“Did this instructor teach the cadet like that?”
“Just a moment ago you told me to call you noona.”
“Stop tormenting Jeonghoo.”
Gu Seohyun’s electric whip wriggled and moved like a living creature, threatening Yeo Dowoon.
The ability to move inanimate objects with electric current to induce desired movements was a skill that couldn’t be easily obtained even with practice that made you shit blood.
Since she was excellent, diligent, and even loyal, she quickly gained the Esper base’s favor.
“Even without you instigating, he’s someone who suffers a lot mentally.”
“If you’re so worried, noona should have met him yourself.”
“……”
“Then the Secretary General would have been relieved too.”
Yeo Dowoon, who had seemed to be sparing his words, answered while stomping on the whip trying to climb up his ankle. Electricity crackled and overflowed.
But since it was an attack without sincerity, it only resulted in momentary pain.
Some researchers slow on the news opened their eyes wide as if hearing it for the first time. Those who had heard related information once in a while just coughed and pretended not to know.
Haha! Gu Seohyun burst into refreshing laughter and then asked.
“If I had met him, do you think Jeonghoo wouldn’t be suffering and struggling mentally like he is now?”
As if confident that Yeo Dowoon wouldn’t be able to open his mouth and answer, she leisurely shook her head. She didn’t feel ridiculous tension toward a cadet she had taught before.
“You know that’s not the case.”
As she continued in a disciplining tone, Yeo Dowoon spoke with a lighter voice than before.
“Really?”
His attitude was imbued with confidence, but the question he brought up was strangely vague.
“Does it really look like you know?”
Gu Seohyun, who noticed that he wanted to brush off the situation carelessly, gently curved her slender eyes. Her lightly pigmented lips twitched.
“Of course. You seem to know too well, which is the problem.”
“It being a problem is a bit troublesome.”
“I’m more troubled, Dowoon. Your speech keeps getting shorter. Who gave you permission to speak casually on your own?”
“……”
“Did Kwon Jeonghoo, who’s smitten with his subordinate?”
Yeo Dowoon observed her with calm eyes. This was because he secretly felt wariness.
Gu Seohyun. A natural-type Esper with the supernatural ability to freely manipulate electric currents.
Her measured grade was a whopping S-class, and during his trainee days, Yeo Dowoon constantly heard her name day and night as an exemplary precedent he should emulate.
The base bastards who had semi-forcibly scouted him probably hoped he would become an excellent worker like her. Gu Seohyun gently threatened him.
“Observe courtesy while I’m letting it slide for old times’ sake.”
“……Ah. So this was you letting it slide?”
Now that things had come to this, it was impossible to gauge when and where Gu Seohyun’s electric whip would come flying.
Yeo Dowoon recalled the rough, angry sensation that had wrapped around his neck and pulled. He was disgusted by that sensation vividly embedded in one side of his skin.
“Noona’s whip hurts so much it feels like my neck will be cut off.”
“If it doesn’t hurt like it’ll be cut off, it wouldn’t be a whip.”
“It even blocked my breathing.”
“Of course it would, since it strangled a neck that asked to be strangled.”
“Wow, I almost died young by noona’s hand….”
When Yeo Dowoon lamented as if acting spoiled, Gu Seohyun immediately clicked her tongue.
“Dowoon. As expected, your learning ability is poor and lacking.”
Since it was something he’d heard before, Yeo Dowoon didn’t show any agitation or sense of injustice. This level of abusive language didn’t even reach the level that could be called abusive. It was more like bitter advice based on affection.
“I taught you throughout the entire training period that if you value your life, you should fix the habit of opening your eyes carelessly.”
“……”
“Want to go back into the training center?”
Gu Seohyun said while gripping Yeo Dowoon’s face. Befitting an Esper who favored using a whip as a medium, her hands were quite rough. They weren’t silky smooth like Cha Haseong’s hands.
“It’s probably because Jeonghoo pampered you too much. Sometimes appropriate corporal punishment is also necessary.”
“No, noona. I’ve had enough corporal punishment from noona to be sick of it.”
Yeo Dowoon, who responded, squeezed both eyes tightly shut and then covered the back of her hand with his palm.
“I’ll keep my eyes closed until noona says I can open them, so let me know when you have time.”
At his actions that seemed to be pulling out all the aegyo possible to please someone, Yoon Minoh made a horrified face.
As if he couldn’t understand at all, he stepped back and shouted.
“……Have you gone crazy, hyung? Fuck, you look like an old man pulling shitty tricks that won’t work to seduce a woman!”
The Yeo Dowoon he knew wasn’t this docile and obedient. But right now, it seemed like a large dog’s characteristic fluffy tail was wagging behind him.
“Your eyeballs aren’t manual controls, so you open them when you open them and close them when you close them, why the hell are you asking for permission?”
And what about his voice? At the amazing fact that Yeo Dowoon could also use such an innocent tone, Yoon Minoh’s head momentarily grew dizzy.
Yeo Dowoon in front of Gu Seohyun was, in other words…, at the level of butter spread on toasted bread. He felt continuously uncomfortable because it seemed like oil would drip if squeezed tightly.
Around that time, Yeo Dowoon threw a cold gaze at Yoon Minoh, who fit the phrase ‘old man pulling shitty tricks’ the best. He moved his lips leisurely.
‘Fuck off.’
At the two syllables that could be fully inferred just from the shape of his mouth, Yoon Minoh became even more dumbfounded.
However, there was hidden information that Yoon Minoh didn’t know about here. Yeo Dowoon was friendly and warm not only to Gu Seohyun but to all women. Moreover, since he was currently harboring his own ulterior motives, he had no choice but to become gentle enough to seem like he had a split personality.
“Seohyun noona.”
He was just particularly harsh only to male bastards, especially those Esper bastards.
“Call me instructor.”
“When did you become noona?”
“Yeo Dowoon.”
“Okay, okay.”
Gu Seohyun was someone obsessed with determining victory and defeat.
If Kwon Jeonghoo had instilled in him a sense of mission as an Esper, she had tried to intensively educate him on fighting spirit and pride as a superhuman. Yeo Dowoon called her wearing a smooth smile.
“Excuse me. Instructor Gu Seohyun.”
When Gu Seohyun pulled on his pale cheek instead of answering, he made a fake crying face, going “Ow ow ow.”
Even though the merciless touch made him cast his gaze sharply downward, he actually didn’t lose his smile. As soon as their eyes met, he attempted to sell nostalgia.
“Remember when I became an outstanding trainee and noona pinned a gold badge on me?”
“Why are you leaving out that I switched it to a badge exclusive for excluded trainees just two days later?”
Yeo Dowoon intended to use Gu Seohyun’s belligerent tendency against her.
“That was largely my fault.”
“I agree. Whatever it is, your fault is big.”
“Cut me some slack. It’s because my learning ability is poor and lacking.”
What Gu Seohyun emphasized was ‘the one who seizes obsession takes the final victory.’
Perhaps because of that, she easily cooled off and lost interest whenever the cadets acted like people who had lost their fighting spirit. Therefore, Yeo Dowoon pulled a trick with the intention of avoiding a quarrel with her.
“I was wrong, instructor.”
While offering an apology he didn’t mean.
Gu Seohyun approached him. Her red-tinted dyed hair tucked behind her ear scattered down following her shallow movement.
Yeo Dowoon personally smoothly brushed back that glossy hair and continued speaking.
“Let’s not waste energy among ourselves. Anyway, I’m not even participating in this operation.”
Yoon Minoh, who was watching that behavior from nearby, went “Uuuuek” and dry heaved. Since it wasn’t even on an empty stomach, real nausea came up gurgling. If he just opened his throat, the contents would pour out right away.
Yoon Minoh barely managed to pull together his insides that had become a mess. The sight of Yeo Dowoon acting like a bastard whose screws had suddenly come loose felt very surreal.
“You there. Physical-type newcomer.”
Then, Gu Seohyun mentioned Yoon Minoh, who had been neglected.
“Do you know what an outstanding trainee has to do to receive an excluded badge?”
He didn’t know.
When he hadn’t even experienced receiving training, how would he know the qualification conditions for outstanding trainees and excluded trainees? Yoon Minoh, who had been fiercely glaring at Yeo Dowoon who had not an iota of interest in him, retorted in a delinquent tone.
“Who knows. Did he roll around thoroughly with a monster or something?”
“If that were it, there wouldn’t have been the first incident of an outstanding trainee being revoked in the training center’s history. Whether on a bed or on the street, at least it would mean he was dealing with a monster.”
Gu Seohyun let go of Yeo Dowoon’s chin as if throwing it away and then smoothly removed her gloves. The motion of shaking them off vigorously as if radioactive material had gotten on them looked very cold.
“That bastard was the first Esper to go AWOL from the group training center the day after receiving the badge. He said he had to appease his girlfriend and disappeared in the middle of the night.”
Yeo Dowoon stroked his cheek as if embarrassed. The very area that had just been firmly gripped in Gu Seohyun’s strong grasp. Seeing how his gums throbbed, it seemed she had held on mercilessly.
“When I dragged him back from eating mul-tteok in Daegu, he’d lost the badge? I don’t know if he lost it or gave it as a commemorative gift though.”
