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Rather, Ha-gyeom wished Baek Sa would press him further about what he had seen inside that memory. He wasn’t hoping for explanations or persuasion, but he also hadn’t wanted silence—as if nothing could be changed now.

But Baek Sa remained detached. Nothing like the sharpness he showed when he first asked if he was in the memory too.

Time passed helplessly. Pain shot through Ha-gyeom’s spasming muscles. When his trembling refused to settle, Baek Sa released him and deliberately met his eyes.

“Don’t let your mind go anywhere dark. Remember, you’re stronger than you think.”

Even after Ha-gyeom had said he knew everything, did Baek Sa really feel no guilt?

“You calm the symptoms first. Slowly—breathe slowly.”

But when Ha-gyeom buried his face against Baek Sa’s chest again, he could hear the man’s heartbeat beating faster than usual. That, strangely, reassured him far more than meeting those unfathomable eyes.

It meant Baek Sa wasn’t unaffected. Ha-gyeom wanted to believe that. Even if he couldn’t tell what emotion was stirring Baek Sa, it didn’t matter.

When the trembling in his body noticeably subsided, Baek Sa stepped back. Ha-gyeom still felt weak, but not so much that his legs would give out. His dizzy vision and heavy head had also cleared somewhat.

The symptoms eased only in Baek Sa’s arms. The thought of facing another episode like this felt suffocating.

“Are you really… planning to go to the training with me?”

Ha-gyeom clutched Baek Sa’s shirt hem even tighter as he asked. Even in this state, the thought of Baek Sa being in danger was unbearable. Baek Sa met his gaze calmly as he answered.

“I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’m not leaving you to deal with it alone anymore.”

Then, glancing toward the door, he whispered lower.

“If you jump into the fire, I’m jumping with you. Under any circumstance…”

“Then what about the mission?”

Baek Sa replied with a faint, almost hollow expression.

“If you get hurt, what meaning would a mission possibly have?”

“……”

“Even if we save hundreds, thousands—if I can’t save you, then none of it matters.”

His eyes flickered with a frightening intensity, and Ha-gyeom couldn’t utter a single word. In the past, he would have felt grateful for those words, but now—with Ah-rang’s memories cutting through him—they were too heavy to accept plainly.

Baek Sa wasn’t gentle; he was fiercely resolute. The grip around Ha-gyeom’s waist was tight enough to hurt, and the heat radiating from his body made it impossible to argue back.

But imagining Baek Sa getting hurt made Ha-gyeom feel sick. He bit down hard on his lower lip, unable to answer, and Baek Sa leaned in close to whisper.

“No matter how you judge me because of Ah-rang’s memory, I don’t care.”

His strength gradually pushed Ha-gyeom back. When his back finally hit the cold bathroom wall, the steadiness he’d regained slipped again, and his breathing turned ragged.

“It’s also true I didn’t know Assemblyman Tak was responsible for your family. Even if you don’t believe me about that, it doesn’t matter.”

Only then did Ha-gyeom see a faint ripple in Baek Sa’s pitch-black eyes. Ha-gyeom blinked repeatedly, waiting for his next words.

“All I think about is you. The whole time you were gone, the whole time you came back and pushed me away. No—since long before that. As if it were carved into my consciousness.”

The certainty in those words made his chest burn. His mind went blank from the sensation—pain, almost.

A crashing wave of desire. It made no sense to love someone while knowing their wrongdoing, yet an abnormal, consuming need took over him. At the very moment his emotions sharpened painfully clear, Ha-gyeom swallowed back the words rising in his throat.

“Whatever is happening inside you right now, hiding it isn’t the only way to protect me, Ha-gyeom.”

His eyes were still fierce, and this time Ha-gyeom obeyed without resistance, nodding. His eyes were wet, but what he felt wasn’t helplessness, nor self-mockery.

What he hid instead was something close to madness. A violent, obsessive longing. He feared even Baek Sa seeing it, because it felt monstrous, how desperately he wanted him. Even though he already had part of him, he craved more—achingly so.

Thinking of Ah-rang made Baek Sa’s touch feel like burning claws scraping his skin, yet looking into the eyes he had cherished for so long made his heart pound as if none of that had happened.

Even if tangled emotions made him feel like a monster, the feeling that he would never stop loving Baek Sa struck him with frightening clarity.

In the silent bathroom where not even the sound of running water existed, they stared at each other as if devouring one another for several long minutes.

Knock, knock. A servant’s voice followed with a polite call.

“If you need assistance…”

It was the first sign of someone nearby in a while. But Baek Sa had surely sensed long ago that she posed no threat.

His hand slid slowly, almost stickily, away from Ha-gyeom’s waist, and he turned his back. Seeing the flush rising up Baek Sa’s long neck above his shirt collar, Ha-gyeom let out a breath that sounded almost like a sigh.

---

The gathering for the second training took place at dawn. Beyond the gray ship that had once been used as a battleship, the sky was slowly taking on a faint blue hue.

Ha-gyeom headed for the pier with Baek Sa and Taeseong, both fully armed. Park Ha and Yeo Jin-joo, who were to accompany them for the training, had already boarded, so the number of people heading toward the ship at this hour was small.

Ha-gyeom glanced up at Baek Sa, who walked ahead with an expressionless face. Like during the collection operation, he carried a pair of heavy machine guns strapped to his back. His strides naturally matched Ha-gyeom’s pace, steady and confident, and there wasn’t the slightest trace of tension on him.

Ha-gyeom had survived the first training because he was a guide, but he couldn’t be sure what would happen to Baek Sa, an Esper. The worst possible outcome kept forcing its way into his mind, and because he couldn’t shove it out, Ha-gyeom felt even more anxious than Baek Sa himself.

“It’s not too late even now.”

Unsure if the words were presumptuous, he still asked. Baek Sa answered by simply taking his hand.

The sudden touch made Ha-gyeom’s shoulder flinch. He couldn’t ignore the faint chill that still rose from Baek Sa’s touch. So he subtly withdrew his hand and lowered his gaze to hide the discomfort.

Instead of reaching out again, Baek Sa spoke.

“I’m not changing my mind.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“That’s why I should go with you even more.”

At another time, those words might have filled him with gratitude. But not now. Ha-gyeom, who knew the true nature of what lay inside the anomaly, was overwhelmed with worry for Baek Sa. There was no way to know whether Baek Sa, despite being an Esper, would experience the same things he did—or, if not the same, what entirely different horrors he might face.

As he walked, releasing only a faint sigh, Taeseong unnecessarily chimed in.

“Wouldn’t it look pretty lame to chicken out after coming all the way here?”

Taeseong’s jab was aimed at poor Baek Sa. Baek Sa only responded with a blunt, humorless laugh. Realizing he was the only one among the three who seemed nervous, Ha-gyeom felt his chest tighten further.

Even so, the three of them walked without stopping along the T-shaped path, and at the end of the pier stood Assemblyman Tak in pajamas with three mercenaries. It looked as if he had been shaken awake and rushed here, but since no one was waiting for his arrival, the atmosphere felt awkward.

Ha-gyeom clenched his fists tightly to avoid showing any panic in front of him. If another panic attack came now, he would ruin everything.

Feeling Baek Sa watching him closely, Ha-gyeom deliberately avoided looking at Assemblyman Tak and kept his gaze fixed on the uneven ground, barely managing to hold himself together.

“I had a very good dream today. I’m sure this training will bring results.”

Assemblyman Tak said casually. Everyone knew this training existed for him to boast about later, so it wasn’t surprising that he was trying to boost morale before they boarded.

But it was only his intuition—no one could predict the actual outcome of the training. If Baek Sa got hurt or didn’t survive, Assemblyman Tak would lose his most loyal subordinate before getting the chance to brag.

Even if he treated Baek Sa as a loyal subordinate, Assemblyman Tak saw gifted people as replaceable resources. It wouldn’t be surprising if he abandoned Baek Sa. After all, he was the one who had driven Ah-rang into the gravity hole, even pushing Baek Sa to the brink of rampage to make it happen.

“Since Baek Sa volunteered himself, if we get results again this time, I’ll give him a special reward.”

An S-class Esper was just as valuable as an S-class guide. Even so, Assemblyman Tak allowing Baek Sa to join so easily was likely because of the results Ha-gyeom produced in the first training.

He had been injured but survived—and now stood in front of them completely fine.

But Ha-gyeom’s sense of pressure was different. If the training ended in the worst possible way, the Center’s operation would fail, and he…

In the end, he would lose everything in his world.

Was Baek Sa truly willing to risk all of this and go through with the training?