It just so happened that rumors of discord with Do Ganghyun were circulating, and the Center had given me a warning, so I thought going out to meet him after he finished conquering the Gate would be perfectly fine.
No matter how much we needed to keep our distance for safety, we were already being called a showwindow pair, so I could at least do this much.
Showing my face while looking reluctant would be okay, right?
Since we’re actually close, he could at least play along with some awareness, right?
With that excited heart calmed down and wearing a bright smile, I went to find my pair Esper along with a Center official.
Esper!
I called out to him more brightly than anyone else…
Kwagwang! Kwajik!
In an instant, my body flew through the air. I didn’t even have time to recognize what had happened. Just as my head filled with questions, my body fell while feeling heavy gravity. The barricade installed around the Gate collapsed, and the pain came a beat late.
Every process of breathing was painful. A harsh cough burst out, scraping sharply at my respiratory system, my head was hot, and my whole body felt like it had been beaten.
With the pain becoming increasingly clear, I could belatedly understand what had happened to me.
Do Ganghyun had rejected me. And very forcefully at that, to the point of using his psychic ability, telekinesis.
Cough, kuhuk…!
Blood soaked my clothes along with the coughing. Only then did I think something had gone wrong.
Once at the blood spreading red on the floor, once at Do Ganghyun’s face looking at me terribly. Having captured the entire surrounding situation in my blurring vision, I finally realized.
What he wanted to protect from the world wasn’t his Guide, but ‘himself.’ That he didn’t want to stain the name of SS-rank Esper with the filth called a C-rank Guide.
The gifts… were just charity.
For spending the night with him.
Not knowing that, I felt ashamed of my heart that had sprouted like a fool for over a year. So I closed my eyes.
I could clearly feel camera flashes bursting as light flashed over my closed eyelids. The pain gradually faded, and the noise grew distant.
Blackout.
***
After that, our relationship returned to the beginning as if it were a lie.
This is that C-rank? I came just in case, but what utter trash.
Just like the words he’d spat out in the past at the meeting to form our pair, we’d become a ‘trash’ relationship. It was the moment the past year and three months became a midsummer night’s dream.
And that wasn’t all. The reality I faced at the hospital where I opened my eyes was even more terrible. Do Ganghyun pathologically avoided me and kept various Guides by his side, trying to erase my name from himself. With the Center even condoning this, the situation spiraled to the worst.
【Best】[Chat] Who’s that next to Do Ganghyun?
(Photo attached)
Are my eyes wrong right now?!
Where’d the pair go and there’s some nobody Guide next to himㅠ
[Comments 55]
— Myeong Eunha is also a nobody
↳ Yes yes. Right. That Guide is A-rank. How can C-rank compare lol
↳ Crazy bastard fuck off
↳ Makes an A-rank into a nobody in one moment lololololol
— How long ago was Myeong Eunha dumped and still going on about being a pair
↳ (OP) Oh really?
↳ Re: There was an incident recently. The Swamp of the Scale Lord that opened in the waters off Taean? Marsh? Anyway, an assault incident happened at that Gate entrance and it completely ended
↳ Re: Re: (OP) Ah… the one who flew in front of the reporters…?
— But is matching rate that important? A-rank is better than C-rank lol
↳ Yes it’s important~
↳ If matching rate wasn’t important why would Do Ganghyun have been struggling for 10 years tsk tsk
↳ Re: Agree. SS-rank but can’t even enter S-rank Gates lol
— So where is Myeong Eunha and what’s he doing
↳ Hospitalization ending lol
↳ Re: Just that? From that? Ha fuck;; C-rank level is legendary
— Do Ganghyun can get away with it since he’s SS-rank yes yes. But now Myeong Eunha is the one who’s embarrassed so that’s the problem lololololol
↳ “Get away with it” he says fuck should I hit you?
↳ Re: No but doesn’t a Guide’s duty really not exist? Did the country sell that duty or whatㅠ
↳ Re: Re: Yes yes. Seems like they sold it for sure
↳ Re: Re: Re: Tell them to buy it back lol
That was the result that was born. The image I’d worked hard to maintain while hearing talk of being a showwindow pair crumbled, and gossip openly circulated. The Center was no different.
You should try too. I heard he takes anyone regardless of gender. Oh, but low ranks won’t work.
Then that person won’t work.
You wanna die?! You better hold a ritual so you don’t end up like Myeong Eunha!
However, Do Ganghyun was leniently passed over, being told he was acting befitting his SS-rank Esper rank…
What’s wrong with Myeong Eunha? He’s doing fine too. These days he’s quiet because he’s hospitalized with injuries, but every single day he’d be in a room with Espers sucking and licking—
Right. There’s no shamelessness like that shamelessness.
Cheating right after forming a pair contract, leaving the SS-rank Esper? Honestly, if I were Do Ganghyun, I would’ve wanted to get rid of him too.
As if they’d been waiting, all arrows poured onto me. It was a natural result since it would be easier to shift responsibility onto a C-rank Guide with no backing than to touch an SS-rank Esper.
If Do Ganghyun had usually enjoyed a promiscuous private life, he wouldn’t have attracted this much attention, but he, who had shown a matching rate of less than 10% with most Guides, had always been loftily alone. So the secret meetings we’d had over the past year and three months, the assault incident, and Do Ganghyun’s suddenly promiscuous behavior all intertwined, and various talk emerged.
I realized then. That the gaze of the many whispering gossip could hurt more than sharp words thrown directly by the other person.
And that was the reality given to me after being discharged following months of long-term hospitalization.
The torn forehead and broken arm healed without a trace, but the uncontrollably growing wound in my heart was far from recovery. It was even more so because Grandmother’s condition had recently deepened.
Grandmother…
That’s why. Why my hand went to cigarettes I didn’t even smoke.
Reaching for cigarettes whenever things were hard was my long-standing habit. It was also a habit I’d picked up on the day my parents passed away and Grandmother received her terminal diagnosis.
When I clumsily took out a cigarette and put it in my mouth, a pungent scent tickled my nose even though I hadn’t lit it. It seemed like a sneeze would come out right away. To endure this, I held my breath tightly and moved my hands quickly. However, despite such efforts, as soon as the cigarette was lit, a violent cough burst out.
“Hup…, cough, kuhup! Cough cough—!”
It was because of the breath I’d inevitably inhaled to light it.
Still, without needing to make several efforts, once lit, the cigarette burned on its own.
What’s a kid doing smoking cigarettes?
Staring blankly at the falling cigarette ash, I recalled a fragment of the past.
The funeral I’d kept alone on behalf of Grandmother who had collapsed from the shock after my parents passed away. If you went to the back of that funeral hall, there was a smoking room, and there I’d put a cigarette in my mouth for the first time in my life.
There was no special reason. It was just with the intention of enjoying the positive effects of smoking that smokers commonly talked about. That all worries and concerns fly away in the smoke? Rather than an act of faith, it was something done with the feeling of grasping at straws. At that time, all the condolences offered to me felt like pretense, and I felt burdened by the reality that I had to bear all of this alone. It was even more so knowing that nothing was over yet and that suffering would continue in the future.
Don’t pick up habits like ruining your body because things are hard. Eat this instead.
The person I met then was Do Ganghyun.
It was funny that he himself was walking around with a cigarette in his mouth, wreathed in acrid smoke, while scolding me. It was close to a bitter laugh, but it was the first laugh I’d had in a while. However, whether Do Ganghyun’s thoughts were different, he raised his eyebrows crookedly and immediately snatched the cigarette from my hand. He even pressed candy into my hand, which didn’t suit him. As if that weren’t enough, he glanced this way with sidelong looks several times, then eventually clicked his tongue while putting out the cigarette in his own hand.
That indifferent consideration touched me more than numerous condolences. That prickly attitude that didn’t mention the deceased’s peaceful rest or Grandmother’s health, but worried only about my health while knowing nothing of my circumstances.
That’s why. Why I came to seek cigarette smoke and candy whenever things were hard.
While reminiscing about a first meeting the person himself wouldn’t remember, I comforted my exhausted self like that.
Now it had become a habit, so even in a situation like this, I ended up thinking of Do Ganghyun. Somehow that seemed foolish.
Strawberry cream flavor…
Of all things, it’s the exact same flavor as back then. But the option of not eating it didn’t exist.
When I unwrapped the candy and put it in my mouth, I immediately felt sweetness to the point where my jaw ached. The soft strawberry cream scent and cigarette scent mingled and filled my lungs.
In that moment, tears poured out soundlessly. A new path for tears opened between my cheeks, already soaked from the tears I’d shed once before.
“Heuuk, hup…”
The smoke was too acrid.
