Chapter Text
The fireworks lit up the night sky like a brilliant, mocking wonder. The sound was deafening—a rapid-fire succession of booming crescendos that echoed off the concrete, instantly swallowed by the joyous, collective roar of the citizens surrounding him. Everyone was screaming, cheering, and throwing their arms in the air. The year 1999 was officially dead, and a brand-new millennium had arrived in a shower of blinding, iridescent sparks. To the rest of Haeseong City, it was an explosive, once-in-a-lifetime event that one simply couldn't miss.
But to Lee Un Jeong, the vision and the sounds were muffled, reduced to a distant, underwater hum.
In any other circumstance, a man who had lived his life in the shadows of his own dangerous abilities might have felt a fleeting sense of awe. But it evoked no wonder in him now. None at all.
He stood frozen, his head tilted back so far his neck throbbed. He stared up at the smoke-choked sky, his sharp eyes frantically trying to identify a single anomaly in the blur of cascading colors. He was terrified to blink, scared that he would miss the exact split-second Eun Chae Ni would suddenly teleport back into the sky. With her eccentric wardrobe—that chaotic mix of red, black, and white—she would be so easy to mistake for a stray piece of a firework blast if he wasn't paying attention. He had to be her sentinel. He had to watch.
"She’s late. Did she go somewhere far this time?" Mr. Son grumbled beside him. The older man attempted to mask his obvious panic with a strained, awkward laugh, but it died instantly in his throat as he, too, forced his eyes back toward the clouds. "Did she go to Canada again?"
Ro-bin, who had been aggressively sniffing and wiping his nose for the last ten minutes, finally lost the battle. He couldn't suppress his tears anymore and dissolved into full-blown, ugly crying.
"Even if she went to the North Pole and not Canada, she should’ve been back by now!" Ro-bin wailed, his voice cracking dramatically. He reached out with trembling hands and grabbed a fistful of Mr. Son’s dirtied, soot-covered jacket, clinging to the older man as if to hold himself steady against a sudden, violent vertigo. Ro-bin knew his best friend well—too well. He knew how Chae Ni’s powers worked, and he desperately didn't want his own thoughts spiraling into the dark, terrifying realization that something had gone horribly wrong mid-teleport.
"Damn it. Don't say such dumb things." Mr. Son scolded him, though the reprimand lacked any real bite. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle, laced with a raw, hidden edge of worry. The old man knew the brutal reality of their situation. If he voiced his own terror out loud, their completely worn-out, battered team would collapse on the asphalt from the sheer weight of the stress. They were already physically spent and running on empty. The sudden, looming idea that one of them might never return was too heavy a burden for the remaining three to carry.
Un Jeong heard their frantic banter clearly, each word hitting him like a stray bullet. He swallowed the thick, suffocating lump forming in his throat. Slowly, carefully, he clutched at the jagged stab wound on his stomach. He winced, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth as he pressed his palms flat against the sliced fabric of his shirt, desperately trying to stem the steady flow of blood. He just needed to hold on. He needed to stay awake, stay standing, and keep his eyes glued to the atmosphere. He refused to voice the obvious fear out loud. Voicing it made it real. Voicing it meant accepting a reality where she was gone.
The three of them knew the exact mechanics of Chae Ni’s powers. In her uncontrolled, clumsy, and often chaotic hold over her abilities, she was really only ever able to teleport back around the location where she had initially blinked. And usually, no matter how much she fumbled, it only took seconds. A minute at most. She never stayed away long if there was no good reason to—and she certainly wouldn't have a single good reason to delay coming back immediately after teleporting the blimp.
It would never take her long. Never like this.
Un Jeong clenched his blood-slicked fist. I should have gone with her, he thought, the guilt clawing at his chest far worse than the blade that had pierced his flesh. He should have accompanied her and Mr. Son when Ro-bin had used his supernatural strength to hurl them toward the ascending blimp. He should have insisted harder. He should have fought through the agonizing pain in his abdomen and forced his way to her side. If something had gone wrong wherever she landed, he could have at least been there to think it through with her, to hold her hand and to make sure she wasn't alone.
He closed his eyes for a second, and the image burned into his retinas: Chae Ni, looking down at them from atop the massive blimp, her eyes wide with a frightened, childlike vulnerability. He remembered the way she gathered her courage, trembling, and raised her hands to make that familiar, ridiculous finger sign framing her face—her signature signal that she was about to teleport.
It was agonizing to think that that might be his last memory of her. Of her being scared. Of her being completely alone in the freezing sky. His heart tightened so badly he could barely breathe.
Seconds bled into minutes.
And minutes slowly dragged themselves into a full hour.
The dazzling colors of the grand finale had long since faded, leaving behind nothing but an eerie, gray haze of gunpowder smoke. Un Jeong’s vision was starting to blur, dark spots dancing at the edges of his sight, and his neck was severely cramping from holding the rigid, upward posture for so long.
Around them, the bustling streets of Haeseong were finally starting to quiet down as tired, happy families began their trek home. The only people left awake and active were the thoroughly confused local police officers. They were currently wandering the streets in bewilderment, trying to investigate why random sedans, city buses, and heavy metal objects were scattered across the upturned, shattered pavement.
"A freak weather accident," a nearby shop owner muttered to a neighbor, shaking his head as he swept broken glass from his storefront. "Must have been a sudden, massive squall that swept through the blocks. Look at this mayhem!"
It was a bizarre sight. Because Seok Ju-ran had fainted from overusing her powers, breaking her psychological hold over the masses, the citizens' brains had erased the memory of the supernatural, apocalyptic battle that had occurred right before their eyes. Their minds, unable to process the existence of Wunderkinders and reality-bending anomalies, had neatly replaced the trauma with a mundane explanation of a midnight storm. They had no idea they had been puppets. They had no idea a blimp full of experimental horror had almost wiped out their humanity.
And they had no idea a girl in a black-and-white jacket had saved them all.
Un Jeong never moved from his spot. He stood like a statue amidst the drifting trash and the wandering crowds, his eyes darting frantically across the vast, black blanket of the sky, praying for a single spark of her return.
"There's no more fireworks, young man," a local cleanup crew staff member said, pausing with his broom. He stared up at the empty sky in utter confusion, trying to see what exactly the injured, pale man was looking at so intensely. "Did you like the show so much that you're still looking for more?"
"Don't mind us, Ahjussi. We're just... waiting for a friend," Ro-bin interrupted quickly, forcing a watery, diplomatic smile as he gently guided the old man away from Un Jeong.
When the worker left, Ro-bin let out a heavy, defeated sigh. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the curb of the sidewalk, his entire body feeling completely mangled. He had used his own physical frame as a human weapon and a shield to protect the brainwashed citizens from hurting themselves during the chaos, and every muscle was screaming in protest.
But as he looked up at Un Jeong, Ro-bin felt a fresh wave of tears prickling his eyes. Un Jeong had been stabbed. He was actively bleeding out. He had pushed his own powers to the absolute limit to subdue the brainwashed people without causing lethal harm. He had fought a brutal, unseen battle against Kim Pal-ho at the church. He had even survived being brainwashed himself, his body hijacked to terrorize the city. All of this must have taken an immense, near-fatal toll on him. Yet, there he stood. Stiff, unmoving, refusing to seek medical attention until Chae Ni came back.
Master really does care for her, Ro-bin realized, his heart aching.
"Master..." Ro-bin approached him slowly, his voice cracking. "Even Ahjussi had to go home with his family and rest. You're bleeding so much. You need to go to the hospital right now to get treated. Please. I'll stay here. I'll watch the sky for Chae Ni. I don't have your incredible powers, but... but if she falls, I swear I'll use my body to catch her as best as I can! I won't let her hit the ground!" Ro-bin puffed out his chest, trying to project a strength he didn't feel, desperate to give Un Jeong a peace of mind.
Un Jeong shifted his weight, his head moving by mere millimeters. He shook it weakly, his long eyelashes fluttering in a desperate, losing battle against the encroaching darkness.
"I promised her..." Un Jeong’s voice was a strained, raspy whisper, barely audible over the wind. "I promised her that I would be the one to catch her... I'm staying. I can still hold on a bit more."
He simply could not fail her. Not this time. She had once again placed her life completely in his hands, offering him that final, fragile smile when she requested for him to catch her. To let go now, to close his eyes and leave the sky unwatched, felt like a betrayal of a trust he had already broken before. He refused to let her down again; that promise was the only thing anchoring his fading spirit.
But sheer stubbornness could no longer trick a failing body. The moment he finished the sentence, his knees buckled.
"You'll die at this rate, Master! You're not invincible like Chae Ni! You're bleeding out!" Ro-bin panicked, lunging forward.
Un Jeong tried to retort, to tell Ro-bin to step back, but the moment he tilted his head, the entire world tilted with it. The streetlights stretched into long, distorted lines of light, and the dark sky began to spin violently.
"Master!" Ro-bin cried out.
Un Jeong leaned heavily into Ro-bin’s shoulder, his knees completely giving out as his consciousness began to slip away. With one last, lingering, desperate look into the empty black sky, Lee Un Jeong’s vision finally darkened, and he went entirely limp.
.
Un Jeong woke up with a sharp, violent start.
The transition from the pitch-black void of unconsciousness to reality was instantaneous and jarring. His eyes snapped open, immediately assaulted by the sterile, blinding whiteness of an unfamiliar ceiling and the pungent, chemical sting of rubbing alcohol that scraped against the back of his throat. Beside his bed, the rhythmic, high-pitched beep... beep... beep... of a heart monitor grated into his skull, sending a sharp pulse of agony through his already throbbing head.
He groaned, pressing his palms hard against his eyes to force down the brutal migraine, and tried to prop himself up. The moment he shifted, a searing, numbing pain flared across his abdomen. He winced, his entire body stiffening as his hands instinctively flew to his stomach, feeling the thick layers of medical gauze binding his stab wound.
The soft, metallic click of a sliding door breaking the silence made him freeze.
"Oh! Sleeping beauty is finally awake!"
Mr. Son’s booming, gravelly voice cut through the sterile quiet of the room. Un Jeong slowly turned his head, his vision swimming for a second before focusing on the doorway. Mr. Son stood there, looking exhausted but forcing a wide, relieved grin. Right behind him was Ro-bin, clutching a chaotic mountain of convenience store snack bags in both arms. The man's face instantly lit up, a wave of relief washing over his features as he rushed toward the bedside.
"How are you feeling, Master? We were getting so worried," Ro-bin said, his voice thick with emotion as he dumped the snacks onto the overbed table. "You just... you weren't waking up. We thought you were a goner."
Un Jeong barely heard him. As the heavy fog in his mind finally cleared, the fragmented memories of blood, fireworks, and smoke locked into place. The sensory overload of the hospital faded into background noise, leaving only one singular thought in stark clarity.
"Is Eun Chae Ni-ssi back?"
The question left his lips in a breathless rush. He didn't wait for an answer. Ignoring the sharp flare of agony in his stitches, he twisted his torso to look past their shoulders.
His eyes frantically swept the doorway, then the corners of the room. He half-expected to find her slouching in a chair, wearing one of her skull-print outfits and loudly complaining about how hungry she was.
Ro-bin and Mr. Son instantly quieted.
The relief vanished from Ro-bin's face, replaced by a sudden, crushing solemnity. He lowered his gaze, his fingers nervously twitching against a bag of chips. Beside him, Mr. Son’s shoulders slumped, the old man looking away as a heavy silence filled the room.
Un Jeong’s heart stopped. He didn't need them to speak; the answer was written in the sudden weight of their expressions.
She hadn't come back.
A hollow, dreadful feeling seized his chest, turning his blood to ice. He forced his eyes toward the cheap plastic clock ticking away on the hospital wall. It read 9:00 AM.
"You need to focus on recovering for now, Master," Ro-bin tried to divert the conversation, his voice uncharacteristically quiet as he aimlessly ripped open a bag of chips and started munching on them, trying to fill the void. "You lost so much blood... the doctors and the nurses were surprised you were even alive by the time we hauled you in here. They said anyone else would have..."
Smack.
Mr. Son delivered a heavy, reprimanding swat to the back of Ro-bin’s shoulder, scolding him in a harsh whisper for dropping crumbs all over the sterile floor. But it was just a distraction. They were all just trying to look at anything other than the empty space where Chae Ni should have been.
Un Jeong turned his head toward the large window. Outside, the sky was a brilliant, mocking blue—clear, bright, and completely devoid of clouds.
"She’ll come back soon," Un Jeong murmured, his voice flat, sounding more like a mechanical recitation than a belief. It was as if he was saying it to convince himself more than anything. "She won't let her grandmother worry for more than a day. She's too stubborn for that."
Mr. Son and Ro-bin exchanged a fleeting, pained glance. Mr. Son let out a long, weathered sigh, rubbing the back of his neck before looking Un Jeong dead in the eye.
"It’s been four days, Mr. Oddball," the old man said softly, the forced humor entirely gone from his tone. "At this point... she’s probably more terrified of her grandmother’s scolding than whatever planet she teleported to."
Four days.
The words shattered Un Jeong's perception of time entirely. His eyes widened in disbelief, his pupils dilating as the true gravity of the timeline crashed down on him. Four days? He thought the grand finale of the fireworks had happened only hours ago. He thought he had only been asleep for a night.
Panic, cold and sharp, seized him. Ignoring the protests of his battered body and the sudden, violent throbbing of his wound, Un Jeong scrambled out of the hospital bed. He stumbled blindly, his legs uncoordinated as he grabbed the metal IV pole to steady himself. The metal casters clattered loudly against the floor as he dragged the stand toward the glass, pressing his hand against the window pane. He squinted against the piercing, brilliant sunlight, his breath hitching.
If she wasn't back even after four days...
A wave of intense nausea hit him, so violent he had to close his eyes to keep from vomiting right there.
Behind him, the muted sounds of the room continued. Mr. Son was softly scolding Ro-bin again, grumbling about how the boy was going to lose weight the wrong way by crying out all the water in his body. Ro-bin didn't fight back; he just stood there, aggressively sniffing, wiping his nose with his sleeve as the tears freely tracked through the crumbs on his face.
"Master..." Ro-bin’s voice cracked, sounding incredibly small, like a child lost in the dark. "Chae Ni... she’s coming back, right? She has to."
Un Jeong stared out at the endless expanse of blue, his lips tightly pressed together because he didn't have an answer to give. He knew her. In the chaotic, whirlwind span of time they had spent together, he had come to understand her. She was a girl who cherished her family above all else. Her grandmother was her world, and by extension, their ragtag team had become her world too. She wouldn't willingly stay away. She wouldn't leave them in suspense.
Something had gone horribly wrong. He could almost taste the phantom scent of ozone and burning metal in the air.
He refused to think the word dead. He bit his inner lip so hard he tasted copper, harshly shoving that thought into the darkest corners of his mind. There had to be another explanation. A logical one. When she did her signature sign and activated her powers, the blimp was already tearing itself apart. The explosion was instantaneous. The shockwave must have thrown her, injuring her, altering her coordinates. She was probably just sitting in some remote provincial hospital right now, heavily bandaged and unable to call, throwing a tantrum at a nurse.
Yes. That had to be it.
Yet, despite the desperate logic of his thoughts, a suffocating dread settled deep into his bones. He stood by the glass, a solitary silhouette bathed in sunshine, staring at an empty sky that refused to give him a sign.
The days that followed blurred together in a gray, indistinguishable haze of discharge papers, whispered conversations, and an agonizing, heavy silence.
Before he knew it, Un Jeong found himself standing in the dim hallway of his own apartment building. The air felt heavy, frozen in time. He reached out and inserted the key into the lock of his front door. His eyes fell to the metal surface, immediately catching the distinct, jagged indentation of Ro-bin's palm print left near the handle when he barged his way inside before.
Un Jeong sighed and turned the key. The lock clicked open. He stepped inside, and his entire body froze in the entryway.
Right there, occupying the center of his small, battered living room, sat a clinical metal lab table.
The sight of it was a physical shock to his system. His mind flashed back to the chaos of the underground facility—the moment they had finally reached her. Because he knew that they would've drugged Chae Ni to keep her heart rate down and prevent any means of escape, Un Jeong had an ample supply of coffee jelly tucked away in his coat pocket, brought along specifically to give to her the moment he was able to.
Yet, in that breathless second of finding her alive, he hadn't reached for the packets. Driven by an impulse he still didn't fully understand—perhaps a sudden, overwhelming relief, or the passing memory of seeing "Kiss" scribbled on her bucket list—he had caught her by surprise and kissed her instead. He had bypassed the logical solution entirely, surrendering his very first kiss and using the warmth of his own lips to jumpstart her heart. And right before the sudden rush could send her teleporting away blindly, he had gently whispered for her to go somewhere safe.
He had expected her to flee to her grandmother’s house, or perhaps a hidden alleyway far from the danger. He never could have predicted this. Chae Ni's subconscious had apparently bypassed everything else, registering his room as her ultimate sanctuary and teleporting right into the middle of his space, dragging the very table she had been confined to along with her.
Un Jeong dropped his duffel bag to the floor with a dull thud. He walked forward, his steps slow and heavy, as if moving through deep water.
There, draped haphazardly across the cold steel of the table, was her thin white patient gown, left behind when she had frantically changed into her own clothes. Nearby, her suitcase lay completely open on the floor, its contents spilling out in disarray—vibrant shirts, oversized hoodies, wide camouflage pants. The mess was uniquely her. It was the frantic, messy aftermath of a girl choosing whatever practical gear she could find before teleporting right back into the jaws of danger to save them. To save him.
Un Jeong reached out, his fingers wrapping around the coarse fabric of the gown. He gripped it tightly, his knuckles turning white.
Even after he had traded her life for his stolen past, treating her like a dispensable pawn to get his personal files, she had still trusted him. When the world was ending, she had looked at him, smiled, and placed her entire existence in his hands.
A sudden, sharp restriction locked up his chest. Un Jeong dragged in a ragged, shallow breath, but the air wouldn't go down. His lungs felt like they were collapsing under an immense pressure. He dropped to his knees beside the table, his head shaking in a violent, desperate denial.
No. No, no, no.
The crushing weight of his own actions fell upon him, heavier and more suffocating than the concrete walls of the lab. He had always loathed the monstrous doctor who had experimented on him, who had stripped away his humanity and treated him like an animal. Yet, as he stared at her things, a bitter truth clawed at his throat: he was worse than them.
They were strangers who owed him nothing. But him? He was someone she had trusted implicitly, someone she had considered safe. And he had traded her anyway, selling her life out like she was nothing.
He had become the very monster he despised.
And yet...what had he actually achieved by betraying her trust? Yes, he had won. He had finally gained his true identity, finally secured the long-sought information about his mother—the very things he had spent a lifetime bleeding for. So why did it feel so utterly empty? The prize was in his hands, but the triumph tasted like ash.
The terrifying reality that he might never get to say it—that he might never get to look into her eyes and say I'm sorry—struck him with a brutal, bone-chilling finality. He found himself dreading the silence stretching out ahead of him. He was scared of a future where his quiet life simply went back to the way it used to be before she had aggressively dragged him into her orbit. He didn't know how to exist in a world where her boisterous voice didn't echo through the quiet, or where that bright orange hair didn't cut through his shadows.
His chest heaved erratically, a full-blown panic attack clawing at his throat as the suffocating stillness of the apartment closed in on him. He clutched the gown to his chest, his shoulders trembling as a single, hot tear broke free and splattered against his clenched knuckle.
He was entirely alone in the quiet room, drowning in the heavy weight of an apology that had no one left to hear it, and a desperate, aching depth of a feeling he had only just begun to realize.
Her bright, unyielding smile flashed behind his closed eyelids, a beautiful ghost locked in the center of his mind.
Please come back, so I can catch you.