Yihyun stared at him expressionlessly instead of answering. The physician flipped through the chart carelessly and shone a penlight into Yihyun’s eyes, then delivered his diagnosis without an ounce of sincerity.
“The tranquilizers and high-dose sleeping pills would have temporarily paralyzed your brain’s central functions. You can’t remember anything? Drug-induced amnesia is the most likely explanation. If there was any oxygen deprivation, some memories may have been damaged as well. Or your brain simply sustained some kind of abnormality.”
The physician scrawled something across the chart, then added offhandedly,
“Well, I’ll report to the Director that you’ve lost your memory. From his perspective, it’s far more convenient for you to quietly exist as an oblivious fool than to go on living as the troublemaker you were before.”
He tossed a single prescription onto the bedside table without so much as a further glance at the patient, then walked out of the room. Yihyun watched the door close and curved his lips into a cold smile.
Perfect. Would’ve been exhausting if he’d started prying.
The physician had just confirmed how lazy and arrogant the eyes keeping watch over Baek Yihyun truly were. Yihyun tossed the physician’s prescription into the trash and stared up at the ceiling.
Whether it was the aftereffects of the harsh medication or simply the frailty of this body, the moment he lay down, it grew heavy as waterlogged cotton and his consciousness began to blur at the edges. As Yihyun stared blankly at the ceiling, the memory of first meeting Han Taeyun — not five years ago, but far longer before that — surfaced in his mind.
The first time he had crossed paths with that man was at an Ability user training institution.
At the time, Lee Seunghyun had been the perennial number one in the rankings and the pride of the Ability Bureau. Then one day, word began to spread — a new Esper had appeared out of nowhere like a comet and was shattering every record in existence. With his wounded pride, Seunghyun had gone to the training grounds just to get a look at this bastard’s face.
The place was crawling with large, muscle-bound Espers — the sort who looked as brutal as bears or hunting dogs. Among those hulking figures, one presence felt distinctly out of place.
“……?”
Seunghyun’s feet stopped before he even realized it. Han Taeyun’s first impression, sitting in the midst of a crowd of men reeking of sweat, was that of a strikingly pure beauty. Far more vivid and flawless than even Baek Yihyun’s pretty face in the mirror. Hair without a single strand out of place, and eyes that appeared languid yet somehow profound — he looked less like an Esper and more like some pampered young master raised in luxury.
How does a face like that put out mana like a monster’s?
He was staring, transfixed by that impossibly otherworldly face, when Han Taeyun turned his head and met Seunghyun’s gaze. Those clear, cold eyes. A face like an angel’s — but a gaze already resembling that of a sword-wraith who had cut down thousands.
In that instant, Seunghyun knew it in his gut. This one is going to be the rival who upends my life.
“Is that bastard seriously not greeting his senior right now?”
“Get off me, you disgusting bastards. It’s hot.”
After training ended, in front of the showers. Kim Junho and Lee Juwon had towels draped over their necks and were running their mouths while watching Seunghyun’s expression. Seunghyun shoved the clingy pair off him and snapped irritably.
“That guy’s seriously not going to shape up, is he?”
Junho jutted his chin toward Taeyun’s retreating back and ground the words out. His bear-like, heavyset frame was an odd match for the envy burning in his eyes.
“I mean, he’s got a face that belongs over in the Guide wing, and his eyes are arrogant as hell on top of it. Doesn’t even answer when his seniors talk to him. How long are you going to let that pretty-boy bastard muddy the waters in the Esper training center?”
To the people around Seunghyun, Han Taeyun — who had seemed to drop out of the sky — was a thorn in their sides and nothing more. Since they couldn’t hope to match him in skill, the arrows of their attacks cowardly turned to Taeyun’s appearance and attitude instead.
“And that’s not even all of it. The Guides are even more of a spectacle. The talented ones who used to queue up to Guide you, lately they’ve been hanging around near that guy’s training area just to get another look at his face. He acts like the Ability Bureau is his personal living room just because he’s got some ability — someone needs to draw a firm line with him, don’t you think?”
Lee Juwon, standing nearby with a face like a hostile dog, chimed in with a scowl.
“Exactly. Types like him need to get properly stomped on from behind when they’re rolling around in real combat before they get a clue. Whether he’s riding on his looks or thinks he’s got something to fall back on, I can’t stand watching someone who can’t even reach your ankles act like he runs the place.”
Seunghyun listened to them without a word and closed the locker room door. Their envious trash talk — all hot-blooded, thin-headed posturing — was noise he didn’t need. But in Seunghyun’s mind, only Han Taeyun’s cold, still gaze from their sparring session a moment ago kept circling back.
“Keep it in check. Barking is what dogs do.”
At that one remark from Seunghyun, Junho and Juwon shut their mouths as if pricked. But the inferiority in their eyes, directed at Taeyun, still rippled beneath the surface.
They twisted Seunghyun’s indifferent words to suit themselves. ‘Keep it in check’ was apparently warped in their ears into tacit permission — he’s not going to step in himself, so handle it however you want. Junho and Juwon exchanged sly smiles and began scheming to make Han Taeyun’s life difficult.
A few days later, Seunghyun was passing by a dim storage area behind the training block when he caught familiar voices.
“Hey, lure Han Taeyun into the storage room during tonight’s self-directed night training. Tell the Guides there’s been a Guide assignment mix-up — they’ll come running happily just to get one more look at his face. Then we crank the mana suppression devices up to full and watch that bastard crawl on the ground.”
It was Junho’s rumbling, bear-like snicker. Seunghyun’s brow furrowed. A petty scheme if there ever was one. He had been about to ignore it and go on his way — but for some reason, his feet wouldn’t move.
Shortly after, at the end of the corridor, he came face to face with Han Taeyun walking toward him with his usual blank expression. That face, as though it had been painstakingly carved by a sculptor, gave off an air that seemed not quite of this world.
Seunghyun brushed past him and tossed out a few words in a voice too low for anyone else to catch.
“Hey.”
“……?”
“Don’t go anywhere near Storage Room 3 tonight. Those bastards have dug a pit and they’re waiting for you.”
Taeyun’s footsteps stopped. He turned to look — Seunghyun was already walking away. It was impossible to tell if it had been a warning or a provocation, but the faintest trace of curiosity settled at the corner of Taeyun’s lips.
After that day, a peculiar current ran between the two of them. Seunghyun didn’t pay Taeyun any particular attention, and Taeyun, for his part, never said a word of thanks. But whenever they clashed in the training grounds, their mana erupted as though resonating with each other.
Seunghyun poured in his innate instincts and thousands of hours of real combat experience and pushed Taeyun hard. But strangely, he was never able to beat him completely — not even once.
Clang—!
Training swords collided and sparks flew. Seunghyun’s breath was up to his chin, while Taeyun looked down at him with a clean face that hadn’t produced a single drop of sweat.
“Hyung, you’re slow again.”
At Taeyun’s indifferent voice, Seunghyun clenched his teeth.
“Shut up, bastard. It’s not over yet.”
There were certainly many moments where his technical edge won out — as much as years of training could temper. The precision of his sword paths and the instinct to catch the slimmest opening in a single instant were a depth of ability only Seunghyun possessed.
But in the decisive moment, the density of mana that erupted from inside Taeyun’s body defied all common sense. It was not something that could be overcome by refined technique or razor-sharp instinct alone.
Seunghyun understood then. No matter how hard he struggled, he could not escape the fate of chasing after this man. And the sense of defeat he felt in that moment transformed, strangely, not into hatred for Taeyun but into a peculiar sort of acknowledgment — and even a sense of kinship.
Leaving that memory behind, Seunghyun — now Yihyun — opened his eyes on the cold bed of the present.
That impossibly gifted bastard…… why on earth.
Yihyun clenched his fist. That noble genius he had never once been able to beat until the very end — now a murderous wraith who had slaughtered half the world. The reality was so impossible to accept that his head felt like it might split apart.
“Are you awake, young master?”
The nanny’s careful voice drifted in through the gap in the door. Yihyun’s eyes snapped open and he pushed himself upright. The sensation of having come back from the threshold of death still lingered, cold and alive.
“Yes. Nanny, could you make me something substantial to eat.”
“…Oh, pardon? …Yes, of course, young master.”
The nanny answered out of reflex as she watched Yihyun’s back disappear toward the bathroom — but the moment the words landed, she questioned her own ears.
The usual Baek Yihyun would every morning say he had no appetite, picking listlessly at a single bowl of porridge without ever finishing it. On top of that, she had been worried he might stubbornly refuse to eat anything at all after having attempted suicide with an already painfully thin frame — and yet, something substantial?
The nanny stood listening blankly to the sound of water pouring freely from inside the bathroom, and felt something ache quietly in her chest.
Perhaps losing his memory is, in a way, a blessing……
Had forgetting everything that had been tormenting him enough to drive him to swallow all those harsh drugs made him this spirited? The sight of his back — radiantly alive in a way that felt unfamiliar — was a welcome one, and yet. She thought of how cruelly the memories that the old Baek Yihyun had been forced to carry must have cut, if his mind had erased itself to escape them — and her nose stung.
But now was not the time to grieve. The young master, reborn with no memory, had asked for food.
