Taming the Obsessive Attachment

Seo Eui-woo slowly, ever so slowly, reached out and placed a hand on Kwon Jae-jin’s forehead. Jae-jin’s vision blurred. The tips of Seo Eui-woo’s fingers wavered, appearing multiplied in his sight. He could feel an invisible force condensing there.

It surged gently, spiraling into a vortex, converging into a single point.

It was like a compressed crystal.

Though imperceptible to the human eye, it clearly existed at the tip of Seo Eui-woo’s fingers—an incomparably beautiful and majestic power. A force both ominous and depraved, coiling like a serpent, monstrous and menacing.

Kwon Jae-jin stared at Seo Eui-woo in a daze, utterly captivated by the strange allure.

For the briefest moment, he thought he wouldn’t mind being consumed by that dazzling terror.

It would be comforting, wouldn’t it? If he just forgot everything.

He could erase all the accumulated, stagnant emotions.

And he could start anew, from the very beginning. Happily, even.

Then, at last, Kwon Jae-jin realized just how fucking stupid, how mind-numbingly idiotic that thought was. How could he be this foolish? How could he be this goddamn pathetic?!

“…No, that won’t be enough.”

Kwon Jae-jin growled, his voice a threatening snarl.

A Guide and an Esper.

Business partners who cooperated and helped each other. Colleagues. Neat, clean, professional bullshit. That kind of relationship could never exist between Kwon Jae-jin and Seo Eui-woo.

“Just ending it like this…? I can’t accept that. If… if that’s how this was going to end, then what the fuck was all of this for? All this pain, all this suffering… I refuse—no matter what happens, I refuse to end it by running away like a coward. I’d rather be ripped apart and die than let it end like that.”

Yeah, this wouldn’t do.

Regret, wasted time, wasted emotions—

None of that mattered.

Even if the future had already changed completely—

Even if Seo Eui-woo no longer loved Kwon Jae-jin—!

‘Fuck that, no fucking way!’

At least right now, Kwon Jae-jin couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t just let Seo Eui-woo disappear into oblivion. That thought alone consumed his entire mind.

“Don’t! Get your hand off me!”

“Jae-jin, it’s dangerous. If you thrash around suddenly, you might trigger something else by mistake. Stay still and don’t move—”

“No! Stop this. Right now. Don’t you dare lay a single finger on my memories!”

Jae-jin, his voice sharp with agitation, swung his arm wildly. His body moved before he could even think. Clenching his fist, he struck Seo Eui-woo across the face with all his strength. Seo Eui-woo didn’t even try to protect himself.

The impact sent his cheek tilting back, a bright red mark blooming on his pale, clear skin. The bruise stood out starkly, impossible to ignore.

“I won’t allow it. I refuse, Seo Eui-woo.”

Kwon Jae-jin panted heavily, shaking his head with unwavering resolve.

“I made myself perfectly clear—I don’t want this. I don’t. If there’s a way to fix this mess, I’ll find it myself. And even if forgetting is my only option, I’ll do it on my own terms.”

“…….”

“I don’t need your help, Seo Eui-woo. I never asked for it, so don’t interfere where you’re not wanted!”

Jae-jin had realized something firsthand—what kind of disastrous consequences came from choosing the easy, convenient shortcut.

He had thoughtlessly tried to change the future, and now look where it had led him.

And erasing his memories with Seo Eui-woo’s power was no different. He couldn’t just wipe everything away so easily. No—no matter how painful, how agonizing, how utterly exhausting it might be, he had to face the problems before him, one by one, and solve them himself.

That was how he and Seo Eui-woo had always done things. That was how they had built their relationship.

“…So I’m the one interfering?”

Seo Eui-woo murmured, his voice eerily devoid of emotion.

“No. You’re my Guide. If anything, you’re the one who intruded on our relationship. Do you still not get it? Or… is it that you just can’t let go of him?”

Even after taking a full-force punch to the face, Seo Eui-woo hadn’t stopped his power.

Kwon Jae-jin was an ordinary human—his fists weren’t nearly enough to make Seo Eui-woo flinch. Instead, the man merely wrinkled his nose and let out a dry chuckle.

“Memories you can’t return to, that only bring you pain when you recall them—do you seriously love your precious little lover so much that you’d rather suffer than let them go?”

The concentrated energy at his fingertips flared even brighter, radiating with an overwhelming intensity. Jae-jin’s face turned deathly pale.

“That’s not what I meant. Seo Eui-woo, you’re completely misunderstanding me right now. I wasn’t saying that you weren’t needed—I meant that this act of tampering with my memories is what I find unacceptable.”

“Why? Because once you forget, there’s no going back? So, what, were you planning to run away from me someday?”

“Messing with someone’s memories—their mind—do you even realize how casually Awakeners throw around this so-called psychic ability? You might think it’s easy, but to someone like me—someone ordinary—it’s disturbing. The very thought of forcibly extracting and erasing things… I’ve never considered it before, and frankly, it disgusts me!”

Jae-jin shouted, shoving Seo Eui-woo away with all his strength. He kicked him hard in the knee, sending him sprawling to the floor. Then, without missing a beat, he scrambled away, crawling across the carpet as it bunched up beneath him.

Seo Eui-woo, unfazed, took his time as he slowly followed after him.

“Ah… but it’s really not that difficult, you know?” His voice remained composed, casual even. “In battle, when we lose a comrade… the psychological damage lingers, doesn’t it?”

“…What?”

“If we let ourselves drown in grief, we won’t be able to fight in the next battle. So we erase some of it. The comrades we lost… the ones who didn’t make it through training and were disposed of…”

“What the hell… What the hell are you even saying…? Are you telling me people can live like that?”

“Why wouldn’t we? We have a job to do. If Awakeners fall, humanity is finished. We bear that responsibility.”

A towering wall loomed before him.

Seo Eui-woo stood at the peak of a sheer, unscalable cliff.

He was at the absolute pinnacle of Espers, leading the ranks of Awakeners. The sheer weight of the life he had built crushed down on Kwon Jae-jin with ruthless force.

The duties and burdens Seo Eui-woo had endured without a second thought—the cold, merciless world he accepted as normal—felt unbearably unjust from Jae-jin’s perspective. The more he saw it, the harder it became to breathe. His throat tightened, suffocated by a sense of helpless rage.

Why did Seo Eui-woo have to live like this? Why did Kwon Jae-jin have to live like this?

When would the distance between them finally close?

When would this miserable dilemma finally end?

“If you understand now, then don’t move. I’ve been through this too. Every Awakener goes through it. I’ll make it quick.”

Seo Eui-woo stepped forward.

The entire living room trembled.

The ceiling lights flickered erratically, and the walls and floor shuddered all at once, shaking as if an earthquake had struck.

It felt as if an enormous darkness was swallowing the space whole. Would it feel like this to be engulfed by a black tidal wave?

Jae-jin opened his mouth, determined to resist until the end, to reject Seo Eui-woo with every last ounce of strength he had.

But Seo Eui-woo moved faster, pressing a firm palm over Jae-jin’s lips before he could speak.

“You know, Jae-jin…”

“Mmph…!”

“I adjusted to your way first, so isn’t it only fair that you adjust to mine just this once? Hm? We were happy together, weren’t we?”

Seo Eui-woo stared down at him with an expression even he didn’t seem to fully understand. Then, he wrinkled his nose.

“I was happy. You were happy too. I really believed we’d be good together.”

The air around Seo Eui-woo thickened, pressing down with a crushing force. The oppressive atmosphere grew heavier, suffocatingly dense, as if the very air itself was caving in under its own weight.

“Ugh… Kkh…!”

“Because you’re my Guide. Because you, Kwon Jae-jin, are the Guide I was searching for… I…”

His fingers, now lax and open, reached toward Jae-jin’s forehead.

Now, it wasn’t just Seo Eui-woo’s fingertips that wavered—Seo Eui-woo himself seemed distorted, as if reality could no longer contain him.

The immense power seething in his grasp boiled over, threatening to spill forth.

Seo Eui-woo’s lips pressed into a thin line, his focus razor-sharp—like a surgeon about to perform the most delicate, intricate procedure.

His gray eyes, cold and unyielding, locked onto Jae-jin with piercing intensity. A single bead of sweat slid down his jawline.

Seo Eui-woo was about to dive into Kwon Jae-jin’s mind.

“…!”

At that moment—

Just before his fingertips could touch the center of Jae-jin’s forehead—

A shrill emergency alert shattered the silence.

A sharp beeping noise blared from the black device attached to Seo Eui-woo’s belt. The sound was simple, repetitive, and relentless, refusing to stop until acknowledged.

Seo Eui-woo, his body ice-cold, let out a rough, shuddering breath, his expression turning rigid. His concentration had been broken.

“Ah…”

The power that had been condensed in his hand scattered like smoke.

It vanished without a trace, as if that unfathomable force had never existed in the first place.

Seo Eui-woo swept a hand through his disheveled hair a few times before finally removing his palm from Jae-jin’s mouth. Without a word, he picked up the device and checked the message with an indifferent gaze.

No matter the time or place, an emergency call always took priority.

Until the day Seo Eui-woo took his last breath.

“I have to go.”

That emergency alert had saved Kwon Jae-jin.

Seo Eui-woo, who hadn’t budged no matter how fiercely Jae-jin pushed him away, let him go without resistance this time. Strapping the device back onto his waist, he rose to his feet and strode out without hesitation, heading straight for the sterile transport chamber.

Jae-jin could only watch him go, his face twisted into a wrecked, unspeakable expression.