# Chapter 4
*Bang!*
The door closed violently.
“Ha…”
Jiwon, who had been instantly driven out onto the street, chuckled dryly.
“Hey, Esper. I’m cold out here.”
The weather in early December was chilly. Jiwon’s shoulders, covered only by a thin cardigan since he had come by car, trembled slightly.
“I’ve already moved out of my place, you know? I have nowhere to go.”
Suhyun remained silent. No matter how soundproof the house was, there was no way Suhyun, as an Esper, couldn’t hear his voice. He was simply ignoring him.
“All my stuff is already in there. Why am I the only one being thrown out with nothing?”
When the moving company had arrived, Suhyun had been too busy assessing the situation to do anything else, so he had first kicked Jiwon out. Thanks to that, Jiwon had nothing in his hands.
“Ah, it’s cold. I’m going to freeze to death! So my life was destined to freeze to death on the street while trying to do some guiding…!”
Jiwon deliberately moaned in complaint. He had anticipated this situation too, so there was no need to panic. After all, he hadn’t started this without a backup plan; it’s easy to make a scene when you have something solid behind you.
“Esper Seo Suhyun! Is freezing! His Guide! To death! And stealing! All my belongings!”
His throat hurt from shouting loud enough to make the neighborhood resound.
‘Look at what I’m reduced to.’
When was the last time he had shouted like this? He didn’t think he had done this even when he was young…
Fortunately, there were no passersby. Otherwise, it would have been very embarrassing. Jiwon looked around cautiously and then cleared his throat again.
“Oh my! In the dead of winter! Kicking someone out…!”
“Stop it.”
Fortunately, Jiwon’s tantrum didn’t last long. Suhyun had reappeared, more easily than expected.
“Can I come in?”
Jiwon had thought Suhyun might have opened the door to throw out his belongings too, but Suhyun’s hands were empty. He had already told the moving company they might need to take the stuff back inside…
“Let’s talk here.”
“It’s cold, though?”
“That’s not my problem.”
“…Ooh, it’s cold. It feels like the middle of winter already.”
Jiwon exaggeratedly shook his shoulders. It was fortunate that Suhyun seemed willing to listen. Though his intention was probably to find fault with everything Jiwon said and send him away.
“Before we talk, could you give me my bag? There are important documents inside.”
Well, this was a fight Suhyun couldn’t win anyway. Jiwon hadn’t harbored any hopeful thoughts that Suhyun would accept him if he just forced his way in, so he had prepared something in advance.
Suhyun brought out Jiwon’s bag with a sullen look. His posture of blocking the doorway showed his persistent unwillingness to let Jiwon inside.
“Here.”
Let’s see how long he’ll stay stubborn.
Jiwon smiled and took out documents from an envelope in his bag. Suhyun’s eyes moved quickly as he received the papers with a clear Association seal stamped on them.
He soon raised his head. For some reason, Jiwon felt like laughing at his stiffly frozen face.
“I’m going in now. I don’t need… your permission, right?”
***
If you have justification and evidence, it becomes easier to shape situations as you want.
“…Did you really have to do it this way?”
“You’re the one who created this situation, Esper. You should have either called me or responded to my calls. You should have done one of those two things.”
“I didn’t need guiding yet.”
“To the eyes of a Guide with 10 years of experience, you should have received guiding a long time ago.”
Suhyun, seeming frustrated, ran his hand through his hair. Jiwon shrugged as he gazed at the other’s straight forehead.
The house was so clean it felt empty, but looking at Suhyun’s wavelength was distressing. The unstably neglected wavelength made him feel nauseous.
During guiding, a Guide shares the Esper’s pain. This means that the more an Esper suffers from neglect, the more painful it is for the Guide doing the guiding.
He wanted to stabilize the wavelength as soon as possible, but conversation had to come first. In fact, he had already suggested doing the guiding first, but it had been ignored, so he had no other choice.
“Couldn’t you have consulted with me before reporting?”
Jiwon laughed as if it was absurd.
“How could I consult with an Esper who doesn’t answer calls? Do you have no conscience?”
Suhyun closed his mouth. There was nothing he could say.
“Conscienceless Esper Suhyun. Having the audit team visit me once to question work negligence is enough. Now that we’ve signed a dedicated contract, we can’t just brush it off as a one-time incident like before. This time, I might really receive a severe punishment. You’re the one avoiding it, but I’m the one who suffers, right? So I had no choice but to do this.”
Managing an Esper’s wavelength is a very important task. When they use their abilities, their wavelength becomes disturbed, and if it goes beyond a certain level, it leads to what’s called a “rampage,” where the Esper loses their sanity.
An Esper in rampage spews their overflowing power everywhere and eventually self-destructs. Guides exist to prevent this outcome that no one wants.
In other words, if an Esper’s wavelength is a mess, it’s a system where the Guide inevitably gets blamed.
When Suhyun suddenly refused guiding and stopped coming to the center before, Jiwon had clearly realized this as he received all the blame from the higher-ups. And that was when he wasn’t even a dedicated Guide.
He had not the slightest intention of repeating that unfair situation.
“Keeping your wavelength in such a mess and still continuing to go to dungeons… is this perhaps an expression of your dissatisfaction with me?”
“I clearly told you that I didn’t need guiding yet. There’s no problem with me going to dungeons.”
“Let’s see… Your wavelength stability is at 46. The ‘caution’ level is from 40 to 50, and below 40 is the ‘danger’ level… So you’re saying that if your stability drops just 6 more points, you’ll be in a dangerous state?”
Jiwon sarcastically recited Suhyun’s status as shown on his watch.
Well, Suhyun might just be doing what he’s always done. He must be used to going around in such a precarious state.
However, now that their dedicated contract had been announced, Suhyun needed to maintain a stability level of at least 70. Even that would only be at the ‘fair’ level, far from the ‘stable’ level.
“From now on, I will determine whether you need guiding or not. You’ve become too accustomed to an unstable state, Esper.”
Jiwon spoke firmly.
“As you’ve probably read, you can only go to dungeons after I determine that your condition is okay. So you’ll need to cooperate.”
Suhyun’s face was fierce. In his hands, the papers Jiwon had brought were crumpled pitifully.
[As the Esper frequently refuses guiding and disappears without reaching an agreement on living arrangements, I request that the Esper’s right to express opinions on the above matters be revoked.]
It was a report cum request that Jiwon had submitted to the Association’s higher-ups regarding their living arrangements.
Inside were attached phone call records, call-button records, and more. These were evidence that Jiwon had tried to contact Suhyun multiple times. Pressing the button repeatedly, even knowing Suhyun wouldn’t come, was all for this purpose.
Additionally, he had attached all the non-accompaniment excuse forms that Suhyun had submitted without Jiwon’s knowledge after arbitrarily going to dungeons.
Suhyun was being uncooperative with guiding while participating in dungeon clearances, maintaining an unstable wavelength.
The Association had no choice but to side with the Guide.
[The Esper can only participate in dungeons when the Guide determines that the dedicated Esper’s condition is satisfactory.]
The Association’s response was scattered haphazardly on the table. This was because Suhyun had discarded it after reading it all.
With this, Suhyun could not go to dungeons without Jiwon’s permission.
[The Esper’s location is shared in real-time. This setting can only be changed when the Guide requests to change the setting value.]
Not only that, Jiwon could now receive real-time updates on Suhyun’s location. Regardless of Suhyun’s wishes.
“See? If only you’d been a bit more cooperative.”
Jiwon smiled and acted nonchalant. It was the smile that Jungyeom had said made him uneasy.
“Getting such a response just days after the contract, doesn’t that mean you prepared for this from the beginning?”
Suhyun’s gaze was quite sharp.
“That’s right.”
But it had no impact whatsoever on Jiwon.
“I anticipated that Esper Suhyun would act like this. Though I had hoped otherwise.”
He was sincere. If Suhyun had been cooperative, contrary to his expectations, there would have been no reason to go this far.
“We’re doing a job, Esper. I mean that we should both work hard at what we need to do.”
Don’t avoid guiding and receive it properly. Jiwon’s demand was concise.
“If you just cooperate, I don’t plan to stay here long either.”
He dangled the carrot that he could leave this house anytime if Suhyun just cooperated, but Suhyun turned his head away.
Well, even if Suhyun obediently received guiding, Jiwon had planned to continue staying at Suhyun’s house.
‘The rumors seem to be true.’
Because the situation required it.
‘Yenin’s life response has completely ceased.’
The words of Jo Wooyeon, Jiwon’s direct senior who was now the team leader of the Guide Integration Department’s Team 1, swirled in his head.
‘Should we consider him dead?’
‘…Probably.’
An S-class Esper going without a dedicated Guide for two years is clearly a big problem. But he had been regularly visiting the center to receive guiding. Even without a contract, in an emergency, Jiwon would have rushed over, so there was actually still time to find another Guide.
Yet the Association had rushed their contract because there was growing certainty about the speculation that Russia’s S-class Esper had died in a dungeon for unknown reasons.
An S-class Esper’s unexplained death.
It was no longer a situation where they could afford to neglect their country’s only S-class Esper.
