***
‘I’m going to be late at this rate!’
I hurried my steps. After getting rid of the cigarette smell clinging to my body and tidying up my face, more time had passed than I’d thought.
Until now, I hadn’t reported to the communal guiding room because I was Do Ganghyun’s pair guide, but now I had to go even if I wanted to. That was the only way I could cover my grandmother’s hospital bills.
‘The responsibility for failing to perform mandatory guiding lies with the guide.’
All of this was because the Center had issued the above notification.
And did they only issue a notification? They cut my salary too. It was a kind of penalty, stemming from the fact that Do Ganghyun, who had been receiving guiding from various guides, had inevitably suffered from side effects.
And with the tremendous name of rampage, no less.
Of course, it was merely a precursor symptom, but since it involved an SS-rank esper, the ripple effects were enormous.
So I couldn’t oppose the Center’s decision, and this was the result. Since they couldn’t just let an already scarce guide sit idle, it was a natural decision in a way.
‘Still, I’m fortunate they didn’t touch the additional allowance.’
When working in the communal guiding room, an additional allowance was paid separately from the salary. It was physically demanding work, but thinking of my grandmother lying in a coma in the guide ward, it was nothing.
[am 08:42 Guide Myeong Eunha verified.]
When I arrived at the guiding room and scanned my ID card, I saw there was still some time left before 9 o’clock. However, since my original plan had been to arrive 30 minutes early, I quickened my pace even more.
As I headed straight to the information desk, I saw a familiar face. Someone rarely seen at this hour.
“Hm? Eunha-ssi, you’re here early?”
The director checked her watch and waved lightly.
I relaxed my stiffly hardened face and smiled slightly. She was one of the few people in the Center who wasn’t swayed by rumors.
Actually, most of those who worked in the communal guiding room were like that.
The communal guiding room operated on 24-hour shifts with emergency standby teams always present, and it was an organization that had to fulfill its role when national emergencies arose. Rather than being swayed by rumors and gossip circulating within the Center and messing up their work, they simply didn’t care at all.
While they may have been wary of me at first, that was only because they worried I might bring various rumors and disrupt the workplace, not because they trusted the rumors. So after more than a month of smoothly handling my duties and diligently reporting to work, that no longer applied.
“Yes, I happened to wake up early.”
“For that, your eyes are quite swollen.”
“…I dozed off on the shuttle bus. More importantly, what brings you here at this hour, Director?”
I obviously changed the subject, but the director didn’t ask further and shifted her gaze to the documents she was holding.
“Yesterday, a report came in that one of the gates in Seocho-gu was in a monster saturation state.”
“Ah…”
“I’m sure they neglected management because it was a low-ranked gate.”
‘It’s D-rank, D-rank.’ The director added with a furrowed brow. Just hearing that much was enough to understand the general situation.
There would be many monsters since it had been neglected, but since the gate rank was low, instead of dispatching those precious high-rank espers, they would compete with numbers as well. They would certainly proceed with the strategy by mobilizing several same-rank or C-rank espers.
And most of those low-rank espers who would be mobilized didn’t have pair guides. In other words, it meant that espers would soon be flooding into the communal guiding room.
“So it’s right for me to hold down the fort. In the afternoon, Eunha-ssi won’t be here either because of the interview.”
Ah, right.
The interview.
Hearing the director’s words, I belatedly remembered this afternoon’s schedule. My mind had been so scattered since morning that I’d completely forgotten.
Do Ganghyun, an SS-rank esper, received public attention, so he engaged in various external activities like interviews. As his pair guide, I naturally had schedules to attend together. This was an officially scheduled event by the Center and was specified as mandatory in the contract, so I had to attend.
In particular, this interview was an opportunity to clarify the assault incident involving me that had occurred last spring. For Do Ganghyun to clear his name from the stigma of assaulting his own guide and claim it was a simple accident, I, the victim, needed to be present. Originally, the interview should have been scheduled immediately after the incident occurred, but I couldn’t possibly stand in front of cameras with my whole body wrapped in bandages, so it had been postponed until my body recovered. On top of that, I’d unilaterally postponed it another month because of my grandmother’s suddenly critical condition.
‘…Requesting to postpone the interview further would be unreasonable, right? Especially on the same day.’
I reflexively felt resistance. I knew the Center had been very accommodating, but it was hard even to recall Do Ganghyun kissing another guide in the lodging just moments ago.
Was it right to show that there were no problems between us at all in this state? Especially when Do Ganghyun was sticking with other guides, enduring side effects just to deny this relationship.
‘How will I face him?’
Worry suddenly surged.
The previous assault incident had also occurred in front of reporters. Of course, it wasn’t a schedule officially arranged by the Center, but one I’d impulsively acted on to show off my personal connection, though the intent to convey that there were no problems with our relationship was the same.
‘In a situation where our relationship has deteriorated this much, can my safety be guaranteed like before…’
I didn’t think so. All this time, Do Ganghyun had been ‘enduring’ me out of necessity, and now it seemed he could no longer bear it.
As my expression sank ominously, the director let out a small sigh.
“You don’t need to worry that much. Those at the top aren’t people whose heads don’t work either, so unless they’re crazy, they won’t let the same thing happen again.”
“That was just an accident…”
I made a small protest for now. Though no one believed it, the relationship between me and Do Ganghyun had to consistently be ‘good.’
There was also the embarrassment of feeling like my true feelings had been caught, which wasn’t entirely absent from my response.
“Of course it has to be an accident.”
However, the director was firm. Despite not believing my words at all. Her tone suggested that all of it absolutely had to be an accident so that guides’ human rights wouldn’t be thrown in the gutter and a bad precedent wouldn’t be created.
“Still, prepare thoroughly. It’s an interview they’ve waited a whole 3 months for, without any explanation. All the reporters will be on edge.”
***
The director was right. The reporters had definitely been sharpening their teeth for the past 3 months for today’s interview.
“You stated that the pair guide assault incident that occurred immediately after the gate strategy was a simple accident, but if so, what do you think was the specific cause of the accident?”
“Wasn’t it due to insufficient guiding?”
“It appears that there was high anxiety among those around you regarding Guide Myeong Eunha’s low rank. Please comment on this!”
Otherwise, there was no way they would throw such sharp questions as if they’d been waiting for this.
It was truly challenging from the start. It was on a completely different level from the times when I occasionally appeared in the media, pretending to be close with Do Ganghyun as a show window pair, doing Center promotions and such.
No matter how much its tendencies resembled profit-seeking guilds, the Center was still affiliated with the government military. One day, gates suddenly burst open and beings called espers and guides came into existence, and the era changed rapidly, so they couldn’t take the form of forced conscription—they were just giving various conveniences in an independent form unlike the regular military.
So even though I appeared in the media a few times like a celebrity, media control was implemented as needed. This time was the same. The interview was supposed to proceed only on topics agreed upon in advance with carefully selected individuals.
However, the incident itself had been so provocative, and they couldn’t interfere with the level of questions or the reporters’ tone, so the overall atmosphere was different from before.
‘I can’t look at the cameras…’
I bowed my head, my face pale.
In previous interviews, all attention had been focused on Do Ganghyun, so all I had to do was sit quietly beside him and give monosyllabic answers like ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ But this time, because of the nature of the case, everyone’s eyes were focused on me. It was suffocatingly burdensome, and my eyes hurt from the camera flashes that kept going off. It was even worse because Do Ganghyun, sitting beside me, was sharpening his wavelength with a cold face.
“Do it properly.”
And with that, his low admonishment was sharp. His mouth was drawn in a smile, but his eyes weren’t smiling at all. Over that, the cold eyes I’d encountered at the lodging this morning floated up.
“I-I understand your concerns, but…”
I finally managed to open my mouth with difficulty. At first, I stammered and struggled due to the burden, but since I’d already memorized the script handed over by the Center, answering itself wasn’t difficult.
“This incident was not due to insufficient guiding, but an accident that occurred when Esper Do Ganghyun entered an extreme state of excitement immediately after the gate strategy.”
“Then does that mean Guide Myeong Eunha, you approached Esper Do Ganghyun without recognizing this?”
“Yes, that’s correct. And since I’ve been continuously guiding and managing Esper Do Ganghyun on a regular basis—”
That’s when it happened.
“Wasn’t the guiding insufficient because of your low rank!”
