Chapter Index
    So, that’s why Brigadier General Oh and the other generals entrusted the search to me, I thought.

    This order was a test given to him. A test to clearly see which weight, loyalty or impulse, Major Ma would bear.

    From the beginning, it was a mission with his life on the line.

    He had to be careful.

    Major Ma turned his stiff eyes. The search team he had sent ahead would still be continuing their pursuit. He suppressed the tangled and confused thoughts and moved his heavy feet. He had to join up with the unit members and deliver the news that the 1st Special Task Force had been additionally assigned.

    *

    Unfortunately, Kwon Jae-jin didn’t get a chance to teach Seo Eui-woo about proper dating.

    Before he could explain what exactly dating, couple rings, couple outfits, love letters… and the ‘love’ in ‘wisdom tooth’ actually meant, an alarm shattered the idyllic moment.

    It was an emergency call.

    Seo Eui-woo reached out fiercely. The black pager flew in violently from outside the bathroom door and was sucked into his grasp. Seo Eui-woo turned off the alarm with a force that seemed like he would break the device.

    “Why now…”

    Seo Eui-woo growled softly, checking the instructions that appeared on the pager.

    His gaze was savage, beyond just fierce. The unpleasantly distorted wrinkles on his nose showed no sign of smoothing out. If this was the field and there was a creature in front of him, Seo Eui-woo would have immediately separated the monster’s neck and head without hesitation.

    Responding to a summons immediately at any time is an Esper’s duty, and going to battle without hesitation is a natural mission, but right now, he felt like throwing away his mission and humanity itself.

    “Do you have to go?”

    Kwon Jae-jin released the arm that had been holding Seo Eui-woo and stepped back. Seo Eui-woo gritted his teeth tightly and replied fiercely.

    “Yes, I have to leave right away.”

    “I see. Then let’s get dressed first.”

    “Ha… Jae-jin-ssi.”

    “Yes?”

    Seo Eui-woo looked at the bathroom floor for a moment with an inscrutable gaze. His sharp jaw and thin lips seemed to tremble slightly, then he let out a sigh.

    “I don’t want to go…”

    “…”

    “I don’t want to go,”

    Seo Eui-woo muttered, almost filled with resentment.

    Compared to the past, it was truly a remarkable change.

    Once, even in the moment when Seo Eui-woo kidnapped Kwon Jae-jin and was Guiding him, he left immediately when an emergency call came.

    Responding to an emergency call at any time is the top priority.

    It had to be that way until Seo Eui-woo’s last breath.

    Protecting humanity is an Esper’s mission, and there is nothing more important than that. But right now, Seo Eui-woo wanted to protect Kwon Jae-jin, just that one person, more than all of humanity.

    He knows that this thought is impure. He is also aware that he is committing a serious crime. Not only did he secretly smuggle out and hide a late-blooming Esper, but he even wanted to abandon his dignified mission to protect that late-blooming Esper…

    Originally, late-blooming Espers are to be culled.

    It is a life that should be killed on sight.

    What Seo Eui-woo should save is not Kwon Jae-jin, but the current humanity and its future.

    But now, he felt a resistance to that fact from the bottom of his bones.

    “I just want to be with Jae-jin-ssi.”

    Seo Eui-woo confessed his honest feelings as they were. His drooping, pitiful eyes and dark, lifeless expression looked bitter.

    Raising his head, he grabbed Kwon Jae-jin’s chin and roughly pressed his lips onto his face. Even though he knew that he shouldn’t delay responding to the call, he didn’t want to let Kwon Jae-jin go like this. Jae-jin pushed his shoulder awkwardly.

    “Just a moment. We’ll be late like this. Won’t there be problems if we’re late?”

    “Yes, that’s right. I shouldn’t arouse suspicion…”

    “Let’s do these things after you get back. Let’s talk about the rest after you get back…”

    “Yeah, we should. I understand.”

    Even though he said he understood, Seo Eui-woo continued to press his lips. He supported the back of Kwon Jae-jin’s round head with his large palm and kissed him everywhere on his face. Lips, cheeks, nose, temples, eyebrows. After sweeping all the black, straight hair back, he kissed his clean forehead as well.

    Then, he paused for a moment to look at Jae-jin’s black eyes.

    Looking into those eyes, he couldn’t stand it and finally kissed his eyelids as well.

    “…Seo Eui-woo.”

    “Just this. I’ll go after just this.”

    “…”

    Seo Eui-woo licked his eyelids with blatant intention. Kwon Jae-jin swallowed a sigh inside and struggled to lift his eyelids to allow Seo Eui-woo to kiss the conjunctiva of his eyeballs.

    Seo Eui-woo, with his red tongue out of his mouth, gently licked the inside of the sensitive conjunctiva. Being licked when tears were present was just a little bland, but being licked when dry was quite chilling. Jae-jin gripped the towel covering his lower body tightly.

    “Ugh…”

    He thought that he was really doing all sorts of crazy things. His body, sitting on the artificial stone washstand, kept retreating backward. Seo Eui-woo pressed the back of Kwon Jae-jin’s head against the mirror and licked between his eyelashes. The black eyelashes were wet and clumped together in strands.

    Eventually, the call started ringing again. Now he couldn’t delay any longer.

    Seo Eui-woo barely managed to pull away, swallowing a rough breath between his teeth.

    He had heard that dating wasn’t all about sex and kissing, but Seo Eui-woo couldn’t really understand deep down what the problem was with expressing affection in that way.

    Kwon Jae-jin’s face in front of him, those moist, well-kissed eyes, that white chest under the straight neckline that was so nice to touch, and the armpits hiding the small mole, just looking at them was enough to excite him, and he didn’t know what to do.

    Seo Eui-woo wanted to bury his face in Kwon Jae-jin’s chest right away and lick between his cleavage and under his chest where it folded. Gently rubbing his penis in that tight hole while Kwon Jae-jin brushed his teeth, just imagining it made him feel so good, but he couldn’t understand why that wasn’t real dating.

    Just what is proper dating anyway…

    How much better could it be…

    He felt like he would go crazy wanting to know the things that he couldn’t even do with Seo Eui-woo four years later.

    Kwon Jae-jin wanted to try proper dating, wanted to try proper dating for the first time with the immature twenty-year-old Seo Eui-woo, but at this dramatic moment, a call was interfering.

    The more he thought about it, the more angry he became. He really wanted to sweep everything away.

    Kwon Jae-jin and Seo Eui-woo. They had said that they should live as if they were the only two in the world, but in reality, the fact that they couldn’t do that came to him like a huge wall that he couldn’t overcome.

    Why does Seo Eui-woo become powerless every time it’s related to Kwon Jae-jin? He didn’t know how many times this had happened. Impossibilities that he couldn’t solve were piling up like a tall tower at his feet. Being the first S-rank Esper or anything like that was of no use at all. What’s so great about being born with some ability?

    Seo Eui-woo was anxious and scared and felt like he was going crazy,

    And he liked Kwon Jae-jin so much that he felt like he was going crazy again.

    No, at this point, isn’t it right to just accept the facts as they are?

    Seo Eui-woo was crazy.

    He wasn’t just feeling like he was going crazy, he had really become a crazy bastard.

    “…Jae-jin-ssi, I’ll be back. Stay safe. Text me back right away.”

    “Okay. Go quickly. Don’t get hurt.”

    “Contact me, definitely. I really won’t like it if you’re late to reply.”

    “…Yes. I will reply.”

    Seo Eui-woo turned his feet with difficulty.

    He came out of the bathroom and went straight into the dressing room. He put on his combat gear and equipped his weapons twice as quickly as usual. His hand scratched against the loop as he hastily put on his harness. He loaded his rifle with his scratched hand and entered the Sterile Transfer Room.

    Kwon Jae-jin, who had found a white bathrobe and put it on, saw Seo Eui-woo off from outside the Sterile Transfer Room door. Their figures were faintly visible beyond the double-sealed glass door. The two continued to watch each other until the Resonance signal appeared and Seo Eui-woo teleported away.

    *

    A flashing white light spread out.

    The surrounding scenery changed in an instant, and Seo Eui-woo arrived on the 7th floor of the Center’s Central Building. As soon as he turned on the Goggles and put them on his eyes, he received a call from Lieutenant Colonel Jang Tae-san.

    -Seo Eui-woo. You’re late. The other unit members have already left on the transport helicopter.

    Seo Eui-woo responded calmly to Lieutenant Colonel Jang’s scolding and slowly calmed his overturned stomach.

    “No, I’m not late, Lieutenant Colonel Jang.”

    It was hard to maintain his composure, but he had to pull himself together.

    Lieutenant Colonel Jang Tae-san had a good sense. He was someone he had to pay special attention to. He couldn’t show any weakness for even a moment.

    Seo Eui-woo displayed a blue hologram map inside the Goggles screen. The mission details and destination coordinates were clearly displayed.

    “I will teleport ahead. I will arrive and wait before the unit members.”

    Note