Sung Ji-woo naturally assumed he’d misheard. More likely, like a thief startled by his own shadow, he was feeling guilty for no reason—so even Yu Hiro’s casually tossed words made his heart drop with a thud.
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
He asked with an intentionally calm face. He tried so hard not to look flustered that the corner of his mouth even twitched.
“Mm….”
Yu Hiro let out a low sound from his throat and chuckled softly. He looked at the stiffened Sung Ji-woo as if he found him cute.
“When was it?”
“Huh? I don’t really know what you’re talking about—”
“Hyung, was it during the X-Gate explosion for you too?”
“…….”
When Sung Ji-woo clamped his mouth shut, Yu Hiro’s smile deepened, as if he’d gotten his answer. Seeing how certain Yu Hiro already was, Sung Ji-woo realized that denying it now would be pointless flailing. Resignation flickered across his face.
Lowering the awkwardly raised corners of his lips, Sung Ji-woo asked in a steady, subdued voice,
“When did you figure it out?”
“If I say I’ve known for quite a while… will you get mad?”
“What? No— I mean, it’s not that I’m angry, it’s just… really?”
He couldn’t even guess how long “quite a while” was supposed to mean. Sung Ji-woo frowned slightly as he looked up at Yu Hiro.
“I only became sure recently. Before that, I just thought it might be the case.”
Listening quietly, Sung Ji-woo walked to the refrigerator and took out two cans of beer he’d shoved inside.
Yu Hiro had asked if he’d be angry, but if Yu Hiro knew what was really going on in his head, then Yu Hiro would have every right to be angry instead. Maybe that was what scared him a little.
“You’re going to drink?”
“Yeah. Sit here.”
People usually said that after an awards ceremony, everyone went out for a big after-party. But in Gwangmyeong, there was exactly one person who enjoyed drinking: Chae Min-jung. Aside from her, no one really drank.
Lee Won-jae said he was practically allergic to alcohol, and Son Ji-hwan only drank wine on special occasions.
And since you couldn’t exactly sip wine at a hunters’ after-party, the Gwangmyeong Guild naturally disbanded right in front of the ceremony hall.
Chae Min-jung said she’d be joining a joint drinking party with Helios and Selene. Sung Ji-woo, who claimed he was tired, naturally went home with Yu Hiro.
That night, Sung Ji-woo congratulated Yu Hiro one more time—then promptly passed out as if he’d fainted. The awards day ended in a blur, and now here they were, holding a belated after-party for no real reason.
When Sung Ji-woo tried to down beer without even preparing snacks, Yu Hiro panicked, rummaged through the cupboards, and cooked ramen instead.
The way Yu Hiro took care of Sung Ji-woo looked not just natural, but almost inevitable. Staring at the two pairs of chopsticks placed in front of him, Sung Ji-woo suddenly felt unsettled.
He hadn’t believed Yu Hiro would never find out—but he’d also never seriously imagined what would happen when he did.
Which meant Sung Ji-woo had no contingency plan at all. He carefully chose his words, over and over. Then a thought suddenly struck him.
If you tell someone something like this… don’t they usually interrogate you? Wouldn’t saying you came from the future sound incredibly suspicious?
“Hiro.”
“Yes.”
“…You’re not surprised?”
“About what?”
“Well, I mean, what you just said isn’t exactly… normal—wait.”
As Sung Ji-woo met Yu Hiro’s unwavering gaze, he suddenly replayed Yu Hiro’s earlier words in his head.
Hyung, was it during the X-Gate explosion for you too?
And he repeated them exactly as Yu Hiro had said them.
“Hyung… was it during the X-Gate explosion for you too…?”
Yu Hiro stayed still, but the one who’d spoken widened his eyes in shock. Clack. Sung Ji-woo set his chopsticks down loudly.
“You— you…!”
“Let’s eat first. Eat. You said ramen gets bad if it soaks too long. I cooked this one properly chewy this time….”
He’d followed Sung Ji-woo’s recipe to the letter. After being rejected countless times for “not tasting right,” he’d made it with absolute determination this time—so it stung a little that Sung Ji-woo hadn’t even taken a bite.
“Hyung too? Hyyung too?”
“Huh? Who’s ‘hyung-too’?”
“No, that’s not it! You said hyung too just now!”
“When did I ever say that? Who the hell is that?”
Yu Hiro looked wronged. Sung Ji-woo looked like he was losing his mind.
“No— you too. You too regressed, didn’t you?”
“Ah. During the X-Gate explosion?”
“…I mean. In this world, the X-Gate never exploded.”
“Right. Because I got rid of it.”
“Then before that—”
“I was the one who caused it.”
“…….”
Sung Ji-woo was so shocked he completely lost the ability to speak. The idea that the same Yu Hiro had both destroyed the world and saved it was almost impossible to accept.
It wasn’t that they’d split into two people at some branching path. It was simply that the Yu Hiro who once ended the world had chosen to save it this time.
“Why— why?”
“Which side are you asking about?”
“…The one who caused the explosion.”
Yu Hiro hesitated briefly, then poured water into Sung Ji-woo’s cup. Their gazes settled on the rippling surface.
“The reason… should I say it’s because I didn’t have you back then, hyung?”
“…Why are you asking me that?”
Whether Sung Ji-woo found it absurd or not, Yu Hiro nodded seriously.
“Yeah. Let’s go with that. I didn’t have you, so that’s why.”
“No, why would you ‘go with that’ like it’s nothing—!”
“I’m serious. If I’d met you back then, I wouldn’t have caused the X-Gate explosion.”
Given that meeting Sung Ji-woo was what shaped the Yu Hiro of today, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
But agreeing outright felt like acknowledging himself as someone extraordinary, so Sung Ji-woo froze like a stone, unable to react.
“How many more times do I have to say it before you accept it?”
Yu Hiro sighed quietly, his low voice carefully measured. Words he’d once tossed out like jokes or habits suddenly gained weight.
Sung Ji-woo realized then—Yu Hiro’s sincerity was so heavy that he’d been deliberately trying to deliver it lightly.
Since when?
No— from where, exactly?
Knowing it was cowardly, Sung Ji-woo still wanted to pretend ignorance a little longer.
So he changed the subject, as naturally as he could, as if asking what he’d meant to ask all along.
“Then… you came back around then too?”
“Yes.”
And so Yu Hiro matched Sung Ji-woo’s pace, pretending not to know, just like he always did.
“Then when we first met… you’d already come back? Or was it a bit later?”
Sung Ji-woo rummaged through his hazy memories. Yu Hiro had looked tired back then, worn down—maybe that really was the original Yu Hiro.
Then roughly… during mentoring? Or our first gate mission?
Nodding as confidence settled in, Sung Ji-woo said,
“That’s it. Our first gate. When you used your ability for the first time.”
He vividly remembered running with everything he had to save Yu Hiro, who’d been separated from the group. And the moment Yu Hiro’s ability exploded forth.
He’d concluded it was power drawn out under extreme conditions—but in reality, Yu Hiro had already come from the future and could control it skillfully.
A chill ran down Sung Ji-woo’s spine.
“Um… I don’t want to disappoint you, hyung, but—”
“That wasn’t it? Then when? Later? When I went as an intern? Come to think of it, you were huge by then. Wow—so you’d already come back from the future and grown like that.”
“No, that part’s just me being tall. I had terrible growing pains back then. I don’t want to experience that twice.”
Aside from those moments, nothing else came to mind. In Sung Ji-woo’s memories, Yu Hiro had always just been Yu Hiro.
Since he didn’t know Yu Hiro’s villain days, his deductions were blunt.
“But I don’t want to lie to you, hyung, so….”
Yu Hiro bit his lower lip, then released it.
“I came back a little earlier than you. Not by much—just a few days.”
“…What?”
Sung Ji-woo rubbed the back of his neck as goosebumps erupted. It felt like he’d been punched.
“…The past me didn’t do mentoring.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Back then, I was nothing more than discarded waste from a failed experiment.”
The wording was brutal—but Sung Ji-woo knew it wasn’t exaggerated. That made it hurt even more.
“I just wanted to graduate quickly and disappear. I believed that if I became an adult while still a failure, the institute would abandon me. Someone like that wouldn’t apply for mentoring, right?”
Yu Hiro spoke as calmly as he could, then lifted the beer can and poured it down his throat. The carbonation burned as it burst. Sung Ji-woo grabbed his arm to stop him.
“Me too. Me too.”
“…….”
“I didn’t apply for mentoring either. Back then, I was….”
This was embarrassing to admit—but in front of Yu Hiro, who’d already laid himself bare, Sung Ji-woo felt there was nothing left to hide.
He took a short breath.
“I lived off my own ego. Didn’t care about the people around me. No—maybe I was drunk on the fact that there were people around me. Everyone kept praising me, saying I was amazing… so I believed it. Like an idiot.”
His face burned after saying it. This time, Sung Ji-woo drank the beer instead. After several gulps, he set the can down.
Thud. He slammed the half-empty can on the table and let out a long breath, heavy with alcohol.
“I didn’t just think that—I was right. You might not have known me, hyung, but I knew you. Even back then.”
“…That’s surprising.”
“How could I not? You lived in a completely different world from me. You shone back then too.”
“…That’s unfair.”
“Why?”
“That I didn’t know you back then.”
If I’d met you then… would things have been easier for you?
Tracing the condensation on the beer can with his finger, Sung Ji-woo looked gloomy.
“Mm… I don’t really want to show you what I was like back then.”
Sung Ji-woo didn’t ask why. If a much younger Yu Hiro had been driven to the point of deciding to erase the world, his inner state must have been unbearable.
“Honestly, I regret the first time I met you.”
At the unexpected confession, Sung Ji-woo slowly lifted his bowed head.
Yu Hiro’s clear eyes, tinged with faint redness from drink, held his reflection.
If You Notice any translation issues or inconsistency in names, genders, or POV etc? Let us know here in the comments or on our Discord server, and we’ll fix it in current and future chapters. Thanks for helping us to improve! 🙂