“So you ended up taking it? Without me? Am I going to be called to the lab again?”
“Why?”
Though he wasn’t particularly curious, Jaehwi welcomed the topic changing to something else and gave an appropriate answer.
“A Guide’s blood is the main ingredient in stabilizers. Since I’m like your main Guide right now, naturally I’d have blood drawn…”
“What?”
“Why are you so surprised? Is it surprising that an essential component in stabilizers is a Guide’s blood? Guiding is naturally related to energy, so…”
“……”
Jaehwi raised his hand to cover his face. He never dreamed he’d learn the truth about the countless needle marks on Raon’s arms like this. The night they spent together. For the first time, he had seen the traces on Raon’s arms. He had been planning to carefully find out why he had such marks, but had momentarily forgotten about it during the regression.
A few days ago when he was receiving an IV at his house, there were no visible traces worth questioning. That’s why he hadn’t kept thinking about the things on his arms. There were more things to think about than that.
If the main component of his stabilizer before regression had been Raon’s blood, what about now? Was it his blood as Aiden said? Perhaps they were mixing the blood of all the Guides in the center to make stabilizers.
Before regression, he had refused all guiding and relied only on stabilizers. In contrast, now he accepted guiding indiscriminately without care, and occasionally took stabilizers. The reason there had to be so many needle marks on Raon’s arms and the reason they had to drastically decrease…
“Fuck…”
With intense emotion, a curse flowed out between his teeth, and the objects in the cafeteria began to move slightly. As things started moving as if there was a minor earthquake, the murmuring of people sensing the abnormality grew louder.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Jaehwi roughly grabbed the wrist approaching him.
“Ah…! It hurts! Min Jaehwi. Hey!”
Only after confirming that the person making a pained expression along with a high scream was Aiden did Jaehwi fling away the wrist he had grabbed as if shaking it off. Aiden, who had been pushed into the sofa by Jaehwi’s strength, was clutching his painful wrist with his other hand.
With Jaehwi’s deep sigh, the objects that had been stirring stopped moving. Jaehwi, who left the cafeteria as is, headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. He didn’t even have the leisure to wait awkwardly for an elevator.
The quality of the stabilizers he’d been receiving from the center recently had been gradually declining. He had thought it was because the compatibility didn’t match, the quality wasn’t consistent, and the guiding energies of various Guides that could be called an unspecified multitude were mixed together. Even as those uncomfortable energies accumulated in his body with difficulty, they would all disappear once he met Raon.
What filled him was only Raon’s refreshing energy. Along with it, the tiresome pain also disappeared.
There wasn’t much need to think about it. Both the one who left countless marks on his arms and the one who enabled him to maintain smooth and soft skin like now were both himself. How could everything tell him to only stay away from him?
Both before and after regression, Raon had been considerate of him, but what was he supposed to do when he could neither distance himself nor get closer?
Jaehwi, who had risen from his seat, headed straight for the stairs. He didn’t even have the leisure to stand stupidly in front of the elevator watching the numbers change. In an instant, Jaehwi’s breathing as he ran up to the floor where Raon’s office was and stood in front of the elevator was calmer than ever.
*Ding.*
Following the elevator arrival notification sound, Raon’s figure began to be visible through the smoothly opening door. Jaehwi’s gaze, watching Raon who wasn’t surprised even upon seeing him walk toward him, sank calmly.
He suddenly wanted to see him. He hadn’t intentionally chased after him, hadn’t listened to the conversations he had with others. However, Jaehwi, who couldn’t concentrate while running here, ended up hearing it even though he didn’t want to. Raon and Hyukjin’s conversation…
*’He’s extremely curious right now. About what I’m going to do from now on. Until now, he’s been bound by social frameworks and images like team leader, hyung, life senior, things like that, but I’m really not going to do that anymore. Min Jaehwi. Try running away wagging your tail so hard like that. Let’s see what the result is. You know, Choi Hyukjin, that I’m actually much nastier, more selfish, and more self-centered than our Hwi thinks. Don’t you?’*
As he said, he was curious about everything about Raon.
What he would really do from now on, how far he would chase if he kept running away. How much he would hide, endure, and tolerate. He expressed himself as selfish, but was he more selfish than him?
Even as Raon’s cold fingertips, which had seeped into his personal space that was wider than others’, touched his cheek, even as his small palm finally cupped his cheek, Jaehwi couldn’t move an inch.
“Why are you making such an expression? It breaks my heart.”
A warm and gentle voice pierced his ears.
“This isn’t something to talk about here. Let’s go inside.”
As the hand that had just been touching him moved away, fear suddenly rushed in. As he who had been facing him turned around and began to walk, a space naturally formed between the two. So this is Raon’s back. Raon, who had walked to the office front not far from the elevator, stopped. Then Jay, who always seemed to be there yet not there guarding that spot, opened the office door ahead of him.
“Come in.”
The sunlight filling his office gently spilled over beyond the door, brightly illuminating Raon. Seeing the sunlight shining brilliantly beside him, his feet stuck to the floor.
A place he wanted to go but shouldn’t go. He couldn’t open Pandora’s box.
“Hwi. Should I keep waiting here? Or should I come to your side?”
At Raon’s words as he stood there for a long while without rushing, only then did Jaehwi lower his gaze that had been watching him and stare at the floor.
“I’ll go.”
After staring blankly at the dark green carpet, Jaehwi finally turned around. Having confirmed that there were no messy marks on his arms was enough.
“Hey!”
Before he could even take a few steps after turning around, Raon’s sharp voice, which he’d never heard before, stabbed firmly into his back.
“Geez. This damn puppy who doesn’t listen, I really… You better hurry up and bring me the good Hwi who listens well. Not the contrary Hwi. Are you going to make someone who’s in pain move like this? Huh? If I thought beating you would make you listen, I’d want to beat you up refreshingly. Really.”
Following the somewhat faster footsteps different from a moment ago, Jaehwi, whose earlobe was firmly grabbed, had to awkwardly bend his body and tilt his head to the side.
“If there’s a problem, shouldn’t you clash and compromise or fight and win to settle it instead of running away and avoiding? How long are you going to keep avoiding? Do you hate me? Resent me? Want to kill me? Or do you want to watch me die from frustration?”
It wasn’t Raon’s usual somewhat languid, gentle, and whispering way of speaking. High-toned, fast, and strongly accented words were strongly hitting Jaehwi’s ears. On top of that, his raised eye corners and resolute expression.
Right now, Raon was angry at him. Ah, rather than being angry, should I say he was scolding? It wasn’t that it hurt that much just because he was pinching his earlobe hard with his soft fingertips. As Raon pulled on his earlobe, Jaehwi had no choice but to unconsciously turn his body more toward him.
“If you walked here on your own feet, you should walk in to the end on your own feet. What kind of case is it to take a backstep after coming all this way? Huh? Were you only capable of this much? And I told you not to wear black clothes because they’re not pretty. Why are you wearing black clothes again? Are you rebelling? Or are you waiting for me to buy them since I didn’t give you clothes?”
Because Raon started walking while still holding his earlobe, Jaehwi had no choice but to follow him in an awkward posture. The two were walking in such a strange posture in the office corridor where it wasn’t just the two of them and someone could come at any time.
Only after passing by Jay, who was still standing with the door open, and entering Raon’s office did Raon let go of his earlobe. And the perceptive Jay closed the door and stood guard.
“Team Leader Kang…”
“You heard everything I said to Hyukjin, right?”
Jaehwi, who had been trying to calm him down while calling him Team Leader Kang in his excitement, couldn’t finish his words at Raon’s voice coldly cutting off his words. He didn’t hear everything. He only heard what he said to Hyukjin while getting on the elevator. But Jaehwi couldn’t speak honestly.
“Why are you pretending you didn’t when you heard it all! What exactly is the problem! I really, seriously don’t know what the problem is? I like you, and you like me. What’s the problem?”
“When did I ever like Team Lead…”
“Shut up.”
At Raon’s words as he turned around sharply while walking toward the window, running his hand through his hair, Jaehwi likewise closed his lips that he had opened.
