“Sit down for a second.”
It was a spot where relatively flat pieces of concrete debris had gathered. Moon Woo-shin dropped down first and gestured with his eyes.
Hae-il took his time for no real reason — checking the surrounding area for hazards, confirming the positions and angles of the nearby wreckage in case they needed to take cover if something unexpected happened — and only then did he slowly make his way over.
The moment he sat down, he flinched and quickly shifted himself about a hand’s width to the side. His body had misjudged the distance again and planted itself right next to Moon Woo-shin. For a few seconds, the length of his thigh pressed against Moon Woo-shin’s felt like it shot up several degrees in temperature.
He could feel the pointed stare, so he spoke first before getting lectured.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s just that I keep losing control of my spacing because of the guiding.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You told me not to make things uncomfortable.”
“I meant don’t react like everything is some kind of urgent emergency. Do I have to spell out every single thing before you get it?”
“Oh.”
Either way, he’s giving me a hard time regardless.
He was grumbling internally when Moon Woo-shin laid his palm open in front of Hae-il.
“Give me your hand.”
“…Why my hand?”
“Guiding.”
“…I don’t need it yet?”
“Losing control of your spacing like that is also a symptom of guiding deprivation.”
He knew that happened with some Espers. But Hae-il had never once in his life lost control of himself because he was low on guiding. Especially not like this — pressing up against a guide. The worst it ever got was physical pain.
Well, actually — now that he thought about it, there had been one time. A few years ago. With Moon Woo-shin. And that time too, it had been Moon Woo-shin.
Seeing him immediately declare it a guiding deprivation symptom, it seemed like he’d interpreted that incident the same way back then — just a case of being low on guiding. That was honestly a relief.
“Then let’s do emission guiding.”
Hae-il bit the inside of his cheek and offered the alternative, but Moon Woo-shin gave a sharp, sarcastic laugh.
“Having a partner like that and barely ever running low on guiding — must be nice.”
What is he talking about. What partner?
He was briefly confused, but it came back to him quickly. The time he’d been caught right after making contact with Choi Ji-yeon. Moon Woo-shin had jumped to conclusions and said something dismissive, so Hae-il had snapped and played along.
But there was no real reason to correct it now. He also didn’t particularly want to admit that this had never happened to him due to actual guiding deprivation symptoms before.
Hae-il played dumb and asked back.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“After holding out without guiding for that long and going almost to empty — you think emission guiding is going to do anything properly right after that?”
Moon Woo-shin reached out with his open hand and grabbed Hae-il’s wrist, then tapped the face of the watch.
The guiding index, which had filled up to 100% after the mucosal guiding and had still been in the 80s just a few minutes ago, had suddenly dropped to 50% — cut in half.
“We’re lucky it’s not spiking all over the place with no rhyme or reason.”
Come to think of it, before leaving the Special Abilities Agency, there had always been guides on standby nearby, and an obligatory guiding schedule consistently assigned on top of that. So unless a Gate operation wasn’t going according to plan, he rarely had reason to skip guiding. He’d never held out this long relying on guiding pills instead of direct contact with a guide.
Maybe Moon Woo-shin was right — maybe this really was genuine guiding deprivation symptoms. Something almost like hope flickered faintly.
“Take it while you have the chance, and don’t make a fuss.”
He was worried about losing his head again like he had that morning and doing something ridiculous, but if the guide was saying contact guiding was the only option, he had no choice but to go along with it.
“…Okay.”
In the end, Hae-il answered without resistance and extended his hand.
This time I have to keep a proper grip on myself.
As he was making that resolution, Moon Woo-shin, who had been watching him for a moment, soon closed his hand firmly around his. A large hand with a lukewarm warmth wrapped around his generously, and through the point of contact, guiding began flowing in slowly.
Fortunately, the gentle, mild-density guiding was nothing like what had happened that morning. There was no dense, suffocating tension — it was simply comfortable and pleasant. Whether it was because Moon Woo-shin’s Wavelength was in a more stable state than before, or whether he was doing something differently, Hae-il couldn’t tell.
As he adjusted bit by bit and became certain that this time would be alright, other thoughts quickly pushed their way into his head.
But, he really knows a lot about this.
There would have been very little reason to encounter an Esper in guiding deprivation under normal circumstances. Especially for someone who didn’t even go in and out of Gates.
For Moon Woo-shin — a guide — to have a full grasp of guiding deprivation symptoms and how to handle them… didn’t that mean he’d been through situations like this many times?
Well, he was part of an organization, so maybe he’d run into Espers involved in criminal activity pretty often. If those people hadn’t been able to get guiding on time — had he done it for them directly? Just like how, only a few hours ago, he’d kissed him so easily and turned away like nothing had happened at all….
Come to think of it, he’d seemed quite experienced at kissing too. Given how completely Hae-il had lost his head from how good it felt.
Back when we were students, he did all the obligatory guiding through emission only.
He had always seemed like such a tall, impenetrable wall to him.
Had coming back after graduation to an organization that felt like home eased his mind and lowered that wall. Did he think of the organization’s members as something like family.
In that case — did he guide all the members regularly too? In an environment like that, guides were rarer than Espers. That meant there was no way someone with guiding ability would let it go to waste.
The further his thoughts went, the more his mood quietly sank.
He was sinking deeper and deeper into his thoughts when —
“What do you think?”
“Sorry?”
Hae-il startled at the voice cutting in out of nowhere and turned his head. Moon Woo-shin’s face came into sharp focus through the haze that had clouded his vision.
“This Gate. There’s not a single thing about it that’s normal.”
A serious expression, deep in thought. All at once, an old memory surfaced vividly. It was a look he had seen often when they were on the same team. The face he made when he was analyzing a situation and forming a strategy.
It made his pointless preoccupation feel foolish. It didn’t matter how Moon Woo-shin was living his life or who he was giving guiding to — none of it had anything to do with Hae-il.
He barely had enough time to think about how to get out of here in the first place.
Hae-il pushed his feelings down and replied in a composed voice.
“It’s definitely strange. Starting with the fact that we’ve covered quite a bit of ground and haven’t found a single trace of a monster.”
“At least along the path we’ve traveled — there were no monsters. Not a single one.”
“How can you be sure?”
“My ability. If there’s a living creature in the vicinity that can be mentally controlled, I can sense it.”
A useful ability in more ways than one.
Hae-il had been about to brush past the new information without reacting — but he paused, just barely noticeably.
…So that’s why every time I tried to move without him noticing, he caught on immediately? No wonder it kept not working.
It was also a good opportunity to dig a little more into his ability.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘vicinity’? What’s the range?”
“As far as I can see with my own eyes.”
“Places you can’t directly see too?”
“Most of them.”
He had casually asked only what was relevant to the current situation, and the answers came back just as readily.
How am I supposed to get past those eyes from now on. He already felt like the difficulty had gone up sharply when dealing with someone who was already a handful.
That was a future problem though, so he pushed it aside — what he needed to focus on right now was the Gate.
If Moon Woo-shin was comfortable enough to say “most of them,” it was safe to assume he’d swept the area without missing anything. There truly had not been a single monster along the path they’d traveled.
Hae-il rubbed his forehead with his free hand and slowly opened his mouth.
