Ghost Apple

‘It’s useless on a clone.’

A clone remains connected to the original body. That’s what allows for indirect guiding as well—normally, the energy flows along an invisible pathway linking the clone to the source, eventually reaching the original. Which meant, the moment someone tried to tamper with the clone through a guiding attempt meant to harm, the connection would be severed before the damage could travel up the line.

In the end, the only thing Han-gyeom could do, faced with a clone he could easily shatter with just a touch of his fingers, was to surrender.

“What do you want?”

Seo Won didn’t answer. He simply looked at Han-gyeom in silence.

His gaze alone said there was no need to voice a reply.

“Why did you do it?”

Seo Won didn’t respond this time either. Instead, he motioned with his eyes to the two people standing behind him. Understanding the signal, they gave a polite nod and exited the room.

The moment the door shut, Seo Won finally opened his mouth.

“Because it was a waste.”

“What was?”

Seo Won’s lips curled into that vivid smile Han-gyeom had seen once before. Back then, his face had been half-covered by a cap and sunglasses, so it hadn’t made much of an impression. But now, with his face fully visible and smiling like that, Han-gyeom thought it was the kind of smile that could easily enchant people.

Seo Won didn’t answer the question. Clearly, he wasn’t the type to give straightforward responses.

Instead, he started spouting nonsense that completely disregarded Han-gyeom’s will.

“From now on, this is your home—and a pretty livable prison, at that.”

Han-gyeom’s expression twisted at once. The word prison wrapped around his throat like a noose.

“As of today, all your time belongs to me. There’s no need for you to take any other clients.”

“Says who?”

Han-gyeom tilted his head defiantly, glaring back at Seo Won’s forceful words.

“If you want a guiding session, make a reservation through Song Jae-woo. Don’t go around kidnapping and threatening people like this.”

“Reservation?”

Seo Won murmured the word and let out a faint chuckle.

“Do I really need to go through all that? Your guiding exists for my sake anyway.”

Han-gyeom thought the man standing in front of him was deluded beyond belief.

Sometimes, Espers claim they’ve found destiny in a guide simply because their wavelengths match and the sessions are highly efficient.

This person is the one for me. I won’t let anyone else have them, and so on.

Some even go so far as to consider imprinting, driven by the insatiable greed for perfect guiding. Whether they’re affiliated with the Association or unregistered, Espers tend to share one thing in common—an overwhelming obsession with guides who offer top-tier guidance.

Pathetic.

Han-gyeom decided it was time to shatter Seo Won’s arrogant delusion.

“My guiding exists so I can make money. It’s not for anyone else.”

It was a statement befitting a low-tier guide who sold his services to anyone just to make ends meet.

“Money, huh…”

The smile vanished from Seo Won’s lips, and a cold gleam flickered in his blue eyes.

“Funny, considering there was a man you didn’t charge a single won—and even let him imprint you.”

The moment those words hit, Han-gyeom’s eyes shook violently.

Thump, thump—his heart pounded hard. The thudding seemed to echo in his head, syncing with each beat.

A wave of panic surged up and swallowed him whole.

His pale skin turned ghostly white, and his fingertips trembled.

“What… are you talking about…”

The voice that finally scraped its way out of him trembled pathetically. He felt like the lump of blood that had been lodged deep in his chest might suddenly burst out between the cracks in his voice.

“I’ll say it again—your guiding exists for me.”

Seo Won repeated it like a mantra, then turned his back and walked toward the door. Click. At the sound of the latch unlocking, Han-gyeom flinched.

Standing beyond the door Seo Won opened was someone who looked exactly like him—down to every last detail. The only difference was the shirt: black instead of white. Without that, it would’ve been impossible to tell the two apart.

For most people, anyway.

That one’s the real body…

Despite their identical appearances, Han-gyeom instinctively knew the man in the black shirt was the original. He could sense the subtle flow of ESP—imperceptible to the naked eye—moving from the real Seo Won to the identical one in white.

Something feels wrong.

His heart pulsed with unbearable instability, and the tingling sensation that had started between his shoulder blades began spreading fast.

Han-gyeom staggered, reeling from the bizarre sensations and the dizziness that suddenly overwhelmed him.

The real Seo Won—the one in the black shirt—took off his suit jacket and handed it to the clone. Then he undid the buttons of his vest and brought his hand up to the collar of his shirt.

“I’ve sent clones to plenty of guides before, but not once has the guiding reached me.”

When a clone receives guiding, the original—connected through the invisible link—naturally experiences an impact on their ESP flow. That should’ve been expected, and yet he spoke as if it were some shocking revelation.

With the last button undone, Seo Won pulled his shirt wide open.

“Hk?!”

Han-gyeom slapped a hand over his mouth and staggered back. His eyes, blown wide in shock, trembled wildly.

Only now did he understand why Seo Won had been wearing black.

His torso was covered—no, completely overtaken—by dark veins that snaked out from his heart, branching in every direction like a spiderweb. The black tendrils crept all the way up to his neck.

Black Vein.

Commonly known as the precursor to a berserk state.

Espers who don’t receive proper guiding gradually become consumed by the black energy rooted in their bodies—their ESP. As the symptoms worsen, the overgrown ESP channels start writhing under the skin, eventually surfacing to become visible. Bit by bit, the Black Vein takes control of the body and corrupts its host.

It always begins at the heart. And from there, the early signs of berserk syndrome—the Black Vein—steadily spread through the body. Once the dark tendrils reach the brain and devour the ego entirely, that’s when it becomes full-blown berserk. That’s when the Esper turns into a monster.

If the Black Vein had already reached the neck, it meant a rampage could begin at any moment.

Sometimes, all it took was a single flicker of negative emotion—something small—and by the next day, it could have crawled all the way into the head.

It was a condition so dangerous it had to be hidden at all costs.

Espers, guides—anyone with ability could recognize the Black Vein on sight.

If someone had seen him in that state, he would’ve been branded a future berserker on the spot. The Association would’ve locked him up in a heavily monitored isolation cell and placed him under strict containment.

“I’ve had more guiding sessions than I can count. But this is where it got me.”

Seo Won looked down at his body, wrapped in the Black Vein, and spoke bitterly.

From the lowest D-rank to A-rank guides, he’d experienced them all. Each time, he held out hope that maybe—just maybe—this one would work. But the result was always the same.

The Black Vein spread relentlessly, gnawing away at Seo Won’s sanity and endurance.

I can’t die like this.

Not after everything I did to come back.

With blood in his throat and desperation in his heart, he clawed his way to survival. He poured absurd sums of money into research, mobilized countless people, did everything he could to find out what was causing it—how to fix it.

One of them—an S-rank guide from the Association, met discreetly through hidden channels—pointed directly at his heart and said:

“No matter how powerful a guide may be, no one can guide someone marked with that.”

He had seen something more than just the Black Vein.

“There’s only one person in the world who can guide you.”

Only then did Seo Won realize the core of the issue lay within his own heart.

He looked down at the left side of his chest, where his heart should be. Nothing had ever been visible there before—only the creeping black veins. But now, a red symbol had surfaced on his skin.

When he raised his head and looked at Han-gyeom, the man looked pale as a sheet, as if he might faint at any second.

“So you can see it.”

Seo Won let out a faint smile, as if he’d known all along.

A blazing, flame-like red mark had fully manifested on the left side of his chest, vivid and complete—even the Black Vein couldn’t obscure it. And what’s more, Seo Won’s heart beat with exhilaration, pounding with a joy he’d never felt before. As if it were reacting to Cha Han-gyeom’s gaze.

No doubt, Han-gyeom must’ve felt it too.

Because the original owner of that heart and Han-gyeom had once been imprinted on each other.

Just as Seo Won had suspected, Han-gyeom’s heart was now pounding so violently he could barely breathe.

“Your imprint… I think it should be on your back.”

Han-gyeom exhaled shakily, haunted by the voice of his former imprinted partner—someone long dead, now reduced to ash. The silent resonance unleashed by an imprint between two ability users began gnawing at Han-gyeom’s mind with brutal persistence.

“Something like a pair of small, tattered wings… torn apart without mercy.”

The phantom voice, once so gentle, now wrapped around Han-gyeom with merciless cruelty.

Hidden beneath his clothes, the red imprint screamed—resonating like it was crying out in pain.