Chapter 24

T-That is filthy, Lieutenant!

We have already mingled our saliva, so what does it matter?

That had been the brazen answer delivered to a flustered, stammering Myeong-joo. A hot flush rushed into his cheeks as Lee Yi-ho’s crude remark suddenly echoed in his mind—that anything coming from a male Harmonizer’s body, whether spit or filth, was a treasured delicacy. Lee Yi-tan surely had not intended such a depraved insinuation, but he had undeniably been referencing their kiss inside the bunker.

“What are you daydreaming about? We are beginning.” Oh Jeong-man’s impatient voice dragged Myeong-joo from his reverie.

Resigned, Myeong-joo looked up at the young Aberrant. Without exception, Aberrants were built with massive frames and commanding height. Walking ordinary streets, Myeong-joo rarely passed a soul—man or woman—who did not expose the crown of their head to him, yet against Aberrants, that counted for nothing. Corporal Lim Jeong-wook was exceptionally tall as well. Though slightly shorter than Lee Yi-tan, his gaze looked down upon Myeong-joo from a substantial elevation.

The moment their eyes met, the corporal spoke with a flushed countenance, as though he had been staring intently at Myeong-joo the entire time. “Please look after me, Sergeant.”

“…Likewise.”

Myeong-joo was the one receiving training, so why the young soldier was asking to be looked after made little sense. Offering a perfunctory, polite reply, he clasped hands with the corporal. The young man’s palms were damp with sweat. Wondering why his partner was so nervous when Myeong-joo was the trainee, he brushed the oddity aside. Thinking he might as well apply the techniques studied over the past several days, Myeong-joo began channeling his harmonization through his fingertips.

The corporal gasped as a violent shudder wracked his frame. “Ngh, S-Sergeant Cha…!”

“What on earth—?!”

The instant the harmonization left his fingertips, the corporal’s frame convulsed violently. Snorting hot breaths, the whites of his eyes flushed blood-red as heavy panting tore from his chest. His face burned as crimson as a man seized by raging fever. Alarmed by the bizarre reaction, Myeong-joo tried to wrench his hands free, but the soldier yanked him forward instead, locking him securely against his chest.

“Ugh!” Myeong-joo shouted, struggling against the iron grip. “What do you think you are doing—?!”

“Dammit all! What are you gaping at, Corporal Kim?!” Oh Jeong-man bellowed.

The instructor barked furiously at the other Aberrant watching from the side. The soldier lunged forward at once to tear Lim Jeong-wook off Myeong-joo, but separating them proved a formidable challenge.

“Haah, Sergeant… ah…” the young soldier groaned deliriously.

As if desperate to burrow directly into Myeong-joo’s chest, the Aberrant buried his flushed face deep into the crook of Myeong-joo’s neck, exhaling scalding, ragged breaths. The sensation of their lower bodies pressed flush against one another was profoundly unwelcome.

Myeong-joo fought to tear himself away from the crushing embrace, but escaping proved impossible, and whatever shout the instructor bellowed was entirely drowned out by the roaring blood in his ears. Goosebumps broke out across his skin under that clammy, panting breath.

Then, without warning, the soldier grabbed a firm handful of Myeong-joo’s backside.

“Aargh!” Myeong-joo roared in fury. “You insolent little bastard, have you lost all sense of rank?!”

How dare you grope my backside?! Why not reach down and grab my balls while you are at it?! Seething at what felt like brazen mockery toward a superior officer, his temper erupted. He tried to drive his knee up into the groin of the bastard pressing an erect shaft against him, but there was no room to maneuver, leaving him merely writhing in place. What an utter scoundrel!

Just as Myeong-joo snapped his head toward the instructor with a glare demanding to know why on earth he was not ripping this wretched beast away—

“Just what in the world is all this?”

The voice fell over the room with the crushing weight of gravity.

A cold shudder shot down the spine of the frantically struggling Myeong-joo. To be caught in such an unsightly, degrading predicament was humiliating beyond words.

Heavy combat boots echoed sharply across the floorboards as a figure approached, seized the clinging corporal by the back of his hair, and wrenched him backward. With a strangled cry of agony, the corporal lost his grip on Myeong-joo and went flying across the floor, unable to offer even a shred of resistance.

“Lieutenant…” Myeong-joo breathed the title, still stunned.

Yet Lee Yi-tan did not look at him, turning his gaze squarely upon the instructor instead. Caught in that razor-sharp glare, Oh Jeong-man flinched visibly.

“A practical exercise?” Yi-tan asked with chilled quietness.

The instructor straightened his posture rigidly, swallowing hard. “…Yes, sir. That is correct.”

Unlike his usual conduct of maintaining strict courtesy even before subordinates, the rising inflection in Yi-tan’s curt query was distinctly unfamiliar. Watching him with lips parting in anxious silence, feeling rather like a child caught in mischief, Myeong-joo watched as Yi-tan hurled the corporal’s hair aside like discarded refuse and stepped deliberately toward the instructor.

“I gave explicit orders that Sergeant Cha’s resonance training with Aberrants would be conducted exclusively with me,” Yi-tan stated evenly.

“Ah, well, that is…”

Before Oh Jeong-man could assemble an excuse, Yi-tan tapped his fingertips lightly against the rank insignia resting on the man’s shoulder, continuing in an icy, measured cadence. “How curious. You do not look particularly daring to me.”

“Th-That is… It felt presumptuous to trouble you for every single training session, Lieutenant,” the instructor stammered.

Yi-tan smiled, cutting him off cleanly. “Whose order was it? Major Lee’s?”

The smile itself was impeccably refined and dignified, yet the instructor’s complexion had frozen into astonishing rigidity. The suffocating pressure radiating through the air was so palpable that even Myeong-joo felt a knot of dread tighten in his chest.

“There is no need to be so terrified,” Yi-tan added softly.

Reaching out, Yi-tan patted the nape of the instructor’s neck twice, much like clapping a comrade on the shoulder. The wet slap of his palm against flesh drenched in cold sweat echoed distinctly through the quiet room.

“You only need to give me an honest answer,” Yi-tan prompted gently.

“…Yes, sir.”

Major Lee undeniably meant Lee Yi-ho. When the instructor confirmed his suspicion, Yi-tan gave a subtle nod, then turned toward Myeong-joo with that pleasant smile still resting upon his lips.

Meeting those eyes, Myeong-joo could not suppress a startled gasp. Beneath the curve of that gentle smile, his gaze burned with raw ferocity.

“Instructor, I am deeply ashamed,” Yi-tan apologized suddenly.

“What…? No, not at all…”

Caught off guard by the abrupt apology directed at him, Myeong-joo stood baffled. Unable to muster a coherent response, he looked between the corporal who remained face-down on the floorboards without daring to raise his head and the instructor whose face was drained of all color.

Yi-tan stepped closer and placed a gentle hand against Myeong-joo’s back, guiding him forward. “I shall oversee Sergeant Cha Myeong-joo’s resonance exercises personally from this moment forth. You will have no objections to that, will you, Sergeant?”

“None whatsoever, sir!” The instructor snapped a crisp salute to the side of his brow.

Acknowledging it with a nod, Yi-tan escorted Myeong-joo toward the exit as though carefully shepherding a sheltered young noblewoman.

***

Stumbling out into the hallway in a daze, Myeong-joo spoke the moment the door clicked shut behind them. “It is not what you think, Lieutenant. I am entirely capable of controlling Corporal Lim Jeong-wook on my own.”

Myeong-joo had already realized what the instructor meant by an Aberrant “losing reason.” Only now did he recall that Aberrants frequently lost control and lunged at Harmonizers in feverish excitement. It was precisely why the ability demanded of a Harmonizer was complete dominion over an Aberrant.

Naturally, Harmonizers possessed physical capabilities no different from ordinary humans, so controlling an Aberrant was never a contest of brute strength. Instead, they wielded their harmonization like a whip. Whether driving their flames forward with unyielding force to tame an unruly beast or soothing them tenderly like calming a mad horse, their methods varied, yet typically only high-ranking Harmonizers mastered such techniques. Low-ranking Harmonizers lacked the raw capacity to manipulate their harmonization flames with such precision.

Until recently, Myeong-joo had likewise been a low-ranking Harmonizer far removed from such mastery. But now he was a Rank 1 Harmonizer, diligently devoting himself to training worthy of that standing. In truth, he had merely skimmed the concept of this kind of control in training manuals and had never once practiced it, but he desperately wished to put an end to looking pathetic before Yi-tan, a humiliation that should have ended with his dishonorable discharge years ago. Thus, regardless of reality, he put on a bold front.

After all, did one not occasionally have to run before learning how to walk?

“You say you are capable of controlling them?” Yi-tan asked, gazing down at him with an amused smile. It was the indulgent expression one might wear when humoring the petulant boasting of a five-year-old nephew. “Here I wondered if you had grown worldly and seasoned during our time apart, yet you remain every bit as naive.”

“What did you say? I did not catch that.”

Though the words had pierced his ears with crystal clarity, Myeong-joo asked again, convinced he must have misheard. Having never imagined the Lee Yi-tan he knew could ever utter such words, he doubted himself first.

Yi-tan wore an awkward, troubled smile, as if indulging an ill-mannered child. Then, letting out a low hum from his throat, he closed the distance between them. Startled by the sudden proximity, Myeong-joo took an involuntary step back, his spine meeting the corridor wall in an instant.

“Lieutenant, what are you doing right now?”

“I am taking your measure,” Yi-tan answered calmly.

“My measure?”

The distance between them had shrunk to an agonizing proximity. Myeong-joo could only stare blankly up at the Aberrant before him; there was nothing else he could do. The air pressing against his skin seemed to settle with suffocating density. Trapped in the illusion of his entire body being constricted, clear thought escaped him while his heart hammered violently against his ribs.

“Whether a Rank 1 Harmonizer attempting to channel harmonization into an Aberrant without even a single protective shield was your deliberate design, or whether only our esteemed Instructor was naive enough to be taken advantage of while ignorant of what every seventeen-year-old recruit in the unit knows—this disciple finds himself thoroughly perplexed,” Yi-tan murmured in a low, dangerous tone.

“…I…” Myeong-joo muttered in a daze.

He had known nothing of the sort. He had not known that a Rank 1 Harmonizer required a protective shroud of harmonization, let alone how to erect one. The introductory manual mentioned no such concept, and in all the years since his awakening, he had never even suspected such a safeguard existed.

Because Grade 5 Harmonizers were virtually indistinguishable from ordinary civilians, the military conducted no formal training for them to avoid wasting funds. It was customary merely to distribute a thin booklet outlining basic interactions and precautions between Harmonizers and Aberrants.

Had he been close to other Harmonizers in the unit, he might have heard something through whispered tips, but regardless of Myeong-joo’s sociability, fierce combat had raged during his days as a sergeant, and most Harmonizers had been dispatched to the front lines. The remaining Harmonizers were all low-ranked like Myeong-joo, most learning administrative tasks to sit for the civil service exam and devoting themselves entirely to clerical duties.

Where, then, could he have learned such things?

Yet at the same time, confessing that he had never had the chance to learn felt like scraping raw his deepest sense of inferiority. As Myeong-joo remained locked in stubborn silence, Yi-tan studied him with one raised brow before stepping back with a low sigh.

“So it was the latter,” Yi-tan concluded softly.

“…”

Only heavy silence hung in the corridor.

Feeling the heat rush to his face, Myeong-joo fixed his eyes firmly on the floor tiles. He prayed desperately that his cheeks would not burn any redder; he refused to look any more foolish than he already did.

As though understanding Myeong-joo’s predicament all too well, Yi-tan let out another quiet sigh before speaking again. “Reflecting on the past, what happened threw me, and it left me disoriented. This disciple has spoken out of turn, Instructor.”

“…”

He offered a clean apology with a brief bow.

Myeong-joo could only stare, lips parted. By “the past,” Yi-tan surely meant his first life before time reversed. It was part of Yi-tan’s history, but to Myeong-joo it was a life he neither remembered nor had ever experienced.

“How insolent…” Myeong-joo muttered under his breath in utter disbelief.

The words slipped unbidden past his lips. Yi-tan slowly raised his head, his gaze meeting Myeong-joo’s. Myeong-joo’s face burned a blazing crimson—this time not from shame, but from pure indignation. Without a second thought, he flared up.

“Whether by age or enlistment date, I am your senior by far! Do you intend to discard all respect?!”

“…”