# Chapter 126
“No, everyone stand back!”
Tension settled on the faces of those who detected the S-class Esper’s rampage. The Espers tried to take Jaehee away.
But Jaehee resisted.
“Let me go, I said let me go!”
Jaehee tried to break free from the people blocking him, but as a Guide, he couldn’t overcome the strength of the Espers.
That’s when Dohyun suddenly used his telekinesis.
“Esper Kang Dohyun! What are you doing!”
As a result, people couldn’t approach Jaehee’s side. As the hands restraining him disappeared, Jaehee immediately began running to where Geonwoo was.
“Geonwoo!”
Just as Geonwoo had protected him, now it was his turn.
Jaehee rushed in to save Geonwoo.
***
He couldn’t see anything. Geonwoo, submerged in the blackness of his flickering consciousness, was simply dazed. He could neither hear nor see anything, nor could he think of anything. His consciousness only gradually faded within the rampaging situation.
‘…’
But then, a small sound was heard.
‘…ya…’
What could it be?
‘Geon…’
The space that had been only silence began to fill with someone’s desperate call.
‘Geon… ya…’
But it was strange. That voice wasn’t unfamiliar.
‘Geon, woo ya…’
After the call continued for a long time, his sunken consciousness slowly began to awaken, as if drawn to it.
“…together.”
A small sound reached his ears.
“Let’s be, happy… together…”
His vision, which had been only darkness, gradually brightened.
“We… promised… didn’t we…”
And he remembered who was in front of him. Jaehee was saying the words that he had once said. But there was no time for such sentiment. Jaehee collapsed into Geonwoo’s arms.
And what he saw was Jaehee bleeding all over his body. It was a sign of his excessive effort to calm the S-class Esper.
“…Hyung…!”
As Geonwoo’s consciousness fully awakened and Jaehee confirmed that the red energy in his pupils had subsided, Jaehee closed his eyes in relief.
Simultaneously, his small body collapsed limply into Geonwoo’s arms. After discharging all his guiding energy.
***
Jaehee dreamed.
As if dark darkness had settled, nothing was visible around him. But suddenly, a bright light flashed before his eyes. Jaehee moved his steps toward it. The darkness gradually lifted, and warm, bright light reached Jaehee.
And beyond the bright light, he saw familiar figures.
‘Hajin!’
A voice calling him.
‘Hajin. What are you doing? Come here.’
Jaehee was certain that following this light would allow him to return to the time where he could restore Lee Hajin’s life. Everyone beyond the light was just waiting for Jaehee to come.
It was when Jaehee was taking steps, one by one, toward those waiting for him.
Sniff, sniff.
A very small sound, barely audible unless one listened carefully, came from behind. Jaehee responded to the sound, turning his head to look back. There was a very faint light that could go out at any moment, and beyond it, a small child could be seen.
‘Why… are you crying so much?’
As if Jaehee wanted to ask that, the child was gripping the hem of his shirt tightly with both hands, shedding tears and crying bitterly. Tears endlessly flowed from the child’s round eyes, to the extent that it was incomprehensible how such a small body could produce so many tears.
But it was strange. The child’s face was somewhat familiar.
Was that why? Leaving behind the people waiting for him, as if drawn by something unknowingly, his steps turned toward the child.
‘Hajin. Lee Hajin!’
Then they kept calling him from behind. But his steps gradually moved toward the crying child. Even before he could think of anything, his body moved naturally. As he got closer to the child, the voice trying to hold him back from behind gradually became fainter, and the child’s crying grew louder.
‘…hyung.’
And amidst the crying, a small voice was heard.
‘Hyung… a.’
Then a strange scene flashed before his eyes. He saw a scene with his younger self and the little boy in front of him together.
‘…hyung.’
This phenomenon continued. Scenes of his time with that child were drawn before his eyes one by one. As the scenes accumulated, his slow approach accelerated.
‘Hyung.’
Before he knew it, Jaehee was running.
‘Jaehee hyung.’
To that continuous call, Hajin became Jaehee. He chose to be Jaehee.
‘Hyung!’
Jaehee embraced the young child. The small body snuggled into him as if it would never let him go, holding tight. And the light that was gradually engulfing him grew stronger. But Jaehee didn’t avoid it, as if this was where his choice lay. Then the voice calling ‘Hajin’ was no longer heard.
“Hyung!”
Jaehee opened his eyes with difficulty. The fog obscuring his vision cleared, and soon he saw a man crying while looking at him. He resembled the child he had seen in his dream.
“…Geon, woo.”
Jaehee called out to the crying figure and opened his arms. Just as he had embraced young Geonwoo in his dream, to comfort Geonwoo who was still crying while looking at him.
“Jaehee hyung.”
The large-framed Geonwoo buried himself in Jaehee’s arms. It had been a full month. The time that passed while Jaehee fought for his life with his eyes closed.
“…Hyung…”
Jaehee’s shirt became damp.
***
Peace came to the Center.
The gates that had been constantly forming disappeared as if they had never existed, and mid-to-high-level gates, except for low-level ones, vanished without a trace.
Everyone gradually became accustomed to the continuing peace.
“I’m telling you, it really happened!”
The incident at the S-class gate was still on everyone’s lips, and those who heard news of Jiwoon always wore surprised faces. Dohyun, who had been injured, also recovered, and the Center was already returning to normal. Ease found its way into everyone’s hearts.
But there was one exception.
“Hyung.”
There was someone still submerged in anxiety. It was Geonwoo.
Geonwoo didn’t think of separating from Jaehee’s side, like a sticky note. As if the numerous painful memories made it difficult to accept this tranquility, Geonwoo was always worried.
“Hyung, where are you going now?”
In this situation, Jaehee suddenly took Geonwoo outside the Center. Geonwoo, who was already full of worry about Jaehee since he had just woken up, didn’t want Jaehee to leave the Center where there were many people who could protect him.
Geonwoo, who had been highly alert due to Jaehee’s insistence that they go alone, trembled at the sight of where Jaehee had brought him.
The place they arrived was a forest next to a village, a place that would hold no special meaning for others. But not for Geonwoo and Jaehee. It had a different meaning.
“Hyung, this is…”
Geonwoo looked around. Past scenes overlapped with the familiar landscape.
‘Hyung, I want to form a bond with you!’
‘Huh?’
‘If we bond, they say we can see each other every day!’
The place where they first met, which Jaehee couldn’t remember but only Geonwoo did—where 13-year-old Lee Jaehee had saved 10-year-old young Geonwoo.
“We first met here.”
At Jaehee’s words, Geonwoo’s pupils trembled.
“I wanted to do this at the place where we first met.”
Jaehee said, looking at Geonwoo. Jaehee took out a small case from his pocket and recalled the ending scene of the original work. The last scene in his memory was Geonwoo confessing to Jiwoon. But the current ending had changed.
Jaehee took Geonwoo’s hand. He took a ring from the case, put it on Geonwoo’s finger, and looked up at him. Warm gazes met.
“Form a bond with me, Geonwoo.”
Become my true mate.
That was Geonwoo’s wish from his childhood days, which he had desperately wanted throughout the endless regressions. Geonwoo embraced Jaehee like a child, crying. A confession soaked in tears was conveyed.
“…I love you, hyung.”
The emotion, endless and yet insufficient no matter how much it was conveyed, seeped into Jaehee along with tears.
“…Me too.”
With emotion welling up, Jaehee hugged Geonwoo back and whispered.
“I love you too… Geonwoo.”
The moment they had longed and yearned for.
Finally, they could love each other to their hearts’ content.
Not as the villain sub-bottom Lee Jaehee and main-top Choi Geonwoo, but simply as Lee Jaehee and Choi Geonwoo, who wanted each other.
I Returned the Gentle Gong, and Now a Possessive Gong Showed Up? The End.
