What’s Mine

Soon, a rerun of an overused popular variety show began airing, one that had already been milked for everything it was worth.

The noisy chatter assaulted their ears, but no one could process it.

They were all still too stunned to understand what had just happened.

“……What the hell, why is it like this?”

Jaeyoung snapped back to himself at Min-tae’s flustered voice.

Min-tae was pounding the poor remote, causing the channels to spin wildly.

“Stop making such a mess.”

“Then explain why my noona is acting like that!”

After Haewoon snatched the remote away, Min-tae nearly howled as he grabbed Dongjun by the collar.

“I-It’s rampage. A rampage.”

Dongjun, who was highly active in the ‘Association of People Who Love Espers,’ croaked the answer through his constricted throat.

“Rampage?”

“What’s a rampage?”

Jaeyoung, one of the few Guides yet still technically one, asked the civilian Dongjun.

Dongjun shot him a defiant look and slapped Min-tae’s hand away with a few hard smacks, telling him to let go.

“When an Esper uses power beyond their limit, their body can’t take it.”

Jaeyoung’s face twisted subtly.

The idea of an Esper having a ‘limit’ felt strangely wrong.

But thinking about it, it made sense.

Even ordinary people get drained if they keep exerting themselves, so why would Espers be any different?

The difference, if anything, was the existence of the ‘Guide,’ often derided as a backup battery.

“If they get Guided, they’ll be fine, right?”

Jaeyoung asked, half convinced he already knew the answer.

When a phone on the verge of dying gets plugged in, the battery fills right back up, doesn’t it?

“Well… I don’t know.”

Dongjun’s reply was unexpectedly lukewarm.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Then what was a Guide supposed to be, if they were useless at the moment they were actually needed?

Jaeyoung scooted closer, interrogating him with the same ferocity Min-tae had shown when grabbing Dongjun by the collar.

“I really don’t know!”

“Then why are you talking like you do?”

Dongjun opened his mouth, looking both wronged and genuinely confused as to why Jaeyoung was reacting like this.

“There was a rampaging Esper a long time ago, but there were no follow-up reports about what happened after.”

No reports meant no further activity.

Dongjun had taken that to mean the rampaging Esper never returned to normal, so assuming even Guiding had been useless wasn’t entirely illogical.

“…You seriously dig up old articles? If you studied like that—”

Min-tae shot Dongjun a look of pure disbelief.

A look that deserved to be hit.

Dongjun swung his fists wildly, and Min-tae curled up, shrieking as he took the blows.

“There are only two endings for a rampaging Esper.
They die, or they get killed.”

Haewoon, who had been silent the entire time, finally spoke amid the chaos.

His low voice landed like a heavy hammer, striking the back of Jaeyoung’s head.

As always, Saheon entered Jaeyoung’s room through the window instead of the door.

If their parents found out these two people with no real point of contact kept meeting like this, who knew what kind of pink-tinted rumors might spread.

Jaeyoung honestly thought this was the better option.

But maybe it was because he had seen Saheon at the end of that rampaging Esper video.

As Saheon crouched his massive frame to climb through the window, his face looked more exhausted than usual.

“What’s with that face? You look like you ate shit.”

After closing the window and turning around, Saheon saw Jaeyoung’s expression and instinctively took a step back, clearly uncomfortable.

“You don’t recognize a worried face?”

Jaeyoung pouted and complained.

“Worried about what? Stop thinking nonsense and sit down.”

Saheon flicked Jaeyoung’s forehead with his finger, brushing it off.

‘Guess I really worried over nothing.’

Jaeyoung muttered to himself while rubbing his stinging forehead.

At this rate, thanks to these brothers, his forehead might swell up as big as his nose someday.

“First, let’s start with you sensing the energy.”

Saheon said abruptly as Jaeyoung perched in front of him at the edge of the bed.

“Do we really have to? You do just fine on your own.”

Jaeyoung dragged out his words, acting cute.

Up until now, Guiding had consisted of Saheon either siphoning off the excess energy Jaeyoung leaked or pulling it out directly.
Jaeyoung himself had nothing to do.

All he had to do was sit still and offer his hand, and honestly, he loved that setup.

“That’s neither efficient nor safe for you.”

Saheon was firm.

“Safe…?”

Jaeyoung tilted his head, puzzled.

They’d been Guiding every few days, but it still didn’t feel real to him.

He didn’t feel weak or sore afterward, even after Saheon left.

“I’m not even going to be an official Guide. And if I do Guide, it’s only you. Do I really need to worry about this?”

At that moment, something flickered in Saheon’s eyes.

Jaeyoung had the uneasy feeling he’d said something wrong and glanced at him cautiously.

But before he could figure it out, Saheon’s gaze returned to normal.

“Don’t trust Espers. Even if it’s me.
You should always hold the reins.”

Saheon warned him with a seriousness Jaeyoung had never seen before.

Overwhelmed, Jaeyoung nodded without really thinking.

Apparently satisfied, Saheon grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up.

Jaeyoung’s blank stare filled with sharply defined muscles.

“H-Hey! What are you doing?!”

Jaeyoung shrieked and stumbled backward, throwing both hands up to shield his eyes.

“This makes practice easier.”

Ignoring his overreaction, Saheon grabbed Jaeyoung’s wrist and placed his hand against his chest.

The skin beneath his palm was far too solid compared to his own.

The unfamiliarity made Jaeyoung fidget, his fingers twitching nonstop.

‘If I hit my head on this, I’m definitely going straight into the amnesia route.’

“If you can’t focus, close your eyes.”

As if he could read Jaeyoung’s thoughts, Saheon scolded him with a cold look.
Jaeyoung flinched and shut his eyes.

“Clear your mind. Hold your breath.”

‘If I hold my breath, I’ll die.’

Jaeyoung grumbled internally but still tried to comply.

“Do you feel something like wind?”

“No.”

It was such an oddly poetic expression for Saheon.

Biting his lip to keep from laughing, Jaeyoung shook his head.

He concentrated hard, trying to feel something like wind, but every door in the room was tightly shut.

The only thing he could sense was the steady rhythm of Saheon’s heartbeat beneath his palm.

“They said this would work……”

A low murmur slipped through the silence.

“You don’t really know either, do you?”

Jaeyoung snapped his eyes open and stared at Saheon suspiciously.

“I didn’t tell you to open your eyes.”

Saheon clearly looked like he’d been hit where it hurt, but he immediately masked it with a cold expression.

He looked intimidating, but Jaeyoung wasn’t scared.

‘Yeah. You really don’t know.’

It felt like catching a glimpse of a flaw in someone who seemed perfect from birth.

Saheon must have learned this from someone else, despite not fully understanding Guiding himself.

“Stay like that until you feel it. You’ll get it eventually.”

“Yes.”

Jaeyoung focused harder than before.

If Saheon had studied for his sake, the least he could do was try just as hard.

Maybe it was his mindset, but finally, he felt something brush against his skin.

Just like Saheon said, it felt like wind.

Or maybe like a stream of water.

“Ah……”

A soft exclamation slipped out of Jaeyoung’s mouth.

“Good job.”

A voice so gentle it was almost unbelievable fell over his head.

For a split second, it felt like the person in front of him had changed.

Startled, Jaeyoung opened his eyes wide.

“You’re still far from done. Close your eyes.”

So it must have been his imagination.

Jaeyoung tilted his head and shut his eyes again.

“Now I’m going to swallow your energy.”

The wind-like sensation swept through him quickly.

When he hadn’t known what was happening, it hadn’t mattered, but now his head spun like he was on a roller coaster.

“Follow that energy.”

Biting his lip, Jaeyoung focused on its movement.

Sometimes he couldn’t find it at all.

Other times, he’d just barely catch it, only to lose it again.

Each time, Saheon stopped the Guiding and restarted from the beginning.

“W-What is that?”

At the end of it all was a massive black hole.

To Jaeyoung, it looked like a formless mass of darkness.

From its thick core, black tendrils writhed violently, as if they might grab him at any moment.

“So you saw it.”

Saheon’s eyes gleamed with exhilaration.

As Jaeyoung’s eyes tried to open, Saheon covered them with his palm.

“You soothe it. Smooth it out into a clean sphere.”

“Is that even possible?”

Jaeyoung asked doubtfully.

He experimentally poked it and was instantly flung back.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he even felt a sharp jolt of pain.

“That’s what Guiding is.”

“What happens if you just leave it like that?”

The answer didn’t come right away.

It wasn’t like the ‘princess,’ who was known for never holding back what he wanted to say.

Instead of opening his eyes to push him, Jaeyoung kept grappling with the tendrils.

“It keeps growing, eating away at the inside.”

Saheon finally spoke, his voice heavy.

“And when it grows too big for the body to contain, it devours you.”

His calm words brought back the conversation he’d had with Haewoon earlier that day.

‘Killed? What do you mean, killed?’

‘When an Esper rampages, it’s basically like a bomb going off. The damage doesn’t stop with them.’

‘T-Then you kill them?’

Rampage happens because they use their powers to save others.

After being used to the limit, they just get discarded?

The shock made even Jaeyoung’s eyelids tremble.

‘To prevent greater damage, there’s no other choice.’

Haewoon’s expression had looked complicated.

It wasn’t a future that had nothing to do with him.

It was one that could reach his brother.

‘But how? Don’t tell me another Esper—’

Dongjun, who had just finished fighting with Min-tae, had leaned in with interest.

Jaeyoung had stared at Haewoon too, eyes wide.

Only another Esper could stand against someone with special abilities.

But Haewoon shook his head.

‘An Esper gets a bomb implanted at the back of their neck the moment they awaken. And when they rampage…’

Haewoon hadn’t finished the sentence.

But no one there didn’t know how it ended.

“…You can see it too, right?”

“Huh? See what?”

Unaware of Jaeyoung’s tangled thoughts, Saheon replied flatly.

“The way I can feel my own energy. You can feel this too, can’t you?”

Jaeyoung pressed his palm firmly against Saheon’s chest.

The tone he used to refer to that violent energy was soaked with resentment and fear.