125

While Baek Sa was dealing with the monster Taeseong had summoned him to handle, Ha-gyeom sat blankly on the bed. When he pushed up the sleeve of his combat uniform and checked his wristwatch, he realized that dusk had already fallen.

They were expected to reach their destination at dawn tomorrow. It was currently 8 p.m., meaning there were still about nine hours left. If he was to enter an anomaly even larger than the first one, the proper thing to do was guide Baek Sa during the remaining time. But his mind was tangled, and he kept splashing his face with cold water over and over.

Every second, his emotions swung wildly. Thinking of Ah-rang made accepting Baek Sa’s touch unbearable, yet at the same time he couldn’t endure without the warmth he felt from him.

Soon, the door opened and Baek Sa entered. His combat uniform was stained with monster blood. Without a word, he met Ha-gyeom’s eyes briefly and headed straight into the small bathroom. It resembled the situation before the collection mission, but nothing about it was the same now.

There was a fresh combat uniform prepared in the room, yet when Baek Sa stepped out of the bathroom, he wore only a towel loosely wrapped around his lower body. He knew exactly what needed to be done next, and so did Ha-gyeom, who stood up and began unbuttoning his uniform as well.

“……”

His fingers trembled as they moved downward. Unlike Ha-gyeom, whose emotions kept shifting every moment, Baek Sa showed no hesitation at all. All he did differently from usual was dim the room’s lights until only a faint glow remained, then he approached the bed.

His earlier words echoed relentlessly in Ha-gyeom’s mind.

If that’s the case, ending her pain is the only way to save Ah-rang.

Ha-gyeom couldn’t let the thought go. How could someone be so cruel? How could he say something like that with such unwavering certainty in his eyes?

Ha-gyeom acknowledged he was far less experienced than Baek Sa, that he had lived in a place too small to understand the world, and that he was simply young. But hearing those words felt like the world had flipped upside down.

The cold shiver he thought had subsided crept back up his neck. He feared that if Baek Sa touched him now, the same sense of rejection would rise again. Even knowing in his head that the merciless side wasn’t all there was to him, he couldn’t predict what his instincts would feel.

When Baek Sa came so close they were almost touching, the damp heat in the air brushed against him. Ha-gyeom, having removed both his jacket and pants and left only a thin T-shirt, looked up at him. At the slightest motion of Baek Sa reaching out, his shoulders jolted, and a deep, low voice filled the space.

“You must have seen me in Ah-rang’s memories.”

The topic was painfully personal. Something both of them had been avoiding. But now, there was no way around it.

When Ha-gyeom only bit his lip instead of answering, Baek Sa murmured:

“So if you started hating me because of that…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Ha-gyeom knew exactly what fear lay behind those words. And even if he couldn’t see Baek Sa the same as before, his feelings for him weren’t something that would change.

If he had truly come to hate him, then he wouldn’t be looking into those eyes right now, he wouldn’t be trembling like this, and he certainly wouldn’t feel this fierce pull toward him.

“It’s not like that…”

It was just that Ha-gyeom struggled with the guilt of loving him anyway. Knowing Ah-rang’s tragedy, he couldn’t help feeling that holding onto feelings for Baek Sa was an unbearable wrong against her.

Even if Ah-rang, in her fractured state of consciousness, couldn’t possibly know what happened in this room or inside Ha-gyeom’s heart, he himself couldn’t be at ease. He understood her emotions more deeply than anyone, and there had been a moment when that understanding turned into a crushing sense of betrayal toward Baek Sa.

“If it’s not that, then what?”

Baek Sa asked, gently holding Ha-gyeom’s trembling shoulder.

His heart pounded loudly. He was terrified of Baek Sa’s touch, yet equally terrified of losing that warmth. He couldn’t understand his own feelings at all. Even in the middle of this turmoil, he couldn’t erase the desire to touch Baek Sa, to bring him closer, to let him in fully.

“I…”

The heat from Baek Sa’s palm grew hotter, and Ha-gyeom finally surrendered to himself. And at the same time, he made a quiet decision. If this was a fate he couldn’t escape, he would let it pull him wherever it wished.

“How could I hate you?”

Even if Baek Sa didn’t show a trace of guilt, it didn’t matter. The feelings Ha-gyeom had nurtured for so many years were solid and unbreakable. If he loved him, then loving even his faults, his darkness, his cruelty was inevitable.

Baek Sa looked down at him, eyes filled with doubt. The confidence on his face was overwhelming, suffocating—and Ha-gyeom’s mind blanked for a moment.

He stared at Baek Sa’s lips, dazed. A burning thirst rose inside him as he grabbed Baek Sa’s still-damp wrist. Climbing onto the bed first, he pulled that solid arm toward him, and Baek Sa followed without resistance, pressing their bodies together.

The towel slipped off and fell to the floor. With nothing left to hide, Baek Sa pressed fully against him. Ha-gyeom lifted his torso slightly and pulled off his T-shirt. His body was completely bare—and his heart pounded so violently it felt like it might burst from his chest.

Just meeting Baek Sa’s sharpened gaze, so different from before, made Ha-gyeom’s thighs tense. The way Baek Sa braced himself on the sheets, trapping him in his arms, made every flex of muscle stand out. The protruding veins, the familiar movements.

Baek Seung-woo was no longer a young man, and Ha-gyeom was no longer a child. So…

As he caressed his shoulder, he slowly came to understand. Adults sometimes set aside their guilt with alarming ease. The world he had been taught was only the world as it had been taught to him. In truth, humans were helpless before desire, and even willing to give up their lives for it. How could anyone claim not to know that—not even now, when all of that lay bare beneath the surface?

Unable to endure the gaze fixed so plainly on him, Ha-gyeom wrapped his arms around Baek Sa’s neck. When he lifted his face and kissed him, Baek Sa lowered himself and pushed his tongue deep into Ha-gyeom’s throat. The moment Ha-gyeom spread his legs, he could already feel the hard length thrusting inside. His own had long since grown wet, dampening the skin around his navel.

The creaking of the cabin was strange. Because the ship was always in motion, the vibrations sometimes traveled through the room. In just a few hours, they would be stepping into a horrifying anomaly, yet the fact that he was throwing himself into this with Baek Sa filled him with despair, and at the same time, a strange thrill.

After a long, heavy kiss, he pulled back, a thin string of saliva stretching between their lips. Ha-gyeom inhaled, then exhaled slowly.

“I saw it in Ah-rang’s memories.”

He didn’t know if he wanted to blame Baek Sa or defend him. But because he hadn’t only seen Ah-rang that night inside her memories, he needed to know.

“Why did you send Ah-rang on that mission knowing she’d rampage?”

He pushed the question before hearing an answer. Baek Sa averted his eyes and kissed the side of Ha-gyeom’s neck instead. Ha-gyeom slid his fingers into Baek Sa’s damp hair as he spoke again.

“For an Esper, rampaging means death…”

“……”

“Don’t tell me… you thought you’d be saved by dying too?”

He didn’t know whether the decision to send Ah-rang or the resolve to rampage had come first. He asked because no one else cared about such things…

“Even though I was still alive?”

Maybe he wanted to know what place he held in Baek Sa’s heart. Unlike himself, who had spent countless hours thinking of him while staying in Baek Seung-woo’s room, Ha-gyeom feared that his own existence might have meant almost nothing to him.

The wet tongue that had been pressing along the side of his neck reached his jawline. After tracing his jaw, Baek Sa bit lightly at his earlobe, yet still refused to answer. Growing anxious, Ha-gyeom tightened his grip in Baek Sa’s hair. Baek Sa didn’t mind, and instead slid his hand deeper between Ha-gyeom’s legs.

“Haa…”

A low breath leaked from Baek Sa first as he stroked the area between Ha-gyeom’s legs. His large hand cupped and rubbed Ha-gyeom’s testicles and length, sliding up along the stiff shaft. Feeling the premature tremor of his inner thighs, Ha-gyeom shook his head without realizing it. But as soon as he stopped, Baek Sa pressed their mouths together again with relentless hunger, scattering Ha-gyeom’s voice every time he tried to question him.

“Or… were you just being loyal… to the Director…”

Through the narrow space between their bodies, Ha-gyeom traced the shape of Baek Sa’s arousal. The size that filled his entire palm felt unreal, and at the same time, something deep inside him tightened.

He knew what it felt like to be stretched open to the limit, and the anticipation already pulsing inside him felt humiliating. Yet the heat spreading through his body didn’t belong only to him.

“Hyung…”

As Ha-gyeom raised his knees and urged him closer, Baek Sa—still kissing him without pause—skillfully positioned himself at his entrance.