“How many times did I say not to call me for Esper Yoon Bomi’s guiding? The same goes for Esper Lee Seonju’s guiding.”
At Director Ha Daehoon’s words, Team Leader Park quickly skimmed the list Ilkyung was holding.
“Team Leader-nim, because Esper Yoon Bomi is S-rank, the Guides who can be called are limited. Plus, there aren’t many Guides we can call right now…”
“It’s not like there are none at all.”
Ilkyung insisted it wasn’t his fault. It was protocol to call high-ranking Guides for S-rank Esper guiding. But does a company only operate by principles?
“Haha, Assistant Manager Woo. How’s that list I told you to make earlier? If you haven’t finished it yet, hurry and go do it. Director-nim, talk with me. There must have been some mistake in making the list.”
Team Leader Park smiled awkwardly and gestured at Ilkyung to hurry and go, shooing him away. Ilkyung left with a face full of dissatisfaction. Seeing that, Team Leader Park quickly began making excuses to Director Ha with a smiling face.
* * *
“I mean, then why wouldn’t you assign an S-rank Guide to an S-rank Esper instead of assigning a D-rank Guide!”
As soon as Ilkyung sat down with a face full of dissatisfaction, he complained to Section Chief Kang sitting next to him.
The Field Support Team that Ilkyung belonged to was divided into tasks of distributing Guides to Espers whether one-time or regular, tasks of checking matching rates, and tasks of determining pairs based on those results. Among these, Ilkyung’s job was distributing the remaining ability users to each other, excluding pairs.
“Our Assistant Manager Woo, did you get scolded by Director Ha again?”
“I didn’t get scolded! I mean, isn’t that right, Section Chief-nim? We need to assign a Guide to Esper Yoon Bomi right now, and among the Guides available, Director Ha is perfect, so what can I do?”
“The director told you not to call him for Esper Yoon Bomi’s guiding, so why did you assign him there? It’s been a while since that pair broke up. You could just assign a suitable A-rank or B-rank with good compatibility. Same with Esper Lee Seonju.”
Section Chief Kang shook his head as he spoke. But Ilkyung just felt frustrated.
“I mean, it’s so obvious to assign an S-rank Guide for S-rank Esper guiding. Even if they were a previous pair, it’s just work. Can’t it be done with just light skinship? And Director Ha can guide Esper Yoon Bomi and Esper Lee Seonju the fastest. Wouldn’t it be great to finish quickly and go home?”
Ilkyung was so heated that he gulped down the iced coffee in his tumbler. Watching him, Section Chief Kang only smiled.
“Well, it’s still hard for our Assistant Manager Woo to understand.”
Originally it’s like this with all work, but when you reach the seniority of just becoming an assistant manager, you feel like you’re doing something great. At that time, some inexplicable high fills you up and you think the direction you’re going is right. Section Chief Kang had experienced that, and so had the other seniors.
Moreover, Woo Ilkyung was passionate about work and objectively speaking, did his job well. He just lacked flexibility. And most of all, he really didn’t have good compatibility with Director Ha Daehoon.
Looking at today too, it seemed Woo Ilkyung had continuously called Director Ha to the guiding room for more Espers’ guiding. Theoretically, that was efficient, but he was still an executive. What executive would like being worked to death by a mere assistant manager? Woo Ilkyung was probably the only one who made executives work like that.
Also, Director Ha had firmly told them not to call him for guiding with Espers who were his previous pairs that had broken up. But Ilkyung would say “then who should I call for S-rank Esper guiding?” and always call him like this when it was urgent, which caused conflicts.
Ilkyung still didn’t understand why he got chewed out when he had done his work efficiently.
The Center was fine with S-rank Guide Director Ha Daehoon doing guiding for various Espers, but they hoped he would become the dedicated Guide for S-rank or A-rank Espers who inevitably had to be at the forefront of important incidents and accidents. S-rank and A-rank showed more outstanding abilities compared to ability users of other levels. So S-rank Guide Director Ha Daehoon, who could prevent such high-level Espers from going on rampages and draw out more of their abilities, was like a blessing that fell into their laps. So they kept pairing him with Espers with high matching rates, but the problem was that those pairs didn’t last more than two months before breaking up.
A few months ago, the Center announced that S-rank Esper Lee Seonju and Director Ha Daehoon had a matching rate of 72 percent, and people went crazy saying it was the best matching rate. Some people even said at this rate, they might develop from a pair into lovers. But as expected, the Ha Daehoon and Lee Seonju pair didn’t last more than two months.
After that was Esper Yoon Bomi. With Esper Yoon Bomi, he showed a matching rate of 69 percent. That wasn’t a bad matching rate either. After becoming paired with Daehoon, Esper Yoon Bomi was noticeably happy. But their pair didn’t even last a month.
“But Section Chief-nim, there’s something I’m really curious about.”
“What is it?”
“Why does Director Ha really break up pairs every time like that?”
At Ilkyung’s question, Section Chief Kang seemed to fall into thought, then quietly asked.
“Assistant Manager Woo, haven’t you heard the rumors about Director Ha?”
“What rumors? That he’s a player?”
The number of Espers who wanted to pair with Director Ha Daehoon and even imprint would probably be enough to go around the Center twelve times and still have some left. But somehow it seemed Director Ha’s cycle of forming and breaking pairs was getting shorter and shorter.
“I even heard a rumor that Director Ha is impotent.”
“What?”
“Lower your voice.”
At Section Chief Kang’s signal, Ilkyung looked around.
Rumors surrounding Director Ha were rampant. However, the content of the rumors ran to extremes. Some said Director Ha was a playboy who dated this woman and that woman, getting sick of them and ending things in less than three months, while others said he was frigid so he got dumped in less than three months.
Of course, forming a pair and dating were separate things. However, since guiding was mainly done through skinship, paired Espers and Guides generally ended up in romantic relationships. If you continuously had skinship and shared time and space, you inevitably came to share hearts as well.
However, no one could know about Director Ha’s love life. The truth of the rumors was the same. It was because the Espers who had been paired with him were uniformly tight-lipped.
“But, really, Section Chief-nim.”
“Hm?”
“Which rumor about Director Ha-nim is correct? Playboy? Or impotent?”
Ilkyung lowered his voice even more and asked. Then he looked around in case someone had heard. At that, Section Chief Kang shrugged his shoulders.
“If someone finds that out, the female Espers will take turns buying meals.”
“Section Chief-nim, Section Chief-nim.”
“What now?”
Even with the continued chatter, Section Chief Kang didn’t stop him or tell him to work instead. Section Chief Kang found Ilkyung bouncing around in indignation even cuter.
“Sometimes I’m curious.”
“About what?”
“What kind of existence is a Guide to an Esper? Conversely, what kind of existence is an Esper to a Guide? I’m just an ordinary person so I don’t know, but do Espers and Guides have something like that? Fate? Destiny?”
Section Chief Kang looked at Woo Ilkyung, who tilted his head and asked with eyes full of curiosity like a child, as if finding him cute.
“You have both an Esper and Guide at home, so what are you so curious about? Can’t Assistant Manager Woo just go home and ask? I think your noonas would kindly tell you.”
At that answer, Ilkyung pouted his lips.
“My noonas don’t tell me those things. They just treat me like a kid.”
That’s when it happened. A broadcast began to sound within the Center.
—Incident occurred, incident occurred! Attention to all Espers within the Center.
Section Chief Kang and Ilkyung, who had been chatting, also stopped and focused on the broadcast. This time it was a movement of protestors. The Espers had to dispatch immediately, and Ilkyung, who belonged to the on-site support team along with the Guides, entered standby mode.
“Our Assistant Manager Woo, how many minutes has it been since you came in and you have to work again? Huh? Look, Director Ha is going out there. Ah, Assistant Manager Woo. You’re going to run into Director Ha-nim anyway, so ask him.”
“Ask what?”
“What I just said. What kind of existence an Esper is to a Guide.”
“Ah, Section Chief-nim. Why are you doing this to me? I’m saying I hate seeing him even once a day.”
