Chapter 1: Unexpected Reunion

“Welcome back.”

Jung Lee Chae bit his lip hard while staring at the man in front of him.

Sharp brows over playful eyes brimming with mischief, an arrogantly high nose bridge, lips pressed into a thin line. No matter how many times he checked, the man standing there was Cha Haejin.

“Was running away fun?”

Haejin leaned against the desk, slowly tracing his own nameplate with a finger and flashing a lopsided smirk.

Lee Chae’s pupils darted around like a cornered animal looking for an exit.

“The guy who used to drool the second he saw me couldn’t possibly have enjoyed leaving.”

To keep from being dragged along by those casual words, Lee Chae clenched his thighs.

But when Haejin took one long stride forward, his heart slammed down like it was going to fall out.

“Ha, you still look f*cking insane.”

“Director, pull yourself together. This is a business meeting. And I’m no longer your exclusive guide.”

Haejin twisted his lips into a grin and slowly pushed his hair back.

Veins bulged on the forearm revealed under the rolled-up dress shirt.

Without thinking, Lee Chae’s gaze followed those veins.

“Three years apart and that’s the first thing you say? I thought we’d catch up… I’m disappointed, Jung Lee Chae.”

Lee Chae forced his pounding heart to calm and answered as evenly as he could.

“This is a professional setting. If you’re going to talk about anything else, I’ll leave.”

He couldn’t hide the tremble in his voice, though.

He had never once imagined running into him here.

Because of a chain of incidents, he had fled from Haejin and spent three full years under national protection.

‘Why the hell did headquarters send me here? They knew Cha Haejin would lose his mind.’

Lee Chae took a deep breath and looked at him.

Unlike the reckless bastard he’d met at the beginning, Haejin’s public image had cleaned up a lot.

Lee Chae had assumed the real man had changed too, but that was just wishful thinking.

The world’s only S-class esper. Arrogant, selfish, childish, foul-mouthed.

Cha Haejin hadn’t changed a single bit from his memories.

And maybe that was exactly why his chest throbbed and his heart ached even more.

Lee Chae tried to avoid those eyes and turned to leave.

The moment he did, Haejin snatched his wrist.

He twisted and yanked, but couldn’t break free.

Finally giving up, Lee Chae lifted his head and met Haejin’s gaze.

Deep eyes carrying endless shadows.

He’d thought nothing had changed, but those eyes told a different story.

That he had wandered, suffered, and missed him terribly…

Staring into those pitch-black eyes fixed solely on him, tears almost burst out.

Running away didn’t mean he had ever forgotten Cha Haejin.

Haejin pulled the captured wrist toward his chest.

Lee Chae’s cheek pressed against a broad, hard chest, hot breath grazing his ear.

“Hearing formal speech from Jung Lee Chae… If you talked like that while guiding me, it’d drive me completely f*cking wild.”

Lee Chae swallowed the urge to snap back and counted slowly in his head.

One, two, three.

‘Cha Haejin and I have nothing to do with each other anymore.’

Back when he was Haejin’s exclusive guide, he used to step in every time Haejin crossed the line.

Now he had no right to do that.

While those thoughts ran through his mind, Haejin spoke again.

“Guide-nim, there’s nowhere left in the world to run. Headquarters can’t protect you anymore. So just stay by my side and guide me like a good boy.”

Headquarters abandoned me?

“You look shocked. You didn’t actually think those old fossils would look after you forever, did you?”

Not forever, but he had hoped for a normal life.

Of course he hadn’t believed everything they said.

But headquarters was the one who forced him to leave Haejin in the first place.

So why were they pulling this now?

“Aw, poor baby. Looks like you’ll have to guide only me for the rest of your life.”

The playful tone sounded genuinely delighted.

A huge hand slid from the nape of his neck down to his lower back.

Lee Chae flinched and tried to step away, but Haejin’s strength was overwhelming.

“Guide Jung Lee Chae, spread your arms and hug me. You keep dodging and I feel like I’ll revert to my old bastard days. If Guide-nim behaves, I might be able to hold back.”

Lee Chae finally lost it and yelled.

“Let go! How many times do I have to tell you not to do this where people can see!”

As if mocking him, Haejin pressed even closer.

He stroked Lee Chae’s cheek, smiling like a predator satisfied with its caught prey.

Lee Chae’s mouth went dry wondering what this lunatic would do next.

“Now that’s more like my Lee Chae. When you were going ‘Director this, Director that,’ I thought some stranger showed up.”

Lee Chae ignored the nonsense and jerked his arm hard.

“Back off, you psycho.”

“Okay, okay!”

Haejin pretended to let go with one hand, then instantly yanked Lee Chae flush against him with the other.

Even after years apart, energy crackled through his veins in an electric response.

Lee Chae sucked in a sharp breath to keep his power from being drained.

Mixed in the air was the familiar cologne Haejin always wore.

The scent dragged old memories rushing back, making his head spin.

Haejin whispered low against his ear.

“Why do you keep telling me to get lost? You hard already?”

“Shut your crazy mouth.”

“You know, right? The more you talk like that, the harder I get. So just endure it.”

He sounded relaxed, but the muscles around his clenched jaw were twitching.

Whenever Haejin made that face, something always exploded.

Better to stay still when a beast on the verge of rampage was this excited.

Seeing Lee Chae quiet down, Haejin threatened softly.

“Hate it? Run again then. Or scream. You’re a precious national asset now; kidnapping you would get me locked up. But guess what? If I can have you, I don’t give a damn about prison.”

“If I run… you’ll really let me go?”

“Are you insane? Keep dreaming. Listen well, Jung Lee Chae. It took one year to find you and two more years fighting those old bastards to drag you back. You think I’d let you slip away again after all that? Huh?”

As he spoke, Haejin brushed his thumb across Lee Chae’s lips.

Everywhere he touched felt like it was on fire.

“Haa… holding back has been torture.”

To avoid forced guiding right here, Lee Chae opened his mouth, planning to bite the finger on his lips.

Like the lunatic he was, the second Lee Chae’s lips parted, Haejin slid his finger inside as if daring him to bite.

“I held back too damn long…”

The finger pressed lightly on his tongue.

“I could swallow you whole right now.”

At those words, saliva pooled in Lee Chae’s mouth as memories flooded back.

Haejin closed his eyes and traced the wet warmth with his finger.

The electric heat shooting from his fingertip coursed through his entire body.

That overwhelming sensation he had never forgotten for even a second came rushing back.

“Yeah, this is it. The Jung Lee Chae-style guiding that drives people insane. I missed it.”

Fifty years had passed since unidentified monsters poured through gates, destroying cities and slaughtering people.

Half the world’s population was gone; survivors barely clung to life among the ruins.

Humanity’s dazzling prosperity, built on reckless science and wasted resources, had ended; the world was now wrapped in ash-gray fog.

But human will was stubborn.

One by one, people who could fight the monsters began to awaken.

To face a common enemy, nations scrapped traditional armies and rallied around superhumans: espers and their guides.

In exchange for wealth and honor, countries ranked the awakened, trained them, and controlled them.

Cha Haejin and Jung Lee Chae first met three years ago, in May, at the Awakened Management University built to educate espers.

That day, instead of attending the pointless “Ethics for Espers” lecture, Haejin was wandering campus with his friend Jinwoo.

“I’d rather storm a gate than sit through some ethics bullsh*t…”

“Tell me about it. Total waste of talent.”

When one of the country’s rare S-class espers and an A-class walked by, every eye in the area locked on them.

“That’s Cha Haejin. His body is insane, just like the rumors.”

“He’s completely unattainable. Heard he hates contact guiding.”

“Seriously? That’s surprising… higher ranks suffer worse side effects, don’t they?”

“No clue why, but his pride supposedly pierces the sky. Guess he figures guiding works without intimacy.”

“Still, almost no S-class holds out forever. Is he impotent or something?”