# Chapter 69
“Guide Lee Jaehee! Are you alright?”
When the examination room door opened and Jaehee entered, the people in the room urgently asked.
But soon everyone had to close their mouths. It was because they saw Dohyun entering behind Jaehee. His eyes were piercing. Though the red tinge in his eyes signaling an imminent rampage had disappeared, perhaps due to receiving guiding, his demeanor was different from usual. Although he always had an unapproachable aura, today it was particularly intense.
And there was an unavoidable reason for that. Before coming to the examination room, Dohyun hadn’t let Jaehee go. Even during the guiding, and after the waves had subsided, he had no intention of letting Jaehee go. Dohyun prevented Jaehee from going to Choi Geonwoo.
The reason such a Dohyun was now here with Jaehee was because of what Jaehee had said.
‘…It’s hard… I’m having such a hard time, Dohyun…’
Jaehee had, for the first time, revealed his pain on his own.
‘I want to erase it! The bond… I want to erase it. I want to erase everything connected to Choi Geonwoo, I want to end it all…’
Seeing Jaehee who begged him to please help make that happen, Dohyun released the hand he had been holding. Looking at Jaehee who said that he, more than anyone, wanted to erase the bond while saying it was difficult, Dohyun changed his mind. Dohyun couldn’t ignore Jaehee asking for help. Instead, Dohyun firmly told Jaehee.
‘Then end it for sure this time. Erase the bond by any means necessary.’
That’s how Dohyun ended up coming to the examination room with Jaehee. To erase the bond and end everything. But he couldn’t help his low mood. It was still hard to accept that Jaehee had to perform contact guiding to erase the bond.
“Guide Lee Jaehee.”
At that moment, Dr. Yoon called Jaehee. Seeing him, Dohyun slightly lowered his head. Dr. Yoon gave a small eye greeting to Dohyun and stood in front of Jaehee. Blocking Jaehee, who had been trying to approach Geonwoo, he said,
“I need to talk to you about something, come with me for a moment.”
Dr. Yoon grabbed Jaehee’s arm and led him to an empty guiding room. Dohyun followed behind them. Dr. Yoon seemed used to Dohyun’s presence and didn’t say anything about it. After confirming that Jaehee and Dohyun had entered the room, Dr. Yoon closed the door. He plopped down in a chair and said in a very light tone.
“Did you hear from Esper Jeong Hyeono?”
At those words, Jaehee and Dohyun’s gazes converged. Dohyun slightly furrowed his brow. Not having heard what Hyeono had said, Dohyun listened more intently to the conversation between Jaehee and Dr. Yoon.
“Yes. I heard he’s receiving guiding energy from other guides.”
Jaehee brought up what he had heard from Hyeono.
“That’s right, fortunately, Esper Choi Geonwoo has been accepting guiding from other guides.”
Dr. Yoon said with a smile, pulling up both corners of his mouth.
“He still needs contact guiding intermittently, so Guide Lee Jaehee will need to come regularly to check on him, but that probably won’t take more than a few days. I think it will be over after just a bit more effort.”
Those words were meant to reassure everyone in the room. It meant that erasing the bond wouldn’t take that long.
Things were going better than expected.
“I do need to explain a few things though. Let me show you with some data for a moment.”
Dr. Yoon said that and stood up.
That’s when it happened. There was a knock at the door, and soon Hyeono entered. Everyone’s attention turned to him as he appeared after briefly leaving for a work report. Dohyun called out to Hyeono.
“Let’s talk for a moment.”
It seemed that Dr. Yoon was handling the bond-erasing issue well. So Dohyun got up to check on another matter. Dohyun had many questions to ask Hyeono. He needed to hear exactly what had happened at the Center while he was gone, specifically who had messed with Jaehee.
Before leaving the room, Dohyun looked at Dr. Yoon. Then he briefly looked at Jaehee and back at Dr. Yoon. It meant that he was entrusting Jaehee to him while he was briefly away. Dr. Yoon, who noticed this, nodded his head familiarly. Dohyun also nodded slightly in gratitude and took Hyeono with him. Soon the door closed.
Only Dr. Yoon and Jaehee remained in the room.
“Dr. Yoon! The condition of Esper Choi Geonwoo…!”
As soon as the door closed, Jaehee tried to ask about Geonwoo’s condition. He couldn’t bring himself to ask when he was with Dohyun. But Dr. Yoon cut off Jaehee’s words in one go.
“Guide Lee Jaehee.”
His voice calling Jaehee was not light like it had been a moment ago. It carried a heavy weight. His smile was also gone. Dr. Yoon looked down at Jaehee with a cold expression.
***
Meanwhile, Dohyun took Hyeono to an empty guiding room. And he questioned him for a long time. Dohyun had a lot to hear.
Hyeono explained everything that had happened.
“The higher-ups were trying to take Choi Geonwoo?”
“Yes. I guess they were tempted because he’s a top-tier Esper. And with the Deputy Center Director involved too, the Center was in an uproar.”
Hyeono, perhaps recalling the Deputy Center Director, said in an agitated tone how someone who was supposed to manage everyone could do such a thing.
But Dohyun seemed to be interested in a different point, as he said something else.
“And because of that, they targeted Lee Jaehee?”
For a moment, Hyeono pondered how to answer. Knowing how much Dohyun looked after Jaehee made him choose his words more carefully. Moreover, after seeing that scene yesterday, it was even more cautious to bring it up.
“Ah, well…”
Hyeono was conflicted. Normally, no matter what mistake or wrong someone had done to Jaehee, he wouldn’t have told Dohyun about it directly. Jaehee would also have prevented him from doing so. It was because it was obvious what would happen to someone who had made a mistake with Jaehee at Dohyun’s hands.
“…Yes. They targeted Guide Lee Jaehee because of that.”
But soon Hyeono revealed the facts as they were. The Deputy Center Director would be in prison by now anyway. And in an underground prison that only handled serious crimes at that. So he thought it would be okay to tell.
“The trial?”
Moreover, Dohyun’s expression was so calm. He seemed to think that the Center Director would take care of the Deputy Center Director’s wrongdoings.
“I heard it will be held soon.”
Having said that far, Hyeono frowned as if remembering something and said,
“But I wonder if he’ll accept it gracefully. I heard he’s been making calls here and there. Maybe he’s looking for a way out. Though it would be useless.”
That was right. The scale of the incident was too big to be covered up.
“No matter what the Deputy Center Director tries, it’s obvious that it will only result in a slight reduction of his sentence at best. The people they messed with weren’t just one or two.”
Just for that alone, the Deputy Center Director and his followers would lose all their positions and collapse. It was the mistake of those who had sided with the Deputy Center Director instead of the Center Director.
“I really couldn’t have imagined it.”
Hyeono rambled on like that for a while. Since Dohyun’s expression didn’t change as he listened, Hyeono felt completely at ease and criticized them.
But then, Dohyun suddenly stood up.
“Jeong Hyeono. Please look after Lee Jaehee for a bit.”
At those words, Hyeono’s eyes widened, not matching his large build. A strong thought that something had gone wrong crossed his mind.
He had thought it would be okay, but it wasn’t. Dohyun’s eyes as he stood up were still calm, but that wasn’t because he had contained his emotions. It was a state where his emotions had surpassed a threshold and instead became more subdued and cold.
Hyeono noticed it too late. Knowing that Dohyun wasn’t the type to just listen calmly, he had been reassured by his calm demeanor and had let his guard down.
“Cap—!”
So Hyeono urgently tried to call Dohyun. Those already scheduled for trial would obviously pay heavily for their crimes. Dohyun would know that fact too.
But Hyeono couldn’t continue his words. That wasn’t all. Hyeono’s body trembled.
‘This can’t be…!’
Hyeono looked down at his hands and was startled. It felt like every sense in his body was screaming. It seemed like they were shouting to flee in terror. That’s how sharply all his senses were raised. His body was struggling to survive, being crushed by a power of a higher rank than his own.
It couldn’t be compared to the pre-rampage state. Then, Dohyun had forcibly suppressed his power to prevent a rampage, but now he was fully revealing his power.
“……”
Because of this, Hyeono couldn’t stop Dohyun. He couldn’t say anything to Dohyun as he passed by. He couldn’t even meet his eyes. All his bodily senses were urging him to just wait quietly for Dohyun to pass by. This was the first time. He knew Dohyun was strong, but it was the first time he had felt the magnitude of that power so nakedly.
‘Captain…’
So he could only watch Dohyun as he passed by.
