“You resemble him. A lot.”
“Pardon?”
Jaehwi looked at him again.
“Esper Min. The person I like… Ah, it’s hard to explain it that way. You really resemble the person in my heart.”
Would he feel even worse? But since it was the truth, Raon let the words spill out as they came. He wouldn’t know who he was talking about, so he wanted to speak honestly.
“Your personalities aren’t similar, but now that I think about it, that person’s original personality might be different from the one I knew. Anyway, when I look at Esper Min, I keep thinking of that person. I guess that’s why personal feelings get involved. At my age, what a disgraceful display toward someone so young.”
“Do you… like them very much?”
After a long pause, those words followed, and Raon grinned. Just moments ago, he’d asked directly if there was someone he liked, but this time the silence in between felt ticklish.
“Yeah.”
Jaehwi was looking at him, but now he didn’t have the confidence to keep looking back at him with clear eyes. The truth was, he wanted to reveal that he had regressed. That he had seen him dying. That before that, they had kissed, touched each other, and had been in a relationship where they slept and woke up together.
He felt like he would cling to him, saying that he knew he was lacking now and didn’t meet his standards, but that he would do better from now on. That he understood just a little bit how hard things were for him, and that he wouldn’t treat him bluntly or find him bothersome like before.
He wanted to pour it all out—that if he had known it would come to this, he wouldn’t have pushed him away when he approached, wouldn’t have worried alone about the situation and such things, and would have liked and loved him freely from the beginning.
The weather, which had been merely mediocre until moments ago, wasn’t getting any better. Dark, heavy clouds laden with moisture were gathering in the distance.
“Because I couldn’t say I like you or that I love you.”
“Do you want to say it?”
“…No one lives saying everything they want to say. Being stupid once is enough. I can’t be stupid twice. I don’t want to repeat the same mistake. I wish it would rain. So I can be gloomy to my heart’s content. Strangely, when I’m gloomy on a clear day, it feels like I shouldn’t be.”
Before he finished speaking, a downpour began to pour from the rain clouds. When he turned his head slightly to look at Jaehwi, his shoulders moved lightly.
“That rain. Can you change it to snow?”
The magnificent sight of dark gray storm clouds rapidly approaching while scattering rain unfolded before his eyes.
“If you want to see a weather warning issued, I’ll do it for you. Ah, but have about 5 Guides on standby immediately.”
“I’m a Guide too.”
It wasn’t just a downpour—the wind was also raging, as the rain falling from the approaching storm clouds relentlessly and roughly beat against the window.
“…I refuse. But when did you start liking that person?”
How did they end up having this conversation? At the suddenly soft turn in the conversation, Raon drank the rest of his coffee.
“From the beginning. Love at first sight, bam! Has Esper Min ever liked anyone?”
Raon turned his body completely, his back to the window, to look at Jaehwi.
“Yes.”
“What?”
You’re 20 years old. How long has it even been since you became free from NCSC? Or did you date someone there? At this fact he had never heard from the past Jaehwi, Raon found himself questioning loudly without realizing it.
“I can’t have someone I like?”
He had been so surprised that he revealed his raw emotions without filtering them at all, and Jaehwi’s expression wasn’t good, as if something had made him uncomfortable again.
“Who is it? No. That’s… Ah, that’s.”
Could it be a Guide? Then. Should he ask to tell him about that Guide? Or. An Esper? An Esper could like an Esper. Recalling Jaehwi’s narrow range of human relationships, Raon couldn’t easily pinpoint anyone.
“Do you think you’d know if I told you who it is? We don’t have a single overlapping human relationship.”
At Jaehwi’s following words, Raon only felt more confused. If it was somewhere that didn’t overlap with him, it would be NCSC, but currently Jaehwi was meeting people not only from MK Center but also from other centers. He wanted to ask who it was, whether he knew them or not, but his tightly closed lips wouldn’t open.
“I don’t plan to confess either. I just buried it in my heart. So don’t make that face and be confused. I’m thinking of getting along decently with a Guide who matches my grade and compatibility, even if not to the point of bonding, so Team Leader Kang just needs to find me a suitable Guide.”
“Why?”
The more he heard Jaehwi’s words, the more he felt like he was sinking into a deep swamp, and Raon shook his head lightly.
“If Team Leader Kang confesses to the person you like, then I’ll try confessing to the person I like too.”
Watching Jaehwi say such terrifying words with a grin, Raon let out a small sigh.
“I take back what I just said.”
“Why?”
“Because if you do what you just said, Esper Min won’t be able to confess until you die.”
It seemed like it was about time for Jay to arrive, so Raon got up with his empty coffee cup. As he was moving his feet to place the coffee cup on the bar, Raon stopped. And he looked down at his wrist that a large hand was grasping.
“…Does that person really resemble me?”
Since he was standing, Raon looked down at Jaehwi and met his black eyes. And he answered.
“Actually, you don’t resemble him at all.”
His handsome face, which had been devoid of emotion, twisted slightly. And with a deflated sigh, his hand fell away from the wrist he had been holding. “I got worked up for nothing. Thinking there was another person as handsome as me in the world.” At Jaehwi’s frivolous words, Raon nodded a couple of times as if in agreement and passed by him.
“I’m going to use the bathroom.”
“Let’s go together.”
Raon, who had been heading toward the bathroom by the guest room, found his steps held back once more by Jaehwi’s words. Go where together? I just said I’m going to use the bathroom. It’s not like there’s only one bathroom—there are two. Even if there was only one, there’s no reason for us to go together.
Looking at Jaehwi so awkwardly that a creaking sound seemed to come out, Raon couldn’t even manage his expression properly. But questioning him would also be strange.
Unlike himself, who had fallen into utter confusion not knowing how to interpret or accept his words, he couldn’t take his eyes off Jaehwi, who tilted his head back and drank his cold coffee. Does a competent guy even have a handsome Adam’s apple?
“Team Leader Kang. What are you thinking right now?”
His eyes met with Jaehwi, who had straightened his body, and at the words he offered, Raon rolled his eyes slightly to avoid his gaze.
“You didn’t misunderstand it as me asking to go to the bathroom together, did you?”
If not that. If not that, then where are we going together? In this situation, if you speak without attaching a subject, what else is left besides that?
Knowing that bringing it up would only eat away at his own dignity, Raon chose silence.
“The dungeon. You seem to want to find a suitable Esper and go dungeon raiding starting from low-grade dungeons, so I’m saying I’ll do that with you.”
“Why?”
“Even if I tell you not to go because it’s dangerous, you’ll go anyway.”
“This has nothing to do with Esper Min.”
It’s something I’m doing because I want to be of help to you, but taking you there doesn’t make sense. More than anything, he was someone who wanted Jaehwi to rest. He’d been dragged around like a dog for over 10 years without being able to rest properly.
It was only a few days ago that, unlike before, he decided not to unconditionally tie him down but to only permit him to enter dungeons that really needed him and were profitable.
“I’m going to contract with MK. Where is there an Esper more trustworthy and skilled than me? I’ll do it for free without expecting anything in return.”
“So why would Esper Min volunteer to do that?”
“Who else besides me were you planning to take?”
A relationship strictly bound by work. With that level of expression, tone, and appropriate formal speech, then suddenly informal speech popping out and familiar expressions—Raon hesitated and pulled his body back. Although they hadn’t had many long conversations since his regression, now that he thought about it, this had happened several times.
Even in their conversations from when he opened his eyes until now, informal speech had popped out of his mouth several times along with a grumpy voice.
“With an unrankable grade, if you go around dungeon raiding low-grade dungeons with only the revered Nox trailing behind you, people will look at it strangely. Probably with me getting cursed. Abuse of authority or…”
“Don’t you think the fact that Team Leader is already using your authority to raid low-grade dungeons alone without the center knowing is itself a sufficient problem?”
Was he always this logical? Raon missed the Jaehwi who would just say “Yeah, yeah!” when he spoke. Was it his imagination that Jaehwi, standing crookedly with his arms crossed, felt bigger than usual? Even if he said he wouldn’t go to dungeons from now on, he wouldn’t believe it, and it was expected that sneaking around wouldn’t be easy either.
“Don’t rack your brain.”
Raon, who had been trying to moderately and nicely reject the proposal by presenting a reason that he would find acceptable, slightly raised one eyebrow at Jaehwi’s words.
“But Esper Min. You do know that I’m older than you, right?”
“You bring up age when it’s disadvantageous for you, but you act exactly like a three-year-old child. Think it over carefully while you shower. I really hope you find a valid reason that anyone would acknowledge in the meantime.”
Without his hand touching Raon’s fingertips, he could only watch blankly as Jaehwi snatched away just the coffee cup and took it with him, then turn his body toward the bathroom. They certainly had similar shameless aspects, but this guy wasn’t the Jaehwi he knew.
