For moving his body so urgently, Jaehwi’s presence was perfectly concealed. Stopping his feet in a small space with a cozy atmosphere in the deepest part of the dungeon, a hollow sigh spun idly in his mouth. What his senses had found was one familiar person’s breathing.
Calm and stable, feeling Raon’s breathing when he’d fallen into deep sleep inside a dungeon didn’t make sense. But the moment he felt it, Jaehwi, who had entered here without a moment’s hesitation, couldn’t say anything about the scene unfolding before his eyes.
Who would have thought he’d meet Raon sleeping in a pond filled with warmth-laden mist. It wasn’t like the fairy and the woodcutter story. Instead of a bathing fairy, the one deeply asleep was fully dressed. The problem was that it was all soaked.
Standing there like that in that spot, Jaehwi watched Raon for a long time. His neat hair was thoroughly wet, and water droplets forming at the tips of his hair slowly dripped onto his shoulders. His fair skin held a pinkish flush from the heat of the warm water.
Lowering his body, Jaehwi reached out his hand to catch the water droplets falling from his hair with the tip of his index finger. If he reached his hand out just a little more, he could touch his hair or touch his smooth, warm cheek.
He acted as if he was sharp in everything, but he really was careless in the most unexpected places. No matter how low-grade the dungeon was, enough to naturally dissipate, a dungeon was a dungeon. Opening the backpack placed beside him, the corners of Jaehwi’s mouth twisted up crookedly as he checked one by one the things packed as if preparing for something.
He’d thought there was nothing worth money on the way in, but quite decent materials were well organized inside the bag. He’d even packed an expensive dungeon tablet and had a radio too. It was obvious he’d made full preparations, enough that he couldn’t make an excuse about stopping by because it was on the way.
He said dungeons were terrible. So he was the one who repeatedly emphasized not to go in if possible. But for him to enter a dungeon himself… With his molars clenched tightly, Jaehwi’s gaze, who had turned on the tablet, briefly touched Raon, but he concentrated a bit more on checking the contents in the tablet.
Raon had deliberately chosen a low-grade dungeon with certain safety. He’d walked around alone, came all the way to the innermost part of the dungeon, checked things related to water quality too. And what he decided on was a hot spring bath?
Really brilliant. Brilliant.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know about dungeon dates and such. But alone with what thoughts. And why did he go in fully dressed again? No matter how much he thought about it, Jaehwi, who couldn’t see into all of Raon’s small head, checked the current time.
Though there was leeway until the dungeon’s expected dissipation time, no matter how good a hot spring bath was, doing it for a long time strained the body.
“I’ll look forward to what you’ll say when you wake up.”
Though he could have safely taken him out of the water using telekinesis, Jaehwi didn’t care and walked into the water as is. Water filled his always-worn military boots and the hem of his pants got wet, but more than that, he was careful not to wake Raon from the water sounds and water ripples he created as he moved.
The body soaked with water came into his arms. Raon briefly frowned and mumbled, wondering how deeply he’d fallen asleep. When he adjusted his hold to press him close to his body, he briefly watched Raon, who leaned his head on his chest and yawned softly without even opening his eyes.
Though he could blow away all the moisture—both his thoroughly wet body and the water sloshing inside his boots—with his ability, Jaehwi didn’t do so. A trail of water extended along the path Jaehwi walked. Without placing his gaze on the car in front of the dungeon, he retraced the path he’d come.
Wet and exposed to the chilly night air, he enjoyed watching Raon curl up his body and cling closer to him as if cold. From the moment he touched Raon’s body, he could tell for certain. There was no need to struggle to suppress his rampaging senses. Because they’d completely disappeared.
Even Hyukjin, who analyzed everything scientifically and pursued clear answers, wouldn’t be able to uncover these things happening between Raon and himself. Good compatibility too—guiding was the foundation within that. Bonding… Whether it was in the past childhood or at some point, if they’d bonded, he wouldn’t be able to accept another Guide’s guiding.
But currently, though unpleasant, he’d accepted radiative guiding and was maintaining a stability level above a certain standard.
“Catching a cold… I don’t care. If you know how reckless you were, you won’t do it going forward.”
He seated him in the passenger seat, turned on the seat warmers, and turned on the heater too, but watching Raon curl up from the coldness transmitted by his now completely cold clothes wasn’t a pleasant feeling. Rather, if he’d fussed about finding another Guide like before, he would have gladly accepted.
Though it was something that could all be solved with abilities, Jaehwi headed to the hotel without any intervention. Ideally, he should go to the hotel room he used so he could be mentally comfortable, change him into the pajamas he liked, and let him sleep on the bed and sheets he’d specially chosen. Instead, if he did that, the fact that they’d regressed together would be discovered.
Having covered people’s eyes with his ability and entered the hotel room, the first thing he did was strip off Raon’s wet clothes and put his own clothes on him. And he laid him down in the bedroom of the main room he used. After covering him well with the blanket and leaving only the low-intensity bedroom light on, Jaehwi, who was about to leave, couldn’t readily move.
“…Cold.”
The hand that grabbed the end of his top and the small voice that flowed from his mouth completely caught Jaehwi’s feet.
“I raised the temperature, so it’ll get warm.”
He tried to gently remove the hand gripping his clothes. But the more he tried to do so, the more strength went into the small hand, and finally the veins of the fist tightly gripping his clothes stood out.
“Hwi?”
Unlike how he’d tried to remove the hand by any means, Jaehwi, who had been hesitating because he couldn’t be cold to Raon, was now making eye contact with him. Raon, whose eyes opened drowsily rather than round and bright as usual, smiled slightly.
But even that was brief—his lips jutted out, looking like he’d get a walnut chin, and finally his eyes grew wet and teardrops flowed sideways along the corners of his eyes.
“You died.”
At the murmur full of sobbing, Jaehwi squeezed his eyes shut.
“I didn’t die.”
“Yeah. Right. My Hwi is here right now.”
If he was going to cry, cry, if he was going to laugh, laugh. Raon, who let go of his clothes that he’d been gripping tightly like a lifeline until now and roughly swept his face with his hand, was crying while laughing.
“Just go to sleep.”
“Is this a dream?”
Jaehwi nodded his head while making eye contact with him.
“It is a dream. The current Hwi doesn’t like me, so he doesn’t look at me with those eyes. Hwi. Hold me until I fall asleep.”
“……”
“Answer.”
“……”
When he nodded again, Raon muttered “Answer” again.
“Yeah.”
When he answered clearly with his voice, only then did Raon tightly close his eyes that had been drowsily open. Even so, he didn’t release the strength from the hand gripping his clothes. Only after some time passed and Raon’s hand dropped did Jaehwi breathe properly.
Is there a way to erase memories? I want to erase all the bad memories.
Jaehwi’s hand, which had been pushing back Raon’s bangs that weren’t completely dry, hesitated. His expression grew cold as he carefully stroked the wet eye area. Jaehwi, who completely covered Raon’s forehead with his hand, slowly lowered his hand and also touched his nape.
“……”
Just because he wore wet clothes for about 30 minutes or so, he’s really sick? Caught a cold? Has a fever?
Jaehwi, who had always been surrounded by ability users, was ignorant about how easily ordinary people could get sick.
Broken limbs or a pierced belly with blood flowing out was common in dungeons. However, Espers would become fine as if asking when such a thing happened if they received a Guide’s guiding.
Jaehwi, who was used to living with those inhuman things that had no problems even spending days in jungle dungeons where wet clothes naturally dried and repeatedly got wet again or didn’t dry at all, couldn’t readily move.
What should I do with someone who has a fever and is drooping?
Should I call a doctor? If it were an Esper, he should call a Guide, but Raon was a Guide. Does guiding work on Guides too? He didn’t even know a doctor he could call at this hour. He’d never eaten or seen medicine except for stabilizers.
When he touched Raon’s forehead and touched his own forehead, Raon’s body temperature was definitely higher. Jaehwi, who had been alternately thinking of Jay and Hyukjin’s phone numbers, requested help from the hotel desk instead of calling them.
Holding Raon, whose fever had risen and was drooping, feeding him a few spoonfuls of thin porridge, and giving him fever reducer wasn’t easy work. By the time he’d finished all this work while coaxing and soothing, both his and Raon’s clothes were a complete mess.
After changing clothes again, finishing cleaning up, and returning to the bedroom, what Jaehwi faced was Raon lying on his side, curled up tightly, trembling while moaning in pain.
