“Fuck.”
Just recalling the moment of Raon’s death made the power he had been suppressing surge, and the stairs he was leaping up crumbled with each touch of his toes. Since the speed of kicking off and climbing was faster than the stairs crumbling, Jaehwi, who barely arrived at the floor where Raon was, caught his breath that had risen to his chin and opened the door to enter the corridor.
With each step he took, Raon’s energy grew stronger. After passing the corner of the corridor, Jay was standing in front of a door. When he went to the door where Raon was, Jay stepped forward as if to block him.
“No one can enter without Team Leader’s permission.”
Staring at the eyes of Jay, who was faithfully doing his job, he opened the door conspicuously. A pure white space with a pure white bed. And seeing Raon sleeping, his roughly beating heart calmed down. At his refreshing energy that clung tightly to his body as if it had been waiting, he couldn’t cry or laugh.
What if even this is an illusion?
Jaehwi, who had run up the stairs like crazy and opened the door without hesitation, felt like he had returned to being ten years old when everything in the world was fearful and scary.
What if hyung doesn’t remember me properly… What if he sees me as just one of the many Espers at the Center?
Approaching Raon’s bedside with slow steps, Jaehwi watched for a moment as he breathed evenly with the most comfortable expression in the world.
“Esper Min Jaehwi-nim.”
At Jay’s voice, Raon’s eyebrows twitched.
“Please come out now.”
Before he could say to be quiet, at Jay’s continued words, Raon’s eyelids trembled, and the eyes hidden behind his eyelids were slowly revealed. And in his deep brown eyes, Jaehwi, completely wrapped in black, was reflected.
“Hello.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed where Raon was lying, Jaehwi gave a small greeting. It was Raon who had first sought him out, and it was Raon who had greeted him first every time they met.
“……”
“Did you sleep well?”
Unlike when he was sleeping comfortably, Jaehwi embraced Raon who sat up abruptly and reached out his arms as soon as he saw him.
“You! You…”
Before he could pat his back a few times, Raon pushed his shoulder away and examined his face with such a desperate expression that Jaehwi couldn’t rashly make a joke.
“Who told you to die instead of me? Why on earth!”
“When I can fully save hyung, how could I let hyung die? I have to make it work even if it won’t.”
“It’s not just once or twice, it hurts so much!”
At Raon’s words shouted in a hoarse voice, Jaehwi pulled Raon in and hugged him again.
Our hyung. You were in a lot of pain. Since he fell as a ball of fire, if it hadn’t hurt, that would rather be a lie. Though he comes back to life, he too had to endure all the pain of the moment of death himself. No matter how he died, there was no comfortable death without pain.
“Did it hurt a lot? I should have kept you alive until the end… I didn’t anticipate the last thing, so I’m sorry. There will never be a time when hyung dies again. I promise.”
Tightly embracing Raon who fit snugly in his arms, stroking his back, Jaehwi buried his face in his nape. Finding his scent from his body, which reeked strongly of alcohol and the distinctive scent from the IV, wasn’t such a difficult task.
“Who’s dying? I’m not dying. You don’t die either. There must be a way without dying.”
Though he expected to be pushed away again, Raon tenderly stroked the back of his head.
“Ah… But I really must have no energy. I want to guide you, but even when I try to draw it out, there’s nothing to draw out,” he muttered, and Jaehwi couldn’t help but chuckle. It was because he knew his heart, always trying to somehow guide him whenever there was even a moment of opportunity.
Wasn’t he the one who guided him even in that short time when they met on top of the clouds?
Even this moment might be an illusion. In the case of the previous illusion dungeon, he released his power to break through the dungeon and walked out on his own feet, but now was different. To catch the falling Raon, he too jumped from the clouds.
When he got close enough to catch him, he chased after him who became that much more distant, and unknowingly released all the power he had been suppressing.
And when he came to his senses, it was MK Center, and as he expected, Raon was in the treatment ward within the Center. As soon as he opened his eyes, he recognized him and was embracing him like this, but his anxious heart didn’t easily subside.
“It’s okay even if you don’t guide me. Just being together like this is enough.”
“But today is the day we met again, right?”
At Raon’s question, Jaehwi only gave a bitter smile. Whether it was the day we met again, before that, or after that—as long as it wasn’t inside an illusion dungeon, any point in time didn’t matter.
“Yes. It’s the day we met again. I came first before hyung came looking for me. When I know I’ll find you like this, how could I be in the training room? I can’t let you pull out the IV carelessly and run down the stairs again.”
Though he himself couldn’t be certain, Jaehwi answered as he wanted and with his own wish.
“Look. Look at my face again.”
While receiving the touch of Raon, who separated him again and hastily felt his face and body while examining him, Jaehwi also touched his disheveled hair.
“Hwiya. You died.”
“So why do you enter there? If I wait outside, won’t I naturally come out on my own?”
“…If you had even worn the watch when you went, I wouldn’t have entered!”
“I left without disturbing your sleep, but you won’t even sleep in? You could have slept deeply and soundly before waking up.”
“What? So are you saying you did well now?”
“No. That’s not what I mean.”
“Then. Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“I need to see clearly with my own eyes. Take them off.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. I’m not okay. Hurry up and take them off. Will you take them off? Or should I strip you?”
As if the affectionate feelings they had just shared while embracing each other were meaningless, Jaehwi couldn’t rashly move at Raon’s action of grabbing and tugging at his t-shirt. If it were by force, he could easily subdue him, but now he had to go along with him appropriately.
Should I really take it off, or should I stop him?
Sometimes when excited, Raon, who doesn’t distinguish front from back and doesn’t consider the surrounding situation at all, was clearly unaware that Jay was frozen right beside them with a flustered expression.
“Hey. You crazy bastard!”
It was Hyukjin who saved Jaehwi, who was about to take an appropriate opportunity to inform him that there weren’t just the two of them here, that they had plenty of time, and that there were matters to be handled officially and appropriately.
“Wow. Really a novel crazy bastard. I knew you were insane from the start, but the guy who entered with stabilizers is guiding? A C-grade guiding an S-grade? A passing son of a bitch… Nox?”
Hyukjin, who had entered without knocking and was spewing rough curses as he approached the bed, his fierce demeanor stopped in an instant.
“I do it because I can. Look, his condition is good. It takes someone like me to guide an S-grade. Who else can do it?”
Looking at Hyukjin with a dazed expression, Jaehwi’s hand strength naturally loosened at Raon’s action of so confidently kissing his lips.
“Huk…”
Instead of Hyukjin who had frozen in place, the sound of Jay, who had been watching this situation from the beginning, swallowing empty air burst out from his mouth.
The kiss in front of Jay and Hyukjin was one thing, but it was because as soon as Raon, who had been trying to pull up the t-shirt, felt the strength leave the hand holding his hand, he flipped the clothes up.
As if the words Raon had just said about his condition being good were meaningless, Jaehwi’s body was a complete mess. Between the skin cracked in large and small ways, dark red scabs and newly flowing blood were tangled together. Traces of what seemed to be burns and marks where a monster’s sharp claws had been embedded were fully revealed.
“I said it’s okay. Let hyung rest and later again…”
Receiving the gazes of three people, hurriedly pulling down his clothes and getting up from his seat, Jaehwi couldn’t roughly shake off the hand gripping his wrist.
“Get out.”
A very small and short word brought down silence. Jaehwi heard it clearly, but it was words that Hyukjin and Jay didn’t hear properly.
“I said get out.”
“Okay. Hyung. Don’t be too angry. This kind of thing will be fine soon with guiding…”
“Min Jaehwi. If you don’t want to die by my hand, shut that mouth. You two, get out now. If you don’t want to leave, watch me guide him right here.”
At Raon’s firm words, Jaehwi’s gaze, unable to assert his claim any further, turned to the back of Raon’s hand. Of all things, why did you grab the hand with the IV… Seeing the red blood spreading up along the IV line, he let out a small sigh.
