“So you still like older people, calm and mature people like that hyung-nim? There doesn’t seem to be anyone like that here.”
Henry had only been at the Center a few days and seemed to have already looked around completely. Daehoon chuckled.
“Who knows.”
Daehoon still sometimes thinks, what would the two of them be like now if that person had been an Esper? But what’s the point of thinking such things? It’s not like that person will suddenly manifest as an Esper anyway, and even if that happened, he had no desire to hold onto a connection that was already over.
“Ah, there’s really no one these days. That’s why I’m saying…”
“If you tell me to just put it in once, I’ll really kill you. Or should I put it in? Want to offer your ass once?”
“You crazy bastard! See, that’s why I’m saying you’ve gone crazy from only doing Guiding without skinship!”
Even though Daehoon threw that out as a joke, Henry was horrified. Guiding without skinship… To not even count holding hands and hugging as skinship, just how promiscuous is this guy? Daehoon was thinking such things when he recalled yesterday’s one-night stand.
“He’d faint if he knew.”
When Daehoon muttered, Henry, who had been taking a sip of alcohol, looked at him. But he had no intention of telling the truth.
As soon as Minkyung took off her shoes, the door inside swung open.
“Ah, what! You almost scared me to death.”
“Noona!”
Ilkyung stood at the threshold and looked at Minkyung with a thoroughly disgruntled face. Minkyung thought why is that guy acting like that again and brought the foot she’d lifted to the entrance back hesitantly. If necessary, she was going to go back outside.
“Come in and sit down.”
Then Ilkyung grabbed Minkyung’s hand and pulled.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, I thought noona wouldn’t have eaten, so I ordered chicken.”
He opened the door so seriously, and all he says is he ordered chicken so eat? Woo Ilkyung wouldn’t do that! Minkyung looked at her twin brother with eyes full of suspicion. Even though she stared endlessly at the back of his head, Woo Ilkyung decided to play dumb and just brought Minkyung to the dining table and pulled out a chair for her.
“Sit down. You haven’t had dinner yet, right?”
“Did you eat?”
“I was waiting to eat with noona.”
“What if I had a company dinner?”
At Minkyung’s words, Ilkyung tilted his head.
“Because I knew you wouldn’t.”
“How?”
At Minkyung’s question, Ilkyung shrugged. Ilkyung knew noona would come home early. It’s only been a month, what’s a month? He was starting to understand Director Ha’s tendencies. That’s why people are scary. They say you don’t notice the spot that’s filled but you notice the spot that’s empty—it was exactly like that. How much had the two of them even been together that he could predict what kind of behavior Director Ha would take?
Ha Daehoon wasn’t someone who would gather with all the Espers to eat when there were casualties. And he was very bothered by many people gathering. When he wondered how such a person dated under contract for a whole month, that was also to prevent Chairman Ha from being bothersome, so fundamentally it was the same.
“Hurry and eat, noona.”
Ilkyung put chopsticks in her hand and also opened the beer cap. The beer that had been in the freezer for a while made a delicious sound with a pshh as the can was opened, raising beer foam. Even while Minkyung gulped that down hurriedly, she looked at her younger brother with suspicious eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I didn’t poison it. I didn’t do anything. I just wanted to eat chicken and it seemed like it was time for noona to come, so I just waited.”
Ilkyung said that while opening his own beer too. White foam rose between the cap. When Ilkyung held up the beer and grinned, Minkyung clinked her beer.
“How is it? It’s delicious eating it after a long time, right?”
Since they’d both been busy, it had been a while since the siblings ate together. Whether Ilkyung was being a good younger brother for once or had some scheme, he pushed the chicken forward with a cheerful youngest child’s expression.
“You eat a lot.”
“No, noona went out to the accident scene.”
Ilkyung said while handing the chicken leg to Minkyung.
“So what did Henry say?”
“Hm? Henry? Ah, Henry!”
Minkyung reacted as if she hadn’t thought of it. Then she leisurely tore at the chicken leg and said.
“The Field Support Team will know tomorrow anyway but…”
“What? The culprit?”
“No, not that, it seems like someone remotely controlled it.”
“Huh? Remote control? Is it possible to remote control a car?”
“Apparently so. I’m hearing this for the first time too, but looking at the CCTV footage they showed, it seems like that’s right.”
Ilkyung held his beer and sipped while listening to his noona’s words.
“But how did Henry know that?”
“There was a similar incident in England.”
“Still, they’ve caught some clues. Isn’t that better than investigating blindly? Director Ha-nim will be pleased.”
Minkyung drank her beer and tilted her head. At times like this, they were unmistakably twins. There were times when the siblings’ actions resembled each other exactly, and it was when they tilted their heads like this.
“He’s someone who doesn’t show emotion anyway… I’m not sure. We just talked business and that was it.”
“You’ll be busy starting tomorrow?”
“Well, we just dispatch when they tell us to dispatch, but the problem is the rebel force bastards’ scale seems to be getting bigger.”
“But what’s the relationship between Henry and Director Ha-nim?”
Ilkyung finally brought up what he wanted to ask. He didn’t know why, but it kept bothering him. Honestly, Ilkyung didn’t know why he was like this or what he could do about it even if he knew.
“What do you mean what relationship?”
“No, it doesn’t seem like they’re just simple colleagues. What kind of colleague comes all the way from far away just because you ask them to?”
That said, Ilkyung couldn’t tell Minkyung that it seemed like the two of them were dating. Noona didn’t know the fact that Director Ha was bi, so he couldn’t carelessly out someone else’s circumstances.
“Were they a previous pair? You know, sometimes ability users can form pairs even between the same gender if their matching rate is high.”
“Noona, I’m really curious about something, but even if they’re ability users, isn’t it a bit much if they’re the same gender? They have to do skinship first.”
“I don’t know. For women, skinship like holding hands is nothing. It might be a bit much for men.”
Minkyung said while tearing at the chicken.
“What do you think, noona?”
“About what? Director Ha-nim? Director-nim has never paired with or given Guiding to a man until now, right? I think Director Ha-nim would totally hate it. Stop it. You’re already not on good terms with Director Ha-nim, so don’t suggest attaching a male Esper to Director-nim. You’ll really get in trouble. Or should we attach Henry? Henry already has a Guide with a decent matching rate.”
Ilkyung just asked what she thought from looking, but Minkyung went on, thinking Ilkyung was trying to attach Daehoon as Henry’s Guide. Anyway, she’d faint if she knew Director Ha Daehoon was bi.
“Anyway, Woo Ilkyung, don’t bother Director Ha-nim again for no reason and maintain the current state. Today’s Guiding distribution was fine. It ended really fast.”
“What am I doing? Why don’t you trust your younger brother like this?”
Ilkyung said sulkily.
* * *
The Center moved busily dealing with the accident from the previous day. As Director Ha said, Espers don’t directly investigate accidents. However, since they have to move immediately when a support request comes in from the police, they were always on standby to dispatch.
Whenever these things happened, it was natural that the Field Support Team also became busy. How nice would it be if only paired Espers and Guides were dispatched? But reality wasn’t like that. Somehow, in this Esper team, there were already two people who had paired with Director Ha and then broke up, and on top of that there was Henry whose relationship status still hadn’t been resolved, so they had to start by skipping over Ha Daehoon, the S-rank Guide who was perfect for pairing. Because of that, Ilkyung was at his wit’s end.
No, actually that was just a lie and an excuse.
“Ah, it’s hot.”
Despite being a summer baby, Ilkyung was particularly weak to heat. Pressing a portable fan right to his face while sucking on an iced Americano, Ilkyung swept back his hair that had grown a bit long.
“Assistant Manager Woo, do you have a fever?”
“Team Leader, am I the only one hot right now?”
Ilkyung asked Team Leader Park while wiping his forehead beaded with sweat.
