“I’m really fine.”
“You’re not fine!”
“This much is sufficient.”
“What do you mean! Your gauge reading is 84% and the waves keep spiking.”
“I can rest at home. There’s substitute guiding medicine too.”
“Be honest with me. How effective is the medicine?”
Jiwon asked with a sharp expression that would only look cute to others. But the question was incisive.
“…To some extent, it is.”
He was definitely late in answering. And on top of that, ‘to some extent’! Not that it’s okay, but ‘to some extent’!
“Then go get guiding from another Guide. What about Guide Choi Hyerin?”
“……”
Though he could have made up some excuse, Seo Gangwoo kept his mouth shut. At the answer that didn’t come, Jiwon clung even more to Seo Gangwoo’s arm, launching a physical assault.
“No! You can’t go! I won’t let you!”
Just try leaving, absolutely not! Jiwon shook his small head side to side.
Seo Gangwoo, who had been looking with difficulty at the Guide dangling from his arm, eventually couldn’t beat Jiwon and lowered his body that had been trying to get up, sitting on the bed. He swept his hair back with the hand not caught by Jiwon.
If he received more guiding, there was nothing bad about it from Seo Gangwoo’s perspective. No, rather, he wanted to receive more of this pleasant guiding. It was the first proper guiding he’d felt since awakening as an Esper, so there was no way he could be indifferent. However, thinking of the Guide who must have overexerted himself doing a considerable amount of guiding, he had refused by forcing his heavy body that didn’t want to separate.
Confirming that Seo Gangwoo had sat back down on the bed, Jiwon recalled the hardship he’d gone through all night.
No matter what, that gauge reading won’t do!
I thought I could just send him to his pair Guide, but then he goes and terminates the contract. Why is he so nonchalant about it? It’s his own body…
Ever since childhood, Jiwon had suffered from getting colds that wouldn’t heal easily if he was exposed to even a little cold wind because of his sickly body, and if he walked even a little, his heart would hurt so he had to stop right there and wait a long time until the pain disappeared. He collapsed at the drop of a hat so he couldn’t even go around anywhere alone carelessly.
If there’s even one sick person in a family, the shoulders of the other family members also grow heavy. It wasn’t as if he deliberately had a weak body. No matter how much his family said it was okay, Jiwon had to feel guilty for his very existence. If his body hadn’t gradually improved as he grew up, it would have been hard to endure.
Jiwon’s family knew better than anyone how precious health was, so they never missed regular checkups, and if even a slight problem occurred in the body, they didn’t spare time or money and immediately went to the dentist, internal medicine, or orthopedics to get examined and treated. Because when you’re sick, it’s not just you who’s sick—the whole family feels upset.
People get concerned even over a tiny wound on one finger. Jiwon couldn’t imagine what kind of pain someone would be enduring while accepting gauge readings exceeding 80% as if it were familiar.
The side effects he’d heard about in training, each one of them serious, came to mind. The appearance of the person in question, indifferent as if it were just familiar, poked somewhere deep inside Jiwon, making it impossible to leave him alone.
“I won’t go, so you can stop guiding. You must have consumed a lot of energy guiding all night—if you’re not careful, you’ll retire.”
Jiwon became sulky because he didn’t like what Seo Gangwoo said.
In the midst of all this, who’s worrying about whom? I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. Even if I’m a novice Guide, as if I wouldn’t know that much! Stop worrying about others and worry about your own serious condition.
Jiwon grumbled inwardly.
Since Guides’ guiding amount wasn’t infinite either, if all their energy hit rock bottom, they could retire and collapse. If that happened, recovery would take a long time before returning to the original state, and they’d be bedridden.
That’s why the very first Guide practical training was to grasp one’s own guiding amount, go through the recovery process, and determine recovery time.
Though he had continuously poured out guiding all night, he had stopped after judging the remaining amount well. On top of that, Jiwon was among the top tier of Guides in terms of recovery time.
“My recovery time is on the fast side, so I’m fine. Sleeping and waking up is enough.”
Still, worried that he might be displeased at being clung to unreasonably and throwing a tantrum, Jiwon sneakily glanced at Seo Gangwoo. From the feeling, it didn’t seem like that. Since Seo Gangwoo didn’t show much change in expression, he might be wrong, but somehow it felt like he could tell what his mood was.
Anyway, having achieved his purpose, Jiwon let out a small sigh of relief. He unfolded the large blanket hanging on the bed head, wrapped it around his body, got up, and scurried over to bring the tablet on the office desk.
“First, let’s eat since we’re hungry.”
It was already going on 10 AM.
Jiwon turned on the tablet, entered the Center cafeteria page, looked at the appetizing food photos, and chose mushroom soup and omelet.
“Here. Choose what you want to order.”
Seo Gangwoo took the tablet, looked at the screen, and soon returned it. When he checked what he’d chosen, one more of the soup Jiwon had chosen was added.
“Is this okay? It seems like it won’t be enough.”
“That’s fine.”
Jiwon tilted his head, placed the order as is, and entered the men’s clothing store page within the Center.
“Choose underwear and comfortable clothes to wear here and place an order. I’ll wash up and come out.”
After handing the tablet to Seo Gangwoo and preparing spare slippers for him, Jiwon, wrapped in the blanket, gathered his clothes and entered the bathroom. He folded and placed the blanket on the item rack, entered the shower booth, and washed quickly. The breakfast he ordered would arrive soon, so his hands were busy.
After finishing his shower, he wiped his body with a towel and put on the clothes he’d brought. Yellow shorts that came above the knees and a loose-fitting white T-shirt.
He put the damp towel in the basket, came out of the bathroom while drying his hair with a new towel. In the meantime, whether the clothes he ordered had arrived, Seo Gangwoo was wearing comfortable black long pants.
“You can use the bathroom.”
“Then excuse me.”
While watching Seo Gangwoo’s back as he headed to the bathroom, he pressed the towel firmly on his head so water droplets wouldn’t fall.
Ding-dong—!
At that moment, the sound of the delivery arriving was heard, and Jiwon, who pulled in the tray from outside the door, moved the plates to the table and sat on the sofa. He soothed his growling stomach while waiting for Seo Gangwoo to come out.
As he sat without any particular thoughts, the area around the bed visible in front caught his eye. As if the things that happened last night weren’t a dream.
“Hup!”
Jiwon, who jumped up, rushed over and turned on the ventilation system. Perhaps feeling it was still insufficient, he opened the window on one side wide.
He grabbed the clothes on the stool and the blanket and shoved them all into the laundry room, and neatly folded Seo Gangwoo’s combat suit and placed it on the chair.
After opening the cabinet, taking out spare bed covers and blankets, and tidying up the bed, perfectly timed with that, the sound of the bathroom door opening with a click was heard.
A moment later, Seo Gangwoo came out of the bathroom lightly shaking his wet hair, and whether he had purchased even a black shirt for the top, he was black from head to toe.
“…Come over here.”
Jiwon, who had been making a fuss tidying up the disheveled room that reminded him of what had happened, gestured to Seo Gangwoo as if nothing had happened, guiding him to the sofa. The table was quite spacious and high, so Jiwon also often ate meals at this spot.
He removed the cover that had been placed over it so they could eat deliciously, placed it on the tray, and set down the utensils. Jiwon’s hand movements were quick as he was hungry.
“Enjoy your meal~!”
Jiwon scooped up a generous spoonful of mushroom soup, blew on it, and put it in his mouth. The warm and savory soup circled around in his mouth and went down to his stomach, making him feel alive. The appropriately seasoned soft omelet was also fluffy and perfectly suited to Jiwon’s taste.
Seo Gangwoo, who had been watching Jiwon eating deliciously while munching with his small mouth, also started his meal.
Seo Gangwoo didn’t eat regular meals well. Most of the time, he made do with meals using jerky and energy bars supplied by the Center so they could be eaten inside dungeon gates.
His sensitive senses also affected his sense of taste. Especially warm soup dishes like this were food he was eating for the first time in a really long time.
Thanks to Jiwon, who was doing radiant guiding while concentrating all his mind on the meal, Seo Gangwoo could fully feel the taste of the warm soup and have an ordinary meal for the first time in a long while.
“Would you like me to order more?”
“No. I’ve finished eating.”
Though it was too small a meal amount to maintain such a large build, since he said he was fine, Jiwon couldn’t force him, so he put the dishes back on the tray, put it outside, and requested collection.
Then, as if by habit, Jiwon, who entered the list of Espers who had applied for guiding on his work tablet, was startled.
There were an enormous number of people waiting for guiding applications.
For a week, Jiwon had diligently guided Espers in order of long waiting time and high gauge readings. Perhaps because of that, when he last checked, there weren’t many Espers who had been waiting a long time and the length of the list had also shortened a bit from the beginning, but overnight the number of people waiting had increased several times over.
“Did something happen yesterday by any chance? Why did the waiting Espers increase so much?”
Jiwon asked Seo Gangwoo with a flustered face.
“In the evening, gates were created simultaneously all across the country. Because the number of gates was large, Espers from each Center probably almost all deployed. Myself included.”
“What?! Simultaneous gates?”
“They were probably all cleared by the middle of dawn.”
Jiwon hurriedly found and checked his phone. There were messages from his family. Hojun, with whom he’d exchanged messages in the evening, had also left a message, perhaps finding out late since where he lived wasn’t included in the evacuation zone.
