moment like that — where the person you’d been counting on came rushing to you in a dramatic situation — wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot easily.
“Do you want to get rid of me?”
“…What?”
“You said you didn’t like me. That you’d rather have a different Esper. You were trying to change your Paired Esper.”
“I said I wouldn’t. I said it was said in anger. What are you on about all of a sudden.”
“Hee-young said he didn’t like me, so I just — I wanted to show you. That there’s no Esper who matches up to me. That the person who can protect my princess anywhere is me. But my princess got hurt, and I wasn’t there….”
“…So you dragged me to a Dungeon because of that? Even threatened me that you’d Rampage if I didn’t go?”
Is this guy for real. Hee-young let out a hollow laugh. Ah, genuinely deranged. He couldn’t stop the laugh that had started as a scoff. His clear, bright laughter kept ringing through the bare, empty room. You’ve got to be actually insane — and yet, wow, damn it, but that’s a brilliantly smart move, too. He was genuinely impressed. Because of it, he had come to trust Shin-yul.
Shin-yul sat quietly and listened to Hee-young’s bright laughter. Just listened, as though he wanted to hold onto it for as long as possible.
Alright. I’ll admit it. He’d felt it in his own body — there was no Esper who matched up to this one. Not because of some overwhelming S-rank ability, but because of that desperate expression flying toward him. Because even now, chained up with a leash around his neck, here he was — whimpering and asking whether he was going to be abandoned. Because it was all too clear that every last thing this man did — always smirking, always unreadable — served one and only one purpose: to stay at his side.
Now that he’d come to understand that he had to survive in this world, the safest and most reliable place was at Shin-yul’s side. Listen here, you — I’m letting this one slide, just this once. He would keep the fact that he was still looking for a way back carefully hidden — but for this temporary stretch of life, he’d decided to spend it with him. A temporary alliance, that’s all this is.
Hee-young finally stopped laughing and, still smiling, said:
“From now on, stop calling me princess and call me General, you hear me? A princess who beats up monsters is a bit too much of a catch.”
“That’s exactly why it suits you.”
“Damn it, you never let anyone have the last word.”
Hee-young reached out and patted Shin-yul’s cheek lightly. Shin-yul didn’t miss the thin thread of Guiding that slipped through in that brief contact and absorbed it in full. Even with an ability suppressor on and Guiding medication in his system, nothing stabilized the body quite like Guiding delivered directly by his own Guide. Shin-yul’s voice turned urgent.
“You’re not going to get rid of me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Hee-young said it with a smile, and the laughter woven into his voice made it sound like teasing to anyone who heard it. Shin-yul hurriedly raised both hands and pulled off the blindfold.
“Ah, damn it — what? You could take it off?”
Hee-young, who had been giggling, jolted in shock at the golden eyes that suddenly appeared right in front of him. Jesus, scared the life out of me. So what was he doing wearing it this whole time? The things this man is into….
“I wanted to see you.”
“See what. Me laughing my head off?”
“Anything.”
Shin-yul reached out and cupped Hee-young’s cheek carefully. The clank of metal rang out unpleasantly.
“Anyway — look at the state of the two of us. You couldn’t find a more well-matched pair. Where would I even throw you away to.”
One in a wheelchair, one in handcuffs. Not a single part of either of them was in one piece.
At Hee-young’s words, Shin-yul shifted slightly, lifted Hee-young up, and set him down on his lap. The chain at his neck pulled taut — enough to cut off air — but not a single frown crossed his face. The way his hands had been folded quietly in his lap had hidden it, but the length of chain between the cuffs was long enough that he could reach around Hee-young’s waist. Hee-young, now seated on top of Shin-yul and facing him, made a displeased face and started wriggling.
“Ah, damn it. What’s this all of a sudden?”
“You’re not going to get rid of me, right?”
“I asked why you’re acting up.”
“Hee-young said he’s not getting rid of me.”
Shin-yul pulled Hee-young into a tight embrace. The chain between the handcuffs pressed down on Hee-young’s solar plexus, cutting off his breath in an instant.
“Ow! Damn it! Air! Air! Augh!”
“I’ll protect you from now on. I’ll make sure you never get hurt again.”
You’re the one hurting me right now!
Hee-young gasped. With no fat on his already slight frame, the pressure was absolute agony. When Shin-yul finally withdrew his arms, the pain eased at last — and Hee-young fixed him with a sharp glare, eyes glistening with involuntary tears. Even under that glare, Shin-yul smiled with his eyes curved.
“Hee-young said he’d stay by my side forever. You made a promise. Keep it.”
Are you insane? When did I — all I said was I wouldn’t change Espers right now!
Before Hee-young could get a single word of protest out, Shin-yul’s mouth came down and covered his lips in an instant. At Shin-yul’s habit of biting and grinding at his lips and pushing his tongue in, Hee-young fumed internally. Ah, damn it, the nerve.
Even as they kissed, that unwavering gaze fixed directly on him sent a cold sweat running down Hee-young’s spine. Something obsessive and relentless in those eyes sent a slow, creeping dread rising from somewhere deep inside him. It felt like he’d made some important mistake.
Wait — is this genuinely going to be a problem?
Hee-young generally trusted his instincts. They’d almost never been wrong. But this time — this one time — he prayed desperately that they were, and squeezed his eyes shut, focusing only on the kiss.
***
“……So that—”
“Ahem, Deputy Shin! Don’t.”
“…….”
Silence.
“……But I mean, that—”
“Oh come on, enough!”
“…….”
Manager Seong, who was slowly pushing Hee-young’s wheelchair, kept scolding — and Deputy Shin, walking alongside, could only let his lips twitch without getting a word in. Both of them were fighting so hard not to laugh that their upper lips were stretched out and their mouths scrunched into bizarre shapes. Deputy Shin couldn’t control the corners of his mouth twitching and finally let it slip.
“No, but the kiss—”
“Hey! What!”
“Pfft!”
You said you’d never do it. What happened to your lips. The two of them choked down their laughter with strangled noises. Not even Hee-young’s irritation could stop them. Well — who showed up looking like a walking advertisement that said ‘I just kissed someone’ if not you, Hee-young?
They were both doing everything in their power to hold back the urge to tease him. Every part of them wanted to do it several times over. It wasn’t like Guiding through kissing was anything shameful — in fact, it was actively encouraged — and the memory of Hee-young raging and fuming, insisting absolutely not, what kissing, kept bubbling up and threatening to send them over the edge. But they were worried that someone who was both physically weak and quick to anger might actually fall backwards out of their chair — so rather than laughing openly, the two of them could only heave and shake and stifle their wheezing.
Ah, damn it…. Just laugh already, you’re making it worse.
Arriving in front of the hospital room in a state of resigned enlightenment, Hee-young snapped, hey — get lost, both of you. Deputy Shin smiled cheerfully and pushed the door open. Hee-young did his best to ignore that face and looked around for Ha-ram.
“Teach, you in here? Starting lessons today—”
“You’re back?”
It wasn’t Ha-ram’s voice — it was a voice that felt both unfamiliar and oddly familiar at the same time. Huh? What? Hee-young blinked in confusion. A doctor stood in front of Ha-ram, who had an awkward smile on his face. It was Hee-young’s psychiatrist.
“Hee-young, why didn’t you come on the appointment day I scheduled for you?”
…I forgot.
