- Trivial Anxiety
***
Yoon Kihyun looked around the temporary base hastily constructed as a guiding space. It was a space that was shabby beyond comparison no matter when he looked at it.
‘Where the hell does the Center spend all its budget?’
He sometimes wondered how much they were embezzling in the middle for the equipment to hardly improve.
Perhaps because it was on-site guiding after a long time, his mood was restless. Jung Sijun preferred Yoon Kihyun to stay in the Center’s guiding room as much as possible, but of all things, a high-grade gate had occurred.
When a gate appeared far from the Center or was confirmed as a high-grade gate, on-site guiding was almost forced. It was a rule that applied to Yoon Kihyun as a personal guide too.
At the temporary base, there was another guide sitting besides Yoon Kihyun. Though there was only one person.
It was Team Leader Seo Jintae, who had returned after taking sick leave. He approached hesitantly and then awkwardly started fumbling out an apology.
“Kihyun-ssi. I’m sorry for being so unreasonable last time.”
Their paths hadn’t crossed, so this was the first time seeing Yoon Kihyun since that day.
“It’s not like I didn’t know Team Leader Jung’s wavelength was difficult. It’s fine.”
Yoon Kihyun accepted Seo Jintae’s apology lightheartedly. The one who left the strongest memory in that situation was only Jung Sijun. That didn’t mean Seo Jintae’s attitude was right. He just thought about how desperate and frantic he must have been to cling to someone who’d resigned.
Moreover, he’d recently been struggling to the point of taking sick leave from overwork, and he didn’t want to lash out over past events. There was nothing good about guides getting red-faced with each other.
“Ah, why are you… so damn nice?”
“Haha.”
As Yoon Kihyun’s attitude remained consistently calm, Seo Jintae just fidgeted with his fingers for no reason. If he’d agreed that he’d crossed the line back then, he would have bowed his head deeply and apologized like a man. Showing such a lukewarm reaction as if it really was nothing made him feel even more uncomfortable.
‘What? You found former Team Leader Yoon there and… asked for guiding?’
‘Even you think I was a total asshole? Enough to be posted on an office worker community?’
When he grabbed a team member and confessed, the team member nodded without even a second’s hesitation.
They’d cut it straight that it was really improper behavior. After hesitating, he let out a deep sigh and began with a face that had let everything go.
“You know. After snapping at you and leaving that time, I thought about it a lot too.”
Yoon Kihyun sitting across just nodded quietly. In fact, he had no particular thoughts about whatever Team Leader Seo Jintae was thinking. To be more blunt, he didn’t want to know or ask.
But he couldn’t tell his senior that he hadn’t asked and wasn’t curious, so please shut his mouth. So he had no choice but to put on the mask of a working adult he’d taken off.
“Still, I considered you, Kihyun-ssi, as the junior I trusted and recognized most at the Center. So I thought of you a bit easily… more comfortably than others. Because you were briefly on my team too.”
Yoon Kihyun had worked together on Seo Jintae’s team during his rookie days. At that time, Seo Jintae was a very big person to Yoon Kihyun. Because he definitely had a longer and more seasoned guiding career than himself, who had just finished guide rookie training.
Even in the early days when he became a team leader after being quickly recognized for his abilities at the Center based on the know-how he learned from watching Seo Jintae, he’d received a lot of help from him.
That’s why even though he’d openly shown his distaste toward Jung Sijun without filter, he couldn’t do that to Seo Jintae.
“You know that kind of person. Someone you think ‘this person is mine, my junior.’ For me, that was Team Leader Yoon. Now that you’ve resigned, it’s a bit much to call you my junior…”
“What are you saying? Regardless of affiliation, you’re my senior.”
“I’m grateful if you think that way.”
Seo Jintae wiped the cold sweat on his palms on his pants and laughed awkwardly.
Since he was young, he’d heard a lot that he dealt with people without distance. To put it nicely, he had excellent affinity; to put it badly, he was somewhat rude.
He was fixing it while living in society, but one’s personality couldn’t change drastically overnight. Still, he wasn’t the type to be reluctant to admit his faults and apologize.
After Yoon Kihyun, who had been practically in charge of Jung Sijun, resigned, somehow he’d ended up in charge of Jung Sijun like a dedicated guide. That period was stained with hardship and self-loathing.
Just handling the fucking wavelength was overwhelming enough, and having to deal with Jung Sijun’s even pickier personality on top of that was terrible.
Even excluding Jung Sijun, the espers he had to take care of didn’t decrease, and after days of rotating wavelength purification like a consumable, he met Yoon Kihyun in that alley.
‘No, they treated people so much like water purifier filters that I thought they didn’t know.’
That one statement had strangely stuck with him. It was refreshing and felt like something was squirming inside. He couldn’t name exactly what kind of emotion it was.
“I’ll buy you a meal at a nice place later. I couldn’t properly say goodbye on the day you resigned. I thought about visiting the guiding room to say hello, but that wouldn’t be proper either.”
“That’s true.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry. Still, seeing your face again like this, it feels like going back to the old days and makes me feel good.”
Seo Jintae smiled with a relieved face.
“By the way, how’s working as a personal guide?”
“Since I’m only guiding Team Leader Jung alone, it’s not hard at all like before. Rather…”
“Rather?”
“It’s boring and tedious because there’s nothing particular to do while waiting.”
Compared to when he did over twenty guiding sessions a day at most, his daily routine was definitely monotonous beyond comparison. Sometimes he worried whether he was receiving too much salary for the work he did.
“Phew, that’s the good thing. After you resigned, Kihyun-ssi, our workload still hasn’t decreased and we’re going crazy. When the new recruits come up this time, it’ll get busier, just thinking about it makes my head spin.”
“I hope many good people come.”
“That’s what I’m saying. By the way, it seemed like the Guide Headquarters Director was stirring things up.”
“Ah, well. I heard through Team Leader Seo Igyeong that they wanted to arrange a position, but I refused well. After that, there’s been no contact or anything.”
“I see… Even if you come back to the Center, you’ll just be worked like a dog. If being a personal guide is better in many ways, that’s right, from what I see.”
Seo Jintae was sighing when he blinked his eyes. As he gestured toward outside the tent with his chin, Yoon Kihyun turned his head.
The entrance of the gate Jung Sijun’s team had entered was shaking greatly. As if announcing the conquest had ended safely, it was spitting out jet-black human shapes.
“Phew, time to work, Kihyun-ssi.”
Seo Jintae shook his head while massaging the back of his neck.
***
Jung Sijun was quieter than usual. It was even more worrying that he’d returned to the temporary base with dressing on his cheek for once.
‘Was it tough inside?’
Even though some time had passed since guiding started, the heat of battle hadn’t fully subsided yet, so wavelengths were occasionally sparking.
If he didn’t concentrate all his mind, it was perfect to be swept away as control was handed over. It wasn’t for nothing that Seo Jintae, more seasoned than Yoon Kihyun just looking at experience, had struggled.
“You’re injured for once.”
“It’ll heal quickly, so what does it matter?”
At the voice somewhat more subdued than usual, Yoon Kihyun moved his lips slightly. Because espers not long after battle ended tended to be more sensitive and somewhat violent than usual.
“Was the guiding very insufficient?”
Guiding had a fatal effect on an esper’s combat condition.
Jung Sijun had hired him by offering a high annual salary to improve the quality of his combat condition. So he had an obligation to do his best so that he wouldn’t feel any insufficiency in guiding, at least as much as he was paid.
“No. It’s not a guiding problem, just…”
Jung Sijun looked at the white fingertips of Yoon Kihyun, who gently grasped and held his hand. The pale pink color of the neatly trimmed nails reminded him of a certain part that would be under his shirt.
“My mental state problem.”
“…I see.”
“But for once, why is our Yoon Kihyun-ssi worrying about me?”
Though he was babbling as if Yoon Kihyun’s reaction was unexpected, Jung Sijun’s wound was deliberately made.
It was an attack he could sufficiently predict and avoid, but he deliberately didn’t avoid it and came out of the gate with a wound stuck right on his face. That way, wouldn’t Yoon Kihyun worry about him and pay more attention?
For that, it had to be a wound that looked moderately painful to Yoon Kihyun but not disgusting. Considering the recovery speed at which the wound healed, before the gate conquest ended, the wound had been much more serious than now.
Not knowing it was thoroughly calculated self-harm, Yoon Kihyun’s complexion was only serious. Probably his head was full of thoughts about him by now. Jung Sijun was pleased with that.
