Chapter 155

The shell covering his whole body crumbled, becoming light and scattering into the air. His glasses began to feel increasingly uncomfortable, and his vision, paradoxically, grew blurry. Frowning, Jaeha took them off. His sight cleared again.

He couldn’t see himself as in a mirror, but instinct told him the truth.

He was returning to his original self. Under Aiden’s guiding, he was becoming an esper again—not the blessed body of a civilian, but the familiar form that could not survive without the blessing of guiding.

The face, once full of healthy color and the marks of a loved upbringing, grew a little pale and sharp-edged. He couldn’t say he liked that shadowed, timid, tired face again.

But he had no desire to deny it.

This was who he was.

I won.

The thought came, sudden.

The Gate’s boss loved games. This, too, was likely a game. Was the win condition to break free from a life too real and beloved, and reclaim himself “in this way”? Or was that just his foolish conjecture?

“Aiden-ssi.”

“……”

Jaeha, who had been staring at his hand, lifted his head. Aiden’s face looked dazed at witnessing the unreal.

“When I get back, I’m going to ask you for something.”

“…For what?”

“To let me become your esper again.”

Time felt tight; his words rushed out fast. Jaeha gripped his arm hard. He had to say it.

“I love you, Aiden-ssi.”

“……”

“And even if I… even if I disappear, the ‘Jaeha left here’ will end up loving you anyway.”

If he didn’t go back and this was reality, there’d be nothing more ridiculous and shameful than such a declaration—but he was desperate. He wanted Aiden to believe.

He wasn’t as clever as Aiden, but he knew Aiden deserved to be loved—and he wanted to tell him so. As Aiden had lifted him up into the light, he wanted to lift Aiden, too.

“Aiden-ssi, if I disappear—ask ‘Jaeha’ for help.”

“……”

“Live the way you want. Don’t let them pull your strings. If it’s Jaeha, he’ll help with anything.”

The area of his body turning to dust spread wider. As it reached his toes, Jaeha’s heart scorched. Even if this was the boss’s false world and the Aiden before him wasn’t real—still, Aiden was the one he had given his heart to.

“So,”

He hadn’t wanted to say something so brash, but in the end, he did.

“Live however the hell… however you want.”

Aiden let out a breath of laughter—but his face twisted oddly, closer to crying than to smiling.

Jaeha took in that face with his eyes. Then his entire outer shell broke and fell away, returning him to his original self.

And in the blink of an eye—

He was back in reality.

He blinked. Pain flooded in, a deep bodily ache. It felt like a car crash had wrecked him from head to toe; even opening his eyes was hard.

“……”

His vision was fuzzy. He forced open scratchy eyes. He was lying somewhere, so the first thing he saw was the bright blue sky.

[0 days 0 hours 23 minutes 15 seconds]

< Past Team: 26/52 │ Future Team: 44/49 │ Monster’s Team: 0/101 >

[CLEAR!]

[Congratulations!]

Firework emojis burst across the sky. A cute character winked playfully, and Jaeha thought it oddly resembled the boss.

“Jaeha-ssi.”

“……”

“Are you awake?”

A welcome voice met his ears. He rolled his eyes slowly. Someone was kneeling by his head. He leaned in, blocking the sky, looking down at Jaeha. Blurry though he was, he was unmistakable.

He was an adult again. Perhaps, with the clear, he had returned to his original age. His face brimmed with worry and affection for Jaeha. He looked like the one Jaeha had just seen—but somehow different, making it feel real.

“……”

It felt like it had been a long time. With trembling arms, Jaeha reached, and hugged him. Not the small warmth, but a body that filled his arms to overflowing, and the thud-thud of a racing heart.

Aiden dipped closer, making it easier for Jaeha to hold him. Jaeha gave all the strength he had.

“Aiden-ssi…”

His voice cracked like the throat of a man who hadn’t drunk water for days.

“I missed you.”

“…Me too.”

Clutching him with crushing force, Jaeha pushed himself upright. Aiden smiled faintly and wrapped an arm around his back. The affection-laced touch he hadn’t felt in so long made tears threaten.

“…Aiden-ssi?”

Something felt off. Jaeha lowered his head, looking down.

“…Huh?”

One of Aiden’s arms hung at an unnatural angle. Now he noticed the noise around them, the faint commotion. Startled, ignoring how his own body creaked, Jaeha pulled back.

“You’re hurt? What happened? What happened after that?”

“…Sit down first. You need rest.”

Aiden was a mess. Not just a broken arm—cuts and smears of blood here and there. The white uniform made every wound stand out more.

“T-this… we—w-we need first aid—quick…”

He reached for Aiden’s shoulder, then froze, afraid to hurt him. A hand settled on Jaeha’s own shoulder; he glanced back.

“Jaeha.”

“F—Father.”

“Thank goodness. You’re awake…”

Kneeling beside him, his father pulled him into a light embrace. Jaeha held him back, still dazed but gathering the situation, and asked:

“What happened? Was there a fight? The gate? How did Aiden-ssi end up like this?”

“You cleared the gate. But in the process… there were a few… complications.”

“I tried to intervene, but in the end, I didn’t help.”

Intervene? Did he mean the voice Jaeha had heard midway? That couldn’t be true—without that voice, he would have given up.

“No…”

A complication? Confused, he looked around. His father winced softly and glanced to one side; Jaeha followed his gaze.

“……”

People were clustered busily. The space bore the scars of battle—places smashed and scorched black. Shards of something broken littered the ground.

And, in one corner, there was the boss.

“……”

Jaeha stopped scanning the area. The boss and Seo Tae-geon were being bound—but not at the arms.

…Because one arm was gone.

“Boss…?”

“Hold him tight. Got any spare artifacts?”

“We used them all…”

It wasn’t severed; no blood poured. It was shattered.

Like a broken gemstone, the sectioned surface was jagged, and translucent dark-red fragments kept dropping onto the floor.

“Blood Crystallization Syndrome. You know it—seems like it came from traces left from when I used to be an esper. But now that I’m not, it’s not dangerous.”

Would it become like this if it grew dangerous—would a person’s body turn to stone?

Though people surrounded him and restrained him, the boss’s gaze was fixed this way. As Jaeha flinched under that look, Aiden wrapped his good arm around him.

“…There were… incidents. You don’t need to worry.”

“……”

“Thanks to you, we cleared. Now we can go home.”

That was true. He might never know exactly why the boss had wanted to enter this gate with him, or why he was obsessed with the clear, but it was over.

Jaeha chose not to look at him with a sharpened edge; he focused on the man before him. He turned away without regret and carefully began to stabilize Aiden’s arm, which seemed to have received no proper first aid.

“…Why push yourself like this? You’re a Guide—you can order people around.”

“Haha. I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

Thankfully, it wasn’t a pulverized fracture or bone protruding through skin; once things settled, a healer esper could likely fix it quickly. Stung by worry, Jaeha grumbled like last time—but this time, instead of putting on a brave line to impress him, Aiden looked genuinely sorry for making him worry.

“……”

With his father’s help, they finished basic first aid. Jaeha realized, afresh, how Aiden had changed. Maybe because he had just come from seeing the “other Aiden.”

“I… I saw Aiden-ssi.”

“Saw me?”

“Aiden-ssi who didn’t know me…”

Aiden, taking the treatment meekly, accepted the cryptic words with a softened brow. Then, in a playful tone, he asked:

“He didn’t hit on you?”

Jaeha let out a breath of laughter.

“I was the one who hit on him. But I think I failed.”

“Don’t lie.”

He said it in a deflated voice, and Jaeha felt a little aggrieved—but he ended up smiling. The relief of being back was enormous. Even after leaving that warm, dreamy world, he didn’t miss it; perhaps he’d grown attached to this hard life.

“So when we get out of the gate…”

“……”

“There’s something I really want to say.”

Not in this chaos—properly, when things were calm. Old-fashioned and cliché, maybe with a bouquet in hand, he wanted to say it to him.

That he loved him.

And in that moment—

[0 days 0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds]

Beeeeep—

The allotted time inside the gate ran out. A siren-like sound filled the space, and the chatter cut off.

“Well done, everyone.”

As the surroundings washed white, a familiar, playful voice rang out.

The boss.