# Chapter 14
“W-wait a moment! Guide Lee Jaehee!”
Unlike before, the staff member’s cry was filled with anxiety and nervousness. When the situation had escalated to this point, the Center staff had no choice but to acknowledge who the strong one was here. Who the weaker one was who should be flattened to the ground.
Now all they could do was try to appease Jaehee. With the thought that they had to do anything, an excuse-like statement burst out.
“We didn’t intend for this from the beginning. There’s a reason why we must escort you…”
But Jaehee didn’t listen. The front door was about to close. At that, the staff member desperately shouted.
Words that should never have been spoken.
“He’s dying!”
At those words, Jaehee’s steps abruptly stopped. The staff member’s face showed he realized his mistake. But the words had already been spoken. Jaehee, without turning around, mulled over those words.
‘Dy…ing?’
A sharp pain was felt in his chest. Jaehee had already experienced Geonwoo’s death once. That memory remained vividly as a huge wound inside Jaehee.
‘And in front of me…’
You talk about Geonwoo’s death?
Jaehee’s lips hardened firmly. His clenched fist was shaking slightly from gripping so tightly.
Jaehee had clearly been told about Geonwoo. He had heard that he was receiving guiding, but had never heard that his condition was bad.
‘Having nothing better to do… you dare use Geonwoo…!’
Jaehee’s anger, his boiling rage, grew uncontrollably fierce. The mention of Geonwoo’s death in front of Jaehee was as good as taboo.
How much had he suffered because of that? How much had he hated himself?
Jaehee’s heavily sinking mood spread, mixed with guiding energy. With that, the A-class Esper’s gaze changed. The threat that had simply prevented people from approaching Jaehee no longer stopped at being a threat.
The A-class Esper’s rampage began.
From behind Jaehee, who was standing resolutely, came the screams of the staff members. Yet Jaehee did not turn around.
Then, to survive, desperate pleas like screams from behind, secrets that had been hidden all along, burst out all at once.
“P-please save us! Help us! We… we had no other way! W-we didn’t know it would come to this…!”
The story that poured out was shocking.
Jaehee’s breath caught in his throat. He even felt a momentary sensation of everything going black before his eyes.
‘They forcibly injected an even greater amount of guiding into an unmanifested Esper who was refusing guiding…’
Ignoring his refusal, it was an act committed out of the desire to have a higher Esper that was easier to handle. Then they failed, and to cover it up, they needed Jaehee without others knowing.
‘How could you all…!’
Jaehee felt as if his mind was burning black with anger towards the Center’s higher-ups and their staff, and with worry for Geonwoo.
The condition of Geonwoo that he had heard was not good. He absolutely could not leave him as he was. He hadn’t stayed away so that Geonwoo would suffer like this. He needed to go to Geonwoo immediately.
But there was one last thing holding him back. The one-way bond. That was the problem. If he went now and provided guiding, that bond would become even more solid.
‘Then… the Geonwoo of the future will again…’
No!
Jaehee bit his lower lip hard.
The staff members glanced at Jaehee and watched him cautiously. At their words, Jaehee had stopped even the A-class Esper and was hesitating. He was agonizing.
At that sight, the corners of the staff members’ lips rose subtly. They tried to put strength at the ends of their lips to avoid showing it, but they couldn’t hide it perfectly. Hope welled up in the minds of the staff. The expectation that, as originally planned, they might be able to secretly take Jaehee away stealthily rose.
“Lead the way immediately. To where Esper Choi Geonwoo is.”
And that dream came true. The staff members’ faces noticeably brightened. They had gained the upper hand. They had finally won.
But then Jaehee continued. At his next words, the expressions of the staff changed 180 degrees. Their faces had turned ashen.
“Gather all the guides as well.”
The plan to secretly take Jaehee away, the staff members’ hope, was shattered.
It didn’t take long for their wrongdoings, the terrible acts committed by the Center’s higher-ups, to spread throughout the Center through the mouths of the guides who were soon notified and gathered.
***
Jaehee went straight to where Geonwoo was.
Geonwoo was in the examination room located at the innermost part of the unmanifested Esper building. Jaehee, standing and looking at the door of the examination room where Geonwoo was, took a deep breath. He needed to calm his startled heart.
But it wasn’t very effective. The trembling of his clasped hands remained the same, and his heart was beating so loudly it was noisy. His head was throbbing. His eyes had reddened on their own.
‘Calm down… Calm down, Lee Jaehee…’
Jaehee kept repeating those words while looking at the tightly closed door. Otherwise, he felt like he would open the door in front of him and rush in right away. Because if he just opened this door, he could alleviate Geonwoo’s pain.
But Jaehee suppressed such an eager heart with all his might. These emotions that were trying to burst out were not at all helpful to Geonwoo.
So Jaehee put more strength into his clasped hands. And he kept telling himself.
‘No. Until the guides arrive, just a little… just wait a little longer…’
If he went in now, if he went in and poured out guiding energy, he would be happy now.
But what about after that?
‘Go in… and change Geonwoo’s future again? Again… ruin it like that?’
No. He couldn’t do that. That terrible future must not be repeated again. A future different from the original story that had swallowed Geonwoo. Jaehee was afraid that he would create that future again.
So he kept throwing words of self-reproach at himself. If he didn’t do that, he felt like he would go into the room right away and repeat the same mistake.
Endlessly reminding himself not to endanger the Geonwoo of the future in order to save the Geonwoo of the present, Jaehee tightly closed his eyes.
‘Wait… wait…’
Standing in front of the examination room where Geonwoo was, he repeated that phrase like a mantra.
Just then,
“Umm… are you okay? Guide Lee Jaehee?”
A cautious question was heard from the side. Jaehee opened his eyes and turned his head weakly toward where the voice was coming from. There was Jeong Hyeono, the Esper sent by Dohyun. His face was full of worry.
Jaehee moved his lips to answer his question.
“……”
But even after a long time, no words came out.
What could he say? He couldn’t bring himself to say that he was okay, nor could he express his current feelings as they were. So Jaehee just met Hyeono’s gaze briefly and then dropped his head powerlessly.
That series of appearances was neatly captured in Hyeono’s eyes. A strange light settled in his eyes.
‘What is this difference…?’
Just a little while ago, the guide in front of him had wielded the A-class Esper and made the Center staff kneel. Those scenes came as a shock to Hyeono, and made him no longer see Jaehee as someone who needed protection.
But now, how should he put it? Like a scared small animal. He looked like someone who needed to be comforted somehow. So after a long deliberation about whether he had any right to worry about him, Hyeono cautiously brought up the subject.
“Everyone will arrive soon. Why don’t you sit down for a moment? Otherwise, I think you might collapse before the person in that room.”
But even at those words, Jaehee didn’t show any movement. He just continued to guard in front of the examination room where Geonwoo was, looking as if he might collapse at any moment.
This change in Jaehee was due to what had happened just before.
The story about Geonwoo that had come from the staff members’ mouths. After hearing it, Jaehee tried to maintain his composure on the outside, but inside he was a mess. He was not in his right mind.
He had refused to go for the sake of Geonwoo’s happy future, but Geonwoo was suffering? He was about to die? How could he be okay after hearing that? Jaehee wanted to rush to Geonwoo right away.
But the reason he still hesitated was because of the shackle called the one-way bond. He feared seeing Geonwoo, providing guiding to him, and making the one-way bond even more solid. And thus changing his future again.
But he couldn’t not go in this situation, so no choice was easy in between. His head felt like it was going to explode.
And after much deliberation, the decision he made was to go to Geonwoo. Even reaching that state, Geonwoo had refused guiding until the end. That meant he had no intention of accepting guiding himself.
If he continued to refuse, there was no other way. Before he got sicker, to save him. Geonwoo needed his guiding.
So, as the higher-ups wanted, he came to the building exclusively for unmanifested Espers where Geonwoo was. But he didn’t let things flow the way they wanted.
‘I’ll make sure you can’t touch Geonwoo anymore.’
Before coming here, Jaehee had exposed everything the higher-ups had done to Geonwoo. When that fact spread, the Center became a complete mess.
