Chapter 25

“Flaunting your authority just because your rank is higher… You must observe at least basic boundaries! How dare you act so insolently?!” Myeong-joo bristled, glaring fiercely into the taller man’s eyes.

Yi-tan remained silent for a moment. Staring fixedly at Myeong-joo with his handsome eyes wide, his sheer composure only provoked Myeong-joo’s fury further. It felt as though his brother-in-law, who had always avoided impropriety and behaved with impeccable etiquette, had suddenly turned into a common rogue. Myeong-joo had never scolded even little Myeong-hui like this, yet he was oblivious to the fact that he was yelling at Yi-tan as though reprimanding a wayward youngest brother. At the same time, his heart ached, for this man did not seem like the Yi-tan he had known.

“Wh-Wait—!”

The next instant, a shrill gasp tore from Myeong-joo’s throat.

Without warning, Yi-tan seized Myeong-joo’s wrist and hauled him forward.

The heavy thud of combat boots and Myeong-joo’s hurried, scuffling footsteps echoed through the hallway in frantic syncopation. Yi-tan walked with swift, long strides, but with his wrist trapped, Myeong-joo was practically sprinting to keep up. Rounding the corner at the corridor’s end, they headed for the emergency exit. Flinging open the heavy steel door as lightly as a sheet of paper, Yi-tan slipped inside, dragging Myeong-joo along with him.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Myeong-joo protested sharply.

Having regained his senses in the meantime, Myeong-joo was already feeling a twinge of regret. He should have reined in his temper. Moreover, the fact that he had actually flared up in anger against Yi-tan astonished even himself. Yet unable to shake his confusion, feeling as though Yi-tan kept searching for another person through him, he had been unable to endure it. Until now, that feeling had been grief, but it seemed to have transformed into resentment.

Yet anger was ever fleeting while remorse was long. Belatedly, regret washed over him: why on earth had he lost his temper? Having already agreed to marry him for financial support, what right did he have to talk back so fiercely? His cursed short fuse had already gotten him fired from numerous delivery shops after brawling with shopkeepers; why had he repeated the mistake here?

Myeong-joo exhaled a heavy sigh.

The stairwell inside the emergency exit was deathly still and unlit. Because there was only a single window a couple of floors above, the meager daylight filtering down barely illuminated Yi-tan’s face. Myeong-joo could only sense that the gaze fixed upon him gleamed with a strange, dark intensity. Even in the gloom, those eyes held a bizarre glint.

Dark and abyssal, like peering into the bottom of a deep well fearing something else might surge up from the depths…

Before being captivated by that eerie light, Myeong-joo quickly spoke up. Driven by pride he had yet to let go of, his voice was blunt. “I didn’t say anything inappropriate. You’ve been pushing me too hard, Lieutenant—”

Yet Myeong-joo could not finish his sentence.

Stepping forward without warning, Yi-tan wrapped him in a crushing embrace. With a choked gasp, Myeong-joo was pulled flush against that solid chest. The arms constricting his waist were ferociously tight, squeezing his ribs until it became agonizingly hard to breathe. It felt similar to being held by the corporal earlier, yet fundamentally different: if the corporal had seemed frantically desperate to draw harmonization from Myeong-joo, Yi-tan was shackling him so that he could never leave.

Like wisteria vines coiling up a pillar, Myeong-joo felt entirely bound to a massive tree trunk.

“Wh-What are you doing…?” he stammered, breathless.

“Instructor.” Yi-tan called out to him like a suffocating man exhaling his last breath.

Myeong-joo froze instinctively. It was not from any conscious command sent by his brain, but as though his very soul had been pinned in place.

“Instructor…”

The bridge of Yi-tan’s nose pressed hard against the nape of his neck. Burying his face into his neck as if burrowing into his flesh, Yi-tan let out a shuddering groan and drew labored breaths. The ticklish sensation sent chills prickling across Myeong-joo’s back.

“Wait, Lieutenant…” Myeong-joo gasped, trembling. “This is…”

“You are there, are you not?”

At Yi-tan’s words, Myeong-joo froze entirely, blinking in stunned silence.

“I know you are there, Instructor,” Yi-tan whispered against his skin.

“…”

“I knew you would never leave me behind… that you could never abandon this disciple.” His voice trembled with agonizing yearning, as though reuniting with one longed for through an eternity of grief.

Myeong-joo’s heart slowly crumbled.

“Instructor, it is Yi-tan…” the young officer pleaded softly.

“…”

Clinging tighter, Yi-tan’s voice broke into a ragged, childlike sob. “Your Yi-tan… Instructor…”

He spoke in a slurred, muffled cadence, sounding just like a young boy who had barely graduated middle school.

Myeong-joo knew all too well what this was: the temporary regression displayed by an Aberrant who had lost his Harmonizer.

Once, when visiting a military hospital to pay his respects to an acquaintance of a superior officer, he had seen an Aberrant who had lost his Harmonizer wandering the corridors and babbling like an infant. Stripped of his towering pride, noble dignity, and mountain-like sense of responsibility by the loss of his Harmonizer, the man had momentarily regressed into that young Aberrant who had only just formed a bond with his Harmonizer.

Myeong-joo had heard that such an episode lasted only a fleeting moment before dissipating. Afterward, the Aberrant might retain vivid memory of their regression, or they might forget the entire ordeal. Given how many soldiers lost their Harmonizers upon the battlefield, it was a surprisingly frequent affliction, and he recalled seeing a brief explanation tucked into the thin instructional booklet he had received years ago.

Meanwhile, the young Yi-tan burrowed once more into the embrace of his unresponsive Harmonizer. For someone behaving like a small child, his strength was terrifyingly immense, forcing Myeong-joo to endure sharp, piercing agony in his ribs as if run through by a spear. Unable to push away the man who was nuzzling his neck and rubbing the tip of his nose against his earlobe in frantic search of his Harmonizer’s scent, Myeong-joo could only freeze. Young Yi-tan whispered in resentful sorrow at his Harmonizer’s silence, his lips brushing the earlobe so closely that relentless chills prickled Myeong-joo’s skin.

“You used to scold me, praise me when I did well, and cherish me so dearly…” Yi-tan whispered mournfully.

At those words, Myeong-joo felt all the fight drain out of him. In his petty pride, he had flared up in anger thinking his unrequited love was searching for another person through him, but Yi-tan had instead summoned the memory of that Myeong-joo who was stern yet tender toward him—a peerless instructor and his beloved Harmonizer. That memory had served as the emotional trigger to plunge the Aberrant into regression. Having unintentionally witnessed the raw vulnerability of the peninsula’s mightiest Aberrant, a bitter taste settled heavily on Myeong-joo’s tongue.

“Instructor.” Yi-tan murmured again, pulling Myeong-joo into an even tighter embrace as if trying to merge into his very marrow.

With the intimate contact draining his harmonization without restraint, Myeong-joo felt a pain surge from within, as though his core were being scraped raw. It was fundamentally different from holding hands with the corporal; channeling harmonization into an elite Aberrant carried an overwhelming intensity.

Feeling something rising in his gorge, Myeong-joo assumed it was nausea, until the metallic stench of iron hit his nostrils.

He was coughing up blood.

Locked in that crushing embrace, he could hardly spit it onto the floor, so he simply swallowed the blood back down, unconcerned with the filth. Wearing a resigned smile, Myeong-joo awkwardly patted the back of the Aberrant who had regressed in desperate search of his lost Harmonizer.

Though Yi-tan was not his Aberrant, Myeong-joo was undeniably his Harmonizer. Even if it felt as though two people were clinging to half-correct answers on an exam, there was simply no helping it.

“Yes, Yi-tan,” Myeong-joo whispered softly, smoothing the young officer’s hair. “I am here.”

“Ngh…” Believing his Harmonizer had finally answered him, Yi-tan let out a low, relieved groan.

His thick thighs pressed between Myeong-joo’s legs continued to shift restlessly. While the posture was unquestionably precarious, Myeong-joo gave no sign of distress, steadily stroking the young Aberrant’s broad back. He tried his best to ignore the firm weight resting against his groin. It was so massive that even in an unaroused state, it pressed heavily against his lower abdomen.

Strangely, a tingling heat spread below his waist.

For a fleeting second, forgetting the gravity of the situation, he was almost tempted to glance down and verify whether that truly was Yi-tan’s member. He could scarcely fathom how they had ended up in such a scandalous tangle. What reason did he have to be clutching his young pupil so tightly?

After a short while, the draining flow of harmonization gradually subsided, signaling that the Aberrant’s core had finally stabilized. As if confirming the recovery, Yi-tan slowly released his hold.

In the dim stairwell, Myeong-joo’s eyes, now adjusted to the gloom, clearly discerned the expression on his face. Observing the furrowed brows and bewildered stare fixed upon him, he realized at once that the man had completely forgotten his behavior from moments before. Yi-tan’s face was the very picture of confusion, wondering why they were standing in this deserted stairwell and why they were pressed so close.

Concealing his churning turmoil, Myeong-joo placed a hand against Yi-tan’s chest and pushed gently. “…It appeared you were in dire need of harmonization, so I took the liberty.”

“…Ah. Good grief.” Staring blankly down at the hands pushing him away, Yi-tan let out a deep lament. He did not seem to realize he had suffered a regression, but another concern clearly weighed upon him. “I apologize, Instructor,” Yi-tan said with genuine contrition. “Subjugation operations have expanded recently, so…”

Myeong-joo pushed him back the rest of the way with tired resignation. “…I understand. Shall we head outside?”

He understood nothing of military affairs, yet spoke the words regardless.

Drained of all vitality, Myeong-joo finished pushing Yi-tan away. Yi-tan seemed to sense the faint undercurrent of resentment lingering in that touch, stepping back without resistance.

With trembling fingers, Myeong-joo pushed open the heavy emergency exit door. Daylight flooded his vision with such sudden brilliance that he squeezed his eyes shut. The taste of iron lingered thick in his throat.

Could the human heart truly be called an internal organ?

The only wound he had sustained today was surely to that organ called the heart, yet it was real blood he had swallowed.

It was an utterly unfathomable thing.

***

Driving Myeong-joo home that evening, Yi-tan wore an uncharacteristically restless expression.

“I feel utterly ashamed,” he murmured the moment the car halted at a red light, having cast covert glances at his passenger throughout the drive. “I behaved no better than that wretched corporal.”

Myeong-joo accepted the remorseful words at face value. In truth, he had no other graceful response to offer. “It is fine. Anyone might lose control when pushed to total exhaustion.”

Yi-tan appeared visibly comforted by the quiet absolution. “You were always so tender toward me.”

“…”

“Even after reprimanding me severely, you would tell me it was all for my own growth, urging me not to be disheartened.” As the light changed and the sedan accelerated into the evening traffic, Yi-tan added in a warmer tone, “You felt just like a father, or a beloved eldest brother.”

What a smooth talker for a man with a father and an older half-brother of his own. Myeong-joo did not even have the stomach to mock him by asking what sort of father lusted after his own son. Giving voice to the thought would only scrape his own wounds raw.

Fortunately, the car soon turned onto the road leading toward his hillside neighborhood, sparing them further conversation. Having visited before, Yi-tan ignored Myeong-joo’s request to drop him at the foot of the slope and drove straight up the steep incline, pulling to a halt before the gate.

Myeong-joo moved to alight, struggling to conceal the exhaustion weighing down his limbs after an interminable day, but Yi-tan caught his wrist.

“I wish to hasten our wedding.”

Myeong-joo parted his lips, hesitating. “However…”

“I understand you harbor many worries,” Yi-tan said, his grip firm yet gentle. “But I do not wish to embrace you in haphazard places like today. Once the ceremony is concluded, we will naturally have our own marital quarters.”

Whether his face burned because he harbored secret feelings for Yi-tan or merely because Cha Myeong-joo had been an inexperienced bachelor in both lives, the phrase marital quarters sent heat rushing to the tips of his ears, though he had imagined nothing specific.

“Instructor, please?”

Begging like a stubborn child pleading for sweets, the earnest appeal was impossible to refuse. How many mortals could look upon a striking nobleman bowing his head to gaze into their eyes and coldly declare it none of their concern? Myeong-joo refused to admit that he was simply defenseless against temptation.

***