“Got it. More importantly, I need to take a look around the research institute.”
“The research institute again!? You’re not seriously thinking of raiding the place, are you?”
“Yeah. You said that crazy bastard stopped by the underground levels of the research institute before he blew up the Ability Bureau, right? I need to know what the hell he saw down there that made him lose his mind.”
At the way Yihyun referred to Taeyun as a crazy bastard, Juwon looked ready to faint.
“Please, just stop getting involved with that bastard! He’s too dangerous! Are you seriously not listening to a single word I’m saying? I can’t lose you again, hyung… Hngh.”
Juwon started sniffling again, his huge shoulders shaking in a way that did not suit his massive frame at all. As the people in the bar began looking their way, Yihyun shuddered and shook off Juwon’s arm.
“Ah, seriously, you’re disgusting. Stop crying, you bastard!”
Yihyun stared at him as though he were pathetic, then pulled his beer glass closer.
Just like he used to when drinking with Juwon back when he was Seunghyun, Yihyun mixed soju into the beer in the perfect ratio and pushed the glass toward him. Juwon stared at the drink Yihyun offered with tears still brimming in his eyes.
After mixing himself a glass as well, Yihyun lightly clinked it against Juwon’s.
“You. Be in front of the research institute’s main building by 9 a.m. tomorrow. Use your clearance and get everything ready so we can break into the classified underground area. If you’re late, I’ll put the location of the mole on your ass up on the hallway display screens.”
“……If you tell me to do it, I’ll do it, but.”
“Cheers.”
Yihyun grinned as he clinked their glasses. Lee Juwon let out a long sigh, looking deeply dissatisfied, then drained his glass of somaek in one go.
Yihyun likewise tossed his drink back. The exhilarating taste was filled with memories from his previous life.
‘Now that’s the stuff. I finally feel alive again.’
But his joy was short-lived. Just as the refreshing warmth of the alcohol seemed to spread through his entire body, his head suddenly spun.
‘……Huh?’
Yihyun set down his glass, and his head promptly dropped onto the table.
Bang! His forehead slammed into it with a loud noise, and Yihyun immediately sank into unconsciousness. Startled, Juwon grabbed Yihyun, who had collapsed face-first onto the table, and shook him with a distressed expression.
“Hyung! Wake up! Hyung! How can you pass out after a single drink!”
***
Yihyun opened his eyes with a groan, his head aching as though it were splitting apart. The ceiling was unfamiliar.
‘Where am I…?’
Pressing a hand to his throbbing temple, Yihyun desperately retraced his memories of the previous night. He remembered clinking glasses with Lee Juwon, but everything after that had been completely wiped from his memory. Back when he was an Esper, he could drink bottles of hard liquor made for ability users without batting an eye.
“I can’t even enjoy a single drink anymore. What kind of Guide is this? I’m practically a monk.”
Grumbling, Yihyun opened the bedroom door and stepped outside. A familiar, savory smell immediately reached his nose. In the kitchen, a huge man wearing an apron was stirring a pot with a ladle.
“Hyung, you’re awake? You suddenly collapsed, and I didn’t know where you lived… so I brought you back to my place for the time being.”
It was Lee Juwon. Even back when Yihyun had been Seunghyun, whenever Seunghyun drank all night, it had always been Juwon who cooked hangover soup for him the next morning.
“Sorry. I had no idea this body was such a lightweight.”
“It’s fine. Hyung, your body is seriously as light as a feather, so it wasn’t hard at all. Back then, whenever I carried you on my back, I thought my shoulders were going to fall off…….”
Juwon gave a bitter smile as he stirred the soup.
Facing this scene again after crossing a gap of five years, Yihyun felt a strange sense of déjà vu. Then, suddenly, he remembered another face that had always sat at this table with them and made a racket.
“Hey, Juwon. By the way… what happened to Junho and the rest of the squad?”
Kim Junho had served as one of Seunghyun’s two wings alongside Juwon. And then there were the other squad members. They might have been built like bears, but they had been cheerful guys who laughed often.
At Yihyun’s question, Juwon’s hand visibly faltered.
Juwon stared fixedly into the pot before answering in a subdued voice.
“Junho… died in a Gate three years ago. A few of the other squad members died too. The rest scattered all over the place.”
The atmosphere in the room sank.
Yihyun smacked his lips bitterly and dropped heavily into a chair at the dining table. It felt fucking awful to have been dropped into this world in someone else’s body while the guys he used to laugh and fool around with had disappeared one by one.
“I see…. So that’s what happened.”
Juwon set a bowl of hangover soup on the table and looked Yihyun straight in the eyes. His eyes were already turning red.
“Hyung. I… I really want to protect you, at least. This time, I’m never letting you go first.”
Embarrassed by the sentimental words, Yihyun picked up his spoon and deliberately answered coldly.
“Worry about protecting yourself.”
“Hyung, you know me. If anything happens, I’m the first one to run away.”
“Yeah, sure, you’ve always been good at talking. And then you went and touched a live Gate core with your bare hands because you just had to make an engagement ring yourself.”
Juwon’s face instantly flushed when Yihyun attacked him with that humiliating piece of his past. He cleared his throat several times, then hurriedly turned toward the pot.
“Ah, well… I think the soup might be a little bland. I should check the seasoning again.”
Watching Juwon’s flustered back as he desperately changed the subject, Yihyun let out a snort of laughter. His body might have changed and the world might have changed with it, but at least this idiot who had remained by his side was still exactly the same.
Yihyun scooped up a spoonful of steaming hangover soup.
As he ate, he looked around and saw that the place was the very definition of a single man’s bachelor pad.
With his spoon still in his mouth, Yihyun gave Juwon a pitying look.
“Now that I’m looking around while we eat… you broke up with Jiyeon, didn’t you?”
Juwon’s hand froze before he practically buried his face in his soup bowl. The silence he received instead of an answer sounded even more painful than a simple yes.
Poor bastard.
Yihyun clicked his tongue and drank some more soup. At least his stomach felt better now, but the splitting hangover was still there.
“Ha…… A hangover from one glass of somaek.”
Holding his throbbing head, Yihyun climbed into Juwon’s car.
Their destination was the research institute.
***
“Hyung, the layout here is completely different from how it used to be. I’ll explain it to you.”
The research institute Yihyun entered behind Juwon was so enormous and immaculate that it was almost suffocating.
Each floor was meticulously divided by purpose, including an Esper Research Institute, Guide Research Institute, Gate Research Institute, and Gate Byproduct Research Institute.
Using his regular examination appointment as an excuse, Juwon had registered Yihyun as his accompanying Guide, allowing the two of them to look around the interior without much interference.
Then something unusual caught Yihyun’s eye.
The very top floor of the building.
In stark contrast to the elaborate glass exterior, one section was blocked off by a massive iron door bearing a sign that read ‘NO ENTRY.’
‘Did they move the secret underground research facility up here?’
Driven by instinctive curiosity, Yihyun started toward it, only for security personnel dressed in black suits to block his path.
“You cannot proceed any farther. Please turn back.”
Juwon scowled and released the unique pressure of an S-Rank Esper.
“Hey, I’m Lee Juwon. What the hell is in there that even I’m not allowed to enter?”
The security personnel did not so much as blink at Juwon’s intimidating presence. They answered expressionlessly.
“This is simply a Gate research laboratory. Entry is strictly restricted to authorized personnel.”
The level of security was far too high for a simple Gate research laboratory.
Even an S-Rank Esper was forbidden from entering.
Yihyun studied the security personnel for a moment, then obediently nodded. Trying to force his way through would only put them further on guard.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know. Sorry.”
Yihyun grabbed Juwon by the arm and pulled him away.
But as he turned around, a faint smile appeared on his lips.
Judging by the color of the security terminal and the shape of its sensors, ordinary Esper or Guide clearance would not come close to being enough.
‘Looks like I need to steal the Ability Bureau Director’s access card as soon as possible.’
The access card with the gold tag that Baek Seungho had carelessly tossed onto his office desk flashed through Yihyun’s mind.
The answer was obvious.
If a frontal approach was impossible, it was time to make some use of his oh-so-important father.
“Hyung. Want me to try breaking through?”
Seeing Yihyun’s serious expression, Lee Juwon whispered quietly.
“Don’t. If they care that much about keeping people out, forcing our way in will get us locked somewhere we’ll never see sunlight again.”
As Yihyun pondered what might be going on inside, one person came to mind.
Kim Seonho from the Research Institute Support Team.
Yihyun had been about to look around the research institute’s main building when he saw a crowd of people pouring out from the end of the corridor and checked the time.
It was exactly lunchtime.
With Juwon trailing behind him, Yihyun headed straight for the cafeteria. After getting his food and turning around, he spotted Seonho eating alone again today in a seat tucked away in the corner.
As Yihyun strode toward him, the cafeteria erupted into even more commotion than the day before.
Baek Yihyun, who was already at the center of all the rumors, had shown up today with S-Rank Esper Lee Juwon in tow. Naturally, everyone’s eyes were drawn to them.
“Hey, look over there. He’s with Esper Lee Juwon today?”
“Holy shit, I guess the rumors were true. Didn’t Lee Juwon beat Lee Changhun to a bloody pulp in the training building?”
“Tell me about it. Turns out Lee Changhun got rejected by Baek Yihyun, held a grudge, and spent all this time spreading those trashy rumors about him.”
“Wow, what a pathetic loser……. I didn’t know any of that and talked shit about Baek Yihyun too. I actually feel kind of bad now.”
As the whispers reached them, Juwon’s brow twisted into a vicious scowl.
Juwon swept his murderous gaze across the cafeteria once.
The noisy chatter vanished in an instant.