The facilities of the lodging arranged by the Association were excellent. The bathroom seemed wider than my room. I washed my body clean to also relieve my travel fatigue. The scars that had increased on my body felt awkward, but what was more surprising was my recovery ability. The wound from being stabbed by Han Miyeon was almost completely healed.
“It’s already healed this much.”
I felt strange stroking the wound. It seemed like all the events up until now had passed by in an instant. Countless people died or were injured. I had been in the middle of conflicts between massive forces I thought I would never be entangled with in my lifetime.
My wet appearance in the mirror felt awkward. My face seemed to have changed a bit too. The jawline had definitely become much sharper. It might be because I lost weight from being sick, but my overall impression seemed to have become fiercer.
‘I guess it can’t be helped since I keep being in life-or-death situations. I hope I don’t just keep changing to become more rough going forward…….’
The first person who came to mind seeing my changed face was Suo Weiqian. His grotesque face with desire dripping down. I worried whether I too might gain such a monster-like aspect from being crushed by this fierceness.
Although I wasn’t directly fighting on the scene, I was the protagonist of the novel. One who had to die at that.
“Ha…….”
I let out a long sigh and roughly dried my body. There was no answer that would come from prolonging my thoughts. I roughly put on the training clothes I had brought. As I came out of the bathroom while shaking my not-quite-dry hair, Kim Haewon was still handling work in that spot.
“Still not done? Do it roughly and rest. Esper Kim Haewon pushed yourself quite hard too.”
Kim Haewon raised his head at my concern. And he just quietly looked at me without saying anything.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Is there some foam I didn’t wash off?”
I asked while vigorously wiping my neck with a wet towel. Kim Haewon sighed, put down the tablet PC, and strode toward me. Since he was tall, his stride was also large, so even though he didn’t walk many steps, he was right in front of me.
“What, why again? I didn’t do anything…….”
“Showing yourself just out of the bath in front of a man who said he likes you.”
“…….”
“Does that seem like you didn’t do anything?”
I was momentarily speechless. Because if I followed his words, I had done something very wrong. Kim Haewon rubbed my hair a few times with the towel placed on my head. I felt the moisture disappearing from my hair.
“You’re so careless, that’s why I’m anxious.”
“No, it’s not careless…… I have to wash myself.”
“So you came out all wet like this?”
His words would mean that I came out just roughly wiping without drying all the moisture from my body or hair, but to me hearing it, it felt a bit different. With my ears turning red, I just quietly kept my head down. Kim Haewon dried my hair a bit and then hugged me as is.
It wasn’t a tight hug, just enough to let me lean slightly against his chest. I could have pushed away, but I just stayed still. Because this level of embrace was something done during guiding too…… I thought while making excuses.
“Do you know something?”
“What?”
“There’s only one bed here.”
“What?”
When I raised my head in surprise, Kim Haewon quietly looked down at me. He was smiling. A danger signal went off in my head.
“Then I’ll go wash up too.”
“Uh, uh…….”
“Do you understand now how dangerous that statement is?”
Kim Haewon tapped my cheek and passed by me. There was nothing in his hands. I urgently shouted.
“Y-you have to take underwear and clothes to change into!”
“There’s a robe inside, isn’t there?”
“No! You can’t!”
I hurriedly ran and looked for Kim Haewon’s share of clothes. And I gathered up underwear and training clothes. Kim Haewon had already entered the bathroom. I flung the door open and held out the clothes.
“You have to be considerate of your roommate. You should at least wear panties…… Huk!”
Kim Haewon had already removed his top. His upper body that had been hidden by clothes was unbelievably solid. Muscles were evenly and largely attached to his shoulders, arms, and chest. His waist went in slimly for a perfect inverted triangle body shape. He was like a male magazine cover model I’d seen at bookstores.
I gulped. Because it was inside the bathroom, the sound of swallowing echoed loudly. Kim Haewon turned his body completely toward me as is and smiled. It seemed funny that I had swallowed too loudly. I quickly turned around and extended the hand holding the clothes.
“C-clothes!”
“Did you see everything?”
“Wh-what do you mean see everything? A, a man’s body is all the same.”
“Should I take off my pants too? Is the bottom the same too?”
“Don’t tease me!”
I threw the clothes as if tossing them and slammed the bathroom door shut. I could almost hear the sound of Kim Haewon laughing out loud.
Aren’t you crazy? You’re crazy.
I hurriedly came into the bedroom. Just as Kim Haewon said, there was one king-size bed sitting there conspicuously. It was big enough for two men to sleep with room to spare, but the problem was that there was one.
I lowered the towel while cooling the heat from my face. I seemed to see Kim Haewon’s solid upper body before my eyes. There wasn’t even one common scar showing how good an SS-class esper’s healing power was. Such a solid and smooth body. I shook my head.
“Park Garam, are you crazy? Why are you staring at that? Are you a pervert?”
I hit my forehead hard. It was no different from my gaze naturally moving because there was a sculpture before my eyes. There was just such an unbelievable body in front of my eyes, so I looked at it.
Right. Anyone would have done the same. My actions were justified. It was understandable.
While thinking that way, I wandered around the bedroom alone and then came back out to where the sofa was. My phone was sitting forlornly on the sofa. I plopped down on the sofa while picking up the phone. When I turned on the screen out of habit, a novel notification was ringing.
[Notification] <I’ve Been Possessed by a Real-Time Serial Novel> Episode 23 has been uploaded.
[Notification] <I’ve Been Possessed by a Real-Time Serial Novel> Episode 24 has been uploaded.
“Serial updates!”
I couldn’t be more pleased. I had to read them while Kim Haewon was washing. Then after he came out from washing, I could talk about the novel instead of that awkward situation. I thought it was very fortunate and pressed the novel application.
The content unusually didn’t cover the commotion between me and Kim Haewon on the plane. I couldn’t know what thoughts Kim Haewon had inside either. I thought it would be decorated quite BL-like, but it was unexpected. The content mainly covered in this serialization was the atmosphere inside the conference room.
Each person’s opinions sharply confronted each other. Until now they had been lucky somehow, but the gates occurring in this incident had the power to inflict fatal injuries on SS-class espers.
Some espers didn’t want to go out to the field as much as possible. They wanted comfort and safety. Even among SS-class espers, they hoped that skilled espers like Kim Haewon would continue to defend well.
However, the deployment of espers, which was no different from transactions between nations, couldn’t be avoided like that.
They were also representing each nation’s position, but it also meant wanting to be safe themselves. The funny thing was that even in this situation, Kim Haewon was out of the question.
‘What is Kim Haewon, Superman? He’s not even a phoenix, so why does Kim Haewon have to unconditionally go out? Bullshit.’
I felt annoyed for no reason. I scrolled down with a frown.
America’s Emily Ruler and Akutagawa Yu didn’t want to participate in any more battles.
Spain’s Gabriel Arenas wanted to participate only in the same gates as Haewon.
Germany’s Josef Böll wanted to be deployed to the safest battles possible.
India’s Ahmet Hasan wanted to be deployed to unusual battles if possible.
The novel contained all the main espers’ tendencies and thoughts. The remaining espers didn’t express opinions or were satisfied with their deployment, so they seemed not to be mentioned.
Haewon thought he could see inside people’s heads. Probably the other espers were the same. The fact that Ryu Heegang hadn’t returned in such a monsterized state caused a big ripple among SS-class espers.
Everyone turned conservative. There would be no one willing to step up without considerable pressure. Haewon looked for methods to resolve diplomatically and moved his pen over the tablet PC. As he was writing letters, Garam’s face touched his shoulder.
He yawned saying it was boring, then seemed to fall asleep soon after. Haewon moved his body to let him lean more comfortably.
Whee-
South Africa’s esper Alma Green whistled. Haewon gave her his gaze for a moment then withdrew it. Fortunately Garam didn’t wake up because his senses weren’t as sensitive as an esper’s.
A description followed that Kim Haewon stroked my head and didn’t take his eyes off me. My face became slightly red and I tried to scroll down quickly, but I got caught on the next sentence.
Haewon thought his suggestion to ‘have each pair guide accompany the conference’ was right.
After all, it was better to bring Garam right before his eyes like this than to leave him at the lodging. Garam was sleeping soundly unaware of Haewon’s true feelings.
He even made such a suggestion out of concern for me? My gaze naturally headed toward the firmly closed bathroom door. More precisely, toward the inscrutable man inside, Kim Haewon.
