"Inside the Rift, it's like your thoughts themselves start screaming. Funny thing is, even in there, your Awakened level still matters. It's like the difference in walkie-talkie quality, you know? The higher the level, the clearer your thoughts echo and the better you can understand others. Level 5s? Honestly, they just sound like garbled noise. You can get the gist, sure—resentment, fear. Sometimes even... love?"

Within Woo Min-hee's cynicism, the story rushes toward its preordained ruin.

"How many people actually want to expose their own thoughts? Unless you're some mentally deranged freak on social media. Hye-in sunbae and I realized our thoughts were leaking out unintentionally, so we developed a way to block them. Like this."

Woo Min-hee stopped speaking.

I stared at her in silence.

As someone who's not Awakened, I had no way of knowing what kind of change she just invoked, nor any way to sense it.

But something subtle stirred—some unknown perception of mine trembled in response.

For the briefest moment, Woo Min-hee felt... similar to me.

A hollow, incomplete being, unable to stand alone.

"What did you do?"

I asked Woo Min-hee.

She stared at me with hollow eyes and answered.

"Stopped thinking."

That hollowness was soon replaced by a faint glow in her eyes.

"In the West, they call it muga."

"Muga?"

"It's the Japanese pronunciation of mua—no-self in Buddhism."

"Why Japanese?"

"Because the Japanese are good at that kind of thing. Acting like they're the representatives of all of Asia, hijacking words like it's nothing."

"Fair enough."

"Anyway, muga is like basic etiquette. Even if you're far away, sometimes you can still feel it—other people like me, their thoughts."

But not everyone was like that.

"Kang Han-min was different. That guy had no hesitation about broadcasting his thoughts. But even that felt like a calculated move. What he mostly leaked out was inferiority."

"Inferiority?"

"Yeah. Bits of resentment and self-disgust from back in school, and from when he first became Awakened. I personally think he leaked that crap on purpose. To hide his real intentions."

She sighed quietly.

"I think I underestimated him too much."

It’s true Kang Han-min was laughable as a person.

But there’s a lesser-known fact.

Even during his most pathetic days, Kang Han-min was dangerous.

He was someone who’d embedded a seed of hatred deep into his heart, just like me.

If hatred had colors, his would have been gloomier and more twisted than mine.

"...There were rumors that foreigners under Jeong Dae-kyung's faction were scouting around us. I didn’t think much of it. They say Jeong Dae-kyung is an Alpha Awakened like me, but I didn’t know him, and there was no way to find out. I wasn’t scared of him. I wasn’t even scared of Kang Han-min, so why would I be scared of someone I’ve never met? Still, I stayed on alert. But the problem didn’t come from there."

Woo Min-hee closed her eyes for a moment, as if reliving the memory, then opened them again and spoke in a low voice.

"Things went too well."

Woo Min-hee’s team had created the second Rift distortion.

It was said to be such a powerful manipulation that the Jeju Rift nearly closed entirely.

Had it not been for the surrounding fog, her name might have shaken not just Jeju but the whole world.

"Success was right in front of me. The Rift’s closure was right there. Who wouldn’t have felt elated? Anyone who’d ever eaten a school lunch—hell, anyone human—would’ve gotten excited. Even I, who never cared about things like honor, felt like I was standing before some great destiny."

Woo Min-hee paused to catch her breath.

"Yeah."

She nodded.

"That’s when everything went wrong."

Woo Min-hee took her most trusted aides and began the final operation to close the Rift.

She was in charge.

She led the attempt to control the so-called “nerves” of the Rift using Awakened powers.

It was something no human cognition could explain.

Even the most trivial tasks brushed up against the deepest parts of the human psyche, shaking its foundations.

"It’s just like monsters. They don’t have a real form, so you can’t define them, let alone study them. All you can do is touch them through subjective experience. But most people who tried either went mad... or got pulled in. I was no exception. But what’s harder to resist than success right in front of your eyes?"

That visible promise of success pushed Woo Min-hee into realms she normally would’ve never touched.

Her body trembled slightly.

Her hook-like fingers interlocked and scraped together with a horrible sound.

Screeeeech—

Woo Min-hee clenched her teeth.

They chattered as her jaw locked.

Just remembering it was enough to send someone like her into panic.

"...I almost got pulled in. No—others say I was pulled in. That I turned into a monster."

"..."

"I had no awareness of it. Everything felt normal. Just that unpleasant sensation of being trapped in a nightmare. It was Yerin who brought me back."

A woman risked her life, clinging to Woo Min-hee, desperately pleading for her to come back to herself.

Even Woo Min-hee couldn’t recall the exact scene, so she couldn't fully reconstruct it—but it must’ve been horrifying.

"The day I barely came back to my senses, Yerin spoke to me. That’s when I realized—she cries, too."

When Woo Min-hee finally came to, Yeo Yerin had her head on her lap and was silently weeping. Her tears fell onto Woo Min-hee’s face without fail.

"She said she didn’t want to lose someone like family again."

"Family?"

"...I guess I reminded her of her older sister. In looks and personality. But that sister died because of her. That girl... she said she lost her family in the Highway 25 incident. That her sister died because of her stubbornness."

That’s the incident where my own family was murdered.

Seems she lost hers on the same day.

"...That’s why she was so devoted to me."

On Yeo Yerin’s advice, Woo Min-hee stepped outside the Rift for a break.

There were reports of suspicious movements nearby, but she had no energy left to care.

A heavy sigh, soaked in regret, escaped from deep within Woo Min-hee’s chest.

"That’s how everything was lost. My camp, my comrades... and Yerin too."

The day Woo Min-hee took her rest, a massive explosion occurred near the Rift.

It struck right around the crevasse where her subordinates were stationed.

Not a single person survived.

Woo Min-hee ended her story in a brief, blunt sentence.

"In the end, Kang Han-min hit me."

Woo Min-hee went to confront Kang Han-min.

Fully prepared to kill him.

Kang Han-min had prepared too.

He used Na Hye-in as a shield, and Jeong Dae-kyung—his face hidden—stood behind as backup.

Even so, Woo Min-hee went to kill him.

Their powers clashed, and the violent aftershocks tore through the Rift.

But Kang Han-min gained the upper hand.

Already exhausted to the bone, Woo Min-hee was no match.

The face that once captivated men back in school was marked by an unerasable scar, and one of her graceful hands and a leg were melted in the explosion.

Even so, she didn’t stop fighting.

She cauterized her bleeding wounds with the flames of her own power, forced her broken body up with telekinesis—her unique ability—and crawled back to face Kang Han-min again.

Na Hye-in tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.

"One word stopped me."

Amidst the swirling storm, Kang Han-min spoke.

"Yeo Yerin is alive."

He smiled.

"You don’t hear her? Your junior’s voice?"

Woo Min-hee’s battered eyes trembled violently—then rolled back as she passed out cold.

The fight was over.

And with it, the explosive conflict on the verge of eruption was temporarily sealed.

Not because she lost the fight.

Kang Han-min’s words struck at the deepest part of Woo Min-hee’s heart.

"Like I said earlier, we can hear the resonance of thoughts left behind by others like us. That faint vibration that rings in the soul—it carries truth. Maybe even I was subconsciously hearing my junior’s voice in some part of myself I wasn’t aware of. In a kind of acceptance even I couldn’t understand... I backed down. I headed to Incheon."

That’s the full story of what happened between Kang Han-min and Woo Min-hee—the version I only vaguely knew.

"..."

And that’s how we met again.

In Incheon, in Seoul.

And even now.

My junior, who once seemed forever out of reach, was telling me her deepest truth.

Suddenly, it all felt like a dream.

"But lately, I hear it again."

"Hear what?"

"My junior’s voice."

Her eyes, gazing into the distance, were still filled with a desperate light that refused to let go.

"That guy knows something. Yeah. I’ll be honest. I still think Kang Han-min is a complete bastard. The kind of guy I want to obliterate for ruining my life. But ironically—paradoxically—I find myself agreeing with him deep down, even while thinking his plans are ridiculous."

Woo Min-hee looked me straight in the eye.

"I betrayed my sunbae."

Her gaze trembled uneasily.

Not just her eyes—her gaunt, fragile frame also seemed to shake, whether from guilt or regret, I couldn’t tell.

The old me wouldn’t have hesitated.

I would've left her to stew in guilt.

I’m not someone with a generous heart. I don’t forgive traitors.

To me, relationships are like computer programs—input and output, simple logic.

If the result is false, I act accordingly.

But my experiences have changed me.

I’m no longer just the Professor.

I’m also Skelton. Park Gyu. And even Eomchang.

I took a deep breath.

"That’s not true."

How hard it is to say something you don’t believe.

And yet, I said it.

"Everyone has the right to long for someone."

A crude, cliché line.

But everything has its time and place.

Even those crude words, if said at the right time—

"...Sunbae."

Can be the greatest comfort for someone.

"I’m not planning to kill Kang Han-min. Not that I could even if I wanted to."

Maybe that’s why.

The despair in Woo Min-hee’s eyes flickered with a kind of playful light.

She looked at me with a changed expression.

"Can you promise me?"

It wasn’t a tone befitting the Queen of Incheon—it was pleading.

Eomchang inside me would throw a fit, but I couldn’t deny there was a hint of cuteness to it.

"...A promise, huh."

"I don’t like Kang Han-min either. I hate him. But he knows something I don’t. He said someday he’d tell me everything he knows. No—show me."

Watching my junior force those words out clumsily, I couldn’t help but smile faintly.

"Don’t worry, Min-hee. I won’t kill Kang Han-min."

"Even if you hear his true intentions?"

There was weight in that question.

Even so, I wouldn’t kill him.

He’s my dark twin.

Our paths may differ, but I know we share the same destination.

"Yeah."

I nodded.

Woo Min-hee studied my face and asked:

"What’ll you do after meeting him?"

"I’ll probably go back. To the bunker."

"Not stay in Seoul?"

"That wouldn’t be smart."

Jeon Si-hoon will go on a rampage.

That’s not something I should meddle with.

Not that I have the strength to stop it.

I let out a slightly relieved sigh and added:

"I’m going back to being Skelton."

"Skelton."

Woo Min-hee repeated the mythic nickname, as if savoring it, lost in thought.

Still with some liveliness in her eyes, she looked at me again.

Then suddenly asked:

"Can I come with you?"

"What?!"

"You don’t want me to?"

I looked at my lonely junior’s face.

A thousand emotions passed through my mind.

In the end, what I chose was—

"...No. It’s not bad."

It’s probably not the best decision.

But still—

"Really?"

When I saw her face light up with pure joy, like a girl again, any regrets I had disappeared like a lie.

"...Yeah."

Why did I say that?

Maybe the other version of me—Eomchang—knows the answer.

It’s a path I’ve never taken, one I couldn’t even imagine.

I stood up, shaking off the awkward silence.

"Since we’re here, want to get a fortune reading?"

*

I thought about the divination.

"They said it was accurate, ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ but it’s total crap."

Woo Min-hee was scratching someone’s doorframe with her hook fingers.

The fortune wasn’t good.

Technically, if you do a ‘bad luck cleansing’ ritual, you can upgrade the fortune—but neither of us is the type to spend money on that kind of thing.

"I know a place that does good tarot readings. Want to try there?"

"Uh... hmm."

I dodged the question.

Instead, I looked up at the sky.

"The rain stopped."

The blue sky stretched out before us.

That fleeting blue, that fresh tint made me question—what’s the point of fortune anyway?

Woo Min-hee walked beside me, humming a tune.

For just a moment, she brushed her shoulder lightly against mine.

That’s how it is.

You don’t know what’s lucky or not until it happens.

The distance between me and my junior, once unbridgeable and always uncomfortable, proves it.