# Chapter 112
Jaehee looked at that expression and continued his words.
“That’s what you want to hide.”
Initially, Espers got hurt in accidents that should have injured Lee Jaehee. All of them were Espers who were guarding Yoo Jiwoon. The Espers weren’t the targets. They were all just injured while protecting Jiwoon, who was the real target.
“You’re desperately trying to hide that right now.”
Jiwoon tried to conceal this by all means. When he couldn’t prevent it using Espers and ended up getting hurt, he even spouted ridiculous words about wanting to protect Jaehee and luring the danger to himself, trying to hide the fact that he was being targeted until the end.
Jaehee was precisely pointing out this behavior of Jiwoon now.
“Ha.”
Jiwoon looked at Jaehee and gave a short, hollow laugh, then spoke with a hardened voice.
“What nonsense!”
Jiwoon, who was glaring fiercely at Jaehee, approached him and reached out without hesitation. Just as he was about to open his mouth with a savage expression after roughly grabbing Jaehee’s collar.
“It would be better to let go.”
Following Jaehee’s quiet words, a knock and a familiar voice were heard.
“Guide Yoo Jiwoon! Are you inside?”
The very small voices heard from outside the door were those of Espers. Those worried about the injured Jiwoon had come all the way to his quarters.
“Do you want to show this scene to the Espers?”
Jaehee asked while nonchalantly looking down at Jiwoon’s hand that was grabbing him.
At those words, Jiwoon looked back and forth between Jaehee and the doorway, grinding his molars. A sound of grinding teeth was heard. And soon, the hand that had grabbed Jaehee’s collar was released with a smack. Jiwoon hurriedly composed his expression and instantly created a gentle expression.
“Well done. Now you look like Jiwoon again.”
At Jaehee’s softly spoken mockery, cracks appeared in Jiwoon’s smile that he was barely maintaining.
But there was no time to delay any further. Jiwoon glared at Jaehee once, and then closed his eyes as if he shouldn’t be late any longer. He erased Jaehee from his sight to control his emotions and composed his expression again. Before he knew it, he had the perfect face of Yoo Jiwoon.
Then he approached the doorway and opened the door. He spoke slightly louder to the people at the door. It was an extremely gentle tone befitting Jiwoon.
“Please come in.”
The people outside the door entered the room with Jiwoon’s permission. Confusion soon settled on their faces. They seemed a bit surprised to see Jaehee in the room, perhaps they had thought only Jiwoon would be there. Jaehee looked at them and said.
“Did you come because you were worried about Guide Jiwoon?”
“What? Ah, yes!”
At Jaehee’s question, the Espers were a bit flustered but immediately answered that they did. Jaehee smiled faintly at them.
“Me too. I came because I was worried about Guide Jiwoon.”
At those words, the Espers immediately agreed, asking if Guide Lee Jaehee felt the same.
“I was about to leave, now that I’ve confirmed he’s okay. Right?”
At Jaehee’s question, Jiwoon answered.
“…Yes. Thank you for your concern, Guide Lee Jaehee.”
The corner of Jiwoon’s eye was trembling very subtly as he said this. He seemed to be suppressing his emotions. Seeing this, Jaehee responded.
“Then I’ll be going. Guide Yoo Jiwoon. Take care of yourself.”
Jaehee smiled at Jiwoon. The door closed, and Jaehee moved away from Jiwoon’s space.
“How’s your wound? It looked quite serious earlier.”
The Espers who remained in the room spoke to Jiwoon while checking his condition, pretending to be close, as if they wanted to use this opportunity to get closer to him.
“It just looks that way, but it’s not that serious.”
Jiwoon kindly answered their questions and gave a bright smile, thanking them for their concern.
But unlike his forced smile, the tip of his thumb was already bitten to shreds. He was scratching his own flesh, unable to bear the anxiety that was overwhelming him.
Just like a very old habit.
***
Jaehee left Jiwoon’s quarters and walked down the long corridor of the Center. Geonwoo would have taken the collapsed Dohyun to the ward, so he directed his steps there.
“…”
There was no one in the corridor. It was natural because it was late. Jaehee walked alone in that quiet stillness, unraveling numerous thoughts.
‘Lee Jeongwoon.’
He had been expecting this. The last words that Minhun conveyed to him and the energy felt from Dohyun’s body. It was the same energy he had felt from Minhun. Along with the voice from the dream that was still vivid. Everything would make sense if he wasn’t the ‘Yoo Jiwoon’ from the original work but ‘Lee Jeongwoon’.
But there was one thing that had bothered him all along. The Yoo Jiwoon from the numerous cycles that he had heard about from Geonwoo. He was undoubtedly the same as the Yoo Jiwoon from the original work. In other words, it meant that Jiwoon had never stepped forward himself.
‘I guess it means he put someone else in front, like now.’
He hid behind others and created puppets that would follow his will to plot his schemes. No one knew Jiwoon’s abilities, and even if they did find out, it was obvious that they would have been eliminated like Minhun.
He had only thought of it as one of the Espers’ abnormal behaviors from before the regression, one of the incidents that wished for Lee Jaehee’s death. But that wasn’t the case. He had cleverly hidden among the incidents targeting Jaehee and aimed for his life.
Why? Why did he go that far?
Still because he disliked him?
But even if left alone, Lee Jaehee’s end was destined to end in misfortune.
Yet Jiwoon had taken such actions. Even though it could shake Jiwoon’s position if people were to find out… why?
“…”
That’s when he was thinking that far. Jaehee suddenly stopped walking.
‘The way to change the story’s ending.’
The only variable different from before.
Jiwoon responding to the words he had tested out of a hunch.
‘Could it be that the clue lies with Jiwoon?’
In a bleak situation without answers, the behavior that Jiwoon had shown could only be the sole lifeline.
If even that doesn’t exist…
If there is no method to change the future…
‘Are you thinking of dying instead of him again?’
As Jiwoon said, the future would meet the worst ending again. Ending with Geonwoo’s death, which he had tried so desperately to avoid.
There was no other choice. Fate was diligently treading on Lee Jaehee’s death one by one again. Because numerous incidents targeting Lee Jaehee were being reenacted in the same way this time as well.
Jaehee gritted his teeth. His mouth, tensed with strength, trembled slightly. His darkly sunk eyes wandered, unable to find the direction to go.
Although he had said he would change the future by Geonwoo’s side this time, the fear still hadn’t disappeared. He had tried to focus solely on what path would be for Geonwoo’s sake.
And that’s when it happened. The sound of urgent footsteps reached his ears. Jaehee turned his head to look in the direction of the sound.
“Hyung!”
It was Geonwoo. Having left Dohyun to the healing-type Espers in the ward, Geonwoo had returned here looking for Jaehee. Despite the considerable distance between the ward and Jiwoon’s quarters, Geonwoo appeared right away not long after Jaehee had left Jiwoon’s quarters, showing how much he had hurried.
But Geonwoo’s eyes were filled with anxiety. That anxiety melted away only after Jaehee fully entered Geonwoo’s pupils. Geonwoo’s firmly set expression crumbled instantly like melting snow.
“Hyung.”
Geonwoo ran over and embraced Jaehee as if to trap him in his large arms. Although he had done as Jaehee asked, requesting to step aside for a while, even that short time had plunged Geonwoo into great fear. Geonwoo himself hadn’t expected to be engulfed in such anxiety.
Because of this, the trembling of his body wouldn’t stop. His large body, holding Jaehee, was trembling as if it were fragile.
“…Geonwoo.”
That trembling was clearly felt through their touching bodies. Jaehee raised his hands and hugged Geonwoo back.
“I won’t leave anymore. Even if hyung asks me to, I’ll just stay by your side.”
Geonwoo spoke as if making a childish complaint, in a light tone as if to hide his anxiety.
“Yes, I’ll stay with you. I won’t ask such things anymore.”
Jaehee said affectionately. Geonwoo embraced Jaehee even more tightly. The trembling didn’t easily stop.
Geonwoo easily fell apart like this when Jaehee wasn’t in front of him. The memories of numerous cycles that had surfaced made Geonwoo this way. Although he pretended otherwise and told Jaehee they would change fate together, it was something they had never achieved despite repeating numerous regressions. He couldn’t help but be anxious, and it was a situation where he had to forcibly cover up a great despair while deliberately turning a blind eye to it.
