CHAPTER 50: THIS ACHE IN HIS HEART... IT FRIGHTENED HIM.

Right after someone was mentioned who could reach Le An under any circumstance, the number of guards stationed in front of Le An’s door had doubled.

"Shadow power, as you’d appreciate, Treasure, is one of the most passive-looking yet most powerful esper abilities with the widest spectrum. No esper has evolved to fully manipulate a shadow forming so far, but still, since this power is prone to insidious uses..."

The GAC representative adjusted the frame of his glasses, cleared his throat, and finished his sentence with a smile.

"At Mr. Qui’s suggestion, it has been decided that you’ll be assigned a personal tracker. The tracker will monitor all of your daily interactions."

The man extended a holographic contract toward Le An, who scanned it and transferred it to his watch, beginning to read.

"We’ll be monitoring you, Treasure, b-but we hope you won’t misunderstand this."

Le An lifted his head from the contract for a brief moment, glancing sideways at the man, and paused to take a sip from the teacup on the table.

"Did you also send the contract to my lawyers?"

"N-not yet, Treasure. Since Mr. Qui assumed you would fully cooperate with the process, he said there was no need, so I..."

"Mr. Qui is, of course, never mistaken," said Le An, setting the cup back down. The taste of the cooled lavender tea clung to his palate, and although he had been discharged and was now on his fourth day of leave, his throat still hurt when he swallowed.

"But share the contract with my lawyers anyway," Le An added with a kind smile.

When the man began explaining what he meant by saying they’d monitor Le An’s life, the fake smile on Le An’s face vanished entirely.

"We’ll be observing all footage from the home security cameras, your guest list, every meeting and interaction during the day, and your daily guiding sessions." The man paused to recall more details, then hesitantly continued.

"Ah, yes. We’ll also need to monitor your phone, and as a strict condition, the assigned tracker will be with you at all times; you won’t be allowed to be alone with anyone."

Feeling increasingly suffocated, Le An looked at the holographic contract on his watch and his shoulders slumped.

He had already suspected he would be monitored after what the last attacker had said. But knowing someone would be assigned to follow him and that his whole life would be observed, and having to comply with it, still left him breathless in a way he hadn’t expected.

At least, this process meant that no one suspected him or what he had said during the interrogation.

As the GAC representative grasped the porcelain teapot and refilled Le An’s tea, he said,

"I can’t even imagine how shaken you must be by this incident, dear Treasure."

Le An nodded absently at the man’s words, watching a single lavender bud drift across the surface of the tea.

He was supposed to be grateful to be alive, wasn’t he? But deep inside, from a hidden corner of his heart, something was leaking a different kind of pain straight into the center of it, one he couldn’t ignore, even if he wanted to.

As the man watched Le An unconsciously bring his hand to his chest, Le An’s distracted gaze finally focused again. "How... do you think I survived?" he asked, looking directly into the man’s eyes.

The GAC representative was taken aback for a moment; clearly, he hadn’t expected such a question.

"Ah... y-you mean, you want my opinion?"

Le An merely nodded. No answer he gave himself could soothe the ache inside. And now, even if he were to sign off on a decision that would scrutinize his life under a microscope, his mind kept returning to that single question.

In the footage of the attack on the balcony, there was now a public debate about why the serpentine shadow mass that had engulfed Le An had suddenly vanished.

Some believed that Le An had only been spared as a warning and that the shadow’s master had released him after a while.

Others, particularly those referencing witness statements from the garden, claimed that the power choking Le An had been interrupted by another force arriving from afar.

"I think..." The man scratched his beard, delayed in answering by the gaze of those beautiful, expectant eyes. Even while sick, Treasure’s body, concealed beneath a delicate blouse and shawl, looked like porcelain, and the sunlight filtering over him only made him more distracting.

For an alpha... almost too dazzling. The man thought.

"I-I think the real plan was definitely to kill you, Treasure. Because if they had intended a higher death toll, they would have carried out bombings in far more crowded areas, those filthy people..."

Filthy? Le An remained silent. Those people, despite the extreme destruction caused by their actions, were nothing more than individuals who had been wronged and driven to madness by rage. The ones who had abandoned them to misery and death, the authorities and the GAC... they were the truly filthy ones. Le An was on the side of the ones who were truly filthy. He let out a quiet sigh.

Then, in response, he nodded vaguely with a faint smile, and as if he had lost interest, he turned his gaze away from the man. Without saying another word about the contract, he placed his digital fingerprint on it.

"Thank you very much for your cooperation," said the man, smiling as he picked up his bag.

Le An simply nodded again.

The man had heard that Le An was someone "whose emotions were easily discernible" from others at GAC who had met him before. High-ranking GAC employees had even described Treasure as "an emotionally inclined alpha."

Yet, the man hadn’t once managed to catch what emotions flickered in Treasure’s eyes or read what he might be feeling now.

Could they have been wrong? Perhaps the attack had psychologically damaged Treasure?

"When will I meet the person assigned to track me?" Le An asked. The man, snapping out of his thoughts, clutched his bag tightly and quickly answered.

"The contract will come into effect tomorrow, Treasure. You’ll meet the tracker in the morning."

Le An nodded, his eyes briefly catching on the floral embroidery of the man’s pocket square. It had a slightly amateurish look, as if someone had made it for him.

The man also glanced at his pocket square. "Ah, would you... like to see it up close?"

Le An, momentarily caught off guard, flinched at the man’s sudden loud voice. "I..."

The man took out the handkerchief from his chest pocket and handed it to Le An with a smile.

"My daughter made it for me; she’s only nine. Haha, one day she stole her mother’s thread set and wanted to surprise me! The flower she embroidered has a, um..."

"Hyacinth," said Le An, gently running his thumb over the misshapen yet tender embroidery.

"Excuse me? Ah, yes, that’s it! A hyacinth." When the man finally saw the Treasure everyone described, someone who genuinely smiled while looking at the embroidery. He cleared his throat and added,

"You must have known because you’re into botany... My daughter said it had a story too, but I honestly don’t remember!"

"The hyacinth takes its name from Hyacinthus, a childhood friend of Apollo, the god of music and art," said Le An, smiling at the man.

"One day, while playing discus with Apollo, the disc hits Hyacinthus on the head and he dies. It’s said that hyacinth flowers bloomed where his blood spilled."

"Ah- but in another version, the west wind god Zephyrus, angry that Hyacinthus chose Apollo over him, takes revenge by blowing the disc off course and causing his death."

"If you look closely at the petals of a hyacinth, you can see Apollo’s sorrow, just as the myth describes," Le An smiled quietly to himself, remembering the tale he hadn’t recalled in a long time, his gaze drifting toward his own garden.

He hadn’t tended to it in a while.

When the man listened to the story in Le An’s calm, soothing voice, gentle enough to lull a child to sleep, he smiled and thought that even without his extraordinary guiding abilities, this person could have achieved great things just by being who he was.

"If you’d like, Treasure, the handkerchief can be yours."

"Ah," Le An looked up in surprise and immediately shook his head in embarrassment. He gently pressed the soft fabric back into the man’s palm and quickly withdrew his hand.

"No, thank you. That’s a gift from your daughter to you," he said, turning his head toward the window with an odd smile.

Now, just for a few seconds, the man had seen the real Treasure, the one who emerged only when freed from suffocating thoughts. This unique person was kind, mild, and shy, and yes, his emotions were definitely visible in his eyes.

A moment later, as Le An’s gaze turned back from the embroidered handkerchief to the thoughts that suffocated him, his eyes dulled again. Then he asked the man another question.

"Will I ever be allowed to be alone in my room?"

"Excuse me?" Once again caught off guard, the man didn’t quite grasp what Le An was asking.

Le An, uncertain of what exactly he was asking himself, looked at the man almost defensively, with a hint of embarrassment.

"I mean... will they watch me even while I’m sleeping?"

"Oh, of course not!" the man replied, astonished.

"Dear Treasure, this monitoring contract is temporary and has been designed to interfere with your private life as little as possible. We..."

As Le An’s shoulders relaxed further, the man continued, almost surprised or even offended that Le An thought people would disregard his privacy so completely.

"There won’t be any cameras in your room. We absolutely won’t watch you while you’re asleep or alone!"

"I see. Thank you," Le An murmured quietly.

The only condition for Taras to be able to reach him was for Le An to be alone in his room anyway.

And that meant all this tracking would become a fruitless effort. Le An wanted to smile; this monitoring contract and all of GAC’s effort were pointless from the start. They didn’t know that there was an esper who managed to fully manipulate the shadow power.

"Goodbye, Treasure," the man said as he left the room, and Le An silently watched him, then turned back.

As his hand reached for the teacup on the coffee table, he noticed the handkerchief that had been left behind and paused.

The man had left the handkerchief for him.

Le An picked it up and smiled. But a moment later, his smile slowly faded, and his lips curved inward like the petals of a hyacinth.

For some people, it seems that love was abundant enough to share without fear.

But for Le An, things had never worked that way. Not since he was born. And he never had enough love to leave behind without being scared.

When he loved someone, he feared that the piece torn from within him would leave him incomplete, would ruin him.

Or worse, that the piece he gave away would be his whole heart, and he would never be able to take it back.

Le An ran his fingers over his lips. This ache in his heart... it frightened him.