“Hmm.”

After staying silent at the question, Jaehee opened with a low humming sound. He fluttered a few papers on the table before turning to Sa-yoon with clear eyes.

“I don’t think there were any mistakes grand enough to call them that.”

“…What?”

Sa-yoon raised his head at the unexpected words. Meeting eyes that looked somewhat gentler, as if the shock had drained their intensity, Jaehee smirked.

“That’s because from what I can see, all the problems you mentioned seem to stem not from any mistakes but from the difference in disposition between you and Geon-joo. Though kidnapping him at first meeting and taking him to a torture villa wasn’t exactly a wise choice…”

So that really was where the problems started.

Sa-yoon nodded in agreement. He could have somehow sweet-talked his way through the kidnapping, but the torture villa was too much. As he was about to blame Jongsik, Jaehee continued.

“But even after that, didn’t you say you got along well inside the gate? You said you didn’t just fight all the time, but also spent relatively peaceful moments together. If that’s the case, there weren’t any mistakes grand enough to call them that in the first place, and even the minor friction that existed was diluted by the time spent together. In other words, even if there were some quarrels, they were within a range that time could forgive.”

“Hmm.”

“So what you should be asking isn’t where you made mistakes.”

Jaehee advised in a firm voice. It was hard to understand.

When Sa-yoon cast a look requesting explanation, he brushed back his hair and hummed once more.

“In short, you didn’t lose Geon-joo because of your mistakes. It was just a difference in disposition. So rather than thinking about what mistakes you made, you should consider what didn’t match with Geon-joo that made him run away. Conversely, you should also think about what about Geon-joo didn’t match with you that made him choose to run.”

Sa-yoon fell silent and sank into thought at these neatly concluded words.

This was quite an interesting interpretation.

Until now, both the Night Rats executives and Sa-yoon himself had thought Geon-joo’s escape stemmed from the aftermath of some mistake. Sa-yoon had pointed to Noah’s death as the reason, while the Night Rats executives blamed Sa-yoon for pushing Geon-joo too hard. But Jaehee, who hadn’t witnessed any of it, cited dispositional differences rather than mistakes as the reason.

“Not that I lost him because of mistakes, but that I had to let him go because of our different dispositions…”

Sa-yoon drew in a breath as he murmured, chewing over Jaehee’s words.

To check what hadn’t matched, he needed to look back to his first meeting with Geon-joo. Honestly, from Sa-yoon’s perspective, the first meeting wasn’t that bad. The same went for afterward, but the first time he felt uncomfortable was definitely…

The night of the welcome party.

That night when Han Geon-joo tried to probe him and dig into his inner thoughts.

If asked why that made him uncomfortable, it was because he didn’t want to be found out.

His true thoughts, and his situation.

He didn’t want Han Geon-joo, his only clue to escaping this terrible system, to find him out.

He thought it could ruin everything if he was discovered. He didn’t know how Geon-joo would react if he knew his circumstances, and worried what if the system gave a quest to eliminate him if Geon-joo betrayed him. In that case, wouldn’t he have to cut off his own hope with his own hands?

Sa-yoon felt he could endure anything but that. A person needs air holes to live—how could one survive if even those were blocked?

So he hid everything with all his might. Looking back, that feeling continued throughout their time in the Field.

Han Geon-joo tried to dig into his true self several times, but each time he deliberately avoided answering. Sometimes he lied, sometimes he evaded answers entirely. While Geon-joo wasn’t happy about it, what could he do as a B-rank at the time? He did nothing but sigh in frustration. Sa-yoon considered that fortunate.

All that piled up until finally…

‘I was wrong about you. You’re just that kind of person. I thought maybe you had some story too.’

It led to that day.

Sa-yoon traced the chain of events one by one.

He felt his narrowly blocked vision suddenly clearing.

Because he couldn’t speak honestly not wanting to reveal himself, misunderstandings arose and caused friction. And Han Geon-joo deliberately created those misunderstandings.

Didn’t he show it on the last day?

That some of his actions had been taken to probe Sa-yoon’s true nature.

“…Why did he do that?”

Sa-yoon put down the documents and sank into his chair. Jaehee maintained silence, as if waiting until Sa-yoon had thought things through.

His eyelids closed as the day at the valley came to mind.

Why did Han Geon-joo act that way?

Why did he try to dig into his true nature, why did he probe him to such an extent?

As Sa-yoon continued pondering, his hand twitched. This was his first attempt at understanding Geon-joo.

As soon as he realized this, Sa-yoon reflexively recalled Geon-joo’s voice.

‘So try to understand.’

“Ha.”

Laughter he couldn’t hold back escaped his lips. By this point, he became genuinely curious about what kind of life Han Geon-joo had lived and what thoughts he lived with.

“Yeah, I guess your words make sense.”

Sa-yoon acknowledged Jaehee’s words amid his continuous thoughts.

It wasn’t that Han Geon-joo left because he made mistakes. The question of whether things would have been different if he’d spoken was a hypothetical Sa-yoon habitually considered, but he actually knew.

Even if he could turn back time, he would make the same choices.

He still wouldn’t have been able to speak, still wouldn’t have been able to be honest.

It was force majeure.

Because he couldn’t trust Han Geon-joo. And because he distrusted his system just as much.

And because he was that desperate.

He didn’t want to create any situation that might lead to killing Geon-joo, who could potentially activate those who resist. So he had no other choice.

Could a choice made when there were no options be called a mistake?

So it wasn’t a mistake. Only then did Sa-yoon feel his stuffy chest clearing. And only now, after more than three months, could he understand what Geon-joo had said.

His words about trying to understand meant to try understanding him.

Just as he had probed Sa-yoon dozens of times to understand him.

“Gutsy bastard.”

Sa-yoon gave an honest assessment. It was a plain evaluation made after a long time, excluding all personal feelings. Indeed, Han Geon-joo’s guts were hanging out. Who else could make such plans regarding themselves?

Tsk.

Clicking his tongue, Sa-yoon straightened up from where he’d sunk in his chair. Since he was told to try understanding, he just needed to think it through. That could be resolved that way, but he still couldn’t understand the talk of being equals.

He didn’t know what kind of equality Geon-joo sought.

Whether it was equality of information, equality of relationship, or equality of rank.

As that seemed like something he’d need to understand Geon-joo to know, he sighed, and Jaehee picked up some documents with a smile.

“Looks like that’s resolved.”

Sa-yoon looked curiously at him as he plainly summarized the situation.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That it wasn’t my mistake.”

“Hmm. Well. Live a bit longer and you’ll understand too.”

Talking nonsense.

Acting like that when we’re probably about the same age.

Sa-yoon muttered internally before handling the documents. While his clouded vision felt clearer, he still couldn’t grasp exactly what he should do to try understanding Han Geon-joo. As if sensing his concerns, Jaehee spoke up.

“If you haven’t found your path, let’s go slowly.”

“…What do you mean?”

“I’m saying if you don’t have clear plans for what to do next, let’s take the rank-up slowly. Your clearest goal right now is recovering your rank, right? As long as you have that goal, you won’t feel stagnant or lost, so let’s take the rank-up slowly until you establish a proper new goal. We can try other things in the meantime.”

It made sense. Though he’d felt it more than once or twice, Jaehee was quite eloquent.

That’s why he always lost their verbal sparring.

Usually, you couldn’t reason with crazy people, and it was worse with crazy people who had convictions, and even worse with crazy people who had both convictions and logic.

Sa-yoon reflected on his conversations with Jaehee so far, gave a small laugh, then turned the page of the document he was reading.

“Let’s do that then.”

Honestly speaking, there was no need to rush.

It wasn’t like a quest requiring entry to an S-rank gate had opened, and there was plenty of time left on the rank-up quest period.

Smiling slowly at this unfamiliar leisure, Sa-yoon spent that whole day handling guild work and following Jaehee’s suggestion, took a proper rest the next day.

From the day after, he went to gates in the mornings and spent afternoons playing with Rai. Of course, he rested fully on weekends.

He spent a month like that.

After spending time slowly without rushing, Sa-yoon, who now had only 10 percent left until reaching S-rank, burst open Jaehee’s closed room door with a grin.

“Let’s go, Jaehee! There’s a festival in two days.”

The man who had been sleeping in frowned at the shout.

“A festival?”

“Yeah.”

Sa-yoon answered with a cheerful laugh.