“Look at that cold sweat. Did you have a bad dream?”
“……”
Even at the worry-filled words, an answer didn’t come readily. Onyul bit his dry lips and recalled the dream scene that still flickered before his eyes.
Colleagues dying inside the gate, and the snake tattoo.
His heart beat rapidly. He’d escaped from the dream, but his mind still seemed to remain in it. A feeling like he’d suffocate and die at this rate.
“Honey, if you feel stuffy or uncomfortable, tell me.”
Instead of urging an answer, Gu Baekyoung pulled the sweat-drenched Onyul into his arms. He embraced him carefully, so it wasn’t stuffy or uncomfortable.
Gu Baekyoung’s regular breathing, warm body temperature, the soft touch patting his back… Perhaps thanks to that, he rather felt a sense of security.
Whew, Onyul’s lips parted shallowly as he exhaled deeply.
“Thank you.”
It could be considered an out-of-the-blue remark.
But at this moment, no, even on previous days, he was grateful that Gu Baekyoung was by his side whenever he had nightmares.
Without a doubt, he absolutely couldn’t have overcome it completely alone. While living as Kang Ian, he might have suffered from trauma and gotten depression.
Gu Baekyoung said he gained peace from his guiding and therapy, but in fact, Onyul might also be receiving overflowing comfort from him.
Especially that face, that ecstatic face that naturally captivated the hearts of those who looked at it, was truly helpful.
Looking at his face, even the remaining horror vanished into thin air.
“The dream… may I ask what it was?”
Gu Baekyoung’s fingertips swept the sweat-drenched bangs. Onyul stared intently at Gu Baekyoung’s eyes, which were like a pitch-black night.
“I was in… an accident.”
He didn’t know what he was thinking when he started. By the time he came to his senses, he was already starting to talk.
Perhaps he’d been captivated by Gu Baekyoung’s serious gaze.
That gaze seemed to contain an intense meaning—that even if others couldn’t, he could be trusted.
Onyul completely trusted Gu Baekyoung. If he said the world would end tomorrow, he’d believe it to that extent.
It wasn’t simply because he’d done trustworthy actions. Even recently, he couldn’t stop Park Hanil’s counterattack.
Yet strangely, he had faith.
Was it because of his purity that didn’t differ between front and back? Was it because of his blindly following him faithfully? Perhaps trust was born from such things.
Onyul continued his story that seemed true yet not.
“All the friends who were with me died. Only I survived… only me.”
After speaking, his breath choked off. It felt like tears welled up to the end of his throat. He closed his lips because it seemed like tears would burst out if he uttered one more word.
Fortunately, Gu Baekyoung didn’t ask anything beyond that. What kind of friends, what kind of accident…
The words Gu Baekyoung finally brought out after maintaining a long silence were words he’d never heard once even in his past life.
“Me too.”
“…You too?”
“The friends I was experimented on with all died too. My birth parents died too.”
He was discussing the deaths of those around him too calmly.
That point rather made Onyul more choked up.
How much time must it have taken for that wound to become dull?
Because he felt sorry for Gu Baekyoung who must have endured alone.
Because Onyul also knew the sadness of being left alone, he empathized with the emotion more.
“At first, I did too. I thought I should have died instead, and I thought about why I, of all people, survived.”
He caught his breath very briefly.
“But the past can’t be changed.”
“……”
“No matter how hard I try, the past doesn’t change. Either way, the fact that I survived doesn’t change.”
“……”
“…So I just lived. I endured.”
“…Yeah.”
“As I did so, I realized that surviving wasn’t wrong.”
Gu Baekyoung closed the distance that had briefly widened as they looked at each other’s faces. Gu Baekyoung’s body temperature as he tightly embraced him seemed hotter than before.
“Your surviving isn’t your fault.”
The tears he’d been holding back poured out. He put strength into his lips and held back his crying voice, but the flowing tears didn’t stop.
Gu Baekyoung just embraced him. He just repeated like a spell that it wasn’t his fault, that it was okay.
Perhaps those were the words he’d wanted to hear. Those words that it was okay for only him to live.
Onyul couldn’t escape from his embrace until he fell asleep again.
After his tears stopped and he unknowingly fell into sleep, he didn’t have nightmares either.
It was a deep sleep, without any dreams.
***
“Yaaawn…”
Is it because he stayed up last night? He’s so sleepy.
Onyul, who yawned enough to split his mouth, wiped the tears that formed in his eyes.
As he was doing so, last night suddenly came to mind. Gu Baekyoung, who had tightly embraced him as he suffered from nightmares.
Yesterday, to comfort him, he brought up his past story for the first time. That story of being kidnapped by Genesis, where fanatics gathered, and surviving.
Of course, he didn’t know the details of what Gu Baekyoung went through there.
What Onyul knew was only the fact known to the public—that most of the children kidnapped for experimentation died.
Gu Baekyoung was one of the children who survived.
He too must have surely watched others’ deaths right before his eyes.
‘Did I feel more comforted because we have the same pain?’
Gu Baekyoung’s words that surviving wasn’t his fault strangely resonated.
It was something anyone could say, but it seemed to have deeper meaning because it was said by Gu Baekyoung, who had survived.
‘I’m struggling this much, so how much must Baekyoung have struggled?’
When that young one survived alone and was revealed to the world, when he received the world’s attention for being S-grade… how scared and difficult must it have been?
Did he also have someone who comforted him?
Onyul suddenly recalled Gu Hyeonseok, whom he’d run into recently, but soon shook his head.
He might have pressed him, but it didn’t seem like he would have coaxed and soothed Gu Baekyoung.
Perhaps the words that surviving wasn’t his fault were what Gu Baekyoung from that time wanted to hear.
Because he wanted to hear those words, he might have said them to him. Because he would know how comforting those words could be.
Onyul thought anew that he wanted to learn about that incident.
He wanted to know Gu Baekyoung more than in his past life. Since it was a time with few customers, it seemed fine to mess around.
Onyul’s fingertips tapped the phone keyboard.
When he searched for Gu Baekyoung, tremendous information poured out—news articles, blog posts, community posts, even SNS screenshots.
[Breaking News! S-grade Esper Gu Baekyoung Suppresses Gate Solo]
[“Gu Baekyoung again?” Citizens ‘Enthusiastic’ About Repeated Exploits]
[Is He the Cat Helmet? Sightings of Mysterious Lover Spread]
[20xx.xx.xx Gu Baekyoung Real-time Candid Photos]
Even though Gu Baekyoung wasn’t an idol, there seemed to be something like a homma.
Onyul looked through the photos of Gu Baekyoung that the homma had edited one by one.
The sharp eyes and pale skin visible above the mask made his decadent atmosphere stand out.
And how pretty were the body lines revealed thanks to the pitch-black work clothes that clung to his body… Onyul unknowingly gulped down his dry saliva.
‘His body really is good though…’
He strangely always came out with clothes on even after washing, but the body occasionally visible between the loose t-shirts he wore at home was very nice. The appropriate muscles that were pleasingly attached kept catching his gaze.
It absolutely wasn’t because he wanted to see it. Really.
Anyway, it seemed like the whole nation knew Gu Baekyoung’s body was good. For some reason, it was a bitter feeling.
Onyul changed the sorting of news articles to chronological order and also looked at old articles. Among various articles, what caught his eye was the content of him being rescued from Genesis.
[‘Genesis Survivor’ Gu Baekyoung Determined to Be Youngest S-grade Esper
Gu Baekyoung, from the Genesis experimental subject background, was determined to be the youngest S-grade esper.
Gu Baekyoung was kidnapped by Genesis in his childhood and underwent long-term experimentation, and is known as a case of successfully forced awakening in an extreme environment.
It adds to the shock that most of the experimental subjects housed in the same facility at the time ultimately did not survive.
According to officials, Gu Baekyoung is practically the ‘only survivor’ from that facility.
At the time of rescue, he was in a state of serious physical and mental damage, and it is confirmed that he will undergo a long-term protection and observation process thereafter…..]
The more he read the article, the more it seemed his trauma must have been no less than his own.
How did Gu Baekyoung endure…
Onyul, who had suddenly become serious, coincidentally discovered an article buried deep in the article list.
[The ‘New Humanity’ Claimed by Genesis. Can They Really Save the World?
The reality of the organization ‘Genesis’, which put forth the extreme belief that only new humanity can save the world, has been revealed, causing shock.
They defined espers and guides as ‘chosen beings’ and were revealed to have tried to establish a new order through artificial awakening.
In particular, it was reported that inside the organization, they advocated for the advent of new humanity through ‘creation and birth’, and even shared the ideology that existing humanity should be eliminated.
The symbol of the organization is a snake biting its own tail, ‘Ouroboros’.
This pattern, meaning endlessly circulating life and evolution, directly reveals the worldview that Genesis pursues…..]
Onyul was startled after reading that far.
A snake biting its own tail?
If it was that snake, Onyul was well aware of it too.
He recalled the emblem that had come into his hands not long ago.
