After officially getting his guide license reissued, Ju-eon moved all his belongings to his old home to live with Myung-hwon.

Ju-eon felt a strange emotion as he looked at his name written on his newly issued guide license. Originally, he should have been living under his new identity as Woo Ju-won.

After the legalization of private guilds, the Agency had to endure various hardships without even having time to hold onto Yeo Myung-hwon.

[The Exposed Face of the Agency That Secretly Conducted Human Experiments on Unclaimed Persons by Declaring Them Dead [Exclusive] Reporter Kwak Seong-gwan]

While Yeo Ji-woong remained missing, news about the secret clinical trials broke out. The wind that began to blow with the sensational headline grew fierce in an instant, leaving no time to handle it.

The Agency had failed to fulfill its promise to provide support for the test participants to live proper lives after the clinical trials. Without the Agency’s support, the clinical trial subjects with no background or identity had very few employment options. The survivors who believed they would live better lives protested to the Agency but were ignored. Inevitably, testimonies about the Agency’s corruption regarding the clinical trials continued to emerge.

As a result, a national petition arose, and even unrelated people began to participate in protests.

Without Yeo Ji-woong, the response moved slowly, which led to sensational articles being published without any chance to intervene. Eventually, the Agency succumbed to public pressure, acknowledged its wrongdoing, and announced that it would help the clinical trial victims reclaim their original identities and provide financial compensation.

And among those measures, the first to be implemented was the return of their names. Woo Ju-eon. I became Woo Ju-eon again.

“Ju-eon. Did you pack everything?”

“Yes.”

“Let me carry it.”

And Ju-eon knew very well where the article had originated from.

‘It would have been easier if I had stepped forward too.’

Reporter Kwak Seong-gwan, who exclusively covered this issue, didn’t contact Ju-eon while publishing the articles. Despite clearly knowing about Ju-eon’s existence as a participant in the clinical trials, he never requested an interview. Though he didn’t know him well, Ju-eon could tell that the reporter’s failure to contact him probably resulted from pressure by someone.

‘There was clearly someone’s intervention, and that intervention was probably…’

Ju-eon shook his head as he looked at Myung-hwon smiling brightly. There was no need to think further. Yeo Myung-hwon overprotected him, so it would follow those lines.

“No. I don’t have much luggage.”

After organizing his belongings, there wasn’t as much as he thought.

“Is this all your luggage?”

“Yes.”

After arriving home and starting to unpack, Myung-hwon asked in a surprised voice. Myung-hwon had said he would buy everything new for Ju-eon. But since Ju-eon had insisted on bringing his own belongings, Myung-hwon thought there would be many important items.

“You don’t have more luggage to bring later?”

“This is all.”

Ju-eon gave a simple answer to Myung-hwon’s bewildered repeated question and began unpacking. As Myung-hwon said, there was so little luggage that he could finish organizing quickly. After putting the bag he brought into a drawer in the shoe rack, Ju-eon sat on the sofa. When he first entered this house with Myung-hwon, he felt it was quite large, but looking at it again now, the house felt small.

And this place alone seemed to have avoided the flow of time. It matched exactly what existed in his memory.

Looking at his belongings, his eyes suddenly grew hot with tears. Noticing Ju-eon’s mood sinking, Myung-hwon lay down with his head on Ju-eon’s thigh. He reached out his arm to caress the rough area between the back of Ju-eon’s neck and head, speaking in a comforting tone.

“There’s too little change, isn’t there?”

It saddened him that despite Myung-hwon living alone for several years, no sense of life existed here at all.

“Don’t do that anymore.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll organize my things now.”

He wanted to shake off the lingering emotions by keeping busy. As Ju-eon hurriedly got up, Myung-hwon grabbed his wrist.

“Ju-eon, should we move?”

“……”

“I couldn’t move because I thought you might come back… but that’s not the case anymore.”

“You’ve lived here for too long. It must have been hard for you.”

While nothing was wrong with the security or the structure of the house, the problem was that Yeo Myung-hwon’s position had grown too prominent. Even just entering the house earlier, several gazes had clung to them persistently.

“Shall we find a place near the guild building?”

“When are you thinking of moving?”

Ju-eon was thinking as far ahead as a year. He wouldn’t have much time to be at home frequently for a while anyway, since he’d be busy.

Myung-hwon wrapped his arms around Ju-eon’s waist and buried his head in his shoulder. When Myung-hwon acted like this with Ju-eon, it meant he wanted something. And most of the time, it was something Ju-eon didn’t want.

“Tomorrow?”

Before Ju-eon could answer, Myung-hwon smiled brightly with curved eyes. Soon, Myung-hwon’s lips touched Ju-eon’s. Their hot breaths mingled. Ju-eon felt the cold touch of the sofa against his back, right on cue. Myung-hwon, who had climbed on top of Ju-eon, tried to slip his hand inside his clothes.

“It might be too difficult tomorrow, so the day after tomorrow is fine too.”

Ju-eon frowned at the subtle heat in his voice.

“…You’re trying to slip past this, aren’t you?”

“So you don’t like it?”

“…I told you not to ask things like that.”

Ju-eon hit Myung-hwon’s chest with his hand, not hard enough to hurt. In response, Myung-hwon grabbed Ju-eon’s finger and put it in his mouth. Ju-eon twisted his waist at the hot, soft sensation.

“I’ll take that as an answer even without you saying it.”

Myung-hwon stroked Ju-eon’s lower abdomen with a mischievous look. The move was decided before they even finished unpacking.

**

“Can’t I not go?”

“…After coming all this way?”

“We can just turn back now.”

An unexpected argument broke out in the stopped car.

Ju-eon let out a hollow laugh as he looked at the hospital building right in front of them. He knew Myung-hwon was busy, so he said he could go alone, but Myung-hwon insisted on taking him.

Myung-hwon’s thick-knuckled fingers settled between Ju-eon’s fingers. Feeling the warmth through their interlocked hands, Ju-eon lowered his head.

“…We’ve come all this way, so you should go in. Did you follow me here just to prevent me from going back?”

Instead of answering, Myung-hwon flipped the direction of their hands and lifted Ju-eon’s hand to kiss the back of it.

Smooch.

The affection from a grown man nearly 190cm tall made his heart melt, and that created a problem on his part too.

For a very brief moment, before he could even think about not going, his instinct almost blurted out words. He bit his lower lip firmly, swallowing the words that were about to come out. However Myung-hwon interpreted this, he pulled Ju-eon’s hand and placed it on his cheek.

“So do you dislike me?”

Myung-hwon had changed. He constantly sought reassurance, treating this moment like some impossible miracle.

“I told you not to say things like that.”

“I guess I’m anxious because I’ll be busy again soon.”

Because the busyness of daily life sometimes makes us unintentionally overlook precious things. Even if we cherish them, I now know all too well that it can still happen.

Ju-eon chose to be with Myung-hwon not for comfort. Just because the Yeo Ji-woong issue was resolved didn’t mean it was over. Life doesn’t end with a period like a novel when a major event concludes. Life continues afterward.

We have to live another day. Myung-hwon, who had established a new guild, would once again lead a busy life. Nevertheless, choosing Myung-hwon again wasn’t because they believed they wouldn’t repeat their mistakes.

“I’ll be busy too.”

Even if Myung-hwon hurt him again, he would have no choice but to love even that part of him that caused pain.

“That’s why you should join the guild. You can build up your physical strength after joining.”

“No.”

After establishing the guild, Myung-hwon naturally proposed that Ju-eon join. He seemed to think Ju-eon would obviously accept, so when Ju-eon rejected the offer, Myung-hwon’s shocked expression remained vivid.

“It’s obvious that joining with this body would be like parachuting in…”

“Don’t talk like that. And if anyone says something like that, we can just kick them out of the guild.”

“What kind of guild master says things like that?”

“Why not?”

Ju-eon burst into low laughter at Myung-hwon’s confident retort.

“I’m not belittling myself, I’m stating an objective fact.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Because of the artificial organs. His physical strength had declined since he wasn’t managing it as he did when he was in the field. He had been training hard recently to live as a guide again, so his stamina had improved a bit, but it still fell far from his prime. The limits of his physical strength were clear, but precisely because they were clear, he wanted to enter in the best condition possible within those limits.

“Your guild is currently a small elite force, and if I join right now, I’d be lucky just not to get in the way.”

That’s why he refused. Even if he was parachuted in, he didn’t want to be a hindrance. Going through another place before joining Myung-hwon was also an option. Though Myung-hwon would probably try to talk him out of the latter.

Myung-hwon leaned his head on Ju-eon’s shoulder and muttered in a low voice. His large body seemed to fill the driver’s seat, but his upward gaze looked pitifully vulnerable.

“Let’s just check our matching rate then.”

“When is it being implemented? I thought it would take some time.”

“Next week.”

“That fast?”

He thought it would take longer.

Ju-eon opened his eyes wide in surprise. After breaking away from South Korea’s independent ability user system, the first thing Yeo Myung-hwon did was join the International Ability Users Alliance.

The system created through the cooperation of various countries was much more systematic. Among them, the most innovative recent system was the matching rate system. The higher the matching rate, the higher the esper’s guiding absorption rate, which significantly increased the return rate from dungeons. The system, which made a great contribution to increasing the survival rate of espers and guides, was being adopted worldwide and was first implemented in Dun Guild after the legalization of private guilds in Korea.