PARADOX 18

While the taxi moved, the phone rang incessantly.

[Esper Park Jintae]

Hanseo-ya, did you get home okay? If I did something wrong, I apologize…

Hanseo tapped on the screen.

[Me]

You didn’t do anything wrong, hyung. My stomach really just feels bad ㅠㅠ I’ll contact you when I feel better.

[Esper Park Jintae]

Right… I see. Make sure to contact me when you’re better. I’ll be waiting.

This should be enough for now.

Exhaling a sigh, Hanseo slapped his own mouth.

‘This mouth of mine—it stays quiet and then suddenly goes crazy.’

It wasn’t exactly that he intended to defend Gu Jeyi. Were he and Gu Jeyi even on those kinds of terms? If Park Jintae hadn’t spoken as if it were natural to control psychic-type Espers, he would have gladly joined in on the backbiting.

‘That guy is ridiculous too. Did he ever get insulted by Gu Jeyi, or almost die because of him? I’ve experienced both.’

In other words, the person who hated Gu Jeyi the most was himself.

As Hanseo burned with useless competitiveness, the taxi driver spoke to him.

“Customer, it’s getting hot, so I’ll turn on the air conditioner.”

“Ah, yes.”

Soon, a cold breeze began to blow inside the taxi.

“I guess summer is really starting in earnest now. I’m already scared of how hot it’ll be this year.”

“…I agree.”

The taxi happened to stop at a red light. Hanseo looked out the window. The roadside trees had become lush before he knew it. People in short sleeves were crossing the crosswalk.

“It’s summer.”

He was reminded once again that this life was different from the previous one. Even though he was facing the same season in the same year, the scenery he looked upon was this different.

‘In my past life, around this time was when I was first taken by the Cult Leader.’

Back then, Hanseo was kidnapped while going to a convenience store. As he was put into a car with his eyes covered and dragged away, he trembled, thinking, ‘The research lab finally found me.’ But sitting at the destination was a young man he didn’t know at all.

The Cult Leader said he had been watching him and would specially welcome Hanseo as his follower. Then, he cut his own forearm, filled a cup with the blood that flowed down, and forced Hanseo to drink it.

No matter how much Hanseo knew nothing of the world from living only in the lab, there was no way he couldn’t tell the Cult Leader was a madman after going through such a situation.

‘So I ran away.’

He found out later that the Cult Leader had let him go on purpose, but he didn’t know it then. At that time, Hanseo’s head was filled only with the thought that he must not be caught by that madman again, and with that single will, he fled to the ends of the earth. To a remote seaside village far from the city.

And there, he met Gu Jeyi.

The stopped taxi began to move again. The scenery passed by so quickly it was unrecognizable. His stomach, which had been quiet for a moment, began to churn again.

Thump. Hanseo leaned his forehead against the window and closed his eyes.

…Actually, his relationship with Gu Jeyi hadn’t always been bad. They had even spent that summer together there.

Back then, neither of them hated each other.

Rather, it was probably closer to the opposite.

“…”

But that is also something that hasn’t happened in this life.

‘…Was it all a lie?’

Just like those black eyes that stared at him, stained with a sense of betrayal.

“Customer, we have arrived.”

Hanseo opened his eyes as if waking from a dream.

He got off the taxi and bought digestive medicine at a pharmacy. On the way home, he saw a man looking around a black car and getting annoyed.

“What? Who parked their car here?”

Perhaps because the villa area where Hanseo lived had few parking spaces, there were quite a few conscienceless car owners who blocked traffic by parking on such narrow roads. Since he had seen people fighting over parking issues several times while living here, Hanseo thought of it as a common occurrence and entered his house.

Click. When he pressed the switch, the fluorescent light flickered on.

The five-pyeong studio apartment he lived in felt chilly rather than cramped, as there was nothing but a small refrigerator and a pile of blankets left behind by the previous tenant.

It was a cheap villa he obtained with the support funds given by the government to Gate disaster victims. Thanks to a social worker’s help, he was able to handle the real estate business easily. He also received various help for initial adjustment; however, since it was the first time someone like Yeo Hanseo had returned years after going missing as a child, the social worker also seemed a bit troubled, perhaps because there was no set manual.

The government tried to care for the welfare of Gate disaster victims in its own way, but there were limits. At first, they cared because they thought they might find out something about the Gate, but as there were no results, the atmosphere was shifting toward neglect.

‘That’s more comfortable for me, though.’

After washing off his cold sweat with a shower, the sky had turned dark. Hanseo looked out the window while swallowing the digestive medicine with tap water from a cup.

“Hm?”

Hanseo’s eyes narrowed. He saw a familiar car. It was the conscienceless car he saw before entering the house earlier.

‘I guess that person failed to get the car moved.’

As he clicked his tongue, he suddenly got a strange feeling.

‘Wait, is there… someone inside that?’

He couldn’t be sure because the car’s tinting was dark, but he somehow felt that way. It was rare for this kind of feeling to end as a mere illusion. Hadn’t it been said that high-ranking Espers have better intuition than others?

Eh? Just now…

“Gasp.”

Hanseo quickly pressed his body against the wall next to the window.

He had made eye contact with the person in the car!

His breathing quickened. His heart beat so fast he thought it might burst through his ribs.

‘Is it the lab? Or maybe, the Cult Leader? But this time, I wasn’t caught being an Esper. There’s no reason to chase me.’

He tried to think rationally, but for some reason, it didn’t work well. Irrational and unhappy imaginations kept blooming in his head.

‘But… I think the car that kidnapped me in my past life looked like that.’

He felt like he would get a sense of it if he looked at the car one more time. But the problem was his body, which wouldn’t move as if it had turned to stone. His body was already drenched in cold sweat, making the shower he took pointless.

Finally, after a long time, Hanseo managed to stand in front of the window.

“…Ah.”

A shallow groan escaped his lips.

The car was gone.

Flop. Hanseo, who sat down right there, blinked blankly.

It felt like he had had a nightmare.

❖ ❖ ❖

The morning after discovering the suspicious car. Hanseo contacted the instructor immediately.

“Yes… I’m not feeling well. Yes, yes. Thank you.”

After hanging up the phone, Hanseo let out a sigh.

Normally, he should have gone to Guide training today, but after vomiting everything he ate as soon as he woke up, he had no energy to move, so he eventually called the instructor.

The instructor expressed regret, saying he had to complete the training period to officially register as a Guide, but the more the time was delayed, the better it was for Hanseo.

…Though this situation wasn’t something he had planned.

“Ugh.”

His body was shivering; it seemed he had a severe case of indigestion. It probably wasn’t just because he had eaten uncomfortable meals in a row.

He filled a cup with tap water. The cold water quenched his thirst. That refreshing feeling reminded him once again that he had truly returned in time.

Suffering that cannot be quenched by anything would not exist in this life. Because the current Hanseo was a clean body that hadn’t swallowed the Cult Leader’s blood.

Yes, it must be so… but why was it that he felt the shadow of the Cult Leader still looming over him?

“It’s a foolish thought.”

Muttering to himself, he looked out the window again. Yesterday’s black car was nowhere to be seen.

As expected, he had been mistaken. How could he remember a car he saw briefly when he was out of his mind? The only thing he could be sure of was that it was black, and among car colors, black or white were the most common.

When the body is unwell, the mind also grows weak. It was clear that his mind had made a mistake because he encountered a situation similar to the past while in a bad state due to indigestion. So, everything would be fine once his body fully recovered.

Hanseo sighed, swallowed the digestive medicine with the remaining water, and lay down on the blankets. In times like this, sleep was the best medicine. Since he had taken the medicine, he would feel better soon after a deep sleep. Fortunately, sleep came quickly, and his eyelids grew heavy.

How much time had passed like that?

Knock, knock.

The sound of someone knocking on the door was heard from somewhere.

‘Is it a dream?’

Knock, knock, knock.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

The knocking sound grew strangely faster and faster until finally…

Bang! Bang!

Hanseo snapped his eyes open.

It’s not a dream.