Yoon Minoh, who had been showing an indifferent reaction while persistently glaring at Yeo Dowoon, answered shrilly.
“What? Wait a minute! Dowoon hyung had a girlfriend too?”
As always, the point he latched onto was unusual. Without any impure motives, with a truly pure heart, he muttered to himself. A question had suddenly arisen.
“That can’t be… That hyung is fucking gay though…”
Really fucking gay, so how did he date a girlfriend? It was around the time Yoon Minoh began immersing himself in bizarre imagination. Yeo Dowoon dismissed it as if he didn’t even want to associate with him.
“You’re the gay one.”
As he drew the line nonchalantly, Yoon Minoh passionately argued as if he’d been waiting for this.
“Hyung, you’re gay too. What else would you call someone who touches a man’s chest and loses their mind going ‘ehehe’ if not gay?”
Whenever the topic of chests came up, Yeo Dowoon’s tongue became dramatically heavy. Who knew the price of molesting a chest seven years his junior would be this great? Yoon Minoh pulled out his trump card to add evidence to the Yeo Dowoon gay theory.
“Listen. If hyung isn’t gay, then why does your face turn red when you see Mr. Cha?”
Cha Haseong was truly Yeo Dowoon’s trigger in name and reality.
Whenever those three syllables, which had a particularly embarrassing pronunciation, were mentioned, Yeo Dowoon noticeably became on edge. Just like a male wanting to protect his female from external pressure.
If a complete stranger saw this, they’d feel he was like a fool who didn’t know what to do with himself from worry about his lover.
Gu Seohyun, who had been twisting and tying her curly hair that reached down to below her chest into a single strand, added.
“…Looks like you still haven’t given up your lingering attachment?”
Since it had been an unrequited love that had been purely repeated for five years, the rumors couldn’t help but reach her ears. Moreover, even the Espers belonging to the Suppression Team knew all about the S-class Guide who had been assigned to Team Delta.
Gu Seohyun had once been asked this question:
‘That Delta troublemaker who fell out of favor with the Director… I heard he finally found his match. You know, right?’
The youngest Esper of Team Delta, who caused so many incidents that just cleaning up after him was more than they could handle. That heretic had found his final destination.
‘I heard he’s ready to give his liver and gallbladder to that S-class Guide who awakened late.’
Especially since he was a team member notorious for being difficult to control even for Captain Kwon Jeonghoo, attention was even more focused. Just who had tamed that free-spirited Esper?
“I guess the rumor that hyung is gay has already spread everywhere?”
Yoon Minoh, who glanced sideways at Gu Seohyun, cheerfully informed him. He pretended to whisper and brought his lips close to Yeo Dowoon’s ear to speak, but his voice spread far and wide as if he were performing a musical.
If he had to be precise, it wasn’t that he liked men but that he only liked Cha Haseong, and to take it to the extreme, even if Cha Haseong had been a rock or tree bark he would have liked him—Yeo Dowoon really wanted to raise his voice and protest.
“Even if I were gay, I don’t like you.”
But he barely suppressed the impulse. Instead, he blurted out the sentence that could most directly express his feelings. A frontal attack was the best method to shut Yoon Minoh’s petty mouth.
“Wow. I’m so happy that hyung, who would hate me even if he were gay, is gay.”
However, Yoon Minoh went even further with his answer. Yeo Dowoon responded irritably.
“Don’t be happy.”
“The sky looks brilliant because hyung, who tells me not to be happy, is gay.”
“We’re indoors, where’s the sky?”
“I’m grateful that hyung, who doesn’t understand metaphorical expressions, is gay. Could this be our love?”
At this rate, he would soon experience a collapse phenomenon starting with ge, ge, ge… what was it again? Anyway, something starting with ‘ge.’
Yeo Dowoon withdrew his wretched competitive spirit in order to maintain his healthy mental state for as long as possible.
Under the conviction that there was no point in beating a snotty brat, he tried to ignore Yoon Minoh.
“…Let’s meet when there’s a chance next time, noona. I’ll buy you drinks.”
Whip, when he turned his head and gave a sparse greeting, Gu Seohyun readjusted her whip with her bare hand without gloves.
“This is why S-class Espers need to be periodically locked up in training facilities and re-educated.”
She took an attack stance with elegant gestures. Tzzzt, electric currents sparked from the tautly pulled whip. Having savored her ability, she brought up the Director’s direct message for the second time.
“If Delta Yeo Dowoon refuses to carry out the operation.”
Yeo Dowoon was very impressed by her maintaining an unwavering firm tone of voice.
“He will be immediately suppressed.”
So as soon as her words roughly ended, he retorted.
“What if you can’t suppress me?”
“……”
“Then what happens to you, noona?”
Gu Seohyun was an Esper who didn’t assume failure.
A former teacher scolded her former student.
“I’ll have to remove your label as my student.”
You should have attacked instead of asking. Soon, the special whip armed with strong electric current violently charged in.
***
Air enters the lungs crisply through the throat.
“Haah, hah…”
Yeo Dowoon took sharp breaths. When the whip Gu Seohyun wielded struck the ground, sparks resembling lightning burst out over a wide range. Just watching made his spine tingle.
‘If I let my guard down, I’ll get hit.’
While it wasn’t difficult to dodge and run from her whip, Yeo Dowoon had already noticed early on that it wasn’t an attack aimed at him as the target point.
His vision narrowed from the flashing lights, making it quite troublesome.
‘…The space is already limited, and at this rate she’ll destroy everything.’
Now it wasn’t a matter of property damage, but rather a situation where he had to worry whether the building might collapse by mistake. If he counterattacked without considering intervals, density, or height, only his annual salary would be cut for repair costs. Kwang! The whip shook the ground once more.
Damn it. He couldn’t easily secure his vision. It would be a stroke of luck if he didn’t go blind like this. When he briefly lowered his eyelids and then snapped them open, colorful colors floated around.
“Answer without delay, Yeo Dowoon.”
Gu Seohyun thoroughly targeted his weakness. Even if she was inferior to him in terms of ability, her win rate was by no means low. After all, she had been the instructor in charge of Yeo Dowoon’s training from the start.
“This operation. Are you boycotting because your Guide is joining?”
Based on his characteristics, seizing advantageous ground was a piece of cake. The chunk of glacier Yeo Dowoon hastily released seemed unable to overcome the electric current in the end, cracking with an appalling bursting sound.
“You’re throwing away the operation for just that petty reason?”
At Gu Seohyun’s direct question and scolding, Yeo Dowoon answered while touching the ground to erect a new glacier.
“…He’s not my Guide.”
Cha Haseong would find the very situation of being referred to like someone’s possession distasteful. If it were related to him, he’d be even more displeased.
“Well, I am boycotting, that’s true. But I don’t want to go on an operation where I have to be responsible for defensive personnel too.”
“You mustn’t forget that defensive personnel are also combat strength.”
“Haha… Combat strength?”
Moreover, unlike five years ago when he had ignorantly only craved him, Yeo Dowoon had inscribed one true realization in his heart. He mustn’t treat him as his own just because he wanted to possess him.
“As if Guides would be combat strength, noona.”
Because his special affection might feel like a burden to him.
Kwakwang, keudeudeudeuk!
The thickness of the glacier built up for defense was about four times thicker than before, so it didn’t break no matter how directly it was hit by the electric current. Collision sounds like earthquake noises ran rampant due to the clash of wavelengths.
‘I need to hold out a bit longer.’
Yeo Dowoon decided to buy time behind the glacier until his dimmed vision returned to normal. Gu Seohyun, who had approached close enough to personally stroke and touch the ice wall that had risen up, said.
“Arrogant brat. Your job is to run operations according to strategy, not to burst your superiors’ patience by meddling in everything.”
“……”
“How much the Director…”
But in the middle of her outburst, she suddenly bit her own lips. After silence, a cold voice leaked out.
“…Ridiculous.”
Even though she seemed not to lose her composure at a glance, undisguisable contempt rippled in her irises.
“If you knew thanks to whom you can lord around, you wouldn’t even be able to pull off such thick-faced behavior.”
It was an emotion that also connected to resentment.
The bond Gu Seohyun and Kwon Jeonghoo shared was very different in direction from the bond flowing between Kwon Jeonghoo and Yeo Dowoon. During the dozens of years they had been affiliated with the Esper base, they had been each other’s competitors and fences.
“Moderately irritate the Director, Dowoon. Before innocent Jeonghoo is the only one who suffers.”
Even Kwon Jeonghoo’s father, Kwon Hyeokun, seemed to have marked her as a prospective daughter-in-law.
His affection and trust toward Gu Seohyun would be sufficiently proven just by the fact that she, an S-class Esper, belonged to the Suppression Team rather than an operation team.
And this meant that Gu Seohyun not only had the ability to subdue Espers of lower rank than herself, but also possessed the authority to handle even Espers of equal rank.
The one who had granted her that authority was none other than Kwon Hyeokun.
