Taming the Obsessive Attachment

Major Mateo tightened his grip around Kwon Jae-jin’s neck.

He squeezed so hard that Jae-jin could barely let out a strangled, choking sound. It was genuinely outrageous. The man had reached out on his own, and now he had the audacity to ask if Jae-jin had guided him?

Jae-jin’s eyes twisted in frustration as he took a labored breath. Major Mateo’s pupils trembled, unable to suppress the overwhelming impulse surging through him.

“Ha…”

Like a man possessed, he traced his fingers along the line of Jae-jin’s throat. Then, he covered Jae-jin’s chin with his whole palm, pressing down in a way that forced the dry lips beneath to rub against his skin.

“Mm—Brh.”

Jae-jin turned his head away with a disgusted expression, making it clear how repulsed he was. He couldn’t fathom why a perfectly sane man had suddenly lost his mind like this.

Major Mateo knelt on one knee in front of him, still rubbing his palm against Jae-jin’s lips. Then, as if intending to explore deeper, he curled his fingers and forced them between Jae-jin’s lips.

Jae-jin bit down on Mateo’s fingers and glared at him fiercely, his eyes blazing with fury.

“What the—ugh—what the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Was he seriously trying to initiate guiding?

With him—a mutant?

This man wasn’t someone like Seo Eui-woo, who suffered from extreme guiding deficiency, so why was he pulling such an insane stunt…?

“Why… Why is the guiding… like this…?”

Major Mateo didn’t seem to care that his fingers were being bitten. He simply pressed Jae-jin’s tongue down, as if unfazed by the pain. It seemed that heightened pain tolerance was a common trait among Awakeners.

Using his thumb and index finger, he pinched Jae-jin’s tongue and forcibly pulled it outward. Jae-jin, suddenly forced to stick out his tongue unnaturally far, momentarily forgot his injuries and struggled, pushing against the major with his bound arms. But Mateo, a highly trained soldier, didn’t even budge.

“How could it be this efficient…? This… This is so incredibly…”

As if struggling to find the right word, Mateo kept muttering the same phrases over and over, lost in deep contemplation.

If it had been Seo Eui-woo in this situation, he would have bluntly and simply stated, “Feels good.” But Mateo, on the other hand, seemed unable to settle until he found a precise, articulate description for what he was experiencing.

After rubbing against Jae-jin’s tongue for a while, Mateo’s fingers trembled slightly as he murmured under his breath.

“Sweet.”

The deep, resonant voice dropped like a stone, so utterly absurd that Kwon Jae-jin was struck speechless. To be honest, it made him sick to his stomach.

To fondle someone else’s tongue and describe it like that? It was so repulsive it made him want to retch.

Jae-jin raised his legs and, with both feet together, delivered a powerful kick straight into Major Mateo’s abdomen. Only then did the man’s insolent hands finally release him.

Feeling nothing but revulsion at the lingering sensation on his tongue, Jae-jin shot back with sharp, biting words.

“Ugh, so keeping a mutant hidden is a crime, but guiding one isn’t a problem? From what I’m seeing right now, guiding must not go against any of your so-called principles! Isn’t that right?”

Major Mateo slowly raised the hand that had just been touching Jae-jin’s tongue, scrutinizing it as if conducting some kind of experiment. He clenched his fist, then loosened it, spreading his fingers slightly apart.

A wave of psychic energy flared around him, forming a translucent barrier.

It looked far more solid and distinct than the one he had summoned during battle just moments ago.

“…What are you?”

Mateo turned his gaze back to Jae-jin. His expression had shifted—no longer just seeking, but analyzing, dissecting. He was studying Jae-jin down to the cellular level, as if trying to perceive every fiber of his being.

“How are you capable of providing this kind of guiding?”

When Jae-jin didn’t answer, Mateo reached out again.

For a second, Jae-jin thought he was going to violate his mouth again, but this time, his hand went lower—toward his torso.

With a flick of a jackknife, Mateo sliced through the leather harness. Then, he grabbed the tattered, bloodstained remains of Jae-jin’s shirt and tore it apart, fully exposing his bare chest.

The freezing midwinter air, sharp as a blade, lashed against his exposed skin, sending a shiver down his spine. Goosebumps erupted all over his body.

Jae-jin roared in fury.

“Stop it! Major Mateo, if you touch me, you’ll be an undeniable criminal too!”

Despite his vehement protest, Mateo moved as if possessed, his single-minded focus driving him forward. He seized Jae-jin’s chest muscle—

Right over his heart.

Feeling the small, incomplete core within, closer than ever before.

The complete core within Mateo’s own chest resonated with Jae-jin’s.

At first, he had dismissed the mutant’s fragile-looking core, thinking it would shatter at the slightest shock. But as he focused, he realized the resonance between them was anything but ordinary.

Sweet. Exhilarating.

Blinding and infinite.

“…Ha.”

Mateo narrowed his eyes and swallowed hard.

His mind knew the rule: An Esper must not be drawn to a mutant Guide. But his body refused to obey.

His instincts as an Esper were screaming—

That this Guide’s guiding would open a whole new horizon he had never experienced before.

“So that’s it. An S-rank… Were you an S-rank Guide?”

The existing classification system for Awakeners consisted of A, B, C, and F.

But above that, there was one more rank—unmeasurable.

S-rank.

It was a category created twenty years ago solely for one person: Seo Eui-woo.

However, if Kwon Jae-jin had undergone an official Awakening, the history of the S-rank wouldn’t have started twenty years ago—it would have begun twenty-six years ago.

“You’re not even surprised! Even though you’re a mutant, you already knew your own rank, didn’t you?”

Major Mateo, visibly shaken, exhaled roughly as he shouted. He tried to summon his self-control, to tear his hands away from Jae-jin, but suppressing desire in the face of an S-rank Guide was no easy feat for an Esper.

“Move. Get the hell off me!”

Jae-jin’s expression contorted with fury, his strong jaw tightening.

Of course, he had already suspected as much.

He had never undergone an official ranking test, so there was no confirmation, but ever since Seo Eui-woo had called him his only Guide, the possibility had been on his mind.

Only an S-rank Guide could provide proper guiding to an S-rank Esper.

“This is a goddamn tragedy. Of all things, an S-rank Guide had to manifest in a mutant…”

Mateo muttered gravely, then lowered his gaze, scanning Jae-jin’s body.

His focus dropped lower—between Jae-jin’s legs.

The look in his eyes was unmistakable: the pure, relentless hunger of an Esper seeking guidance.

“…Haah, fuck. Shut your goddamn eyes.”

“……”

“You’re disgusting. Get the fuck away from me!”

“……”

Mateo remained silent.

Jae-jin felt like he was losing his mind. If this man forced guiding on him, there was no way he’d come out of it sane.

Fuck, fuck, Seo Eui-woo, you fucking bastard. Where the hell are you…? Why the fuck aren’t you here yet?

His thoughts screamed for Seo Eui-woo.

In his first life, no matter how hard he tried to escape, he could never get away. And now, in his second life, he had slipped out of Seo Eui-woo’s control so easily that it was laughable.

That son of a bitch. Acting like he’d hang himself if I ever disappeared, and now, when it actually matters, he’s nowhere to be fucking seen?

For the first time—more than ever before—he resented Seo Eui-woo.

The bastard couldn’t even control his own abilities. He broke the house’s security system, didn’t even realize it was down, and then just waltzed off to work like an idiot…

Meanwhile, Jae-jin had fought creatures alone, been mauled, and had even resigned himself to dying just to protect Seo Eui-woo.

Seo Eui-woo—

Did he even know that Kwon Jae-jin was in this kind of danger?

Jae-jin was supposed to be his one and only Guide.

He had made such a fuss about it, acting like Jae-jin was the most precious, irreplaceable existence in the world. And yet, he had left him like this—abandoned, discarded on the cold ground like a worthless pebble.

Why…?

If this keeps up, I’m really going to be guided against my will…

The moment Jae-jin felt his ironclad resolve begin to shatter, light exploded before him.

Spatial relocation.

Ordinarily, the scattered motes of light from a teleportation should have flickered delicately, like fireflies. But this was different. An uncontrollable surge of power burst forth, so blinding that it was impossible to keep his eyes open.

It was as if the sun itself had descended upon this place.

A figure emerged, radiating such overwhelming psychic energy that his form was indistinguishable.

He no longer seemed human—he appeared transcendent, like an existence beyond mortality.

Seo Eui-woo had unleashed the power he had long kept buried in the depths of his being. Now, he loomed like an all-powerful entity, exuding an aura so formidable that it subjugated everything around him.

The earth split apart. The sky closed in.

The very land trembled beneath him in submission, and even the raging winter winds knelt at his feet, dying into utter stillness.

His immense power churned the ground beneath him, ripping the terrain apart. The entire canyon collapsed as if struck by an earthquake.

“Khhgh…!”

And of course, the only one caught in this catastrophe was Major Mateo. Jae-jin’s body was lifted safely away, while Mateo alone was swallowed into the fissures of the shattered earth.

“Major Mateo!”

Just then, the 7th Special Forces Unit, responding to the major’s emergency request, arrived on the scene—only to be paralyzed with shock at the surreal, cataclysmic event unfolding before them.

Dazed and unable to even open their eyes properly against the blinding radiance, the soldiers instinctively fired at the luminous figure. But their bullets never reached Seo Eui-woo.

Every shot, without exception, was effortlessly deflected—each round curving mid-air before helplessly plummeting to the ground.