By Zephyria 
“Hyun-woo.”
The human, hostile to everything that composed the Aberrant Realm, was as precarious as a small bird standing before a cart. Beneath that fragility, Jeil Heon whispered lowly.
“Do you remember what your child’s name was?”
「Of cour—」
Of course.
He didn’t remember.
A momentary tremor froze the Smiling Man and the Aberrant Realm. Not missing that opening, Jeil Heon drove Nam Soon-ho’s Divine Blade—the longing of a mother who would risk death to bring back a child who had chosen the wrong path—deep into the Smiling Man.
“That is why your method was wrong.”
「I… I…」
What was it? What could it be? My child’s name… The Smiling Man desperately gathered the memories of when he was human. Mother. Sunbae. Yeo-jin. My baby. My family. The people I love. The people I want to protect.
What was his mother’s tone like? What did his wife’s face look like? What was his child’s name? He couldn’t know. He gathered everything, yet he could know nothing.
The Aberrant Realm collapsed as his eyes drifted open in vacancy. Until the final moment of fading away, the Smiling Man tried desperately to grasp onto his memories.
「Ah, aaaaah…!」
But in the end, he failed to recall a single thing until the very last moment, and along with a despairing end, the Substitute Blade also scattered into ash.
Jeil Heon caught the crumbling remnants of the Aberrant Realm in his blood-soaked palm. Hyun-woo, I will protect Jiha as a human. As a human who can love that child without shame, and without forgetting him.
Jeil Heon did not return until late into the night, but instead, Kang Suk-young sent word that the Smiling Man had been dealt with safely. Along with that was the news that Jeil Heon’s Corruption Level had risen during the process, and he was currently in isolation for several days to undergo purification. He wanted to share this relief with Gong Ran-sa, but as luck would have it, she was away.
Instead, he comforted his heart by talking with his teammates. There were many things he was curious about and many things he wanted to ask, but he would be able to see him soon once the purification was complete. With a slightly lighter heart, he spent the remainder of the exam period. It had been hectic in many ways, but he felt he had done his best on the exams.
“It’s about time we enter the Aberrant Realm, but since the Team leader isn’t here…”
On the day he returned to work, Song Hilda yawned and sprawled across her desk. Kim Min-seop, who had just made a cup of coffee in the breakroom, nodded in agreement.
“The Team leader has a unique constitution, so I know purification takes some time, but it still feels like it’s taking a while. Jiha-ssi, have you heard anything?”
“No. His phone is turned off, too.”
He had already been worrying since there had been no news for several days. Just how severe was the contamination for purification to still be ongoing? Was it to a degree that he couldn’t stabilize it himself? He felt gloomy that even the one thing he could be of help with was currently not being requested.
While his emotions were in a jumble, Jeong Ing-bar visited the office just before the end of the lunch break. After gesturing for only Yoo Jiha to step outside, he hesitated, unable to speak immediately. Eventually, Yoo Jiha asked after him first.
“Is your injured neck okay?”
“Ah… it wasn’t a major injury, so I’m fine now. I also commanded the operation against the Smiling Man. Though, calling it an operation is a stretch since we basically just surrounded him.”
“Oh, then did you see the Team leader get contaminated on-site? How severe is it?”
As he asked hurriedly in his anxiety, Jeong Ing-bar scratched his cheek with a troubled expression before speaking.
“Actually, Sunbae has gone missing.”
“…What?”
For a moment, he asked back blankly, unable to comprehend the words. Jeong Ing-bar explained the circumstances of the time. That the Smiling Man, while conversing with Jeil Heon, received an object and suddenly exhibited strange behavior, opening an Aberrant Realm that had never been measured before. And that he had disappeared beyond that realm with Jeil Heon.
“I saw it from a distance, so I can’t be certain, but I think Sunbae jumped in himself. Probably.”
“Th-then… inside there…”
“No, it’s not the worst-case scenario you’re thinking of. It was measured that the Aberrant Realm vanished, so it’s certain that Sunbae killed the Smiling Man. However, Sunbae didn’t have an Ear Guard.”
With a mind frozen in shock, he barely managed to understand the situation. To exit an Aberrant Realm to a designated location, an Ear Guard is required. Without one, one arrives at a random location, just as it was in the past before this incantation was created.
“D-do you have any idea where he might have come out?”
“It’s a random location within the cultural sphere of the humans who recognized that realm, so for Koreans, it generally aligns with the national territory. Given that his phone isn’t connecting, there’s a high possibility he’s deep in the mountains where signals don’t reach.”
Jeong Ing-bar comforted him, saying they were focusing their search on areas without signal. His final words—to keep this a secret from others—didn’t really register, and Jiha leaned his back against the wall powerlessly.
If it had been himself or someone else involved, given Jiha’s personality, he wouldn’t have been able to step forward and would have just suffered in silence. But the problem of Jeil Heon’s disappearance allowed him to take reckless action.
“Um, Director. There is something I would like to ask regarding the Team leader…”
His heart thundered until the moment he knocked on the Director’s office door, but Kang Suk-young, who was currently receiving a report from the head of the Measurement Center, gestured him in without a word. He had planned to cling to her pant legs and beg if she kicked him out, so he was relieved.
The Center head cleared his throat, seemingly slightly uncomfortable with the presence of Yoo Jiha, who had quietly perched himself on the edge of the sofa, and continued the report.
The gist of the report was that although no SOS marker had been found, since Ji-hwan remained, he hadn’t become an Aberration. However, even if he were stranded in a remote area without signal, someone like Jeil Heon would have already made his way down the mountain; the fact that there was still no news was certainly worrying.
“The condition for the location one exits from an Aberrant Realm is ‘natural land untouched by human hands.’ While one doesn’t drop into the sea or a river, there have been cases in the past where they emerged on an island.”
“If he came out on an uninhabited island, he certainly wouldn’t have a means of contacting us on his own.”
Startled by the mention of an uninhabited island, Jiha searched for them and found over 2,000. An image of Jeil Heon, like in Cast Away, drawing his boyfriend’s face on a volleyball and staring lonely at the distant sea flashed before his eyes. His head spun. He must be starving on an uninhabited island without any food, what should he do…!
Kang Suk-young and the Center head began discussing a search operation in cooperation with the Coast Guard. Yoo Jiha kept glancing at them, wondering when to jump into the conversation. He knew he wouldn’t be of much help on a search team, but he couldn’t just sit idly by. However, before he could speak, Kang Suk-young proposed first.
“Would you like to volunteer for the search team as well?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Then the other agents of Team 7 will support other teams for the time being… Hm?”
A call from overseas came through to Kang Suk-young’s phone resting on the table. It was a number starting with 085. Kang Suk-young hesitated before answering in a cautious voice.
“This is Kang Suk-young.”
Suk-ja Noonaaa♡ Don’t you miss Heon? Heon is sooooo lonely being away from Noona. I want to go home to see Noona now.
“…….”
Yup yup. Heon loves Noona too♡
“……You have the wrong number.”
After hanging up, Kang Suk-young clutched her forehead and let out a heavy groan.
“Crazy human… I should have tied his mouth shut and hung him outside the window long ago…”
The other party’s voice hadn’t reached Yoo Jiha’s ears, but there was only one person Kang Suk-young cursed with such genuine intensity.
“Is that the Team leader’s phone?!”
“……Yeah. Find out where this number is originating from.”
The Center head’s eyes widened as he saw the number on the phone Kang Suk-young showed him. Even his voice trembled.
“085? Is that really my Team leader? And not an Aberration?”
“If there were another Aberration capable of spouting such bullshit, I would have killed it long ago as a substitute for Sunbae.”
What on earth was the international code 085 that made them both react like that? As he hurriedly tried to search for it, Kang Suk-young spat out the words like a curse.
“North Korea.”
“What? Where?”
“North Korea, fuck. That goddamn Sunbae bastard is in North Korea right now.”
“…….”
Yoo Jiha’s mouth fell open blankly, then closed again. How is a person supposed to react when they find out their missing boyfriend has defected to North Korea…?
In the Director’s office, where a strange silence had settled, only the low mutterings of a pitiful Hubae cursing ‘that bastard’ could be heard.