“You’ll really help me?”
“Are you that pleased?”
“How are you going to help me?”
He’s not planning to tease me in some weird way again, is he? In Park Shinui’s vision as he sent a suspicious look, Kang Taejun’s lips visible beneath the mask came into view especially vividly. Those lips drew a slow arc.
“If you heard from Researcher Lee Haneul, you’d know.”
“Ah……”
I remember. Kang Taejun’s absolute defensive ability.
“Of course, I have no intention of helping for free.”
“Then?”
Park Shinui’s brow furrowed at once. There it is. The old saying that those who have more are even greedier wasn’t wrong at all.
“If there’s a give, there should be a take, shouldn’t there?”
“What do you need?”
“Let’s take our time discussing that.”
Park Shinui’s bank account had a large balance registered. Though it was someone else’s money, as long as he lived in this body, no one would say anything about him spending it.
‘Right, spending a little shouldn’t be a problem.’
“Is it…… very expensive?”
He’d asked meaning it would be troublesome if it was too pricey, but Kang Taejun’s expression twisted strangely.
“……”
He silently looked down at Park Shinui with that indecipherable gaze he’d been making often lately. It’s the same for me not knowing what he’s thinking.
“What?”
“I’m just curious how you came to think that what I need would be merely a ‘material thing.'”
“Then what is it?”
“What would it be?”
“If you won’t tell me, how am I supposed to know……”
Park Shinui, who’d been retorting, suddenly closed his mouth. Thinking about it, what would Kang Taejun lack that he’d demand monetary compensation from me? There was no way this world’s strongest esper with astronomical wealth would have less than himself, someone who came from being a mere celebrity.
“Guiding……”
“What?”
“The guiding training ground, we’ve arrived.”
“What?”
Kang Taejun lightly pushed Park Shinui’s back out of the elevator, which had arrived without him knowing when. Though it was such a minute contact that he barely felt their fingertips touch, when he came to his senses, Park Shinui was already standing in front of the training ground. He hurriedly turned around, but the elevator door had already closed and Kang Taejun’s figure had disappeared.
***
“So what do you need, seriously?”
Park Shinui irritably muttered as he pulled up his athletic pants. Yesterday’s words—Kang Taejun saying he’d ‘demand what he wanted’ as compensation for helping with training—kept circling in his head without leaving. The other party had probably tossed it out casually, yet he alone had been swayed by it all day. Because of that, whether receiving guiding training, gathering information at home, or even during dinner, he couldn’t focus at all.
And after a day had passed and I came to the training room as usual, I’m still ruminating on those words. Park Shinui, who’d bumped his forehead against the locker room cabinet door, let out a long sigh.
Now, beyond simple worry, even other curiosities were blooming.
‘What on earth does he want? Guiding? Or if not that……’
When his thoughts reached that point, Park Shinui shook his head vigorously. No matter how much he thought, he couldn’t guess. Rather, the problem was that he understood even less.
He belatedly regretted not being able to say a single word when they’d met at the breakfast table and just forcing down his food. What’s so difficult about asking what he needs, when he’ll start helping—why couldn’t I give even one glance or open my mouth? Damn it.
“That Park Shinui guy. He came again today, right?”
“When I came to work, I saw someone like a manager personally escorting him here.”
Park Shinui, who’d been about to leave the cabinet, stopped moving at the voice heard from the opposite side.
“Does he think the Ability Training Center is his personal training room? Just because he’s Kang Taejun’s pair, does that make him everything? Using an entire training room by himself—it pisses me off.”
“I heard his physical grade came out as F-rank. I’ve never seen a grade like that in my entire life.”
“F-rank? When C and D are what you trip over, what level is F?”
“Beats me, I can’t even imagine.”
The owners of the voices seemed to be espers who’d come to the training room. *Perhaps it’s worth the several days of guiding training—*from the waves felt through the air, their crude power could be read.
Even if not for that, just from the shallow superiority felt beyond the waves, their level could be sufficiently guessed. Park Shinui held his breath and perked up his ears to their conversation.
“Still, doesn’t he look like someone you’d want to fuck at least once?”
“He was pretty hot-looking.”
“He’s F-rank anyway, should I try touching him a bit? At that level, I could handle him with just one finger, couldn’t I?”
“Would it just be easy? He’s like a slut, so if you just shove any dick in him, he’ll probably whine and cling to you saying he likes it.”
“Our Esper Kang Taejun is so busy, after all. Maybe his lower half is already feeling empty and looking for another dick.”
When one giggled, the other joined in with a despicable laugh. Park Shinui swallowed an incredulous laugh.
As they said, it’s true that the original Park Shinui’s private life wasn’t clean. But that doesn’t mean they can spout such words recklessly. He’s a guide who’s bonded with Kang Taejun, the strongest in this world, no less. Moreover, it absolutely wasn’t a conversation to have in a locker room where anyone could enter at any time.
“But would we even get a turn with Park Shinui? Lee Suchan sees him every day.”
“Lee Suchan? What’s there to see in him? He’s just an instructor who can’t even get near the field anyway.”
“He’s higher grade than us.”
“What’s the point of being high grade if you can’t use it in actual combat? And frankly speaking, fuck, what does grade matter for having sex—you just need a big dick.”
“True, if your dick’s big, that’s all that matters.”
Again, vulgar laughter was heard. Park Shinui frowned and turned his body that way, then immediately clenched his fists tightly.
I desperately want to rush out right now, but he wasn’t unaware of the difference in combat power between them and himself.
“But don’t you have a guide you’re seeing?”
“Seeing who? Lee Jisoo? Hey, is that seeing someone? We just mix bodies when I need guiding. Honestly, do you think I’m the only one he’s been with? If you dig around, there’d be a truckload of espers who’ve matched up with him.”
“Come to think of it, he used to hang around with Kang Taejun too.”
“Fuck, that bastard Lee Jisoo acts all noble by himself while spreading his legs everywhere.”
“Hey, so if you do it with Park Shinui this time, you’d be using the same hole as Kang Taejun, something like that?”
“Does it work that way? That’s an honor, isn’t it?”
“Hole-brothers-in-law, is that it?”
The bastards’ excessive verbal abuse ceaselessly dug into his ears. I’d rather not have listened. If he’d left right away when he finished changing clothes, he wouldn’t have had to endure such an unpleasant situation.
Park Shinui ground his teeth and suppressed the boiling anger. He didn’t have a hobby of eavesdropping on others’ words, but knowing the arrow’s end was pointed at himself, it wasn’t easy to ignore.
Even if this was inside a novel, this place was also a world where people lived. Since suddenly manifested abilities wouldn’t change one’s character, not all espers would be righteous and mature. Trash-like bastards and selfish bastards could manifest as espers as much as they wanted. If everyone had a personality like the protagonist, what fun would the story have?
Even so, espers are beings who can’t purify contamination themselves. Without guides, there’s only destruction, so the society in the novel had an underlying atmosphere of respecting and protecting guides.
But reality didn’t quite seem that way. Seeing those who openly regard guides as just a means to relieve their desires strutting around brazenly.
Park Shinui repeated deep breaths several times, unable to hide his unpleasant mood. Now the name ‘Park Shinui’ was no different from his own name, not someone else’s. Yet a bastard who says he has a guide he’s seeing is having dirty fantasies about Park Shinui. I’m so angry.
Lee Jisoo. Come to think of it, I’ve heard that name somewhere. Lee Jisoo…… Lee Jisoo…… Right, I remember. It was the name of the A-rank guide the Division Chief had praised until his mouth went dry. The person who had a 5% matching rate with Kang Taejun.
“Hey, but there’s no one else here, right?”
“When we came in it was just us, why?”
The bastards who’d been spouting low-quality jokes until just now suddenly lowered their voices. At that sign, Park Shinui reflexively hid his body behind a pillar next to the cabinet. Then beyond the diagonal mirror, the backs of the men were reflected. He could see their silhouettes leisurely changing clothes with their tops off.
“Among espers, there are occasionally bastards with sensitive hearing. It’d be troublesome if our voices leaked out.”
“We didn’t even say anything much. We just criticized that bastard Park Shinui for hogging the training room alone supposedly receiving useless training when he’s an eyesore.”
“Right. We just expressed legitimate complaints.”
“Will an F-rank become B-rank or A-rank from training? We’re suffering because of such futile actions, how could we not be pissed off?”
The physiques of the men echoing each other’s words looked more massive and solid than expected. If I rushed at them in a fit of anger, I’d obviously be subdued by one finger just as they said.
‘Ignorant muscle lumps.’
Park Shinui clenched his teeth and glared at them in the mirror.
