“There he goes again.”
Song Yeongju clicked his tongue. Before Kwon Dajung could kick up any more of a fuss, he promptly got up and put some distance between himself and Gyujin.
“Nothing happened, so cut it out.”
Song Yeongju held his ground even under Kwon Dajung’s venomous glare. Five years of this was enough to get anyone used to it. In that respect, Song Yeongju had truly exceptional resilience.
“And why am I ‘some other man’? At the very least I’d qualify as an inner-circle man.”
“Shut your mouth, Song Yeongju.”
Kwon Dajung snapped viciously. He shoved Song Yeongju aside and moved over to Gyujin’s side. He settled into the exact same spot Song Yeongju had been sitting, in the exact same posture, and pressed himself against Gyujin.
The yaksha expression from moments ago had vanished completely — now Dajung, wearing the face of a gentle lamb, looked up at Gyujin with bright eyes and asked quietly.
“How are you feeling? Anything uncomfortable?”
Gyujin didn’t react particularly to Kwon Dajung’s whiplash-inducing attitude. Like Song Yeongju, he too was a veteran with five years of experience. Kwon Dajung’s mood swings no longer stirred much of a reaction in him.
“I’m fine, I’m perfectly—”
“You’re not perfectly fine. Why would a perfectly fine person faint?”
Kwon Dajung cut him off before he could finish. He wrapped his arms all the way around Gyujin’s waist and clung to him like a koala. The weight shifted backward and Gyujin naturally ended up lying down on the bed, reaching up out of habit to stroke Dajung’s hair.
“Dajung, you’re heavy — can you move over a bit?”
Had the comment about rolling around in the hospital bed been a premonition? Kwon Dajung showed no sign of letting go or releasing Gyujin. Even so, what preoccupied Gyujin was the way his stomach kept getting pressed — his expression grew conflicted.
“Come on, move over.”
“Mm.”
An answer came back that was ambiguous enough to mean either yes or no. Only after Gyujin repeated himself about five times did Kwon Dajung sluggishly push himself upright. Even then, he took the opportunity to brush his lips against Gyujin’s cheek as if by accident. Song Yeongju, watching from a distance, muttered under his breath.
“Sly fox.”
He clicked his tongue, remarking that this wasn’t something you could learn to do — it just came naturally. Kwon Dajung’s fox-like maneuvers were nothing new, but somehow they still managed to feel fresh and astounding every time.
Whether Song Yeongju was shaking his head or not, Kwon Dajung’s entire field of vision was filled with nothing but Gyujin. He spent a good while longer poking and prodding at Gyujin under the guise of accidents, before slowly opening his mouth.
“I heard something pretty interesting at the Guide Center earlier.”
Kwon Dajung smiled sweetly. He rubbed the inside of Gyujin’s wrist with his thumb and murmured.
“Guiding addiction, they said.”
The words came without any warning and Gyujin let out a dry cough. Kwon Dajung, holding his wrist, pulled him a little closer.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Wait, what? Team Leader, you have guiding addiction? For real?”
Startled, Song Yeongju came rushing over. The two men surrounded Gyujin and pelted him with questions.
“Is that why you said you were quitting? Because you’re sick?”
“Team Leader, are you actually sick? Was fainting just now because of the illness too? Hm? Are you actually ill? No, wait — what’s wrong with you!”
“Why did you hide going to the hospital from me?”
“Oh! You kept falling asleep because you were sick this whole time! Of course! I knew it! I said there was something seriously wrong!”
The two of them going at it simultaneously was absolute chaos. It wasn’t just chaos — his head was spinning too. He wasn’t sure if it was in his head, but his stomach kept lurching as well. Gyujin squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the space between his brows.
“Quiet down, just a little—”
“You have guiding addiction and you still went ahead and guided me? You should’ve slapped me across the face when I asked. Why did you go along with it? Hyung, do you have some kind of death wish?”
“Oh my god! You can’t do that, Team Leader!”
Song Yeongju smacked Gyujin’s shoulder repeatedly. That too apparently counted as unwanted skinship — Kwon Dajung suddenly turned stone-faced and barked at Song Yeongju to get lost. Gyujin muttered in an exhausted voice.
“Alright, so just quiet down a little—”
The words had barely left his mouth when his stomach flipped without warning. Gyujin clamped his hand over his mouth, fighting down the urge to retch.
“Urgh—!”
Once the nausea surged up, there was no controlling it after that. His eyes stung with tears. No matter how hard he tried to calm himself, it was useless. Driven by sheer determination not to throw up here, he scrambled urgently to sit up.
Kwon Dajung quickly caught Gyujin’s hand. He cupped his own palm into a hollow and held it up right beneath Gyujin’s lips.
“If you feel like you’re going to be sick, just do it here. Don’t hurt yourself running.”
Gyujin went a shade paler. Urgent as things were, how could anyone be sick into another person’s hand? That was out of the question — Gyujin shook his head. The more he resisted, the colder Kwon Dajung’s expression became.
“Should I catch it with my mouth instead?”
Kwon Dajung was genuinely the type to follow through on that. The hand was bad enough, but being sick into someone’s mouth was something Gyujin desperately wanted to avoid. He surrendered at last and bowed his head.
“Uugh—!”
Having eaten nothing, all his stomach could do was heave without producing anything. But that in itself was agonizing. Gyujin’s face was quickly slick with tears and saliva. After a long stretch of dry heaving, the lurching finally subsided enough for him to compose himself.
Dajung patted his back as he caught his breath. He let out a sigh and murmured.
“Stop driving people out of their minds and just say when something’s wrong, please…”
Song Yeongju produced a fistful of wet wipes and tissues from somewhere and held them out. Kwon Dajung took the tissues and vigorously wiped down Gyujin’s face.
“Since you’re at the hospital anyway, get a proper full check-up, and confirm whether it’s actually guiding addiction or not. And even if it is guiding addiction, don’t worry about it. I’ll figure out a cure even if I have to invent one myself. Got it?”
Gyujin nodded weakly. In front of a worried Song Yeongju and Kwon Dajung, he felt a stab of guilt. It wasn’t nearly as serious an illness as they feared, and to be precise, the symptoms weren’t even from guiding addiction.
It just feels like morning sickness…
In front of two Espers who had already categorized him as a pitiful guide dying of guiding addiction, Gyujin calmly kept his mouth shut.
Sometimes, there were things people were better off not knowing.
“There shouldn’t be any problems. Probably. It’s expensive since it’s not covered by insurance, but the medication itself is definitely safe. Still — just in case — let’s only take it when it’s truly unbearable. It’s safe, but given how rare a case this is, there’s a possibility of unforeseen side effects. You understand what I mean?”
The doctor, whom he was seeing again after a few days, looked considerably more exhausted than before. He pushed his glasses up and held out a white medicine bottle. Gyujin bowed his head and received it.
“Thank you, Doctor. For keeping this confidential as well.”
He was the doctor who had come running the moment he heard Gyujin had fainted while guiding. Thanks to him, Gyujin had been able to receive appropriate treatment without Kwon Dajung finding out about the pregnancy.
“Of course. You’re clearly the one having the hardest time of all this — the least I can do is help where I can.”
Behind his glasses, his eyes were full of sympathy, the way you might look at a patient with a terminal illness. Faced with this complicated and bewildering situation, the doctor was doing his very best in his own way.
“As I’ve stressed before, absolutely no guiding until at least twelve weeks. And especially — do not under any circumstances guide a high-ranking Esper. The fetus is fortunately unharmed, but next time it could cause a very serious problem. It may not end with simply fainting the way it did today.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Doctor.”
“Then I’ll see you in two weeks. At that point we can also look into whether surgery is a viable option.”
Gyujin bowed silently in acknowledgment. He tucked the medicine bottle into his pocket and stood up.
The moment he stepped out of the examination room, two wall-sized men closed in around him. Kwon Dajung shot a resentful look at the closed door.
“What kind of secret conversation requires a soundproof wall that blocks out Espers? Isn’t the design a bit flawed?”
Being unable to follow him inside was already infuriating enough, but being blocked even from eavesdropping by soundproofing had left him thoroughly aggravated. Gyujin shrugged.
“Who knows. The doctor must take patient privacy particularly seriously.”
He walked ahead, and Kwon Dajung and Song Yeongju trailed behind him in a line like goldfish tails.
“Team Leader, what did the doctor say? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Said there’s nothing seriously wrong. Just no guiding for the time being.”
“So it’s not guiding addiction then?”
At Kwon Dajung’s follow-up question, Gyujin paused a beat before nodding.
“Just a temporary dip in condition. Just need to be careful for a while, he said.”
“What a relief. I thought you were actually sick and nearly had a heart attack. But then that means our team gets a break too since you’re out, right?”
Gyujin, who had been walking ahead, came to a dead stop. He glanced sideways.
“You lot still have to go to work.”
“How are we supposed to work if you can’t guide us?”
Song Yeongju asked with wide eyes, in a tone that suggested this was the most obvious thing in the world. Gyujin was momentarily at a loss for words. Kwon Dajung added from beside him.
“Without you, hyung, we’ll all die.”
