Rong Ye didn't always have a dull gaze, or that way of speaking as if his words could pierce through an invisible wall. There was a time, long ago, when he was just a child like any other.
A happy child.
He lived with his mother in a small apartment on the east side. She worked as a lab technician, and although her salary wasn't enough for luxury, they managed to survive. Their world seemed simple, but his last name carried a weight he didn't fully understand.
His mother never spoke about his father. All Rong Ye knew was that his father had been a brilliant scientist who died under dubious circumstances. After his death, Rong Ye's much older half-siblings—children of the same man and another woman—began to appear in his life.
At first, visits were sporadic, within the small apartment, but little by little they gained their mother's trust and were allowed to go out with Rong Ye.
Without his mother's knowledge, he was taken to clandestine laboratories where the tests, genetic analysis, and drugs began. Electrodes were inserted, his neurological responses to various stimuli were measured, and he was placed in sensory isolation capsules.
They explained to him that it was all for his own good, that if they wanted to protect him from the government, they had to do everything in secret. They also told him that he had the potential to become a Guide, but that that potential wasn't enough. They had to modify his body.
Rong Ye didn't understand what that meant.
He just knew it hurt.
A lot.
For nearly five years, his body was the testing ground for experiments his family couldn't perform with state authorization. They altered his nervous system, modified his empathic capacity, and even attempted to induce lucid dreams connected to psychic currents.
That's when he began to feel "The Void." A kind of hollowness in his chest that never went away, a void that made him feel incomplete and miserable all the time.
When he turned fourteen, the experiments abruptly stopped. He wasn't told why. He only knew that, overnight, he was handed over to Blackwood.
The man arrived at the facility where he was being held and took him away without any clear explanation. His half-siblings simply told him it was an "offering," a way to demonstrate loyalty to the supreme authority and to avoid suspicion about the Lee family's plans.
In exchange for his silence, he was offered only one guarantee: his mother would still be alive.
From then on, Rong Ye lived under the regime's surveillance, first as an ordinary citizen, then as a staff member at the Research Center. Outwardly, he was no different from everyone else. But he knew he was a ticking time bomb. That inside him lay something unstable, incomplete, and artificial.
For years, he kept to himself. He had no friends, he didn't talk more than necessary. Not because he wanted to be distant, but because he knew any mistake could cost him the only life he truly cared about: his mother's.
Blackwood didn't suspect his condition, at least not with certainty. That's why he had to remain invisible.
But then he saw Eun-woo.
He first saw him through one of the surveillance cameras. No one was allowed near him. Not even the doctors knew exactly what he was. But Rong Ye knew the moment he laid eyes on him.
Eun-woo was an Esper.
One that Rong Ye could bond with.
From that day on, Rong Ye began secretly investigating. He stole reports, compared old records, even accessed encrypted fragments of the system. All to confirm that Eun-woo was a match for him.
For the first time in his life, the emptiness seemed to fill, even if only for a few seconds. His job was no longer an unbearable routine. He began to look for excuses to pass through the hallways near the containment zone. He watched Eun-woo from afar, imagining what it would be like to talk to him or touch his hand.
He planned for months how to approach him and reveal his status without giving himself away. Because if the government discovered he was an unregistered Guide and was trying to bond with the last esper, he would be eliminated instantly.
Then Rhys appeared.
At first, Rong Ye didn't consider him a threat. He was just another soldier assigned to guard Eun-woo. But the change was immediate. Eun-woo began to respond to him. He calmed down with his presence, followed him with his eyes, even smiled in his company.
Rhys wasn't a Guide, but it was clear they were forming a bond.
And with that certainty came terror and jealousy.
If Eun-woo bonded with someone else, there would be no turning back. Not only would Rong Ye lose the chance to be whole, but the bond would reject him forever.
From then on, Rong Ye stopped sleeping. He began to lose control of his emotions, and the symptoms returned: migraines, nightmares, and emotional fluctuations. He became unpredictable. His team grew suspicious. They kept a closer eye on him. He could no longer approach Eun-woo, even from a distance, without arousing suspicion.
Every time he saw Rhys and Eun-woo together, something inside him tore apart. And yet, he couldn't do anything. Because if he spoke, if he tried to reclaim his place as a Guide, he'd be considered a traitor, and his mother... wouldn't survive the consequences.
So he kept silent and waited.
When Eun-woo and Rhys were ambushed by the Butchers, Rong Ye saw an opportunity. He knew Eun-woo would be vulnerable, and if he could reach him, if he could establish even the slightest synchronicity, maybe... maybe the bond would be irreversible. There would be no one between them anymore.
Neither Rhys, nor Blackwood, nor the past.
However, before he could even try, Rong Ye was restrained by Caelan and carried while unconscious to the glass house.
"Don't let him near Eun-woo," Rhys ordered Caelan as he was chained up in the basement.
Rong Ye did not try to defend himself.
What could he have said?
That he wasn't a threat?
That he'd lived his whole life waiting for someone like Eun-woo... and when he finally had him within reach, he was snatched away from him again?
So he remained silent, once again.
The basement was damp and cold. The chains dug into his skin every time he tried to move. No one came down to talk to him. They just watched him.
Then, he felt it.
First, a slight vibration in the air. Then, footsteps.
Rong Ye raised his head.
And there he was.
Eun-woo.
Standing in front of the threshold, his eyes wide open and his chest heaving, as if something had led him to that place. As if… he could sense him.
Rong Ye held his breath.
He didn't know if Eun-woo would come to help him.
Or destroy him.