Taming the Obsessive Attachment

‘Now, I just need to buy the ingredients.’

Jae-jin accessed the online food section of a department store that offered delivery and skillfully selected premium ingredients. Because Seo Eui-woo never cooked for himself, even in the first life, grocery shopping and meal preparation had always been Kwon Jae-jin’s responsibility.

Caviar. Truffle. Top-grade 2++ Korean beef ribs. Abalone. King crab. Lobster.

That wasn’t enough, so he went into the luxury gift section and added a set of premium tuna belly, a set of Yeonggwang dried yellow croaker, and a set of 13-year-old ginseng certified by a master ginseng cultivator.

Just as he finished the payment and was grinning to himself, Seo Eui-woo, who had apparently woken up at some point, was watching him with open eyes.

“You bought something?”

His hazy gray eyes flicked to the tablet screen. Jae-jin quickly turned it off.

“Just a few things. You’ll see when they arrive.”

Seo Eui-woo obediently nodded. This guy wouldn’t care whether Kwon Jae-jin was buying land or houses. As long as the guiding was done, that was all that mattered to him.

“You said you were going to sleep, but you’re already awake?”

“Ah, well…”

Still sprawled out in a relaxed manner, Seo Eui-woo stretched his head forward and pressed a kiss to Jae-jin’s temple. He kissed him twice more, deliberately making a sound, then licked his lower lip as if savoring the taste.

“……”

“What now?”

“It’s just… I feel really good.”

“What?”

“Falling asleep. The fact that I can sleep so deeply like this… it’s so sudden that it scared me a little.”

“……”

“Do people always feel this way when they fall asleep? It makes me anxious, like I might never wake up again once I close my eyes. And it feels kind of strange that the bed is this comfortable.”

Seo Eui-woo murmured languidly.

Though his tone was relaxed, Kwon Jae-jin didn’t miss the fleeting moment when sharp tension flashed through his pupils.

“Since I was a kid… At the Center’s training facility, we had to sleep in assigned places during assigned hours. But for me, that was just…”

It must have been torture.

Seo Eui-woo, still in his growing years, had been confined to a cramped, cage-like triple bunk bed, far too small for his body. He couldn’t move freely, couldn’t turn on a light or shift around for fear of disturbing his fellow trainees’ sleep. He had to remain perfectly still, trapped in the pitch darkness, completely alone.

“Mm, never mind. It’s nothing.”

Seo Eui-woo shook his head matter-of-factly, cutting himself off. Kwon Jae-jin sat up, leaning in to quietly examine Seo Eui-woo’s eyes up close.

‘Come to think of it, that’s right. How did I overlook something this simple?’

S-Class Esper Seo Eui-woo was suffering from severe imbalance due to chronic guiding deficiency.

And the most obvious symptom of that was insomnia.

‘The fundamental assumption was wrong. Just providing guiding wasn’t enough to fix this.’

The real root of the issue lay in his imbalance.

‘How can someone who can’t sleep properly think rationally? Of course, anyone would lose their mind under those conditions…’

Seo Eui-woo’s erratic, borderline insane behavior—wasn’t it simply because he was sleep-deprived?

If he could just get deep, uninterrupted rest, Seo Eui-woo would undoubtedly be much more reasonable.

Thinking back to his first life, Kwon Jae-jin realized—Seo Eui-woo had only started acting somewhat human after he’d finally gotten proper sleep. Though, at the same time, that had been the point where his obsession with Kwon Jae-jin had intensified…

‘I need to make sure he sleeps properly.’

Right now, three major imbalances stood out in Seo Eui-woo.

The first of them was insomnia. The rest could be dealt with one by one.

‘Get him to sleep deeply and bring him back to his senses.’

With that realization, Kwon Jae-jin’s pitch-black eyes locked onto Seo Eui-woo. His gaze was unwavering, solid, and eerily calm.

A faint tension trickled down his spine. A pleasant sense of exhilaration accompanied it.

‘See? My kid isn’t a bad one. He just has some… extreme tendencies.’

Just then, a large paper bag suddenly flew toward Seo Eui-woo.

Rustling, he reached inside and began pulling out the contents one by one.

As the items were revealed, Kwon Jae-jin’s expression slowly darkened.

Handcuffs.

Chains.

A gag.

A catheter.

A urinary tube…

Unbelievable.

Kwon Jae-jin let out a scoffing laugh.

Had he prepared these while Jae-jin was unconscious? The sheer absurdity of it was beyond infuriating—it didn’t even make him angry anymore.

It was just exhausting.

Even in his second life, was he doomed to never escape the goddamn handcuff debate?

‘Ha… This is ridiculous. How did it come to this again?’

This was ridiculous.

Kwon Jae-jin hadn’t refused guiding, nor had he thrown a tantrum trying to escape from Seo Eui-woo’s house.

He hadn’t fired a gun to shatter the windows, nor had he launched a surprise attack to stab Seo Eui-woo with a knife. He hadn’t even tried to strangle him in his sleep… And yet… why?

‘Don’t tell me my future is already set in stone, that I can’t change it no matter what?’

Jae-jin frowned and looked down at the floor.

It felt as if the ground beneath his feet had collapsed, dragging him into an abyss of pitch-black darkness.

‘If the future really can’t be changed… does that mean I’m still going to die four years from now? Meaninglessly?’

No.

That couldn’t happen.

Jae-jin snapped his head up. Then, grinding his teeth, he glared fiercely at Seo Eui-woo.

“Seo Eui-woo, what the hell… are you doing right now?”

Seo Eui-woo, holding a pair of silver handcuffs, simply gazed at him with clear, unreadable eyes. The air around him wavered slightly.

“What do you think? You can see for yourself. …You really hate being tied up, huh? Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“If I liked it, I wouldn’t be normal. Of course I hate it.”

“Then why did you do that? You said you’d give me guiding, but then suddenly you bit your tongue… That was just… way too scary for me.”

“What the hell are you scared of? If anyone should be scared, it’s me.”

“What if you die, Jae-jin? You failed this time, but what about next time… or the time after that? What if you succeed and just stop breathing? If that’s the case, then I’d rather—”

Seo Eui-woo trailed off, murmuring as if talking to himself. His icy eyes locked onto Jae-jin, glinting sharply.

Just as Kwon Jae-jin was struggling to figure out how to handle Seo Eui-woo, it seemed that Seo Eui-woo was equally troubled, unsure of how to deal with Jae-jin.

“That’s your fault to begin with.”

Jae-jin let out a shallow sigh, muttering rapidly.

“You broke the conditions I set. I told you I don’t like pain, but you shoved it down my throat until I gagged. You didn’t even prepare me and then tried to shove it in my ass again.”

“I just needed guiding. And I never agreed to that ridiculous second condition in the first place.”

“I only bit my tongue out of frustration. It’s not like I actually meant to die. I knew you’d heal me with your ability anyway. And honestly? I figured this was the only way you’d actually listen to what I had to say.”

Jae-jin moved his tongue, still slightly numb, enunciating his words as clearly as possible.

Whether Seo Eui-woo chose to believe him or not was his problem, but Jae-jin wasn’t about to let this slide without setting the record straight.

“Look, Seo Eui-woo, you’re the first-ever S-Class Esper. Among all Espers, you have the most powerful abilities.”

“And?”

“That means that ever since you awakened right after birth, you’ve never really had trouble dealing with people.”

Sure, he must have struggled because he couldn’t find a guide strong enough to match him, but that was just the pain of guiding deficiency. Human relationships were an entirely different issue.

“No one has ever been your equal. No one has ever gone against you. Everyone either liked you, revered you, or feared you. And that’s why, despite being twenty years old, you’re still just a damn kid.”

“A kid… what?”

“I’m going to make this very clear right now.”

Seo Eui-woo blinked, his expression flickering with confusion. Kwon Jae-jin gazed into those smooth, glossy gray eyes with something akin to pity, as if offering him a lesson.

“If you need my help, you should try to get on my good side.”

“…….”

“Whether it’s acting sweet, being cute, or giving me what I want—find a way to win me over!”

Handcuffs? A gag?

Honestly, those were nothing.

If Kwon Jae-jin had been the type to get hung up on things like that, he never would have ended up in a relationship with Seo Eui-woo in his first life.

In the end, Seo Eui-woo had realized his mistakes, regretted them, and sincerely repented. So, whatever—it wasn’t a big deal. Just like before, in this second life, Jae-jin could be the bigger person and move on.

“Up until now, if you wanted someone, the guides probably spread their legs for you without question. Whether their holes got torn or not, they just took it without even flinching.

But me? As you can see, I’m just a half-baked, mutant guide from a normal background—I can’t do that.”

“…….”

“I don’t like pain. I don’t like getting hurt. I don’t like being treated like some disposable tool. And I definitely don’t like you ignoring my wishes and doing whatever the fuck you want with me.”

“So basically, what you’re saying…”

Seo Eui-woo’s voice was eerily calm.

“…is that you don’t want to guide me. Did you really need to dance around the point like that? The truth is obvious, isn’t it?”